16. NCSWIC
Chapman Shook his head, cursing under his breath at the of Airwolf's wayward crew while both Michael and Marella grinned, knowing exactly how he felt.
"The price you pay for private, nonmilitary personnel harboring a bit of unofficial kit." Michael said reminding Chapman, that the Santini crew had never been in the habit of waiting for bureaucracy and red tape before making a move.
And they certainly weren't about to start now.
True to form, those who'd ever had anything to do with The Lady, knew she rubbed off on anyone who'd lost their heart – and their head - over her. These hapless individuals always ended up pushing boundaries and coloring outside the lines, much to the frustration of those who tried to tame the beast that emerged from all the chaos.
But flying by the seat of their pants was what Airwolf and her crew were designated to do, faster, higher, stronger than any equivalent. Nothing came close.
It was no surprise then, that Fellows wanted in on the action, he'd heard about the mysterious and illusive super copter from his father, who'd lead Operation Mount Hope iii in '88 all because Airwolf had completely disappeared with all her blueprints and of course her inventor being offed by the guy his pseudonym alluded to.
That Russian Hind 24 was a distant second to Airwolf, but it was streets ahead of the Apache and anything else that the US military had at the time, so they stole it. It now sat idlily at the Southern Museum of Flight for anyone to see, while he sat in what would forever be number one….. Well, until the anti-gravity technology was finally allowed out the gate.
It was funny how things came around.
Airwolf could fly faster than the Maglev could glide, especially once they got above the strengthening easterly headwinds cone across the desert, so Nash went full throttle to get well ahead of the train.
Dale kept an eye on their track by watching both the PASS and Le's mapping information that was now integrated into The Lady's navigation system.
Now that they were at altitude, there was the risk of awakening interceptors, but Nash would cross that bridge when he came to it, their stealth mode would see to them staying mostly inconspicuous. The only weakness being the transition between turbo and rotor flight, that in simple terms, changed the signature of The Lady from jet to chopper and is what they needed to do before they made their dive.
Besides. they already had such a head start on the chase that it would likely be done with their pursuit before any airpower even got their wheels up.
The Lady ascended past twenty thousand feet gaining on the Maglev by two times the speed over the great expanse of barren Mojave Desert.
Nash had to make up enough distance in order to gain the time they needed to set up and execute their objective.
He, Dale and Le bantered back and forth, fine-tuning calculations on the fly and with only tens of minutes to do it.
Dale used The Lady's various camera modes to search for the well camouflaged vent covers, the faded frequency moniker simply wasn't enough to go on, they need to be pin point accurate.
From forty thousand feet, their systems had their work cut out for them, they'd finally come as far as they needed to and dale homed in on a vent. Nash slowed The Lady down to three hundred knots, extended her ADF pod and engaged rotors until their swan dive.
He hovered for a moment, looking at the camera screen, picturing their target far, far below. Le would keep track of the mathematics needed to penetrate the layers of exhaust fans, calling out rate of decent and weapons deployment.
The only thing they hadn't completely worked out was how to fly themselves out of the dive at the crucial low-level moment.
Like all helicopters, Airwolf had very minimal control surfaces to give her the vertical stability to be able to maneuver effectively, so to wrestle her so that she was straight and level again from a high-speed dive could be… Complicated.
Nash checked in one last time with his crew, because once they committed to the move, there was no turning back.
Dale reached forward and squeezed Nash on the shoulder.
Fellows nodded, "Night Stalkers don't quit," he said with conviction.
Nash tipped The Lady's nose down, and all they could see through the windscreen were the shades of the beige desert below.
Setting the target in his sights, Nash locked on and waited for Le's time call. They couldn't pass three hundred knots and would need to use reverse thrusters to be able to stay under terminal velocity, or they'd lose the ability to reengage rotors.
Arming the ADF, they fell through forty thousand feet, Le calling out every level before countdown. The first missile launched at the target and blew the well concealed cover off the top of the stack.
"We've got a lock on us!" Dale announced, taking a moment to get the location, "from the ground at two thirty, she informed, activating her HMD to visualize the source.
"Shit" Nash ground out through clenched teeth.
"Fire" Le called simultaneously.
Nash pressed the trigger.
"Incoming!" Dale said, the tone of her voice urgent.
"Flares!" Nash ordered, not a moment too soon, as the chaos increased around him.
Not far from the gunship, Dale registered the explosion and watched for more incoming missiles and unfurled Airwolf rear gun turret, hoping she'd have enough range of movement in the ball to be useful.
"Incoming" Dale warned.
"Fire!" Le called again.
Flares, Chaff and bullets flew from The Lady, to ward off the tunnel's defense systems, while up front Nash systematically targeted the layers of machinery embedded in the concrete shaft
Smoke bellowed from the stack heading west in strong winds as they continued launching at their target.
Sweat beaded under Nash's helmet as they hurtled through ten thousand feet, Airwolf approaching three hundred knots.
Engaging reverse thrust, Airwolf lurched off course and it took him some time to reposition and lock onto his target.
Fellows was exhilarated but would be lying if he said he wasn't puckering his seat as the desert floor loomed up ahead.
"Fire!" Le repeated after Nash missed his initial call.
Dale had done a grand job of thwarting the incoming fire, which seemed to have prematurely ended, but the rollercoaster ride wasn't over yet.
She had the forethought to do a count on the missiles deployed versus what could be held the magazine. They had been fortunate indeed, that it wasn't fully loaded.
She wondered why that might have been. Where were the other missiles?
But that only lasted a second, because they were reaching the point of no return, they only had a short window in which to pull up and avoid impact.
Nash fired one last missile, engaged reverse thrust and The Lady's rotors, before hauling back on the stick and stomping down on one of the rudder pedals as hard as he dared, hoping to nose into the wind.
"Hold on!" he shouted to his crew.
All he wanted was to come out of the dive, some way, anyway he could.
Airwolf shuddered, but they slowed, the ground coming up way too fast as they fell through two thousand feet.
Le and the rest of the crew on The Dolphin sat on the edge of their seats watching The Lady's journey through her eyes on the monitors in front of them.
Inevitably heading for some sort of conclusion.
They collectively held their breath.
One thousand feet.
Upon reentering radar silence the details of the rock, sparce vegetation and undulations become far too detailed for comfort.
After some more squirming Airwolf finally got a grip on the air and she gradually tipped her tail down enough to stop her descent with only a few hundred feet to spare.
Heavy in their seats the crew breathed a sigh of relief.
As did those on The Dolphin.
The Lady shot off straight and level before Nash homed in on the ground-based missile defense system and shot it to smithereens – because he could.
Flying through the smoke plume, they turned back towards what remained of the exhaust vent and observed from a safe distance, low to the ground, but not so low as to kick up debris.
Smoke still rose from what was now a blast hole in the ground.
Then in the blink of an eye, it stopped and sucked back into the earth.
A surge of sand and rock followed from the surrounds, the compromised vacuum below, drawing in everything within twenty meters of the hole.
Mission accomplished.
Without a break, Airwolf's radar alerted the crew to multiple incoming aircraft, they were in formation, low and slow.
Helicopters.
At the same time, Chapman's voice came in over the radio, "Nash, drop Fellows off, we have an investigation to conduct. Then return to the lair."
"Yes Sir," Nash said, shaking his head, there was always a bigger plan behind the scenes.
"Well, thanks for one hell of a ride" Fellows said with a huge grin on his face as Airwolf dropped down to ground level, "but this is where I get off."
He would never forget this day, and the legend that was File A56-7W would forever remain safe with him, but SOAR had more work to do and they were only just getting started.
Nothing could stop what was coming.
The Lady parted ways with her latest creative piece of destruction, leaving the man known only as H S Fellows to look on as she reached that magical three hundred knots before her turbos kicked in that had her streaking away, leaving him and his crew to mop up.