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He couldn't bring himself to believe his mission to shoot down the space shuttle Gettysburg was anything more than a crazy exercise dreamed up by some egghead general with a fetish for far-out war games. A simulation, he told himself for the tenth time, it had to be a simulation that would terminate at the last minute.
Hollyman stared up at the stars through the canopy of the F-15E night attack fighter and wondered if he could actually obey an order to destroy the space shuttle and all those on board.
His eyes dropped to the instruments that glowed on the panel in front of him. His altitude was just over 50,000 feet. He would have less than three minutes to close on the rapidly descending space shuttle and lock in before firing a radar-guided Modoc missile. He automatically went through the procedure in his mind, hoping it would get no further than a mental event.
"Anything yet?" he asked his radar observer, a gum-chewing lieutenant named Regis Murphy.
"Still out of range," replied Murphy. "The last update from the space center in Colorado puts her altitude at twenty-six miles, speed approximately six thousand and slowing. She should reach our sector in five minutes, forty seconds, at a speed of twelve hundred."
Hollyman turned and scanned the black sky behind, spotting the faint exhaust glow of the two aircraft following his tail. "Do you copy, Fox Two?"
"Roger, Fox Leader."
"Fox Three?"
"We copy."
A cloud of oppression seemed to fill Hollyman's cockpit. None of this was right. He hadn't dedicated his life to defending his country, hadn't spent years in intensive training, simply to blast an unarmed aircraft carrying innocent scientists out of the air. Something was horribly wrong.
"Colorado Control, this is Fox Leader."
"Go ahead, Fox Leader."
"I request permission to terminate exercise, over."
There was a long pause. Then "Major Hollyman, this is General Allan Post. Do you read me?"
So this was the egghead general, Hollyman mused. "Yes, General, I read you."
"This is not an exercise. I repeat, this is not an exercise."
Hollyman did not mince words. "Do you realize what you're asking me to do, sir?"
"I'm not asking, Major. I'm giving you a direct order to bring down the Gettysburg before she lands in Cuba."
There had been no time for a full brie
fing when Hollyman was ordered to scramble his flight into the air. He was stunned and bewildered at Post's sudden revelation. "Forgive me for asking, General, but are you acting by higher command? Over."
"Is a directive straight from your Commander in Chief in the White House good enough for you?"
"Yes, sir," he said slowly. "I guess it is."
God, Hollyman thought despairingly, there was no getting around it.
"Altitude twenty-two miles, nine minutes to touchdown." Burkhart was reading off the instruments for Jurgens. "We've got lights off to our right."
"What's going down, Houston?" asked Jurgens, his face set in a frown. "Where in hell are you putting us?"
"Stay cool," replied the impassive voice of Flight Director Foley. "You're lined up just fine. Just sit tight and we'll bring you in."
"Radar and navigation indicators say we're touching down in the middle of Cuba. Please cross-check."
"No need, Gettysburg, you're on final approach."
"Houston, I'm not getting through to you. I repeat, where are you setting us down?"
There was no reply.
