AI - Alpha Part 27

"Lock released," Alpha said. "You have control."

Thomas yanked on the stick and threw the Banshee into an almost vertical climb. G-forces slammed him

into his seat, and his chest felt as if it would burst. Pinwheels of color spun in his vision.

The siren's blare suddenly stopped. He tossed the Banshee onto its back and brought the nose around to complete the loop. The jet leveled out traveling almost perpendicular to the path of the MiG-and

everything went crazy. The canopy over the Banshee's c.o.c.kpit transformed, projecting a 360 view of the sky around them as if they were viewing it in daylight.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Thomas said. "Turn it off!"

"Specify 'it,' " an unfamiliar woman's voice answered.

Thomas jerked. The blasted fighter was talking to him. "The lights. It makes us a target in the dark."

Alpha answered. "It isn't possible to see the c.o.c.kpit from outside. The exterior of the bubble is

programmable matter. It essentially becomes black-body s.h.i.+elding. It's completely dark."

"Good Lord," Thomas muttered.

The MiG was coming into visual range. He would rather have engaged it at long distance, but they were

going into a merge whether he liked it or not. Although it hadn't actually attacked, acquiring them as a target was about as hostile an act as it could do before actually firing.

"Charon upgraded the MiG," Alpha added. "It has the same type of canopy display."

"Take the radar for me," Thomas said. It was a reversal to have the backseater flying the jet and the pilot acting as the weapons systems officer, but it would have to do.

"Got it," Alpha said.

He came around in a wide circle. The Banshee was flexing its fuselage, making subtle changes to optimize its shape as its speed and acceleration changed. Unfamiliar with the process, Thomas misjudged the radius of his arc and actually executed a tighter turn than he expected, which almost never

happened. He had intended to go nose to nose with the MiG, but he overshot and cut across its line of

flight. It helped him evade another lock, but neither could he lock onto the other fighter.

The MiG was turning in roughly the same horizontal plane as the Banshee, parallel to the horizon. G- forces weighed on Thomas, and he had trouble breathing. He never took his gaze off the other jet, and his radar detector beeped as the MiG tracked the Banshee. Both jets were turning in circles of a similar radius, coming around, each trying to get a lock on the other.

The Banshee seemed alive to Thomas. He could tell he hadn't achieved the optimal combination of g- forces and speed that would give him the best turn radius. It wasn't knowledge from his instruments, but an innate sense he derived from his experience in older jets and his instincts. He altered speed until it felt right. Thinking offensively, he tried to envision his opponent's strategies. Although the other fighter was less maneuverable, its pilot clearly had experience. The MiG was matching the Banshee's turn but coming around faster.

Thomas suddenly knew what his opponent intended. In the same instant the beep turned into a wail, he tossed the Banshee into a roll. In rapid-fire motion, he flipped switches, releasing a cloud of chaff and flares. A missile shot out from under the MiG's wing and hurtled through the air where the Banshee had been an instant before.

Thomas groaned against the g-forces. His chest, left arm, and left shoulder felt as if they were being crushed. He kept at the controls and pulled the Banshee out of its roll. The MiG came in at right angles to his line of flight, trying to keep him from targeting it, but Alpha never lost it on the radar. If the g- forces affected her at all, she gave no sign.

He knew what the other pilot wanted: to maneuver behind him and slam a heat-seeking Sidewinder up the Banshee's exhaust cone. Thomas had to break out, and he had to do it fast, while he could, because the pressure in his chest was getting worse and it wasn't all g-forces.

He abruptly pulled the Banshee straight up, out of the plane of his turn. His spatial orientation wasn't as good in a vertical climb, and the gees were literally killing him, but at these speeds the maneuver wouldn't take long. The Banshee lost energy as it climbed, but before that became a problem, he flipped it upside down and went at the MiG, regaining speed as he came down. Spots swam in his vision, swirls and checkered blotches. His leg felt as if it were going to explode within its cast. Just as he started to black out, the Banshee leveled out and the force on his body eased.

"Got a lock," Alpha said.

The other pilot tried an abrupt turn to break the lock, but Thomas was ready. He brought the Banshee around more sharply than he could have managed in any other jet, never losing sight of his target. He

dropped speed and alt.i.tude on the turn, but he had accounted for it and ended up in the right plane. Then he fired a Scorpion.

With his slowed time sense, it seemed to Thomas that the missile took forever to reach its target. The

MiG pilot tried to evade, but he had lost too much speed. The Scorpion caught his fuel tanks- And they exploded in a flare of debris and flame.

"Got him," Alpha said.

"Take the controls," Thomas whispered. He had leveled out the Banshee, and g-forces were no longer

pressing him, but it was too late. The pain in his chest shot through his neck and into his jaw. Nausea battered him in waves. He gasped for breath, but he couldn't pull enough air into his lungs.

The enhanced view on the canopy vanished, leaving only Alpha's heads-up display. He felt rather than

saw her take control of the fighter. Good. Daniel had always told him never to drive while having a heart

attack.

"Wharington, don't you dare die," Alpha said. It was the first time during the entire engagement that her voice had held fear.

Thomas couldn't answer. He couldn't do anything. Alpha was making noise up front, unbuckling her harness. She squeezed around the pilot's seat enough to reach back to him.

"Drive . . ." he whispered.

"I am. By wireless mesh." Squashed between her seat and his, she put three nitro tablets under his tongue. Then she unhooked an air syringe from her belt. "Alteplase," she muttered. "It better work." She dialed a dose into the syringe. Thomas hoped she had accurate data in her medical files, because if she gave him the wrong medicine or the wrong dosage, it could kill him just as fast as the heart attack.

Alpha peered at the miniature screen wrapped around the stock of the syringe. "It says if the patient carries a cardiovascular nanomed species, this drug can tune the dosage of alteplase to match that species. The nanos will judge how much and when you need the alteplase, and time its release accordingly."

"Yes." It was all Thomas could say. Daniel had given him similar drugs after his last attack.

"I need to know which species you carry," Alpha said.

He could barely get out the answer. "CV fifty-six."

"That's not on this list."

He struggled to remember the precursor. "CV eighteen."

"Got it." She fiddled with the syringe and injected him in the neck. Thomas just looked up at her.

She tried to smile, but her expression was strained. "You weren't kidding when you said you knew how

to fly."

"Never thought . . . do that again."

"That guy would have blasted me to smithereens."

"Did he eject?"

"Looked like it. I don't know who's going to pick him up."

Military surveillance might have caught the explosion. At the moment, the U.S. wasn't directly involved

in any major wars, so they were at a lower state of readiness, but eventually someone would find the pilot. Thomas hoped it was the Navy. If they got the wreckage of the MiG, its pilot would have a lot of explaining to do.

"Are we near land?" he asked. His breathing wasn't getting any easier, and the pain had spread to his right arm.

"I don't think so," Alpha said.

"Need . . . hospital."

"We have a fuel problem." She pushed a tendril of hair out of her face. "We were already cutting it close. I don't think we can make the base now."

No base. No land. No help. "I see."

Her face was anything but expressionless now. It clearly showed urgency, even desperation. "I'll find a place to come down. I can't guarantee a hospital, but I'll get help." She squeezed back into her seat.

"Don't die, okay?"

Thomas closed his eyes. "I'll try not to."

The island had no landing field, no town, not even the sparkling sand dunes of their imaginary paradise.

But it did have a strip of gravelly beach large enough for Alpha to land. Thomas didn't know if she could manage the unstable surface, but after they jounced and lurched for several tense moments, the aircraft settled to a stop.

Alpha pushed up the canopy and climbed out, leaving him in the jet while she looked for help. She was only gone ten minutes, but it took Thomas that long to unfasten his harness. Pain clenched his head, neck, and chest, and nausea plagued him.

Alpha climbed back up to the c.o.c.kpit. "No hospital."

"Doctors?" he asked.