Sky Masters полностью

In the center of the converted Boeing 707 airliner was the command station, where Colonel Rachel Blanchard and her deputy, Captain Samuel Fruntz, sat poring over a stack of four-color charts. “Look at this,” Fruntz remarked, pointing at the tip of the Zamboanga peninsula. “Not very subtle, are they? A whole line of vessels stretching from the North Balabac Strait to Zamboanga.” He compared the image to another chart. “Checks right on with that NIRTSat printout we received from Andersen. That PACER SKY satellite is far out.”

Blanchard looked at her younger deputy and rolled her eyes. Fruntz, Blanchard thought, was another “techie” who believed that, whatever the newest technology was, it had to be better than any of the “older” technology, even if the older technology was only a few years old. Blanchard had been in the reconnaissance business for twelve years, mostly as pilot or copilot flying EC- and RC-135 aircraft for the Strategic Air Command — this was only her second tour as recce section commander — and she had been dismayed at the new emphasis on space-based reconnaissance systems, or “gadgets” as she called them. Even the latest high-tech satellites had serious limitations that only well-equipped planes like the RC-135 or the newer EC-18s could overcome.

Blanchard had flown or seen just about every one of the sixty different iterations of the C-135 special mission/reconnaissance/intelligence-gathering aircraft. The RC-135X, nicknamed “Rivet Joint,” was the latest and best of the older RC-series aircraft; the newer series was designated EC-18 and was a hundred times more cosmic than even the RC- models. Rivet Joint had been designed to map out precise locations of coastal enemy air-defense sites for targeting by Short-Range Attack Missiles or cruise missiles that armored long-range bomber aircraft. By combining sensitive radiation sensors with powerful radar and infrared images, one Rivet Joint aircraft could update three thousand miles of coastal air-defense sites in one day. Blanchard used to fly reconnaissance missions in conjunction with SR-71 Blackbird spy planes — the SR-71 would fly toward the Russian coastline until Soviet air-defense missile-site radars activated, and then the RC-135 would plot out all the locations of those missile sites. It was a deadly game of cat-and-mouse that, thankfully, she had never lost.

“Hey, Sam,” Blanchard told her younger partner. “Does that gadget’s data tell you what kind of ships those are?”

“No, but it—”

“Didn’t think so. Our radar can identify those ships — PACER SKY’s printout just gives a position and velocity readout,” Blanchard said. “Without ISAR identification data, we could only report those ships as a possible hostile, and that’s only based on their formation, not their type.” She referred to a sheaf of computer printouts he had received from the RC-135’s intensive-signal processors. “Here it is: the largest ship in that string is a probable Hegu-class fast attack missile craft. What good is satellite intelligence that only gives you half the story?”

“Because we wouldn’t have to truck three thousand miles to find out the Chinese are moving a big convoy into Zamboanga,” Fruntz said.

Blanchard remained unimpressed.

Fruntz continued: “Look at this: PACER SKY is telling us there might be defensive missile batteries set up on the eastern shore of Jolo Island or Pata Island, in the middle of the Sulu Archipelago. See that? That’s the kind of info we need before we drive into the area.”

“Well, I guess it doesn’t make that much difference, because we’re still going to drive into that area,” Blanchard said. “If there’s a SAM site or radar on those islands, they’re not going to turn ’em on until we get closer.”

“It beats getting surprised,” Fruntz insisted. “I’d rather be ready for a radar to come up than have the bejeezus scared out of us.”

“I like surprises,” Blanchard said, but then added quickly, “Sam, you go into these sorties expecting the shit to hit the fan at any time. Too much information, and you start getting complacent. You gotta be ready for anything. Expect the unexpected…”

“Radar four reports surface contact,” one of the radar operators suddenly called out. “Slow velocity… now showing ten knots, heading westbound.”

“There’s something that NIRTSat thing didn’t find,” Blanchard snickered. “No matter how gee-whiz that satellite is, thirty-minute-old data is still thirty-minute-old data — and it’s garbage to us.” She turned to the radar operator and said, “I need a designation on that last contact, Radar. Get on it.”

“Signal two shows primary search radar on that surface contact,” another operator called out. “Showing C-band, three-seventy PRF… calling it a Rice Screen air-search radar…”