“Okay, we’re going to backup hydraulic control,” she said calmly, reaching for the heavy lever to the right of her seat that would kill the fly-by-wire system and bring the backup hydraulics on line. “Chris, change places with Dr. Ray.”

Her thoughts and actions blurred in chaotic soup smeared by the effects of adrenaline and gravity. She had both hands on the control wheel as the hydraulics kicked in, pulling back for all she was worth and trying to prevent the plane from going into a spin at the same time. She had no engine indicators, but guessed the power plants must be close to flaming out, if they hadn’t already.

No, she had power; she could tell by the light hum somewhere in the back of her brain.

Chris slid in beside her. Rubeo was hanging on to her seat, shouting something about the electronic systems.

“They’re off-line. There’s been a massive computer failure,” he yelled.

“Well, no shit, Doc,” Breanna said. “Relax and enjoy the ride, please.”

There were any number of possible causes, from a loose wire—highly unlikely—to an anomaly caused by the Army’s weapon tests on the range below. There’d be time to sort it all out later.

Assuming, of course, she regained control.

“Still accelerating and dropping,” said Chris tersely. “Passing five thousand on the way to four thousand, three thousand.”

He could easily have said zero. The aircraft began to shudder; they were through the sound barrier and still accelerating. The windshield filled with a brown blur.

Somewhere around here, she thought, the wing aerodynamics are going to help us. Eventually, the shape of the wing and the speed of the air flowing over it are going to give us enough lift to pull up. Then the trouble will be controlling it.

Breanna felt their momentum shifting and checked her trim tabs quickly, making sure the plane’s control surfaces weren’t working against the rest of the airfoil. The nose lifted steadily as the plane’s inherent flying capabilities finally took over.

“Good, okay, good. Chris?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said as they roller-coasted upward. Blue flew into the windshield.

“This is easy,” she lied. The plane pulled sharply to the left, as if it were trying to turn itself into a Frisbee.

“We just lost an engine,” guessed Chris. “No instruments. Sorry. I can’t get power into the panel no way, no how.”

“Restart. Just go for it,” she told him. Without the instruments they could only guess by feel which engine it was—probably number one, the furthest out on the left wing. “It’s got to be number one.”

“Yeah. No restart. Retrying. Nothing.” He was flying through the procedures, hitting the manual backup switches instead of using the recalcitrant computer.

“Kill four,” she told her copilot. “Balance us out before I lose it.”

“Throttling back,” he said, reaching for the control.

It worked. The loss of power was also in their favor, in effect helping to slow the plane and bring it back under control. Breanna was back on top, flying the plane instead of being flown. She felt it starting to stall, and nosed down gently, had it in her hands. Fort Two was a colt that had bolted in fright; all she had to do was pat its sides gently, reassure it, then ease it back to the barn.

If she could get the landing gear down and fly the mammoth airplane with no instruments or gauges except for a backup altimeter and compass.

Actually, the compass seemed to have quit too. “Radio circuit completely dead, even on backups,” reported Chris. He was hyperventilating.

“You may be able to get power into the circuits by using the remote-start battery array,” said Dr. Rubeo.

Bree turned and saw him leaning over her. His face was whiter than a piece of marble, but the words were flat and calm.

“Won’t the circuit breakers prevent that?” Breanna asked.

“I’ll get around it,” he said.

Before she could say anything else, Rubeo slipped out of the cabin, passing back into the defensive weapons station where the revamped Fort Two’s flight-control computers were now located.

The plane began sheering sideways again. Breanna punched her rudder pedals, holding the yoke against the sharp turbulence. She brought her spoilers up to compensate.

“We’re losing another engine,” she told Chris.

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” It was theoretically possible to fly the plane on one power plant—but only just. Breanna had never done it outside the simulator. “I think it’s time to land,” she told Chris.

“We can eject,” he suggested.

“Crew will never make it,” she said, dismissing the idea.

“I agree.”

She had miles of dry lake bed in front of her. All she had to do was get the wheels down. “Beginning descent,” she said, trimming and preparing her flaps. “Gear?”

“I don’t know,” said Chris, pulling on the manual control without noticeable effect. “We may have jammed the backup release or something in that descent.”

THE INSTANT FORT TWO DIPPED INTO ITS DIVE, Sergeant Parsons felt déjà vu hit him in the chest.

It was either that or the extra helping of bacon he’d had for breakfast.

No, definitely déjà vu. He’d been aboard a stinking B-36 in what? 1962 maybe? ‘63? Done the same damn thing.

Engines out, tearing up to shit.

B-36, now there was an airplane. Had to be before 1963, though. Damn things were retired in the late fifties.

Parsons hooked his thumbs against his restraints and waited for the pilot to regain control. He didn’t put a lot of stock in females in the military, let alone as pilots. But Rap was different. He knew she’d get the upper hand, sooner or later.

Greasy Hands thought back to the B-36 that had taken its nosedive. If he remembered correctly, the plane had been hit by a massive bolt of lightning and a serious wind shear.

So that wasn’t much help here, because they were flying in a clear sky. Still, the lights were out on the displays in front of him, so maybe it was a working model for what was happening here. Always good to have a working model when you were chewing into a problem.

The Convair had hydraulic controls—real controls, in his opinion. But something like this had happened in one of their E-3 testers, oh, five or six years before. Freak accident—pilot lost his flight computer. He’d been on autopilot and the damn thing went psycho, taking out the fly-by-wire system somehow. Had to go to manual reversion.

No, he was thinking of the two-seat A-10. It lost its hydraulic pumps and the pilot had to muscle it in.

The E-3 did lose its fire-by-wire system. Went to the backup. Not really a big deal. Landing gear was the only problem. Had to land on foam because the gear just wouldn’t unstick. Turned out one of the idiot computers had locked the doors. Damnedest thing. Sounded like all hell was breaking loose.

Nasty sound, metal on concrete. No way he wanted to hear that again, especially up close.

They figured out later that the only real problem was the damn fuses—if they’d simply bypassed the blown circuit breakers, the plane would have been fine. Instead, half of his people had spent nearly a month fixing the damn thing. Hell of a waste.

The Megafortress roller-coasted upward and pushed Greasy Hands back in the seat. Wouldn’t be long now before Cap’n Rap got her even. Then he’d go play with the breakers, just in case.

Parsons waited patiently for the plane to level off. As soon as the forces pushing against his ancient frame eased, the sergeant squeezed out of his seat restraints.

“Well, now, I’d appreciate you skippin’ forward an’ telling the captain that I’ll give her electricity as soon as I can,” Greasy Hands told the staff sergeant next to him as he started up to the defensive-weapons station.

ZEN HAD JUST ROLLED OUT INTO THE HANGAR AREA when he heard the alert. He looked up and saw the black hull of a Megafortress flashing out of the sun, obliterating the huge yellow disk. He pushed his chair back half a foot, then shielded his eyes; he knew even before he saw the engines it was Breanna’s plane.