PACIFIC OCEAN
Fifty nautical miles off the coast of San Francisco
10:31 AM
* * *
Ricky ‘Bucket’ Mancuso pulled the nose of his F-35 Lightning II to the right, guiding the jet into an arcing curve. Racing along at zero point nine Mach, he tracked the G-forces in his helmet-mounted display as he began the second turn of the morning’s G-warmup.
One point five, two G’s…
His body pressed against the seat, and his head felt heavy. He inhaled sharply. When his lungs were full, he closed his throat, holding the air in. Simultaneously, he clenched his muscles, tightening his calves, thighs, and core.
Two point five, three…
The air bladders in his G-suit inflated automatically, squeezing him firmly. He exhaled short bursts of air, practically spitting into his oxygen mask.
Four G’s…
He kept the pressure on the stick even, holding the jet centered in the head-mounted display.
Five, Five point five…
He couldn’t move. Effectively, he weighed nearly a thousand pounds. Pinned against the jet’s seat, every muscle in his body strained.
Six G’s…
The flexing, the breathing exercises, and the G-suit were now crucial to his survival. By the time he noticed the signs of oxygen deprivation, the loss of color perception, and the tunneling of his vision, he’d be on the verge of G-LOCing. The F-35 had only a single seat, there was no co-pilot to take over if he passed out.
Slowly, he released the pressure on the stick. The plane straightened out, and the G’s ticked down.
Five, four, three…
His heart hammered in his chest, and he was breathing hard, but his vision was clear. That was good. The purpose of the exercise was to warm up the muscles, get the blood flowing, and prepare him for basic fighter maneuvers. It wasn’t supposed to kill him.
Straightening out, he admired the view. Nineteen thousand feet below, the Pacific Ocean spread out blue and gleaming. There were no ships, no clouds, no landmarks of any sort, only the sun, the waves, and the great curve of the horizon. For a moment, he felt a deep sense of vulnerability, the vast expanse of the sea an irrefutable reminder of his own puny insignificance.
Bucket grimaced behind his oxygen mask. The sensation pissed him off. He didn’t get nervous. He didn’t get frightened. He didn’t contemplate mortality. His job was to fly at the edge of human ability like nothing bad could ever happen to him. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d backed down. Heck, he’d been given his callsign because a non-commissioned officer once bet him he couldn’t slam twenty tequila shots. He’d barfed in a bucket, but he’d walked away a hundred bucks richer.
And now he was freaking out because of a pretty view? What the fuck was wrong with him?
Before he could further ponder this lapse into weakness, there was a flash of movement to his right as “Wizzer,” his wingman, took a position one hundred feet abreast. A little closer than necessary, but not unusual. Wizzer probably wanted to chat off comms.
Wizzer and Bucket had memorized a long list of hand signals as part of their flight training. With only a few quick gestures, they could convey compass headings, fuel levels, and even if there was a hydraulic malfunction—literally jet-pilot sign language.
Bucket watched closely as Wizzer raised a gloved hand and extended a single middle finger. Well, that wasn’t in the manual, but it was clear enough: Wizzer was still pissed about last night’s poker game.
Bucket rolled his eyes. It wasn’t Bucket’s fault Wizzer’d flopped a full house when Bucket had a quad of queens. Wizzer needed to tighten up and stop acting NAFOD when he thought he had the nuts.
Slowly, Bucket mirrored the hand gesture.
Instantly, Wizzer accelerated and sliced in front of him, afterburner blazing. Bucket bounced in his seat as he flew through the jet wash.
Asshole. It was one thing to be pissed about a bad beat; it was another to endanger your flight commander.
Bucket was considering the most vicious way to bring this up in debrief when the radio squawked, and the formal voice of the Red Crown, the CAG Cruiser Command and Control, piped into his helmet.
"Lightning one, there’s a bogey that isn’t talking. Investigate. Vector eight niner, thirty-five, at fourteen thousand, beam.”
“Wilco.”
This was annoying. He couldn’t wait to run some basic fighter maneuvers, and he seriously needed to light Wizzer up after that stunt. No one thumped him with jet wash and got away with it.
But he couldn’t ignore an order. Grumbling under his breath, Bucket pulled the stick to the right, directing his F-35 east toward San Francisco. As he reached the bearing, Wizzer slid into formation a mile away. This time, there were no hand signals. Bucket smirked as he remembered Wizzer’s expression when he’d thrown down the queens. His eyes had bugged out like he was about to G-LOC.
Bucket checked his speed. Six hundred ninety knots. Bogey was fifty miles out. They had four minutes until intercept.
A minute later, Wizzer broke radio silence, “Bucket, you see anything on eyeball?”
Eyeball was what they called the electro-optical targeting system. While there was contact on the radar forty miles away, Wizzer was right there was nothing on eyeball.
"Positive on radar. Confirm negative on eyeball,” he replied.
This was odd. He should be able to see the bogey on more than one sensor.
Bucket squinted, peering through the windscreen. He wanted to be the first to make visual contact, but all he could see were some low clouds in the distance.
He kept an eye fixed on the bogey on his radar. Thirty miles, twenty-eight miles, twenty-five nautical miles, he was closing fast.
"Do you have visual?" asked Red Crown.
"Negative on visual. Range to target is twenty-two.”
He glanced again at the reading indicating distance: twenty-one, twenty, nineteen nautical miles. He still had a bit of time. The bogey would be on the other side of the horizon until he was within fifteen miles. He studied his instruments, gleaning whatever information he could. Based on how quickly he was approaching, the bogey appeared stationary.
Which was really strange. Airplanes moved. Motion was literally one of the prerequisite ingredients to flight. Air flowed faster over the wing’s upper surface than the lower. That’s what produced a pressure differential. That’s what generated lift. If you weren't moving, then the air wasn't flowing. If the air wasn’t flowing, then you fell straight into the ocean.
Well, unless you were a weather balloon, a helicopter, or a radar glitch
But helicopters had transponders, and weather balloons typically flew up in the stratosphere at sixty thousand feet. The bogey wasn’t transponding and was at only fourteen thousand feet. Bucket immediately eliminated both of those possibilities.
That left a radar glitch.
Not a bad theory. Glitches were fairly common. Both thermal noise and signal processing loss could produce false positives. And, of course, it could simply be a bug in the software. But it was weird that his radar, Wizzer’s radar, and Red Crown’s radar were all observing the same anomaly.
Bucket also considered a final possibility, but he wasn’t ready to go there yet. Better to get a visual on the contact first.
He checked the distance. Five miles, four point three miles. That put him well within visual range. He peered through the windscreen.
Land had come into view, and with it, the city of San Fransisco. To his left, hung the great span of the Golden Gate Bridge. To his right jutted the tripod-shaped Sutro tower. Straight ahead, the long green strip of Golden Gate Park swept up from the sea towards the city’s center.
But there was no sign of any unusual aircraft.
"You see anything?" said Wizzer, echoing Bucket’s thoughts.
“No joy. Slowing to three hundred knots for visual identification. Bogey remains on the radar.”
“Roger,” replied Wizzer.
"You think it's a glitch?" he said to Red Crown.
“It's possible…”
This was turning into a wild goose chase, but orders were orders. Bucket directed his F-35 toward the bogey, cutting his speed to three hundred knots. As they crossed from the sea to the city, a weird, unnerving sensation crawled over his skin like something just out of sight was watching him.
He drew in a breath, trying to steady his nerves. There was nothing to be worried about. The sky was empty. Completely clear. There wasn’t anything there.
He toggled the radio. "Wizzer. Still no joy?”
"Affirmative.”
Ok, that settled it. This had to be a glitch. Bucket spoke to Red Crown, “Bogey appears to be a radar malfunction.”
“Roger. Fly within five hundred feet and confirm.”
Bucket was pissed that they didn’t believe him, but he understood that a confirmed glitch would cause a whole day's worth of paperwork. The Navy couldn't just have anomalous bogeys appearing on the radar array of a thirteen billion dollar aircraft carrier.
He angled the F-35 so that he would fly within five hundred feet of the radar glitch, which appeared to be hovering over Golden Gate Park.
Again, there was that feeling of being watched. No longer simply unnerving, now it was like a predator stalking its prey, and he was the prey. All his muscles clenched tight, his body instinctively preparing to flee.
His grip tightened on the stick, and he heard himself speaking to Red Crown, “I’m not sure about this—”
His voice cracked. He couldn’t seem to work his tongue correctly.
“Say again,” said Red Crown.
What the hell is wrong with me? He thought as a primal terror took hold. Blood pounded in his ears. His vision swam. He tasted bile. The sense of dread was so keenly visceral he nearly screamed.
Am I greying out? But he knew he wasn’t pulling any G’s. Airspeed was only three hundred knots. This was something else entirely.
“Lightning one, come in?” said Red Crown.
Bucket fought against the terror, trying to pull himself together. Between panicked breaths, he managed to respond.
“I’m breaking off… Problem with the engine…”
Wizzer leaped at the chance to cut him down, “Bucket, don’t be a wuss.”
As Bucket turned away, Wizzer banked his jet sharply, heating up the bogey. Bucket pulled into a low-g turn, watching Wizzer while simultaneously trying to come to terms with the fact that he was having a panic attack.
And yet, he still couldn’t get it out of his head that something bad was about to happen.
“Wizzer, I don't think that's a good idea.”
Wizzer remained on course, barreling forward at three hundred knots.
“Wizzer. Knock it off.”
It was an order, but Wizzer ignored him. With increasing concern, Bucket watched Wizzer’s F-35 race toward the glitch. Closer and closer.
“Ok, you’ve proved your—”
Wizzer’s F-35 detonated in a brilliant flash of jet fuel.
Bucket screamed.
“Lightning two status?” said Red Crown.
Bucket continued to scream incoherently as he white-knuckled the throttle.
“Lightning one, status?”
In front of him, the air shimmered. Was something there? Or was it after-images from the explosion? It was impossible to make sense of his surroundings. He couldn’t think. A vice-like band constricted his skull.
He shrieked as a monstrous horror thrust itself into his consciousness. Grotesque and primordial, it seethed with inchoate rage.
Bucket tried to turn away, to punch the afterburner and escape, but he’d lost any semblance of bodily autonomy. Hot piss dripped down his right leg. Slowly but inextricably, the thing in his mind forced the hand holding the flight stick forward. The nose of the F-35 tipped downward. The horizon receded, and blue-green foliage of eucalyptus trees filled the windscreen.
“Come in, Lightning One.” Red Crown spoke as if from a great distance.
Desperately, he tried to pull up, but he was frozen in his seat, unable to move a single muscle. His heart thrashed in his chest. Tears streamed from his eyes. He was stuck within his mind as something else, something incomprehensibly awful, controlled his every muscle.
The last thing he saw before he crashed was the terrible shape of a glowing saucer hovering above Golden Gate Park.