Chapter 22: Dragonflies

Ares NP Production Facility

New Pittsburgh, Mars

Monday, March 12, 2153

Lieutenant Colonel Frederick ‘Fritz’ Forthrust looked up at the woman who walked into his office. “You got something for me, Caroline?”

“Aaron says they fixed the power bleed on the right engine. It wasn’t a design problem, it was a manufacturing glitch,” replied Caroline Watts, his administrative assistant.

“Is Aaron willing to fly with me? If not, I’m sending him up by himself in a remote-control bird and let him practice dead stick landings.”

She smiled at her boss. Aaron Wilson was the civilian project manager for the Dragonfly bomber and for all his brilliance as a designer, didn’t fly worth a damn. He was guaranteed to puke his guts out as soon as they lightened, no matter how many antinausea meds he took. “I will pay to watch that.”

Fritz grinned back. “So would I. Get my crew together. I’ll take the first flight, but after that, we go back to the regular testing rotation.”

“I already sent them an alert.”

The colonel looked over the file on his desk and closed his computer before standing up. “Let’s go.” He walked down the hall to the ready room, where his bombardier and crew chief were waiting for him. “All the pieces put back together?”

“What didn’t fit back in is in a box in the corner of the hangar,” replied Henry ‘Harry’ Balls, the crew chief. Harry was a Command Warrant Officer, the highest rank the MPG gave to warrant officers, senior non-commissioned officers who were experts in their given field. For Harry Balls, that was the repair and maintenance of Hummingbird transports. He had worked on civilian Hummingbirds for ten years prior to the Revolution. After the Revolution, he had volunteered for the Martian Planetary Guard, which took one look at his civilian job and assigned him to the MPG Hummingbirds supporting the Martian Special Forces. After Martian Hammer, he went to work on the Attack Hummingbird, the ETA-70 variant. For two years he had been the senior crew chief in Attack Squadron Two. After Martian Justice, Forthrust had dragged him from Eden to New Pittsburgh as senior crew chief on the new Dragonfly bomber.

Fritz also took his bombardier, Sergeant Donald ‘Dildo’ Dipster. The two men had flown over twenty bombing missions against the Marines during Martian Hammer, most of them under fire, flying one hundred meters off the deck as fast as a converted transport could fly, and hoping they didn’t get hit because they didn’t have ejection seats. After Martian Hammer, when Major Forthrust was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in command of the Dragonfly Project, he had told his boss that he needed a combat bombardier and the best crew chief in the MPG to make it work. Harry was promoted from Warrant Officer to Command Warrant Officer, and Dildo was promoted from Sergeant to Master Sergeant. The three men were the acknowledged experts on the Dragonfly, and when the birds were put into production, would take the first three slots in the First Dragonfly Attack Wing.

“Just waiting on you, Fritz,” said Dildo. “Your wife sends her regards. Honey Girl, too, for that matter.” ‘Honey Girl’ was the Forthrusts’ daughter, a nine-year old named Honey who was the light of Fritz’s life. He even named his bomber after Honey Girl, and her picture was painted on it, with devil’s horns added on.

“Dildo, you’re not man enough to handle either woman, let alone both of them. I know for a fact that you had to order an extra-small version of the pee tube for your biosuit,” replied the pilot.

“And I know that you had to order an extra-large poop tube, because you’re such a gigantic asshole,” returned Dildo.

Harry rolled his eyes. He had heard the two men arguing the topic for four years. “Just suit up and get in the bird. They both prefer me, anyway.” He stripped off his shorts and t-shirt and grabbed the special underwear needed for use with a biosuit. Men’s underwear included a pee tube that sealed around your dick, and a poop tube that sealed to your ass; women had their own version. Over that went the biosuit, required for work in the near vacuum of the Martian surface.

The Dragonfly Project started when the Martians developed the CBU48 anti-tank cluster bomb in the interwar years between Martian Hammer and Martian Justice. Like all Martian weapons, it was expressly designed for use under Martian conditions. The cluster bomb unit held forty-eight bomblets, each of which held two kilos of military-grade explosive in a rubbery plastic cocoon that was colored and shaped to look like a rock and held a pressure fuse that only went off when a tank or APC rolled over it.

Originally, CBU48s were added to the upgraded Mosquito II attack planes as bonus ordnance. They proved so successful in training that Fritz had championed dropping them from a dedicated bomber. ETH-70 Hummingbirds were modified to carry two-dozen CBU48s from improvised bomb bays and became the ETA-70 Attack Hummingbird. The project was successful, but it wasn’t a perfect design. Attack Hummingbirds were slow and bulky, not surprising since they were converted transports. Several were lost in the war.

The solution was the Dragonfly, expressly designed as a military bomber. Superficially, the Dragonfly looked like an overgrown pregnant Mosquito. It had the same rocket-propelled flying wing design, though the midsection was oversized with four bomb bays capable of carrying three times the load of an Attack Hummingbird. It was also faster and stealthier than an Attack Hummingbird, though it wasn’t as maneuverable. Still, it was a quantum leap over the ETA-70, and once they had the bugs worked out, was going to be put into production and sent into squadron service. Hopefully, that would be in time for Martian Vengeance. Fritz Forthrust and the members of the Dragonfly Project of Ares NP, the former New Pittsburgh production facility that had been part of Ares Incorporated and built ships for WestHem, had that in mind every day.

The three men did a walkaround of Honey Girl II. Everything looked fine, and the pilot and copilot moved towards the cockpit. This was a major change from both the Attack Hummingbird and the Mosquito. The pilots in the Mosquito series of attack planes sat in a tandem position, with the pilot in front and his sis, the weapons system operator, sitting behind him. In the Attack Hummingbird the pilot and bombardier sat in a side-by-side configuration. The Dragonfly emulated this, but the other big difference was that Hummingbirds didn’t have ejection seats. When Dildo saw the original design for the Dragonfly, his first comment was, “Where’s the ejection seats? No ejection seat, no Dragonfly!” Fritz had eyed his bombardier and nodded. That was why he had wanted a combat bombardier and a combat crew chief on his team.

Their walkaround complete, Fritz and Dildo climbed their ladders to the cockpit. Crew techs followed to help strap them into their seats. When they finished, they nodded to Fritz and climbed down the ladders and Fritz lowered the canopy into place. He looked over at Dildo, who was going over his console and checking the instruments. “We good, Dildo?”

“We’re good, Fritz. Kick the tires and light the fires.”

“Roger that.” Fritz flipped a switch and said, “Honey Girl II ready for lightening.”

The response was immediate. “Copy ready for lightening. Lightening in five ... four ... three ... two ... one.”

There was a sudden lurch and the gravity instantly dropped to Mars normal, .37G. Both men gulped and stifled the nausea common in lightening. “ Honey Girl II lightened, ready for tow to launch.”

“Copy ready for tow. Tractor entering hangar.”

Fritz looked over at Dildo. “We really need bigger hangars.” The current system had single hangars for each aircraft. It would be far more efficient to have hangars for multiple aircraft, so they could lighten more than one at a time.

Dildo shrugged. “I am told they are busy designing them even as we speak.”

“Sounds like the promise I made your girlfriend, that I wouldn’t cum in her mouth.”

“Precisely!”

The tractor pulled them into position on the tarmac, and then detached and moved out of the way. Fritz looked over at Dildo, who nodded and pointed forward. “Honey Girl II ready to launch.”

“Honey Girl II is cleared for launch. Have fun, Fritz.”

Fritz set the brakes and then pushed the throttles forward. At the proper moment, he released the brakes and the Dragonfly rocketed down the runway. Three-quarters of the way down the runway, he rotated the nose upwards and began a climb to altitude, three-thousand meters. They were just climbing through the thousand-meter mark when the right engine quit. Fritz felt it before the lights on the console started flashing.

Dildo said, “Oh, shit.”

The plane began twisting to the right, as the left engine began pushing the plane to the side. Then the left engine quit. “Emergency procedures. Light off the beacon and assume crash position.”

Dildo’s hands were flying across the console, turning off the alarms and turning on the emergency beacon for when they crashed. “Yeah, put my head between my legs and kiss my sweet ass goodbye!”

“Aren’t you glad we put in those ejection seats?”

“Arming them now.”

“Hold on.” Fritz flicked a switch. “Tower, declaring an emergency at this time. Returning to base. Clear the runway.” Without waiting for a response, he flipped the Dragonfly on its right wing and reversed course. Without power, the bomber began sinking like a stone.

“You’re going to dead stick this sucker?” asked Dildo.

“Aaron isn’t around to do it for us.”

“Fuck me!”

Fritz straightened out the Dragonfly and lined it up on the runway. “And with just a little luck we make it over the threshold before we crash in flaming agony. Feel free to punch out whenever you want.”

“Fuck you, Fritz! No way am I going to be the one who tells your daughter why Daddy isn’t coming home tonight!”

“Your choice.” Fritz stopped talking at that point, concentrating on bringing the dying bird back to the nest. The Dragonfly was shaking and dropping like a rock, but Fritz brought it back over the threshold. “Brace yourself!” He slammed the braking rockets and fought the ship onto the runway.