Chapter 647

“Despite our AIs actually doing the flying, I want every pilot to have his or her hands on the controls at all times when we do this for real, and when we practice as well. Ann and I have put together a rough outline. Everything seems to work in the simulation, but we haven’t done it for real yet. There could very well be glaring errors that only show up when actually flying the patterns. Bottom line: be careful and think about what the next step is. Does the current process make sense with the next step? What about our speeds at that point? Is it too fast or too slow? What will it look like to our audience from the ground where most of them will be?

“Computers don’t make many mistakes, but they do what they’re told to do. In general, there lies the problem. Have we told it something that’s impossible or unnecessarily dangerous under the circumstances? Think. Help us to make this right. Ann and I have worked this out in our minds and with the assistance of the AI at the Retreat. Then we had Ship review it and put this rough outline together. I want this practice today, and in coming days, to be a building process. If you don’t like something, please say so, but don’t just complain; give us a better way to do it. Doubtless, there will be many changes, add-ons and deletions from this first attempt.

“Again, this is a rough outline. Make it better so that it’s our parade — not my parade or Ann’s parade, but our parade. If we work together, it really could go down in history.

“Ann and I have spent literally days trying to talk to City Managers and Mayors the world over asking for their input. The ones who bothered to talk to us at all usually wanted the parade/air show to be about their agenda to be reelected or else to push their pet project. We aren’t doing this for political reasons, but to show respect and honor for those fallen during the attacks. True, Earth would have lost miserably without Ship and the interceptors, but Earth’s people died and were injured by the thousands doing what they could. We’ll never know the exact total for the number of dead, but it has to be a truly appalling figure. Let’s just do all we can to make certain our fallen are never forgotten.

“Questions?”

There were none at that point, but as the vids continued, there were more and more questions, especially after they incorporated the next steps.

“Ma’am,” Joe Martin addressed Arlene, “how did you get that last shot? That was our interceptor taking fire from a Paladin, but I don’t remember the Paladin looking the way it does on the screen, and it would have to have been our craft doing the recording.”

“Something that none of us knew in the beginning, although I’m sure that Ship told us. Each interceptor not only has its equivalent of gun sight cameras but also has something like our three hundred-and-sixty-degree cameras, except they are crystal clear without distortion, no matter which view you choose.”

A few minutes later, Martin commented, “Wow. Does that bring back memories. Our wingman discovered a Paladin and engaged just as the second Paladin came on the scene. It was getting to be a real furball when you guys showed up.

“Those things had guns everywhere and a crew to serve every damn one of them, it seemed. You couldn’t get near a Paladin without taking fire, but they couldn’t stand against teamwork, and that was your idea, Commander.”

“No, that was the Colonel’s idea,” Arlene insisted. “He demanded it from the very beginning.”

“Whatever. It definitely saved our asses,” Martin insisted.

Ann looked over at Arlene, “Too bad we can’t put that conversation out for the world to hear. And you know, he’s right. It was the teamwork that went a long way toward destroying those Paladins — all of them, not just the ones that attacked White and Martin’s ship, or Worthington and Camp’s, or ours — any of us. The Colonel insisted that we have a wingman and never do anything without one. One on one with all their guns and crew, the Paladins were more than one interceptor could easily handle, but with a wingman, we made it our game.”

Arlene chuckled, “Yeah, teamwork combined with the speed of the interceptors. Once a team was engaged with a Paladin or Paladins, and the call went out, we could be there in seconds no matter where we were in the world. They had slightly more powerful guns with multiple gunners, but we had teamwork and a faster craft due to our inertialess drives.”

Arlene came to her feet, “Okay, get your gear and let’s adjourn to the flight deck. Ship is going to give us a ride to orbit, and we’ll combat-launch from there. After we have launched, form up on me, and we’ll proceed to Mars at a half-light.”

“Are we going to check out any of the rovers?” someone asked.

“No. Well, probably not. I’ve programmed where all the Mars rovers are into our AI, and I picked an area well away from them. It’s the size of London, and the city was hit hard, so it will be one of our first stops on our circuit.”

When they arrived at the flight deck, they found the Colonel, in uniform, waiting for them. Arlene called the group to Attention, and they saluted the Colonel, who returned it just as precisely.

“Commander, I did not come to interrupt, but felt I should stop by and wish you and your Wing a safe and productive day. If there is anything I can do to assist your program, please let me know.” He saluted them again, turned and left.

Both Arlene and Ann were hard put to contain their smiles as they watched their husband walk away. “All right. Do your checks and mount up. Ship will have us in high orbit before you are ready to launch. Good luck to all of us, and be extremely careful. A parade or air show — whatever — is something we have never done before, and I expect that we will learn a lot today. Hopefully, all of it will be good. If you see a way to improve on a section or become aware of something unnecessarily dangerous, please let Ann or me know immediately.”

At Arlene’s nod, Ann dismissed the aviators to their interceptors.

Typically, one or the other of the two would do the walk-around, but Arlene and Ann did it together today. As they climbed the belly stairs and entered the interceptor, its AI greeted them and said, “All systems are Go, Commander.”

“Very well, but if you don’t mind, Ann and I will do the checks again — just to keep our hands in.”

“Yes, Commander,” the AI said as it managed to put just a little of put-upon into its voice.

“No use getting your feelings hurt, but we haven’t flown in several weeks, and we don’t want to make a mistake.”

“Yes, Commander.”

The AI was perfectly capable of bringing all their systems on line as well as checking that everything was within operational parameters, but the two young women did it again themselves today. Something failing or giving a false reading while the wing was going through the maneuvers of the parade could be disastrous. Theoretically, the AI would keep them out of harms’ way, but neither of the two would ever chance leaving total responsibility to the AI.

A couple of minutes later, Ann reported, “All my systems are fully operational, Commander.”

“Mine as well.” Turning to her gunner and backup pilot, she went on, “We aren’t in front of the others, so can the Commander crap. Do you want to fly us this morning?”

Ann was shaking her head. “Let’s make it later in the day when you need a break. I’ve programmed Mars into the system for you, but you will have to enter the final location on planet.”

“Thanks, I’m entering those coordinates now.”

“All units report ready,” Ann added.

“Acknowledged.” Even as the thought touched her mind, but before she could act, the AI opened a channel to the other interceptors. “Combat-launch as directed by Ship,” she announced to the other pilots. The AIs from the other interceptors instantly acknowledged.

Ship’s voice broke in with a short countdown as the shields over the launch doors opened to show the background of millions of stars through the forcefield that kept the air in. Their fighter moved and was suddenly expelled by a variation of the inertialess tractor beam, Arlene’s ship and half the interceptors at the left launch door and the other half out the other door. In seconds, all the interceptors were in space and a kilometer from Ship, their AIs forming the wing into one large echelon with Arlene’s craft in the lead. With her AI synched with the AIs in the other interceptors, the group went to a half-light with their formation echelon remaining perfect through the transition.

Now, if we can still maintain this precision as we change our grouping while carrying out our routine, she thought as her display showed the perfect upside-down “V” with every craft the exact same distance apart and her craft in the lead at the apex of the “V”.

The stubby “wings” on the interceptors were there to house the nacelles that contain the inertialess drives, and also mounted some of the interceptor’s complement of guns, but today those stubby appendages had yet another purpose, and that was to house the equipment that was to put out a stream of vapor that could be any color the crew wished. It produced an effect similar to that of planes at Earth’s air shows, and the AI could adjust the mechanism to produce practically any color and volume desired, although it would undoubtedly work better in Earth’s atmosphere.

Ship had modified the emitters to work with carbon dioxide, the main component in the Martian atmosphere, but at a near-vacuum, there would be little if any output. Arlene hoped, however, there would be enough to get an idea of how the smoke streamers of varying colors would look on Earth. The plan, where practicable, was to use the primary colors of whatever that nation’s flags contained. Arlene and Ann had sent out e-mails asking permission and requesting the colors they might use for the parade in that particular country. Some had answered; some had not. For those who did not answer, Arlene and Ann would use whatever they thought would show up the best.

On Earth, the brilliantly colored smoke streamers at the tips of the stubby wings of the interceptors should be very impressive, and she had designed their movement patterns with that in mind. The AI could also change the duration of the streamers remaining visible, and this would be an ongoing thing depending on how intricate the maneuvers were.

The distance from the Earth to Mars varied dependent upon where each planet was in its orbit, but the trip would take approximately nine minutes and thirty-five seconds to high orbit today.

Just for fun, Arlene varied their course to sweep by Phobos, the slightly larger of the two moons which circle Mars, but after their trips to the asteroid belt for target practice and having seen Ceres up close, Phobos wasn’t anything special when compared to the dwarf planet.

Slowing, the AI guided them from orbit, and since they had no inertia and all the power they needed, they didn’t have to drop from orbit gradually but rather, powered their way in with only a half orbit of the planet. As they passed over, then circled the area, Arlene had the AI mark the supposed boundaries on a superimposed view of the city from above, then transmit it to the other AIs in the rest of the squadron. The height of various buildings and other structures was already entered to make their passes safer — not that the AIs couldn’t react in time, but there was no use in terrorizing the public.

Their first job was to put out cameras throughout the boundaries of the mock city. That job completed, the AIs, as instructed, made the interceptors first approach to the mock city as a group, on time to the second — or at least they would be on parade day. With Ship’s altering of the inertialess drive, they screamed across the city — well, they would have screamed across the city if there had been enough atmosphere for there to be sound. Arlene’s face broke into a grin. Time for their first review.

Moments later, they all agreed that their spacing wasn’t proper for a first approach. They wanted the whole city to be able to see them on their first pass, and that just wasn’t going to happen with the size of the city and the interceptors flying wingtip to wingtip at just under the speed of sound — speed of sound on Earth, that is.

They changed, spread out some and slowed a bit, then tried it again. Next, they worked on their first turns, which gave Ann and Arlene problems because they had agreed to use banked turns. Those would look better to an audience, but the girls had learned to fly in an interceptor with inertialess drives where a banked turn was a waste of time. The girls temporarily became the students until they could produce the banked turns necessary for an Earth fighter in atmosphere. The thirteen interceptors, much larger than is usual for Earth’s fighter aircraft, had changed their formation and now seemed to almost balance on the wingtip of the craft below them as they made the first turn, the group beyond impressive. The girls caught on, and within a short period of time, they could bank as well as the fighter jocks. The day wore on as they progressed to the next step of the coming show. This was only the first pass and turn. It wasn’t long before they all realized that this was going to take time to master, and they hadn’t even gotten to the first part of the aerobatics.