Ice Station - Matthew Reilly [184]
The sixth and final F-22 tried to make a run for it. It managed to get a mile away before the missile that had acquired it – the last missile to drop from the rotating missile racks inside the Silhouette – slammed into its tailpipe and blew it to hell.
Inside the Silhouette, Schofield breathed a sigh of relief.
As he turned north, he keyed his radio again.
‘USS Wasp. Come in. USS Wasp. Please. Come in.’
After several tries, there finally came a reply.
‘Unidentified Aircraft, this is Wasp. Identify yourself.’
Schofield gave his name and service number.
The person at the other end checked it and then said, ‘Lieutenant Schofield, it’s good to hear from you. The flight deck has been cleared. You have clearance to land. I am sending you our co-ordinates now.’
The Silhouette flew into the night.
The USS Wasp, the Marine Corps’ aircraft carrier-like vessel, was about eighty nautical miles from Schofield. It would take about fifteen minutes to cruise there.
In the luminescent green glow of his indicator dials, Schofield stared out at the orange horizon. He had lifted the cloaking device and was allowing the plane to go on autopilot for a while.
The previous twenty-four hours flitted through his mind.
The French. The British. The ICG. His own men who had died on a mission that was never meant to succeed. Faces flashed across his mind. Hollywood. Samurai. Book. Mother. Soldiers who had died so that their country could lay its greedy hands on some extra-terrestrial technology that never was.
A deep sadness fell over Schofield.
He leaned forward and began flicking some switches. The screen in front of him flashed:
‘MISSILE ARMED. TARGETING . . .’
Schofield quickly hit another switch.
‘MANUAL TARGETING SELECTED.’
Schofield manoeuvred the target selector on the screen until he found the target he was looking for. He pressed the ‘SELECT’ button on his stick.
Several other option screens appeared and Schofield calmly chose the options he wanted.
Then he hit his thumb trigger.
At that moment, the sixth and final missile inside his missile bay rotated on its rack and dropped down into the sky. Its thrusters kicked in and the missile shot off into the distance, climbing high into the deep, black sky.
The USS Wasp lay at rest in the middle of the Southern Ocean.
It was a big ship. With a length of 844 feet, it was as long as two-and-a-half football fields. The enormous five-storey superstructure in the middle of the ship – the operations centre of the ship known as ‘the island’ – looked down on the flight deck. On a normal day, the flight deck would have been dotted with choppers, Harriers, gunships and people, but not today.
Today the flight deck was deserted. There was no movement on it at all, no aircraft, no people.
It looked like a ghost town.
The Silhouette slowed perfectly in the air above the non-skid deck of the Wasp, its retros firing thin streams of gas down onto the deck beneath it. The ominous black fighter plane landed softly on the flight deck, near the stern of the ship.
Schofield peered out through the canopy of the Silhouette.
The flight deck in front of him was eerily empty, Schofield sighed. He had expected that.
‘All right, everyone, let’s get out of here,’ he said.
Renshaw and Kirsty left the cockpit. Wendy went with them. Schofield said he would take care of Gant.
Before he left the cockpit, however, Schofield pulled a long, thin silver canister from the satchel that he had stretched over his shoulder.
Schofield set the timer on the Tritonal charge for ten minutes and then left it on the pilot’s chair. Then he picked up Gant and carried her out of the cockpit and into the missile bay. Then he carried her down the steps and out of the Silhouette.
The flight deck was deserted.
In the orange twilight, Schofield and his motley collection of survivors stood in front of the ominous black plane. The big black Silhouette, with its sharply-pointed, down-turned nose and its sleek, low-swept wings, looked like a