Nighthawk (NUMA Files 14)

“Releasing Nighthawk,” the flight engineer said.

To avoid Blackjack 1’s fate, they flew in a parabolic arc, ejecting the Nighthawk as they went over the top.

“Nighthawk clear,” the flight engineer said. “Stabilizer intact.”

Once the Nighthawk drifted back far enough, Timonovski brought the bomber up above and in front of the unmanned space plane.

“Separation, two miles,” the flight engineer said. “Initiating alpha code.”

At the press of a button, the information was sent. Now they waited. Finally, a response came in.

“Nighthawk up and functioning,” the flight engineer said. “Transmitting new orders.”

As Kurt watched the others perform their duties, he triple-checked his shoulder harness and gripped the handhold beside the jump seat. There was nothing else for him to do.

“Nighthawk confirms orders received and processed,” the flight engineer said excitedly. “Initiation in thirty seconds. All systems green.” He turned to Timonovski. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Timonovski put the bomber into a turn, banking away from the Nighthawk’s course. The turn had to be gradual because of the incredible velocity, but the farther the two courses diverged, the better chance they had of surviving the wave that was about to hit.

The Blackjack was pulling hard. Kurt felt the g-forces pressing him down into the seat. He strained to look at his watch. The second hand ticked along the orange face. Each click seemed a lifetime. And then they were all used up.

A flash of blue light filled the sky. Kurt shut his eyes and still saw the glare.

“Hang on!” Joe shouted.

The shock front hit the bomber like a crashing wave. Despite their speed and course away from the Nighthawk, the impact was intense as the surge picked the bomber up and shoved it forward.

“Don’t fight it,” Kurt grunted.

Timonovski did as Kurt suggested, going with the wave instead of turning against it. Still, the ride was violent, the systems inside the cockpit fried out in seconds, the fuselage buckled and, after ten seconds of buffeting, the left wing folded and the plane rolled over into a dive.

Unseen from inside the bomber, the Nighthawk had done precisely as ordered, ejecting a tiny stream of the antimatter out behind it. The reaction was nearly instant, but instead of one giant flash, it left a trail of hundreds and then thousands of flashes in a series that lit up the night sky. At the head of this expanding flare of blue light, the tiny black craft was propelled toward space, accelerating at a rate that would have killed a human occupant.

Seen from the ground, the burst of light looked like glowing ripples in a pond, with each circle of light expanding into the others until the interference pattern formed a maddening kaleidoscope of luminescence, streaking upward and outward to the east.

Perspective was hard to come by from down there. And no one who viewed it with the naked eye could really follow the band of swirling light as it lengthened and stretched before terminating in a blinding flash high above the planet.

The experiment had worked. In three minutes, the Nighthawk covered just under five thousand miles, accelerating to a maximum velocity of nearly one hundred and seventy thousand miles per hour, the fastest man-made object of all time.

It was still accelerating when the heat and vibration caused a catastrophic failure in one of the containment units, but by then it was far enough from the Earth’s surface to be nothing more than a mind-blowing fireworks display in the night sky.

The men in the falling bomber never saw it; they were knocked about mercilessly and traveling in the opposite direction.

Inside the cockpit, Kurt felt himself whiplashed one way, then the other. He was certain the plane would come apart at any second. Miraculously, it held together, despite the fact that one wing had been ripped off and most of the tail was gone.

It didn’t take long to realize that they were in a nosedive. Light from the artificial sun had temporarily illuminated the Earth and its sea far below.

They were corkscrewing down like Blackjack 1 had, falling from the sky like a gull with a broken wing.

The spinning motion was disorienting. The loss of pressure thre

atened to cause him to black out. He remembered the other crew’s long descent with only the computer talking.

“We need to eject!” Kurt shouted to Major Timonovski.

The pilot didn’t answer. He was still strapped in his seat, but with every move of the plane he was being thrown back and forth like a rag doll.

“Joe, we have to punch out!”