Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 Read Free

fired. A four-foot-diameter beam of high-energy
laser light shot from the nose of the AL-52 and was focused by the deformable
mirror down to a spot the size of a basketball on the motor section of the
first rocket. The beam was completely invisible to the cockpit crew—they could
see the mirror turret moving slightly, tracking the target, but nothing else.
                 Patrick
switched the large full-color supercockpit display on the right-side instrument
panel to the telescope view. He was now looking right down the barrel of the
laser, watching an optical presentation of what the laser attack computer was
looking at. The SA-10 missile was clearly visible, tracked and illuminated by
the laser radar arrays and focused to razor-sharp clarity by the deformable
mirror. The crosshairs in the center of the display were dead on the rear
one-third of the missile—the center of the SA- 10’s rocket motor. Patrick
increased the magnification and was even able to read markings on the side of
the missile.
                 As
the missile flew higher and higher in the sky, its thermodynamic pressures were
building as well—pressure from the force of the engines, pressure from the
atmosphere, pressure from gravity, pressure from building speed, and pressure
created by the guidance system acting through the rocket’s fins and gyros.
Finally, the heat from the laser burned through the missile’s skin enough that
the skin surrounding the motor section couldn’t contain the immense internal
pressures or structurally hold the outside air pressures, and the missile
ripped apart like a rotten banana and exploded.
                 “Missile
destroyed!” Patrick shouted. “We got it!”
                 The
attack computer immediately shifted to the second SA-10 missile, launched seconds
after the first, and the result was just as successful and just as spectacular.
“Missile two destroyed! Towed array in standby . .. laser’s ready to shoot
again, all threats down. Hot damn!”
                 Sky
Masters Inc. needed a realistic real-world test of its airborne laser
technology, so Patrick McLanahan, overseeing the program, thought of the
easiest and fastest way to test it out—fly over a country that liked to shoot
missiles without warning and see if it worked. Libya filled the bill nicely. Libya had the best military hardware its oil
money could buy, and they were notorious for firing on stray aircraft without
warning. Plus, most of Libya south of Tripoli was open desert, so there was little risk
of anyone being hurt by falling debris or misses—or, if the test didn’t work,
falling pieces of the AL-52 Dragon.
                 “Have
we had enough, boss?” Franken asked. “I sure have.”
                 “I
don’t want to hang around here any more than I have to, Bud,” Patrick said.
“But I’d sure like to wring the laser out a little more.” At that moment, both
crew members received a warning message on their threat receiver, one of the
multifunction displays in the center of the Dragon’s instrument panel. “Just
got swept by fighter radar,” Patrick said. “I think it might be time to head
home.”
                 “Good
deal,” Franken said. He started a slow left turn to the north, mindful of the
towed array still extended behind them—they could easily turn quickly enough to
wrap themselves up in their own array’s cable. “Just keep those puppies off
us.”
                 “LADAR
coming on,” Patrick said. He activated the laser radar for only a few seconds,
but the laser radar’s power and tight resolution drew an amazingly detailed
picture of all air targets within a hundred miles. “We’ve got a flight of two MiG-29
interceptors, coming from Tripoli ,” Patrick said. “When you roll out, they’ll be at your nine- thirty
position, sixty-one miles, high. Heading zero-one- zero will put them at your nine o’clock