164 DALE BROWN

One chance left. Keeping the throttle full open Orlov aimed the Commando right at the gate opening. If the lock could be broken and the gate dislodged from the piling he could use the V-100 to push the gate far enough open for the XF-34A to get through.

Under a hailstorm of bullets from all sides, Orlov's V- 100

plowed into the gate's locking mechanism at well over sixty miles an hour-the four-ton armored car had built up enough force to demolish a house. But it was still not enough to snap the five-inch steel post securing the gate. Instead, the force of the impact snapped the motor mounts off the armored car, and the heavy armored plating in the car's nose acted like a giant piston, driving the engine and transmission into Gekky Orlov's body. The bones in his body were pulverized like dry twigs under a steam roller. The V-100 exploded, starting a fire in the electric and hydraulic lock systems and killing the second security guard.

But the gate held fast.

And DreamStar was trapped.

A quick mental command, and DreamStar's attack-radar flashed on, then off, at precisely two hundred and twenty yards from where Kenneth Francis James, Andrei Ivanschichin Maraklov, had stopped his fighter short of the burning gate ahead. Six hundred and sixty feet, then over a twelve-foot-high obstacle. Another mental command: DreamStar's computers sampled the external air temperature, inertial winds, pressure altitude, relative humidity, aircraft gross weight, engine-trim-and-performance var-iables, then computed takeoff data at max performance best angle of climb over the obstacle.

Not good enough., DreamStar reported that it needed at least one thousand feet to clear the obstacle.

James' reaction was instantaneous. He brought DreamStar's turbofan engine to full power, moved the vectored thrust-nozzles to full reverse and released the brakes. DreamStar began to move backward toward the taxiway throat leading to the ramp in front of the hangars-back toward the melee he had just escaped from.

At the same time he activated DreamStar's radar system, which scanned in every direction around the fighter.

DreamStar had moved only a hundred feet farther from the e when he "saw" the first M113 armored vehicle approach.

gat

It was moving fast, nearly forty miles an hour, past the,burning DAY OF THE CHEETAH 165

piles of debris scattered around in front of the now-abandoned Hangar Five, less than a hundred yards away. He hit the brakes just as the superconducting radar detected the M 113's twenty-millimeter cannon open fire.

"Hal, what's your situation? " General Elliott called over the security net.

Hal Briggs grabbed a handhold on the M 113's door for support as he keyed his microphone: "We're approaching the plane from the left. It's now about three hundred feet in front of us, facing down the throat toward the gate. Id swear the thing backed up or somethin' . . . Over."

Elliott, now in a staff car with McLanahan at the wheel, was racing down taxiway delta toward the hangar area, careening over ditches and weaving through gates to get back to the ramp.

McLanahan looked at Elliott. "Did he say DreamStar was back-ing up?" Elliott had no answer. "Hal," Patrick said, "what's DreamStar's range to the gate?"

"Hard to tell until we get closer, but I'd say less than three hundred yards."

Elliott looked at Patrick. "Is it enough . . . ?"

McLanahan didn't dare take his eyes off the road, floored the gas pedal and gripped the wheel tighter. "Cool morning, half a fuel load, a little headwind . . . it's enough."

"God damn. Who the hell's flying it?" Even then, Elliott could not believe that James, one of only three men alive who could possibly fly DreamStar, was in the cockpit. "How the hell did he get in there?" Elliott pressed the mike switch hard enou h to turn his finger white. "Shoot out the tires, Hal. If the plane moves, shoot to kill. If DreamStar moves ahead, destroy it.

Eight hundred twelve point seven feet. Now.

Keeping the brakes on hard, James commanded the throttles to full power, let them stabilize for a few seconds, then pushed them to max afterburner. He allowed another half-second for the computer to perform a single full-power engine-trim adjustment, then opened the dorsal engine louvers. DreamStar's aft end pitched down and the nose shot up at a steep angle. He set the flex wings and canards for high lift and max performance climbout . . . then released the brakes.

DreamStar had not rolled more than a hundred feet forward 166 DAIE BROWN

when he realized he was not going to make it. He knew it even before the performance computer, receiving data from radar on range to the obstacle, reported a collision warning and recommended an immediate takeoff abort. Maraklov overrode the recommendation with the thought: this is how I'll die? Not after a dogfight trying to steal and save DreamStar. Dying in a fireball crashing into the security gate, trying something that I knew had no chance from the beginning . . .

Five hundred feet to go. All wheels still firmly on the ground, airspeed hardly registering. Maraklov could feel the absence of lift on his wings, the absence of the familiar twist that the composite flex wings underwent during the takeoff acceleration.

Countering the wingtip twist was a simple computer-controlled correction, as simple as swallowing, as simple as-He cut short his gloomy predictions. The wingtip twist . . .

DreamStar automatically neutralized the twist in the wingtips because the twisted wing created vortices under the wing and fuselage, which created turbulence, which increased drag and lengthened takeoff roll distances. But the turbulence under the fuselage created something else-ground effect. And the power of ground effect would be to cushion the plane a few feet off the ground, just below flying speed but still airborne. If that was true . . .

Four hundred feet left . . .

Maraklov overrode the order to counteract the wingtip twist.

In response, the tips of DreamStar's wings curved even more, creating two hundred percent more lift as well as two virtual tornados of wind that swirled counterclockwise from the wingtips down and under the wings and across the fuselage. He felt the vortices slam into the fuselage and fought for control.

DreamStar felt sluggish, unresponsive, out of pilot control.

Ninety knots. Three hundred feet remaining . . .

A loud creak from the left wingtip, and a "CONFIGURATION"

warning flashed in Maraklov's conscious mind. He ignored it.

The wingtips were now being buffeted by winds nearing hurricane force, while the rest of the wing was wallowing in relatively calm winds nowhere close to takeoff speed. Maraklov stiffened the wings by twisting the inner surfaces, allowing the power being generated in the wingtips to flow to the lazy parts of the wing. The aircraft rumbled in protest. He was receiving "CONFIGURATION" and "COLLISION" warnings, and had to struggle DAY OF THE CHEETAH 167

not only to ignore the warnings but to prevent ANTARES from taking command and aborting the takeoff. DrearnStar's artificial brain was programmed for self-preservation at all costs, not self-destruction.

One hundred knots, two hundred feet remaining . . .

DrearnStar's nose gear popped off the runway, held aloft by the large canards and by the force of the upwardly directed thrust from the dorsal louvers. DrearnStar was in takeoff attitude but she was still far, far from lift-off speed.

One hundred fifty feet . . . one chance left-he commanded the landing gear up.

One hundred feet, one hundred ten knots. An ANTARES-generated warning from the flight-configuration computer flashed in Maraklov's mind, warning him that the landing gear safety switch still showed pressure on the gear struts-DreamStar was still on the ground. Instantly he overrode the warning, commanded gear up, then closed his eyes and waited for DreamStar's tail to hit the runway.

Seventy-five feet, one hundred fifteen knots-liftoff speed for this takeoff configuration. The tail did not hit the runway.

-Zero feet left . . . With the tall, bulky landing gear retracted, DreamStar accelerated to one hundred thirty knots, and was able to use the extra airspeed to lift its nose even higher, clawing for every last bit of altitude. A shower of sparks erupted from the top of the steel gate as DrearnStar scraped past the reinforced barbed wire, tearing apart the two ventral rudders that had au-tornatically deployed in DreamStar's slow-flight mode-Maraklov did not think to retract those low-speed rudders in time.

DreamStar shuddered as the rudders ripped off her belly, but she did not stall or hit the ground.

DreamStar was airborne.

McLanahan and Elliott had just reached the hangar area as DreamStar lifted over the gate, the aircraft flying so slowly and at such a steep climb that it seemed almost suspended in midair, an apparition at the end of a shaft of fire. It also appeared to be failing slightly, but this was mostly an illusion; DreamStar's nose dipped slightly to build up valuable airspeed, and it began to accelerate at it crossed the deserted runways and climbed slowly into the dawn.

McLanahan slammed on the brakes in time to avoid an M113