Lieutenant Read online

  ***

  Apert walked up to his station and found the El Tee sitting at it, almost finished with preflighting his bird. It looked like Jones was desperately trying to catch up to her with his preflight of the other bird. Apert looked at his watch, he wasn’t late! He cleared his throat, “Ma’am, is there a problem?”

  Donsaii turned and grinned up at him, “Nope. I just wanted to take a bird up myself after all that time spent over in maintenance. You watch over my shoulder to make sure I don’t screw anything up, OK?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. Uh, you have the AI disengaged.”

  “I know,” she waggled her eyebrows at him, “not much of a challenge taking off with the AI doing all the work.”

  “Uh, Ma’am, we’re not supposed to seek a ‘challenge’ with Uncle Sam’s expensive planes? Takeoff and landing on manual can be pretty sketchy with a trans-Pacific satellite delay.”

  “Hah! I’ve fixed the delay, watch this.” She rotated the camera around to point at the bird’s right wing, then wiggled the joystick side to side.

  The aileron moved up and down just like it was supposed to and Apert wondered what he was supposed to be seeing. Then his eyebrows rose. When she moved the joystick, it should have taken a couple hundred milliseconds for the signal to travel around the world to the bird, then the image from the camera should have taken a couple hundred milliseconds to come back around the world to the monitor screen! There should have been at least a half second delay before he saw the aileron move. For a moment he thought the bird must actually be on the runway here at Nellis but then realized that he was seeing the ocean in the distance!

  Jones had been watching the byplay. He turned his camera to his own wing and wiggled the joystick. The normal delay was still present. “How’d you do that Ma’am?” he croaked in wonder.

  She grinned crookedly back and forth from one to the other, then said, “While I was in maintenance I had a couple of special chips made up and installed on our RQ-7s. We’re taking them out on their first flight. If they fail, we can always fall back on the regular comm on channel 1. We’re using channel 3 with the new chips, change yours to channel 3 and you should be latency free too.”

  Jones looked down and flipped his own board to channel 3, and wiggled the ailerons again—the response was immediate! For a moment he wondered if she had permission to do this? But then Captain Danson from Maintenance showed up “to watch.” A few minutes later she had them rolling their birds down the runway and Jones abandoned himself to the complex task of performing a manual takeoff.

  An hour and a half later, Danson long gone, they coasted in over the PRC coast near Quanzhou and the El Tee exclaimed behind them, “What the heck has been going on while I’ve been gone?”

  Apert and Jones froze, wondering what they’d done wrong. Apert scanned his board without seeing anything out of the ordinary, then risked a glance back at the El Tee. He saw with some relief that she was focused on the screens, not on what he was doing. He looked back at the screen himself, wondering what she was seeing that he was not.

  Moments later Donsaii was having them zoom in on the port. Apert thought there were quite a few more ships anchored and docked than usual and wondered if that was what had her excited. In a moment the AI took control of their cameras and began shooting images of the port and surrounding water, so someone up the chain obviously had an interest in what was happening too. The AI soon completed its assigned shots and relinquished control. The El Tee immediately resumed zooming in on the various ships, obtaining detailed video of what they were doing. Then she scanned inland over the Naval base where there appeared to be enormous numbers of personnel, containers stacked high, endless rows of military vehicles and acres of what looked like tent housing. “My God!” the El Tee breathed, “They’re going to invade Taiwan!” She told her AI to contact Colonel Ennis…

  ***

  Varnet shambled into Stimson’s office. Stimson looked up in trepidation; Varnet never seemed to come by with good news and they were meeting the Secretary that afternoon. Irritably he barked, “What?”

  “Got some astonishing imagery from Quanzhou’s Naval base.”

  “What’s it show?” Stimson was irritated to have to ask the followup question.

  “It shows a huge military buildup, same as we’ve known about for some time now. The astonishing thing is the imagery.”

  In exasperation Stimson lifted his palms and raised his eyebrows, “What about it?!”

  “It’s an enormous file of two hundred megapixel electro-optical, UV and IR video that’s been arriving realtime from a couple of RQ-7s that are overflying Quanzhou at present. The time stamp and the early morning shadows confirm that the images are coming from UAVs that are currently in the air.”

  “So?”

  “So, we get low quality video, or an occasional high res image over the satellite link. This kind of imagery has to wait for the UAV to land and download to undersea fiberoptic cable.”

  Stimson frowned, “How’s it being done?”

  Varnet grinned, “You’re not gonna like the answer.”

  Stimson rolled his eyes, “Why? Is the PRC forwarding it to us or something?”

  “Nope. I was so astonished by the video and images that I contacted the commander of the surveillance flight.”

  “And?” Stimson said dangerously.

  “And the commander of the flight was Lt. Donsaii. That selfsame Donsaii with the patent I’ve been telling you about.”

  “What!”

  “In one overflight this morning that bright young lady figured out that the PRC is going to invade Taiwan, and she’s solved the problem that you set for me… I might add, just like I’d hoped she could.” Varnet cocked an eye.

  Stimson rolled his eyes again, “Explain.”

  “She actually watched what her cameras were seeing! You know most of the pilots for the UAVs just make sure the planes make the waypoints we set them, so the AI can take the images we programmed.” Varnet waggled his eyebrows. “But she actually took an interest in what was happening at the…”

  “Yes, yes. I get how she figured out that Taiwan might be invaded. How has she solved the problem I set you?!”

  “Ah,” Varnet’s eyebrows rose, “she’s installed some of her ‘PGR chips’ in the bird and that’s what’s transmitting all that data.”

  “So it’s sending a lot of data. That’s good, but how does that solve our problem?”

  “Those chips don’t use satellites.” Varnet waggled his eyebrows again.

  Stimson’s scalp tingled.

  ***

  When they had landed the UAVs from their flight over the PRC coast Ell leaned back and said, “That, men, is a serious mess. I can’t believe the Chinese think they can invade Taiwan. It’s like they think we won’t notice!”

  As they stood up from their stations Ell looked at Apert and Jones, “You guys been keeping up our running program while I’ve been gone?”

  They looked at the floor. Jones shook his head minutely.

  “Well, well, well! I’m so ashamed of you.” She grinned at them, “Let’s grab Sykes and Tarrant and go try to get ourselves back in shape.”

  ***

  The President looked around the room at his advisers, “Let me make sure I understand what you’re telling me. The PRC can shoot down all our satellites…”

  The Secretary of Defense interrupted, “Just the ones over Asia.”

  The President glanced exasperatedly up at the ceiling then said, “‘All our satellites over Asia’ and they’re poised to invade Taiwan?”

  Heads nodded reluctantly. Those that didn’t kept their attention focused down on the table or slate in front of them. Few met his eyes.

  The President continued, “And you believe that sometime in the next few days they will do so?”

  Heads nodded again and SecDef said, “Yes sir.”

  “Why?”

  “The PRC has claimed Taiwan since…”

  “No, no, I know why th
ey want to invade, but why shoot down our satellites first?”

  “Ah. Yes sir. Satellite observation is a tremendous force multiplier. If we know exactly what the opposition is doing we can respond with precision and foreknowledge. Our current military doctrine depends on satellites so extensively that you could liken doing battle without them to boxing while wearing a blindfold. “Of course, Taiwan’s satellites would also be taken out and so both parties on our side would then be fighting blind.”

  “What about our vaunted reconnaissance aircraft?”

  “They would still function and could give us much of the same data, but they depend on satellites to transmit their data back to us when the planes are out of ‘line of sight.’ Therefore the information they delivered would be significantly delayed. The Chinese would know what we were doing but we wouldn’t know what they were doing until it was too late.”

  “Can’t we take out their satellites to put them on an even footing?”

  “We can take out some, but they’ve put up huge numbers in the past few years, we’re not sure which are ‘observation sats’ and which are ‘killers’ and we really don’t have very many of our own killer satellites up at present.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “We’ve notified Taiwan and they’re on high alert. I’ve sent three carriers toward the area though right now all of them are fairly far away. The carriers will not only project force to the area but they can also put up Elint aircraft that increase our line of sight communications distance. Unfortunately, those craft heavily radiate electronically so that they can be readily targeted and could be taken out by the opposition. The Air Force is moving craft to Okinawa and already has a large UAV surveillance wing there. We have submarines moving to the area but they are relatively slow and communication with submarines is difficult because they can’t receive radio while they’re underwater. Unfortunately many of our GPS guided weapons depend on satellite communications as well.”

  “Is there any chance of this going nuclear?”

  “We don’t think so. The PRC wants Taiwan, not a smoking crater.”

  “Are we doing anything to improve our situation regarding communication and observation? Launching more satellites?”

  “We can launch a few, but they’ve been planning this for a long time, they’d probably just shoot them down. Uh, you remember Ell Donsaii?”

  The President blinked at the apparent non-sequitur, then it clicked for him, “The young gymnast that I gave the Medal of Honor to summer before last? What on earth would she have to do with this?”

  “She’s a Lieutenant now, flying UAVs out of Okinawa from Nellis. Do you remember that she’d also written a hotshot quantum physics paper?”

  The President frowned at the second non-sequitur, “Yes.”

  “Well based on her theory, she’s patented some communications technology that is letting us download imagery from our UAVs without using the satellites.”

  “Really? Do we get the same quality images?”

  “Really. Apparently we get better images, faster. Though of course, they’re from aerial assets, not from satellites.”

  “And these are already in place?”

  A barked laugh, “Apparently, the Lieutenant believes in that old adage, ‘better to ask forgiveness than permission’ and has installed her chips in several UAVs without asking if she was allowed to do it. I don’t have to tell you how long it would have taken to get permission?”

  The President rolled his eyes, “Give the girl a cigar!”

  “I’ve sent a team out to evaluate this technology in person but the stuff she installed works great! I’d like Presidential permission to fast track getting her stuff out to all our craft so we won’t be dependent on satellite comm tech? I want to send it even before I’m sure it works reliably because we’re under such time pressure.”

  “You’ve got it.” The President turned to an aide, “Start figuring out what kind of commendation we’re going to need to hang on the girl for this one, assuming it really works?”

  President Teller turned back to the table, “OK, assuming we can surprise the PRC with our ability to watch them despite their shooting down our satellites, it seems to me that our dependency on satellites for command, control and communications is still a problem?

  “Yes sir. I’m presently hoping that Lt. Donsaii’s chips will help there too. The ones that are in Okinawa at present, we think only plug into the comm boards for our recon aircraft. However, I think her company is planning to announce chips that can be used for other forms of communications too. Maybe they already have some more general use chips that we can send to Okinawa, Taiwan and the fleet?”

  “Let’s talk to her.” The President glanced upward as he spoke to his AI, “Get Lt. Ell Donsaii on the line please.”

  ***

  Sykes and Tarrant were surprised when the El Tee, who’d been sitting quietly behind them, watching their screens as they overflew Quanzhou, suddenly said, “OK,” stood and then said “Yes sir.” They looked around but no one else was in their flight control center. Apparently she was standing at attention to talk to someone over her AI?

  They turned back to their consoles as she said, “Yes sir, the patent is only applied for, but a company called PGR Comm has been founded to develop the technology.”

  “Uh, yes sir, I did install PGR chips into some of our reconnaissance UAVs in Okinawa.”

  She winced, “No sir, I didn’t have permission.”

  “Oh! Yes sir!” She sounded upbeat. “We’d be happy to install more. I’ve already sent more chips to Okinawa that can be installed quickly on the UAVs there… Sir, I’m hoping you are aware of the military buildup in Quanzhou? I’m very concerned that the PRC is preparing to invade Taiwan.”

  “Yes sir, of course sir.”

  “I’m not sure sir; let’s ask my AI to find out. Allan, please determine how many USB type PGR chips have been manufactured so far?”

  “Yes sir, I’m sure the company would be willing to put all current inventories at the country’s disposal.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll ask them to deliver to a location of the Secretary’s choosing.”

  The El Tee moved to the back of the room speaking to her AI rapid fire as if arranging something. When she came back up she addressed the noncoms, “See anything interesting?”

  Sykes looked up at her, “It looks to me like they’re moving supplies out into these bulk carriers. Who were you talking to?”

  “Uh… the President. Have you seen them loading any identifiable weapons systems?”

  “They were putting a tank on one as we overflew. President of what?”

  “Of the United States. Could you identify the model of the tank? Was it their new Lǎo hǔ?”

  “The President?! Holy cripes Ma’am! What did he call you for?”

  The El Tee grinned down at him. “He’d heard that I’d been assigned some especially inquisitive NCOs and wanted to know what I was going to do about it.”

  Sykes and Tarrant stared up at Ell wide eyed. Sykes swallowed, “No, really Ma’am. What did he call you about?”

  “Actually he heard a sergeant Sykes liked my zero latency chips and said that, ‘if they’re good enough for Sykes, we should install them everywhere.’”

  “The President called to talk about your chips?” Sykes almost whispered in an awed tone.

  “Seriously guys, I’m sorry you heard parts of that conversation. It has a bearing on this China kerfuffle and you should consider it to be Top Secret, OK? Don’t tell anyone outside this room anything about it until it’s common knowledge.”

  Still wide eyed they chorused, “Yes Ma’am.”

  Ten minutes later Lieutenant Sasson stepped into the room and said, “Donsaii, I’ve been sent to relieve you on this UAV flight. You are to get your ready travel kit and report to travel operations for a flight to somewhere. Apparently, you’re supposed to brief somebody on something?” He raised his eyebrows indicating the question.


  Ell tilted her head, “No one told me, but I suspect I know what it’s about,” she looked meaningfully at Sykes and Tarrant. “I think it is on a ‘need to know’ basis at present. I’ll turn these miscreants over to you. So far the flight is routine except it appears that the PRC is loading weapon systems onto those bulk carriers off Quanzhou.”

  Ell contacted travel ops about when she was expected to report for her flight and was told, “the sooner the better.”

  She had Mary from the ready team meet her just off base with her travel kit, a box of PGR USB chips that she had in her apartment and her flight suit. “I’m not sure where they’re sending me or how long I’ll be staying, but I may want the team to follow me there. I’ll let you guys know as soon as I figure it out.” Mary nodded and resisted the impulse, instilled by her own years in the service, to salute the young officer.

  Ell walked into travel ops with her ready bag in hand and a Captain accosted her, “Are you Donsaii?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “We’ve been waiting! Come on!” he started off at a fast trot, out of the building and over to the flight line.

  Ell looked around for a transport or cargo plane but the Captain took her directly to a two-seater F-35 variant with a ladder leaning up against it. They handed her a helmet which, to her surprise, fit very well. They must have looked her up on the database. They hustled her up the ladder and into the rear seat. The ground crewman leaned in to buckle her in, jack the helmet into the plane’s systems and point out the barf bag. To her astonishment, within ten minutes the plane was rolling down the runway and up into the air like a rocket. Once they were in level flight, there was a click on the intercom and a familiar sounding voice said, “Donsaii?”