Free Orphan's Alliance (Jason Wander) by Robert Buettner Page B

Scorpion image. The Scorpion was flat and streamlined, a ceramic watermelon seed, tapering to a kicked-up rear boom like a scorpion tail, hence its name. It looked nothing like the image of the slightly smaller, conventionally-winged Lockheed fighter-bomber that turned with it, to show scale.
    Munchkin pointed at Scorpion’s tail boom. “The prototype mounted a jet engine in the stinger housing during testing. The jet kept it flying while its test pilot stopped and restarted the C-drive. For today’s demonstration, the stinger pod’s fitted with display pyrotechnics. Normally, the stinger pod will deploy weapons rearward, like a conventional combat aircraft deploys flares and radar chaff. Even when Scorpion’s operating in the mid-range of its performance envelope, it outruns conventional weapons like cannon rounds and missiles fired forward. It could literally shoot itself down.”
    The reporter smiled. “Faster than a speeding bullet. That’s why Superman is the test pilot, then?”
    The group laughed.
    A female reporter asked, “Are you nervous to have Captain Metzger at the controls?”
    Another reason Munchkin was in Paris was because Scorpion was going to be flown above Le Bourget by the best pilot on Earth, at least the best since his father had died saving Earth. Who happened to be Munchkin’s only child.
    Munchkin smiled again. “I’m as proud of my son as any mother.”
    Nicely sidestepped. Jude was the world to Munchkin. A son may mean more to a widow because he is all that’s left of his father, too. Of course she was nervous. As Jude’s godfather, I was nervous, too. The reporter waved her Stenobot for a follow-up question. “I meant nervous in light of the Captain’s mental difficulties. He tried to crash the prototype once, already.”
    Munchkin turned away from the reporter, as though she hadn’t heard the question, and her eyes found mine. Munchkin flicked me a smile, glanced at her ’Puter, then said to her audience, first in French, then in Arabic, finally in English, “We’ll have to cut this off. It’s showtime.” She pointed to her right. “At the bar, Claire has a pair of Zeiss MacroLenses for each of you, compliments of Lockheed and the United States, to help you enjoy the demonstration.”
    Munchkin wove through the crowd, hugged me, and said, “Welcome home!” selc="0Then she led me to the bar.
    Claire, who was more gratuitously pretty than my electricart driver, gifted me with a Zeiss set, in a glove leather presentation box, a glass of champagne, and earplugs. I tapped the champagne flute. Plastic. Maybe Lockheed had blown the entertainment budget on the binoculars. I glanced around at the champagne-lubricated arms dealers, reporters, and foreign military, then asked Munchkin, “Home. That’s what you call this carnival?”
    She shrugged. “I call this carnival good for the U.S. taxpayer, and better for the people I represent. The U.S. won’t sell C-drive technology, even to our allies, for years. But what Scorpion is about to do for Lockheed’s reputation is going to keep it exporting conventional aircraft ’til you retire.”
    I hefted the Zeiss case. “I could retire on what these cost the taxpayer.”
    She snorted. “At least our swag’s presentation-related. ChinAir’s handing out tennis bracelets set with Weichselan diamonds. Besides, if we get just one foreign fighter-bomber contract out of this party, that buys my constituents job security for a decade.”
    A live orchestra at the tent’s end, beneath a stadium-sized flatscreen, struck a fanfare. The tent’s roof canvas rolled back, exposing blue sky. It was the brightest, clearest day I had seen on Earth since before the Blitz. Of course, I’ve spent a lot of those days off Earth.
    The orchestra, and the crowd, hushed. Everybody screwed in their earplugs, craned their necks skyward, and pressed their zooty MacroLenses to their eyes, as if they were glass refraction binoculars. A red spark flashed in the