Free Final Storm by Mack Maloney

would each be loaded with more than 260,000 pounds of cargo. And when the flight was ready to begin, each one would roll ponderously to the flight line, its four giant engines ready to defy the gravity that hugged it to the earth.
    Farther on were the newer, smaller but sleeker C-17 transports. These too swallowed up vast quantities of the cargo that was being fed by the steady stream of trucks. Beyond the looming, swept-back flat tails of the C-17s were the mainstays of the air bridge, the C-141 Starlifters. Hunter counted at least four dozen of them.
    Beyond were the camouflage-painted C-130H Hercules, the workhorses of the Tactical Airlift Command. Their squat bodies trundled down the runways on sturdy tires and thick landing gear struts, designed to absorb the shock of short, bumpy, improvised airstrips, many of which would be close to the front. Their four big turboprop engines, supported by long, tapering wings studded with big flaps and spoilers, were designed to bring the seventy tons of plane and payload down and to a full stop in less than 3,000 feet.
    And then came the KC-135 Stratotankers, and the big KC-10A Extenders, the airborne gas stations of the sky. These flying tankers would each carry tens of thousands of pounds of the precious fuel that all the airplanes in the convoy would hungrily consume—via in-flight refuelings—on their journey over the broad expanse of ocean.
    On the opposite side of the flightline, Hunter saw dozens of civilian transport planes and airliners. Every major airline and air transport company’s aircraft markings were evident on the crowded runways. All around him were big overseas airliners—757s, 747s, DC-10s, and L-1011s that were also preparing for the takeoff.
    He knew that the private commercial jets had all been commandeered “for the duration” by executive order. Everywhere he looked there were uniformed men milling about on runways, pouring into the airliners. These were the reservists boarding the big jets, waiting to join their comrades already in Europe.
    Hunter’s driver expertly cut their jeep through the sea of men and machines that spilled out across the runways, dodging fuel trucks and airplanes alike, to reach the hangar far across the field where the fighters were being fueled and armed for the escort mission across the Atlantic.
    Passing the last group of civilian transports, they approached one hangar where six planes of the 16th Tactical Fighter Wing sat poised on the runway, ground crews loading ordnance under wings and pumping JP-8 into fuel tanks. As the first few rays of sunlight broke through the cold Christmas morning mist, the F-16s appeared to be sparkling like deadly, silver daggers.
    Hunter saw the F-16 that would, for an indeterminate amount of time, be his own. Unlike his Thunderbird version, this F-16 was “armed and dangerous”—a supersonic killing machine that was designed for the split-second kill-or-be-killed environment that the skies over the battlefields had become. His practiced eye ran over the lines of the beautiful airplane, its big air intake slung under the long tapered nose giving it the look of a hungry shark racing for its prey.
    The F-16 was a relatively small airplane—this was one of its many advantages. The smaller the airplane, the smaller the blip on the enemy’s radar screen. To further reduce the plane’s already-small “signature,” radar absorbent materials lined the leading edge flaps of the wing, making the F-16 that much less a target for the enemy planes and missile crews who would be searching the skies above the battlefield with their electronic SAM dragnets, hoping to lock their deadly firepower on to the speeding fighter.
    The F-16 would be a difficult target for them indeed. Screaming through the sky at more than twice the speed of sound, if the luckless enemy fighter or anti-aircraft battery failed to shoot it down in the first attempt, they would face a hail of firepower from their angry