Scissor Link, Georgette Kaplan [best 7 inch ereader .TXT] 📗

Janet gestured out the viewing port, where the smoke of the bombardment lingered like morning mist. “What happens to them in this onslaught? Say you have a squadron of Marines cut off by enemy fire here.” She tapped a rooftop on the model city. That it was still standing while its scale approximation was rubble struck Wendy as slightly surreal; cut-rate David Lynch. “Or here, where you have hostages you want to extract. There, let’s say a high-value target who’s been taken captive, but needs to be transported away for interrogation. I know the major has aptly demonstrated that you can fire around them, but that doesn’t get them medical assistance.”

Pausing to see if anyone would take issue with her—and they didn’t—Janet reached into her pocket and brought out a scale model about the size of a Hot Wheels car.

“The NA-44 Hawkowl, our new helicopter, already in testing. It’s light, nimble, but with enough armor to withstand virtually any small-arms fire. You give it ten seconds, it can get in, defend itself with electronic and physical deterrence, and then evacuate with any asset you want. Because the enemy isn’t going to be a bunch of empty buildings. It’s going to be people. And to fight people, you need boots on the ground, and when you put boots on the ground, you need a way to get them back. Without getting brought down by a rickety Soviet RPG that any teenager can get off the Dark Web for two hundred bucks.”

Someone cleared his throat and Janet set herself, staring across the model at the Sikorsky representative. Janet had fired a shot across his bow, reminding everyone of his Blackhawks going down in Somalia. Even if she wasn’t looking to take his slice of the pie, he’d have to respond. “I’ve heard of your Hawkowl—a weapons platform with peashooters.”

“Less ordinance means more room for passengers, increased maneuverability. And we all know the future of directed munitions isn’t a man in a cockpit pushing a button on his joystick, it’s someone an ocean away on a computer telling a Predator drone to launch a Hellfire. But you can’t provide battlefield support with a laptop. The Hawkowl will let the aerial drones do what they do best, while increasing support for troops in the field. Better a master of one trade than a jack of all.”

The rep smiled tidily. That was the only way Wendy could think of it: tidy. “You paint your girl here as invincible against small-arms fire. Well, these ships won’t be going up against street gangs. What will your Hawkowl do when it’s targeted by enemy armor?”

“Explode, I expect. The same as your Blackhawks do. The Hawkowl isn’t a miracle, no weapons system is, but it can evade enemy fire, work in conjunction with escorts to—”

“The Blackhawk can engage enemy armor directly.”

“With all respect to a distinguished colleague, not very well. You don’t use a Swiss army knife to cut your steak and you don’t use a steak knife to open a bottle of wine. The Armed Forces can’t afford to pretend that one size fits all on the battlefield of the future. We need specialization.”

“Overspecialization,” the rep corrected.

“What war has ever been fought without a man holding a weapon? That man needs support, and the Hawkowl will give him support, not treat him as cargo. We’ve designed it with modular support for ambulatory duty, mass evacuation, even a skyhook system for supply delivery—”

“There’s also the RadarVoid system,” Wendy said.

Janet snapped to her, as shocked by Wendy’s voice as she would’ve been by her blood gushing over the floor. “Yes, the RadarVoid is one of many proprietary technologies being developed for future incarnations of the Hawkowl,” she said, trying to recover.

“And what’s it do, exactly?” the rep demanded.

“Large-caliber fire,” Wendy answered for Janet. “Which these days is all directed by electronics. The Hawkowl’s electronic signature is specifically designed to be easily spoofed, so with the RadarVoid system engaged, it’s impossible for the real one to be locked on to among a…a plethora of duplicates.”

“I’d like to see the data on that.”

“I have it right here,” Wendy said, taking Mary’s folder from her jacket. She dropped it on the model. “The Blackhawk simply can’t disguise its signature the way the Hawkowl was designed from the ground up to do. You’re looking at a helicopter that can’t be hit.”

The representative said nothing. Especially as the major stepped in and picked up the folder to read.

It was a long drive back to the hotel, even with an MP chauffeuring them.

“You’re upset,” Wendy said, much as she hated stating the obvious.

Janet was going through the RadarVoid report backwards and forwards, so fast and so intently it was like she was trying to commit suicide via papercut. “I’m not upset. I’m concerned. You’d know if I was upset.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I know I wasn’t supposed to tag myself in, but it shut him up, right? That was exactly the opening we needed to drop the bomb; I bet they’re saving their pennies for the Hawkowl as we speak.”

“You do understand that makes it worse, right?”

“Huh?” Wendy asked eloquently.

Janet rapped the sheaf of papers against Wendy’s knee. She lowered her voice. “I can’t speak to the efficacy of the RadarVoid system. If I knew it worked, fine, you spoke out of turn, it’s not a big deal. If it doesn’t work—”

“You think it doesn’t work?”

Janet lowered her voice even farther, shushing Wendy with the sheer intensity of her words. “I don’t know if it does or doesn’t. That’s what concerns me.”

Wendy flicked her finger against the papers. “Look at the tests. They all show it works fine.”

Janet let out a long-suffering sigh and paged through the reams of test results. “They all look aboveboard, but really read them. You know at Savin, our R&D department assigns every test a unique code. Month, day, year, hour, minute, second, location. Look here. D/C/16/I/AA/B/JJJ. So that’s April the third, 2016, 9:27:02 AM, and I believe the