Delta Blue

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Above the canopy was utter blackness.

There was no moon, and the skies were overcast. Not even starshine for orientation.

A perfect night.

Below, on McKenna’s far left, was a smattering of lights. Bernburg, probably, but he wasn’t paying much attention to the peripheral towns. The lights of a few boats sketched the course of the Saale River.

Directly ahead of him, the red digital numerals of the Heads Up Display floated in space and registered in his mind. Altitude, 1,150 feet. Heading, 012 degrees. Speed, 650 knots. The tailpipe and skin temperatures were low. The bird was coasting.

The instrument panel below provided readouts in blue digital numerals and letters, many of them duplicates of what appeared on the HUD. Centered in the panel was the eight-inch cathode ray tube that repeated the imaging mode selected by the WSO, the weapons system operator in the back seat of the tandem cockpit. The screen had direct visual, map overlay, radar, infrared, and night-vision capability and currently was displaying the pale green images picked up by the night-sight lens mounted in the nose. The lens multiplied ambient light 40,000 times and provided them with a view of the ground that was almost as good as daylight.

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