Invasion by DC ALDEN

Author:DC ALDEN [Alden, DC]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Double Tap Press

CHAPTER 48

SALISBURY PLAIN

The Airbus 330 Big Eye surveillance aircraft rotated off the runway at Heathrow and climbed into the dawn sky, headed due west.

The flight crew had been in-country for less than two hours when the call came to scramble, but the ground crew had already turned the aircraft around for rapid deployment and the Big Eye’s technicians and specialists were eager to get to work.

The captain’s name was Al-Sadir, and he pushed the throttles to their stops as the Airbus rumbled towards its operating altitude of thirty-thousand feet. The pre-flight mission briefing had been urgent and succinct—locate and track a stealth helicopter headed west. But Al-Sadir knew that finding a tiny helicopter cloaked with stealth technology was going to be difficult, even for the formidable electronic capabilities of the Big Eye.

As he dipped the nose and levelled out, he flexed his fingers inside his flying gloves. The military push to the north and west of England was supposed to begin after they had secured the major cities and before the enemy mustered their remaining forces. Al-Sadir expected to be patrolling the skies above London, protecting newly acquired caliphate airspace, but something had happened. Plans had changed. That is the nature of warfare, Al-Sadir knew. Besides, he liked a challenge, and this mission was important. Allegedly, the orders came from General Mousa himself.

If that was true, this was an opportunity to impress, and so the 42-year-old captain considered the advantages of the tactical situation. Electricity supplies were still cut off, which meant electronic ground emissions would be minimal. The cloudless skies had also been cleared of traffic, further de-cluttering the electronic landscape. The ground below, stretching towards the distant western horizon, was reasonably flat and lit by the rising sun behind him.

Conditions were almost perfect.

Yet Al-Sadir was a careful man, and the absence of enemy radar emissions troubled him. British armed forces had been dealt a massive blow, intelligence reported. Their communications had been crippled. Counter attacks had been few and disorganised. The RAF had been neutralised, and any surviving enemy aircraft were operating far to the north.

Al-Sadir wouldn’t dream of questioning military intelligence—not publicly—but as the Big Eye headed west, he felt the rush to deploy was a mistake, that potential threats had been considered and dismissed too easily. His feelings were irrelevant, however. The job was to find a rogue helicopter, and Al-Sadir intended to do that as fast as humanly possible.

The huge, grey Airbus was flying at just under thirty-thousand feet, level and smooth. It was time to go to work. He keyed his helmet mic.

‘This is the captain. We’ve achieved optimal speed and altitude.’

Behind him, inside the sophisticated main cabin, the Big Eye’s crew of eighteen technicians had calibrated their instruments and activated their search radars, sweeping the airspace and ground to the west.

Computers filtered the avalanche of information from multiple radar returns and sorted them into categories. Within 30 seconds, the techs interrogated several contacts. The software identified them as flocks of birds or similar anomalies, and the sweep continued.

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