Kill Zone (A Spider Shepherd Short Story) Read Online Free PDF Page B

somewhere.
    ‘It’s a long
flight, Jock,’ said Shepherd. ‘To save weight we could cut back on the crew.’
 
    Jock nodded. The
Chinook would normally be crewed by four men - two pilots and two crewmen, with
the second pilot acting as navigator. ‘We can take three pilots and use one of
them as a navigator. But Spider’s right, with all the fuel and equipment we’ll
need, it’s going to be a heavy flight.’ He looked across at Captain Todd.
‘You’ve not been on one of these super-heavy flights before, have you? Just so
you know, when it’s fully loaded - and on this flight it’ll probably be
overloaded -   the Chinook pilots
achieve take off by rolling along the runway until they’ve built up enough
momentum and sufficient lift to get airborne. It can be a bit scary if you’re
not expecting it.’
    ‘What about the
landing zone?’ asked the Captain.
    ‘The best type of
LZ is a dome-shaped feature because then the wind will usually dissipate the
sound of the heli, making it very difficult for Taliban spotters or sentries to
pinpoint where it is,’ said Geordie.  ‘We’ve often found that it’s
impossible to even detect whether a heli is there at all until you can get
visual on it, and since we’ll be night-flying without navigation lights, the
Taliban will probably have to be sitting on the same hilltop to spot us.’ 
    ‘It also gives us
a further advantage,’ Shepherd said, ‘because with a feature that’s accessible
from all directions, even if we’re observed landing, it’s impossible for anyone
to predict in what direction we’re going to move away from there.’
    The Captain
nodded. It was clear from his expression that this was all very new to him.
    They began pouring
over a large-scale map of the area around the target. ‘For us to be absolutely
certain that the Chinook won’t be detected by anyone at or near the target, the
LZ needs to be a minimum of ten kilometres away,’ said Jock. ‘Let’s say twelve
clicks for safety.’
    ‘Which might make
this,’ Todd said, tapping the map at a point where the contour lines indicated
a roughly round-topped hill with steep, but usable slopes on all sides, ‘a very
plausible LZ.’
    Shepherd glanced
at it. ‘Looks good to me,’ he said. ‘What about getting to the site? We’re
going on foot?’
    Jock shook his
head. ‘With the extra fuel tank filling the load space, we don’t have the room
or the weight allowance to use quad bikes.   And because it’s a cross-border op, all our kit and
particularly anything we’re leaving behind, needs to be non-attributable. I’m
thinking 50cc mopeds.’
    Geordie laughed
out loud. ‘You’re taking the piss, right?’
    ‘I’m serious,
mate,’ said Jock.   ‘They’re small,
quiet and relatively light, and they’re similar to the ones the Taliban use.
That’ll be a big plus if we get spotted by the muj. The heli will land on the
Afghan side of the border and we’ll cross on the bikes.’
    ‘It’s not a great
distance,’ Todd said. ‘As you’d expect, the clearing house is very close to the
border.’ He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘It works for me.’
    Jock nodded.
‘Now, Comms. Because weight is an absolute premium we will not be taking any
comms kit other than our Personal Locator Beacons.  Once activated, the
PLBs send out a pulse signal which will be picked up on a pre-determined
frequency by a Nimrod or AWACs aircraft.  Activating a single PLB at the selected
time will indicate that everything is OK. If more than one PLB is activated at
any other time, it will be an emergency signal and the Nimrod will send the
Chinook back to the   area. It will
do a linear approach along the route we are exiting for an immediate pick up.
All we have to do is hit a valley and go along it and the Chinook will find
us. For short range comms to the Chinook there is a voice capability to
talk the heli in to the LZ.’
    Todd cleared his
throat. ‘Yes, Captain?’ Shepherd said.
    ‘I