Read Online Strike Zone by Dale Brown - Free Book Online

it’s used as a spy plane—well, then you have an enormous data flow, don’t you? Bandwidth—you understand what I’m talking about.”
    Stoner nodded. The scientists had emphasized earlier that massive amounts of data flowed back and forth very quickly between the Flighthawks and theirmother ships. To be honest, Stoner didn’t completely get it—what was the big deal about some video and flying instructions? But it was enough to know that they said it was significant.
    â€œAll of that is going to take custom-designed chips, both for the communications and for the onboard computer. Because it will have to have an onboard computer,” said Rubeo. “That’s what you have to look for. That’s the defining characteristic.”
    â€œOkay, so who could do that?” said Stoner.
    Rubeo shook his head. “Weren’t you paying attention? We can. The Japanese. The Chinese. Not the Russians.”
    â€œNo one else?”
    Rubeo fingered his earring again. “Maybe India. Some of the Europeans, possibly. There are good fab plants in Germany. They’ve done memory work there as well. The processor, though.”
    Rubeo seemed to be having a conversation with himself that Stoner couldn’t hear. He segued into contract factories or fabs that fabricated chips for custom applications. A small number of concerns could manufacture specially designed chips. They needed special clean rooms and elaborate tools, but if there was enough money, existing machinery could be adapted.
    â€œWhat if I look for those?” Stoner asked Rubeo.
    â€œYou don’t really suppose they’re going to tell you what they’re doing, do you?”
    â€œI’m in the business of gathering information,” said Stoner.
    Rubeo made a noise that sounded a bit like the snort of a horse. “There are several facilities in America that could do the work. More than two dozen that I canthink of off the top of my head. Any of them would be willing to design the proper chips for a foreign government if the price were right.”
    â€œI’ll check them first,” said Stoner. “Unless they’re already doing work for us.”
    â€œWhy would that be a limiting factor?” said Rubeo, the cynical tone in his voice implying that greed would motivate any number of people to sell out their country.
    Dreamland Ground Range Three
2100
    S ERGEANT B EN “ B OSTON” Rockland got to his feet slowly. The rest of his team lay around him, officially “dead.” Their objective—carrying a small amount of radioactive soil back from enemy lines for testing—had not been met.
    Boston—as the nickname suggested, the sergeant was a Beantown native—picked up the ruck containing the soil. The desert before him was dotted with small rubber balls with nails sticking out from them—simulated cluster bomblets, representing air-dropped antipersonnel mines with proximity fuses. The little suckers worked too—as soon as you got within five feet, an ear-piercing siren sounded, and the range monitor proclaimed you were dead.
    Not dead, actually. Just maimed. The range monitor seemed to take a perverse joy in announcing which particular body part it was that had been blown off.
    There seemed to be no way across the minefield. Yet to get to the objective—a small orange cone about a quarter mile away—he had to cross it.
    As Boston stared, he heard the roar of the returning Osprey gunship. Sergeant Liu had explained earlier that the aircraft was programmed to orbit the test range randomly. He’d also warned that the massive Gatlings were firing live ammunition.
    The Osprey swung forward in a wide arc, hunting for a target. Boston had seen from the exercises earlier that it would home in on small reflectors that the people running the exercise had planted around the field. It wasn’t clear to him whether the red disks had some circuitry inside, or