Chapter 311: The Transport Plane

Hans reached the Main Base Airfield early the next morning.

Callum walked a step behind him as usual.

Farther back, Specter Squad followed as one group. Specter led Chancel, Warden and Harrow toward the cleared fixed-wing section while the ground crews continued preparing the area.

One of the positions had already been reserved for Hans. Nothing occupied the marked section yet, although a ground crew stood nearby with no aircraft to service.

Dianne stopped beside him.

"Flight Operations has the slot reserved."

Hans opened the aircraft list.

He passed the Raptors, Phantoms and everything else until he reached the section he had ignored since Rank Four.

------

[ Unique Commander Asset ]

[ Commander Transport Plane ]

Status: Undeployed

Role:

Secure Long-Range Commander Transport

Airfield Requirement:

1 Fixed-Wing Slot

Quantity:

1

[ Deploy? ]

------

He had received this thing when he became a Battalion Commander. Then he proceeded to spend the next several weeks flying around in Falcons.

He felt stupid after recalling his decisions.

Dianne looked at him. "Commander?"

"Nothing. Let’s deploy it now."

Hans pressed yes.

------

[ Commander Transport Plane ]

Deployment Confirmed

------

The deployment finished on the empty position.

Hans had expected something much larger from the name.

It wasn’t small, but compared to the Valkyries and some of the heavier aircraft occupying other parts of the Airfield, it looked surprisingly normal.

The aircraft had a long, narrow fuselage with swept wings mounted low along the body and two engines fixed near the rear. Most of the exterior was painted in a flat dark gray, broken only by the black cockpit windows around the nose.

A short row of small rectangular windows ran along the forward half of the cabin. There were fewer toward the rear, where most of the space seemed to be taken up by equipment and storage instead.

The fuselage was roughly the size of a small passenger aircraft, its body shaped more for speed and range than carrying troops or equipment.

There were no weapon mounts anywhere that Hans could see.

A boarding stair lowered near the front. Four crew members were already waiting beside it.

Specter Squad spread naturally around the aircraft while Hans inspected it. Chancel and Warden moved toward opposite sides of the apron while Harrow remained near the stair. Specter stayed close enough to follow Hans once they boarded.

Callum never moved more than a few steps away from him.

Hans opened the aircraft’s information.

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[ Aircraft Type: Commander Transport Plane ]

[ Classification ]

Unique Commander Asset

[ Assignment ]

Commander-Held

[ Crew ]

4 Personnel

Pilot

Copilot

Flight Systems Specialist

Communications Specialist

[ Passenger Capacity ]

24 Personnel

[ Flight Characteristics ]

Normal Cruise: approximately 900 km/h

Maximum Speed: approximately 950 km/h

Planning Range: approximately 8,000 kilometers

[ Mission Facilities ]

Pressurized Strategic-Transport Cabin

Secure Conference / Planning Compartment

Commander Work / Rest Compartment

Emergency Medical / Stabilization Station

Secure Equipment Storage

[ Command and Communications Systems ]

Hardened System Communications

Secure Conventional Communications

Mission / Planning Displays

Authorized Command Information Mirroring through Tactical Data Mesh when connectivity permits

[ Defensive Systems ]

Radar-Warning Receiver

Laser-Warning Receiver

Missile-Approach Warning

Electronic Countermeasures

DIRCM / Infrared Missile-Seeker Disruption

Chaff / Flare Dispensers

Redundant Flight Controls

Critical-System Protection

[ Offensive Armament ]

None

[ System Sensor Integration ]

Aircraft does not generate a Physical Radar domain.

Commander’s existing Virtual Radar will be used while aboard if no other Radar source nearby exists.

------

Hans looked at the range again—eight thousand kilometers.

He looked toward Dianne. "What’s the purpose of this Planning Range?"

"It’s the distance Flight Operations can normally build a mission around while preserving the reserves needed for diversion, approach and landing," Dianne explained. "It isn’t the exact distance where the aircraft runs out of fuel. Weather, routing and other conditions can change how much of it is usable."

"So basically, eight thousand kilometers is what we’re comfortable planning around."

"Yes, Commander."

"Then I’ve deployed this far too late."

Hans went up the stairs. Callum followed immediately.

Specter waited until Chancel, Warden and Harrow had finished their quick sweep around the aircraft before all four came aboard behind them.

The inside made the mistake even more obvious.

This wasn’t a troop transport.

The forward section held several seats arranged around a wide table with displays built into its surface. Another compartment farther in looked more like a small office than part of an aircraft.

Hans opened the door.

There was a desk inside, another screen, storage along the wall and a narrow bed fixed into one side.

Callum looked inside from behind him.

Hans turned toward Dianne, who remained near the boarding stair.

"I could’ve been sleeping on flights, and yet you didn’t remind me."

Dianne remained near the entrance.

"Yes."

Hans shut the door again.

There was a small medical section toward the rear, secure storage, more passenger seating and enough room to move around without stepping over somebody’s equipment.

Specter Squad had already taken several seats around the cabin, spread far enough apart that no single section of the interior was left completely unattended.

Callum took the seat closest to Hans’s compartment.

It couldn’t carry large amounts of troops or armor, but that wasn’t what this transport plane was for.

The thing existed so Hans could travel thousands of kilometers without treating every trip like another deployment.

He opened his aircraft list again. The new Rank Five asset sat immediately below it.

------

[ Strategic Airborne Command Post ]

Status:

Undeployed

------

Hans closed it. That one could stay where it was.

He wasn’t moving an entire headquarters today. He was going to a mountain to retrieve some "rock."

The flight crew finished their checks while Hans looked around the cabin one more time.

He should have deployed this thing weeks ago.

"All checks are ready, Commander. We can depart on your command."

"Let’s go."

The boarding stair folded back into the fuselage and the door sealed behind it.

Hans took the nearest window seat instead of going into his compartment.

Callum sat across the aisle.

Specter Squad remained farther back, already settled in for the flight.

The engines had already been running quietly outside, but their sound deepened as the aircraft began moving from the parking position. It followed the taxiway toward the active runway, slowing only once before turning onto it.

Then the engines climbed sharply.

Hans felt himself pushed against the seat as the aircraft accelerated.

The Main Base structures outside the window started sliding past faster and faster until individual buildings became difficult to follow.

The nose rose.

A moment later, the runway disappeared beneath them.

The aircraft climbed much more smoothly than the Falcons Hans had gotten used to. There was none of the constant rotor vibration running through the floor, and once they leveled out, the only obvious sign that they were moving at all was the low engine noise and the ground shrinking through the window.

Hans watched Main Base fall behind.

At nine hundred kilometers per hour, places that once took hours to reach by convoy were becoming short flights.

...

Hans spent the first part of the trip moving between the compartments like someone inspecting a new apartment.

Callum followed him for most of it without saying anything.

The Flight Systems Specialist followed nearby, keeping enough distance that Hans didn’t feel watched while remaining close enough whenever he had a question.

Eventually, Hans returned to the forward table.

"How fast are we moving now?"

The specialist checked one of the displays.

"Eight hundred eighty kilometers per hour, Commander. We’ll settle close to normal cruise once we finish the climb."

Hans looked toward the window. The speed was difficult to feel from inside.

"How visible are we to Radar?"

"We’re not a stealth aircraft, Commander. If a capable Radar has coverage of us, we should assume they can detect the aircraft. Our defensive systems are designed to warn us, complicate tracking and interfere with missile engagement rather than make the aircraft disappear."

"So if somebody fires at us?"

"Radar and laser warning will alert the crew. Missile warning covers incoming threats. We have electronic countermeasures, chaff, flares and infrared seeker disruption."

"And no weapons."

"No offensive weapons."

Hans nodded.

The plane wasn’t supposed to fly into an enemy air-defense network and fight its way through. It was supposed to avoid needing to.

He sat at the table near the front and opened the map.

The aircraft itself didn’t create another Radar domain around him. Hans’s own Virtual Radar remained centered on him as usual, while the displays could receive whatever authorized information reached them through the existing command network.

Saicine appeared farther north.

The city had become one of the easiest places on the map to recognize. The harbor was blue, Golden Eagle positions spread through several districts, and the Airfield stood inland from the coast.

Farther northeast, the picture became thinner.

Marianne’s forces had already settled on an area near Pylow City.

Only a smaller detachment remained behind around the PCL sites with the Engineers still working on repairs.

PCL-1 sat northeast of the others.

Hans enlarged it and saw six gray markers that remained inside.

Somewhere deeper inside the mountain was the reason he was going there personally.

The shards had been completely written off his list after a while. He was unsure where the rest of the meteorites went, but the scarcity of them made him wonder what truly happened to its other fragments.

...

They landed at Saicine instead of continuing toward the mountains.

The Commander Transport Plane needed a runway and the PCL sites didn’t have one.

Hans stepped down from the aircraft with Callum beside him. Specter Squad followed after.

A Falcon was already waiting on another section of the Airfield.

Saicine’s Flight Operations had arranged the transfer before he arrived.

Behind them, the Commander Transport Plane cleared the arrival area and taxied toward one of the empty hangar bays.

Specter moved ahead with Chancel and Warden toward the Falcon while Harrow remained behind Hans and Callum.

There wasn’t much reason to stay in Saicine.

Felix already had his orders. The city was stable enough for now, and Hans had no interest in turning the stop into another meeting simply because he happened to be there.

Hans crossed the apron toward the Falcon while Callum stayed beside him.

The others were already boarding when they reached it.

The Falcon lifted a few minutes later.

The coastline disappeared behind them, and soon the mountains appeared in his view.