This volume consolidates the first four volumes
by
- DAEDALUS: SWIC Basejump from Fred Noonan Skyport
- DAEDALUS LEO—SWIC drop from Low Earth Orbit
- DAEDALUS SQUAD—SWIC Squad drop from Low Earth Orbit
- DAEDALUS COMBAT—Combat drop from Low Earth Orbit
- The Daedalus Files: SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC)
Size: 9.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 151
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 158
Size: 6.00 x 9.00 in
Pages: 158
Can you drop from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) with just a hardshell wingsuit? Navy SEAL Derek “Tiger” Baily and his SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC) develop an experimental Gryphon hardshell wingsuit that can do just that. Eventually, when the presidential front-runner is seized by pirates for ransom, Baily’s 6-man SWIC team must hurtle around the world, staging critical re-entry for a rescue, challenged to solve life-or-death problems with only seconds to spare. Can they survive? Will they effect the rescue? Join Tiger Baily through all four adventures in sci-fi master Robert G. Williscroft’s Daedalus series, now collected for the first time as The Daedalus Files: SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC).
Publisher: Fresh Ink Group
Illustrators:
Cover Artists:
Genres:
Tropes: Born Hero, Fellowship, Person in Distress, Quest, Space Pilot, Training
Word Count: 36590
Setting: Earth, South Pacific, LEO, San Diego, Houston
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
Tropes: Born Hero, Fellowship, Person in Distress, Quest, Space Pilot, Training
Word Count: 36590
Setting: Earth, South Pacific, LEO, San Diego, Houston
Languages Available: English
Series Type: Same Universe / Various Characters
CHAPTER ONE
CALIFORNIA – SEVERAL YEARS IN THE PAST
Obviously, I survived, since I am telling this story. But it’s not that simple – let me explain.
My name is Derek Baily. I’m an extreme sports enthusiast, an adrenaline junkie. It all started several years ago when I made my first parachute jump. Before that, I was just your typical skateboarder, snowboarder, trick-bike rider…I think you get the idea. I had gone parasailing a couple of times, and it was really cool. I decided I wanted to do more of that and was talking it over with my buds. That’s when one of them suggested that I try a jump.
“Jump out of a perfectly safe airplane?” I asked, but only half in jest.
“How about next Saturday?” he said.
READ MOREYOSEMITE PARK – TWO YEARS LATER
One thing led to another, and a couple of years later, on May 16, I found myself standing on Taft Point in Yosemite National Park, dressed in a fire-engine-red wingsuit. It wasn’t as if I had permission or anything, it was just something I had to do. I was there to commemorate the ill-fated flight of Dean Potter and Graham Hunt from the same spot on the same day back in 2015. A couple of Forest Rangers with a bullhorn did their very best to stop me. They had followed me to the Point, and were perhaps three meters away, and I still wasn’t quite ready – I mean, I still had to narrow my focus. But it was then or never, so I jumped.
The first hundred meters were a bit rough as I got my act together. I would have flipped off the Rangers, but my hands were kinda full. My wingsuit was significantly better than was Potter’s. He had a three-to-one glide ratio – better than most, but not quite good enough to hit the slot that loomed ahead of me. It could have been a down-draft that got him and Hunt, but I think they cut it a bit too close. I had a glide ratio of five-to-one, which meant hitting the slot was a piece of cake. I cleared it by about a meter-and-a-half, with clear flying beyond. I stretched it out as long as possible, and finally popped my canopy as close to the ground as I dared – maybe a hundred meters or so. I landed standing, soft as a feather. By the time the Rangers got there, my pickup crew and I were long gone.
Like I said, that’s how I got from there to here.
CORONADO, CALIFORNIA – THE GRYPHON
The worldwide wingsuit community is quite small, although it has grown in the last few decades. Even so, there were less than a thousand of us – that is until the military figured out how to turn our sport into a pretty nifty weapon system with a little help from the Special Parachute and Logistics Consortium (SPELCO) in Germany. SPELCO had built an experimental wingsuit called the Gryphon that, in its original version, had a glide ratio of five-to-one – when everything else was between two-and-a-half and three to one. It was pretty exciting, except no one could afford one. It turned out the Navy SEAL Teams picked up on the concept, and quietly developed a combat model.
Someone in the SEAL hierarchy concluded it might be useful to recruit guys from the wingsuit community. They even put together a special program that bypassed regular boot camp and all the other stuff a guy normally goes through before being assigned to BUDS – Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. About a year after I shot the slot in Yosemite, I found myself in Coronado, California, training with a bunch of the toughest bad-asses I had ever met. BUDS was the hardest thing I ever did, literally, absolutely! Somehow I made it through. Don’t ask me how I did it, because I don’t have a clue. I just put one foot in front of the other, raised my arms for one more stroke in the surf, dug down and found another push-up…I just slogged along, firmly believing I was sucking hind tit, barely surviving, hoping against hope that I would make it through.
As it turned out, to my total astonishment, I was one of the top guys in my class. Beyond BUDS, I went through a whole series of advanced training scenarios. Even though I had been recruited specifically for my wingsuit background, the SEALs insisted that I undergo the entire training cycle. Two years later – yeah, that’s right, a full two years later – I finally reported to my new outfit, the SEAL Winged Insertion Command, SWIC for short.
COLLAPSEBig Dan on Amazon reader review wrote:Williscroft's usual attention to technical detail and firsthand experience with military ops pays off in these wild tales set in the world of his Slingshot, about the first wingsuit jump from a launch loop, then from LEO, followed by a squad of jumpers, and finally, their jump into live combat. The idea of jumping from orbit using little more than a spacesuit and a re-entry pack goes back at least to Heinlein's Starship Troopers, and I've used it myself, but Williscroft puts a new twist on it as Navy SEAL "Tiger" Baily makes the jump first from 80 km and then LEO. Another fun ride, if your idea of fun includes death-defying action. The test and training runs are over; now it's time for the SWIC to see real action. . . .
Kenneth A. Weene on Amazon reader review wrote:“The Daedalus Files” is actually four novelettes presented as chapters in this slender volume. Derrick “Tiger” Baily and his SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC) develop the hardshell wingsuit called Gryphon. Baily first, and then his SWIC team, drop from 80 km up from Slingshot, the space launch loop in the equatorial Pacific that Williscroft details in his novel titled “Slingshot.” Then Baily and his team launch into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) from Slingshot, and then drop to Earth, traveling at times very much faster than the speed of sound. Of course, they meet and solve a myriad of problems during development.
The Gryphon hardshell wingsuit actually exists, and I understand it is being developed for capabilities similar to what Williscroft has put in “The Daedalus Files.” The science and engineering in this book are real. The action is edge-of-your-seat from the first page. Baily and his team members are amazing warriors, and yet they come across as real people. The paramedic Apryl, who plays a role in Williscroft’s “Slingshot,” provides a delightful genuine female presence in these stories.
I won’t present a spoiler, but suffice it to say that the SWIC team drops into combat from LEO at 6,800 meters-per-second and runs into problems that need almost instant solving for them to survive. WOW!
If you like hard science fiction and high adventure, this is one for you.
Mark VandeRiet on Amazon editorial review wrote:Once again Robert G. Williscroft proves himself a master of scientific detail. However fascinating those details may be, this collection of four short stories is ultimately about human masculinity. In an age of softness and feminization, a time when emotions are regnant and every child wins a trophy, Williscroft unapologetically writes of the masculine imperative to take part in events, to take effective action against threat, and, yes, to push oneself even into danger in pursuit of that adrenaline-fueled wellbeing that it the “true man.” If you like to imagine yourself facing danger with coolness and a can-do attitude, these are stories you will enjoy. And, the fascinating technology Williscroft brings to your attention becomes just an added bonus.
Highly recommended for anyone who enjoys hard science fiction of the highest caliber. “The Daedalus Files” combine four novelettes into one volume. They tell the story of Derrick “Tiger” Baily and his SEALS Winged Insertion Command (SWIC) as they develop the Gryphon. The Gryphon is a hardshell wingsuit that enables the SWIC team members to launch into Low Earth Orbit from Slingshot. Slingshot is the space launch loop in the equatorial Pacific that Williscroft details in his novel with the same name (“Slingshot”), and then drop to Earth anywhere on the planet.
The Science in this is real, the engineering is real, and the Gryphon hardshell wingsuit actually exists. You’ll get to know Tiger and his team members as real people and highly competent warriors. I promise you that you’ll love the paramedic Apryl, who joins these stories from Williscroft’s “Slingshot”.
You’ve probably heard the expression that the best laid battle plans dissolve when the actual battle starts. It’s no different here. When dropping from 160 klicks above the Earth traveling at 6800 meters per second, anything can happen. How Tiger and his SWIC team members handle the inevitable problems makes these stories tense and very exciting. Again, highly recommended!!
