they were in position to storm-climb up into an attack vector above and
behind the target.
They dropped to within feet of the ground, lifting and falling over the
undulating hills, so low that the herds of black Persian sheep scattered
beneath them as they shrieked eastwards towards the Jordan.
Hello, Bright Lance, this is Desert Flower, we are not tracking you.
Good, thought David, then neither is the enemy. Target is now hostile
in sector, the Brig gave the coordinates, Scan for your own contact.
Almost immediately Joe's voice came in. Leader, this is Two. I have a
contact. David dropped his eyes to his own radar screen and amputated
his scan as Joe called range and bearing. It was a dangerous
distraction when flying in the sticky phase of high subsonic drag at
zero feet, and his own screen was clear of contact.
They raced onwards for many more seconds before David picked up the
faint luminous fuzz at the extreme range of his set.
Contact firming. Range figures nine six nautical miles. Parallel
heading and track. Altitude 25, 5oo feett. David felt the first
familiar tingle and slither of his anger and hatred, like the cold of a
great snake uncoiling in his belly.
Beseder, Two. Lock to target and go to interception speed.
They went supersonic and David looked up ahead at the crests of the
thunderheads that reared up from the solid banks of cumulo nimbus lower
down. These mountainous upthrusts of silver and pale blue were
sculptured into wonderful shapes that teased the imagination towers and
turrets embattled and emblazoned, heroic human shapes standing proud or
hunched in the attitude of mourning, the rearing horsemen of the
chessboard, a great fleecy pack of wolves, and other animal shapes of
fantasy, with the deep crevasses between them bridged in splendour by
the rainbows. There were hundreds of these, great blazes of colour,
that turned and followed their progress across the sky, keeping majestic
station upon them. Above them, the sky was a dark unnatural blue,
dappled like a Windsor grey by the thin striation of the cirrocumulus,
and the sunlight poured down to shimmer upon the two speeding warplanes.
As yet there was no sight of the target. It was up there somewhere
amongst the cloud mountains. He looked back at his radar screen. He
had taken his radar out of scan and locked it into the target, and now
as they closed rapidly he could appraise their relative positions.
The target was flying parallel to them, twenty miles out on their
starboard side, and it was high above them and moving at a little more
than half their speed. The sun was beyond the target, just short of its
zenith, and David calculated his approach path to bring him into an
attack vector from above and into the target's starboard quarter.
Turning to starboard now, he warned Joe, and they came around together,
crossing the target's rear to put themselves in the sun. Joe was
calling the range and bearing, it showed a leisurely patrol pattern.
There was no indication as yet that the target was aware of the hunters
behind and far below.
Two, this is leader. Arm your circuits. Without taking his eyes from
the radar screen, David pressed the master switch on his weapon console.
