make sure they didn’t lose.
“Something’s wrong,” said Lieutenant Burgadish from the backseat as he checked the long-range search radar.
“What do you got?”
“Not sure... Wait. Thought so. It’s a second wave. The ones the 402 are fighting are decoys... Here they come. Missiles. Ground-to-ground missiles, headed for TAB-14, fast.”
“Does the base know they’re coming? How’s their interceptor deployment look?”
“Doesn’t look like they’ll make it in time.”
Yukikaze accelerated, climbing into the airspace above TAB-14. Rei tried to identify the approaching enemy missiles in the tactical data bank, but the result came back as UNKNOWN. He switched the MFD to moving target indicator mode.
Eighteen enemy missiles, closing.
“Damn, they’re fast. That’s an ultra-high velocity. Looks like the JAM have a new missile, Lieutenant Fukai.”
“Activate the TARPS. Get a shot of them.”
“Activating TARPS.”
The swarm of missiles crossed hundreds of kilometers in what seemed like a matter of seconds. As he banked Yukikaze Rei could see them arcing toward TAB-14 with his own eyes. They plunged toward the base, looking like red comets or meteors, long, fiery tails stretching out behind them. The tails were not formed by the exhaust gases from the warheads’ rocket engines: the missiles were flying so fast that they were glowing red hot just from the air friction generated by their passage.
TAB-14 was annihilated in an instant. No trace remained of the buildings on the surface. An enormous crater on the base’s broad runway marked the spot where the interceptor squadron, the 401st TFS, had been hot fueling for its takeoff. Yukikaze silently recorded the devastation with her TARPS cameras.
“With that kind of velocity, they don’t even need an explosive. The shock wave alone blew everything away.”
“Lieutenant Fukai, third wave of enemy missiles, incoming. They’re antiaircraft, moving much slower than the GTGM just now, but they’re three times faster than the norm. The 402nd’s in danger.”
“Tell them to take evasive action. PAN, code U.”
“Roger.” Burgadish got on the guard frequency. “PAN, PAN, PAN. 402 TFS. This is Yukikaze, B-503. PAN, PAN, PAN. Code U, Uniform, Uniform.”
The 402nd leader received the emergency message from Yukikaze at the same instant that his own plane’s alert system sounded its warning. He immediately began evasive maneuvers, but he had no idea what the approaching threat actually was.
“JAM antiair missiles?”
He scanned his surroundings to try to visually acquire the missiles. It was hard, but you could usually spot them from the faint contrails they left. If he could see them, he was sure he could evade them.
There they were, coming at him from six o’clock low. But... what were they? They were moving fast, more like laser beams than missiles.
He never had time to dodge. A split second after he’d sighted the missiles, he and his plane were consumed in an explosion.
“Nineteen 402nd planes down. No survivors,” Lieutenant Burgadish stated impassively.
“Roger,” Rei replied. “No point hanging around here. RTB.”
“More JAM, closing. Range 120 klicks. There are three large units, possibly missile carriers. No escorts. They’re just flying along, like they don’t even care if they’re attacked.”
“Are they where those AAMs were launched from? Do they just shoot until they’re empty? What are they after now?”
“They may still have more missiles. Hell, the planes themselves may be giant bombs... Looks like the survivors of the 402 are moving to intercept.”
The five remaining units of the 402nd reformed then turned toward the three massive JAM aircraft, firing medium-range missiles as they closed the 100-kilometer range to the enemy. But the 402nd’s missiles didn’t even go thirty klicks before they were destroyed by the much faster interceptors the JAM had launched nearly simultaneously. The 402nd planes began to withdraw. They were quickly picked off from behind, gone in flashes of light and flame. Black smoke filled the sky.
“All remaining 402 units destroyed.”
“Fands are an older plane. To hit an enemy like that we need more power and maneuverability. Something like the Flip Knight system might work.”
“Unmanned aircraft?” Burgadish said doubtfully. “They could act as decoys to draw off the missiles. Then once the JAM’ve exhausted their payloads — Lieutenant, they’ve locked on! Engage!”
Their RWR had picked up the waves of enemy targeting radar. Rei sent Yukikaze into a sliceback and then ran the throttle to MAX, fleeing the oncoming enemy.
“Two high-velocity missiles, closing from the rear at a little over two-point-one. Range forty klicks, approximately ten seconds to impact. The second one’s six klicks behind it and will hit three seconds after.”
Yukikaze fled at a speed of over a thousand meters per second, the JAM missiles tearing after her.
“We’re not going to make it.”
“Yukikaze isn’t a Fand.”
Rei hit the emergency jettison switch, dumping the TARPS pod, then fired six medium-range missiles as decoys and activated ECM. No effect.
Taking his hand from the throttle, he reached down to the panel near his left knee and flipped the V-max switch. This cut out the limiters on Yukikaze’s twin engines, squeezing power from them beyond their designed safety limits.
Auto-maneuver system, ON. Yukikaze was now free from Rei’s control, and in a fraction of second had used all her sensor data to formulate the sequence of maneuvers that would save them from the JAM missiles.
The moment Rei released the side stick, Yukikaze abrubtly yawed to starboard, her attitude unchanged. Rei was thrown against the left side of his seat. The G-forces were terrific; he felt like his internal organs were being crushed.
The JAM missile passed by them barely 110 meters away on the left side and self-destructed. Yukikaze pitched and shuddered in the shock wave of the explosion.
A warning tone sounded in Rei’s helmet, signaling the approach of the second missile.
Rei steeled himself. They were going to die.
Ejection at this point was impossible. Yukikaze’s ejection seats had no capsules to protect them; firing them at supersonic speed was tantamount to suicide.
He watched the rapidly moving symbol on the MTI and relinquished it to Yukikaze to deal with.
It took a second for her to correct her attitude after having been hit by the explosion shock wave. Two seconds to impact. Evasion was impossible.
Yukikaze initiated an offensive combat maneuver.
Rei wasn’t expecting it. He was suddenly pressed into his seat, the G-forces seeming to crush his eyeballs back into his skull. His vision blacked out. He had an instant’s impression that all his blood had turned solid and impossibly heavy — then he lost consciousness.
Yukikaze then did something Rei would have thought impossible.
Dropping her engine power to idle, she slewed around her center of gravity, spinning 180 degrees like a top, letting the momentum remaining from her forward velocity carry her backwards tail-first through the sky at subsonic speed. She was now confronting the enemy missile nose-on.
RDY GUN. Ultra high-velocity auto-fire control system, activated. Eighty rounds from the nose cannon slammed into the enemy missile in 1.4 seconds.
The missile detonated 0.2 seconds from impact.
Yukikaze returned to her previous attitude shortly before Rei regained consciousness. She had automatically assumed a return course to base.
Fighting down a wave of nausea, Rei immediately checked the master caution light panel. Nav and electrical
