kill.
The horizon steadied, and Tad took a moment to find out where he was and where he was headed. He turned southeast, heading back for the airfield, now only twenty or so kilometers away. His Eagle’s response was unusual, though, with the bank almost turning into another spin. He had to apply positive pressure to hold the nose up and keep the plane from turning to port. He’d taken the blast on that side. Drag from damaged, fragment-torn skin was certainly pulling the aircraft in that direction.
With the F-15 in moderately controlled flight, he quickly scanned his cockpit instruments. The nav system was out, as were the stores panel and the artificial horizon. Port engine rpm were down by over fifty percent, and the turbofan also had an elevated tailpipe temperature. Some of the warhead fragments must have sliced into that engine. He was lucky they hadn’t connected with one of the fans. Time to shut it down, he thought, no questions asked.
As he pulled back on the port throttle with his left hand, he advanced the starboard engine power a little more. When he checked his fuel status, he saw that his port wing tank was empty. More holes.
That was bad. Even though each had been only a few minutes long, those two earlier afterburner blasts had already taken a big bite out of his fuel supply. Losing what was left in the port tank wasn’t going to help. The gauge showed twelve hundred pounds remaining. If he could set the jet down fast, that should be enough. But getting the Eagle down fast might be a big if.
Intending to request a straight-in approach, he called the Wroclaw tower.
The base ground controller answered instead, using the tower frequency. “Zebra One, divert to Lask. We are under artillery barrage.” The controller’s rapid words, almost slurred in his haste, also carried fear. “We’ve already lost the tower, Zebra, and now our SAM batteries are being hit. Wroclaw is closed!”
Tad felt panic rising inside, and controlled it only with effort. How had the enemy moved that close? A breakthrough? It didn’t matter — certainly not to him right now. Lask was 150 kilometers to the east. He couldn’t make it anywhere but the base. He was running out of both gas and airplane.
“Negative divert, Ground.” He checked his instruments one more time, making sure. “Insufficient fuel and aircraft damage. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in the air. Is the runway clear?” Tad didn’t mention the pain in his head. He wasn’t bleeding, and seemed to be able to fly. Besides, he thought darkly, he’d probably be killed trying to put the half-wrecked F-15 down anyway.
“Affirmative, Zebra. No damage yet. There’s no other traffic, and you are cleared for a straight-in approach. Good luck.”
Tad clicked his microphone switch twice, then concentrated on flying the aircraft. He retrimmed it, since it was taking even more pressure to keep the nose up and straight.
He scanned the countryside. Tad knew the Wroclaw region well, but he couldn’t see the airfield. A gray- brown haze hung over the whole area, and only long practice let him make a visual approach.
Finally, at half the normal distance, he spotted the long, friendly ribbon of runway. He dropped his landing gear, and was pleasantly surprised to see three green lights on the panel. Gear down. He started to ease down the flaps, but the Eagle almost fell out of control to the left again. Something was jammed or damaged on the port side.
There was no need to throttle back. With one engine and a port yaw, he was already at minimum flying speed.
Although his attention was on the runway, Tad could see the rest of the base. Bustling, if battered, when he’d left just over an hour ago, it was now deserted, with no sign of human life or other aircraft. Standard procedure when an air base came under ground attack was to evacuate immediately. He’d even participated in drills where they’d moved the entire regiment. But this wasn’t a drill. The 11th Fighter Regiment was gone. He felt suddenly adrift.
As he watched, two shells landed near the hangars. Earth fountained up, spilling away from bright orange balls of flame. The explosions were audible even over the noise of his jet engine.
His lineup was good, and Tad nursed the damaged F-15 down gently. He had twice the runway he needed, so he took his time. He had a good descent rate. There was only a little crosswind. Nothing fancy, Tad thought, just plant this thing and taxi quickly under cover.
The runway’s rough, gray surface appeared under his wheels, and he smoothly brought the Eagle down. He felt the first touch of the wheels as they kissed the concrete, then pulled up gently to flare and slow the airplane.
A loud bang threw the Eagle off course, and Tad tried desperately to stop the sudden turn as his fighter spun to port. For an instant, he thought an artillery shell had landed nearby, but then he realized that his left tire had blown. Damaged by missile fragments, it had shredded itself under stress, and the port landing gear was now nothing more than a steel pipe, dragging on the ground in a shower of sparks.
Wojcik instinctively chopped the throttle and rode the right brake hard. In the half-second it had taken for him to understand what had happened, the crippled Eagle had already completed a full circle and was starting on another, with no perceptible loss in speed. A horrible scraping, grating sound fed his fear.
The F-15’s main gear strut, abused and maybe damaged itself, gave way, tearing out of the wheel well and taking part of the mechanism with it. His port wing tip dropped to the ground, tipping the plane over. Praying hard, Tad reached for the ejection handle and then stopped. With the wing dragging on the ground, the aircraft was slowing more rapidly. He decided to ride it out.
After another very bumpy half-circle, the Eagle finally stopped moving, surrounded in a cloud of what Tad hoped was dust and not smoke. He hit the canopy release, but it didn’t work. The backup release, driven by a battery, did.
As the dust-streaked canopy bubble whined upward, he hurriedly disconnected his harness, g-suit, and microphone leads. He remembered to grab the maps and other papers in the cockpit, then squeezed out through the opening as it widened and dropped to the ground.
Tad’s only thought was to get away from the still very flammable airplane, with its jet fuel and oxygen systems and missile warheads. He scrambled upright and started to run for the nearest shelter. Then he saw a GAZ jeep hurtling across the airfield, straight toward him.
It braked just a few meters short of him, and a technical sergeant he recognized, one of the regiment’s maintenance staff, jumped out — grabbing a gasoline-filled jerrycan on the way. “You all right, sir?”
When he nodded, still a little dizzy, the sergeant pointed him toward the jeep. “Hop in, quick.”
Leaving Tad still standing in a daze, the maintenance tech ran toward the wrecked F-15. Pulling down the Eagle’s built-in access ladder, he used it to climb up to the cockpit, and opened the jerrycan. He sloshed gasoline over the seat and instrument panels, then splashed more onto the upper fuselage — as far as he could reach. Then he jumped down, still holding the open can.
More shells hammered the far side of the field, setting several buildings ablaze. Tad watched the sergeant’s bizarre actions for about two seconds, uncomprehending. Then, as he realized what was happening, and where he was, he scrambled into the jeep, the pain in his head completely forgotten.
The maintenance sergeant took one step under the F-15’s tilted wings, set the can down and deliberately tipped it over. Gasoline poured out, spreading across the runway beneath the plane.
Satisfied, the sergeant trotted back to the jeep, slid behind the wheel, and backed up a little further, angling upwind.
He drew and loaded a flare pistol.
Tad looked at the broken Eagle, sitting just off the runway. It had probably been almost a loss anyway, but the only reason to burn a plane was to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. German and French tanks must be close.
The sergeant’s flare drew a straight, bright line from the pistol’s muzzle to the fighter’s forward fuselage. As it burst, the gasoline, already partially in vapor form, ignited in an orange-red cloud with an explosive
The maintenance tech already had the jeep turning and speeding away. “We’re evacuating, sir. All the flyable aircraft have already left. The rest of the regiment will be gone in a few hours. You’re 1st Squadron, right?”
Tad nodded, then winced as his injured neck sent what felt like a red-hot nail stabbing into his skull.
“They’re still here, over at the ops building.” Once away from the burning aircraft, the sergeant slowed the jeep from flat out to a merely breakneck pace. “So how did your mission go?”
