With the decoy destroyed, the second R-60 missile fired by the MiG-23 veered back toward the Megafortress. It was too close to be decoyed by the towed array again, so another defensive system activated: the active laser defensive system. Directed by the EB-52's laser radar, a large helium-argon laser mounted in a fairing atop the Megafortress fired beams of laser light at the oncoming R-
60 missile. After a few seconds, the missile's seeker head was blinded by the laser's intense heat and light, and the missile could no longer track.
'We got it!' Wickland shouted. 'We-!'
Just then, they heard a fast-paced DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! warning tone and the computerized voice say calmly, 'Warning, radar missile launch MiG-23 R-
24. ' The first MiG-23 had turned around, locked onto the EB-52, and had taken a shot with a radar-guided missile, then a second one.
'Take defensive action,' Tanaka told the computer. The computer was way ahead of its human commander: It immediately ejected decoy devices from the left ejection chambers, tiny winged canisters that had several times the radar cross-section and infrared signature of the largest aircraft in the world-then threw the EB-52 bomber into a steep right bank. The defensive systems in the EB-52 Meg,afortress bomber were completely automatic: The tiny decoys made invitingly large targets, and with the bomber in a tight turn, the decoys were all alone in space, dangling themselves in front of the Libyan missiles. Along with the decoys, the Megafortress emitted jamming signals to the MiG-23's India-band radar that prevented the radar from tracking any other targets but the decoy.
With the power and airspeed already up, the bomber was able to sustain a tight ninety-degree bank turn for several long seconds, crushing both crew members into their seats with unexpectedly heavy G-forces. Both crew members caught a glimpse of one bright explosion out the left window-one of the missiles had exploded less than a hundred yards off their left wingtip. The second R-24 radar-guided missile was handled by the active laser defensive systemit took only a few seconds for the laser to completely blind the second missile, and it continued on straight ahead and harmlessly exploded on the desert floor below.
But after its tight defensive break, the Megafortress was dangerously slow. Tanaka rolled the big bomber out of its tight turn, keeping the power in full military power and the nose pointed down to try to quickly regain lost airspeed. The first Libyan MiG-23 had overshot the EB-52-but the second MiG-23, which had stayed down low to maintain contact, was now in perfect attack position, directly behind the Megafortress. It closed in almost at the speed of sound in seconds. 'Warning, bandit six o'clock, four miles, MiG-23,' the computer warned. 'Warning, MiG-23 six o'clock, three miles.. warning, missile launch detected…'
The Megafortress's next defensive weapon automatically activated: the Stinger airmine system. Instead of the fifty-caliber or thirty-millimeter machine guns in earlier B-52 bombers, the EB-52 Megafortress carried a fiftymillimeter cannon that fired small LADAR-guided rockets. With a range of about three miles, the tiny rockets were steered toward incoming enemy aircraft or missiles and then detonated ahead of them, creating a cloud of titanium flak that could shred jet engines with ease. The crew heard a poof! poof! poof! sound far behind them and a hard jolt every few seconds as the small rockets were launched. The MiG-23 that stayed down low flew through a cloud of tungsten pellets that shredded the cockpit canopy and engine; the pilot punched out just before his fighter started to spin out of control.
'Tail's clear, Zero!' Wickland crowed. 'The MiG up high looks like he's staying up there trying to find us.'
'Where are those bombers?' Tanaka asked.
Wickland expanded out his display. 'Eleven o'clock, forty miles. Three fast-movers, low. They're within fifty miles of Jaghbub, going almost six hundred knots. I'm not sure if we can catch them. They'll be over the base in five minutes.'
'Nike, this is Headbanger,' Tanaka radioed to Chris Wohl.
'Go.'
'You've got three inbounds, ETE five minutes. We can't catch them unless you can get them to turn around.'
Wohl turned to Hal Briggs. 'Sir, we need a distraction for those bombers,' he said. 'What do they have in storage?'
'Just about anything you want,' Hal said. 'I'll be right back.' Briggs jet-jumped out toward the underground weapon-storage area. He came back a few minutes later carrying a twin-barreled 12.7-millimeter truck-mounted antiaircraft gun and a large metal box of ammunition. He jet-jumped to an isolated area about two miles west of the airfield, as far away as possible from the underground shelters where Sanusi's men were taking cover. 'This what you had in mind, Sarge?'
'It's about time, sir,' Wohl said. He was already scanning the sky with his battle armor's sensors for the incoming bombers. 'Get ready.'
'Nike, one minute out. We're still just out of missile range.'
Hal Briggs had to work fast with an unfamiliar weapon, trying to quickly get the ammunition belt fed-snto the feeder. Normally the action was engaged electrically in the gun, but luckily Briggs found a manual crank that he used to wind a spindle that would fire the first round-after that, gas from the cartridges should initiate the action.
'What are you doing over there, sir?' Wohl called out.
'Hey, you try and load this thing.' In a second Wohl dashed over to him, gave Briggs his electromagnetic rail gun, and started unfeeding the backward-looped ammunition belt. 'Now we're talking!' Briggs shouted as he hefted the big high-tech weapon.
'Just don't miss, sir-we're running out of projectiles,' Wohl growled.
'Oh, pul-leese.' Briggs plugged in the data cable to his belt, charged the weapon, raised it, and followed the cues in his helmet-mounted electronic visor. His visor gave him a complete status readout-Wohl was right, only two projectiles remaining. 'Never bagged a bomber beforethis'll be fun.'
'Fifteen seconds.'
'I see it!' Briggs shouted. The Tupolev-22 bomber was coming in straight and level, about a thousand feet above ground, at six hundred knots on the dot-the target was small, fast, and low. The aiming system in the battle armor wasn't a lead-computing sight-this was going to be a thousand-in-one shot. Briggs fired at two miles out, just as he saw a stick of bombs drop from the bomb bay. 'Take cover!' he shouted. 'Bombs away!'
The streak of burning air from the projectile passed in front of the bomber's nose by several hundred feet-he had led the target too much.
The bomber dropped a stick of six five-thousand-pound napalm canisters that created a tremendous wall of fire and a wave of heat that nearly pushed both of them over. The intent was obvious-he was marking the target area for the second bomber.
Briggs whirled around and aimed. The first bomber was in a steep climbing right turn in full afterburner-a perfect profile. This time, the streak of superheated air passed right through the forward section of the Tupolev-22's fuselage. Just when Briggs thought he might have missed it again, a tongue of flame spat out from the left engine compartment. The Tu-22 twisted unnaturally to the left, its nose moving higher into the sky. Both afterburners winked out-Briggs could now see it through only the rail gun's electronic sights. The bomber seemed to hang in midair, like a big graceful eagle climbing on a thermal-then there were four puffs of light and smoke as all four crew members ejected, and the bomber did a tail-side straight down and crashed into the desert just north of the minefield.
Meanwhile, Chris Wohl had finally loaded the dual antiaircraft cannon. He held the gun up in his left hand by its mounting pedestal, held the ammunition can in his right hand, then swiveled to the west and scanned the sky, looking for the oncoming bombers. Suddenly, Wohl started firing into the sky. The big antiaircraft gun bucked and shook, but thanks to Wohl's exoskeleton, he was able to keep the weapon fairly steady. Every twelfth shell from the can was a tracer round, and as he swept the sky to the west, he created a snakelike wave of light in the sky. The ammunition was gone in a few seconds; Wohl dropped the gun and the ammo can, and both he and Briggs jet- jumped away from that spot-they knew what was going to happen next….
The second Tu-22 bomber veered hard to the south, away from the tracers-but the third bomber came in hard and fast and laid down a stick of thirty or forty fivehundred-pound high-explosive bombs, right on the spot where Briggs and Wohl had been positioned. The incredible pounding from the bombs knocked both men off their feet, and it seemed like dirt, dust, sand, and all sorts of debris rained down on them for at least the next ten
