His copilot brought him back to reality.
“Tomcats are on us, changing course,” said Ferris. “At bearing — shit — they’re launching weapons!” yelled Ferris, as usual far more agitated than the situation called for.
“Evasive maneuvers. Hang on. Zen, those Navy birds are yours.”
“Engaging,” replied Major Stockard. His voice, although relayed through a satellite system in orbit several kilometers above the Megafortress, sounded like he was in the next seat over.
The F-14’s had slowed to fire their long-range Phoenix AIM-54’s, but they were still closing on the Megafortresses at over five hundred miles an hour. It was clear from the way they were flying their radar hadn’t picked up the Flighthawk, which were now heading into a bank of clouds just over the attackers’ flight path. Raven began blanketing the air with a thick fog of countermeasures, confusing not just the Tomcats’ radar, but the Grumman E-2 Hawkeye feeding them data more than a hundred miles to the north. The Navy interceptors were now limited to what their Mark-1 eyeballs could feed them; which meant they had to close to visual distance. In another sixty seconds, they’d be able to nail the Megafortresses with short-range heat-seekers or cannons.
Simulated, of course.
Zen didn’t intend to let that happen. The U/MFs had several disadvantages fighting the sort of long-rang combat the Tomcats preferred; they were equipped only with cannons and their mobility was limited by the need to stay within ten miles of their mother ship. But in a close-quarters knife-fight, they were hard to top. Hawk One broke from the cloud bank she was sitting in as close to the canopy of the lead F-14 as he could manage, flashing across its bow like a meteor shot from the heavens.
Or an air-to-air missile launched by an undetected fighter.
The slashing dive had the desired effect — the lead F-14 pilot jinked madly as he unleashed a parcel of flares and chaff, not quite sure what was coming at him. The decoys would have been more than enough to clear an enemy missile from his back — but Zen wasn’t an enemy missile. He curled Hawk One upward, angling toward the dark shadow of the Navy aircraft. The Tomcat’s variable geometry wings had flipped outward to increase aerodynamic lift, a sure sign to Zen the plane was caught flat-footed. He pressed his attack into the Tomcat’s belly even as it upgraded GE F110’s spit red fire, the massive turbines winding to push the plane away.
Had this been a “real” encounter, the Navy pilot might have escaped — an ol’ big block Pontiac Goat could beat a slammed Civic off the line any day of the week, and Zen at best could have gotten only a half-dozen shots into the belly of the accelerating beast — not nearly enough to bring her down, barring ridiculous luck. But the computers keeping score took the U/MF’s chronically optimistic targeting gear at its word. According to its calculations, something over a hundred 20mm shells raked the Navy plane’s fuselage and wings, turning it into a mass of flame and metal.
“Score one for the AF,” said the event moderator blandly, circling above in a P-3 Orion. “Nirvana Tomcat One splashed.”
Zen had already jumped into the cockpit of Hawk Two. He had the other F-14 on his left wing, cutting back toward its original course, C?, the sophisticated control-and-tactical-assistance computer that helped fly the Flighthawks, suggested a high-speed attack at the rear quarter of the F-14. Zen recognized it immediately as a long shot; even with the computers keeping score, such an attack would have an extremely low kill-probability.
Deciding that was better than nothing, Zen told C? to implement the attack plan, then jumped back into Hawk One, changing the view screens and control selections via a verbal command to the computer of “One” and “Two,” then pulling around, trying to set up an ambush on the Tomcat. A call from Raven’s radar operator changed his priorities.
“Bogies at one hundred miles — make that a four-group of F-18’s, angels twenty.”
“Hawk leader,” acknowledged Zen. Even as the information about the bandits’ course and speed was downloaded into his computer, Zen had decided he would pass off the Tomcat and concentrate on the Hornets.
“Yo, Curly — you see the Tomcat gunning for the flight?”
“On him,” said the other pilot.
Unlike Zen, Captain Kevin “Curly” Fentress had never flown in real combat; nor was he a fully qualified jet pilot. He’d only racked up ten hours so far in Dreamland’s T-38 jet trainer, every minute among the longest of his life. Curly had come into the Flighthawk program after helping develop early-model unmanned aircraft including the Predator and Globak Hawk. While a good remote pilot, he lacked both the experience and instincts of a first-rate combat jock.
But he was learning.
The Tomcat packed a pair of all-aspect heat-seekers. While Fentress had to be respectful of the missiles, they were considerably less dangerous than AMRAAMS. It was also to his advantage that the Tomcat was gunning for the Megafortresses and probably had only a vague notion of the Flighthawks’ location. Fentress’s two robot planes were running roughly half a mile apart, separated by five hundred feet at thirty-one thousand and 31,5000 feet. His game plan was relatively straightforward — he’d engage the F-14 with one plane in a diving attack, and at the same time have the computer arc the second Flighthawk so it could grab the Tomcat’s tail for the kill. It was a classic strategy, basically the same double attack perfected by the Army Air Force Captains John Godfrey and Don Gentile against Me-109’s during World War II — minus the missiles, radars, and very high speeds the planes were using.
The Navy jock wasn’t flying a Messerschmitt. Rather than engaging the small fighter as it dove in front of his F-14, he lit the burners and blew past both the U/MF and the approaching Megafortresses. Fentress gave a few blinks from the gun of Hawk Four, but the smaller engines couldn’t drive the Hawk close enough to the muscular Navy plane to record a hit.
“We can take him with a Scorpion,” said Captain Tom Dolan, the copilot in Raven.
“No, he’s mine,” said Fentress tightly. “You’re going to need that Scorpion later.”
He knew better than to try to run the F-14 down. Fentress held back as the Tomcat started tracking north, waiting for the plane to single out its quarry and start to close.
Though it had a much easier angle on Raven, it seemed to be picking out Iowa.
Coincidence? Or had he been briefed beyond the accepted rules?
No matter. The F-14 began picking up steam as it pressed toward the Megafortress’s tail. Fentress had a good intercept plotted — the target indicator on Hawk Three began blinking yellow, indicating he was almost in range. Just as it went red, the F-14 pilot belatedly spotted the robot and abruptly nosed downward. Fentress once more found he couldn’t stay with the Tomcat, but according to C?, did manage to put six shells into its wing.
The event moderator called it “light damage.” Under the rules of the game, the F-14 should have broken off and gone home. But instead, the Navy jock lit the burners and jerked his nose up, pulling a good seven or eight Gs. He recovered from his evasive maneuver and bullied his plane toward a firing solution a bare five miles off the EB- 52’s vulnerable V-shaped tail.
Dog shook his head as his copilot reported that the F-14 was getting ready to launch AIM-9’s.
“Flares.”
“Flares. Stinger ready,” said Ferris. “They’re cheating,” he added bitterly. “Bastards.”
“Fire when you have him,” answered Dog calmly. “Don’t hit the Flighthawk. Crew, hold on for evasive maneuvers.”
Dog jerked the stick hard, pushing the big plane to the left, then back again, jinking the massive bomber as if she were an F-16. Adrenaline shot through his veins, and he realized he was laughing. It was times like this that reminded him why he’d joined the Air Force.
Fentress slapped Hawk Four toward the F-14’s tail as it closed on the Megafortress. The magnified screen showed the bomber’s tail stinger tracking back and forth, obviously taking aim at the aggressor — its air mines
