“We can drop another buoy,” suggested English.
“We should,” said Delaford. “But this one is closer. You know Colonel, I think they’re trying to jam us.”
“They have two jammers aloft,” said Ferris.
“Give me a course,” said Dog. “Delaford, is there any way to make Piranha spit in the admiral’s eye when it comes to the surface?”
“Working on it, sir.”
Unlike the earlier attacker, these Tomcats not only knew Fentress’s Flighthawk were there, but considered them enough of a threat to target them with their Phoenix missiles. Ducking the long-distance homers wasn’t that difficult — Fentress had done so in about a dozen simulations over the past two weeks — but it did take time. It also cost him position — he lost control of Hawk Four as his Megafortress jinked out of the ECM-shortened communications range to avoid another volley of missiles. The onboard computer took over the robot, turning it toward the EB-52 in default return mode.
Fentress pulled Hawk Three higher, hoping to get into position to break the next wave of attack, which he expected to be close-in dash to fire heat-seekers. But the Tomcats had something else in mind; AMRAAM-pulses, fired from just over forty miles away.
A red-hot wire snaked around his chest. Not one but two of the Scorpions locked on his plane. These were considerably more difficult to avoid. Even in simulations, he’d never gotten away from a pair. Galatica, with its performance significantly hampered by the revolving radar dome in its upper body, would have an even more
difficult time, regardless of the countermeasures it spewed.
Fentress recoiled himself to his job; he’d do his best and jinked in the direction of the lead Tomcat, which was already homing in on Galatica. To catch the Navy pilot’s attention, he winked his cannon. Though several miles out of range, the F-14 diverted just long enough to launch a pair of Scorpions at him.
Two more missiles that can’t target Gal, Fentress thought to himself. He threw the Flighthawk downward, then cut diagonally, hoping against hope to beam the missiles.
He did. As he started to recover from the dive, he realized he had also gotten away from the missiles launched earlier. But all his jinking and jiving had left himself open to another F-14, which screamed toward him, gun blazing. Fentress started to turn, confident he could get out of the Tomcat’s gunsight. His screen showed a simulated run of bullets trotting past the canopy — and then everything buzzed red and a large “2” filled the control screen. He’d been nailed by a Sidewinder he’d never seen.
Hawk Four, flown by the computer, had already suffered the same fate. Shorn of its defenders, the over- matched EB-52 found itself sandwiched between a pair of Navy Top Guns, whose M61;s made confetti of the wings.
“We’re hit,” said the Megafortress pilot, Captain Teijen. “Performance degrading. Prepare for ejection.”
“Aw, shit,” grumbled the copilot.
Still, the EB-52 was a tough airframe. Teijen held her up, swooping left and right, and managed to take out one of the Navy fighters who apparently didn’t believe the brief on the potency of the Stinger tail weapon. There was no shaking the Tomcat flight leader, however, who came in close and winked his cannon, then rubbed their noses in it a bit by putting his plane directly over Gal’s tail.
“You be sunk,” said the pilot with a laugh.
The computer and the event moderator concurred.
“Yeah?” said Teijen. We’ll see how loud you laugh when your carrier goes down.”
Zen’s finger strained against the slider on the back of his combined stick-throttle. He had the engine nailed on the redline, trying to hustle the Flighthawks back to help Fentress fend off the rear-end attack. The Navy attackers had done an excellent job against the Dreamland planes, overcoming their technological disadvantage with shrewd tactics and kick-butt flying. They didn’t call these guys Top Guns for nothing.
Not, of course, than Zen would admit that in mixed company — mixed company meaning anyone who showed an affinity for bell bottoms and pea coats. Naval aviators might have proven in combat they were every bit as good as Air Force jocks, but no red-blooded USAF zippersuit would say so — except under extreme duress.
And maybe not even then.
Zen calculated a good merge on two planes coming in on his left figuring to turn and then let the Tomcats’ superior speed bring them to his gunsights. That worked fine for one of the planes, but the other wingman simply accelerated out of range as Zen brought Hawk Two to bear. He twisted off and gave the robot to the computer, telling it to target a new knot of Tomcats aiming for Iowa from the west, the computer handled if fairly well, but with four Scorpion AMRAAMs in the air, and its need to engage the enemy at close range, it was soon over- matched, taken down by a simulated explosion about fifty feet of its wingtip.
In the meantime, two Tomcats closed on Iowa for Sidewinder shots. As Zen tried to dive on them, his seat spun wildly, moving in the opposite direction — Raven’s pilot, Major Alou, was jerking madly to avoid a fresh missile attack. The movement disoriented Zen, who had an image in his screen more than four miles away. He had to break off his attack after pumping dozen shells at the F-14, doing some damage but not enough to splash it.
The air was thick with flares, electronic fuzz, and dummy weapons. Zen rolled around and found himself approaching Raven. Making the best of the situation, he slid Hawk One into a gradual turn, figuring to try and catch the planes that were closing on his mother ship. At the same time, he got a warning tone from the computer that his fuel were getting low.
The Navy fliers stayed just out of reach of Raven’s Stinger as they kicked off their missiles. All but one of the Sidewinders missed their mark; the one that did explode caused “fifty-percent damage” to the right wing control surfaces and some minor damage to the power plants. Enough, claimed the moderator, to rule the Megafortress down.
“Down?” said Alou. “Down? No way.”
The other crew members’ reactions were considerably less polite. Zen had one of the Tomcats fat in his pipper — he laid on the trigger, then whipped across the air like a stone slipped on a pond to nail the second.
Except that, under the engagement rules, he was dead once the Megafortress was.
The Tomcat jocks were laughing. Zen had considerable trouble restraining himself from riding Hawk One over their canopies.
“Navy referees,” muttered Alou.
Dog could feel a curtain of sweat descending down the front of his undershirt, as if he were coming toward the kick lap of a great workout. And in a way, he was — jinking and jiving as a pair of Tomcats, now out of missiles, tried to get close enough to use their guns. He fended them left and right, riding up and down, all the while waiting for Delaford to tell him when they could launch the buoy. They’d temporarily lost contact with Piranha, though its operator was confident it was close to the aircraft carrier.
“We’re going to lose speed as soon as we open the bay door,” said Chris Ferris. The copilot had a habit of worrying out loud. In Dog’s opinion, not a particularly endearing trait.
“I’m counting on it,” replied the colonel, flashing left as one of the Tomcats began firing again. The Navy planes couldn’t position themselves effectively because of the air mines spitting out from the back of the plane, but that advantage would soon be lost — the computer warned they were below a hundred rounds.
Worse, another quarter of fighters were coming from the north.
“Okay,” said Delaford.
“Chris, turn off the Stinger as if we’ve run out of shells,” Dog told his copilot. “Then open the bay doors and launch. Everybody hang tough,” added Dog. “This will feel like we’ve hit a brick wall.”
The Tomcats, seeing the Stinger had stopped firing midburst, closed in tentatively, expecting a trick. Meanwhile, Ferris gave Dog a five count. When he reached one, the colonel did everything but throw the plane into reverse — and he might have tried that had he thought of it. The Megafortress dropped literally straight down in the sky, an elevator whose control cables had suddenly snapped.
The Tomcats shot overhead.
