“Roger that.”
“We just shot down like five airplanes — five! — and Bastian’s mad at us?” said Micelli.
“I wouldn’t call him mad,” Sparks told him. “Just not happy.”
“It’s Cheech’s fault,” retorted the copilot. “We have bullshit IDs on those transports. Everybody knows they’re not civvies.”
“Hey, screw you, Micelli,” said the airborne radar operator. “The radar says what the radar says. They’re
“Relax, guys,” said Sparks sharply. “We went too far west getting out of the way of the Chinese missiles. Just play it the way it lays.”
Sparks pushed the Megafortress south toward the warhead recovery area.
“You with us, Flighthawks?” he asked.
“Roger that,” said Cowboy. “Got your six, big mother.”
“Missile launch!” shouted Sullivan, the
“ECMs.”
The FD-60 was a medium range semiactive radar homing missile similar to the Italian Aspide, which by some reports had been reverse-engineered to create it. Unlike the missile they had dealt with earlier, Dog had considerable experience with the Dragon Bolt, and was confident the electronic countermeasures would sufficiently confuse it.
“Range is forty miles,” said Sullivan. “Sukhoi is changing course.”
As soon as it fired its missiles, the Chinese plane swung eastward. Dog held his own course steady, figuring the Sukhoi was looping around to get closer to the transports.
“He may be running away,” said Sullivan as the Sukhoi continued to the east.
“No, he’s going to swing back and protect the transports. Where are those missiles?”
“Missile one is tracking. Missile two is off the scope.”
“Keep hitting the ECMs.”
“We’re playing every song the orchestra knows, Colonel.”
The lead transport was a small gray blip in the simulated heads-up display screen at the center of Starship’s station. According to the computer, the aircraft had turboprop engines, was moving at 320 knots, and was definitely a Xian Y-14. But Starship knew he couldn’t trust the computer’s ID; he had to close in and get visual confirmation.
But the computer was so integrated into the aircraft he was flying that even a “visual” was heavily influenced by the computer’s choices. The image he saw wasn’t an image at all, it was constructed primarily from the radar aboard the Megafortress. The computer took the radar information, along with data from other available sensors, weighed how much each was worth under the circumstances, and then built an image to the pilot that represented reality. Even at close range, when he was ostensibly looking at a direct image from one of the Flighthawk’s cameras, the computer was involved, enhancing the light and steadying the focus. So where did you draw the line on what to trust?
The two aircraft were flying single file, headed directly toward the lake. They were descending at an easy angle, coming down through 20,000 feet above sea level — relatively close to some of the nearby peaks, which topped 12,000. The lake and the valley it was in were about 5,000 feet.
Starship was approaching the lead plane just off its right wing. At ten miles he switched the main screen to the long-range optical view, but all he could see was a blur, and a small one at that.
Within five seconds he had closed to inside five miles. The starlight-enhanced image showed a dark gray plane with no civilian markings. It was a twin turbojet, high-winged, with its engines close to the fuselage. Admittedly, it looked a lot like the reference pictures of a Fokker that he had pulled up from the Tactics library. But the wing area was larger, and the angle of the fuselage near the tail just a bit sharper — according to the computer, which modeled the image against the references for him.
But the key for Starship were the passenger windows — round on the An-24, and round on the airplane in front of him. The Fokker’s were rectangular.
All aircraft carried an IFF — Identification Friend or Foe — system, designed to distinguish between civilian and military aircraft. While the Megafortress had tried ident earlier, Starship instructed the computer to query the airplane again. The transponders in the two planes failed to respond.
“
“Roger that. Take it down.”
“Copy,
The Su-27 began a turn back toward the transports when it was about fifty miles from the
He’d have to wait two whole minutes now before he’d be close enough to make the turn, and a lot could happen in that time. Including getting hit by the Sukhoi’s first missile, which was still tracking them.
“Missile one is still coming at us,” said Sullivan. “Ten miles.”
“Chaff. Crew, stand by for evasive maneuvers,” said Dog, even as he jerked the aircraft onto its wing. The chaff was like metal confetti tossed into the air to confuse targeting radars. The Megafortress dropped downward, away from the chaff, in effect disappearing behind a curtain. Dog pressured his stick right, putting the EB-52 into a six g turn.
The missile sailed past. Apparently realizing its mistake as it cleared the cloud of tinsel without finding an aircraft, it blew itself up — not out of misery, of course, but in the vain hope that its target was still nearby.
By this time, however, the
Dog had flown against Chinese fighter pilots several times. They had two things in common: They were extremely good stick and rudder men, and they knew it. He was counting on this pilot being no different.
What he wasn’t counting on was the PL-9 heat-seeker the pilot shot at his face as he approached.
“Flares,” said Dog. He tucked the Megafortress onto her left wing, sliding away as the decoys exploded, sucking the Chinese missile away.
The Su-27 pilot began to turn with the Megafortress, no doubt salivating at the sight — the large American airplane was literally dropping in front of him, its four turbojets juicy targets for his remaining missile.
“Stinger!” said Dog. “Air mines!”
Sullivan pressed the trigger, and the air behind the Megafortress turned into a curtain of tungsten.
“Launch! Missile launch! He’s firing at us!” shouted Sullivan.
Dog throttled back hard and yanked back sharply on his stick, abruptly pulling the nose and wings of his aircraft upward. The aircraft’s computer barked out an alarm, telling him that he was attempting to “exceed normal flight parameters”—in layman’s terms, he wasn’t flying so much as turning himself into a brick, losing all of his forward momentum while trying to climb. The Megafortress shook violently, gravity tugging her in several different directions at once.
Down won. But just as it did, Dog pushed the stick forward and ramped back up to military power on the engines. This caused a violent shudder that rumbled through the fuselage; the wing roots groaned and the aircraft pitched sharply to the right. Dog eased off a bit, grudgingly, then finally saw what he’d been hoping for — two perfect red circles shooting past.
