Some were best at defending themselves against enemies. This third group would now take over. The Sentry crewmen would think this wasn’t cricket, that it wasn’t exactly fair to chase deliberately after a converted obsolete airliner … just because it acted as bird-dog for those who were killing off their fighter-pilot comrades.
Eighty miles now. “Skippy, follow me up,” the colonel ordered.
“Roger, Lead.” The two clawed up to forty thousand feet, so that the cold ground behind the targets would give a better contrast for their infrared seekers. He checked the radar display again. There had to be a good thirty of them, and that was a lot. If the Chinese were smart, they’d have two teams, one to engage and distract the American fighters, and the other to blow through after their primary target. He’d try to concentrate on the latter, but if the former group’s pilots were competent, that might not be easy.
The warbling tone started in his headphones. The range was now sixty miles.
“Going Slammer,” he called on the radio.
“Roger, Slammer,” Skippy replied from half a mile to his right.
“Fox-One!” Winters called, as the first one leapt off the rails. The first Slammer angled left, seeking its designated target, one of the enemy’s leading fighters. The closure speed between missile and target would be well over two thousand miles per hour. His eyes dropped to the radar display. His first missile appeared to hit-yes, the target blip expanded and started dropping. Number Eight. Time for another: “Fox-One!”
“Fox-One,” his wingman called. Seconds later: “Kill!” Lieutenant Acosta called.
Winters’s second missile somehow missed, but there wasn’t time for wondering why. He had six more AMRAAMs, and he pickled four of them off in the next minute. By that time, he could see the inbound fighters. They were Shenyang J-8IIs, and they had radars and missiles, too. Winters flipped on his jammer pod, wondering if it would work or not, and wondering if their infrared missiles had all-aspect targeting like his Sidewinders. He’d probably find out soon, but first he fired off two ’winders. “Breaking right, Skippy.”
“I’m with you, Bronco,” Acosta replied.
“Boar Lead, Eagle, there’s twenty-three of them left and they’re still coming. Dividing into two elements. You have bandits at your seven o’clock and closing.”
Winters reversed his turn and racked his head against the g-forces to spot it. Yeah, a J-8 all right, the Chinese two-engine remake of the MiG-21, trying to get position to launch on him-no, two of the bastards. He reefed the turn in tight, pulling seven gees, and after ten endless seconds, getting his nose on the targets. His left hand selected Sidewinder and he triggered two off.
The bandits saw the smoke trails of the missiles and broke apart, in opposite directions. One would escape, but both the heat-seekers locked on the guy to the right, and both erased his aircraft from the sky. But where had the other one gone? Winters’ eyes swept a sky that was both crowded and empty at the same time. His threat receiver made its unwelcome screeching sound, and now he’d find out if the jammer pod worked or not. Somebody was trying to lock him up with a radar-guided missile. His eyes swept around looking for who that might be, but he couldn’t see anyone-
— Smoke trail! A missile, heading in his general direction, but then it veered and exploded with its target- friend or foe, Winters couldn’t tell.
“Boar Flight, Lead, check in!” he ordered.
“Two.” “Three.” A pause before: “Four!”
“Skippy, where are you?”
“Low and right, one mile, Leader. Heads up, there’s a bandit at your three and closing.”
“Oh, yeah?” Winters yanked his fighter to the right and was rewarded with an immediate warbling tone-but was it friend or foe? His wingman said the latter, but he couldn’t tell, until-
Whoever it was, it had launched at him, and so he triggered a Sidewinder in reply, then dove hard for the deck while punching off flares and chaff to distract it. It worked. The missile, a radar seeker, exploded harmlessly half a mile behind him, but his Sidewinder didn’t miss. He’d just gotten another kill, but he didn’t know how many today, and there wasn’t time to think things over.
“Skippy, form up on me, we’re going north.”
“Roger, Bronco.”
Winters had his radar on, and he saw at least eight enemy blips to the north. He went to afterburner to chase, checking his fuel state. Still okay. The Eagle accelerated rapidly, but just to be safe, he popped off a string of chaff and flares in case some unknown Chinese was shooting at him. The threat receiver was screeching continuously now, though not in the distinctive chirping tone that suggested lock-up. He checked his weapons board. Three AIM-9X Sidewinders left. Where the hell had this day gone to?
“Ducky is hit, Ducky is hit!” a voice called. “Aw, shit!”
“Ghost Man here, got the fucker for you, Ducky. Come right, let me give you a damage check.”
“One engine gone, other one’s running hot,” the second element leader reported, in a voice more angry than afraid. He didn’t have time for fear yet. Another thirty seconds or so and that would start to take hold, Winters was sure.
“Ducky, you’re trailing vapor of some sort, recommend you find a place to set it down.”
“Eagle Two, Bronco, what’s happening?”
“Bronco, we have six still inbound, putting Rodeo on it now. You have a bandit at your one o’clock at twenty miles, angels three-one, speed seven-five-zero.”
“Roger that, Eagle. I’m on him.” Winters came a little right and got another acquisition tone. “Fox-Two!” he called. The smoke trail ran straight for several miles, then corkscrewed to the left as it approached the little dot of gray-blue and … yes!
“Rodeo Lead,” a new voice called. “Fox-One, Fox-One with two!”
“Conan, Fox-One!”
Now things were really getting nervous. Winters knew that he might be in the line of fire for those Slammers. He looked down to see that the light on his IFF was a friendly, constant green. The Identification Friend or Foe was supposed to tell American radars and missiles that he was on their side, but Winters didn’t entirely trust computer chips with his life, and so he squinted his eyes to look for smoke trails that weren’t going sideways. His radar could see the AWACS now, and it was moving west, taking the first part of evasive action, but its radar was still transmitting, even with Chinese fighters within … twenty miles? Shit! But then two more blips disappeared, and the remaining ones all had friendly IFF markers.
Winters checked his weapons display. No missiles left. How had all that happened? He was the United States Air Force champ for situational awareness, but he’d just lost track of a combat action. He couldn’t remember firing all his missiles.
“Eagle Two, this is Boar Lead. I’m Winchester. Do you need any help?” “Winchester” meant out of weapons. That wasn’t entirely true. He still had a full magazine of 20-mm cannon shells, but suddenly all the gees and all the excitement were pulling on him. His arms felt leaden as he eased his Eagle back to level flight.
“Boar Lead, Eagle. Looks like we’re okay now, but that was kinda exciting, fella.”
“Roger that, Eagle. Same here. Anything left?”
“Negative, Boar. Rodeo Lead got the last two. I think we owe that major a couple of beers.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Eagle,” Rodeo Lead observed.
“Ducky, where are you?” Winters called next.
“Kinda busy, Bronco,” a strained voice replied. “I got a hole in my arm, too.”
“Bronco, Ghost Man. Ducky’s got some holes in the airframe. I’m going to shepherd him back to Suntar. Thirty minutes, about.”
“Skippy, where you be?”
“Right behind you, Leader. I think I got four, maybe five, in that furball.”
“Any weapons left?”
“Slammer and ’winder, one each. I’ll look after you, Colonel,” Lieutenant Acosta promised. “How’d you make
