would be a full deflection missile shot at nearly maximum range, the worst kind: the missile might not be able to make the corner. Should he wait and turn in behind before shooting?
That would increase the chances that a missile would track, but it would let the Migs get closer to the transports. The Migs were at seventy-five miles now, closing at a sixty-degree stern angle. There were two flights of Migs, two to a flight, and the flights were about three miles apart. For a second, White Leader wondered if the Migs knew he was there, knew they, too, were being hunted. He shook the thought off. No time for that now. Sixty-miles range. He fired one missile, then made a short left turn. This would let the Migs extend out, put him astern. He still had a ton of closure — they could be doing no more than Mach 1.5. He would get astern and shoot again. “White Two, shoot on my command.”
“Roger.”
Now, a sixty-degree angle of bank turn to the right. Yes. He was only forty-five degrees off, still closing. The first missile must have missed, because the Migs were turning hard, hard right, into the direction that the missile had come from. “Out of burner, now.”
White Lead and his wingman came off the juice. They slowed as they turned to place the turning Migs at their twelve o’clock. Very nice. Range forty miles. Well within the missiles’ performance envelope. White Leader triggered his last missile at the leading Mig, the one farthest to his right. “I’ve shot at the leader, Two. Blaze away at the rest of them.” Two said nothing. He answered with missiles. One after the other, two seconds apart, three missiles came off his rails. Seconds ticked by. The Russian second-element wingman, Tail-end Charlie, lost sight of his lead during all the maneuvering and turned hard left, back toward the transports. He picked the nearest and locked him up with his radar. Just then, White Leader’s missile impacted the lead Mig-29 in front of the tail and detonated. The tail was severed from the aircraft, which entered an uncontrollable tumble. The pilot tried to eject, but the tumbling was so violent that he passed out before he could do so. Within seconds, the plane broke up. From the corner of his eye, Tail-end Charlie saw the fiery streak of the first missile coming in and the flash as it impacted, and he correctly guessed what it was. He had his firing solution on one of the Japanese transports at max range, seventy miles, so he pushed the fire button on his stick and held it down. The firing circuit had a one-second delay built in before it ignited the missile’s rocket engine, a delay designed to prevent inadvertent missile launching. This second was the longest of the young pilot’s life. As he waited, he saw in the canopy rail mirror the flash as a Japanese conmissile exploded just above the cockpit of his element leader. This was the first missile fired by White Two.
Now Charlie’s long-range Alamo missile came off the rail and seared the darkness with its cone of white fire. Instinctively, the Mig pilot rolled upside down and pulled the nose ninety degrees down, straight down, toward the black ocean below. The second missile from White Two arrived right on time, fatally impacting the other surviving Mig. The missile aimed at Tail-end Charlie nosed over to track him and increased its speed. Charlie lit his burners, accelerated toward the waiting ocean. The missile nosed down farther, gravity making it go even faster … and it overshot. It exploded harmlessly when its internal computer concluded it had missed. At the flash of the explosion, Charlie began to pull. He was passing twenty thousand feet, eighty degrees nose-down at Mach 1.6. He came out of burner, pulled until he thought the wings would come off, then pulled some more. The nose was coming up, but not fast enough. He fought to stay conscious. Pull, pull, pull, scream into the mask, pull to stay alive. Nine thousand … seven … nose thirty degrees down … Nose twenty degrees down…, ten degrees, passing three thousand feet … At one thousand feet, only three hundred meters above the sea, Tail-end Charlie bottomed out. He was below Mach 1 at this point, but he was alive. As the nose came above the horizon and he relaxed the G, the Russian pilot glanced at the radar scope on the panel before him. Nothing. It was blank. He laid into a turn in the direction from which the missiles had come. The enemy had to be up there, if only he could point his plane in the proper direction. Unlike the Zero, the Mig-29 lacked computers and passive sensors; the pilot had only radar to enable him to see his enemy. A streak of fire in the sky caught his eye — another missile!
He was low and slow, trapped against the sea. He did the only thing he could — pulled the nose of the Mig straight up and lit the afterburner. The missile went through the left wing, snapping it cleanly in two. With his plane rolling out of control, the pilot of Tail-end Charlie ejected. His parachute opened normally and he rode it down into the black ocean.
After floating in his life jacket for two hours, he died of hypothermia and exhaustion. During that time his only consolation was the fact that he had fired a missile at a transport before the unseen enemy got him. He never knew that his missile failed to guide.
White Three — Jiro Kimura — watched the spots of flame that were the afterburner exhausts of White One and Two accelerate away into the darkness. They receded more slowly than missile engines, but they did resemble missiles, or wandering stars, points of light growing smaller and smaller as the night swallowed them. Jiro glanced at his wingman, then turned back toward Vladivostok. He kept his turn shallow, less than a ten-degree angle of bank, so he would not present the belly of the plane to an enemy radar to use as a reflecting surface. He watched the tactical situation develop on his multifunction tac display. He saw the transports, saw the Migs go for them, and saw White One and Two dash to cut them off. The missiles that were fired were not displayed, but the disappearance of the Migs from the screen one by one spoke volumes. We are winning. That thought has sustained fighting men for thousands of years. It helped Jiro now, gave him a sense of confidence that no amount of exhortation could. He was eying his fuel gauges nervously and toying with the idea of breaking radio silence when the tactical display presented a target coming down from the northeast, from the direction of Khabarovsk. A Sukhoi. Now two. Where is Yellow Flight?
Jiro leveled his wings heading toward Vlad. The Sukhois were about a mile apart, heading southwest. If everyone maintained heading, the Sukhois would pass White Three and Four several miles to the left. “Three, this is Four. My gadget has overheated. I’m turning it off.”
This unexpected transmission on the plane-to-plane digital laser system shook Jiro. He had just been basking in the glow of Athena’s excellence, and now his wingman’s unit had failed. It was high time to be out of here. Where is Yellow Flight?
Without Athena to cancel incoming waves of electromagnetic energy enemy radar, Four was now plainly visible on the screen of every radar looking. Apparently, several of them were looking with interest. Jiro’s electronic countermeasures panel lit up — someone was tracking them in high PRF, the firing mode of an antiaircraft missile radar. Actually they were tracking the wingman, but Jiro was close enough to the targeted aircraft to receive the indications on his equipment. “Break away, Four. RTB.” This meant return to base. “I’ll be right along.”
“My fuel is bingo,” Four said, trying to cushion the embarrassment of his Athena failure. Jiro’s fuel was also getting desperate. But if he didn’t cover Four’s withdrawal, Four was in for a very bad time. “RTB,” Jiro repeated. “Now!”
The other Zero turned away hard. Jiro watched the tactical display and ensured the wingman steadied up as he headed toward Hokkaido. The Sukhois from Vlad turned fifteen degrees to the left and launched a missile. Two. Four was too far away for the discrete laser com. Jiro keyed the radio, which was scrambled, of course. Still, he was radiating. “Two missiles in the air, White Four. Sixty-three miles behind you.” Four should have the missiles on his tactical display, if he had the proper display punched in. Jiro was taking no chances. The Sukhois were too far away for Jiro to shoot. The Russian missiles had more range than the Japanese. Perhaps the Sukhois could be diverted with another target. Jiro turned off his Athena device. The visibility was too poor to see the Russian missiles’ exhaust. They were out there, though, thundering along at almost Mach 4, covering two miles every three seconds. The missiles had been fired at nearly maximum range, so White Four was trying to outrun them. He was accelerating too, dumping fuel into his exhaust in exchange for speed. That was not a wise maneuver for a man without fuel to spare, but he was trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea. Four was accelerating through Mach 2. Well, he was safe. The missiles would never catch him in a stern chase before they exhausted their fuel. “Three, this is Four. I’m changing freqs, calling for a tanker. I need fuel to get home.”
“Roger.”
Jiro devoted his attention to the Sukhois, which had turned in his direction. He checked his fuel gauges. He didn’t have any to spare on speed dashes, either. Missile launch. One … two from the Sukhois. Where in hell is Yellow Flight?
“Yellow Leader, White Three. State your position and expected time to arrive on station, please.”
Jiro and the Sukhois were closing head-on at a combined speed of Mach 2.5. The missiles were coming at Mach 4. Closure speed with the missiles, 1.2 miles per second. He was going to be in range for his missiles in five seconds. They were armed and ready to fire. He had only to punch the fire button on the stick. Four … three…, two … one … the in-range symbol appeared on the scope. If he waited for a few seconds, he would have a better
