Looks like Blue Fox multi-mode.”
That meant a Sea Harrier on their tail. “Range!”
“Twelve miles. Closing.”
No problem. A Sea Harrier could barely manage Mach 1, if that. There was lots of time. “Ah … Batman, this is Army,” he radioed. “Where are you?”
“Your two o’clock and high,” Batman replied. “Range five miles.”
“Batman, I’m after this missile, but I’ve got a problem closing on my six. Can you brush him off, over?”
“Roger, Army. The Batman’s on the way.”
Army searched the horizon ahead for the enemy’s missile. The range was down to two miles now. He’d have to be a bit closer before he could spot it with the naked eye. For now, the radar-directed target box drifted from side to side on his HUD, marking an empty patch of blue just below the horizon.
Gently, he eased his throttle forward, straining to catch up.
Lieutenant Commander Tahliani watched the small, drifting box on his HUD that marked the position of the enemy plane. Another computer-generated graphic marked the second American plane, now approaching nearly head-on from the northwest.
He continued to concentrate on the first target, pushing his throttles full forward, picking up speed.
His plan had worked well, but now he had to take advantage of the setup he’d created. By launching the missile at the American carrier, he’d drawn the enemy F14 into a chase, forcing his opponent to slow and turn in order to position himself behind the speeding ship-killer. As long as the American stayed behind the slower missile, trying to line up his shot, Tahliani had a chance — a small and very brief chance — to get close enough for a Magic Kill.
Unfortunately, the second American Tomcat was vectoring in to cut him off. It was going to be close, either way.
CHAPTER 20
Batman adjusted his course, eyes glued to the graphic symbol marking the enemy Sea Harrier.
He still had one Phoenix … but the AIM54 was not a dogfighting missile. With no Sidewinders left, he would have to make a head-on pass, guns blazing. He might get lucky on the fly-by, and if he didn’t, he should be able to swing around and take the bandit on his six.
“Tomcat Two-one-six,” he radioed. “I’m in. Going for guns.” He flicked the guns control on his stick and saw the target reticle appear on his HUD.
He closed with the enemy head-to-head at better than Mach 2.
The range to his target was eight miles, and slowly decreasing. With part of his mind Tahliani concentrated on the target, and with part he focused on the enemy F14, coming in almost head-on. The Tomcat pilot was trying for a pass with his guns.
Grimly, Tahliani gripped the throttle with his right hand, the controls that vectored his four engine nozzles with the other. He waited, watching … The Tomcat exploded into view, a blur of motion felt more than seen.
Tahliani’s glimpse of the muzzle flash stuttering on the left side of the nose beneath the cockpit was so brief it was almost subliminal.
He yanked the vectoring throttles back …
Batman squeezed the trigger and felt the shudder of 20-mm Vulcan cannon shells spewing toward the target … Only the target wasn’t there! With a curse, Batman yanked back on the stick. The enemy plane had just performed a maneuver Batman had never encountered before in training or in combat. A maneuver that was impossible …
The maneuver was called viffing, a word derived by the Sea Harrier’s British designers from the acronym for Vectoring In Forward Flight. By swinging the engine nozzles around, he had abruptly chopped his forward speed. The Sea Harrier hovered, then skittishly drifted backwards, rising. From the American pilot’s perspective it must have appeared that he’d stopped in midair and started to fly backward and up.
Cannon shells slashed into the wave tops a hundred feet in front of him, where the Sea Harrier was supposed to be if it had been an ordinary aircraft. The F14 pulled up and thundered overhead, its shadow momentarily blotting the morning sun astern.
Then Tahliani rammed the vectoring controls forward again, returning to forward flight. He’d lost a few seconds in his pursuit but gained many seconds more on his target’s wingman. It would take a long time, long by the standards of modern aerial combat, for the wingman to swing around and come at him from behind.
Army squeezed the trigger and his M-61A1 Vulcan Gatling gun stuttered, sending a stream of 20-mm shells toward the target. He could see the missile now, a tiny black speck less than half a mile ahead.
“Batman, where are you?” he called. “This guy’s still on my six!”
“Damn, Army! I missed him! Airplanes can’t do that!”
Army shook his head, not sure what Batman was talking about. Gently, he squeezed the trigger for another burst. Gouts of water exploded on the ocean beneath the hurtling missile.
“Tomcat Two-oh-one, this is Victor Tango One-one. Break off pursuit!
You are entering Homeplate’s point defense zone!”
“Copy, Victor Tango! I’m out of there!”
He pulled up. Jefferson’s point Phalanx cannons would be on automatic, and any aircraft that came within two miles of the carrier would be shot down.
“We almost had the bastard, Dixie,” he said. The Tomcat clawed for altitude. He could see the carrier in the distance, huge and isolated on a vast, gray-blue sea.
“Army!” Dixie yelled over the ICS. “That bandit’s making his move! He’s right on our tail! Range six miles!”
“Shit!” Army pulled the Tomcat into a hard left roll. “He’s still with us, man! Still with us! Five miles! No … four! He’s lining us up for the shot!”
Tahliani had them in his sights. He let the aiming pipper meet the graphic symbol representing an American Tomcat as it twisted across his HUD less than four miles ahead, and heard the satisfying electronic warble in his headphones as one of his Magic AAMS “saw” the target. His finger closed on the trigger.
The R-550 Matra Magic was a French weapon, one deliberately designed to compete on the world’s market with the notorious American Sidewinder. It had an extremely flexible range for an all-aspect heat-seeker and was capable of engaging targets as close as two tenths of a mile, or as distant as six miles. It could even be slaved to controls in the launching aircraft’s cockpit, allowing the pilot to guide it to the target. Its one quirk was the extremely large amount of smoke it released during firing.
The exhaust cloud enveloped the Sea Harrier’s starboard wing, momentarily blinding Tahliani as it slid from the launching rail. Then he pulled out of the smoke in time to see the missile climbing rapidly on a billowing contrail, arcing up into the sky. The target was still too distant to be seen with the naked eye. Aware that the second
