grunted away at an M-1, forcing the blood to stay in his head… and then he'd been in the clear, lining up on one of the low-flying MiGs displayed against his HUD.
Where the hell was his wingman… wingperson, he corrected himself with a wry grin beneath his mask. Glancing left, outside the radius of his turn, he saw nothing and assumed she'd not been able to keep up with him. He had nothing against Hanson personally, of course ? she seemed like a nice kid ? but damn it, women had no business at the controls of a hot combat fighter.
'Lock! Blue Grass!' he called to his RIO. 'I got tone! Fox one!'
The AMRAAM shrieked clear of the Tomcat, and Slider immediately pulled right, angling toward a second lock on the other Russian fighter.
'Pull up, Slider!' Blue Grass screamed in his ear. 'Pull up!'
Instinctively he brought the stick back and eased back on the turn. A shadow blotted the light to his right, then slid beneath his aircraft.
'Jesus, Slider!' sounded over his headset. 'Watch where the hell you're driving!'
Only then did Slider realize that Lobo must have stuck with him through the turn, had actually stayed inside his turn where the G-forces were higher… and he'd come a thumbnail's breadth from turning right into her.
'God damn it, Hanson!' he yelled back. 'Give me some flying room, huh?'
But he knew even as he said the words that he should have checked right for his wingman as well as to the left.
'Let's stay frosty, guys.' That was Lieutenant j.g. 'Vader' McVey, Hanson's RIO. 'I've got two more lifting up from Ura Guba.'
'Okay,' Slider said. 'But stay off my ass, lady! No more of this welded-wing shit!'
'Affirmative.' Hanson's voice was tight and cold. Had she been as shook by the near-miss as him? Or was she just mad because he'd snapped at her?
There was no figuring women. He'd apologize later. It was his fault, after all, and Arrenberger prided himself on being fair.
Ahead, the Russian aircraft Slider had fired at was climbing hard, close enough now that he could distinguish the characteristic silhouette of a MiG-29, with its widely separated engine nacelles and flared LERX, the leading- edge roof extensions over the aircraft's intake.
'He's dumping chaff,' Blue Grass announced. 'He's pulling an Immelmann.'
'I'm on him.' He hauled back on the stick, climbing rapidly to cut the Russian off at the top of his twisting, vertical maneuver. The AMRAAM was still tracking, but Slider wanted to position himself to nail the guy if he gave the air-to-air missile the slip.
'I'm going for a Sidewinder lock,' Lobo said over the tactical channel.
'I've got a shot…'
'Get out of there, Lobo. He's mine!'
'Screw you, Slider. Fox two!' A white contrail seared into the sky ahead of Slider's F-14, swinging upward as it tracked the exhaust of the MiG.
'AMRAAM's been suckered, Slider,' Blue Grass told him. 'Miss!'
'Shit!' Glancing back over his shoulder this time to make sure he was clear, he threw his Tomcat right. He wanted to maneuver into a good position to catch the MiGs still rising from the Ura Guba air base. Lobo could have the damned Fulcrum.
In an ImmelMann, the aircraft goes into a twisting, vertical climb, dropping chaff or flares if it's trying to break a missile lock, then rolling out at the top in an unpredictable direction. The Fulcrum pilot had already lost the American's AMRAAM radar lock; now, he could see the Sidewinder coming up after him, and his next maneuver was designed to defeat that as well.
Releasing a scattering of fiercely burning flares, he rolled out of his climb coming straight back toward his attackers, deliberately swinging his twin engine exhausts away from the heat-seeking missile and throttling back at the same time.
While the AIM-9M was an all-aspect heat-seeker, its sensors were not infallible. This time they preferred the white-hot lure of burning magnesium to a target that had suddenly dwindled away to almost nothing. The Sidewinder flashed past and out of the fight, as the Fulcrum stooped from the top of its climb, diving straight toward the pair of Tomcats a mile ahead and below.
The Russian was grinning as he locked onto one of the gigantic F-14s with the huge, multi-barrelled 30mm rotary cannon mounted inside his port LERX.
The Fulcrum shuddered as the gun thundered.
Arrenberger was halfway into his turn when the tracers came searing past his cockpit, bright yellow globes of light that looked as big as grapefruit and close enough to touch.
Something hit the Tomcat in the belly hard, the thump rattling Slider's teeth.
'Christ, Slider!' Blue Grass was screaming, his voice ragged. 'Get this turkey out of here!'
Turkey. Navy fliers reserved the name for the Tomcat, an aircraft that they loved, but which could betray them by its size and by its slow maneuvering compared to the more nimble MiG-29. Already into his turn, right wing high, Slider pulled the Tomcat into a barrel roll, sliding up and over the stream of tracers flashing toward him from the oncoming MiG.
Too late. The MiG pilot had already corrected for the changing angles between his aircraft and Slider's. Five more rounds slammed into the Tomcat with a rippling shudder of tortured metal, and Slider saw the flash of his starboard engine warning light.
'Shit!' He opened his mike to the tactical channel. 'This is Shotgun One-three! I'm hit! I'm hit!'
Power in his starboard engine was dropping. Another burst of 30mm cannon fire smashed into his aircraft, and then Blue Grass was screaming, an inhuman screech of raw agony.
'Blue Grass! Blue Grass!'
His RIO wasn't operating the ICS switch on the cockpit floor, but his screams were loud enough for Slider to hear them anyway. 'My legs!' And then his RIO was screaming again, a nightmare keening that went on and on as the MiG kept coming…
CHAPTER 25
Lobo had a split second to make the right choice. Her Tomcat was pointed straight at the oncoming MiG, and her HUD was already set to air-to-air-missile mode. With the range between her aircraft and the MiG dwindling rapidly to nothing, she could break away and circle, trying to get on the bad guy's tail, or she could extend her climb for a critical few seconds in an attempt to make a kill. It would have to be a Sidewinder launch; she didn't have time to switch to guns.
Bring it to the left… There! Lock! Fire! 'Fox one!' she shouted, and her last Sidewinder howled off the rail and toward the oncoming MiG. The range was already down to a scant few hundreds of yards.
Time seemed frozen in that one, stark instant. Lobo could see the MiG just to the left of her Tomcat's nose, could see such details as the numerals 744 painted on the side of its sharply raked left intake, and the red and white helmet of its pilot inside the clear bubble canopy.
The AIM-9M lanced beneath the Fulcrum's port LERX and straight into the gaping intake. The explosion blew out the MiG's left engine, a puff of smoke and glittering debris, deceptively gentle… and then the Russian plane's wing tank erupted in white-orange flame, and its nose was spinning end over end and hurtling straight toward her
