out of an expanding globe of destruction.
Lobo jinked right, trying to avoid the deadly cloud of debris, but she could still hear the sharp ping and pock of fragments striking her wings, fuselage, and canopy. The burning nose section flashed past, seemingly close enough to touch, though it must have missed her by fifty yards. The fire reached out toward her…
… and then she was through, in blue and empty sky once more.
'Right down the throat!' Vader cried from the back seat. 'God, Lobo!
That was the gutsiest damn move I've ever seen!'
'Thanks. Shotgun One-three! One-three! This is Shotgun One-four! Do you copy?' There was no immediate answer. Damn! Where was he?
'Vader!' she called. 'What's happening out there? Where is everybody?'
'Looks like the other MiGs were killed or they broke off, Lobo. Coyote's rallying Shotgun back behind the Intruders.'
'Do you have Slider on your scope?'
'Bearing two-seven-five, range one mile.'
She turned her head, searching… there! He was low, so low she'd missed seeing his gray aircraft against the monotonous gray terrain below. He had his wings extended and he was flying slowly toward the west, away from her.
'Shotgun One-three!' she repeated. 'One-three! This is Shotgun One-four! Do you copy? Please respond!'
'One-four, this is One-three.' Slider's voice sounded shaken.
'Slider! You radioed that you were hit. What's your damage?'
'Starboard engine out. Can't restart. And… Blue Grass's hit. He was screaming for a moment there. He's stopped now, but I can't raise him. I think he was hit pretty bad.'
'Okay. Are your controls still working?' She was moving in closer now, watching Slider's Tomcat, a huge, gray spread-winged eagle against the horizon ahead.
'Affirmative. I've moved my wings forward to maintain lift.'
'I see you. Hold it steady, Slider. I'm coming up behind your aircraft, on your five and low.'
'Rog.'
Gently, she eased closer, inspecting the other plane. 'I see some damage, Slider. Some holes in your starboard nacelle, about where your intake compressor is, and forward from there. And… looks like three big holes right below your RIO's seat.'
'Can you see Blue Grass?'
'I see his helmet. He's slumped over, not moving. He's either unconscious or dead.'
'Oh, damn, damn…'
'Okay, Slider. I'll tell you what. You can still fly, so let's nurse your turkey back to the bird farm, okay?'
'I'll never make it, Lobo.'
'Damn it, yes, you will! Now bring her around to three-five-zero, nice and easy.' She shifted to another frequency. 'Shotgun One-one, this is Shotgun One-three!'
'One-one. Go ahead, Lobo.'
'My wingman's been shot up pretty bad. One engine out and his RIO's hit.
Permission to escort him back to the Jeff.'
There was a brief hesitation. 'Okay, Lobo. That's a roger. We splashed three of those MiGs, including your kill, and the others seem to have lost interest. You go ahead and get Slider and Blue Grass back to the boat.'
'Roger. We'll be waiting for you with the beer when you get back.' She shifted back to the channel she'd been using to talk to Arrenberger. 'Okay, Slider. Let's see if you can get a bit more speed out of that thing.'
Lieutenant Steve Strickland, Striker, had heard the brief exchange between Coyote and Lobo. His relief at hearing that Chris was all right had left him feeling weak and a little dizzy, enough so that he'd had to check his oxygen-flow panel to make sure his mask was still working.
He had no doubts now. His feelings for Chris Hanson had gone way beyond any merely sexual desire. Sex might have explained his initial attraction for her, that and their shared lust for the exotic and the dangerous that had led them to break the rules in the first place. But now, he knew he loved her, knew that he was going to marry her the moment Jefferson returned to Norfolk.
The thought of anything happening to Chris…
He glanced to his left out of the cockpit. Batman and Malibu were just off his port wing, and beyond them, Brewer and Pogie and C.T. and Junker.
None of them had been involved in that short, sharp dogfight a few moments before, and they were maintaining their position at one thousand feet, between the two White Lightning Intruder flights.
Striker still wasn't sure he knew what he thought about women flying combat jets. He'd always thought of himself as a progressive liberal, and that meant believing implicitly in a woman's right to do anything a man could do, including defend her country. Since he'd begun feeling this way about Chris, though, he'd started questioning the whole idea. Every time he thought of her going down in flames, maybe punching out over the cold, empty sea…
'Shotgun, Shotgun' he heard over his helmet phones. 'This is Echo Whiskey Two-one. We've got more aircraft coming off the ground at Ura Guba, at least four new bogies. We're also reading four new contacts at very low altitude, heading in your direction just south of Port Vladimir.'
'Copy that, Echo Whiskey Two-one,' Coyote replied. 'Heads up, Shotgun.
We've got more company coming.'
Striker was already checking relative positions on a small map of the northern Kola Peninsula he carried clipped to a pad on his thigh. Two groups of Russian planes, one just a few miles to the west at Ura Guba, the other coming in behind them, from the north. That northern group, the Russian planes at Port Vladimir… they must be heading straight for Chris and Slider.
Chris!…
'Shotgun Two-one, this is Two-two!' he called. 'Batman! Those Port Vladimir bogies must be moving to pick off Shotgun One-three and One-four!'
'I hear you, Striker,' Batman replied. 'Hold your formation.'
'But Batman! We've got to-'
'Hold your formation, Striker! If those MiGs are after anyone, it's White Lightning!'
'Hey, Striker,' Lieutenant j.g. Ken Barringer called from the back seat.
'Stay frosty, man! She'll be okay!'
'Stuff it, K-Bar!' he snapped back. White Lightning's target, a collection of dockyard facilities along the Kola Inlet, was less than five miles ahead. For one wild moment, he wondered what would happen if he broke formation heading north to cut off those Port Vladimir bandits before they jumped Chris.
Besides, of course, his being court-martialed the moment he got back to the Jefferson.
Batman glanced to his right, trying somehow to read the expression on the face of the masked and helmeted Striker, flying a few feet off his starboard wing. Could he depend on his wingman to stick with him?
'Batman, this is Coyote.'
'Batman here. Go ahead.'
'Take your flight high and to the north. See if you can pull an end run on those bandits coming in from Ura Guba.'
'Roger. Everybody hear that?' One by one, the other three aircraft of Shotgun Two acknowledged. 'Okay. Let's make our move. Break!'
The four Tomcats peeled off to the left, rolling onto an intercept course.
