Rivera, an impact that staggered him back a step and sucked the wind from his lungs. Another blast, this one farther forward as another missile ruptured and exploded. For a terrified instant, Rivera wondered if a nuke had been set off, but the multiple explosions were nothing more than the violent detonation of SS-N-20 solid-fuel cores.
Flames raced out across the surface of the water.
'Wheeee-oh!' Sunshine called, and her gloved left hand slapped down hard on Willis's thigh. 'Way to go! Way to go!'
The Intruder lurched again and Willis barely recovered. Glancing quickly back over his left shoulder, he saw the entire breadth of the Polyamyy Inlet filled with orange fire.
The RAW light flashed ? the Radar Acquisition Warning. 'We're being tracked.'
'Do you see it?'
'Negative! I can't see a damned thing but explosions!'
'Dump chaff!'
In the last instant, Willis saw the missile, streaking up from the forward deck of an Udaloy destroyer moored across from Polyamyy. He pulled the stick to the left as hard as it would go…
The explosion slammed the Intruder in the right side with a roar like thunder. The canopy beside Sunshine's head crazed to a frosty white, and a roaring sound filled the cockpit. Sunshine slumped to the left, her helmet thumping against Willis's arm. Blood sprayed across Willis, scarlet droplets splattering his windshield, his instruments, and his flight suit.
'Sunshine!' he yelled, half turning, trying to support her while continuing to fly the Intruder. 'Sunshine!'
Batman saw the SAM from the destroyer detonate alongside the Intruder, but there was nothing he could do about it at the moment. He'd plunged into the furball and taken down two MiGs in quick succession, but then a Fulcrum had dropped out of the sky like a hawk with talons extended. Tracers drifted past the left side of his canopy and he jinked right, then jinked left again, unable to break the MiG's lock on his tail.
'Two-one' sounded in his headset. 'This is Two-three!'
'Brewer! Where are you? I can't shake this guy!'
'I'm on him! When I tell you, break right!'
Batman winced at the thud-thud-thud of a trio of shells slamming into his fuselage. 'Do it! Do it!'
'Three… two… one… break!'
Brewer had been angling for a clear shot with her last Sidewinder missile, but the MiG had been riding so hard on Batman's tail she couldn't get a clear shot, one that would nail the Russian without accidentally locking onto Batman's engines. When he broke hard right, however, he slipped clear of her targeting pipper and the AIM-9M system signaled a lock on the MiG.
'Fox two!'
The Fulcrum was already into its starboard turn, still dogging Batman, when the missile slammed into its right engine and detonated. Flame spilled from the MiG's tail… and then the Russian's fuel tanks detonated into blossoming orange flame.
'Great shot, Brewer!' Batman called.
'That makes the score six-to-six, dead even, Batman!'
'Listen, babe! After that shot, we concede. Right, Malibu?'
'That's affirmative,' Malibu agreed. 'Beer and dinner're on us!'
She laughed. 'Who're you calling 'babe,' fella?'
'Anyone who handles a Tomcat like that is one hot babe. Where's Stoney?'
'I got him,' Pogie said. 'One-eight-five at angels one. He's got troubles.'
'Let's help him! Two-one's in!'
'Two-three,' Brewer added. 'We're in!'
A Fulcrum had dropped in behind Tombstone for a high, plunging attack.
He'd countered by pulling into a steep climb, rolling left. Inverted now, he looked down through the top of his canopy at the Russian plane passing beneath. Damn! Now it was climbing, rolling into a maneuver identical to his.
Rolling out over the top of his climb, Tombstone tried to line up a hasty shot with his guns, but the MiG pilot had already broken into his own climb, forcing Tombstone to overshoot and pass cockpit-to-cockpit beneath the rolling Fulcrum.
The two aircraft were now locked in a deadly maneuver called a rolling vertical scissors, each plane in turn trying to line up on the other, only to have the target evade its diving approach with an inverted roll. Each repeat of the maneuver cost both fighters airspeed and altitude. The altitude ladder on Tombstone's HUD showed seven hundred feet now, and still the two aircraft were rolling around one another, each trying for the upper ? and final ? hand, neither able to disengage without giving the other an immediate advantage.
'Stoney!' Tomboy warned. 'Watch your altitude!'
'I see it!'
They'd just plain run out of sky. A mountain, black rock patched with ice and snow, loomed ahead and Tombstone cut left and high to clear it. The MiG-29 tried to copy the maneuver, pulling nose high…
… and slammed into the cliff.
'Way to go, CAG!' Tomboy yelled.
Tombstone rolled out, afterburners thundering, fighting for altitude…
… and then the Tomcat's left wing disintegrated in a blaze of fire.
The shock was so sudden, so unexpected, that it took a moment for Tombstone to realize what had happened. Another MiG had been hanging back throughout those repeated vertical scissors, waiting for a chance to fire, and when Tombstone had broken left, he'd given the guy a perfect shot with a heatseeking AA-8 Aphid.
The crippled Tomcat, still climbing, went into a gentle roll, streaming flame. 'That's it, Tomboy!' he called to his RIO. 'We're punching out!'
'Go! Go!'
'Eject!' He yanked on the ring. The canopy blew away, filling his universe with roaring, thundering wind. Then the thunder of his ejection seat rocket drowned even that, and he was hurtling out into chill, empty sky.
The snow-patched Russian tundra spun crazily about Tombstone's head.
CHAPTER 30
'Tombstone's been hit!' Coyote called. 'I see him,' Cat said. 'Two chutes! Two good chutes!'
'Thank God. Batman! Brewer! Where are you?'
'We're on the guy that flamed CAG,' Brewer replied. 'Shit, too close!
