“Now, due north, Stoney,” Tomboy coached. “Longer this time. Thirty seconds. Counting now ” Her quiet voice ticked off the moments.
This time the five-hundred-pound bomb fell smoothly away from the Tomcat. Again, the shudder as its weight left the fuselage, the sudden extra lift and speed he felt take the aircraft afterward.
“Fish in a barrel,” Tombstone said cheerfully. “What’s that last vector?”
“Zero-eight-zero, the last one.” Tomboy glanced down at her ESM indicator. “And Tombstone it might be a good idea if we hurry.”
Tombstone slammed the Tomcat into afterburner again, taking note of his fuel status. The high-speed race in, the battle with the UAV, and carrying a full load of heavy weapons onto target had taken their toll.
The Tomcat was sucking down fuel like a Hornet. Much more of this, and he’d be lucky to make it back to the boat. He switched his circuit over to tactical. “Batman, get some gas in the air. I think I’m gonna need it.”
“Already there, buddy.” Batman chuckled. “You think I’d forget how you abuse the afterburner?”
“Tell him to expect me in ten mikes,” Tombstone said.
“I’m going to need to make it on the first approach.”
“Five seconds.” Tomboy’s voice sounded relieved. “Stoney, it’s the last one. Let’s make it a good one.”
This time. Tombstone rolled over inverted for another look at the target. Smoke and fumes were boiling away from the hole in the ground, indicating that launch preparations were under way. There was not a person in sight they’d all taken cover, not wanting to be exposed to the poisonous fumes and gases generated by a launch. Even more important, if there were an accident no one would have any chance of surviving a misfire by a nuclear weapon on the ground.
Not that they’d survive what he was about to do if they were anywhere in the vicinity. He rolled back into level flight, bore in for the last five seconds, then jerked the Tomcat up sharply as he released the final bomb. The motion of the aircraft, coupled with the weight of the bomb, acted like a slingshot, lofting the weapon through the air and toward the launchers.
He peeled out in a hard starboard turn, taking a quick glance back at the bomb. It was still in the air, now descending, smack-dead on target. He watched it go, occasionally glancing forward to make sure his flight path was clear, and saw how deadly accurate his shot had been.
Just as the bomb approached the launch structure, a thin, poisonous gray spear emerged from the ground. It was traveling slowly, still being boosted out of the silo by compressed gas in a small igniter rocket. That would soon change as the main battery kicked in, sending it arcing toward the mainland.
The deadly javelin was halfway out of the ground when the five-hundred-pound bomb hit. It landed immediately next to the missile, instantly crushing one wall of the silo.
The silo collapsed, pinching the missile at its waist and holding it in position. Tombstone saw the silo shudder, then break in half. Its forward portion had not even hit the ground when the area erupted in an orange fireball.
Tombstone jinked the Tomcat away from the scene, satisfied. Three up, three down.
“Good shooting, Stoney,” Tomboy said. “Glad I came along for the ride.”
“I’m glad you did, too, love,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t have had you miss it for the world.”
“How about we grab a quick drink and buster back to the carrier?”
Tomboy suggested.
“Next stop, Texaco,” Tombstone said. He felt his spirits lift with the Tomcat as they rose into the air.
“That’s it, then.” Senator Dailey’s voice sounded relieved.
“At least until next time.” He turned to the admiral standing next to him. “What about you, Keith? I’m not going to forget what you did here today.”
Admiral Keith Loggins shook his head. “I was stupid, criminally stupid.” He glanced up at the senator. “Ambition, personal power I forgot the oath that I took so long ago to protect this country. Those things … well, maybe that’s okay in your world. Senator no disrespect intended, sir.
But for us there’s got to be a higher purpose in life. We’re here to prevent wars, not start them. If we let personalities get in the way of that, let our own personal ambition override our sound operational thought, then we deserve what we get.” He looked back toward the console from which Senator Williams had launched the weapon. “You understand that. He never would have.”
“Maybe our worlds aren’t all that different, Keith,” the senator said.
“Or at least, they shouldn’t be. If you’ve got a moment during the next few days, I’d like to spend some time talking about what happened.
Maybe we can work out some ways to avoid its happening again, some approaches toward preventing the command and control structure from getting in the way of the operational commander. I think we’ve both learned a lesson out of this one.”
“I’d like that. Senator, although how much longer I’ll be in the service I couldn’t say.” The admiral shrugged, then felt a weight lift off his shoulders. “It might be time to retire.
Hell, three stars is enough for any man, don’t you think?
And Pamela well, it might be fun to spend some time alone with my new wife.”
Senator Dailey looked startled. He quickly rearranged his; face into a look of congratulations. “Well, that is good news.
When’s the big date? I will be getting an invitation, I hope?”
Admiral Loggins smiled. “I haven’t asked her yet, Tom.
But nowwell, I’m starting to see things in a different light. And yes, if she’ll have me, you can count on an invitation. We’d be honored by your presence.”
The two men shook hands, the grip hard and certain. The disaster they’d diverted today had cemented their friendship.
Santana heard one last yelp on the tactical circuit connecting him with the Cuban naval base, and then the hissing silence that indicated the transponder on the other end was destroyed. He swore, jinked his MiG around in an impossibly tight curve, and nailed the Hornet that had been glued onto him like a leech with a withering barrage of gunfire.
He was so close he caught a brief glimpse of the other pilot’s face, partially masked by helmet and visor, before the entire cockpit disintegrated into a scathingly hot ball of metal, flames, and flesh.
The base! That was the key. There was no point to this losing air battle if he and his compadres didn’t buy enough time for the missiles to ripple off their launchers. The air battle was not winnable, not in the long run. There was too much firepower massed off the coast, too many fighters waiting in the wings to relieve their battle-weary front line.
Not that it looked so injured, he had to admit. Results thus far had been startlingly disappointing. Even though they had practiced MiG on MiG for the last two years, growing increasingly efficient in pinpointing each other’s weaknesses and exploiting the high maneuverability and low wing loading factor of the MiG, they’d had no real adversary aircraft to train against. Not like the Americans, who since World War II had made it a practice to carefully maintain adversary air for the credibly trained force.
Had he actually gone up against the Hornet one-on-one, he would have known that the wing loading factors he’d read about in Aviation Weekly were illusory. With the fuselage providing a good deal of lift, the Hornet was considerably more nimble than its specs would warrant. As with the Tomcat, the lack of credible intelligence on the performance capabilities of these two aircraft flown at the edge of their envelope by pilots who knew them like their family car was astounding.
And meaningless. If the missiles didn’t launch …
Santana peeled away from the furball and put out the call over tactical. RTB return to base. If there was anything left to protect, that was their place now, not holding off this force so far away.
“What the hell are they doing?”
