'Already on it,' Gator said. 'Turn right to heading three two zero.
We're two minutes out.' 'Skeeter know?' I asked even as I was standing the Tomcat on wingtip to comply, all the while descending as well.
'Better. Sheila does.'
I pulled us up at barely one hundred feet above the sea, too close under almost any conditions except these. But cold air is thick, easy to fly in. It gave us a margin of safety that we wouldn't have had in warmer climates.
'They're coming after us,' Gator warned. 'Range, fifteen miles and closing. Descending through ten thousand feet now.'
'Tomcat zero zero, maintain present altitude and heading,' a new voice said. 'It's going to be close, sir, and I need your cooperation. Keep your wingman on your right.'
The Aegis then, asserting her rights over this wedge of airspace. I acknowledged the orders and hoped to hell they'd hurry. There's no more helpless feeling than being wings level at sea level with enemy fighters inbound.
The airspace around me felt clobbered with danger. The missiles inbound on the carrier, the MiGs, even my own cruiser launching missiles in my general direction. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be, not for a fighter pilot. It is if the fighter pilot doesn't obey orders.
Yeah, but the submarine ? we were the closest thing to a cavalry around.
You think maybe they know how to manage this war without your help?
No.
I quit second-guessing myself. There was a reason I'd peeled out of the marshal stack, a sound tactical one. If they'd been thinking onboard the carrier, they'd have sent me themselves.
The submarine. What was one fighter compared to that? 'Skeeter, stay here,' I ordered. 'No matter what.'
'I don't leave my lead, Admiral.'
'Don't argue with me.'
'You've got two choices, Tombstone. You talk to me, clue me in on what we're doing and give me a better chance to survive it all. Or you roll out on your own. Either way, you look to the right, you're going to see me. Like I said ? I don't leave my lead.' Skeeter's voice made it clear that he had no intention of obeying any orders I gave him that involved leaving him behind.
'We've got to get back to the sub,' I said, capitulating to the inevitable. 'There's something going on there.'
'Roger. The Aegis knows how to break a Mode IV IFF. She does her job, we do ours.'
I hoped to hell it would work. I slid the throttles forward, increasing power more gently this time, buying myself time to think, and the Aegis time to react. I thought about explaining it to her, then decided against it. Like Skeeter said, the Aegis could break Mode IV and would be able to distinguish our radar paint from that of the Russians.
'Fire one,' the Aegis TAO said. Four more missiles rippled off her rails in short order, the first aimed at the incoming cruise missile and the others at the MiGs.
'You have the missile?' I asked Gator, building the plan in my mind as we ascended.
'Yeah ? still behind us. Come right to zero one zero, altitude two thousand feet. That'll put us at a slight angle to it.'
'OK, then.' I'd just nosed through angels two thousand, headed upward. Two thousand was fine with me, since the MiGs ? and the Aegis missiles after them ? were still well above that. But for how long?
I edged back down slightly to maintain altitude, and started scanning the airspace around me, twisting around in my ejection seat and trying to get a visual on the missile. Gator was feeding the plan to Sheila at the same time.
'I got it,' Skeeter announced. 'Tallyho.' 'Take the shot if you get it,' I said, still searching the sky where Gator said the missile was.
'Fox one,' Skeeter announced, launching an AMRAAM at the missile.
Then again, 'Fox one,' as he fired a second AMRAAM.
Then I saw it, the AMRAAM's intended target. It would be massive up close, but from this distance was merely a small gash of white against the sky.
'Where to, lead?' Skeeter asked. 'One of those two will get it.'
His missiles were streaking across the sky, bright splashes of yellow fire gouting from their tails, much more visible from this angle than their intended target was.
'Stay on the missile,' I ordered. 'Make sure you've got it ? we can't take a chance. I'm going after the submarine.'
Skeeter started to protest, but I ignored him. Too many lives were at stake to simply assume that the AMRAAMs would find their marks. I slid off to the right and turned back around to locate the submarine.
By the time I got there, the skipper had evidently realized how critical his situation was. Skimming the ocean at only three hundred feet above the deadly sea, I could see that he had a megaphone in his hands.
Both his crew and the lifeboat Russians looked up as my Tomcat screamed by overhead. One Russian lifted a three-foot tube to his shoulder.
Stingers. If he could sight in on me and get it off while I was within two miles, he was no less deadly for being low-tech. Each tube was a one-shot anti-air missile, and I couldn't tell whether they had more than one onboard the raft.
There was only one way to find out, and I wasn't going to wait on the submarine any longer. I pushed on past them maybe three miles, and orbited for a moment while I thought through the plan.
'You fly, I'll spot,' Gator suggested.
'I'm trying to think of anything we could do to increase our chances against that Stinger. You saw it, I take it?' I said.
'I did.' A sigh then. 'There's no way through this except straight through it ? we both know that. You handle the evasive maneuvering, keep them from getting a lock. I'll watch and see what else they're pulling.
You're going in with guns, right?' 'The only weapon I've got for this,' I said.
'The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we're back on the boat.'
I turned back in on the sub and life raft. A puff of black smoke wafted out of the sail. The life raft was now only thirty yards from the sub, fighting the swells and the weather.
'Here we go.' I dropped down to barely one hundred feet above the waves and started a series of hard zigzags that I hoped would defeat their targeting solutions. My finger rested on the weapons control switch for a moment, then I selected Guns.
I fired a short test burst ? the life raft was far too close to the sub for my liking and I wanted to make sure of the line of fire. The rounds, every tenth one a tracer, bit into the ocean, stitching a ragged line ahead of me.
'Get the hell up! Altitude, altitude,' Gator shouted. 'Tombstone, MiG inbound!'
I wrenched the Tomcat around to the left and shoved the throttles forward into afterburner. The sky streaked by my windshield, dull and foreboding. 'Where is he?' I asked, scanning the sky around me. No contrails, no glint of sun on metal gave away his position.
'Three o'clock, high.' I looked in the direction Gator indicated and found him. He was maybe at ten thousand feet, descending rapidly, nose onto us. I turned into him, still in afterburner, then glanced down at my fuel status. This engagement was going to have to be short and deadly.
'He's got a lock, he's got a lock,' Gator chanted, his voice cutting through his ESM receiver beeping. 'Break right, Tombstone!' I broke and heard the thump as canisters of chaff and flares spit out of our underbelly.
'Looking good,' Gator said. 'I think it's ? yes, it's going for it!'
I wasn't going to wait around for the fireball. With fuel getting critical and the MiG fast approaching to within knife-fighting range, there wasn't time. As soon as I got tone, I shot two Sparrows and headed back for the submarine. The Russians had managed to make another ten yards of progress toward the sub. Just as I was starting to descend on them, a shotgun blast boiled the water immediately in front of the raft. Then another, even closer this time as the submariner found his range.
'He's got us,' Gator said. 'The Stinger's ? hold on, he's going to shoot.'
'Just inside minimums.' I fired a quick burst from the gun.
