Sea was a nice temperature, not too warm, kind of soothing on his twisted back. The only troublesome thing was the stream of blood that kept running down his face from a cut somewhere on his scalp. The blood dripped into the water, of course; he couldn’t stop it. Which meant he couldn’t stop thinking about sharks.
Overfishing, he kept telling himself. For decades the Asians had been decimating the shark population, netting the fish left and right, lopping off their dorsal fins for soup and tossing the maimed animal back into the water for its brethren to devour. Then catching the brethren. More recently, half-baked theories about the ability of shark cartilage to prevent cancer in humans had led American fishing boats to join in the massacre.
Still, sharks… it only took one. And these waters were the hunting grounds of one of the most notorious man-eating species in the world: the tiger shark.
That was why the sound of approaching jet engines brought feelings of relief to him, as well as dread. He wanted to be found and rescued. On the other hand, it had been a jet that shot down the Gulfstream.
To his relief, when he finally spotted the two aircraft that were making the racket, they didn’t look like the one that had fired the missile. These had angular bodies, double vertical stabilizers, and wings that pointed in the right direction.
Then he spotted the red stars on their undersurfaces, and his fear doubled. Chinese fighters, not American.
But the jets were searching in the wrong place, a mile or two to the south. Without the Gulfstream itself to focus on, they seemed to be streaking around almost arbitrarily, close to the water, possibly trying to make sense of the debris that had fanned across the surface of the South China Sea.
George debated what to do. There were flares in one pocket of the life vest; he could draw attention in his way in an instant with those. But… one of these maniacs’ friends had shot down the Gulfstream; what would they do to him if they picked him up?
The jets began to spread out, circling. Then he saw more jets moving in from the southeast, pair by pair, at a much higher altitude. At least eight planes up there. But this group didn’t circle; it continued straight east, heading further out to sea.
Fighter planes, nothing but fighter planes. Where were the rescue helicopters, the slow search aircraft, the boats?
Maybe, George thought, he should just keep floating along here until a fishing vessel came along.
Down in the water, a brown shadow cruised past his dangling feet. It had a blunt, squared-off snout, and dark stripes on its flanks.
Dr. George groped wildly in the pocket of his life vest.
“Well, here they come.” Handyman’s voice was dry over the ICS. Lobo thought he sounded like a bored suburbanite announcing the arrival of neighbors for the annual block party. “Six new bogeys, altitude thirty thousand feet, bearing zero one zero. Flankers, by their radar. And they aren’t searching for anything but favorable position.”
Hot Rock’s voice came over tactical: “Lobo? Did you happen to notice we’re getting a tad outnumbered here?” His words were flyboy-cool, but under them his voice was as tight as a spool of cable. Lobo reminded herself that her wingman hadn’t tasted combat yet. Never knew how anyone would react to the real thing until it happened. She wondered if the tension in his voice was the product of eagerness, or of fear… and which would be better. “Backup’s on the way,” she said. “And remember, we’re just here to hang around, not to fight. So stay cool.”
“Tell them that.”
Looking up through the canopy, Lobo spotted six double-wide vapor trails etching across the blue. Her skin tightened. For any fighter pilot, altitude almost always equaled power. But today she didn’t have the option of seeking the high slot, not if she was going to perform her assigned duty of protecting the area where the jet had gone down. If what had happened to
“I hate this,” she said over ICS.
“Lobo,” Handyman said, “high or low, you can out-fly anyone in the sky. You got that?”
She blinked. “Thanks, Handyman.” Switching to tactical, she said, “Okay, Hot Rock, get ready to start searching.”
“What a grand idea.”
“Relax. Reinforcements are ten minutes out. Keep tight this time, Hot Rock. Welded wing unless somebody starts something.”
“Welded wing, roger.”
Lobo clicked off. Easy to tell her wingman to relax, but she was facing a bit of an inner chill herself; couldn’t deny it. The last major air battle she’d been in… well, she’d ended up punching out of her plane. And then, of course, spending some quality time with a Russian militia.
And later still, spending a lot more time getting her head shrunk.
She hoped it was the right size for whatever came up now.
“I always thought Hornets were speedy,” Major “Thor” Hammersmith growled, thumping the throttles of his F/A-18 with the heel of his hand. “Come on, you bitch.”
“We’re getting there,” his wingman, Reedy, said in the voice that had earned him his call sign. “Besides, we were told to grab for altitude at the same time.”
“Yeah, yeah.” All Thor wanted to do was shoot down a bad guy. The last major military action he’d been involved in, down in Cuba, he’d gotten his ass blown out of the sky while he was refueling. Refueling! Spent the rest of that little affair tied to a chair while different Cubans pounded on him and used him to taunt the U.S. Navy. Not any Marine’s idea of “participation.”
Not that he was planning on starting a fight here. No way. But these assholes had blasted an innocent American yacht to pieces the other night, then actually ripped a chunk out of
He knew that more than half the planes awaiting them were the latest model Flanker. Rumor had it that although these Flankers were as big as F-14s — or “Turkeys,” in Hornet driver parlance — the Russian fighters handled more like F/A-18s. In the case of the SU-35, they supposedly handled
That’s what he’d heard. But what you heard and what you
He thumped the throttles again. Tried not to think about the rate at which his two F404-GE-402 turbofans were gulping down precious fuel. That was the Hornet’s biggest disadvantage compared to the Turkey: Hornets had short legs. It would be just his luck to get in a punch or two in an air battle, only to have to run away again to gas up.
Not that there was going to be any fight, mind you….
An axiom of dogfighting stated that all else being equal, a lone fighter plane was a victim, while a pair acting in concert was like a two-headed snake: It saw everything, and could bite in any direction.
As wingman in the so-called “welded wing” formation, Hot Rock’s primary job was to be the rear head of the snake, keeping his lead safe. In the event of an actual battle, he would fly in tandem with Lobo, protecting her vulnerable back from attack so she could concentrate on her primary job: shooting down enemy aircraft. His own
