“Dammit, why can’t I have a pilot that obeys orders.” He fixed CAG with a steely glare. “Do you know why, Captain?”
The CAG, never one to quail in the face of an angry admiral, nodded gravely. “Yes, Admiral, I think I do.”
“Then tell me — why? Weren’t they briefed on no overland operations? Don’t they know that those Chinese ships are probably carrying surface-to-air missiles? Those pilots were smart enough and tough enough to have gotten through the entire Tomcat training pipeline,” Batman raged. “So tell me, mister — why?”
“They’re doing what you would do, Admiral, were the situation reversed. That’s all.”
The silence in TFCC was absolute. Batman paused in his facing and turned to look back at the display. “There’s one big difference, mister. We all made it back.” He pointed at the tactical display. “And right now, that’s looking like a distant possibility for Lobo and Hot Rock.”
As he watched the Tomcat race forward, Chan continued to climb. It would be altitude that he would later convert into speed, trying to entice the heavier Tomcat into an altitude game. Finally, he converted into level flight, and waited there for the Tomcats to catch him.
Just then, he got a call over his own communication circuit. He breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the sense that it was all futile lift. If he could hold on for five minutes, maybe a little more, he would have reinforcements. Four more MiGs were launching off the third Chinese vessel.
“We’ve got company, Lobo,” Lobo’s backseater announced. “Four more playmates inbound — let’s get the hell out of here. As it is, we’re not going back overland — we’ll have to circle around seaward to get some support.”
Lobo acknowledged the pronouncement with two clicks of the mike. Her attention was elsewhere, as she took station on Hot Rock’s position, coming in high as he automatically took the low position.
“How much time have we got?” she asked.
“Three minutes, maybe.”
Lobo nodded. It would be enough, especially with a two-on-one engagement. Especially now.
There had been a time when she wouldn’t have been so certain, when Hot Rock was facing demons of his own, learning that being a fighter pilot was more than just fast reflexes and good eyesight. He’d come to terms with it several cruises ago, and since then his attitude equaled if not surpassed his technical flying capabilities.
“We’re going in. Kill him now,” she ordered.
Hot Rocks barreled in ahead of Lobo, slipping into the low position that was usually hers. He expected to hear a sharp reprimand over tactical, but she simply took his normal position above and behind. Somehow she knew how much he wanted this kill, how intensely personal it was for him.
The MiG was slightly above him, just starting to turn away. Hot Rock ascended, calculating the vector that would put him square on the other’s tail in perfect firing position. While the envelope for an air-to-air shot was increasing every day with the advanced avionics and independent seeker heads in the AMRAAM, he wanted this kill to be up close and personal. If there was a way he could have made it a slow, painful death, he would have.
“Take him with AMRAAM,” his backseater ordered. “Don’t screw around with this.”
“I can’t. We’re too close to land. Can’t take a chance of overshooting and collateral damage,” the pilot answered. Collateral damage — a cold, passionless word for the death of civilians, the exploding cement and bricks, the shattered bodies and lost lives.
“We don’t have time for guns,” the backseater argued.
Hot Rock ignored him. If there wasn’t time to avenge this atrocity, then time had no meaning at all. He kicked in afterburners and rapidly closed the distance between them. Just as he settled in within range, the MiG jinked violently upward, using its own afterburners to achieve a sheer vertical climb with no movement forward. It was an impressive display of power and airmanship, had Hot Rock been in the mood to admire it.
But he’d seen the maneuver too often at airshows to be distracted by it now. Reacting instantaneously, he slammed his Tomcat into a similar maneuver, starting well before he reached the MiG’s last position of level flight. No, the Tomcat couldn’t duplicate the maneuver, but it could come damned close.
“Back off, Hot Rock,” Lobo snapped. “You’re interfering with my shot!”
“Not a chance,” Hot Rock grunted, straining against the G-forces slamming him back into his ejection seat.
“Break right!” Lobo ordered. “Break right, or you’re going down with him.”
Hot Rock ignored her, fine-tuning his approach on the rapidly ascending MiG. Sooner or later the bastard would run out of airspace and be forced to turn out of the climb, and Hot Rock was making sure he had just enough reaction time to roll into level flight behind the MiG and blow it to Kingdom Come.
“Out of time!” his backseater shouted. “Hot Rock, we gotta get out of here, buddy! His playmates will be within weapons range in fifteen seconds, and I guaran-damn-tee you they’re not going to give a shit about firing over land or collateral damage.”
Hot Rock swore violently, and just for a split second considered ignoring the unfolding geometry. A few more seconds and the MiG would have to turn out of the climb, just a few more —
“Now!” his backseater screamed. “Break off
Finally, the hot red rage flaming behind his eyes loosened its hold on his brain. If he got the MiG, but added to the loss of civilian life, what was the point?
He pulled out of the climb and looked for Lobo. She was eight thousand feet below him, waiting on him.
“Buster, asshole,” she snapped. “Follow me this time.” She peeled off and headed back for the boat without another word.
Hot Rock followed, but snapped his head around to get one last look at the MiG as it escaped.
SEVEN
Adele Simpson stared dumbfounded at the black smoke rolling up from the city. The transmissions on bridge- to-bridge radio onboard
“Honey? Got that chart?” a voice from overhead asked.
Jack Simpson, her husband of three days. After a long engagement and quiet wedding in San Diego, they had flown to Hawaii and rented
She reached into the chart table and pulled out a fresh copy of the harbor chart. She used tape to hold down the corners as she centered it on the plotting table. “Got it,” she reported, and then went back up to the flying bridge to check their situation.
“So what do we do?” she asked quietly. Adele was not one given to panic, and she found that panicking usually made a bad situation worse.
From the moment they heard the muffled distant explosion, they had both known something was terribly,
