Island Warriors

Maybe the missile barrage took out an additional aircraft early on and someone had screwed up the count? No. While he couldn’t have told anyone why he knew that was not so, he knew that was not the answer. He’d seen the distant specks of black that indicated an aircraft and a missile simultaneously trying to occupy the same airspace, and the registers in his mind had automatically toted up the numbers.

But if there was one missing, where was it? Why wasn’t it on his radar? And why wasn’t anyone else worried about it?

Bird Dog toggled his ICS. “Music, what were you saying about the count? You know, what the cruiser said and how many fireballs you saw?”

“It’s off. Or at least I think it is. The cruiser reported thirteen kills and there — well, I could have been mistaken I guess.”

“No. What?”

“I only counted twelve fireballs.”

Bird Dog thought for just a second, then said, “We gotta find that other aircraft, Music. It’s out there somewhere. I don’t know why nobody else sees it or is worried about it, but for whatever reason, we’re the only ones who know something’s wrong.”

“Why don’t we see it?” Music asked, his words coming in hard grunts as Bird Dog kicked the Tomcat into a steep climb, ignoring the Hawkeye’s vector guidance. “They don’t have stealth, do they?”

“Naw, not that we know about. They could, I guess. But then we wouldn’t have the original count right, would we?”

“So where is it?”

The answer to most problems and questions in the air is: altitude. Altitude buys a pilot time, time to sort out exactly what’s gone wrong, time to find some configuration of speed and control surfaces that will convince an aircraft to keep flying, and, in the very worst of circumstances, time to make sure somebody knows exactly where he’s punching out. So, faced with the problem of a missing enemy fighter, Bird Dog figured that altitude was the least likely thing to hurt him.

“How can you lose a fighter?” Bird Dog asked, trying to list the options. “Outside of range, maybe. If it’s not stealth and nobody’s holding it, then where is it? Turned tail and gone home? No, we would have seen it depart the pattern. It can’t be out of range of every Tomcat and the Hawkeye. So it’s in range somewhere. If we were over land, it’d be behind a hill or something, but we’re—shit! Music, that’s it! It’s on the deck somewhere, down so low we’re losing it in the sea state! That’s got to be it!”

“He’s crazy, then,” Music said flatly. “Not in sea state five.”

“Yeah, crazy. Or very, very good.” Bird Dog flipped over to tactical. “U.S., you got a problem. You got a sea- skimming Fencer or Fitter inbound, somebody heading in for you just barely clearing the waves. You got anything that would correlate with that?”

“Bird Dog, you gotta be kidding,” the Hawkeye broke in. “There’s nobody down that low.”

“Yeah? Count it again, buddy. Add up what came in, what’s gone down, and what’s in the air now. Then you tell me.” Bird Dog waited impatiently for a few seconds, then rolled the Tomcat over inverted to get a better look at the surface of the ocean. “You watching for him, Music?”

“I’m trying not to puke, Bird Dog.”

“You puke on the canopy now and I’ll punch you out,” Bird Dog threatened. “I swear to god I will.”

“Wait!” Music said, forgetting his nausea in the rush of adrenaline spiking through his veins. “There — your dot, Bird Dog!”

“That ain’t a dot, that’s a—shit, there it is! U.S., I got a visual. Engaging. Fastball, you’re on your own for a few miles while I nail this Fencer playing hovercraft.”

Rat spoke up then. “Bird Dog, we should take high station on you.”

“Leave him alone,” Fastball snapped. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“I just think—”

“Then don’t. Not about flying.”

Music listened to the argument between pilot and RIO spill over the airwaves, desperately hoping that Rat would win this one. But Fastball had the ultimate veto authority over any plan about where the aircraft should go. It wasn’t like Rat had controls in the back seat.

“Talley-ho!” Bird Dog shouted, putting the Tomcat into a steep dive, so steep that Music felt the gray creep in around the edges of his vision. “Come on, Music, let’s nail this bastard!”

Tomcat 209

2305 local (GMT +8)

“He’s your lead, Fastball. You don’t let your lead wander off on his own,” Rat said coldly.

“It ever occur to you that we’re a little outnumbered up here, Rat?” Fastball shot back. “Bird Dog knows what he’s doing. We can do more good up here, taking out a few more of these Fencers while he’s cleaning up that little mess down below. By the time he gets back up to altitude, we’ll probably have another six kills under our belt.”

“Is that what this is about? Getting more kills than Bird Dog?”

“No! That’s not it at all! What, you think you’re not good enough to get us six more kills with the gas we’ve got left?”

“Bullshit. That’s not the point.”

“He doesn’t want backup,” Fastball snapped.

“Like you don’t want an RIO?” she asked.

There was a moment of silence. Rat listened to the progress of the air battle around them, to the other pilots calling out their kill counts, their next targets — and, occasionally, a curse, followed by a Mayday as an American was overwhelmed by the attackers. She knew Fastball wanted to be in the thick of it, knew how hard it was for him to turn away from the fun ball and do what was right. It was a choice she couldn’t force him to make.

The aircraft suddenly dropped out from under her, throwing her hard against her ejection harness. “Okay, okay,” Fastball said. “He shouldn’t be going down on his own, should he? I know that, you know that. But it’s Bird Dog, Rat, and he’s going to be one pissed-off pilot when we get back to the boat, us heading down to back him up when he says he doesn’t need it. You know how he is.”

“Yeah, I do. He’s a whole lot like you,” Rat said softly.

Tomcat 203

2310 local (GMT +8)

“He’s only four miles from the carrier,” Music said, his face buried in the radar hood. If he could just get the right resolution, maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to get a radar lock on the target. Without radar contact, he had no way to target the missile.

“A little more than that,” Bird Dog said, not really consciously marking off the miles, but knowing it was true anyway. “We got time.”

“Not much.” Hell, where is he? He’s got to be in here somewhere. But it’s all static, all reflections off the waves — he must be suicidal to be that low in this sea state! But they all are, aren’t they? Their pilots, ours. Bird Dog’s going down there to find him, as much to prove that he can do anything a Fencer can do better, longer and harder than anything else. And I’m not going to like it one little bit — no, I’m not.

As Music tried every trick he knew to pull the contact out of the clutter, he suddenly realized with a gut- wrenching sense of relief that this was his last combat flight. He knew how RIOs felt about pilots, how they all bitched about the maniacs sitting in the front seat, and he’d chimed in, trying to sound exactly like them, but knowing at some level that he was far more serious about it. RIOs bitched to let off steam, to hide the fear. But for Music, it went far deeper than that.

He understood the importance of what they were doing out here, of the necessity for fighters and fighter pilots and for strong military forces. In the interest of their national security, America had to be able to be the biggest kid on the block. And it wasn’t that he was afraid of doing his part. He’d volunteered, hadn’t he?

It was just that he thought there ought to be another way — that there had to be another way — of resolving conflicts. You go out and beat somebody up, they’re going to wait until they’re strong enough to beat you up. Not a question of being afraid, not that at all. No, it was a question of choice.