The blips merged briefly, then separated. At the same moment there was a blast of ungodly noise over the aviation circuits. The green radar trace that was the Russian aircraft broke into four smaller blips that blossomed and merged into a cloud of noise in the sky.
Bolshovich arrived and absorbed the tactical situation in a glance. “Launch four more Forgers,” he ordered. “Vector toward the American fighters. They’re not going to get away with this!”
Gorshenko felt the crew respond to their captain’s leadership. He turned back to stare at the radar screen again, a sinking feeling in his gut.
“Badger!” Thor shouted. “Answer me!”
“Huh?” The captain’s voice was woozy but audible. “I’m bleeding.” There was a note of wonder in his voice.
“Badger, listen to me. Are you hurt? Can you fly?”
“I’m
“You had a brush with the Forger — can you fly? Are you getting a Master Caution light? Report status,” Thor said, keeping his voice level.
“No. Two hydraulics, the cabin pressure alarm. That’s all. Over temp on right engine.” The pilot’s voice steadied up as his training kicked in.
Thor snapped open his own emergency checklist and began reading down the action items. His wingman’s responses came more and more slowly, his words slurred even over the static.
“Hornet 102, you are cleared priority for green deck,” the air boss said. “Badger, can you get her down?”
“Yeah. Maybe.” The pilot sounded as though it didn’t make much difference one way or the other to him.
Thor keyed his mike reluctantly. “Boss, 103. Sir, recommend 102 eject rather than risk recovery on deck.” He watched as the other Hornet rolled inverted, then sluggishly regained level flight. “He’s losing flight controls, sir.”
“Roger. Wait. Out.” There was silence on the circuit.
As the silence stretched on, Thor watched as his wingman’s aircraft became more and more unstable. Hydraulic fluid was streaming out behind it, some of it perilously close to the engine air intake. Any second now—
The air boss returned. “Roger, 103, concur with recommendations. One zero two, descend to angels fourteen and initiate ejection. SAR will be standing by.”
There was no answer.
“One zero two, do you copy?”
“Badger! Eject, eject!” Thor shouted, hoping his familiar voice would penetrate the fog now descending on his wingman. “Punch out, Badger. Punch out!”
As if in response, the other Hornet banked sharply to the right. It began descending, and for a moment Thor had hope that his wingman had heard him and was descending in response to the air boss’s orders. His hopes were dashed when the Hornet’s angle of attack steepened and its nose drifting down and down and down until it was in a vertical dive.
“Badger!
Thor followed the Hornet down, shouting and praying, ignoring the equally urgent pleas coming from the air boss. Finally, at seven thousand feet, the last shards of the canopy peeled back from the aircraft. There was a flash of fire, then a long streamer of white parachute slashing across the sky.
“Roger, copy, SAR inbound!” The relief in the air boss’s voice was palpable. “Stay with him, Thor, mark on top. They’ll have a man in the water with him before his life jacket fully inflates.”
“Roger.” Thor moved out a bit, watching the parachute billow from a safe distance. It jerked his wingman up in the air as the Hornet continued its final descent. Oddly, a sardonic definition of a successful aviator from Flight Basic came to mind: number of takeoffs should equal number of controlled landings.
Well, Badger might not be a success according to that definition, but Thor would take what the universe offered up. If his wingman was still alive, if they pulled him out before he drowned, if he had survived the ejection without serious injury, then that would be enough.
Finally, after what seemed like hours, the chute and its cargo reached the surface of the ocean. Thor watched the improbably small splash, then moved away to allow the helo to descend.
“We’ve lost him,” Rotenyo said, his voice unbelieving. “That bastard shot our fighter down.” Without asking permission, his hand went to the switch that controlled the shipboard alarm system. The hard, insistent gong of general quarters pulsed in the general’s bones.
“No,” the general said. “It was not an attack. It was an accident.”
But Rotenyo was no longer inclined to listen to him. It was too late to stop what one Russian pilot had begun.
TEN
As Tombstone escorted the COD out to the carrier, the hours of boredom passed, broken only by moments of sheer terror during tanking. Tombstone stayed well ahead of the COD, scanning the sky looking for any problems. Behind him, Greene monitored the radar. There was nothing to see.
They refueled for the final time six hundred miles from the carrier, and Tombstone was carefully watching the COD’s position the entire time. Finally, when they had taken on enough fuel, Tombstone disengaged and turned back toward the carrier.
“Stony, this is Home Plate. Be advised four playmates inbound your position. You should hold them shortly.” The operations specialist’s voice was calm and professional. There was nothing in it to indicate that dispatching four fighters to escort an unarmed COD and a fighter flown by a civilian was anything out the ordinary.
“Roger, copy four,” Jeremy responded. He glanced back down at his scope and sure enough, four new contacts positioned directly over the aircraft carrier had just appeared. “I hold our playmates now.”
“Roger. Anticipate COD on deck in four zero mikes. The tanker will top you off, then we’ll bring you in after the COD and the playmates.”
“What’s going on, Home Plate? Why the playmates?” Tombstone queried. There was a moment of silence, static hissing over the secure circuit. Tombstone felt that uneasy twitch in his gut that always seemed to presage trouble.
“Be advised, Stony, that there was an INCOS incident approximately thirty mikes ago. SAR is currently on station. Possibility that there are two casualties.”
“INCOS?” Tombstone said incredulously. “What the hell happened?”
“I’ll brief you when you get down here, Tombstone,” a new voice said, and Tombstone recognized Coyote’s accent. “For now, just hold on to that Greyhound until your playmates get in position. We’ll bring the Greyhound in first, then the playmates, then you. You got enough fuel?”
“Roger, plenty of fuel, Admiral.”
“What the hell?” Greene muttered.
Tombstone said over ICS, “That’s in case I create a flaming datum on their deck. They’ll get the COD and their own aircraft on board and out of the way in case the old guy screws up.”
