Hellfire c 20, p.25
Hellfire c-20, page 25
part #20 of Carrier Series
“Coming around behind,” Beetle announced, although there was no real need for him to tell Thor. He and Thor had worked together so often that his intent was immediately obvious to his lead.
“Let’s keep them honest,” Thor said, and toggled off another AAMRAM. To his left, he saw three Forgers approaching rapidly, almost within weapons range. His ESM warning gear began beeping rapidly.
Their target Forger broke right, descended rapidly, then wheeled back around to come in behind Beetle. But Beetle had anticipated this, and used his advantage of being in a smaller and more maneuverable aircraft to gain altitude, wing over, and dive back in behind the Forger. The Forger was trying to keep Beetle on the defensive, evading prime target position while waiting for the cavalry to arrive, but it wasn’t going to work. He scraped past Beetle inverted, undercarriage to undercarriage, then rolled out and started hauling ass. Thor slid high and above them, waiting for them. “Fox one!” The heat seeker leaped off his wing, spitting fire out the back, hungry for the warm tailpipes just in front of it.
“Got one on me,” Beetle announced, his voice calm. “You see him?”
“No, I — yeah, I got him.” A Forger had descended from on high to slip in behind Beetle, and was following every move Beetle made as though being towed by an invisible wire. Beetle flipped his Hornet into a hard turn, trying to cut such a tight circle that the Forger couldn’t get inside. For a moment, it looked like it would work, then another Forger arrived on the scene, certain that Beetle was too distracted with his target to notice him arriving.
“Fox two,” Thor said, slamming off another missile at the newest arrival. He banked back around, then descended to fall into position behind the Forger chasing Beetle. “Beetle, break hard right!” As Beetled complied, Thor spit out a short round of fire from his cannon. The depleted uranium bullets bit into the Forger’s engine, shattering it immediately. Thor was already turning hard to avoid the shrapnel and was well clear of it when the Forger exploded into flames.
“New target,” the Hawkeye announced, “on your right, six o’clock low.” Thor and Beetle both saw the contact immediately and, staying in their fighting positions, headed down to intercept him.
“Why does he have to send us down?” Thor muttered, unhappy with the choice. Sure, the Hornet was better able to handle changes in altitude, since it had a far higher power-to-wing ratio than the Tomcats did. The classic game for this situation, Hornet versus a heavier aircraft, was to force the fight into the vertical, taking advantage of the Hornet’s greater maneuverability to entice the heavier aircraft into a mistake. It was different with a Tomcat, given its powerful engines, but all reports said the Forger didn’t have nearly the horsepower the Tomcat did.
Around Thor, black smoke and flashes of fire littered the air. He broke hard to the right, avoiding the shrapnel then rolling over and descending toward the new target. It would be a bitch to survive enemy fire only to be nailed by FOD in his own engine.
“Nasty,” Beetle said. The Forger had rolled inverted, winged over, and was trying to slip into position behind Beetle. But Beetle cut hard to the right then suddenly reversed the direction of his turn, forcing the Forger out into the open.
“Open range, Beetle,” Thor said, suddenly realizing how close they were. “You’re too close, you’re too close!”
“I’m pulling out,” Beetle said, his voice suddenly tight. He was still inverted, following the Forger down in the bottom half of a loop. He eased his Hornet out of the descent into level flight, now right side up, intending to clear the area for Thor’s shot. But as he did so, the Forger seemed to stagger in the air and Beetle’s Hornet clipped its tail assembly.
The Hornet immediately departed control flight, falling through the air like dead metal. Light, smoke, then black trailed from its tail. Thor was closer to the Forger but too close for a missile. He jammed the weapons selector to guns, and rattled off a long blast with his nose cannon. The Forger’s canopy shattered, glass hanging in the air for a moment to catch the sun like a rainbow. There was a blast of white smoke, and debris streamed out of the cockpit. Smoke billowed from the Forger’s right engine, followed shortly by a stream of liquid that burst into flames. Thor was already rolling out, moving away and hunting for Beetle when the Forger exploded.
“Beetle!” Thor shouted, scanning the air for the injured Hornet.
“Seven clock, low,” the Hawkeye said, barely pausing as it rapped out orders to the remaining Hornets.
Thor saw him then, sunlight blinking off metal as the Hornet tumbled. “Beetle!” Thor shouted again, kicking in the afterburner to intercept his wingman. Was Beetle even alive? The impact should have been survivable. Beetle had hit the tail assembly, sure, but he hadn’t hit the cockpit as far as Thor could tell. Had the g-forces gotten him?
Thor was on him now, following him down, screaming his name in the mike. He thought he heard a brief, clipped answer but he couldn’t be sure. He could see inside the cockpit, but the Hornet’s erratic movement made it hard to tell if Beetle was injured. If Beetle was still alive, his hands were glued to the controls and every ounce of his concentration would be focused on pulling out of the deadly spin.
Was it possible — was Beetle’s Hornet pulling up? It seemed to be, but the motion was still so severe that Thor could see no way to recover. If Beetle could just stabilize enough to punch out, that would be good enough. There was no way this aircraft was going to land, no way at all. It had no business being airborne. The best they could hope for was to save the pilot.
Unbelievable. The Hornet’s motion was stabilizing. It was still in a steep dive, but the yaw was damping out. It still maintained a slow rotation around its longitude, but maybe, just maybe it was slow enough to let Beetle get out.
“Beetle, you got it — eject, eject!” Thor shouted, still not knowing whether his wingman could hear him.
His own ESM warning gear beep cut through the cockpit, demanding to be heard. Lock, missile lock — but where? Thor broke off from following Beetle’s injured Hornet and searched the air around him.
At first he couldn’t find it. Then it came out of the sun, headed directly for him, two Forgers with nose guns blazing. Thor dropped his Hornet’s nose and shot under them, exposing his tailpipe for an instant but more willing to risk that than his undercarriage. The Forgers streamed past him, guns still firing, tracers blindingly white against a blue sky, searching for him. The Forgers started to turn back on him, but Thor was already back in position, his own gun firing now. Two could play this game.
The lead Forger turned away, tipped over into a steep dive, and headed for Beetle’s injured Hornet. Thor swore. Surely the Forger pilot could tell that the Hornet wasn’t quite flying anymore. What was the point in going after one that was already fatally injured?
Just then, the cockpit blew off Beetle’s Hornet, followed shortly by a small, black figure. Beetle ejected at a forty-five-degree angle from the cockpit, fire blazing under the ejection seat as the rocket drove him through the air.
“He’s clear, he’s clear,” Thor shouted, relief flooding him. For just a moment, he thought Beetle would make it. But then, just as his wingman was clearing the dying Hornet, the aircraft rolled again. The tail assembly smacked into his wingman, driving him sideways.
The Forgers, evidently having seen the ejection, tried to break off. Thor was torn between keeping Beetle in view and pressing the attack on the Forgers. There was really no choice — he was in the air for one reason, and that was to kill Forgers.
“Chute, I have one chute,” Thor shouted over tactical. “Beetle, immediately below my position. Requests SAR.”
“Roger, Packer lead, we have him,” the Hawkeye replied. “SAR is standing by.”
Dammit, they’re standing by until it’s safe to come in. And it won’t be, not until these Forgers are gone.
Thor wheeled his Hornet back and gave chase. The Forgers saw him immediately, and cut around, trying to throw him off, but Thor anticipated their maneuver, ascended, then dropped into perfect killing position. He toggled the weapons selector to Sparrows, then changed his mind and selected guns. He boosted into afterburner for a few seconds, closing the distance, the Forger gyrating through the air as it tried to shake him. Thor shot off a short blast, feeling an immense satisfaction as the tracers made their way through the Forger’s skin. He pulled out, then dropped back down to get another visual on Beetle. He couldn’t get too close, for fear that his jet wash would collapse Beetle’s chute. From this range, he could not tell whether Beetle was conscious and had his hands on his risers or was simply riding the chute down.
He would be okay, Thor knew he would. Hell, it hadn’t been that hard of a hit, had it? Marines survived far worse than that and came out okay, didn’t they? Sure they did.
His ESM demanded attention. “Son of a bitch,” Thor muttered, turning back to open sky to find the threat. It took him a moment, but then sunlight splashed on metal and he saw his new target coming at him out of the sun. No heat seekers, then — too dangerous. Too much danger that the missiles would take off after the sun instead of the aircraft, and Thor was getting low enough on weapons that he couldn’t afford to waste a single one.
The Forger was above him, descending rapidly, and it wasn’t alone. Slightly above and behind, a second one came, hoping to catch Thor as he broke for altitude to escape the lead aircraft. It would have been no problem with a wingman, since the wingman could have kept the higher aircraft distracted long enough for Thor to gain altitude, but it was slightly trickier now. The real problem was being low on weapons, especially in a two-on-one situation.
Thor punched into afterburner and pulled away from the two, briefly exposing his tailpipes before wheeling back in on them. His ESM was screaming now, warning that missile launch was imminent, that targeting radar had a lock on him. Thor ignored it. His eyes could tell him more than any electronics could right now.
A missile leaped off the lower aircraft’s wing, heading for the Hornet’s underbelly. Thor held steady for a moment, then ejected chaff and flares, winging over and descending, pulling up hard enough to come up on the other side of the aircraft. If the missile managed to follow the maneuver, there was at least a fighting chance that it would see its own aircraft as the target. Meanwhile, time to deal with the higher bird.
The other aircraft was waiting for him, standing off in the distance, evidently wary of the Hornet’s maneuverability. But Thor was starting to run low on fuel, and the danger of a prolonged two-on-one fight was quickly becoming a problem.
Altitude, I need altitude. And a wingman. Thor boosted again, screaming to the air. The ESM screamed again, and he punched out another round of countermeasures, then pulled out of his climb and ejected more flares as a screen when he turned.
“Thor, I got the lower one — stay clear!” Fastball Morrow’s voice said over tactical. “Fox one, Fox one.” The heat seekers streaked across the air, nailing the Forger in the ass. Between ensuring that Beetle’s aircraft was dead and trying to take on Thor, the Forger had lost the big picture, and Fastball was on it before it knew what happened.
“I’ll get the other one,” Thor said, grunting, as he pulled the Hornet in a tight turn. The higher Forger, watching the destruction of his wingman, had decided he didn’t like the odds anymore. He had turned, intending to run back to the pack, when Thor caught him with a Sidewinder.
Man, I’m in the hurt locker, Thor thought, surveying his fuel gauge and weapons status. One AMRAAM, two rounds of countermeasures, and just a little more than fumes in the tank. “Big Eye, Packer lead — Texaco.”
“Roger, Packer lead, Texaco bears 304, range 20 from your position. Standing by, full-service and all lines open.”
Twenty miles — can I make it? Sure — there’s always a margin of error built into these things. Thor swore quietly, knowing he’d screwed up by not watching his fuel more carefully. No point in surviving a couple of Forgers if you dump your Hornet in the drink by running out of fuel.
Tomcat 201
1946 local (GMT-9)
“Isn’t it a good day for flight?” Fastball crowed, snapping out of a fast barrel roll. In the backseat, Rat gritted her teeth. “The weather, the sunshine, and a bunch of stupid Russians — man, you have to love it!”
They were on the fringes of the Tomcat sponge, waiting for the rest of their flight to arrive. From the moment they’d started their pre-flight brief in the ready room, through the walk-around on deck, the launch and climbing to altitude, Fastball’s mood had grated on her nerves.
Just what was there to be so happy about? Outnumbered, bombers in the center of the formation — no, she didn’t really see a reason to be happy. Sure, it was the job, and it was — well, not a good thing, but certainly a gratifying challenge to go into combat. It wasn’t something you were happy about, exactly. High on, maybe, more alive than you were at any other time. Every moment was precious, every sense heightened. Probably the result of adrenaline, she knew, but that didn’t make it any less exhilarating.
But happy? No, she wasn’t happy. The difference between her attitude and Fastball’s was that she now knew she could die. Unconsciously, she ran her left hand down her right sleeve, felt the reassuring shape of her muscles under her fingertips. A few inches either way and her arm would have been blown off. Held as it was, she had been on the verge of bleeding to death in the cockpit before Fastball had gotten them back on the deck. It was only by sheer luck and good surgery that she retained complete use of her arm and was allowed to return to flight status. Sure, Fastball had been there, had seen the damage, had known how close she’d come to dying. Another foot or so and the shrapnel would’ve punched through his guts instead of her arm.
But until it happens to you, until you feel your own skin and flesh tearing, until you work through months of rehab and healing, you never really believe it. It always happens to someone else.
Well, she had been that someone else, and she knew it made a difference.
“Dolphin flight, on me.” Bird Dog’s voice rapped out over their flight circuit. “It’s still one solid cluster fuck, boys and girls. The lightweights will take the right side and we’ll head for the heavies on the left. Come in over the top and call your target on the E-2’s mark. Any questions?”
Of course there weren’t, other than whether the Hornets knew that Bird Dog was calling them lightweights. They had gone over this in the ready room, then again on the flight deck as a pre-flight. The Hawkeye had updated them while they were gathering at the sponge point, and they were about as up-to-date on the disposition of forces as anyone had any right to expect.
Rat stared down at the radar screen until goose bumps shivered on both arms. There was something evil about seeing Russian fighters and bombers in a formation they’d studied as history. This was back to the bad old days, the Cold War, when families were building bomb shelters in their backyards and the world was poised on the brink of nuclear war.
Stop it. It’s just fighters. The bombers don’t even count. They’re too slow and heavy to make any difference at all, at least as far as our mission is concerned. A turkey shoot, once we get to the Forgers.
But the Forgers, those were a problem. The Tomcats were slightly heavier but more powerful. She ran through their performance characteristics in her mind again. Insert techno—
“Fastball, close up,” Bird Dog ordered, his voice curt. Obediently, Fastball slipped into position tight on Bird Dog’s right wing.
“What’s the matter, you getting lonesome?” Fastball asked cheerily.
“Do you have to be like this?” she snapped, her nerves finally fraying.
“Like what?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Like you’re having fun! Fastball, get your head in the game. This isn’t Top Gun School or a computer game.”
“I know that,” he said, sounding hurt.
“Yeah, right.”
There was a long silence, and she immediately regretted her words. The fact that Fastball irritated her said more about her attitude than about his. Maybe they shouldn’t have returned her to flight status. Maybe she’d lost her nerve.
“Okay, Rat,” Fastball said, his voice not quite as obnoxious. “Sorry. I just thought — well — I thought it’d cheer you up.”
“Fastball,” she muttered, “just fly the aircraft, okay? When I need an amateur psychologist, I’ll let you know.”
Just then, her ESM gear bleated out a warning. She snapped her gaze back to the radar screen and saw that they were just crossing over and above a Russian flight. This was the single most dangerous part of the transit, when they were directly in front, although above, the Russian fighters. They presented an excellent target aspect, broadside to the radars then flashing their tailpipes.
“Afterburner,” Bird Dog ordered. “Break formation.” This, too, was exactly as planned, providing a more difficult problem for Russian targeting.
The punch of the afterburner shoved Rat back into her seat. For a few seconds, she was too busy trying to breathe and keep her attention on the scope to worry about Fastball and whether or not he thought she’d lost her nerve. Then, as the g-forces eased off, she saw they were across. The plan was to continue ten miles past the formation, then swing back and approach them on an angle. A few more minutes — now.
“Now!” she said, giving Fastball the signal. He had anticipated her command and was already pulling into a tight turn and heading back toward the Russians. Below them, Bird Dog was accelerating, pulling away and increasing the separation between his aircraft and theirs to standard distance.
Immediately, three Forgers rose up to meet them. All around them, as the fighting pairs broke formation and selected targets under the Hawkeye’s direction, the Forgers split up to meet them.
The sheer numbers were overwhelming. Every fighting pair was facing four, if not six, aircraft. And still more were in formation, closing in tight on their Backfires, ready to take out anyone who got too close.
