So was the Layla the threat that the Ta-183 had conspicuously failed to be? Probably not, it still had the two problems that Tank, in his alleged wisdom, had tailed to correct, it was horribly underpowered, had barely more than 2,000 pounds of thrust, and it had swept wings. They looked great and aerodynamics showed they would be immensely valuable at speeds approaching 700 mph and above but the Ta-183 was 100mph short of that regime. At those speeds, swept wings had very poor handling characteristics but gave no real benefits. A few 183s, probably service test models, had been encountered over the Volga and they'd been shot out of the sky by the straight-winged American F-74s and F-80s.
Now, if the Japanese had cracked the engine problem and had put more power into the design, it might be a problem, Dedmon watched below then caught sight of the contrails below them. They'd caught the sun and turned an orangey-yellow. At least 10,000 feet below them, that would fit he thought. If it was anything like the German original, Layla would top out around 41,000 feet and would be really struggling anywhere over 30,000.
“Dixie Cupcake here. Confirm Bandit-One is four Layia type fighters. They're leveling out, touch over 42,000 feet, speed barely 300 mph. The Eyes say at least one pilot is having difficulty holding his bird, he's snaking badly. If he stalls out, he'd better leave. Bandit Two is a single aircraft, still coming in. Confirm its Fran. It's just possible we might have a problem here,”
Cockpit, Tachikawa Ki-94-II Five-Two, 48,000 feet over the Chinese Border.
He wasn't going to make it. For all the performance boosts and weight reductions, his aircraft just didn't have it in her. Her nose was pointed up still and her propeller was clawing at the thin air surrounding her, but she'd given all she had. The airspeed was virtually at nil, the fighter hanging on its prop, the controls mushy and useless.
Lieutenant Nishimura cursed, fluently in a mixture of Russian and English. Japanese was a particularly poor language for insults, Russian was so much better and English gave so much room for the imagination. His K-94 was a dedicated high altitude fighter, the best Japan could produce. It had a turbocharged radial engine that was boosted until the metal alloys screamed for mercy. The design had first flown in 1945 and the test pilots had got it up to 42,000 feet. That had seemed splendid but there was no real need for such altitudes, or so it seemed. Then the Americans had flown over the German defenses and suddenly the Ki-94-H was needed more than any other aircraft.
The aircraft had been stripped down, all its armor gone, its battery of 30mm cannon replaced by a pair of 7.7mm machineguns. It had a single radio to allow it to be vectored to its target. Nishimura had left his parachute back at base to save a few pounds more when the message had come that four of the American giants were crossing the border. Three Ki-94s had taken off but two had turned back when their engines failed. His own would have to be replaced after this flight; the grimly-abused radials had only a few hours life each. And for all that, the American bombers were still out of reach. He could see them, a triangle of three far above him and a single aircraft higher still. Trailing their white ribbons behind them while they serenely cruising past him as his fighter hung helplessly on its prop.
Flight Deck B-36H “Texan lady”, 51,500 feet over the Russian-Chinese Border
“Dixie Cupcake here. We have Bandit-Two topped out at 48,400 feet. He's hanging there, isn't going anywhere but too mule-headed to give up.”
“Read you Dixie Cupcake. Have you got the New Thing dialed in?”
“Sure have Texan Lady. Our electronics pit got him locked in nicely. We'll let him have it now.”
Cockpit, Tachikawa Ki-94-Jl Five-Two, 48,000 feet over the Chinese Border.
It was no good, they were out of reach. For all his efforts, for all the hard work, the Americans were still out of reach. Then Nishimura became aware of something strange, the faint mush of static on his radio had suddenly increased in volume.
“YEEE - HA - HA - HA, HOOOH - HOOH - HAAA - HEEE HAHA.”
The coyote laughter familiar to the world from hundreds of Walt Disney and Hanna-Barbera cartoons almost split his ears. He knew immediately what must have happened, the Americans had listened to his radio and isolated the fighter control frequency. Now they were transmitting a tape cut from one of their cartoons on his frequency. It went on and on, a mocking peel of hyena laughter that cut through his brain.
Enraged at the insult, Nishimura stroked the button that fired his machineguns, watching in furious wrath as the tracers arced through the air far, far short of their targets. But, even the featherlight recoil of the 7.7s was enough to upset the delicate balance that held his fighter in its place. It spun out, falling from the air as its wings and propeller frantically tried to grab enough air to regain stability.
It took Nishimura almost 20,000 feet to get his fighter back under control and for every one of those feet the vicious, derisive, mocking laughter tore at his ears. Low on fuel, his spirit crushed, Nishimura took his fighter back to its base.
Flight Deck B-36H “Texan Lady”, 51,500 feet over the Sea of Japan
“Right guys, fun's almost over. Dixie Cupcake, you set for Anadyr?”
''Roger that Texan Lady. We'll be heading north now. There's a Guard Fighter unit waiting to escort us in once we start to drop.” That was why they were off to Anadyr, Dedmon thought. The nearest base capable of taking a B-36 was Khabarovsk but that was too close to the Chinese border. Seeing a B-36 dropping down to land might just be too much temptation for the Japanese. So Dixie Cupcake would be flying far to the north and she'd have a regiment of Russian fighters to protect her once she started her descent. The three B-36s were off to Honolulu, they'd be overflying Japan then facing the long, long haul over the Pacific before landfall in Hawaii. Then, four days there and another long haul back to Maine. It suddenly occurred to Dedmon that when he landed back at Kozlowski, he'd have flown completely around the world.
Home of Retired Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, Nagasaki, Japan.
“When I was in America, there was a strange story.” Yamamoto looked at the figures that were sharing tea with him. They were bristling with rage at the casual way the Americans had ignored Japan's claim to control its airspace. Everybody had seen the contrails high, high in the sky as the American bombers had overflown the country on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. Open skies they'd called it and today, they'd made their point. The officers with him looked slightly confused. Since his retirement, Yamamoto had become something of an elder statesman in Japan, an advisor, using the prestige that age brought in this country to stop the young being carried away with enthusiasm. Disastrously carried away.
“American children all have puppies as their pets. When they go to school in their yellow schoolbuses they must leave their puppy behind for the day. All the puppy sees is their friend being taken away by this big yellow thing. Some just wait miserably for their friend to come back but the braver, more spirited puppies chase the schoolbus in an effort to rescue their human friend. Of course they always fail and must wait miserably like the rest. But, one day. a puppy, by great and valiant effort, caught the schoolbus and sank his teeth into its rear. Then he faced the question he hadn't thought of. He'd caught the schoolbus, what was he going to do with it?