The Layla's cleaner airframe meant it picked up speed fast in a dive and, anyway, it had a good eighty kilometers per hour over the F-80E. The speed went up as Chan frantically tried to catch his prey. His mount was doing 980 kilometers per hour now, as fast as she'd go. At this speed, the Shockwave from his nose was touching the wingtips and drag would mount enormously with every extra kilometer. The Layla didn't have that problem, the sweep on its wings kept it from picking up drag even as it pushed past a thousand kilometers per hour.
Then Chan saw that the Layla had another problem, a far worse one than just transonic drag. Even as he watched, the Layla's left wing dropped, savagely, viciously, flipping the plane into a deadly flat spin. For a brief second, the aircraft managed to hold together as it whirled in the air then the airframe gave up under aerodynamic loads it had never been meant to resist. Suddenly, the sky was full of fragments as the Layla just broke up in mid-air.
That was when Chan proved himself to be a tighter pilot. He actually wondered whether that could legitimately be considered a kill as his fighter arced up once more. Lights flashed around him as he streaked through a burst of fire from a Layla, then his wings went vertical and he hauled his F-80 around. Once again, a Layla pilot had the infuriating experience of having one of the silver fighters suddenly vanish from in front of him.
The two fighters were curving around, the Layla frantically trying to catch the jet that was exasperatingly out of reach. Then the Layla staggered under a long, deadly burst. Chan's wing man had seen the Layla drift into position and taken him out. The Japanese were warriors who fought one-on-one in individual conflict for honor and a warrior's virtue. The Thais had been trained by Americans and Russians who fought to kill their enemies and knew that the teamwork was the best, the proven, way to that end.
Black smoke, all over the sky. Green and gray shapes fighting the silver fish that darted and raced around them. In front of him one of the few surviving Laylas had gone into a steep climb. Chan almost laughed for even with swept wings a fighter has to run out of speed, out of energy, out of ideas. This trick was an old one, the Japanese was hoping Chan would follow him, then the Layla would do a tail-slide and stand on his jet exhaust, paddling the rudder backwards and forwards while he chewed the F-80 to pieces with his cannon. Chan knew the answer to that maneuver and suddenly he was tired, sick and tired of the whole stupid business. He slammed out his speed brakes, feeling the fighter grumbling with the sudden drag as it slowed. Then he lifted his nose and sprayed the climbing Layla with killing fury, tearing it apart.
It was over; there were no green and gray fighters in the sky, only silver. Three F-80s looking intact, one was trailing black smoke. They couldn't have got all the Laylas, some must have broken away and been running for the border, probably desperately low on fuel. The F-80s were the same. But Phnon Penh airfield was only a few tens of kilometers away. They could glide it if they had to. Perhaps not but the base was only a few minutes flying time away while the Laylas had to go all the way back to Saigon or even Hanoi. It didn't matter; all that mattered was that the Ostriches were safe and clear to do their job.
Ostrich Djiap-Eleven, over Phase Line Decimate, Thai/Japanese Indochina Border
The radio had been filled with the chaos of combat, the fighter pilots overhead screaming at each other as they fought to keep the Laylas away from the Ostriches. At first, Pondit had believed they'd lose, that he and his Ostriches would be fighting to survive but their top-cover had scythed through the attacking Laylas, shooting some down and putting the rest to flight. He'd breathed a quick prayer of thanks and then got back down to his job.
Up ahead a pair of Japanese light bombers, Harvs or Kens, it was too far to see, were circling an area. That was the scene, the Japanese launching a company - level attack, trying to break out of the impending encirclement and the bombers were waiting for the Thai infantry to unmask so they could bomb and strafe the defenders. Only, this wasn't China. In China, the Japanese had never fought the Ostrich.
The Japanese aircraft were Harvs and they were no match for the twin-engined Ostrich. One didn't even see the charging aircraft until it was too late and the little bomber just fell apart as the sky filled with cannon shells and machine gun bullets. Pondit's prey did spot him and tried to turn into him but it made no difference. The Harv's wing guns flashed and an opaque patch formed on the heavily armored screen in front of Pondit's face. Then he returned Tire with all ten of his guns and the Harv wasn't there anymore. Just shattered metal fragments falling to the ground.
In front, three green, crab-like shapes with little ants running with them Tanks with their infantry support. Pondit lifted his nose slightly and thumbed the rocket release, seeing the black trails streak out in front of his aircraft. Then, drop the nose again and lei the enemy feel the lash of his 23mm cannon. They'd been designed to destroy tanks and the Japanese lights were no great challenge. Pondit had picked the one on the right and it was boiling black smoke as he flashed overhead.
Then, a long climbing curve and a bombing pass the way he'd been taught to do it. A long dive, dropping the bombs as late as he could. He felt the lurch as the six 250 kilogram bombs dropped then felt the kidney-crunching slam as they went off, throwing his Ostrich upwards with fragments from its own bombs peppering its belly. The Ostrich's armor was as much to protect it from itself as from the enemy. Below, the combination of explosions, blast and fragments should have held the enemy up, pinned them down, given the Thai troops down there a chance to inflict damage themselves.
“Sirisoon-Pony this is Cab Rank. We're hanging around until told differently. We've got more 132mm rockets, plenty of 23 mike-mike and point-fifty. So feel free to ask.”
“Sirisoon-actual here. We'll remember that. Can you swing around and see if there is a follow up to this? We'll handle what's left down here.”
Glory be, thought Pondit. That voice was unmistakably female. The world was going crazy. Then he thought for a second, his top-cover had been named after the famous warrior Taeng-Onn hadn't it? Who'd died defending her village of Bangrachan against invaders? He found him hoping the owner of the voice on the radio would have better fortune than Taeng-Onn.
Short of Phase Line Execute, North of Tong Klao Village, Recovered Provinces, Thailand
Sirisoon had been watching the Harvs wait for her unit to open fire. The word had been trembling on her lips when there had been a roar, a crushing cascade of sound that had seemed to flatten her ears to her head. The Harvs had just blown up, ripped apart as the Ostriches thundered across the sky. Then the roar of the engines had been drowned out by the screaming rocket salvos that had turned the sky dark before crashing into the enemy infantry.
Those explosions had been the loudest but it was the cannon fire that had been the most spectacular. One of the Japanese light tanks had seemed to melt as the hits flashed all over it, hammering its armor and setting it ablaze. Another was less spectacular but black smoke boiled from its engine compartment. The Ostriches turned up and away, out of the smoke that billowed from their first strike. Then they peeled over and dived on the approaching Japanese, bombs tumbling from their bellies and wings.