His eyes went to the empty sky over his left shoulder. If the Archer was launched five seconds ago, it would have come from—
There. A glimmer, low, nearly abeam his port wing.
It was between him and B.J. Johnson’s Hornet. He kept his eyes glued to spot in the sky, unwilling to blink. Yes, for sure, there was something.
“Runner One-one is padlocked.” Informing his wingmen his eyes were locked onto something. What?
As he watched, it faded from his vision.
Maxwell was still staring at the spot when, in his peripheral vision, he sensed an orange burst beyond the nose of his Hornet.
The missile had impacted the decoy.
“Runner One-two,” came B.J. ’s voice, “Ironclaw has taken a hit!”
Maxwell swung his gaze to where the decoy had been. It was gone. In its place was a roiling debris cloud, passing under the nose of Maxwell’s Hornet. Well, he thought, that was a hostile act if he ever saw one.
He hauled the Hornet’s nose toward the empty space where he had last seen the glimmer. “Alpha Whiskey, Ironclaw is down. Runner One-one is engaged, neutral.”
“Runner one-two, no joy, visual.” B.J. didn’t see the bandit, but she had visual contact with her flight leader.
“Runner One-two, cross-turn, I’m low, engaged.” There was no time for explanations. He was having a hard enough time keeping sight of this bandit.
In the left break, he picked it up again. The glimmer. Coming toward him.
There was no shape to it, no definition. Only an ephemeral grayness, fading in and out of Maxwell’s vision.
Again it vanished. Maxwell kept the Hornet’s nose aimed at the spot where he had last seen the object.
The voice of B.J. Johnson came over his earphones. “Runner One-two’s cross turning high, visual, no joy, no joy. Where’s the bandit?”
Good question, he thought. “Runner One-one, tally one, on my nose. Two, stay high and cover me. Three and Four, strip and bug east. Check six for spitters.” He was ordering B.J. to stay and support him while the second element bugged out of the fight. You can’t fight what you can’t see.
Maxwell mashed down the weapons selector for AIM-9M. He turned to move the seeker circle over the place where he expected the stealth jet to be. To his surprise, he was getting an intermittent growl in his headset. He uncaged the seeker and it whistled a shreeeeee indicating a lock on the heat source.
Was the Sidewinder’s heat-seeking head really tracking the invisible bandit?
Yes, definitely. He could see the gray shape again inside the HUD-displayed seeker circle. It was closing, head-on. The range was close for a head-on. It might be his only shot.
He squeezed the trigger.
Whoom! The two hundred pound Sidewinder leaped from the left wing tip rail.
“Fox Two,” Maxwell called, signaling the launch of a Sidewinder. With his eyes he followed the faint gray corkscrew trail of the missile. It would lead him to the bandit.
“Runner One, you’re targeted!” called B.J. Johnson. “Missile in the air, on your nose.”
Shit! The bandit had just taken his own shot. Now he was defensive. He could only hope his Sidewinder found its target.
He broke hard to the left, grunting against the G-force. The missile had to be another heat seeker. He was still getting no radar warning. He jabbed the flares dispenser, sending out a trail of incendiary decoys. Although he was belly-up to the missile coming at him he knew roughly where it had to be.
Maxwell tightened his rolling pull, continuing through inverted. Digging out the back side of the maximum-G barrel roll, the G force smashed him into the seat. The G-suit squeezed his legs and abdomen like a hydraulic vice, keeping the blood in his head and not pooling in his lower extremities.
Still, his vision was tunneling down. He tightened his leg muscles, fighting to stay conscious against eight times the force of gravity. Sweat poured from under his helmet, stinging his eyes.
He rolled wings level, still pulling the jet to its computer-limited G load. The missile should be in terminal guidance. He had to see it. It should be—
There. Up and to the left. Passing aft of his wing line.
He relaxed his pull on the stick and gasped in relief. The missile had gone stupid. He was still alive.
He swung his attention back to the forward quarter. Where was the bandit? He had to be out there—
He was. Dead ahead and close. So close, he thought for a moment they would collide.
As the shimmering apparition flashed past on his left, Maxwell got his first good glimpse of the aircraft. He saw it clearly for less than a second, but it was enough. In that instant he felt as though he were peering through a window to his past. He was back in a place five years ago, in the high desert of Nevada. It was all there, as in a dream.
The diamond shape. No vertical tail.
The Black Star.
Or a damned good knock off. And it was trying to kill him.
“Runner One-two is still visual no joy,” called B.J. Johnson from directly overhead. “You got a tally on the bandit?”
“Affirmative. He just passed down my left side. I’m engaged, left hand turn.” He hauled the Hornet’s nose across the Black Star’s tail, peering back over his shoulder to keep it in sight. It was gone. He kept his turn in, but relaxed his pull. He squinted, scanning the horizon for the telltale shimmer.
“Runner One-two, scan in front of me for that shimmer. I think we’re in a single circle flow.”
“Two’s looking.”
Where the hell is it? He felt like he was in a knife fight in a blackened room. The other guy could see him, but he was blind.
Maxwell felt a stab of fear. It’s out there somewhere. It would fire another—
“Runner One, I see something. The shimmer is at your ten to eleven o’clock, maybe a mile, closing.
Okay, he knew where the bandit was, but he still didn’t have a visual. The Black Star had made a level turn in a single circle flow. Turning inside of him.
“Skipper, he’s pulling lead on you. Two’s rolling in with guns.”
Maxwell cursed and yanked on the stick. It had been a mistake, relaxing his turn after the head-on pass. He gave the bastard some turning room.
He glimpsed the grayish silhouette. Coming at him again. As he stared, the shimmering image faded from view.
A flash caught his eye. Cannon! Behind the strobing muzzle flash shimmered the amorphous shape of the Black Star.
“Tracers, tracers! Guns defense!” B.J. was screaming in the radio.
Instinctively, Maxwell rolled out and pulled the nose of the Hornet up and away from the Black Star. Out of the enemy’s turning plane. He hunched down in the cockpit, waiting for the cannon shells to shred his jet. It was a high deflection shot. At such an acute angle, the guy couldn’t possibly hit him.
Thunk. Thunk. It felt like a giant hammer walloping the airframe of the Hornet.
The Chinese pilot, whoever he was, was no amateur. He was getting hits from a nearly ninety-degree angle. Maxwell turned harder, again grunting against the force of the Gs. The tracer arcs were falling behind him. The deflection angle and the Gs were too great for the Chinese pilot to keep tracking him.
The winking strobe of the cannon extinguished. The Black Star was again invisible.
Maxwell’s Hornet was rocketing upwards. He rolled right to see B.J. ’s jet diving down towards the Black Star, cannon fire blazing from the nose.
B.J. ’s voice crackled over the radio. “Runner One-two’s lost sight.”