“Scratch one SA–6 launcher,” said Beast, recovering to the west. “You want to get that radar van?”
“I see it on my left,” said Turk, finally spotting the telltale antennas.
“All yours.”
Turk steered gently to his mark, fired on the truck, then came back to join Beast. The A–10E trucked along contentedly.
“Let’s do a racetrack here,” said Beast, suggesting that they circle in an orbit above the desert. “Come up to twelve thousand.”
They were at 5,000 feet. The climb to twelve in a laden A–10A could take a while, but with the uprated engines it was easy for the A–10E. Turk spun upward while Beast called in the kills to both the controller and Ginella, who was still working with her wingman on the tanks.
Ginella and Paulson had discovered another group of tanks just to the south. She told Beast to stand by while they went and checked them out.
“We can be down there in a flash,” said Beast.
“Just hold your horses. You’ve done enough for now.”
“Got plenty of arrows left.”
“Stand by.”
“Roger that, boss lady.”
Beast was now in an almost jaunty mood, his tone much more animated. The strike on the radar and missiles had been his first ever hits in combat. He called out the altitude markers as they rose, clearly enjoying himself.
“So did this feel as good as taking down those Mirages the other day?” he asked as they circled.
“It was OK.”
“Just OK? I’d think better than this even.”
“This was good. Doing a job. I’m a little unfamiliar with the plane,” admitted Turk. “I kept thinking I was going to screw up the weapons system. So it was good to kind of get past that.”
“Just about foolproof,” said Beast. “But I bet it’s easier in your Tiger, huh?”
“The Tigershark can target by voice,” said Turk. “Or by pointing.”
“See, that’s not flying.” Beast was almost gleeful. “That’s push button. Don’t even need a pilot. This is flying. This is fighting. Right?”
“They’re both good.”
Traffic on the channel spiked as another group of aircraft came nearby. Beast switched over to a different radio channel so they could talk plane-to-plane. The Hog pilots spun out a little wider to survey the area, making sure there were no further threats. Everything looked clean.
“I’ll bet those Frenchies we met yesterday are eating their hearts out about now,” said Beast. “We just made the skies safe for them.”
“So I guess we’re out of the doghouse, huh?”
“Oh, that’s the thing with G. Her bark is worse than her bite. You take care of business, she’ll give you a long leash.”
“She was right. We kinda got carried away.”
“Ah, don’t let her fool you. I bet she was pleased as hell. Hearing that a pair of zipped-do-my-dah fancy French whiz jets got their fannies smacked by two of the ugliest planes in the Air Force? She loved it. Especially since one of ’em was flown by a nugget and the other by a retard? Ha.”
“I guess I should be glad I’m not the retard, huh?”
“Oh, you’ll like G eventually,” said Beast, laughing. “She’s a good leader.”
A few minutes later Ginella hailed them on the main squadron frequency, telling them to come north.
“All tanks splashed,” she added.
“We still got some missiles here,” said Beast. “What do you want us to do with them?”
“Oh, I have something you could do with them,” answered Paulson.
“Settle down, munchkins.” Ginella called into their airborne controller, telling him that they had accomplished their task.
“If you have nothing for us, we’re going to fly the prebriefed course home,” she told him. “And per our brief, we’ll strike any—”
“Standby Shooter One. Standby,” interrupted the controller.
“That’s a good sign,” said Beast. “He’s looking up some trouble for us in a hurry.”
The controller came back a few seconds later, asking what their fuel and weapons situation was. Ginella had already given him that information, but she replied evenly; they had six missiles between them and a full store of gun ammo. The fuel was fine, with more than twenty minutes left before they would have to head home.
“Rebels are reporting a mortar crew working out of a pair of Hi Liners on Highway designated A3 on your maps,” said the controller. “Can you check that out?”
“Roger that.”
“Stand by for download.”
Before the Hogs had been upgraded, the controller would have delivered what was known as a nine-line brief — the mission set in a nutshell, beginning with an IP or initial point for them to navigate to, elevation of the target, its description, and other related matter. Now the nine-line brief came to the plane digitally; the target was ID’ed on the Tactical Awareness Display. The moving map on the TAD gave a top view of the tactical situation, showing Turk’s location in the center. An A–1 °C would have gotten this as well, but in the A–10E it came directly to Turk’s helmet.
It wasn’t the Tigershark, but it was a lot better than writing the instructions down on the Perspex canopy — the method used in the original A–10A.
The target area was roughly 150 miles due north. Cruising a few knots north of 300, it took roughly twenty-five minutes to get close. But because it was almost on their way home, they would have plenty of time to complete the mission without getting close to their fuel reserves.
Coming north took them past the town where the Sabre accident had occurred. It was some miles to the west, well out of sight, but Turk couldn’t help glancing in that direction as they drew parallel.
The images from the news video came back. All of the action today — getting up, getting ready, flying, fighting — had made him temporarily forget the images. He tried not to think about them now but it was impossible. They were horrific, all the more so because they were unintentional accidents.
Killing an enemy wasn’t a problem. Killing someone who was just there, in their own house…
“Shooter One to Three. Beast, can you see those trucks out ahead?”
“Yeah, copy. I’m eyes on.”
“They have guns?”
“Stand by.”
The trucks were on a side road almost directly ahead of Shooter Three. Turk watched as he tucked on his wing to lose altitude.
Damn, I’m his wingman, he thought to himself belatedly. He pushed down to follow.
The trucks were Toyotas, ubiquitous throughout the Middle East. They had four-door crew cabs. Whatever was in their beds was covered by tarps.
“Stay behind me,” Beast told Turk. “I’m going to buzz them.”
“I’m with you.”
Beast took Shooter Three down to treetop level — or what would have been treetop level if there were any trees. The attack jet winged right next to them, flew out ahead, then rose suddenly. Turk, flying above as well as behind, tensed as he watched the trucks for a flash.
Nothing happened.
“Got something in the back, that’s for sure,” said Beast. “But I’d need X-ray eyes to tell you what’s going on.”
“All right. Let me talk to Penthouse,” said Ginella, referring to the air controller by his call sign.
“We should just splash them on general principles,” said Beast.
“Don’t even kid around on an open circuit,” snapped Paulson.
“Oh, Lordy, I got a hall monitor along with us today.”
Paulson couldn’t think of something witty enough to respond before Ginella told them she was going to take a run at the trucks to see if she could spot anything out of place.