"Damn it, Striker! Where the hell are you going?"
But Striker wasn't listening. His full concentration was focused on that lone Russian MiG, now eight miles ahead. He selected an AMRAAM and went for a radar lock.
Lock! Averin grinned behind his oxygen mask as he squeezed the firing trigger on his stick, loosing the R-60 heat-seeker from its cradle beneath his wing. The target was still on afterburner and arrowing directly away from him, providing a target he couldn't miss.
The Tomcat slammed toward the north, twin spears of flame roaring from its engines. The air was heavy with moisture, and streamers of mist appeared, streaking aft from both wings.
"Range four miles," Vader warned. "One of 'em's got a radar lock on us."
"Selecting AMRAAM," Lobo replied. "I've got him on my HUD."
"Missile launch! Radar-homing missile is locked onto us!"
"Lock! Tone! Fox one! Now hang on! Breaking right! Hit the chaff!"
As her AMRAAM shrieked toward the north, Chris pulled into a hard, tight turn, dumping clouds of chaff to break the approaching missile's radar lock.
The G-forces built, crushing her down against her seat until she'd come about a full one-eighty and was heading south once more.
"Lobo! Missile incoming, straight ahead!"
"What-"
She didn't have time to react or to analyze. For one fatal instant, she thought that Vader was referring to the radar horner fired by the Port Vladimir MiGs, a missile that was now behind them. As she jinked right, still dumping chaff, she realized that Vader had just picked up another missile, a heat-seeker, arrowing in from the south… now so close she could see it as a black pinpoint silhouetted against its own exhaust, rapidly growing larger.
As she pushed the Tomcat farther into the turn, the new missile slid toward her left shoulder but seemed to be moving much more quickly now, curving slightly to meet her turn, leaping straight toward her cockpit with heart-pounding speed.
"Flares!" she yelled at Vader. "Pop flares!"
"Fox one!"
The AMRAAM streaked toward the Russian MiG, now only three miles ahead… but Striker had already seen the flash of the MiG's missile launch. Shit!
Was he already too late?
Lobo knew it was already too late. Dropping flares, reversing her turn to take her toward the new missile instead of away, she knew there was nothing more she could do. The missile slammed into the Tomcat's left wing close by the engine. There was a shattering explosion, and then half of the F-14 was ablaze and she was tumbling through a dizzying spin, earth alternating with sky in her canopy. Centrifugal force pinned her for a moment against the side of the cockpit, but she was able to grope for the striped ejection ring between her legs.
"Vader!" she called. "Punch out!" There was no answer. "Vader! Eject!
Eject! Eject!"
Then she yanked the ring. The canopy exploded away over her head, and then the rocket motor built into the base of her ejection seat fired, kicking her into a roaring, shrieking hell of wind and noise and flame.
CHAPTER 26
Lobo fell through space, the roar of her ejection gone now, replaced by the eerie shriek of air rushing past her helmet. A moment later, her chute opened with a savage jerk at her shoulders and groin. Looking up, she was rewarded by the heart-filling sight of an open and undamaged canopy stretching overhead.
Where was Vader? His ejection seat should have triggered an instant after she'd cleared the cockpit, but she couldn't see him, couldn't see her stricken F-14, for that matter. There was a tangle of contrails off toward the south, where Shotgun was still battling the MiGs, but she was all alone in that wide, blue sky.
No… there was something in the distance, an aircraft approaching from the south. But was it a MiG or a Tomcat? She watched it as she dropped toward a barren and empty plain.
"Hit!" K-Bar yelled. "Splash one MiG!"
"Never mind the damned MiG! Do you see any chutes?"
"Negative, Striker. Negative. No! Wait a sec! At one-five-oh!"
Yes! A parachute! But only one…
"Shotgun, Shotgun, this is Shotgun Two-two," Striker called. "I see one chute. That's good chute, good chute at, I make it, eight miles southeast of Sayda Guba. That's map coordinates Victor three-one by Sierra niner-five."
"Striker, this is Coyote. Get back to formation."
"Ah, negative, Shotgun. I can see vehicles on the road below me, heading for that chute. I'm going in to provide cover."
"Shotgun Two-two, this is Shotgun One-one. Return to formation. Execute immediate."
But Striker's full attention was on that lone chute and the vehicles on the ground nearby. Was it Vader or Chris? There'd be no way of knowing until he or she could make contact with an SAR emergency radio.
Keeping his distance, Striker pulled his F-14 into a long, easy circle about the descending chute a mile and a half away.
There was no mistaking the distinctive bulk of that aircraft, huge for a fighter, its wings swept forward for low-speed flight. A Tomcat was circling her, though at this distance Lobo couldn't tell which one it was. The F-14's presence was comforting, however, a sign that her shipmates had not abandoned her.
The ground was coming up faster now. It was close enough for her to make out details ― the twin ruts of a dirt road between large patches of mud and snow, a hut or cottage with what looked like a thatched roof, and a nearby barn. There was a town or village a few miles to the northwest. Beyond that was the gunmetal blue-gray of the sea, and a smudge of black smoke where the Marines were storming ashore.
To Hanson, the landscape immediately below her dangling feet looked unutterably bleak, a flat and barren tundra, all bare earth, brown and stunted vegetation, and scattered patches of snow. She twisted back and forth in her harness, still trying to spot McVey's chute. Where the hell was he? Had he managed to punch out? She couldn't see him and that worried her.
And what she could see worried her even more. There, to the south was a line of vehicles, their shapes indistinct, a convoy of some kind picking its way north along that muddy track of a road.
The ground was really coming up fast now. It looked like she was going to touch down close to that house and barn.
Striker brought the Tomcat almost down to the deck, screaming over flat, empty tundra, patches of snow and earth blurring with the speed of his passage to a rippling brown-white-gray. The enemy convoy was a couple of miles ahead, several trucks and at least one armored vehicle of some kind, possibly a tank.
He gentled his F-14 slightly to the left, watching the column of vehicles swell behind his gun reticle, then squeezed the trigger, sending a hail of 20mm shells slashing into dirt, machines, and men.
"Shotgun Two-two, this is Home Plate. Two-two, this is Home Plate.
Respond, please."
Tombstone's knuckles tightened around the microphone as he continued to stare at the radar display above the console in front of him. It was cluttered with aircraft, friendlies and hostiles. Russian planes had been coming up from every air base in the Kola Peninsula, and the American aircraft were fighting for their lives.