Radars were coming up all across the subcontinent. The Velociraptor’s audible warning system sounded like a frenetic synthesizer, bleating out tones: A missile battery had just come to life about two miles south of Timmy. The computer ID’d it as an SA-8, a Russian-made mobile SAM with a range to about 42,500 feet and approximately ten miles. It hadn’t been briefed: There had been no mention of SA-8s in the Indian inventory. Nothing had locked on the slippery F/A-22V, but he wasn’t feeling particularly warm and fuzzy.
Timmy slid the Velociraptor eastward, pushing to get into an attack position to hit the MiGs at the end of the formation. They’d bunched as they came back north, but were now stringing out into the loose trail they’d flown before. The targets were easy to pick, but the sheer number of planes complicated the attack.
Not for Cyclops. The laser plane’s pilot gave a warning and the oversexed flashlight in its nose went to work. Timmy flexed his fingers on the side stick as Cyclops picked off the members of the flight one by one, taking them at precise fifteen-second intervals. The laser’s operator used his ultrasophisticated targeting gear to create a hot spot in the planes’ wings where their fuel tanks were; it was like putting a balloon against a thousand-watt lightbulb.
A kerosene-filled balloon. Even at fifteen miles away, Timmy could see the fireballs as the first planes in the formation popped. The third plane began to turn; that bought it perhaps ten seconds. Timmy looked at his tactical screen as the aircraft began to separate, aware now that they were in deep, unprecedented shit.
He had five octagonal targets in the middle circle. The MiG closest to him — twelve miles ahead on a direct line from his right wing root — blinked in the screen, then disappeared as the laser firing indicator lit. The other planes ducked east and west; one disappeared, apparently running into a mountain as it tried to escape.
Timmy pulled the Velociraptor south with a sharp bank and roll, acrobatically sliding around to follow the farthest plane if it got out of Cyclops’s range. It was unnecessary; he’d barely gotten his wings back level when the last Indian exploded. Poor fucking bastard.
It had taken just under three minutes to eliminate eight aircraft. Captain Robinson, who would objectively rank no lower than the top five percent of fighter pilots in the world and who was flying unarguably the world’s most advanced jet, would have taken at least twice as long to shoot down half that number from close range — and even then would have had to consider himself incredibly lucky, and his opponents incredibly stupid.
I’m surplus war material,he thought to himself.Washed up at twenty-five.
Howe steadied the Velociraptor at 35,000 feet, quickly reviewing everyone’s position as Cyclops finished off the Indian attack force. It had been easier than any of the tests they’d conducted over the past several months.
There wasn’t time to gloat, much less analyze it alclass="underline" Both the Indians and the Pakistanis were filling the air with attack planes. Lucy — an American Compass Call electronic jammer that was also controlling a number of remote jamming drones — came south from Afghanistan to fill the air with electronic fuzz, making it difficult for the combatants’ radios and radars to work; they’d thought it a necessary precaution if things started to get out of hand, since it helped shield the easily seen Cyclops Two. But there was a definite downside, as both the Indian and Pakistani air forces interpreted the jamming as hostile acts by the other side. The jammers, meanwhile, degraded Howe’s ability to communicate with some of the far-flung members of his task force, though he had full secure communications with Timmy and Cyclops.
The question now was: What next?
His orders covered this contingency: If both sides went crazy, he was supposed to stand back and let them go at each other.
“Missiles in the air!” warned the AWACS operator. The Indians had detected and were targeting one of the ECM drones as it flew south over their border.
Losing the UAV was no big deal, but sooner or later his real aircraft were going to be in danger. At least two dozen Indian aircraft were now headed north; the Pakistanis had almost as many coming south.
They’d been so damn close. One radar blip, one general’s decision to rush ahead, one chance move somewhere, too subtle to be tracked down, had turned the MiGs around and started World War III.
There was still a chance. If he took out the Indians’ radar plane, the Indians would be blind. They’d have to pull back.
Hitting the plane would be exceeding his orders.
“Bird Two, you have EW1?” he asked Timmy, using the computer’s reference for the Indian radar plane.
“Roger that. I have him at about a hundred and fifty miles, coming north. He’s trying to vector their fighters. For escorts, Su-27s.”
“We’re going to take him out.”
“Now you’re talking.”
Howe told Cyclops Two what was going on, telling them to remain in their patrol pattern over Afghanistan and to let the two sides go at it. As they were talking, the Indian SAM struck the drone, destroying it.
“Should we take out Unk-2?” asked Timmy, referring to the unidentified contact.
The plane was now in a two-mile orbit over the Himalayas. Still unidentified, it seemed to be hugging the Chinese border, which to Howe meant that’s who was probably operating it.
“Negative,” he said. “They’re not a factor.”
“I think that’s what the Paks were reacting to.”
“If so, that’s because they’re clueless,” said Howe. He laid out his course and plan of attack to take the Indian AWACS. There was no need to be fancy; he and Timmy could take it straight at the Indian plane, which, despite its high-tech gear, probably wouldn’t detect them until they were about fifty miles away. At that point it would be within AMRAAM range, though he’d want to launch from inside forty miles to guarantee a hit.
“You want fat boy or the guard dogs?” Timmy asked.
“I’ll take the radar plane,” said Howe. “Target the closest interceptors, but don’t take them out unless they get hostile.”
“Guard dogs are mine.” Timmy’s tone guaranteed the planes would end up being considered hostile.
At their present course and speed, they’d be in range to fire in just under five minutes. The two American fighters streaked through the sky, their dagger-shaped wings cutting through the thin, icy air. Far below, millions of people slept through the night, completely unaware that their fates were being decided while they dreamed. Pakistan had twelve nuclear-tipped missiles and a single airdropped bomb; India had twice as many. The analysts who had briefed Howe had made a point of noting that it was very possible not all of the weapons would work if used. Both sides had had problems constructing and testing their weapons, and J.D. Powers wasn’t around to help improve quality control. But even if only half the weapons worked half as well as advertised, several million people would still die.
When he closed within seventy-five miles of EW1, the radar receiver caught the power spikes from the Sukhoi radars and painted them in the outer circle on Howe’s tactical scope, confident of their location. The radar in the big plane, meanwhile, continued to grope the sky unsuccessfully, its long fingers not quite sticky enough to grab him.