Cheetah’s steel and titanium airframe shrieked, and the computerized stall and airframe overstress warning messages blasted in their helmets. McLanahan’s and Preston’s bodies were thrown forward against their shoulder harnesses. Struggling against the G-forces, he waited until he was abeam DreamStar again, then yanked the control stick over, and rolled right into Dream-Star …
Even if the ANTARES computer had not warned Maraklov of Cheetah’s sudden decrease in airspeed, he had seen Cheetah’s engine exhaust nozzles snap closed and the ventral louvers open, and had time to react. What he wasn’t expecting was the suicide-move that McLanahan made after that. Before he knew it Cheetah had banked up on its right wing and was turning directly into DreamStar on a collision course.
Maraklov’s first decision was to roll with Cheetah and out-turn him, but the radar quickly informed him that he had no room to bank away from the sudden roll — Cheetah was so close that if DreamStar went into a right bank, his left wingtip would certainly strike Cheetah’s right wing. Maraklov was near-transfixed by the sight of Cheetah swooping in on him. He had no place to run. Only a few yards remaining …
Suddenly the pain that had been with him ever since his successful interface with ANTARES returned full-force. It was so intense it nearly blinded him. His shoulder throbbed, the pain seemed to spread out across his entire body, intensifying the electrical shock generated by the metallic flight suit. The headache that had seemed to go away when he attacked Cheetah was now like a red-hot thing buried in his head. He knew he did not black out — his seat was still upright and he was not being force-fed blasts of oxygen — but he was out of control as he tried to figure a way to escape Cheetah’s attack.
At some point during the maneuver ANTARES took control. The computer commanded full down deflection on the nose canards, full downward thrust from the vectored-thrust nozzle, full adverse pitch on the flap strakes in the tail. The effect was a rapid elevator zero-pitch descent at negative seven G’s, almost at the structural limit of DreamStar’s airframe and, more important, twice the normal safe negative-G limit of the human body. Cheetah’s right wingtip missed DreamStar’s bubble canopy by a few yards — if the canopy had been made of anything but ultra-strong polymer plastics it would have shattered from the hurricane-like force from Cheetah’s wingtip vortices.
Maraklov, already partially incapacitated by the sudden intense sheets of pain rolling across his body, was on the verge of unconsciousness from the negative G’s. He was quickly past the red-out stage, where blood was forced up into his brain. Blood vessels burst in his eyeballs and nostrils, and one eardrum exploded. The computer sensed Maraklov’s semi-conscious state, immediately reclined his ejection seat and shot pure oxygen into his face mask. But the increased pressure in his face only forced blood from his nostrils back into his throat, nearly drowning him.
Once DreamStar’s all-aspect radar detected that Cheetah had rolled well clear, it discontinued the hard horizontal descent, selected full afterburner and began a hard climb up to a safer altitude. But DreamStar was flying on full-computer control as Maraklov fought for consciousness. The pain had suddenly subsided, but Maraklov was still trying to recover from the effects of the negative G’s as DreamStar zoomed to thirty thousand feet, then leveled off.
ANTARES performed a systems self-test and prepared to issue an all-systems-nominal report — as soon as Maraklov regained full consciousness.
The system self-test never included the pilot.
“Colonel, what the hell are you doing? “ Preston called out. “Recover, dammit; recover.”
McLanahan immediately let up on the stick pressure, allowing Cheetah’s automatic roll-and-yaw damping mechanisms slow the roll rate. When he firmly saw which way his roll was going, he eased in left-stick force and rolled Cheetah wingslevel.
“Where is he, Marcia? Where did he go?”
She was still shaken from the sudden maneuver but quickly pulled herself together. “God, what a ride. I don’t see him anywhere.”
“I’ve gotta risk using the radar.” He hit the voice-command button while continuing to search the skies around Cheetah. “Radar, search, transmit, voice warning.”
“Attack radar transmit,” the computer replied. “Voice warning activated. Fifty mile range selected, no targets.”
“Get some altitude back,” Preston said. “He had the upper hand when he got above you. You can use your power more effectively if you stay above him.”
He began a rapid climb. “But remember, DreamStar is a new kind of fighter. It’s hard to explain — it took J.C. years to figure it out and months to explain it to me. There’s only one way to get him, and I just showed it works.”
“By almost killing us? By pulling a kamikaze on him? If that’s how we’re going to play, we might as well get out—”
The computerized voice cut in: “Target, range twenty miles, bearing ten left. “
“There he is,” Preston called out. “Eleven o’clock high, straight and level.”
“Tally ho. I’m going for a shot.” He hit the voice-command button. “Radar target designate …” The blinking circle-aiming cursor appeared on the windscreen, superimposed on DreamStar as the only radar target in range. “Now.”
“Radar lock. “ McLanahan hit the missile-launch button and watched as one of the AIM-120 Scorpion missiles streaked out from underneath the fuselage toward its target.
“Missile’s tracking by itself,” Preston said, scanning her weapons indications. The Scorpion missile needed guidance from its launch aircraft only until its own on-board radar locked onto the target. Then the carrier aircraft could disengage and look for other targets. “Try a left turn; get around behind him in case he gets past the missile.”
“He’ll get past it — guaranteed,” McLanahan said. To the computer: “Select radar missile. Arm missile.”
“Warning, radar missile armed.” He hit the launch button and a second Scorpion missile streaked out.
DreamStar abruptly heeled over to the right, making a turn so tight that the Scorpion missile’s automatic proximity detonation missed by over a hundred feet — the proximity detonation circuits could not keep up with DreamStar’s remarkably fast jink. McLanahan watched, transfixed, as DreamStar headed directly down at Cheetah, rapidly closing the distance even before his AIM-120 medium-range missile left the rails. Shaking himself, McLanahan banked hard right and up; selected zone-five full afterburner, trying to get underneath DreamStar, spoil his aim and get out of the way before Maraklov could finish his sudden attack.
Maraklov had recovered from the effects of negative G’s just in time to receive the new warning of radar lock-on and missile uplink — a Scorpion missile was in flight. This time there was no pain — in an instant Cheetah’s location was plotted, its direction and all three of its axis velocities were recorded and assimilated and a counter-offensive move and several alternate maneuvers processed. He selected the first choice a fraction of a second later. It had been timed perfectly, and the missile rushed well past DreamStar without detonating until it had passed out of lethal range.
In the same instant ANTARES had selected an AA-11 infrared-guided missile and had just received a lock-on signal from the missile’s seeker-head when a new threat was detected — a second missile in flight from Cheetah. A moment later he saw Cheetah head straight for him, chewing up the distance. Now two threats were closing on him — the second Scorpion missile and Cheetah itself, fast approaching optimal cannon range.