McLanahan pulled back on the stick even harder, his neck and jaw muscles quivering against the pressure. He rolled inverted, ejected more chaff and flares to decoy the missiles, then plunged Cheetah earthward. They were head-to-head once again, but this time they were fighting in the vertical, not the horizontal — Cheetah was in a full-power descent, rapidly building airspeed, and DreamStar was in a screaming climb, heading right at him…
ANTARES adjusted each flight control surface and every pound of two-dimensional vectored thrust to keep Cheetah centered in its crosshairs. Measuring by DreamStar’s precision millimeter-wave radar and calculating by computer several times a second, Maraklov commanded DreamStar to open fire seconds before McLanahan’s finger even closed on his trigger. They were still almost two miles apart when DreamStar opened fire, dead on target …
The cannon reported locked-on and firing — then stopped.
After several days of misuse, inexperienced handling, and lack of routine preventive maintenance, and because the Russian-made ammunition was not precisely compatible with its American counterpart, DreamStar’s twenty-millimeter cannon fired five rounds, then jammed solid. The M61A5 cannon’s automatic jam-clearing mechanism tried to reverse the cartridge belt-feed, spin past the portion of the belt where the jam occurred and refeed the belt through the firing chamber, but the jam could not be cleared in flight.
At the speed of thought, ANTARES transmitted several bits of data to Maraklov’s exhausted mind. The cannon jam was reported in minute detail — he knew exactly where the jam was, the status of the unsuccessful attempts to clear it and the changing status of all the attack options that had been computed using the cannon. He also knew the range to Cheetah, knew Cheetah’s Doppler-measured velocity, and knew that Cheetah was within lethal gun range. And he knew to the nearest one-tenth of a knot his own decreasing airspeed and the position of his wings and canards to overcome his speed deficit. He commanded his last AA-11 missile to launch, but it was a desperate snap-shot, with only one or two seconds guidance time and launched with a much higher launch angle of attack than the Russian missile was designed for.
With the realization that a defensive turn and descent away from Cheetah was the last available option, the pain returned full-force to Maraklov’s already tortured nervous system. This time, the pain was unbearable… He never knew that AN-TARES’ stabilization system automatically corrected the impending stall condition. He also was not conscious enough to realize that DreamStar had taken several direct hits all across its wings and upper fuselage as ANTARES pulled its nose back to the horizon.
Warning messages began flooding in from almost every system on board the fighter, but Maraklov was too dazed by exhaustion and too overloaded with pain to assimilate them all — now the ANTARES computer was forced to take over all safety and flight control functions. The computers aboard DreamStar detected a fire in the engine compartment, momentarily shut down the engine, put out the fire and restarted the engine all in a few seconds. Engine-fuel feed was rerouted to draw fuel from leaking tanks before they ran dry. The mission-adaptive wings reshaped themselves to compensate for hydraulic actuators damaged by gunfire.
But through it all, Maraklov hovered on the brink of unconsciousness. And without him, for all ANTARES’ capability, DreamStar was no longer capable of fighting.
McLanahan came out of military power and set the throttles to eighty percent. He saw the BINGO low fuel warning projected onto his windscreen — less than ten minutes of fuel remaining — but for now he ignored it. He clicked open the interphone. “He’s what?”
“I see smoke coming out of his exhaust,” Preston said. “hot heavy but I can see it. He’s flying straight and level, not maneuvering. You got him …”
McLanahan looked over far to his right and spotted DreamStar. He turned toward him. Preston said, “You’ve got two-hundred rounds remaining and two missiles. Take the shot. We’re low on fuel.”
He lined up on DreamStar, selected an AIM-132 infrared missile, aligned it, hit the voice-command button: “Safe all missiles. Safe cannon.”
“Caution; all weapons safe.”
“Patrick, what are you doing? You got to bring this guy down. There’s no other choice. He can turn on us …”
McLanahan’s reply was to click open the emergency frequency: “DreamStar, this is Cheetah. I’m at your six, five miles. I’m joining on your right side. Do you hear me?”
“Stay away …” The pain in his voice was obvious, even through the computerized distortion. “Do not come any closer …”
“It’s over, I’m joining on your wing. When you see me stay on my wing. We’re landing. Do you understand?”
He maneuvered Cheetah closer to DreamStar, finally overtaking him. “I’ve got the lead, coming right. You’re on the wing, stay there.” He began a shallow right turn.
“I am not giving up this aircraft …” the computer-synthesized voice said. “I am not … not going to surrender DreamStar … “
“It’s over. Listen to me. DreamStar is damaged, you’re hurt bad. You’ll destroy DreamStar or force me to destroy you. You’ve got a chance to live. Take it—”
Suddenly Marcia called out, “He’s turning behind us …!”
But it was only a momentary deviation. A moment later DreamStar moved into perfect fingertip formation with Cheetah. “That’s it; stay in position.” On interphone McLanahan said, “Marcia, get on the radio to any air traffic facility you can reach. Tell them we need vectors to a hard-surface runway ASAP.”
He paused, taking his first real deep breath, then added: “‘I1wo American military aircraft landing: both require assistance.”
Epilogue
Brooks AFB Hospital, San Antonio, Texas
“SHE’S A REMARKABLE woman,” the doctor told him. “You were right. She just refused to give up.”
He bent over and kissed her. “She’s a tough broad.”
Wendy returned the kiss, reached up and touched his face, ran her fingers across his temples. “You’ve gotten a few gray hairs in the past few days, Colonel.” Her smile dimmed as she saw his eyes, remembering. “I’m sorry I won’t be there for J.C.’s service tomorrow. I’m going to miss him …”
He nodded. “I’ve never felt as secure, or as happy in an aircraft until I started flying with J.C. And he was a friend.” McLanahan was silent a few moments. “But seeing you like this again, it overwhelms everything … How do you feel?”
“Like, they say, lucky to be alive. Also tired as hell. The doctor says I’ll be out of here in a couple of weeks, then a few months’ convalescent leave. I think that’s too much. Four, five weeks should do it.” She took his hand, squeezed it tight. “I … I heard about what you did before you left for Honduras again. I heard everyone was ready to let me go. I—”
Patrick put a finger on her lips. “I did it because I’m selfish. What the hell would I do without you?”
He knelt down beside her bed and she wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close to her. They didn’t say a word. Even one would have been superfluous.
They heard a polite cough behind them. Joe and Betty Tork were standing in the doorway. “May we come in?” Betty asked.
McLanahan moved aside. Wendy’s parents gave their daughter a hug and spoke in low whispers. Then Joe Tork stood and faced Patrick.