It was a J. C. Powell trademark to push the rules of engagement to the limits; now he was complaining about someone else pushing the ROE. “He’s in fingertip,” Patrick reported to Powell. “I’m sending him to the tactical frequency.” Patrick extended both hands in front of him, fists clenched, one on top of the other, the signal to switch to the agreed-on scrambled tactical frequency; hand signals, used as much as possible, prevented eavesdropping. James nodded that he understood.
On the new scrambled VHF frequency, J.C. called, “Storm flight, check in.”
“Two,” a monotone voice immediately replied.
“Nice moves, Ken,” Patrick said. “But remember the ROE. No maneuvering and no closure rate greater than two hundred knots within one mile of your target. I’d say you came close on both.”
“Yes, sir.” The metallic-sounding voice was James’ altered by the computer. It sounded almost sarcastic. Or was Patrick imagining that?
“Okay, forget it,” Patrick said, imaging Powell’s face. J.C. didn’t like being upstaged. He wouldn’t be sore because he had been upstaged by a younger pilot but that he had been hosed by a machine called ANTARES. “Ken, ready to start some dogfighting?”
“Affirmative.”
“Roger. Lead will come left, heading three-one-zero to stay inside our airspace. On roll-out, Ken, you are the fox. We’ll give you fifteen seconds, then we’re coming after you. Block is ten to fifty thousand feet, keep it under the Mach, please, or the camera telemetry won’t keep up with you. And stay within the ROE, gents. We’re all on the same team … Lead, come left heading three-one-zero. Heads up.”
“Two’s in.”
J.C. started a hard left turn to Patrick’s assigned heading. The roll was a bit more abrupt than it should have been but it didn’t seem to faze James — he stayed right in there, perhaps a few feet farther out, but still in tight fingertip formation. The instant J.C. rolled out of his turn, DreamStar merely dropped straight down out of sight.
“There he goes,” Patrick said. “Straight down, I can’t see him.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Powell complained dryly. “He could be in the next state in fifteen seconds.”
“That’s why he only gets five seconds. Go get ‘em.”
Powell rolled inverted, then pulled hard on the stick. Cheetah did a tight inverted turn, losing five thousand feet. Patrick was straining against the G-forces shoving him deep into his seat, trying to look up through the canopy to where he thought DreamStar would be.
“Tally ho,” J.C. sang out. “Coming up on our twelve o’clock. Right where I thought he’d be.” Patrick fought a wave of vertigo as he searched for DreamStar on radar. Normally the back-seater on an F-15E fighter-bomber would use his radar and process the attack for the pilot, but Patrick was only along as a camera operator and observer — J.C. would have to find and process his own targets. But J.C. already had very unconventional help, and he quickly began working on his kill.
He hit the voice-command button. “Attack radar transmit; target report.” Patrick watched as the attack radar went automatically from “STANDBY” to “TRANSMIT” and began a wide-area scan.
“Radar transmit,” the computer responded. Almost immediately, the computer reported, “Radar contact, range fifteen miles.”
“Heads up display.”
J.C.’s windscreen was filled with symbols and numbers, seemingly floating in space. Unlike regular HUDs, heads-up displays — pieces of plate glass that reflected up from the instrument console to the pilot — Cheetah’s consisted of large banks of high-resolution laser projectors that created three-dimensional images that hung in space. Unlike a reflected HUD system, which relied on the pilot orienting himself directly behind the glass, Cheetah’s laser-projected images were visible no matter how the pilot moved in his seat, and even bright sunlight or glare on the windshield could not wash the images away. The laser images showed an icon of DreamStar with a diamond symbol around it, indicating that Cheetah’s attack radar was locked onto it. Columns of numbers surrounding the icon showed DreamStar’s heading, airspeed, range and closure rate.
“Target designate …” Powell said. Instantly micro-wattage laser projectors in his helmet scanned his eyeballs, and a holographic circle and crosshairs was projected up onto the windscreen corresponding to exactly where he was looking. He centered the crosshairs on the icon, “… now.”
“Target radar lock, “ the computer reported.
“Laser slave to radar,” J.C. ordered.
“Target laser lock. “ A four-pointed star superimposed itself on DreamStar’s icon. Unlike Cheetah’s attack radar, the laser rangefinder was undetectable by any of DreamStar’s radar-detecting threat-warning receivers. Cheetah could carry a dozen laser-guided ATM-12 Cougar hypervelocity missiles, which were high-speed, nonexplosive, relatively inexpensive guided missiles. Fired from very short to very long ranges — it had no warhead and therefore no minimum-range requirements — the Cougar missile could be used to attack both air and ground targets, destroying its target by sheer force of impact.
DreamStar was still cruising along on the same heading. He hadn’t been detected — yet. As James drove in closer he would eventually pick up Cheetah’s radar emissions. J.C. had to control his excitement and steady his voice to issue more commands to the computer.
“Radar standby.”
“Radar standby. “ The laser rangefinder would now process the entire kill without danger of detection.
J.C. took a deep breath. “Arm laser missile.”
“Arm laser missile; warning, practice missile armed.” The weapons multi-function display showed Cheetah’s ten weapons stations, the belly-mounted Cougar missile rack illuminated with the number 12 on it, signifying the number of hypervelocity missiles remaining.
“Launch laser missile.”
“Launch. … Warning! Collision warning. Collision warning.
J.C. barely had time to react. DreamStar had just frozen in mid-air, still on its original heading, and let Cheetah drive right at him, chopping the distance between the two advanced fighters from ten miles to practically zero in the blink of an eye. Powell, with no choice, rolled hard behind DreamStar and dived past him. The computer had processed the launch command, but Powell doubted very much if he’d ever be credited with a “kill” with a closure rate and maneuver like that.
“God …” McLanahan breathed. He remembered how they had used the same maneuver in the B-52s in the past. Especially one particular B-52, his Old Dog Zero One, on that mission over Russia that seemed like a million years ago. “Now 1 know what it feels like to get sucked in …”
“He knew we’d try that dive on him,” Powell said. “He was waiting for us. The minute he detected our attack radar was off, he knew we were committed. He just put DreamStar on max alpha hover and chopped his power.” But J.C. didn’t linger on James’ maneuver. He knew DreamStar could accelerate back to combat speed and pull in right behind him just as fast as he had slowed down. So J.C. selected full afterburner and yanked the nose skyward, throwing Cheetah into a near-vertical climb.
“You mean ANTARES outguessed you?” Patrick taunted as he clung to his handlebars in the steep climb.
J.C. didn’t take the bait. “That was my fault. I performed like any pilot would if he sees a bogey below him. Well, enough of that. No more predictability.”