And they’d shot down his buddy. That, more than anything else, made it personal.
“Hey, Thor, you’re going to screw yourself into the stars, you make that orbit any smaller.” It was Hot Rocks, riding wing on Lobo. “Pay attention, swabbie. I’ll show you how to maintain a CAP station.” Thor heard the double click of the microphone, signifying Hot Rocks had copied his last. For a moment, he wondered about Hot Rocks, then shrugged. Whatever problems Golden Boy had had during his first cruise, he’d worked them out. Or Lobo had beat them out of him — frankly, he wouldn’t put it past her to smack him around a little bit, if only to get his attention.
No matter. Kid was one hell of a decent aviator now, and that was all that mattered.
“Blue Flight, interrogative status?” Thor asked. One by one, in flight order, the Hornets checked. Each one was on station, had adequate fuel reserves, and was copying the LINK loud and clear. “Roger, Lead’s on station. Weapons tight for now — but don’t take the first shot.”
“Blue Lead, Green Lead,” Lobo’s voice said over tactical. “They’d be a fool to try anything right now, with everything we’ve got in the air.”
“Roger. I ain’t relying on their smarts, though,” Thor answered. “I seen men die for dumber reasons.”
Just then, the milling Greek aircraft formed into two waves of strike aircraft. Just for a moment, the lines of blips ran straight and true across the screen, then the pairs broke off and vectored off in all directions, but primarily heading north.”
“Like I said,” Thor said. “Blue Flight, take the western flank. Green Leader, you got the east?”
“Roger,” Lobo replied, and Thor thought he could hear the adrenaline beating in her voice. “We’ll clean up our set them come bail you out.”
“In your dreams, sweetheart.” Thor punched the Hornet into afterburner, let the sweet howl of the engines seep into his bones. It was time for some payback.
“What are they doing?” the pilot snapped. “Ground, I need answers now.”
“Stand by — wait, out.”
“Wait, out, hell. What the hell are the Americans doing?”
“Weapons tight on American forces,” a new voice replied, and the pilot realized it was Xerxes. “All Greek forces are declared hostile, weapons free. But don’t target the Americans, not now.”
“They’re working with the Greeks,” the pilot howled. “They bombed us!”
“The rules just changed,” Xerxes replied, and his tone of voice indicated that the discussion was concluded. “I say again, weapons tight on American forces. Weapons free on Greek forces. God be with you, my men.”
“I’m taking the lead.”
“Got it — I got the next one, over.”
“I’ll back you up on that.”
“Ready — Fox two, Fox two.”
Thor listened to the other aircraft in his flight announcing their targets and watched their decisions reflected in the symbology on his HUD LINK display. As each pilot designated a radar blip as a target and assigned a missile to it, the LINK reflected it.
Thor noticed a couple of leakers, an inbound pair of fighters veering off further to the west than most of the others. He thumb-clicked a target designation and waited for a split second for the screen to reflect his decision. As soon as it did, he peeled off toward it with his wingman in the high slot.
“Two, you got them?” Thor asked his wingman. “Sixty miles out, just over 600 knots. Looks like they’re going high-low.”
“That’s affirmative,” his wingman answered. “I’ll take the high, of course, then, give you a hand.”
“In your dreams.” And why the hell did everyone seems so convinced he needed any help, anyway? First Lobo, now his wingman. Thor had been killing MiGs long before either of them had strapped into their first ejection seats.
The sharp warning buzz of his ESM gear cut off the strain of thought. Lock, got a lock — not a chance at that range, he’s just trying to throw me off. Well, two can play that game. Thor designated the target and selected an AMRAAM missile. He waited until his fire control system beeped a cheery acknowledgment, then toggled off the AMRAAM. The light aircraft jolted upward as the missile left the hard point, then arrowed away as its own propulsion system kicked in.
Well, that will at least keep him busy. The AIM—120 (advanced medium range air-to-air missile) was a follow-on to the Sparrow. It was capable of turning on an active seeker head after launch, at either a given time or distance, and guiding independently onto the designated target. It had a blast fragmentation warhead with a smart fuse, and could receive midcourse guidance updates to refine terminal honing track. It was capable of speeds of up to Mach 4, with a range of forty miles. The 345-pound missile carried a fifty-pound warhead.
For just a moment, Thor wished that his beloved Hornet was capable of carrying the Phoenix missile. With its longer range of over one hundred miles, the Phoenix might not always find its target, but it certainly forced the enemy into a defensive mode.
Thor waited until the missile began its approach on him, then he initiated countermeasures. Chaff and flares kicked out of the underbelly of the aircraft, rotating wildly in the air and doing their damnedest to present an attractive target to the incoming missile. Seconds after deploying countermeasures, Thor cut the Hornet into a hard breaking turn. He watched the radar screen, and saw the missile waiver for moment, then settle on the massive cloud of metallic strips and heat sources.
Nothing to it, he thought. The day they come up with a smart long-range missile is the day I’ll worry.
The make was now barely forty miles out, just at the outer edge of his AMRAAM engagement envelope. Take the shot now? Or wait a few minutes, give time to close to a distance with increased probability of kill.
But now the enemy Tomcat was climbing, and turning slightly away from him. He could see it in the distance now, fire spouting out of the tailpipes as it streaked straight up in the sky.
Not going to get me that way, asshole. You grab enough altitude, then try to sneak in behind me. Well, two can play that game.
Thor debated for a moment swapping targets with his wingman, and taking the other aircraft, which was now at a lower altitude than his original one. It made sense, since his wingman would have to expend less energy to match the other Tomcat altitude.
But dammit, this was personal. The bastard had fired on him, just like he fired on Murphy. And he was going to make them pay for it.
The heavier Tomcat he’d targeted was now below him, turning nimbly for an aircraft of its size. But while the Tomcat might be able to outlast the Hornet in the sky, there was no way the Greek pilot could put his aircraft through the same paces that Thor could with the Hornet. No way at all.
His prey cut hard to the south, sacrificing some altitude for additional speed and tightening the turn. Thor was on him in an instant, barreling down from on high to slip in behind in perfect targeting position. The Tomcat knew he was there — had to know — and started a desperate series of jinks and turns through the aerial killing ground, pumping out flares and chaff like there was no tomorrow.
And indeed there would be no tomorrow for this particular traitor, Thor thought, as he slid the weapons selector switch from AMRAAM to Sidewinder. Not at this range. Not with this weapon.