The Forger was a heavy aircraft, on par with the Tomcat. This would be a knife fight, up close and personal, a fight in the vertical rather than horizontal. Neither had the edge in maneuverability or speed. It would come down to the skill of pilot vs. pilot.
At least fourteen minutes, that was all. Because Tombstone was all too aware that somewhere not too far off sixteen of the Forger’s playmates were probably on their way in now to replace the ones the Aegis had taken out.
You don’t know it, buddy, but you’re dead meat. We already kicked your ass, taking out a bunch of your friends. Now there’s just you left, and then I’m going to get the hell out of here before the rest of the gang shows up. So you just orbit off there, feeling oh so confident. You’ve got about fifty seconds to live.
Tombstone kicked the Tomcat into a hard climb, maxing out his afterburners. Behind him, he heard Jeremy groan, but there was no time to think about his RIO. Not if he was going to keep them both alive.
The Tomcat shuddered, every joint and weld protesting this treatment. She was built tough, rugged, but the punishment Tombstone had been inflicting on her exceeded every design characteristic. They were so far out of the envelope now that Tombstone wasn’t entirely sure what would happen.
Tomboy would have known. She flew out-of-envelope missions all the time as a test pilot. She always said there was a larger margin of safety built in than they’d ever tell us, just to keep us from being reckless.
The vibration inside the cockpit increased, the lower harmonics settling into Tombstone’s bones like an old ache. For a moment, he wasn’t sure he could take it. And then that magic happened again, the moment when he fused with his aircraft and became one with the metal. No longer were flesh and metal fighting alone to stay intact and conscious — they were fighting together. He felt her steel wrap around his muscles, her electronics settle into his brain. He held her together by sheer willpower. Together, no longer man and aircraft but one being, they were stronger than their individual parts. Tombstone had the fleeting suspicion that even if he lost consciousness, his mind would continue to reside in her computer, his eyes looking out of her radar, his fingers flipping the fire control switches automatically.
And as he thought about these moments later, he was never sure he remained conscious at all. Perhaps the fusion was more real than he thought. He had told only one or two people about these moments of fusion he had within the aircraft, and, except for Coyote, he had been met with polite but disbelieving looks.
The Tomcat rocketed up directly toward the remaining Forgers. She fought against gravity, eking out a few additional knots of airspeed.
About him, the Forgers opened up their turns, increasing the angle between their aircraft and Tombstone’s, hoping to nail the perfect tailpipe shot.
Any second now, they’re going to fire. Something, anything — just to put me on the defensive. I can’t let them do that. I’ve got one shot at this before their friends show up.
Tombstone dropped the aircraft’s nose down, breaking away from the straight vertical ascent. His mind was working at lightning speed, computing the exact angle he would need to intercept the Forgers. The master caution on his panel flashed intermittently, as though the aircraft were reluctant to admit she couldn’t take it any longer. He ignored it, pressing her harder, demanding more of her — of himself — than anyone had ever asked before. And she rose to the occasion.
Time seemed to slow, almost stop. Around him, the Forgers were moving at a snail’s pace. Tombstone could imagine the confusion in the other pilots’ minds. It made no sense for the Tomcat to be screaming directly for him, not at all. Three additional Forgers were on their way back to wrap up the conflict, and sixteen more remained behind that. Now the Tomcat’s only hope of survival was trying to run and relying on Lady Luck. Maybe the Tomcat could somehow evade the missile shot that would surely be coming. It was a pure crap-shoot, relying on luck, but both the Forger’s pilot and Tombstone knew it was the only logical thing to do.
To hell with luck and logic. I don’t like the odds.
Then the Forger made his fatal mistake. He had felt secure in his tactical position, waiting for backup, comforted by the fact that a lone Tomcat could not take on the remaining sixteen Forgers by itself. Not now, not now that they knew what was going on.
Yet against all odds, the Tomcat was coming for him. It made no sense — and the Forger’s pilot panicked. He did the one thing that he should not do, the one thing that Tombstone had been hoping and praying for. He turned to run.
Tombstone toggled off the remaining heat seeker, then rolled his Tomcat out of the hard climb. New stresses ran through the airframe as bolts and welds fought forces they were never designed to withstand. A barrel roll help bleed off altitude more quickly and, hopefully, confused the firing solution that the other Forgers were undoubtedly computing.
Then Tombstone settled into level flight, still at max afterburner, and started hauling ass. He descended slightly, letting gravity add airspeed.
Behind him, he heard a low moan as Jeremy regained consciousness.
TWENTY-ONE
The captain stared at the screen, his anger building. He’d told the pilot to break left and run — why the hell hadn’t he complied? Sure, he killed some aircraft, but look at the situation he was in now. Running for his life, with sixteen Forgers on his ass.
“Is there enough separation?” he asked his TAO. “It doesn’t look like it.”
“At best, its marginal,” the TAO said promptly, his cursor circling the lone blue symbol in front of a pack of red ones. “At worst, well…”
“It’s too close,” the captain said, his frustration building. The separation had been sufficient earlier, when he’d told the pilot to break, but now the geometry wasn’t going to work. If they took the shot, they were just as likely to take the Tomcat out as they were the other aircraft.
“It is. But it’s the only chance he’s got,” the TAO said firmly. “Captain, you have to take the shot.”
The Aegis system had already assigned missiles to each of the enemy aircraft. The missiles were ready, waiting only for the TAO to release them. If the captain had not been present, the TAO had authority to release them on his own. But with the captain present, everything depended on him.
For a second, the captain wanted to jump on the TAO and smash him into small pieces for such insubordination. Then he looked at the screen again and saw that the TAO was exactly right. It was a chance they would have to take, and one that he would answer for later if they were mistaken.
“Weapons free, target all Russian aircraft,” the captain said immediately. No more than a microsecond had elapsed between the TAO’s comment and his decision, but he knew the TAO had seen what his first impulse was.
Even before he finished speaking, the TAO had mashed a button down, clicking it firmly past the detente and sending the missiles on their way. The cruiser shook as the missiles rippled off at two-second intervals, a string of pearls stretching out from the ship into the clear blue sky. The forecastle was enveloped in a cloud of noxious fumes, the exhaust from the propellant. For a moment, it completely obscured their vision, as though they had just plunged into a heavy fog bank. Then it cleared, the wind whipping it past the bridge. In that few seconds, the missiles had virtually disappeared, and now only the best eyes could make them out as slivers of white against blue.