“Coming around behind,” Beetle announced, although there was no real need for him to tell Thor. He and Thor had worked together so often that his intent was immediately obvious to his lead.
“Let’s keep them honest,” Thor said, and toggled off another AAMRAM. To his left, he saw three Forgers approaching rapidly, almost within weapons range. His ESM warning gear began beeping rapidly.
Their target Forger broke right, descended rapidly, then wheeled back around to come in behind Beetle. But Beetle had anticipated this, and used his advantage of being in a smaller and more maneuverable aircraft to gain altitude, wing over, and dive back in behind the Forger. The Forger was trying to keep Beetle on the defensive, evading prime target position while waiting for the cavalry to arrive, but it wasn’t going to work. He scraped past Beetle inverted, undercarriage to undercarriage, then rolled out and started hauling ass. Thor slid high and above them, waiting for them. “Fox one!” The heat seeker leaped off his wing, spitting fire out the back, hungry for the warm tailpipes just in front of it.
“Got one on me,” Beetle announced, his voice calm. “You see him?”
“No, I — yeah, I got him.” A Forger had descended from on high to slip in behind Beetle, and was following every move Beetle made as though being towed by an invisible wire. Beetle flipped his Hornet into a hard turn, trying to cut such a tight circle that the Forger couldn’t get inside. For a moment, it looked like it would work, then another Forger arrived on the scene, certain that Beetle was too distracted with his target to notice him arriving.
“Fox two,” Thor said, slamming off another missile at the newest arrival. He banked back around, then descended to fall into position behind the Forger chasing Beetle. “Beetle, break hard right!” As Beetled complied, Thor spit out a short round of fire from his cannon. The depleted uranium bullets bit into the Forger’s engine, shattering it immediately. Thor was already turning hard to avoid the shrapnel and was well clear of it when the Forger exploded into flames.
“New target,” the Hawkeye announced, “on your right, six o’clock low.” Thor and Beetle both saw the contact immediately and, staying in their fighting positions, headed down to intercept him.
“Why does he have to send us down?” Thor muttered, unhappy with the choice. Sure, the Hornet was better able to handle changes in altitude, since it had a far higher power-to-wing ratio than the Tomcats did. The classic game for this situation, Hornet versus a heavier aircraft, was to force the fight into the vertical, taking advantage of the Hornet’s greater maneuverability to entice the heavier aircraft into a mistake. It was different with a Tomcat, given its powerful engines, but all reports said the Forger didn’t have nearly the horsepower the Tomcat did.
Around Thor, black smoke and flashes of fire littered the air. He broke hard to the right, avoiding the shrapnel then rolling over and descending toward the new target. It would be a bitch to survive enemy fire only to be nailed by FOD in his own engine.
“Nasty,” Beetle said. The Forger had rolled inverted, winged over, and was trying to slip into position behind Beetle. But Beetle cut hard to the right then suddenly reversed the direction of his turn, forcing the Forger out into the open.
“Open range, Beetle,” Thor said, suddenly realizing how close they were. “You’re too close, you’re too close!”
“I’m pulling out,” Beetle said, his voice suddenly tight. He was still inverted, following the Forger down in the bottom half of a loop. He eased his Hornet out of the descent into level flight, now right side up, intending to clear the area for Thor’s shot. But as he did so, the Forger seemed to stagger in the air and Beetle’s Hornet clipped its tail assembly.
The Hornet immediately departed control flight, falling through the air like dead metal. Light, smoke, then black trailed from its tail. Thor was closer to the Forger but too close for a missile. He jammed the weapons selector to guns, and rattled off a long blast with his nose cannon. The Forger’s canopy shattered, glass hanging in the air for a moment to catch the sun like a rainbow. There was a blast of white smoke, and debris streamed out of the cockpit. Smoke billowed from the Forger’s right engine, followed shortly by a stream of liquid that burst into flames. Thor was already rolling out, moving away and hunting for Beetle when the Forger exploded.
“Beetle!” Thor shouted, scanning the air for the injured Hornet.
“Seven clock, low,” the Hawkeye said, barely pausing as it rapped out orders to the remaining Hornets.
Thor saw him then, sunlight blinking off metal as the Hornet tumbled. “Beetle!” Thor shouted again, kicking in the afterburner to intercept his wingman. Was Beetle even alive? The impact should have been survivable. Beetle had hit the tail assembly, sure, but he hadn’t hit the cockpit as far as Thor could tell. Had the g-forces gotten him?
Thor was on him now, following him down, screaming his name in the mike. He thought he heard a brief, clipped answer but he couldn’t be sure. He could see inside the cockpit, but the Hornet’s erratic movement made it hard to tell if Beetle was injured. If Beetle was still alive, his hands were glued to the controls and every ounce of his concentration would be focused on pulling out of the deadly spin.
Was it possible — was Beetle’s Hornet pulling up? It seemed to be, but the motion was still so severe that Thor could see no way to recover. If Beetle could just stabilize enough to punch out, that would be good enough. There was no way this aircraft was going to land, no way at all. It had no business being airborne. The best they could hope for was to save the pilot.
Unbelievable. The Hornet’s motion was stabilizing. It was still in a steep dive, but the yaw was damping out. It still maintained a slow rotation around its longitude, but maybe, just maybe it was slow enough to let Beetle get out.
“Beetle, you got it — eject, eject!” Thor shouted, still not knowing whether his wingman could hear him.
His own ESM warning gear beep cut through the cockpit, demanding to be heard. Lock, missile lock — but where? Thor broke off from following Beetle’s injured Hornet and searched the air around him.
At first he couldn’t find it. Then it came out of the sun, headed directly for him, two Forgers with nose guns blazing. Thor dropped his Hornet’s nose and shot under them, exposing his tailpipe for an instant but more willing to risk that than his undercarriage. The Forgers streamed past him, guns still firing, tracers blindingly white against a blue sky, searching for him. The Forgers started to turn back on him, but Thor was already back in position, his own gun firing now. Two could play this game.
The lead Forger turned away, tipped over into a steep dive, and headed for Beetle’s injured Hornet. Thor swore. Surely the Forger pilot could tell that the Hornet wasn’t quite flying anymore. What was the point in going after one that was already fatally injured?
Just then, the cockpit blew off Beetle’s Hornet, followed shortly by a small, black figure. Beetle ejected at a forty-five-degree angle from the cockpit, fire blazing under the ejection seat as the rocket drove him through the air.
“He’s clear, he’s clear,” Thor shouted, relief flooding him. For just a moment, he thought Beetle would make it. But then, just as his wingman was clearing the dying Hornet, the aircraft rolled again. The tail assembly smacked into his wingman, driving him sideways.
The Forgers, evidently having seen the ejection, tried to break off. Thor was torn between keeping Beetle in view and pressing the attack on the Forgers. There was really no choice — he was in the air for one reason, and that was to kill Forgers.
“Chute, I have one chute,” Thor shouted over tactical. “Beetle, immediately below my position. Requests SAR.”