“Roger, Packer lead, we have him,” the Hawkeye replied. “SAR is standing by.”
Dammit, they’re standing by until it’s safe to come in. And it won’t be, not until these Forgers are gone.
Thor wheeled his Hornet back and gave chase. The Forgers saw him immediately, and cut around, trying to throw him off, but Thor anticipated their maneuver, ascended, then dropped into perfect killing position. He toggled the weapons selector to Sparrows, then changed his mind and selected guns. He boosted into afterburner for a few seconds, closing the distance, the Forger gyrating through the air as it tried to shake him. Thor shot off a short blast, feeling an immense satisfaction as the tracers made their way through the Forger’s skin. He pulled out, then dropped back down to get another visual on Beetle. He couldn’t get too close, for fear that his jet wash would collapse Beetle’s chute. From this range, he could not tell whether Beetle was conscious and had his hands on his risers or was simply riding the chute down.
He would be okay, Thor knew he would. Hell, it hadn’t been that hard of a hit, had it? Marines survived far worse than that and came out okay, didn’t they? Sure they did.
His ESM demanded attention. “Son of a bitch,” Thor muttered, turning back to open sky to find the threat. It took him a moment, but then sunlight splashed on metal and he saw his new target coming at him out of the sun. No heat seekers, then — too dangerous. Too much danger that the missiles would take off after the sun instead of the aircraft, and Thor was getting low enough on weapons that he couldn’t afford to waste a single one.
The Forger was above him, descending rapidly, and it wasn’t alone. Slightly above and behind, a second one came, hoping to catch Thor as he broke for altitude to escape the lead aircraft. It would have been no problem with a wingman, since the wingman could have kept the higher aircraft distracted long enough for Thor to gain altitude, but it was slightly trickier now. The real problem was being low on weapons, especially in a two-on-one situation.
Thor punched into afterburner and pulled away from the two, briefly exposing his tailpipes before wheeling back in on them. His ESM was screaming now, warning that missile launch was imminent, that targeting radar had a lock on him. Thor ignored it. His eyes could tell him more than any electronics could right now.
A missile leaped off the lower aircraft’s wing, heading for the Hornet’s underbelly. Thor held steady for a moment, then ejected chaff and flares, winging over and descending, pulling up hard enough to come up on the other side of the aircraft. If the missile managed to follow the maneuver, there was at least a fighting chance that it would see its own aircraft as the target. Meanwhile, time to deal with the higher bird.
The other aircraft was waiting for him, standing off in the distance, evidently wary of the Hornet’s maneuverability. But Thor was starting to run low on fuel, and the danger of a prolonged two-on-one fight was quickly becoming a problem.
Altitude, I need altitude. And a wingman. Thor boosted again, screaming to the air. The ESM screamed again, and he punched out another round of countermeasures, then pulled out of his climb and ejected more flares as a screen when he turned.
“Thor, I got the lower one — stay clear!” Fastball Morrow’s voice said over tactical. “Fox one, Fox one.” The heat seekers streaked across the air, nailing the Forger in the ass. Between ensuring that Beetle’s aircraft was dead and trying to take on Thor, the Forger had lost the big picture, and Fastball was on it before it knew what happened.
“I’ll get the other one,” Thor said, grunting, as he pulled the Hornet in a tight turn. The higher Forger, watching the destruction of his wingman, had decided he didn’t like the odds anymore. He had turned, intending to run back to the pack, when Thor caught him with a Sidewinder.
Man, I’m in the hurt locker, Thor thought, surveying his fuel gauge and weapons status. One AMRAAM, two rounds of countermeasures, and just a little more than fumes in the tank. “Big Eye, Packer lead — Texaco.”
“Roger, Packer lead, Texaco bears 304, range 20 from your position. Standing by, full-service and all lines open.”
Twenty miles — can I make it? Sure — there’s always a margin of error built into these things. Thor swore quietly, knowing he’d screwed up by not watching his fuel more carefully. No point in surviving a couple of Forgers if you dump your Hornet in the drink by running out of fuel.
“Isn’t it a good day for flight?” Fastball crowed, snapping out of a fast barrel roll. In the backseat, Rat gritted her teeth. “The weather, the sunshine, and a bunch of stupid Russians — man, you have to love it!”
They were on the fringes of the Tomcat sponge, waiting for the rest of their flight to arrive. From the moment they’d started their pre-flight brief in the ready room, through the walk-around on deck, the launch and climbing to altitude, Fastball’s mood had grated on her nerves.
Just what was there to be so happy about? Outnumbered, bombers in the center of the formation — no, she didn’t really see a reason to be happy. Sure, it was the job, and it was — well, not a good thing, but certainly a gratifying challenge to go into combat. It wasn’t something you were happy about, exactly. High on, maybe, more alive than you were at any other time. Every moment was precious, every sense heightened. Probably the result of adrenaline, she knew, but that didn’t make it any less exhilarating.
But happy? No, she wasn’t happy. The difference between her attitude and Fastball’s was that she now knew she could die. Unconsciously, she ran her left hand down her right sleeve, felt the reassuring shape of her muscles under her fingertips. A few inches either way and her arm would have been blown off. Held as it was, she had been on the verge of bleeding to death in the cockpit before Fastball had gotten them back on the deck. It was only by sheer luck and good surgery that she retained complete use of her arm and was allowed to return to flight status. Sure, Fastball had been there, had seen the damage, had known how close she’d come to dying. Another foot or so and the shrapnel would’ve punched through his guts instead of her arm.
But until it happens to you, until you feel your own skin and flesh tearing, until you work through months of rehab and healing, you never really believe it. It always happens to someone else.
Well, she had been that someone else, and she knew it made a difference.
“Dolphin flight, on me.” Bird Dog’s voice rapped out over their flight circuit. “It’s still one solid cluster fuck, boys and girls. The lightweights will take the right side and we’ll head for the heavies on the left. Come in over the top and call your target on the E-2’s mark. Any questions?”
Of course there weren’t, other than whether the Hornets knew that Bird Dog was calling them lightweights. They had gone over this in the ready room, then again on the flight deck as a pre-flight. The Hawkeye had updated them while they were gathering at the sponge point, and they were about as up-to-date on the disposition of forces as anyone had any right to expect.
Rat stared down at the radar screen until goose bumps shivered on both arms. There was something evil about seeing Russian fighters and bombers in a formation they’d studied as history. This was back to the bad old days, the Cold War, when families were building bomb shelters in their backyards and the world was poised on the brink of nuclear war.
Stop it. It’s just fighters. The bombers don’t even count. They’re too slow and heavy to make any difference at all, at least as far as our mission is concerned. A turkey shoot, once we get to the Forgers.