But the Forgers, those were a problem. The Tomcats were slightly heavier but more powerful. She ran through their performance characteristics in her mind again. Insert techno—
“Fastball, close up,” Bird Dog ordered, his voice curt. Obediently, Fastball slipped into position tight on Bird Dog’s right wing.
“What’s the matter, you getting lonesome?” Fastball asked cheerily.
“Do you have to be like this?” she snapped, her nerves finally fraying.
“Like what?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Like you’re having fun! Fastball, get your head in the game. This isn’t Top Gun School or a computer game.”
“I know that,” he said, sounding hurt.
“Yeah, right.”
There was a long silence, and she immediately regretted her words. The fact that Fastball irritated her said more about her attitude than about his. Maybe they shouldn’t have returned her to flight status. Maybe she’d lost her nerve.
“Okay, Rat,” Fastball said, his voice not quite as obnoxious. “Sorry. I just thought — well — I thought it’d cheer you up.”
“Fastball,” she muttered, “just fly the aircraft, okay? When I need an amateur psychologist, I’ll let you know.”
Just then, her ESM gear bleated out a warning. She snapped her gaze back to the radar screen and saw that they were just crossing over and above a Russian flight. This was the single most dangerous part of the transit, when they were directly in front, although above, the Russian fighters. They presented an excellent target aspect, broadside to the radars then flashing their tailpipes.
“Afterburner,” Bird Dog ordered. “Break formation.” This, too, was exactly as planned, providing a more difficult problem for Russian targeting.
The punch of the afterburner shoved Rat back into her seat. For a few seconds, she was too busy trying to breathe and keep her attention on the scope to worry about Fastball and whether or not he thought she’d lost her nerve. Then, as the g-forces eased off, she saw they were across. The plan was to continue ten miles past the formation, then swing back and approach them on an angle. A few more minutes — now.
“Now!” she said, giving Fastball the signal. He had anticipated her command and was already pulling into a tight turn and heading back toward the Russians. Below them, Bird Dog was accelerating, pulling away and increasing the separation between his aircraft and theirs to standard distance.
Immediately, three Forgers rose up to meet them. All around them, as the fighting pairs broke formation and selected targets under the Hawkeye’s direction, the Forgers split up to meet them.
The sheer numbers were overwhelming. Every fighting pair was facing four, if not six, aircraft. And still more were in formation, closing in tight on their Backfires, ready to take out anyone who got too close.
“Keep your distance,” Bird Dog reminded everyone. “Fox three, fox three.” An AMRAAM leaped off his wing, heading for the lead Russian. Bird Dog immediately broke off, accelerated, and ascended. The Russian he had targeted turned back into formation, panicked by the incoming missile and scattering the Backfires like marbles.
One part of Rat’s mind applauded the performance. Another part was panicking. Bird Dog did realize, didn’t he, that he couldn’t shoot his whole load at first encounter? Sure, if you didn’t get by the first missile, then there was no point in worrying about the next one, but you couldn’t expend every countermeasure on the first shot at you. That was a lesson she’d learned early on.
Bird Dog evaded the countermeasures easily, swinging over the top of the second Forger then wheeling back around to take another shot. It was clear he believed there was nothing to worry about, that the Forger in front of him had his complete and total attention. Fastball was supposed to be watching to make sure of it.
The second Forger proved to have a steadier hand. It stood its ground as the missile approached, waiting until the last second then braking hard down in a nearly vertical descent. The missile almost had it, but then was unable to follow. Trying to turn, it lost itself in a compact burst of flares and detonated harmlessly. The Forger lost its tactical awareness, however, and as it turned back to face Bird Dog, it exposed itself vertically to a heat seeker. Fastball, never one to miss an opportunity, snapped, “Bird Dog, break right!” and, at the same second, toggled off a heat seeker. The Tomcat below maneuvered almost instantly, but had Bird Dog been a hair slower or taken time to question Fastball’s command, it would have been a toss-up as to whether the missile took out the Forger or Fastball’s lead.
“Nice shot, Fastball,” Bird Dog said coolly over tactical. Rat cringed. By refusing to admit that he had been in danger, Bird Dog merely compounded the problems with Fastball. And once the two pilots had determined to out-cool each other, there was little a RIO could do to stop them.
The third Forger had not escaped their attention, either. Realizing that both of its companions had been lost, it fell back slightly, and waited for a second Forger to form on him. Then, moving a loose pattern that suggested a lot of experience, the two moved in.
“And here come the big dogs,” Fastball shouted, evidently realizing the same thing. “Bring them on!”
The preferred tactic would be to take on one, then the other, but the Russians were not giving them that choice. The Forgers split apart almost immediately, each one gunning for an individual target.
“Fox one!” Fastball shouted, shooting an AMRAAM. Even as he did so, the ECM blared its warning.
“He’s got us, Fastball,” Rat shouted, her fingers flying over the controls as she pumped out chaff and flares. Not too much, not too little — just right. Her radarscope exploded with a buzz of static as the chaff spread.
The Forger was on them almost instantly, nimbly evading the chaff. He came in again, blasting off another missile then cutting away and circling back up under, like a shark after a swimmer. Rat saw tracers just off their right side, and realized that the Forger was hoping to trap them between the missile, the chaff, and its guns.
Fastball saw it coming, too. He tipped the Tomcat nose down, letting her drop like a rock, and then pulled back hard, kicking into afterburner in a display of raw power that the Forger could never match. In seconds, he was back at altitude, high in behind the Forger. The missile veered off, losing its lock and streaking off toward open sky.
The Forger, not to be outdone, seemed to leap through the air as it followed Fastball up. It couldn’t manage the sheer power of the Tomcat in a climb, but it could cut well inside what its pilot thought was Fastball’s turn. The Forger cut across the arc, intending to intercept them and drop into position behind, firing off the heat seeker to increase the distraction factor.
Fastball swore, and reversed his turn. He pulled up again, flashing the undercarriage of the jet at the Forger, then dove over to drop back in position. The Forger, not realizing what was coming, had once again turned in the vertical, intending to intercept, and had failed to allow for the change in altitude. Once he realized his error, the pilot began maneuvering radically across the sky, cutting a series of hard turns designed to exceed the Tomcat’s envelope. But once again, Fastball saw it coming. He kicked afterburners back in and simply powered his way through a gut-wrenching ascending turn, coming back down behind the Forger again.
The ECM warning went off again, and Rat twisted in her harness, looking for the threat. Meanwhile, Fastball bore down on the helpless Forger, almost psychically guessing which way the other aircraft would turn. Finally, the Forger tried to run one too many times. Tracers streaked across it and seemed to disappear, harmlessly passing through its skin.
Rat knew that was impossible. Everything she knew about the Forger said that its underbelly had additional armor plating on it, enabling it to more effectively and safely support ground operations, but the rest of the fuselage was lightly armored in order not to weigh the aircraft down too much. Consequently, the rounds would do maximum damage.