“What the hell is going on down there?” a new voice demanded on the circuit. “Chief said the LSO was out — Henry, what are you doing?”
“Air Boss, it’s Hot Rock and Lobo,” the pilot answered, suddenly not at all certain that he was on solid ground. Sure, he knew what he was doing, but he supposed he should have asked the Air Boss’s permission first before taking over the LSO duties without even informing him. Still, with a turkey in the air and a nervous pilot, the last thing the Air Boss or the Admiral would have wanted was to put the pilot back in the starboard marshal, particularly not when it looked like they were going to need every airframe they could get airborne within the next hour.
“We happened to be out here, and when the LSO bought it, well…”
There was silence for a moment on the circuit, then the Air Boss said, “I hold Two-oh-five inbound next. Be advised, we’re still a green deck.”
“Roger. Two-oh-five, LSO, call the ball.”
For the next half an hour, Lobo and Hot Rock efficiently brought the remaining aircraft back on deck. Just as the last aircraft touched down, the Air Boss said, “As soon as we secure from flight quarters, the admiral wants to see you in his office.”
Lobo turned to Hot Rock and grinned. “We’re either in big trouble or — ”
“Or we’re back on the flight schedule,” Hot Rock interrupted.
Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the flight schedule and headed for the paraloft to gear up for launch.
EIGHTEEN
Jefferson set a new personal best record for launching the most fighters in the least amount of time. For Bird Dog and Gator, the minutes seemed like hours. Bird Dog kept worrying about his new wingman, Lieutenant Junior Grade Kelly Green, and her backseater, Tits.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Kelly Green — the name had been her parent’s doing, and the squadron hadn’t looked beyond that for a call sign — was the squadron’s newest nugget. As the most inexperienced pilot on the flight schedule, she was paired with Bird Dog, on the theory that he’d be able to teach her the ropes and keep her out of trouble. Gator had loudly expressed the opinion in public that in this particular instance, there was little hope of the latter.
“She’ll be okay,” Gator said reassuringly over ICS. “So will Tits. I trained him myself, and you’ve been watching Kelly in action for the last three months.”
“Don’t remind me.” Bird Dog snuck a quick glance aft through the canopy and spotted Kelly immediately in position, two thousand yards aft and two thousand yards above him. The tall lanky brunette — and yes, she did have green eyes to go with her nickname — had been a source of contention between he and Lobo ever since the new pilot had joined the squadron.
But what was he supposed to do? Just pretend she knew everything she was supposed to? If she were going to fly as his wingman, he had to be damned certain he could count on her. Certain enough that he didn’t have to look back and check to make sure that she was in position visually, even though his heads-up display fed the information to him automatically.
In the last three months, they’d spent endless hours talking about tactics. She’d started out slightly in awe of him. Evidently word of his combat experience in every theater around the world had already traveled throughout the Tomcat community, and she appeared slightly in awe of him. She’d gotten over her awe a little too easily for his taste, but that’s the way women were, weren’t they?
And at least she was flying with a guy who had a sense of humor, Tits. Not like Gator, that old sourpuss.
“Okay, just like we practiced,” he said over tactical. “Another round of AMRAAMS — I’ll take the lead, you take the guy behind him.”
“Roger.” From the calm, collected tone of voice, no one could have guessed that Kelly was about to take her first live shot.
“Then we close in with the Sidewinders. Remember, these guys have maneuverability on us. We have to exploit our greater power, get them into the vertical game, you remember?” Bird Dog asked.
“I remember,” Kelly answered.
“Okay, on my mark — now!” Bird Dog said.
The Tomcat jolted slightly as the heavier missile leapt off of its wing, white smoke gouting off the stern as it traced an unerring path toward the lead aircraft.
Bird Dog’s MiG broke right hard, and curved down below the two Tomcats, clearly intending to come up behind and position himself for a tail shot.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Bird Dog said softly. “Not if I’ve got anything to say about it.”
He pulled the Tomcat into a hard right-hand turn, ascending and rolling as he did, coaxing the MiG into the vertical game. Once he’d grabbed five thousand feet of altitude, he rolled back into a nose-down position, and found that it worked just as he’d planned — he had a perfect, slightly trailing side shot on the other MiG.
He flipped the weapons selector switch from AMRAAM to Sidewinder and blasted the lighter IR-seeking missile off the wing. Without waiting to see how it did, he grabbed for altitude again, fully expecting the MiG with being preoccupied with trying to shake the Sidewinder for at least ten seconds.
The heads-up display clobbered immediately with radar returns, indicating that the other aircraft had ejected flares and chaff. He rolled easily out of range of them, coming back into level flight at nineteen thousand feet, and turning back toward his quarry.
The MiG was nose up, screaming through the sky in an almost vertical climb. A few more seconds and its soft underbelly would be directly in his line of fire. Bird Dog goosed the Tomcat with a touch of afterburner, closing the distance. For a brief moment, he considered going to guns, then dismissed the idea. Not a perfect angle for a Sidewinder shot, but it was worth a try. Save the guns for when he really needed them, when they were up close and personal instead of almost at the edge of the guns’ maximum range.
“Got ’im, got ’im,” a howl came over tactical.
“Good kill, good kill,” he heard Tits cry in response. “Nailed him with the first AMRAAM.”
“Some guys get all the luck,” Bird Dog muttered. “I had to give them the stupid bastard, and now Kelly’s going to have to help me out with this one.” For indeed, the MiG was proving to have a far more capable pilot than he’d counted on. Everything in the intelligence reports indicated that the Chinese fighter pilots got significantly less training than American ones did, and that their equipment was often poorly maintained. But the bloke in front of him, dancing that MiG through the sky, clearly had not been reading the same intelligence reports.
The MiG shot up past him, sunlight gleaming off the undercarriage, glaring in his eyes, momentarily blinding him. The symbols on his heads-up display were blanked out by the glare.
“Joining on you now, Bird Dog,” Kelly’s voice said over tactical, a deep tone of satisfaction in her normally sensual alto voice. “On your high six.”
“She’s got the shot, Bird Dog,” Gator pointed out. “By the time we get nose up to nail his tailpipes, she’ll be there.”
“It’s my MiG,” Bird Dog insisted. “Mine.”
He yanked the Tomcat around again into a hard turn, and felt the gray creeping in at the edges of his vision. Too many G-forces, too many — sure, he’d pulled more before, but it was always a risk. Behind him, he heard a muttered protest from Gator, then silence as the RIO blacked out.