The air cannons blazed from the Messerschmitt and Spitfire.
“Hot shit!” Pop beamed. “Kiss those choppers good-bye!”
“Negative effect, Red leader,” the Spitfire reported. “Achieved direct hit with negative effect.”
Pop leaned forward. “They’ve got armor plating. Our shells won’t cut through it. Go for the rear propeller.”
A helicopter’s rear propeller is its most vulnerable point. Knock it out and you strip the machine of balance and stability. The Messerschmitt and Spitfire, though, never got the chance to try. A pair of rockets blasted from the warships’ rear launchers blew them into a thousand pieces that fluttered to the ground.
“Dirty bastards! I’ll get you for that!”
Pop went into another climb, bringing him almost into the path of the two choppers. Their bullets pounded the side of the Warhawk, sending steel shards everywhere and just missing the fuel tank.
“Come on, old girl, hold together for Pop just a little longer,” he urged his plane, tapping it tenderly. He went into a dive that took him between the four gunships. He spoke frantically into his headset.
“Form two wedges, boys. We’ll take them from different angles. Reds seven through ten, try to get over them and use your rockets. Might score a lucky hit.”
Pop knew the chances of that were virtually impossible. Perhaps, though, the sight of falling bombs would distract the choppers’ attention long enough to allow a full frontal assault.
“My bombs are loaded with firecracker stuff,” Pop told Locke. “Not as potent as the real thing but they’ll still make a helluva mess….”
With that, Pop swung into a climb that took him over the two gunships that had originally given chase. More bullets sprayed their rear and Keller had to dive again, ducking and sweeping like a crazed bird, fighting to stay out of the sights of the second pair of choppers.
“Fuck this strategy,” Pop said. “I never went in for the sneaky shit anyway. Hold on to your balls, Chris!”
Pop went into a climb, then banked at an angle that brought him head-on with the two trailing gunships, his machine guns blasting away more for effect than anything else. The other two choppers veered off toward the approaching wedge made up of a pair of Mustangs, a Corsair, and a trainer.
“Get ready, Chris!” Pop grabbed the throttle tight.
A collision with one or both of the gunships seemed inevitable when Pop kicked in all 2,000 lovely horses of the stubborn Warhawk. As it climbed he released all four of his firecracker-loaded bombs. The gunships slowed suddenly, just as Keller expected they would, and at least two of his bombs exploded on impact against one. Glass shattered and metal gave way as a burst of Fourth of July colors sprang from the chopper’s frame. The pilot fought frantically with the controls but black smoke and bright colors stole his sight away. The chopper’s engine died and the machine went into a hopeless dive. Its crash sent more pretty colors flying outward.
Two of the remaining gunships were firing away at the first wedge and they disabled one of the Mustangs. The second wedge banked in front of them, machine guns spitting. Bullets poured through the windshield of one of the gunships, killing the pilot instantly and sending the giant insect into a dying spin. The second chopper escaped the fire by dropping beneath the attack. It tilted its laser-aimed rocket launchers upward and released a burst of four. The last trainer and a Corsair exploded in twin fireballs, while another of the Mustangs limped away, gray smoke pouring from its injured engine.
“Reds six and seven, get the hell outta here,” Pop urged the battered Mustangs, and turned his attention to the spectacular aerial dogfight going on between the two gunships and his two remaining fighters.
Forty years ago, the Red Wing’s last Mustang and Corsair might have made mincemeat out of the choppers, but their engines were laboring from the strain of the chase now and the planes moved sluggishly. Exchanges of fire were frantic, the two fighter pilots struggling to take aim on the slippery gunships, which were never in the same place for long. The final Mustang swooped down trying to take one of the gunships from behind. But the other chopper was equal to the task, dipping effortlessly and spraying the attacking fighter with its machine gun. The Mustang fell immediately, spitting black smoke. The pilot ejected.
“That makes it two against two,” Pop reported grimly, driving the Warhawk forward toward a gunship’s tail.
The gunship he was trailing seemed to drop straight down, under the Corsair that was banking into an attack run. The Corsair pilot kept enough cool to drop both his wing-mounted rockets, but the wind took them and they soared harmlessly away. He turned to link up with Pop’s Warhawk but the helicopter fell in on his tail, machine guns blasting.
“They’re on me!” the pilot shouted into his headset.
“Hang on,” Pop commanded. “I’m coming.”
“I’m hit! I’m hit!”
“Eject! Don’t stay with the damn thing! … Do you copy? I say again, do you copy?”
There was no reply. The Corsair went into a death dive and spun to Earth.
“Just us against them now, Chris” was all Pop said.
The gunships fell in line and roared at the Warhawk together, gunners struggling to adjust their aim at Pop’s daredevil dips and darts. For twenty years he had practiced such maneuvers to thrill fans and sell tickets. Now he was using them to save his and Locke’s life but it felt little different, just a routine to follow and somewhere a crowd to please. He performed magnificently. But the 2,000-horsepower engine had been pushed to its fullest for too long now and the tach’s needle was dancing crazily.
The gunships were gaining ground, letting their final target bob and weave to its heart’s content. There was no reason to rush things. The old plane was moving away from the base, not toward it, and there were no more cropdusters in the air to protect. The gunners kept firing erratic bursts from their machine guns as they closed the gap on the Warhawk, down to two hundred yards now.
The glass surrounding Locke shattered and he felt something hot stab his shoulder with burning agony. His ears were exposed to the rushing wind, the effect like twin sledgehammers pounding away on either side. With his free hand, he squeezed his wounded shoulder and felt blood soaking his fingers.
Pop knew the choppers were closing and started with more evasive maneuvers, swinging up and down, left and right, to avoid their fire. The motions hit Locke’s stomach like a roller-coaster ride, but that was a hell of a lot better than being hit by the bullets pouring from behind them. He clung to the hope that the Blue Wing had successfully disabled the remainder of the cropdusters, blew them to bits, burying Tantalus forever.
There wasn’t much chance of that, Chris knew, not with the gunships to consider. And then he noticed the blinking red light next to the Warhawk’s fuel gauge.
“Wouldn’t happen to have any gasoline handy, would you, friend?” Pop shouted back at him.
Ahmad Hamshi knew he had responded to the crisis brilliantly. The enemy planes had all been destroyed. He had managed to save twenty-seven of the cropdusters and all canisters from six more. The overall operation would be slowed but hardly wiped out. So when word had come from the helicopters that they were in pursuit of the final ghost fighter, Hamshi ordered the dusters to return to the runway and begin takeoff procedures again immediately. Keysar Flats was isolated but still too close to civilization for comfort. A prolonged aerial battle would certainly have drawn attention to the area, and with the dusters — and their contents — still on the ground, it was attention he could ill afford.
Men perched behind the remaining machine-gun and antiaircraft cannons watched the sky warily, anticipating yet another attack from the ghost squadron. The engines of the cropdusters, meanwhile, were revving, and the first two had taxied into takeoff position.