The event moderator called it “light damage.” Under the rules of the game, the F-14 should have broken off and gone home. But instead, the Navy jock lit the burners and jerked his nose up, pulling a good seven or eight Gs. He recovered from his evasive maneuver and bullied his plane toward a firing solution a bare five miles off the EB-52’s vulnerable V-shaped tail.
Iowa
August 16, 1452
Dog shook his head as his copilot reported that the F-14 was getting ready to launch AIM-9’s.
“Flares.”
“Flares. Stinger ready,” said Ferris. “They’re cheating,” he added bitterly. “Bastards.”
“Fire when you have him,” answered Dog calmly. “Don’t hit the Flighthawk. Crew, hold on for evasive maneuvers.”
Dog jerked the stick hard, pushing the big plane to the left, then back again, jinking the massive bomber as if she were an F-16. Adrenaline shot through his veins, and he realized he was laughing. It was times like this that reminded him why he’d joined the Air Force.
Galatica
August 16, 1454
Fentress slapped Hawk Four toward the F-14’s tail as it closed on the Megafortress. The magnified screen showed the bomber’s tail stinger tracking back and forth, obviously taking aim at the aggressor—its air mines were fatal at 2.5 miles, which was just inside the fatal range of the Sidewinders. Undoubtedly the Navy pilot wasn’t concerned about “surviving” the conflict; he’d get close enough to launch the Sidewinders even if it meant he got slammed himself.
Fentress pushed his nose down, moving his pipper dead into the canopy of the Tomcat’s two-man cockpit. He waited a second after the red bar flashed, remembering Zen’s admonitions regarding the Flighthawk control computer’s unyielding optimism.
Fentress then fired a long, concentrated blast that, had this been a real thing, would have reamed a large hole in the Navy jet.
The next second, he got a warning that the EB-52 was getting ready to fire its Stinger. Fentress had to jerk off quickly to avoid getting nailed by an air mine. As he did, another warning buzzed sounded—the F-14 had just launched his Sidewinders.
Iowa
August 16, 1500
“One simulated missile hit on engine four, one miss,” reported Ferris, Dog’s copilot. “He cheated bigtime,” added Ferris. “The Flighhawk nailed him.”
“We’ll send it to the Rules Committee,” stated Dog. “Wing damage?”
“Negligible.” Ferris began reading through the damage-control reports; the simulated hit wasn’t bad enough to keep them from completing their mission. But unlike the Tomcat, Iowa’s flight computer was plugged into the game and trimmed the plane as if it had really been hit—within reason, of course.
“How you doing down there, Delaford?” Dog asked the Navy Piranha specialist.
“Still no contact. We should be about thirty seconds away.”
“Too bad it’s not a torpedo,” said Dog.
“Believe me, Colonel, if this were the real thing, the target would be dead meat as soon as we can see it. Now under Option Four, carrying the double warhead—”
“We’re a little busy,” said Dog. “You just have fun down there.”
“Oh, I will, sir. It’s not every day you get to blow up an aircraft carrier.”
Raven
August 16, 1500
While the Hornets thumbed through their radar scans trying to sort out the Megafortresses behind all the electronic noise, Zen brought the Flighthawks around, positioning himself for a diving, rear-quarter attack. Once his attack had began, Galatica would launch Scorpions at the remaining planes. Another wave of fighters was sure to follow; hopefully, they’d be ready to saddle up and get away by then.
The Hornets were in double two-ship elements separated by over a mile. Zen launched his attack against the plane at the point closest to the Megafortresses; it was on his left as he angled Hawk One downward, Hawk Two holding above. The attack went ridiculously well—he could see the while globe of the pilot’s hard hat dead on in his pipper. Two squeezes on the trigger and the Hornet was gone; by the time the event observer called out the kill, Zen had jumped into Hawk Two and slashed another dozen slugs through the tail of the first plane’s wingman. This Hornet tried to tuck into a turn, hoping to throw the Flighthawk in front of him. It would have been a fine strategy against nearly any other plane in the world, but the U/MF could turn far tighter than an F/A-18. Zen could have driven his plane right through the Hornet—a fact that made him more than a little annoyed when the referee failed to call the hit. He turned back and stuffed another long fusillade of simulated shells into the Hornet’s twin tailpipe.
“Yo,” he said.
“Cougar Two slashed,” said the event moderator with obvious disappointment.
The delay kept Zen from pressing an attack on the second element. In his absence, the flight computer had managed to set Hawk One up for a reasonably good front-quarter run at one of the Hornets. Zen jumped in the cockpit, but then decided to let C³ finish the job. The computer obliged by tossing two dozen slugs into the Hornet’s belly and another dozen into the canopy area.
That left one plane. Zen had lost track of it in the swirl. He had to select the sitrep screen—a God’s-eye view of the battle area piped into his console courtesy of Galatica’s powerful radar. C³ highlighted the Hornet, which was shooting back toward its carrier group.