“Long-range radar I can’t ID,” said Torbin.
“Indians?”
“Wrong direction,” said the radar intercept officer. “I-band, okay. Woah, woah. APG-73—no way!”
“Torbinm what the hell are you talking about?”
“The radar—the computer is IDing the source as an F/A-18 unit. No way.”
“One torpedoes hit the carrier, maybe two,” said Chris.
“I have telemetry out near your contact,” Collins told Torbin
“I don’t know what the hell kind of radar this is,” said Torbin. “Shit. I mean, it could be an F/A-18. Chris?”
“No American flights within a hundred miles. I have nothing on radar. You sure about this?”
“Sure as shit.”
“All right, everybody take a breath,” Breanna said in her calmest command voice. “Fentress, did we sink that buoy?”
“Still trying to get the connection to the first one.”
“Tell me when we’re on.”
“Explosion!” said Chris. “Carrier’s hit.”
“I need you to stay close to the buoy,” said Fentress.
“Sukhois are trying to lock on us—we’re spiked!” said Torbin. The RWR screen flashed with a warning as well, showing the bearing of the radar looking for them.
“Full ECMS,” said Breanna. “Hang on everyone.”
Breanna threw the Megafortress into as sharp a turn as she could manage, dipping the wing and sliding in the direction of the buoy. Fentress, Collins, and Torbin all tried to speak at the same time; the computer gave her a warning she was approaching maximum Gs. Breanna filtered everything out but the plane, trying to beam the Doppler-pulse radar that had locked on them. there was a missile warning—one of the Sukhois had launched.
“Chris, when you have the chance, broadcast the we’re-the-white-hats message in every language you can think of,” she said calmly.
“I am.” His voice was three octaves higher than normal, which itself wasn’t exactly a bass.
A silver needle shot across Quicksilver’s bow, no more than fifty yards away. It was the missile.
“Optically aimed flak from that destroyer,” said the copilot. “Way out of range.”
“I see it,” said Bree.
“Sukhois coming down through ten thousand feet. “We’re jamming. They’re going to line up for an IR shot.”
“Get the Stinger ready.”
“On it.”
“SAM radar active. I’m jamming,” said Torbin.
“Fentress, we have to get moving here, friend,” said Bree.
“I’m still having trouble with the link,” he said. “We’re too high. I need you as close as you can get. The jinking’s not helping.”
“Getting shot down won’t help either.” She regretted snapping back like that, but there was no time to apologize—one of the ships launched antiaircraft missiles.
“SA-N-4, basicallt an SA-8 tweaked for shipboard use,” reported Torbin. “We’re at the far end of their envelope. Jamming.”
“Chaff, flares, kitchen sink,” she said.
Breanna began to turn, then realized she was moving toward the Sukhois. She pulled back on the stick abruptly, then twisted her left wing downward. The big jet did a half-gainer toward the waves, gravity and momentum pulling at its wings badly, one of the sensors in the wing-root assembly freaked out. The alert board lit with possible structural damage and the computer squawked at her for exceeding the design limit of the plane—not an easy feat.
Breanna’s body was pounded by the rush of Gs; she felt as if her head had been pounded by an anvil. A gray fuzz pushed in from her temples and something cold and prickly filled her lungs; she started to cough, but something scraped deep down in her throat. There were all sorts of warning lights now, but she rode the wild maneuver steady, forcing the plane through an invert as the Sukhois she had spotted earlier fired its missiles from almost head-on. Fortunately, they were both heat-seekers, and despite their advertised all-aspect ability, were easily shunted by the flares Chris had managed to dish out into the air.
As the gray veil pulled back, Breanna saw a much darker one reaching up from the sea to smack her. Her maneuvers had taken her back toward the Chinese fleet. She was now dead-on for the flak; there was nothing to do but ride it out, struggling to keep the Megafortress level as they passed through percolating air.
“Damage to our right wing,” reported Chris. He was breathing hard. “Lost the Sukhois at least.”
“All right,” said Bree, suddenly conscious of her own breathing. “Kevin, we need that connection, and we need it now.”
“You have to get closer.”
“They’re launching more planes,” reported Collins.
“Indians too. This it total war,” said Chris. He was gasping for breath, hyperventilating.
“Dreamland Command to Quicksilver.” Major Alou “Gat” Ascenzio’s voice sounded a little tinny on her circuit; Breanna glanced at her com screen and saw that the message wasn’t coded.
“Quicksilver.”
“Get out of there.”
“We’re trying,” she said. then. Remembering the line was in the clear—and hopefully being intercepted by the Chinese—she added. “We’re taken no hostile act. We believe an Indian submarine fired torpedoes at a Chinese aircraft carrier.”