Dancer and a Marine trailed Danny as he trotted up the hill and then climbed a short set of rock steps to Boston. The sergeant was holding his M4 on a pair of frail-looking women. One was middle-aged, the other in her early twenties. They wore heavy black clothes with veils drawn over their faces.
“I have a couple of civilians,” Danny said over the Dreamland Command circuit. “I need the Arabic translator.”
“He’s on the line,” said Major Catsman.
As Danny started to ask for the words “We mean no harm,” the younger woman jumped up.
“Grenade!” yelled Boston.
Without thinking, Danny threw himself at the woman.
Boston tried to grab the grenade, which flew up into the air.
Twisting back, Danny saw it hover a few inches above his head, an old Russian-style weapon.
He also saw very clearly that its pin had been pulled.
Aboard Baker-Baker Two
0025
STARSHIP TOOK HAWK THREE DOWN TO 25,000 FEET, RUNning head-on at the first element of MiG-29s. The aircraft 344
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
were moving fairly quickly, around 600 knots. They were fifty miles away from his nose; the combined speeds of the aircraft meant they’d run through each other’s windshields in a little more than three minutes if nothing changed.
Hawk Four paralleled Three by two and a half miles. Starship took control of the plane directly and started a slight turn farther east. “Intercept doublet pattern Zen-Two,” he told the computer, naming a preset tactical maneuver that Zen used so often it had been named after him. While the contingencies of the encounter could immensely complicate what happened, the outline of the plan was simple: Hawk Three would engage the flight nearly head-on, attacking the lead plane, which was running a bit farther west and higher than the second MiG. Hawk Four would angle in from the east, aiming for a tail attack on the second MiG as it broke and ran or moved to help its mate.
“Real” pilots probably wouldn’t have chosen the attack—for one thing, they’d be flying aircraft with missiles capable of engaging the enemy at long range—but the plan took advantage of the Flighthawk’s strengths. The computer was much better at making close-quarter rear-end attacks than it was at any other angle; in fact, it was probably as good as Starship was, so letting C3 take the plane and follow that attack plan gave it a high chance of success. The small profile of the aircraft meant that neither plane would be detected by the MiGs’ radar until practically the moment that Starship began firing. He’d not only be able to begin the engagement on his terms, but probably fire and be beyond the enemy fighter before it even knew he was there.
If he missed and both Yemen aircraft went after Hawk Three—the aggressive and logical action—Starship could easily turn and continue to concentrate on his original target, even if the enemy’s wingmate maneuvered to get on his tail. That’s what he wanted it to do, since it would give Hawk Four an easier and more predictable target. And if both planes turned to run away, they would be sitting ducks, SATAN’S TAIL
345
at least until their afterburners helped them regain momentum.
Ironically, the strongest answer to Zen-Two was to split and take each Flighthawk head-on—then go for afterburners and cruise home at a couple of times the speed of sound.
While it was unlikely to yield a kill for the MiGs, it also presented the Flighthawks with the least amount of tango time—and the higher the tango time for the Flighthawks, the higher the tomb time for the opponents.
One of Kick’s favorite sayings.
Kick’s not here, Starship thought. Time to let him rest.
“Hawk Three? What’s your situation?” asked Breanna.
“Lining up for an intercept. Weapons are ready.”
“Roger that,” said Breanna. He heard her switch over to the frequency the Yemen pilots were using and broadcast a prerecorded warning in Arabic that they were approaching a U.S. aircraft and were to turn back.
“No acknowledgment,” said Spiderman after a few seconds.
“All channels,” said Breanna.
The warning was repeated, again without an acknowledgment. Just for good measure, Spiderman repeated it in English.
“They certainly know we’re here,” said Telly, the airborne radar warning operator. “Their fuzz busters are probably hotter than a toaster in a boardinghouse.”
“Intercept in zero-two minutes,” said Starship. “What’s your call, Captain?”
“They’re activating weapons radars!” said Spiderman.
“Trying to lock on us!”
“Hawk Three and Four, engage enemy aircraft,” said Breanna.
“Roger that,” said Starship, leaning closer to the screen.
346
DALE BROWN’S DREAMLAND
Northern Somalia,
on the ground
0023
THE WOMAN’S GRENADE FLOATED IN THE AIR TEN INCHES FROM
Danny’s head. As he started to cringe, his body bracing for the shock, an ebony-shaded hand appeared from nowhere, grabbing the grenade and in the same motion throwing it out toward the sea.
A blackness filled his eyes in the next second. He became blind.
Then he was falling, crashing against the rocks, pulling the woman who’d tried to kill them against the ground.
The grenade exploded somewhere below. Danny rolled and pushed upright, his only thought for his pistol, loose in his holster. He gripped the woman unsteadily, then managed to throw her to the left, away from his gun. She continued to struggle, grabbing something from her body. Three shots rang out and she fell back, then tumbled down the hill.
Danny rolled to his feet. “Thanks, Boston,” he said.
“The lieutenant grabbed the grenade and threw it,” said Boston. He pointed to Dancer. “She shot the bitch too.”
“She had another grenade in her dress there,” said Dancer, motioning with the gun. Her voice had a tinge of regret.
“Fortunately she couldn’t pull the pin. Crazy.”
“You better search this one,” Danny said, pointing to the older woman on the side. She’d either fainted or been knocked unconscious. “Let’s make sure we’re secure here before you go anywhere else,” he told Dancer. “And thanks.”
“My pleasure, Captain.”
Aboard Baker-Baker Two
0023
THE THING STARSHIP COULDN’T FIGURE WAS: WHY MAKE IT SO
easy for us?
SATAN’S TAIL
347
Why attack at all? We’re just going to shoot you down.
The lead MiG did not see the Flighthawk, either on radar or visually, until the computer turned Starship’s firing cue yellow. By then it was too late for the MiG to do much of anything. Undecided about whether to fight or flee, the Yemen pilot attempted to do both, launching an all-aspect R-73 heat-seeker at the Flighthawk and trying to tuck hard on his right wing and roll away.
The R-73—known to NATO as an AA-11 Archer—was an excellent weapon, able to accelerate to Mach 2.5 and guided by an extraordinarily sensitive infrared seeker in its nose. But even the best infrared seeker—and the R-73 certainly was in the running for consideration—had trouble picking out a relatively small target like the Flighthawk head-on, especially in an encounter where seconds loomed like hours. Starship flicked left as the enemy started to turn, only vaguely aware of the air-to-air weapon’s flash. His cue turned red; he counted “one-two” to himself and then fired, sliding the nose of the Flighthawk down slightly to keep the stream of bullets on the MiG’s wings. By the time the R-73
missile flew past the Flighthawk, the MiG that launched it had burst into a U-shaped ring of red flames.
Starship pulled off abruptly, afraid the explosion would spray debris in the U/MF-3’s path. He cleared without getting hit, and corrected slightly north to line up an intercept on the second group of aircraft, some thirty miles away.