Billy-the F-15 pilot-knew the target zone from photographs and computer mock-ups salvaged from Pentagon records and maps. The older pilots in his group-guys like Dasher One who had been flying before 'all this'-told stories of mission planning that involved detailed satellite imagery and real-time Intel.
Must be nice.
Alas, military satellites were unreliable and rarely accessible. No more GPS-guided munitions, at least for the time being. Throw in the interference of the Stealth Field and that meant laser-guided and even gravity-'dumb'-bombs. Of course, the whole point of Thunder flight was to take out that Stealth Field. The target should be easy enough to hit: a big three-sided building resembling a 1970's stereo speaker.
"Thunder, we need altitude. Let's grab some sky."
Each plane gained altitude. While this made them easier marks for the defenses at Beale, it also allowed the gunners on the Aardvarks to better target their quarry.
"Dash Two this is Dash Seven, we're locked and loaded just get us to the party."
"Roger that," he answered her voice. "Make it count."
The old PAVE-PAWS facility sat three miles east of an airport. It came in to view as the mountains faded away, replaced by trench-like mounds of rolling earth.
Billy spied the three-sided structure on the far side of a group of featureless, rectangular buildings which, he knew from his briefings, had stood for decades. However, he also saw that The Cooperative had made some changes.
A tower with dark-tinted windows and an array of sensors on top rose from the center of the compound. A pair of mushroom-shaped objects protruded from the sides of the tower. No one in the briefing knew their function.
On the south side of the complex the Witiko had constructed a square, open-roofed building that intelligence labeled the 'pen' but that was all they shared on that subject.
Next, Billy spotted three horizontal boxes atop short bases, what intelligence guessed to be anti-air batteries.
To the north of the three main buildings sat a cluster of fuel tanks. Billy thought how confident the Witiko must be in their defenses to locate such explosive materials close to their facility. "I'm painting the target now," the female weapons officer aboard Dash Seven reported. Billy saw a flash, then another, from the base. Despite a clear scope, he understood. "INCOMING!" "One more second…" He saw-literally saw-the weld marks and bolts on the surface of an anti-air missile as it streaked by his cockpit.
The three bombers stayed on course even as the missiles closed. The first two missed but the third hit Dasher Eight. The plane disintegrated into a cloud of fast-flying debris. Thrusting engines-no longer attached to an airframe-flew off aimlessly like rogue fireworks.
Nonetheless, the remaining two Aardvarks dropped clusters of ordnance following laser beams toward the PAVE PAWS building.
That's when the mushroom-shaped devices revealed their nature.
Metal covers on each slid away revealing honeycombs. From those holes fired a veil of shells in a dense storm creating a bubble of safety overhead of the base, hitting and destroying the incoming payloads.
Some of the laser-guided bombs exploded in the air, others smashed off-course and landed inside the chain link fence surrounding the Stealth generator, causing damage to secondary buildings.
Another anti-air missile scored a hit, tearing apart Dash Seven and sending lifeless pieces-mechanical and otherwise-tumbling from the sky.
With their strike thoroughly defeated and more missiles aiming their way, the remaining Aardvark and Billy's F-15 retreated as fast as their engines allowed.
– Jon Brewer-the Brain of the Excalibur — darted his eyes from display to display. Voices and tones played through his earpiece. His right hand rolled a track ball fixed in a side rail that in turn moved a pointer on the Air Counter-Measures screen to the Heat-Defeat option.
At the same time, on the right eyeglass of his goggles he saw the image of approaching F-16 jets. Beyond those goggles he could see-on another of the mounted screens-a radar image that offered no warning of the approaching threat. His left fingers found the buttons he wanted not by looking, but by training. The voices in his ear piece echoed his orders. "Sparrow tubes loaded and ready." "Securing flight deck; closing hangar doors." "Close Support Batteries ready to fire."
He waited. The F-16s closed. Soon enough, The Cooperative's fighters would have to leave the safety of their Stealth Field if they wanted to engage the Excalibur.
And when they did…
First one, then three flashed on the radar.
I see you now.
Jon's fingers tapped a warning.
"Incoming enemy fire. Brace for impact."
Three more faster-moving blips painted on the radar screen. Missiles. His missiles.
"Sparrows away."
Rockets raced from the Excalibur and passed more rockets heading in for the massive ship, fired by the F-16s. A bank of radar-controlled Gatling guns on swiveling turrets along the bow of the Excalibur fired in tandem, managing to knock out the first of the inbound projectiles.
The second missile skipped across the flight deck and exploded near the closed hangar bulkhead. The third flew over the flight deck and hit the superstructure square-on. A tremble vibrated across the bridge.
Jon's eyepiece found the appropriate camera. His inspection of the damage saw it as superficial. It would take much more to penetrate the thick hide of a dreadnought.
The cluster of six missiles he had rapid-fired from Sparrow tubes Bow 1 and Bow 2 chased after The Cooperative's F-16s. Those planes banked hard and flew fast for the safety of their Stealth Field.
Jon watched on both radar and telescope.
The missiles closed. The planes ran like antelope from lions.
C'mon, c'mon…
The three blips disappeared from radar. Then the six tracking blips of the Sparrows also disappeared. Through his view finder, Jon saw the F-16s slow and change altitude. Now inside the dead zone, the Sparrows lost their radar track and flew off without guidance.
He announced for Trevor to hear, "Damn, they made it back to their side before the missiles hit. They got away. I think…wait a second…"
From his position at the command station Jon monitored everything; a continual flow of information and images. One of those images came from a camera on the belly of the ship.
He saw them two miles out moving through crevices between mountain peaks, hugging the ground nearly hidden from view while their self-generating Stealth Fields hid them from electronic surveillance.
"INBOUND! Two Witiko Stingrays, starboard side contact in five seconds!"
The weapons officer repeated an order that the Brain sent electronically: "Close support batteries to manual control. Gun crews, man your stations."
With their stealth capability hiding the Stingrays from his scopes, Jon attempted to grab an infrared lock on the warships' rear thrusters.
The black and silver attack craft swooped up from the mountains like frenzied sharks swimming for the kill. The speed and agility of the Stingrays stood in stark contrast to the stationery bulk of the Excalibur.
High powered cannons fired in defense at the rate of thousands of rounds per minute, but without radar locks they could not do to the ships what they had done to the missiles.
In contrast, the Stingrays could not fail to hit. They raced toward the undercarriage of the dreadnought, pushed by twin rockets.
Once in the dreadnought's shadow, the attackers fired thick gold energy beams. As the ships moved so did their beams, cutting a path across the belly of the mechanical beast and penetrating the tough hide of Steel Plus. Sparks exploded from the slice, bursts of flames and smoke erupted from the lacerations carved in the hull.
The Stingrays turned off their weapons momentarily, stayed in parallel formation, adjusted their flight, and swung up and around the stern of the Excalibur.