An aircraft carrier…
Hunter didn't even think about it. He armed his weapons, specifically his four antiradiation HARM missiles. He knew they had a warhead powerful enough to blow apart a radar station. He was sure they could do a job on the skin of a boat.
He was furious. Scores of his countrymen were dead, and the people on this ship did it, of that he was sure. He went into a power dive, dropping four miles in a matter of seconds. The ship was now just a few thousand feet in front of him. The sun dawning on the horizon provided him with a perfect silhouette of the target. He went so low he was certain he would not show up on any of the ship's radar screens. He checked his weapons again. They were ready to go.
The ship was dead in his sights now, this as he lowered himself to just twenty feet off the surface of the rough Atlantic. He was intent on putting at least one of the guided bombs into the ship's midsection where he was sure the fuel compartment and the magazines lay. There was a chance he might even crack the hull in two.
He spotted the ship's mast. It was flying only one flag. Big and red with a yellow sickle and hammer on it. Even over thousands of years and several lifetimes, he remembered this flag, too. It was the banner of Soviet Russia, the people who'd just wiped out half of Europe and had killed many American pilots and airmen just minutes ago.
Mad Russian or not, it was now time for some payback.
It struck him suddenly as strange that this aircraft carrier would be out here all alone, with no escorting ships, not even any of its jump jets patrolling its airspace. No matter; that just made his job easier.
He fired the first HARM at about 500 feet out. It shot ahead of his airplane, leaving a long trail of yellow smoke in its wake. Just before it impacted, he let loose a second missile. Both were designed to home in on the signals produced by radar, and the big Soviet carrier was literally crackling with these waves. Again, he knew one HARM missile impacting on the right spot could do serious damage to the ship. If two hit on the money, he could set this murderous boat on fire. If three and four hit good, he might even send it to the bottom and revenge the American souls just lost.
The first missile hit the hull of the ship just where he'd wanted it, directly below the superstructure, about fifteen feet above the waterline. He instinctively knew that something either combustible or explosive was located there. But as he was pulling up over the ship, he saw his missile not bursting through the carrier's hull as he intended, but instead bouncing off of it.
The missile exploded harmlessly in the water. It didn't even chip a piece of paint off the ship's skin. The second missile arrived just a second later, to the same effect. A hit, a bounce off, an explosion, and absolutely no damage.
Everything went into slow motion after that. Not only did Hunter see the two missiles fail, he could see hundreds of Soviet sailors lining the huge flight deck and the catwalks ringing the superstructure. They were pointing and laughing at him as he roared over. He couldn't believe it!
He turned the F-16 sharply and found himself approaching the huge ship at the same low altitude, but now from the opposite direction. Either way, a missile hit here or there would have the same effect. He let both HARMs go, again in tandem, and watched their yellow trails head for the side of the carrier. From this angle with the sun at his back, Hunter saw the ship in a brighter light, and he was amazed how gleaming and special it looked. He couldn't have imagined a ship like this. It seemed to be made of the brightest chrome and shiniest steel. It was spotless, glowing, sparkling in the rising sun.
At the same time, he was beginning to notice that the inside of his jet was actually quite old and run down. His seat was threadbare. The canopy was scratched. Some panel lights were not working. He looked back up at the ship. He saw even more sailors now, massing on the deck, pointing and laughing at him.
The two missiles hit, and the same thing happened… which was nothing at all. They bounced off and exploded in the water, doing absolutely no damage to the ship. All this was to the great delight of the sailors on the deck. Hunter pulled up and away again, feeling like he'd done no more than provide a few moments of entertainment for these people who had just killed hundreds of his countrymen.
This only enraged him further. He turned the F-16 over a little too sharply, causing him to collide violently with the right side of his cockpit. He nearly lost control of the plane, regaining flight only through a quick boost of the throttle and a sharp turn to the left. This put him in a position just behind the ship, pointing toward its stern. He opened up with his nose cannon and watched the stream of shells rush toward the vulnerable ass end of the ship. There were sailors on the rail here, too. They weren't making any effort to shoot at him. Instead, they were waving at him, jeering at him, shaking their fists, and even giving him the finger. Making him look foolish.
And the cannon shells?
They bounced off, too.
He arrived over Rota two hours after daybreak.
According to his orders, he was to link up with American warplanes already on the ground at the Spanish NATO base, and then join in a systematic aerial assault on the advancing Soviet forces.
The background section of the orders stated that the Soviet army would take at least forty-eight hours before moving into those areas of Europe they'd poisoned with their Scud attack.
The main thrust of this assault would come, it was believed, through the center of West Germany, with Soviet forces moving in from Poland, Hungary, and, of course, East Germany. There were many bridges along this 300-mile section of the autobahns. By taking out a few of these key bridges and then hitting the Soviet columns in the rear areas, a large air armada, such as what was supposed to be waiting here in Spain, could deal a crushing blow to the invaders, perhaps delaying them long enough for the bulk of U.S. forces to get to the war zone.
But there was a problem. While Hunter could indeed see dozens if not hundreds of warplanes on the ground below him, he could see no activity going on around them. Instead it looked like they were simply left standing where they'd stopped rolling after landing. Many were gathered in haphazard fashion at the end of the main runway. Others looked simply abandoned. Even the clarity of the air around the base told him that nothing had taken off or landed here in hours, perhaps even days.
The final clue: although Hunter was calling the control tower asking for landing clearance, no one was responding. Finally, he just landed on his own, having to reduce his airspeed to the bare minimum so he would use less runway and not wind up colliding with the gaggle of airplanes at the end of the landing strip. It was a close run thing though, as he had to zigzag down the strip, trying to dodge the tails of some planes that had become stuck in the side ditches. He finally slowed down enough to pop his scratched canopy and taxi by the haphazard parking lot of warplanes located at the end of the runway.
He was horrified by what he saw. Some of the planes still had pilots strapped into them. Slumped over their controls, they were all dead, killed by poison gas. And at that moment, Hunter was glad that he hadn't taken off his oxygen mask. He quickly closed the canopy again and kept on taxiing.
He moved to the end of the airplane ramps, past the hangars, the admin buildings, and the living quarters. He taxied right out of the air base itself, steering the F-16 on to the base access highway and rolling for a half mile or so before he finally stopped. He paused a moment, then popped the canopy again.
He was guessing that the air base had been hit by soft gas, a type that dissipated quickly. He was certain the Soviets would want to occupy any allied military bases for their own use eventually and therefore would have been unlikely to lob some hard gas at the place, as it could make the area inaccessible for months. So while the interior of the base was still probably too hot to spend any time in, one deep breath told him the outlying areas were clean.