He yelled at the sailor to bust the thing into forward and the driver rammed the APC into drive. The transmission screamed. Hunter was nearly knocked out of the turret and off the back of the vehicle. Recovering, he swung the gun around did some instant calculations then took careful aim on the first A-1's starboard wing. He counted to three, then pulled the trigger and a two-foot section of the airplane's steering control ripped away. This caused the big prop plane to bank suddenly to the right and directly into the path of the second attacker.
The two A-Is hit head-on a few seconds later. The sound of the blazing collision was tremendous. A rain of smoking debris fell all over the APC. This time, Hunter didn't have to yell to the driver, he had already jammed the APC back into reverse. The two Skyraiders, now strangely joined, plunged to earth, striking the pier near where the APC was seconds before. The airplanes exploded again, then kept right on going, taking out a large section of the dock and sinking into the harbor.
Hunter whistled. That was too close. A momentary break in the action let him take stock of the situation. He was glad to finally hear some return fire — feeble as it was — coming from the city itself. Probably Tribesmen firing their small arms at the attackers. He could see a few sailors were up and about and doing the same thing.
The attack was gradually winding down. In twos and threes, the A-Is were dropping the last of their bombs and turning away off to the west. He told the driver to stop. No more Skyraiders came within his range. Within a minute, the attackers were gone.
They spun around and rolled forward again, back toward the base. Nearly half its buildings were in flames, as was a good portion of the city. Survivors were staggering about the docks, some still in their sleepwear. Those few who had taken part in the defense were half-heartedly celebrating. Some of them rallied around the APC.
But Hunter knew the celebration was premature. High above the harbor he saw a single Skyraider slowly circling. He knew it was a spotter plane, charged with assessing the damage of the sneak air attack — and identifying targets for a second strike.
"They'll be back within two hours," Hunter told the ragged sailors around the APC." Get your asses in gear and find your CO. Get something coordinated with the people in the town and be ready when they come again."
He then climbed down from the APC and clasped the hand of the sailor who did the driving. "Thanks, pal. What's your name."
"Murphy, sir," the sailor said. "Mark Murphy."
"Well, Murph, you done good." Hunter told him. "Hang in there."
"But where are you going, sir?" the sailor asked, nervous that the man rallied the small but effective defense was now heading off. Other defenders started to air the same view.
"Don't worry, guys," Hunter said, "I'll be back."
With that, he was sprinting for the base's main gate, the precious black box firmly in his grasp.
It was close to noon when the second wave of 12 Skyraiders appeared over the western horizon and bore down on the base again. But things would be different this time.
The A-1 flight leader looked over his shoulder and caught a glint of reflection coming out of the sun. It was moving too fast to be one of his Skyraiders. In fact, it was moving too fast to be any other kind of prop airplane. It must be…
Before the pilot could get his thought out, his airplane exploded into a thousand flaming pieces, the victim of one of the three Sidewinder missiles heading toward his formation. As soon as the other A-1 pilots saw the explosion they began to react. But just as quickly, two more of their number fell victim to air-to-air missiles.
Before the Skyraider pilots knew it, a red-white-and-blue F-16 was spinning wildly through their formation. It came out of nowhere. A thick, steady cough of flame was coming out of its nose. Pieces of Skyraiders were flying everywhere. Not one of the A-1 pilots thought of shooting back. The F-16 pilot was acting like a wild man behind the controls. Every time the jet fired, its cannons hit something.
The would-be attackers tried to scatter. The F-16 launched another Sidewinder.
The heat-seeking missile was attracted to a hot-running Skyraider piston-driven engine, slamming home just below the pilot compartment. The A-1 flipped over and went down. Another Sidewinder clipped the tail portion of an A-1, splitting it in two before carrying on and impacting on another luckless Skyraider nearby. A third missile managed to lodge itself into the underbelly of another airplane, pausing a few frightful seconds before exploding.
Its six missiles spent, the F-16 roared after a group of three retreating A-1s, cannons blazing. One by one the airplanes dropped into the sea. By the time it was over, only two of the 12 Skyraiders escaped, and that was only because the F-16 broke off the attack. The last they saw of the jet it was streaking off to the east and climbing. Whoever the hell the crazy man in the F-16 was, he had singlehandedly prevented the second wave of attackers from going in and finishing off the targeted base and harbor.
The A-1 pilots knew their employers were not going like the story they would have to tell them…
Back on the ground at Pearl, a combined sailor-tribe gunmen force had watched the spectacular air battle off in the distance. They cheered as the surviving A-1s scurried away. They would not have to fight off another attack. Then, they saw a lone airplane was criss-crossing the sky high above them, leaving behind long, white contrails that eventually took the shape of a huge "W."
Chapter Seventeen
Hunter returned to his base in Oregon only long enough to turn over the black box to Jones, get a quick briefing and make preparations to take off again.
This time, he was flying the captured Yak. His destination: Devil's Tower, Wyoming.
Jones had filled him in on the situation in the Badlands. Another convoy had been attacked; this time 31 airliners were shot down passing over the northern top of South Dakota. This was the last convoy to attempt to fly over the middle of the continent. By now, every convoy jockey knew that someone was shooting at them from the Badlands. It would still be a matter of days before they knew just who it was.
Jones told Hunter he had ordered both PAAC-Oregon and PAAC-San Diego on to a First Class Red Alert. The Texans had taken the same action. Dozer and some of his airborne troops were at the moment flying in the Crazy Eights and scouring the western edge of the Badlands, looking for an acceptably large place where the PAAC jet fighters and other aircraft could set down. Once this forward base of operations was found, Jones planned to start sending elements of PAAC aircraft east.
On the other side of the Badlands, St. Louie was organizing an airlift evacuation of Football City. Huge C-5 transports, courtesy of the Texas Air Force, began shuttling in and out, their routes being covered by Texas jet fighters. It was a strategic and intelligent retreat. The two Circle army divisions closing in on the city were too big and too well-equipped to try to fight off, especially since Football City was still recovering from its massive war against The Family. Instead, St. Louie sent his squadron of elite F-20 jet fighters to harass the advancing enemy, giving him enough time to lift out his small civilian population and his well-equipped army.
Mike Fitzgerald of the Syracuse Aerodrome was also forced to bug out. He knew it was a matter of hours before The Circle would be at his southern flank.
Although his famous F-105 fighter-bombers could have inflicted much damage on the advancing army, he agreed with Jones, in a scrambled conversation they had had the night before, that the splendid Aerodrome Defense Force would be needed in the effort to take out the Soviet SAMs in the Badlands. Early that morning, a long convoy of Free Canadian army trucks and buses arrived at the Aerodrome and started loading on anyone at the outpost who wanted to get to the relative safety of the country to the north. Most of the people at Syracuse took advantage of the offer. As soon as the non-combatants were evacuated, Fitzgerald ordered his regiment-sized ADF armored unit to head out in their own trucks, driving east toward Lake Erie, warning and picking up civilians along the way before diverting into Free Canada by way of Buffalo. A contingent of Fitzgerald's ground troops — the World War II GI-clad Border Guardsmen — were the last to go. As ordered, they had destroyed anything valuable they couldn't carry, burned all the left-behind food and poisoned the water and liquor supply. After detonating huge blockbuster bombs along the center of the Aerodrome's runways, the soldiers jumped in their big Chinook helicopters and flew away. When The Circle Army reached the Aerodrome less than a day later, they found the place smoking and empty.