The game now was to put the missile into the right position for the intercept. That meant a limited footprint that was growing smaller by the second. Once within a set distance of the launchers, the intercept became impossible; by the time the missiles had reached the right target altitude, they would be in a tailchase and their chance of catching the fast-moving Hustlers would be remote.
As James watched he saw the pair of aircraft that had been assigned to their battery split up. One arced left and started to climb, the other dived to the right. Ajax had a problem, given a choice between two targets splitting apart like that, it would fly between them, missing both. It hadn't mattered with the old B-36s and B-60s and even the B-52s lacked the performance to exploit the flaw. The RB-58 did and that factor alone was enough to cause the Ajax to be withdrawn. Here had solved the problem with elegant simplicity; there was a simple random choice routine built in, the guidance radar flipped an electronic coin and took whatever target chance indicated.
The simulated track of the intercepting missiles was arching up and over but the two targets had split wide and were swinging fast. As the operators watched, the targets made barrel roles that reversed their turns and took them inside the projected course of the Hercs. They would pass outside the lethal radius of even the nuclear warheads on the Hercs. The tracks vanished from the scopes and the two targets were diving on the Here battery.
“Marisol and Tiger Lily” grunted the Herc operator. James raised his eyebrows, there was no IFF data on the screens to identify the two aircraft. “It's that balIs-to-the-walI style. Nobody else does it quite like those two.”
The Hercs had scored, at least two RB-58Cs had been judged hit and were returning to base. Suddenly the radar screens blacked out; the Here control room was judged to have been destroyed by the return shots from the two bombers. “Can we have long range surveillance feed restored please. We have trainees here and we'd like them to see the rest of the Big Gorilla?”
“Negative, we'll transmit range surveillance feed instead.”
The screens lit up again. It took a few seconds for the observers to adapt to the changed situation. In those few seconds, Marisol and Tiger Lily had broken through the SAM line and taken out two more Here sites. Other RB-58Cs had flowed through the breach and were rolling up the defenses. However, to the south, a group of fighters was streaking in to restore the situation, coming in much faster than any of the other groups that had been involved to date. James nodded to himself, the Bayou Militia had arrived.
The F-106s were spread right out, in loose pairs at staggered altitudes. That had been another change that Red Sun had brought about. After the first disastrous fight with the RB-58Cs, the fighters had abandoned the traditional tightly-spaced “finger four” and replaced it with the loose pairs of aircraft, a formation already known as “Loose deuce”. It hadn't saved the fighters from the nuclear-tipped radar homing missiles but it had cut the casualties from four per shot to two.
Even as James watched, several of the pairs broke away, presumably deemed to have been killed by nuclear fire from the RB-58s. There was no nuclear counterfire in the situation reports. He guessed the Cajuns had left their nuclear-tipped MB-Is at home, the Genies had proved useless against the fast and agile Hustlers. Later waves of interceptors would carry them, to deal with the lumbering subsonic bombers. Even as he watched, Marisol and Tiger Lily waded into the Bayou Militia.
Pilot's Position, RB-58C “Marisol”
He felt like he had been beaten with baseball bats then fed, feet first, through a mangle. Marisol was fighting like a wildcat, taking down three Here sites and a pair of F-106s already. That left 12 of the new fighters, out of an original 18. The Cajuns were not going to be happy with that. He was literally going head-to-head with another pair of 106s now. From a combat point of view, it was the safest thing to do, at a closing speed of over 3,000 mph, the fire control systems on the two aircraft simply didn't have time to react. The danger was collision, last year an F-101 and a B-52 had gone down in a head-to-head when neither pilot had given way.
It wasn't going to happen this time. Marisol ripped through the gap between the two F-106s, the concussion waves from the three aircraft blending together to give a multi-G thump that hurled him against his straps, adding more injuries to his bruised shoulders. Still, with that pair behind him, he could arch round now to two more on his left. Kozlowski was looking for Tiger Lily but they'd been split up evading the Hercs and had been fighting without mutual support ever since. He could see the two F-106s he'd picked swimming across his view, he'd got them cold, if they broke away, he'd get a perfect tail shot, if they broke towards him, the angles would be wrong for any shots they tried to make and they'd be wide open to Marisol's tail gun when they crossed.
“Fox-two, fox two.” That was the lead F-106, he'd broken towards Marisol and must have fired at the edge of his envelope. “Negative, Charlie five-one, two misses.” Bad angle and Dravar had been pouring radar jamming at the little Falcons. But his own GAR-8s were also hopelessly out of envelope, no shot possible. “Fox Three” That was Dravar with his tail gun. “Negative Marisol
It had been a faint chance anyway, that tail gun was deadly under some circumstances but this wasn't one of them. He pulled Marisol into a steep climb and rolled out at the top, an F-106 had followed him up and tried a Fox-One but the heat-seekers had been decoyed away by flares and the sun.. Another F-106 was below him and he could hear the annunciator growl as the GAR-8 homing head locked on. Constant tone and - “Fox-one”. A pause and then. “Positive hit. Charlie Five-Two, break off and return to base. She got you.”
“Damn it, he's behind us.” It was Korrina, Kozlowski's Bear, reporting that an F-106 had swung in behind them. Unlike the old days, it was a bad, bad angle for an attack, the high speeds involved meant that a missile hit was almost impossible and the fighter behind couldn't close that much for fear of Marisol's tail gun. And if the attack degenerated into a tail chase, the Hustler had more fuel and staying power to out-run and out-last the frustrated fighter jocks. But it meant that he couldn't turn without giving the fighter behind him a good shot and that set him up to be picked off by another fighter. “Got you, bitch” came over the comms system from the F-106 behind.
“You hear what he called me? Mike, beat him, kill him, torture him. Make him listen to Perry Como records” Marisol's voice was outraged. Suddenly there was a terrifying crash and Kozlowski was hurled against his straps again, through the blur of pain he saw his instrument panel light up into a sea of red warning indicators. Their afterburners were off and they were already subsonic, speed dropping fast. Behind him, the fighter's overtaking speed advantage became too much and a break-away turn became necessary to preclude a collision. There was not enough time for the F-106 pilot to react and score a “kill”. However, as he shot past, his afterburner presented a target that even the stunned Kozlowski couldn't resist “Fox One.”
“Kill confirmed. Charlie Nine-One return to base. You're gone.”