put the sun behind his MiG in case the American tried for an IR-homer launch,
but his opponent had gone for a short-range radar lock instead, a hard
maneuver to sustain when the relative angles between the two aircraft were
changing so rapidly.
Worried now, knowing he was up against a skillful adversary, Terekhov
held his right break, then put his nose over into a dive, falling through a
thousand meters of clear, cold air toward the sea.
Damn! Somehow, the F/A-18 turned inside the turn, as Terekhov heard the
continuing, piercing warble of an enemy missile lock on his aircraft.
Terekhov turned again, trying to break the enemy’s radar lock with a
split-S. Glancing back, he caught the flash of a rocket ignition. Launch!
Firing chaff, he pulled up, feeling the crushing pressure of mounting
G-forces. The missile, a SARH-active Sparrow, leaped toward him as he jinked.
At the last possible second, the missile streaked overhead. There was a flash
and a hard bang as something struck Terekhov’s fuselage.
He scanned his instruments. He was losing some fuel … not much. Good.
The Sparrow’s proximity fuse had set it off as it passed the MiG, but too far
away to more than nick him.
The F/A-18 was still behind him and edging closer. Terekhov searched for
some way to brush the persistent American off his tail. He couldn’t
outmaneuver him, but …
Their brief engagement had carried them north of the Kreml. Ahead, less
than two miles away, the stern of the Soviet carrier rose like the hard, gray
cliff of a Norwegian fjord. Smoke hung above her flight deck, but streams of
antiaircraft tracers continued to spark and sweep through the sky.
It was dangerous. The AK-630 CIWS on Kreml’s stern might well target
him. But if he could angle in low, sweeping in above the carrier’s roundoff
almost as though he were coming in for a landing, and if the American followed
…
For a few precious seconds, as Terekhov passed over the Kreml’s flight
deck, the American would be hanging in the sky astern, nakedly exposed to
Soviet CIWS fire. If a human controlled the Russian carrier’s point defenses,
rather than a computer, he would hold his fire until the MiG was clear, then
tear the Hornet into scrap.
He opened his throttles wider, hurtling toward the Kreml’s stern.
0919 hours Zulu (1019 hours Zone)
Hornet 300
Over the Norwegian Sea
The Fulcrum dove toward the Kreml, and Tombstone followed. Dragging the
targeting diamond in his HUD across the fleeing MiG, Tombstone held his breath
as he snapped the target-select switch on his HOTAS grip, and watched the HUD
symbols flash to missile-lock configuration.
“Got you! He squeezed the trigger, and the Sidewinder streaked across a
mile and a half of open sky, struck the Fulcrum in the starboard engine, and
exploded.
0919 hours Zulu (1019 hours Zone)
MiG 1010
Over the Norwegian Sea
He felt the shock, felt the wild flutter of his aircraft as he lost
control. Threat indicators exploded to life across his console, and he heard
the insistent rasp of the engine-fire warning.
Terekhov tried to pull up and found the stick dead in his hand. Out of
control! Out of control and plunging toward the carrier’s roundoff!
He was reaching for the ejection handle when the CIWS cannon on the stern
of the Soviet aircraft carrier opened fire, sending 30-mm shells sleeting
through the flaming wreckage of his MiG. Fuel mixed with flame and the
wreckage exploded, a fiery mass of debris hurtling at nearly the speed of
sound squarely toward the Russian aircraft carrier. Transformed into a volley
of deadly missiles, the fragments smashed into Kreml’s stern, driving forward,
tearing steel, igniting fuel, ripping the CIWS turret free from its mount and
smashing it into the hangar spaces, rupturing hull plates. Half of the
Fulcrum struck the water and kept traveling, smashing through both rudders and
into the ponderously turning blades of the massive, thirty-three-ton
propellers.
Kreml seemed to stagger, then hesitated as though trying to decide
whether or not to keep going.
Fire gouted into the sky.
0919 hours Zulu (1019 hours Zone)
Hornet 300
Over the Norwegian Sea
Tombstone flashed across the Soviet carrier’s deck, almost like a