good grunt could lessen the effects of the turn by perhaps one G.
“Where … are … the … other … two?” he said, forcing each
word out past clenched teeth.
He was taking a chance, letting the bandits get between him and the two
Intruder flights, but the range had started out so tight that there’d
been little else he could do. Now he was behind one of the bandit
elements.
Mustang, with Walkman, his RIO, was still with him, on his right.
Then they were out of the turn and squarely on the six of the two
bandits. “Mustang, this is Coyote!” he called, even as he slid the
targeting box across one of the targets. “I’ve got the one on the
left!”
“And I’ve got the one on the right.”
A buzz sounded over his headset. “I’ve got tone. Fox one!”
An AMRAAM slid off the rail beneath his right wing.
1138 hours
Tomcat 209, shotgun 1/4
Lieutenant Commander Gregory Arrenberger had gotten his handle from
shipboard slang during his flight training at Pensacola. A “slider” was
a hamburger, as opposed to a “roller,” or hot dog. Commended by his CO
for the cold-blooded precision of his formation flying, he’d replied,
“Hell, sir, I’m no hotdog.” The nickname Slider seemed inevitable after
that, especially when connected with the “berger” in his last name.
Slider was using every bit of his engineer’s precision now as he pulled
his Tomcat out of a hard-right turn, tracking on the second element of
Russian planes streaking through the Tomcat formation. For a moment
there, tunnel vision had clamped down on him and he’d felt himself
wavering at the edge of consciousness, but he’d grunted away at an M-1,
forcing the blood to stay in his head … and then he’d been in the
clear, lining up on one of the low-flying MiGs displayed against his
HUD.
Where the hell was his wingman … wingperson, he corrected himself
with a wry grin beneath his mask. Glancing left, outside the radius of
his turn, he saw nothing and assumed she’d not been able to keep up with
him. He had nothing against Hanson personally, of course–she seemed
like a nice kid–but damn it, women had no business at the controls of a
hot combat fighter.
“Lock! Blue Grass!” he called to his RIO. “I got tone! Fox one!”
The AMRAAM shrieked clear of the Tomcat, and Slider immediately pulled
right, angling toward a second lock on the other Russian fighter.
“Pull up, Slider!” Blue Grass screamed in his ear. “Pull up!”
Instinctively he brought the stick back and eased back on the turn. A
shadow blotted the light to his right, then slid beneath his aircraft.
“Jesus, Slider!” sounded over his headset. “Watch where the hell you’re
driving!”
Only then did Slider realize that Lobo must have stuck with him through
the turn, had actually stayed inside his turn where the G-forces were
higher … and he’d come a thumbnail’s breadth from turning right into
her.
“God damn it, Hanson!” he yelled back. “Give me some flying room, huh?”
But he knew even as he said the words that he should have checked right
for his wingman as well as to the left.
“Let’s stay frosty, guys.” That was Lieutenant j.g. “Vader” McVey,
Hanson’s RIO. “I’ve got two more lifting up from Ura Guba.”
“Okay,” Slider said. “But stay off my ass, lady! No more of this
welded-wing shit!”
“Affirmative.” Hanson’s voice was tight and cold. Had she been as shook
by the near-miss as him? Or was she just mad because he’d snapped at
her?
There was no figuring women. He’d apologize later. It was his fault,
after all, and Arrenberger prided himself on being fair.
Ahead, the Russian aircraft Slider had fired at was climbing hard, close
enough now that he could distinguish the characteristic silhouette of a
MiG-29, with its widely separated engine nacelles and flared LERX, the
leading-edge roof extensions over the aircraft’s intake.
“He’s dumping chaff,” Blue Grass announced. “He’s pulling an
Immelmann.”
“I’m on him.” He hauled back on the stick, climbing rapidly to cut the
Russian off at the top of his twisting, vertical maneuver. The AMRAAM