three and her last was just thirty-eight seconds.
Her first missile, flying at better than Mach 5, covered the forty-eight
miles to the first target in a little over forty seconds. He saw the
detonation when it went off, a tiny flash in the night far to the west.
Her second missile hit, the third missed–evaded by some spectacular
aerial maneuvers by the target–and then in rapid-fire succession, the
fourth, fifth, and sixth AIM-54s all struck home.
Within the space of a minute and a half, Dixie and Cat had just launched
six million dollars’ worth of technology, destroying five aircraft worth
some twenty-five times the total cost of the AIM-54Cs.
There was no way of knowing at this range whether or not those
aircraft’s pilots had managed to eject or not.
“Poor Man, this is Air Hammer One-three,” Dixie called. It was strange,
but he didn’t feel the elation he’d expected. The engagement had been so
distant, so. .. clinical. “We’re five for six and dry.”
“One-three, hold one.”
“COPY.”
It wasn’t until sometime later that something else occurred to him:
They’d just scored five kills, technically qualifying him as an ace. He
didn’t feel like an ace; Cat had fired two of the missiles, and four had
been launched by the aircraft’s computer. Over the tactical channel, he
could hear bursts of radio chatter from other aviators as they launched
on the unseen enemy.
“Fox three! Fox three!”
“That’s one! I saw it hit!”
“God, look at those flames. I’ve got a Mig here, going down inflames!”
“That’s Fox three for Hammer Two-two.”
They sounded so distant, so isolated. It seemed a cold and lonely way to
fight a war, and he was glad Cat was with him.
“One-three, this is Poor Man. We copy you dry. Hold your position. The
helos are going in.”
“Roger that. Hammer One-three, maintaining position.”
This was the part of Operation Ranger that he’d not been sure he could
handle. With no missiles remaining, his only weapons were the F-14’s
guns, weapons useful only for extremely close-ranged combat–at
“knife-fighting distance,” as aviators liked to say–and then only when
you could actually see the other guy. But the operational plan had
called for two flights of Tomcats, Air Hammer One and Air Hammer Two, to
move in over the Crimean coast and, once the weapons-free command had
been given, to down enough enemy aircraft to keep the rest cautious. If
they turned tail and fled for the Jefferson now, the enemy would follow.
.. and blunder into the flight of helicopters off the U.S.S. Guadalcanal
that even now ought to be streaking through the darkness toward Yalta at
wave-clipping height.
By maintaining position, the two Tomcat squadrons presented a formidable
wall of radar targets that ought to keep the enemy guessing. .. and at a
distance. Not all of the F-14s had launched; half were holding their
warloads in reserve. Dixie and Cat were relying now on Badger and Red to
cover them with their load-out of Phoenix missiles.
Nonetheless, Dixie felt naked, orbiting through the night without a
missile left to his name.
2144 hours (Zulu +3)
Yalta Crimean Military District “Are you sure you want to go through
with this, General? There’s still time to get out.”
Tombstone watched Boychenko’s mouth quirk upward at the corner as PO/2
Kardesh translated for him. Her Russian was precise, fluid, and glib.
“I. .. am sure,” Boychenko said, his accent thick. “is my gift to you,
for save my life.” He hesitated, frowned, then said something quickly in
Russian to Kardesh.
The woman nodded, then looked at Tombstone. “He wants to know if our
battle group will have fuel enough to carry out this operation, with all
of the flying that’s going on now.”
Tombstone glanced up at the dark sky, laced with the colorful streams of
antiaircraft tracers. It was strange to think that his people were up
there, Batman and Brewer and Nightmare and Dixie and all the rest.
“Tell him we’ll have enough to take the facility, Tomb stone said after
a moment. “But it’s essential that we secure the Arsincevo complex, or
this whole exercise is going to do nothing but leave our planes grounded