raised their Kalishnikovs, and pegged the Tomcat in their sights.
“The cockpit and the fuel tanks,” the commando ordered. “if the pilot
survives, we will teach him a lesson later. For now, we must ensure that
the aircraft is completely disabled. Disobedience deserves a harsh
lesson.”
On either side of him, his companions nodded. With a target this big,
there wasn’t much chance they would miss.
“A few more seconds,” the commando shouted. Thirty knots of wind
across the bow blurred his words. “If we can hit him before he’s on deck,
we’ll prevent any serious damage to the carrier. But wait until he’s in
range.”
1326 Local
Tomcat 201
“Those little bastards,” Bird Dog muttered. “Gator, something just
occurred to me–if I fire at them head-on, I’m risking nailing another bird
with a ricochet or a bullet.”
“Well, there just might be a way to avoid that.”
“How?”
“Bird Dog, what are you going to-” The rest of the RIO’s comments were
cut off by a sudden hard turn. The G-forces slammed him into the side of
his seat, and his vision grayed. He grunted, trying to force the blood
back up to his brain and prevent a gray-out.
Bird Dog kicked in the afterburners, pulling the slow-moving Tomcat
into a sharp left-hand turn. He dropped the nose slightly, a dangerous
maneuver at that low an altitude, but critical to avoiding stall speed. As
soon as he felt the Tomcat pick up airspeed, he returned to level flight.
Seconds after that maneuver, he pulled the Tomcat’s nose up sharply,
praying that their airspeed was sufficient to sustain flight. Over, over,
climbing into a steep Immelmann, Bird Dog drove the F-14 into the air.
Finally, as the aircraft reached the apex of its turn, it was almost out of
airspeed. It hung motionless for a second at three thousand feet, then
nosed over, inverted, back down toward the water. Bird Dog brought every
sense to bear on the shuddering aircraft, carefully gauging the exact
moment at which he could start pulling out of the steep dive. He didn’t
have enough airspeed yet to remain airborne in level flight, but pulling up
too soon would just induce a deadly stall. Finally, at the last possible
moment, he pulled the aircraft up, barely avoiding the icy sea below.
Fifteen hundred feet away from the carrier, the aircraft decided to
remain airborne. The afterburners quickly picked the speed up to well over
160 knots, increasing it steadily as the plane approached the aircraft
carrier.
Three hundred feet away from the flight deck, Bird Dog toggled the
weapon switch to guns. He waited one more second, then depressed the fire
switch, applying small amounts of rudder to sweep the pattern of gunfire
back and forth across the aft end of the flight deck.
Bright sparks of light flashed against the black tarmac, evidence of
both ricochets and the tracer rounds embedded in every fifth round. He
quickly got his range, bracketing the Spetsnaz, then, in one final sweep,
nailing them dead-on. The three figures crumpled slowly as he screamed
across the flight deck.
1327 Local
Flight Deck, USS Jefferson
How could it be? the commando thought, consciousness fading fast as
the blood drained out of his body and onto the icy tarmac. He moved his
head slightly, and could see one pool already congealing into thin crimson
ice. The aircraft had fired on its own flight deck–it wasn’t possible, it
wasn’t–he closed his eyes as a fresh wave of pain moved through him. It
quickly increased in tempo until his world was no more than a red haze
gnawing away at every nerve ending in his body. He tried to scream, found
his vocal chords wouldn’t respond, then tried to move a hand up to his
face. Nothing seemed to work, not even his fingers. The most he could do
was open his eyes and stare in the direction that he was facing. The pain
grew to incredible proportions, even worse because of his inability to give
voice to it. When he saw the black shape moving along the horizon, he
could have cried with relief. Soon the pain would end.
The Tomcat was coming back for another strafing run.