Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) (3 page)

 
          
But
he was learning.

 
          
The
Tomcat packed a pair of all-aspect heat-seekers. While Fentress had to be
respectful of the missiles, they were considerably less dangerous than AMRAAMS.
It was also to his advantage that the Tomcat was gunning for the Megafortresses
and probably had only a vague notion of the Flighthawks’ location.
Fentress’s
two robot planes were running roughly half a
mile apart, separated by five hundred feet at thirty-one thousand and 31,500
feet. His game plan was relatively straightforward—he’d engage the F-14 with
one plane in a diving attack, and at the same time have the computer arc the
second Flighthawk so it could grab the Tomcat’s tail for the kill. It was a
classic strategy, basically the same double attack perfected by the Army Air
Force Captains John Godfrey and Don Gentile against Me-109’s during World War
II—minus the missiles, radars, and very high speeds the planes were using.

 
          
The
Navy jock wasn’t flying a Messerschmitt. Rather than engaging the small fighter
as it dove in front of his F-14, he lit the burners and blew past both the U/MF
and the approaching Megafortresses. Fentress gave a few blinks from the gun of
Hawk Four, but the smaller engines couldn’t drive the Hawk close enough to the
muscular Navy plane to record a hit.

 
          
“We
can take him with a Scorpion,” said Captain Tom Dolan, the copilot in Raven.

 
          
“No,
he’s mine,” said Fentress tightly. “You’re going to need that Scorpion later.”

 
          
He
knew better than to try to run the F-14 down. Fentress held back as the Tomcat
started tracking north, waiting for the plane to single out its quarry and
start to close.

 
          
Though
it had a much easier angle on Raven, it seemed to be picking out Iowa.

 
          
Coincidence?
Or had he been briefed beyond the accepted rules?

 
          
No
matter. The F-14 began picking up steam as it pressed toward the Megafortress’s
tail. Fentress had a good intercept plotted—the target indicator on Hawk Three
began blinking yellow, indicating he was almost in range. Just as it went red,
the F-14 pilot belatedly spotted the robot and abruptly nosed downward.
Fentress once more found he couldn’t stay with the Tomcat, but according to C³,
did manage to put six shells into its wing.

 
          
The
event moderator called it “light damage.” Under the rules of the game, the F-14
should have broken off and gone home. But instead, the Navy jock lit the
burners and jerked his nose up, pulling a good seven or eight Gs. He recovered
from his evasive maneuver and bullied his plane toward a firing solution a bare
five miles off the EB-52’s vulnerable V-shaped tail.

 
          
Iowa

 
          
August
16, 1452

 
          
Dog
shook his head as his copilot reported that the F-14 was getting ready to
launch AIM-9’s.

 
          
“Flares.”

 
          
“Flares.
Stinger ready,” said Ferris. “They’re cheating,” he added bitterly. “Bastards.”

 
          
“Fire
when you have him,” answered Dog calmly. “Don’t hit the Flighthawk. Crew, hold
on for evasive maneuvers.”

 
          
Dog
jerked the stick hard, pushing the big plane to the left, then back again,
jinking
the massive bomber as if she were an F-16.
Adrenaline shot through his veins, and he realized he was laughing. It was
times like this that reminded him why he’d joined the Air Force.

 
          
Galatica

 
          
August
16, 1454

 
          
Fentress
slapped Hawk Four toward the F-14’s tail as it closed on the Megafortress. The
magnified screen showed the bomber’s tail stinger tracking back and forth,
obviously taking aim at the aggressor—its air mines were fatal at 2.5 miles,
which was just inside the fatal range of the Sidewinders. Undoubtedly the Navy
pilot wasn’t concerned about “surviving” the conflict; he’d get close enough to
launch the Sidewinders even if it meant he got slammed himself.

 
          
Fentress
pushed his nose down, moving his
pipper
dead into the
canopy of the Tomcat’s two-man cockpit. He waited a second after the red bar
flashed, remembering Zen’s admonitions regarding the Flighthawk control
computer’s unyielding optimism.

 
          
Fentress
then fired a long, concentrated blast that, had this been a real thing, would
have reamed a large hole in the Navy jet.

 
          
The
next second, he got a warning that the EB-52 was getting ready to fire its
Stinger. Fentress had to jerk off quickly to avoid getting nailed by an air
mine. As he did, another warning buzzed sounded—the F-14 had just launched his
Sidewinders.

 
          
Iowa

 
          
August
16, 1500

 
          
“One
simulated missile hit on engine four, one miss,” reported Ferris, Dog’s
copilot. “He cheated
bigtime
,” added Ferris. “The
Flighthawk nailed him.”

 
          
“We’ll
send it to the Rules Committee,” stated Dog. “Wing damage?”

 
          
“Negligible.”
Ferris began reading through the damage-control reports; the simulated hit
wasn’t bad enough to keep them from completing their mission. But unlike the
Tomcat, Iowa’s flight computer was plugged into the game and trimmed the plane
as if it had really been hit—within reason, of course.

 
          
“How
you doing down there, Delaford?” Dog asked the Navy Piranha specialist.

 
          
“Still
no contact. We should be about thirty seconds away.”

 
          
“Too
bad it’s not a torpedo,” said Dog.

 
          
“Believe
me, Colonel, if this were the real thing, the target would be dead meat as soon
as we can see it. Now under Option Four, carrying the double warhead—”

 
          
“We’re
a little busy,” said Dog. “You just have fun down there.”

 
          
“Oh,
I will, sir. It’s not every day you get to blow up an aircraft carrier.”

 
          
Raven

 
          
August
16, 1500

 
          
While
the Hornets thumbed through their radar scans trying to sort out the
Megafortresses behind all the electronic noise, Zen brought the Flighthawks
around, positioning himself for a diving, rear-quarter attack. Once his attack
had began, Galatica would launch Scorpions at the remaining planes. Another
wave of fighters was sure to follow; hopefully, they’d be ready to saddle up
and get away by then.

 
          
The
Hornets were in double two-ship elements separated by over a mile. Zen launched
his attack against the plane at the point closest to the Megafortresses; it was
on his left as he angled Hawk One downward, Hawk Two holding above. The attack
went ridiculously well—he could see the while globe of the pilot’s hard hat
dead on in his
pipper
. Two squeezes on the trigger
and the Hornet was gone; by the time the event observer called out the kill,
Zen had jumped into Hawk Two and slashed another dozen slugs through the tail
of the first plane’s wingman. This Hornet tried to tuck into a turn, hoping to
throw the Flighthawk in front of him. It would have been a fine strategy
against nearly any other plane in the world, but the U/MF could turn far
tighter than an F/A-18. Zen could have driven his plane right through the
Hornet—a fact that made him more than a little annoyed when the referee failed
to call the hit. He turned back and stuffed another long fusillade of simulated
shells into the Hornet’s twin tailpipe.

 
          
“
Yo
,” he said.

 
          
“Cougar
Two slashed,” said the event moderator with obvious disappointment.

 
          
The
delay kept Zen from pressing an attack on the second element. In his absence,
the flight computer had managed to set Hawk One up for a reasonably good
front-quarter run at one of the Hornets. Zen jumped in the cockpit, but then
decided to let C³ finish the job. The computer obliged by tossing two dozen
slugs into the Hornet’s belly and another dozen into the canopy area.

 
          
That
left one plane. Zen had lost track of it in the swirl. He had to select the
sitrep screen—a God’s-eye view of the battle area piped into his console
courtesy of
Galatica’s
powerful radar. C³ highlighted
the Hornet, which was shooting back toward its carrier group.

 
          
Running
away?

 
          
No,
decoying him, as had the other F/A-18’s.

 
          
“We
have bogies south,” said
Galatica’s
radar operator
tersely. “In range for Phoenix launch in thirty seconds.”

 
          
“Clever
bastards.”

 
          
Iowa

 
          
August
16, 1505

 
          
Colonel
Bastian checked the overall position on the sitrep screen in the lower
left-hand corner of his dashboard. Piranha, still undetected, was now closing
on the Kitty Hawk.

 
          
He
wished he could say that Iowa was also still undetected.

 
          
“Eight
Tomcats, positively
ID’d
,” Ferris said. “They’ll
launch any second.”

 
          
“Not
a problem,” said Dog.

 
          
“Got
it,” said Delaford.

 
          
“Yes!”
added Ensign Gloria English. “We are within five miles of the aircraft carrier.
Closing. We’re not detected.”

 
          
“If
this were Option Four, they’d be dead. We could download to a sub now—boom, boom,
boom!” said Delaford.

 
          
“Tomcats
are launching missiles!” shouted Ferris, so loud he could’ve been heard back on
the tail.

 
          
“Evasive
maneuvers,” said Dog. “If we’re in, we’re going to break, Tom,” he told
Delaford. They were already at the extreme range for the Piranha system, and
would have to close off contact to duck their attackers.

 
          
“Colonel,
if we can hold contact for another sixty seconds, I can have Piranha pop up
across from the Kitty Hawk’s bridge. Kind of put an exclamation mark on the demonstration,”
Delaford said.

 
          
“Missiles
are tracking,” said Ferris.

 
          
“Can
we break them if we stay here?”

 
          
“Trying.
The Tomcats are still coming. They want our blood.”

 
          
“We’ll
hold our position as long as we can,” Dog told Delaford. “Hopefully, we won’t
get nailed in the process.”

 
          
“It’ll
be worth it,” said Delaford, whose project had faced considerable skepticism
from the Navy brass.

 
          
Dog
told the other Megafortresses they could break off.

 
          
“Sixty
seconds,” said Delaford. “Right under the admiral’s nose.”

 
          
“Colonel,
one of those Navy logs won’t quit.”

 
          
“Tinsel,”
said Dog, giving the order to dispense electronic chaff designed to confuse the
radar guiding the long-range missile.