The Children of Roswell (Book One) The Swift Chronicle

by Alan James

  The first Sabre to make a pass at him had not only hit him with its fifties, it had released an entire pod of (sixty-eight millimeter SNEB) rockets, nine in all, and one of them had struck home. He didn’t know it, but he had a foot wide hole torn in the underside of his right wing, near the leading edge about half way out. Three hundred fifty to four hundred miles an hour was now all he could do. He pointed the nose skyward again. “Damn!” he said, “now I’m the fish in the barrel.”

  OUT OF THE BARREL

  His disadvantage was now huge. He not only had the remaining Sabre jet to worry about, he now had these three somethings he had never seen before. He needed light. He needed to see them. He was helpless unless he could see them coming. ‘How long ‘till sunup,’ he thought, looking over his shoulder to the east, ‘It’ll never get here in time … at least an hour to go. Damn, if I could see them, maybe I could out maneuver them.’

  As he coaxed as much speed out of the disc as he could, he waited for the next round of smoke trails. He was surprised they hadn’t already launched another salvo.

  ‘Light,’ his mind yelled, ‘light, where in hell is all this light coming from.’ He craned his neck up over his head and then turned in his seat. There, above his vertical stabilizer, sat a huge shadow. The glare from the light made it impossible to tell what it was emanating from.

  “Landing lights, Christ, I’ve got one of those monsters sittin’ right on my six, lightin’ me up like a damned Christmas tree.”

  He started to lean on the stick to the right, but looking first (like any good fighter pilot) he noticed a large shadow off his starboard side. It was blotting out stars on the horizon and it was huge. He looked to the left; the same shadow met him there.

  As he looked right again, the running lights flashed three times on the bogie flying just off his wing. On the third flash, they stayed lit. If that was meant to get his attention, it did. The display light at the rear of the fuselage, meant to illuminate the tail number, blinked on.

  ‘Heavens!; he thought, ‘what a beautiful sight.’ The light showed him the outline of a back-canted triangle. He stared in awe; he’d never seen a vertical stabilizer quite like that before. As amazement started replacing his fear (since he wasn’t being shot at for the moment) his rose vision started kicking in.

  “My God, she’s a Delta.” He scanned her from her long slender needle pointed nose, down the cylindrical fuselage to her two massive triangular delta wings. It was a new F one-oh-two Delta Dagger. He had heard vague stories about this new supersonic interceptor being built by Convair out on the west coast (but they weren’t supposed to be in the air yet).

  The Delta’s pilot reached to his instrument panel and Kelly saw its canopy lights come on. This pilot was all business as he turned to Kelly, and with a stern face he moved the index and middle fingers of his right hand to his visor over his eyes, bidding Kelly to look. He then pointed under the disc, and then, making two fists, he put his hands together, thumbs and pointer fingers touching. Rolling his hands apart, as if breaking an imaginary object, he made the universal sign.

  Kelly, knowing exactly what the man was saying (he had a hole blown in the bottom of the disc) nodded his understanding, (forgetting that the pilot probably could not see through the chromed canopy).

  The pilot then raised the same two fingers to his eyes a second time and this time he pointed to an area below his own plane. Kelly continued to stare as the Dagger slowly rose to a position that clearly showed its entire underbelly. Two, not so small, doors snapped open amidships and two large trapeze mechanisms carried four large missiles down into the airstream.

  Kelly recognized them immediately. When he saw the first two fly past him, harmlessly, earlier, he had assumed they were AIM dash fours, but, these were GAR dash elevens. They contained proximity fuses, and would detonate when they got close to their target. He knew they were radar guided, but he was afraid that at close range (and these guys could run up on him easily now) their systems could be getting a bounce off of the Brownings and support equipment in the nose of the disc.

  The Dagger brought its pilot back to Kelly’s level to make eye contact once again and this time he made one more universal signal (the one signal no fighter pilot ever wants to see). Grabbing his face mask, he pulled it briskly from his mouth and nose, and with a grimace and lip curl that would make any B-movie actor proud, he pumped his fist, with his pointer finger aimed at the ground, three times.

  Kelly had seen it once before, in an old movie about World War One fighter pilots. The Red Baron had thoroughly beaten his English foe (or French, he couldn’t remember) but, instead of shooting him out of the sky, he flew alongside and ordered him to the ground.

  ‘Humiliating,’ Kelly thought, ‘these guys think I’m beat.’

  And all along he had reckoned he had been putting up a pretty good show for himself (at least against the Sabres).

  Kelly flinched as a blur of six of the smaller FFAR rockets screamed over the top of his canopy and disappeared into the darkness ahead of him; their white smoke temporarily blinding him. The impatient Dagger, above and to his rear, apparently thought he was taking too much time to obey the command to surrender.

  Kelly rocked his wingtips a few quick times (a signal of acceptance or understanding) hoping to buy a few precious seconds. He knew if he gave in now and followed the Daggers, to wherever it was they wanted him to go, the helicopters, which had been watching the strange dogfight play out above them, would continue their journey to Marana, there, to possibly find his friends.

  There was only one thing to do now. He had one last trick in his arsenal (besides his superior speed when his disc was healthy) that they didn’t. With a quick look over his shoulder to make sure he wouldn’t be rammed by the Dagger behind, he gave the command: “Slow.”

  As his speed fell off the three Deltas shot passed him. His mind’s eye, now aiming the guns on his nose, went to full magnification and, as the F one-oh-two on his right started to bank and climb to its right, he released a short burst into its tail. Two of the tracers disappeared into its tailpipe just as its pilot had gone to afterburners. The engine burped a couple times as the flame from its rear flashed twice and quit. It gave one last burst of fire before flaming out with a bang that Kelly could hear from his cockpit. The Dagger fell off its climb and its nose dropped passed level as it started a slow, wide, death spiral toward the ground. The pilot, having no choice now (his hydraulics gone with his engine no longer running) pressed his helmet back against his seat and reached between his legs for the ejection handle.

  Kelly watched the flash and then the short rocket burn as the ejection seat pushed the pilot away from his wounded ship. The pilot chute opened briskly and in a few seconds it pulled the seat away, allowing the pilots main chute to deploy.

  “Damn it!” Kelly yelled as he turned back to the business at hand. Taking the time to make sure that Dagger pilot had gotten out OK was a waste of valuable time (he had now lost sight the other two bogeys).

  “Up,” he commanded, and pulling back on the stick, he climbed as fast as the damaged disc would allow. He didn’t want to be attacked from above, but he had no idea if he could out climb his foes. His main objective now was to stay far enough away to avoid being picked up on their radar, and still get off a shot or two.

  “Ting-ting-ting-clang-clang”, his ears were filled with an unmistakable sound, and his eyes darted back and forth, his vision filled with sparks from the upper surface of the disc. He was taking fire. It was the fifty caliber Brownings from the lone Sabre Jet that had made the first pass at him (and done the original damage to the underside of his wing).

  Kelly pulled back on the stick until he was on his back, then, with a slight push left on the stick he rolled to level, pointing directly at the F-eighty-six. Now, two smoke trails issued from the wing pod of the Sabre, and then two more. Kelly knew his enemy had nine rockets per pod, and assuming he had fired al
l nine from one pod on his first pass, he now had these four to worry about (and then five more still to be fired). Kelly raised the disc a few feet so as to make the approaching rockets pass harmlessly below him, but at that same instant he saw two blurs enter his field of view from the right. One of the Daggers was back on him already, and as he craned his head to watch its two FFAR rockets also pass below him, he saw two of the big GAR missiles leave their trapeze mount below.

  He knew if that Dagger, or the other, was able to get close enough to keep him locked on its radar, then the GAR would explode the instant it reached it closest approach.

  ‘Big sky,’ Kelly thought, ‘but which way to go? Hard left and down … good as any. No, Damn it! Damn it!’ he had guessed wrong. The other Dagger was coming up from below and to his right. Craning his neck again, he saw the smoke trails from the GARs change direction. They were tracking him. They had a lock. And now the Dagger from below was firing: two more smoke trails; two more GARs.

  Kelly watched as best he could as the four missiles closed on him from two different directions.

  “Wait … wait,” he said, marking time, “NOW!” and he pulled back on the stick, thinkin “UP UP UP,” at the same time. He felt the pressure in the cockpit build against him, holding him in place, as the tremendous G-forces from his high speed turn tried to pull the blood from his brain.

  As the missiles reached that particular spot where they were no longer closing on their target (in fact, just starting to move away) the proximity switches in each, activated by the nearest Daggers radar system, was triggered. All four GARs detonated nearly simultaneously. Kelly felt the tremendous thump of the shockwave as the disc was thrown sideways and clear of the explosion. The Dagger pilot, closing from the rear, looked on in horror as he realized that his available turning radius wasn’t going to be enough to avoid flying directly through the flaming cloud of shrapnel. His plane shuddered and belched as the compressor breathed the hot gas and tiny pieces of warhead and missile casing. With a dying whine the mighty Pratt & Whitney J fifty-seven power plant lost RPM and went quiet (the pilot, now flying an out of control ten ton glider).

  Kelly wasted no time watching for a parachute this time. Instead, he righted the tumbling disc. He knew the lone Sabre still had five rockets left in its wing pod, and any number of fifty caliber rounds left. The remaining Dagger had two GARs and probably both bay doors were still full of FFARs. ‘Lucky,’ he thought, these F one-oh-twos weren’t outfitted with guns or canon.

  He pointed the nose skyward again, and not finding the pair in the near vicinity, he leveled the disc and tried to calm himself. With adrenaline flowing at high speed, he couldn’t relax enough to get his long range vision working (it apparently took more concentration than he could apply when he was juiced like this).

  ‘Strange feeling … very strange feeling,’ he thought, as he reached up and felt the back of his head. “What the hell?” Now the feeling was on the back of his hand. Pulling his hand back from behind his head to give it a quick once-over, he realized the feeling was, again, at the back of his head. Spinning quickly, to see what was touching him from behind, a series of bright white flashes grabbed has attention.

  It was the Sabre and the flashes were his fifties. “Christ, I could feel him comin’,” Kelly realized.

  He spun the disc, not bothering to bank or turn. Sliding backwards, he quickly sized up his current situation. The fifties on the Sabre wouldn’t do him too much damage (he had already noticed that the first two spider-web cracks in his windscreen had healed themselves) but its rockets were a different story.

  “Why is he coming so slowly?” Kelly asked himself out loud. “At full throttle, he should have halved the distance between us already.”

  As he sent a short burst from his fifties toward the Sabre Jet, he felt the touch at the back of his head again, “Christ, he’s a decoy … Damn it!” he cursed himself as he spun the disc back around in the direction he was already moving.

  The One-oh-two was supersonic again and well within range of his GARs. The pilot, however, was waiting ‘till he heard the buzz in his headset, telling him that he had a radar lock on the disc (he wanted to make sure that both tracking and the proximity fuses would be operational).

  As Kelly’s vision zoomed in on his adversary, he saw the first GAR drop from the weapons trapeze below the wing. The decoy had worked, Kelly was late. Putting his imaginary cross-hairs on the nose of the missile, he took the only action he had left. He loosed a short burst, then quickly re-aiming; he targeted the second GAR still hanging in the weapons bay, and fired again.

  The seconds seemed to last forever as he held his course, straight at the Dagger. If he pulled up and out of the way, the missile would follow him and move out of the path of his bullets, already on their way.

  As the huge flash filled his field of vision, only then did he yank back on the stick. A quick second later the second GAR, still attached to the Dagger, exploded. Fire and shrapnel tore through the bottom of the wing, and the big plane seemed to stumble sideways. Kelly, turning to watch, looked on dumbfounded as it continued in a straight line, fire pouring from its wing tank. ‘Surely the entire under-belly of the wing and fuselage is gone on the right side,’ he thought. Then, almost in slow motion, the Daggers right wing folded upwards, over and onto the fuselage (as if it were on an aircraft carrier, folding its wing for close order storage). As the right wing separated completely, the left wing, still producing lift, put the plane in a fast spinning barrel roll to the right. Its nose started to slowly arc toward the ground, and once again Kelly watched as the bright flash and rocket exhaust pushed the ejection seat, and the pilot, to safety.

  Now he had the last Sabre Jet to worry about. With a quick survey of the area, he found he was alone. Did he hit the Sabre with that short burst just before he turned to attend the Dagger coming up from behind him? He wasn’t sure, but, with his adrenaline supply easing off (now that the bulk of the battle was over) he found it easier to concentrate on his long range vision.

  “There,” he said, “I see you.”

  Looking to the north he could see the jet, making its way back to its base in Nevada, a thick cloud of black smoke pouring from its tail pipe.

  Kelly breathed a quick sigh of relief, took another moment to calm himself further, then pushed the throttle (in his mind) forward. Faster … faster, and then he felt the slight pull again as the disc tried to slide sideways. It hadn’t completely healed itself, but it was well on the way. He wished he had this much speed just a few minutes earlier.

  ***

  Kelly knew three things for certain now (four if you count that the CIA was really pissed at him): he knew he had to get to Nevada (but he wasn’t sure why); he needed to disable the helicopters in order to protect Matson, Dr. Forest and Cory; and he needed to give the disc a chance to finish healing itself.

  The choppers, he would handle first. He reckoned if he gave the disc time to heal first, the choppers would be in the air, and that would mean a higher body count (he had no wont to kill any more American fighting men, no matter who they worked for).

  As he dived on the loosely formed formation below, he could see the men scrambling to climb inside their rides.

  The choppers were lined up perfectly (their noses all pointed into the prevailing wind) for what he had in mind. As the last of the soldiers running for the safety of their choppers saw that they wouldn’t make it in time, they either took prone positions for firing at him, or they dived for the nearest creosote bush and hid themselves.

  Kelly lined up on the first row, and with an economy of fire power, he unleashed as little as six rounds per chopper, striking the tail rotor assembly, the gear box, or the tail rotor drive shaft on each machine.

  At the end of the row he pulled up and spun the disc one hundred and eighty degrees, and much like an ice skater turning to skate backwards a short distance then digging in his skates to reverse directions, he d
ived again on the next row. The Thompsons were firing now from each open bay that bore on him, but the ACP rounds were merely bouncing off his chrome surface. He handled the third row much the same way, but, unfortunately, the last three choppers in the last row were now in the air.

  While they were still close to the ground he put rounds into two of them. They began wild circling gyrations as they slammed back to the ground with rotor blades bending severely, one fuselage breaking in two behind the crew compartment.

  The third helicopter was up and stable, and running south toward the highway. Kelly gathered the disc and made quick work of circling in front of it and blocking its path. The chopper pilot grabbed collective, laid the stick over and banked hard right. Kelly again assumed a blocking position, then again, and again.

  Finally, the chopper pilot held his ground and turned slowly sideways. Two Thompsons opened up from the bay. Kelly could see the half hearted looks on the soldiers behind the guns (they had been ordered to fire into a hopeless situation). The ACP rounds again bounced off in all direction, making a pretty light show of sparkles and loud ricochets.

  With both ammo belts expended, the soldiers stared, apparently willing to except their fate. Kelly dropped his nose a little and rattled the air with two seconds of fire and lead, the rounds passing just below the choppers step. He then turned himself sideways to the chopper and dipped his wing three times. It was the same signal he had received earlier from the Dagger pilot.

  The chopper pilot, no longer willing to risk the lives of his men in a futile effort, cut power and set the Sikorsky down on a service road, a few miles from the highway. Kelly waited until the soldiers had de-planed, then blew the tail rotor to pieces.

  As the chopper crews gathered their wounded and called muster, those that could, stood and watched as Kelly pointed the disc to the north, raised its nose and shot skyward, barrel rolling until he was out of sight.

  ***

  Once over the first set of foothills, Kelly set the disc down in the north end of the Mohawk Valley. His vision had let him see the small grove of old oak trees growing at the bottom of the western slope and he slid the disc between them. The moon was down far enough now that it no longer cast its light to the bottom of this ancient river bed. Morning twilight would start to lighten the eastern horizon shortly and he knew if he was lucky, the oak trees might hide any reflections the morning sun would bounce off the chrome skin.