Lightship

by Stephan Besik

  “Med Task Group, this is VAW flight on Operation Long Shot. Mission accomplished. Repeat, mission accomplished. UAVs on recall.”

  “VAW, this is Med Task Group. Congratulations. Awaiting your arrival.”

  Just then alarms rang at Enzo’s and Jaime’s station. Charlene’s voice interrupted his signoff.

  “Em, Raq has SAMs coming up from Anapa. Looks like they have the right general direction. If they guess the right altitude they might get lucky and pick something up. Raq says it looks like eight SAMs rising.”

  “Shit. Controllers, take over manual. Char, take yours northeast and loop back, we’ll go southwest. Anyone with Dragonfires on board, be prepared to drop them. If you’re not under threat, set your Dragons to backtrace the SAMs and let them do some damage. Descend to fifty thousand and crank up the speed. If a SAM gets a lock on your drone, turn, fire your AIMs and then get out. Any of our Panthers takes a hit, send self-destruct and write it off.

  “Char, we’ve kicked the hornet’s nest. Tell Raq to watch for air. We’ve just killed their CO and they might still have fighters available. If she sees anything I’m recalling the relays and we’ll head for home.”

  “Aye aye. Raq’s on it.”

  Jaime was watching the tracks of the upcoming SAMs. “Em, looks like all of the SAMs are following our boys. Char’s move north lost them.”

  Just then Enzo yelled, “They’ve got a lock on my drone! Dropping counters! Down and around!” Enzo threw in some body english as he took the drone into a tight descending turn. With some luck the missiles would see the drone’s countermeasures and lose his drone. If not, perhaps there would be enough time to lock and fire his AIMs back into the cluster of missiles rising from below.

  “Jaime, dive and take yours due west. Fast as she can go! No counters unless you get a lock!”

  “Got it, Em. Executing now!”

  “Looks like a couple are lost. Still got a lock, though. Firing AIMs back into the pack!”

  Charlene’s voice came on over the comm. “We might be home free. Nothing following. We’re backtracking the SAMs and will launch Dragons. Then we’ll take a long turn and head back west.”

  “Sounds good. Enzo’s in trouble and could use some help. They got a lock on his drone.”

  Enzo called out, “Two hits on SAMs, but still got a lock and some are still closing. Trying a trick.”

  Enzo watched the drone’s sensor feed, following the rising missiles. He turned off the Panther’s engine and put it into a controlled glide away from the likely trajectory of the enemy weapons. It was the best he could do; the Panthers weren’t particularly fast and he didn’t have much choice of maneuvers. His idea was to drop away from the rising missiles, then turn back roughly toward their original trajectories. Between the vanished infrared signature and the small detection profile of the UAV he thought he would be able to shake the flight of missiles coming up. His hope was that they would lose the lock or simply not be able to make the complete U-turn to follow the drone down. Once the missiles got confused, he would turn the engine back on and head back toward home very slowly, to keep the performance profile of the stealthy aircraft at a minimum. Everything would be okay if the ground sensors lost track of his bird and there were no additional missiles rising from the ground that might detect the Panther that was still above them. With luck Charlene’s Dragons would take out the radars and leave the SAM controllers blind.

  “Looks like everyone’s after Enzo’s bird,” said Jaime. “Nothing behind me, at least nothing my bird is picking up. Continuing on toward the location of the relay birds.”

  “Okay,” replied Emmett. “Put your drone into a slow climb and get back to original altitude. Use a random zig zag and keep a 3-D distance away from the relay drones when you get there. We don’t want anything following your drone back to them or us.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  Enzo watched his detection systems and almost started to relax. Then his alarms went off again. It looked like another SAM battery had just launched.

  “Shit. More coming up and I’m out of counters except for a couple of AIMs. At current altitude they’re going to come mighty close to my bird.” He restarted the engine, picked up speed and started to jink his route to try to shake the next flight of SAMs.

  He shook his head and turned toward Emmett for a second. “I think my bird’s out of luck, Em. They’re going to come close and I haven’t got enough on board to take more than a couple of them out.”

  “Do the best you can. The backtracking Dragons might hit yet. If you lose her, you lose her. If all we lose on this damn deal is one UAV, we should all be plenty happy.”

  Enzo armed his last AIMs and prepared for the worst. His only hope was that he could destroy a couple of the upcoming weapons and the explosions would confuse or destroy the others in the flight. There was a chance, but not a good one.

  He watched the dots closing on the UAV’s sensor feed. The system alarm announced two locks from four rising missiles. It was clear from the closing range that they had picked up Enzo’s drone. In desperation he turned the UAV toward the SAMs and fired his last two air-to-air missiles. He hoped it would be enough.

  “Fired my last AIMs. That bird’s going to have to be mighty lucky to get through this.”

  He tried to keep an eye on his display of the E7’s sensor systems as well as on the feed from the drone. One of the SAMs vanished from the screen, but the other AIM must have missed. Three out of the four SAMs in the second group were still climbing to meet his drone.

  Enzo tried the engine stop again, this time putting the Panther into a steeper dive to try to get behind the second flight of missiles. It wasn’t working. The remaining missiles were changing course and still rising toward his aircraft. Somehow at least one of the enemy rockets had a lock on his drone; maybe the ground control people had figured out how he had lost the first flight and were remotely flying their weapons the way he was doing with his drone. He restarted the Panther’s engine and turned away from the missiles while he kept the drone in a steep dive. There was still a faint hope that he could get the drone below the rising missiles and make them do a hard course change.

  It didn’t work. Two of the missiles were tracking his bird and were still low enough to make course changes to keep it in sight, perhaps all the way to the ground. He did his best to jink his bird, but with two missiles still on his tail he wasn’t fooling anyone.

  Enzo kept the drone moving and diving but the range was closing quickly. He was running at thirty thousand feet when the end came. The signal from his Panther blacked out and the E7’s sensors lost track of the missiles and his drone.

  He swore in frustration. For a moment or two no one said anything. No one liked losing.

  Char came on the ship-to-ship. “We just got their radars. They shouldn’t be able to send anything more up.”

  Enzo grumped, “They took too many shots. I didn’t have enough to take out their second round.”

  Emmett replied, “You did your best. It was a loss, but we haven’t lost any people and you and Char just sucked up a lot of enemy hardware. We got our job done out here, too. The rest of our group has gotten away and are headed home. Like I said before, if all we lose is one drone on this mission we should all be happy as hell. Now let’s get back to business and get the rest back home.”

  Just then Charlene interrupted. “Em, Raq says we’ve got aircraft rising over southern Russia. She thinks they were scrambled after our hit but they don’t seem to be heading toward any of our aircraft. They’re closest to the relay drones, but she doesn’t think any of our planes have actually been sighted.”

  “Damn. How many?”

  “Right now, just two. It still looks like the Russians are low on fuel or aircraft or both. Otherwise scrambling just two aircraft doesn’t make sense. Either that or we could have more company. Flying out of someplace north of Odessa?”

  This was bad.

  Emmett had a decision to make. If he rec
alled the relays now they would lose contact with the assault drones. The three Panthers coming back would have to fly back on their own and would be sitting ducks if the Russians spotted them. While the Panthers were very maneuverable and pretty smart there was no way they could beat a pilot on their own. They were slow and wouldn’t be able to outrun or outthink piloted pursuit. If he left the relays in place they might be spotted. If that happened he could lose not only the relays but the other returning drones as well.

  He decided to gamble. He thought his people could put up a reasonably good fight if the relays were spotted; the assault drones were too valuable to cut them loose without a fight. More UAV losses would be serious over the long run. Once the drones were gone there wouldn’t be any more. Unless there was a possible threat to his E7s he would keep everything in place long enough to maintain control of the returning assault ships. Valuable as the Panthers were, they weren’t worth a risk to his people.

  “Char, I’m going to leave the relays in place until our birds get closer. Let’s see if we can get the returning birds back without a fight. If we can’t, though, I want to be ready. Have your drones got enough fuel to waste some? How about you Jaime? Enough fuel to push it?”

  Jaime answered first. “Yeah, mine’s OK. I think we could do some flying with what I’ve got left.”

  Charlene came back a few seconds later. “We’re a little tight from the east bound turn. We still have some surplus though. What do you have in mind?”

  “So far they’ve only seen our birds at altitude. As far as we know the only people who actually got a bead on us were the guys in the radar station that we wiped out. I’m thinking we change tactics, drop down to the deck and get them back to where we don’t need the relays as quick as we can.”

  “I can do that, sir,” replied Jaime. “Just give the word.”

  “I’m not sure we’ve got enough left, Em.” Charlene sounded like she was pretty pessimistic. “We can probably speed up, but down on the deck we’re going to use up more fuel. We’ll be running on fumes when we get back to the ship. And maybe not that.”

  “Okay. Jaime, take yours down to the deck, slow and easy. Char, keep yours at altitude and add as much speed as you can. Do it smooth and slow; try not to do anything that will attract attention. The sooner your birds are in range to talk to us directly, the sooner I can get the relays safe. Let’s do it now, everyone. And let’s make it direct flight back. No maneuvers unless we have no choice. Smooth and easy; no sudden changes.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Got it, Em. Both of our birds staying at altitude and increasing speed.”

  He waited for a moment and thought about his other problem- the possibility that the enemy planes would spot and attack the relay drones. If that happened he had to know whether to release the assault planes to make all or most of their way home on their own. He needed a plan if he wanted the drones to fight, too.

  “How much time have we got if the fighters find our relays, Char?”

  “If they make contact now, about ten more minutes. One hundred fifty miles out at twelve hundred knots, northeast of the relays. They’ll be about twenty miles east of the relays as they cross the middle of the Sea. Doesn’t give us much time to fight or fly if they turn west, but Raq says she really doesn’t think they’ve got our relays. They look like they’re trying an intercept on our attack team, getting between them and home. They might be clueless at the moment, hoping to pick up our birds on the way out.”

  “Your guys haven’t used any of their AIMs, right?”

  “Yep. Still fully loaded.”

  “Any indication Jaime has a problem?”

  It took a second for Charlene to check with Raquel. Emmett wasn’t happy about that. He needed faster feedback. He thought about Enzo sitting around with nothing to do.

  Jaime piped in. “I think I’m good, sir. No sign of anything low.”

  Charlene added, “Raq says he looks good, Em. You made a good move there; too bad we couldn’t follow. Nothing in the water that might spot him and no air traffic other than the two we’ve already got.”

  Emmett thought about his situation. He really wanted to get all of his aircraft back if possible. It wasn’t worth the fight to take down one or two enemies if it cost him another UAV. On the other hand, he had these two guys heavily outnumbered. Two Panthers incoming with full AIM loads plus the two relays, who were carrying full loads of air-to-air. If the Russian planes didn’t spot Char’s UAVs in another couple of minutes they would be close enough for him to use her ships to attack from the rear. He would have four aircraft to their two, as well as having forces both behind and in front of them. If they had to fight, his odds looked good.

  “Okay, Char, keep them coming, as quiet as possible. A few more minutes and we’ll have these guys bracketed, but I’d rather not trade any of our birds for one or two of them. Last resort will be to hit them from both sides if it looks like they’re actually after our returning birds.”

  He thought about Enzo again. He was actually his best attack guy. He had to get someone on the relay birds who was good with the missiles.

  “Char, I need faster turnaround on your threat intel. Can you patch Raquel in to me direct? One other thing- I’m going to have Enzo take over control of the relays. That way we’re ready to attack from the east if we have to.”

  “Got it, Em. Sounds like a plan.”

  It took a few seconds, and then Char came back. “Raq’s on the line, Emmett.”

  “Hello, Raquel. How are we doing?”

  “So far, so good, sir. The fighters are leveling off and turning at about the altitude where Enzo lost the bird. It still looks like they are trying to intercept our returning birds. They’re turning further to the southeast, so they are moving away from the relays. I think they’re going to circle once they are up here to see what they can see. If we keep the Panthers at 60 thousand on their current course they’ll fly above and to the north of the fighters.”

  “Good. I’ve got Enzo moving in to take over the relays manually and fight them if the fighters look like they’ve made contact with any of our Panthers. Keep me apprised. Status reports every two minutes. Give me an alert immediately if those guys find an objective.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  Everyone went quiet as they waited to see what the Russian fighters would do. Emmett thought his odds were good that he could bring the rest of his UAVs back. Char’s drones wouldn’t be easy to spot given their relatively small size, visual camouflage and tiny radar footprint. And the Russians would probably focus on the direct line between Anapa and the west coast of Bulgaria. With the altitude difference and the northerly return route they were taking after their northeast-bound dodge, there was a good chance Char’s Panthers wouldn’t be spotted. As for Jaime, it was looking like his bird was pretty close to home free.

  Raquel came on the line. “The Russians are leveled off and doing a wide circle, sir. They’ve crossed the center of the Sea. They are south of our drones and look to be making a circle back north. Looks like they think our birds are coming across from Anapa nearly due west.”

  “Okay. Char, keep ‘em quiet and bring them home.”

  “Got it, Em. Easy does it.”

  “Enzo, Char’s birds are almost in range of the relays. If they get past the Russians, I’ll be issuing the recall. Keep your eyes open, though. If the Russians cross the north coast the fighters will come pretty close to our Panthers. You may have to help if the Russians get lucky and spot our planes.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ve picked them up based on coordinates from Raquel. My birds should be able to help if they’re needed.”

  The wait went on a little longer. For the American crews, the two-minute status reports from Raquel seemed to be an hour apart.

  Raquel came on the line again. “Sir, they still seem to be searching. Still below us, I mean our drones. The fighters are about ten miles further east on their circle, about thirty miles total from our relays. Our UAVs
are on top of them and fifty miles north right about now. At their current speed our birds will be passing the relays in about two minutes, heading west and a little south to the coast. Jaime is getting close to the relays. His bird will be passing the relays shortly, about ten miles south of them at five hundred feet.”

  “How close are the Russians going to get to the relays?”

  “Looks like about ten miles if they complete their circle. It might be pretty tight, sir. Ten miles and ten thousand feet to the relays, below and north. About the same distance as our drones pass to the north of them.”

  “Got it.” Emmett turned toward Enzo. “It’s going to be close. They could spot your birds or Char’s. Only ten miles and ten thousand feet on closest approach.

  “Yessir. I’ve got them if we need to fire.”

  Raquel’s next status report was to be expected. No alert, but everything in the space to the north and east of the relay drones getting closer together. Not yet a cause for alarm, but the E-7 crews were watching the potential battle space closely.

  Then something happened. “Uh oh.”

  Char’s voice came on the comms. “Raq, what’s up?”

  “The fighters have changed course and are heading north and climbing. I think they’ve spotted our two birds. Probably had help from ground control. Our birds have been over Russian territory for quite a while now.”

  Charlene swore. “Em, what do you want us to do?”

  Emmet thought for just a second. “Keep on your current course but be prepared to deploy countermeasures and evade. I think we’re going to give them a surprise.”

  Emmett turned to Enzo. “Enzo, you’ve got these guys, right? Take the backup relay northeast and hit them from the flank. See if you can get a good shot before they fire at Char’s birds.”

  Enzo smiled enthusiastically. “Yessir. Northeast and give them a pop.”