And coming in behind the Zinj were aircraft. Friendly-to-the-Zinj aircraft, apparently.
Oh fuck.
* * *
Flying Officer Second-Class Mabruk Idris Djegouni bared his teeth hungrily from behind the controls of his Djinn. He flew with eleven other of the dual-engined turboprops, hastily flown into one of the laagers just a few hours ago, refueled and sent into action nobody had expected this soon.
Big events were happening, he knew, but not a lot more than that. Everyone had known that the Zinj would eventually go all-out, that the infidel resistance would not remain so pathetic forever, as the Zinj pushed further and closer to the homelands of the Confederated Union and those nations too cowardly to even resist at the miserable level the CU had. But everyone Djegouni had always expected it to take longer; there were higher-level clan politics at work here, stuff it was far above Idris’ station in life to think about.
Ahead of him were the vehicles from the cavalry battalion; a sea of them, sixty or seventy, with a few light tanks rumbling in behind them. Ahead of them, clearly visible in the star-spackled and double-mooned night, were the Confederated Union vehicles, fighting vehicles outnumbered five or six to one by their attackers.
They were arraying themselves into a swirling skirmish line, moving to block the attack and defend the supply vehicles. Those supply vehicles, three big long overland trains and a bunch of semi-trailers, were turning, but the turning radius of an overland train was something like a mile to do a half-circle. With one company of twenty or so jeeps moving in to cut off their retreat…
This was going to be a last stand, nothing more, on the enemy’s part.
“Hit the trains,” came the cold voice of squadron commander Hafiz. “Their defenders are just a detail. Remember the mission: cut their supply lines.”
Idris armed rockets and aimed his plane for one of the overland trains.
Kill you. Then your protectors.
Think you can challenge the Zinj? Die, godless infidels.
* * *
“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK!” came convoy commander Hammond’s voice over the general radio channel as the enemy aircraft came in.
“Ditch them,” Captain Bradford snarled from the shotgun seat of his Lancer. “Ditch the cargoes and blow them, get your men and your engines out of there. They’re worth more!”
“Like hell, Bradford. My orders were to get this shit to 97/2. If we can’t do that, we’ll at least get this shit back to Cone Hill for another try.”
You fucking idiot, Bradford thought.
In the other radio seat in back of Bradford’s car, Corporal Jones was going “Mayday mayday, we have incoming air!”
“Hola, India Company,” came a new voice. Jones gave it priority, put on the loudspeakers.
Above them, the attacking aircraft fired rockets into the overland trains. Something blew up in one of them; other explosions ripped up the ground around the convoy and its protectors. Something clanged hard against the Lancer’s armor, a heavy piece of metal thrown by one of the high-explosive blasts.
“Who the hell’s this?” Bradford demanded.
“Skull Six, Icefish Hauraki here. We’re from the Air Force and we’re here to help.”
* * *
“Twelve in all,” came Icefish. “One flight circling high cover; we’ll take them.”
A Flight began to lift; the Vipers had been hugging the dirt at two thousand feet, trying to stay off the enemy radar and keep surprise.
“Sauron, you think you can handle a two to one fight? Sounds like Djinn, not Assads or Murads.”
“Any day of the week,” O’Connor spoke up. “We’re jets, sir; they’re just turboprops. They’re multipurpose; we’re fighters. Two to one is nothing.”
There was laughter across the channel. Some of it – O’Connor was pretty sure one of those guys was ‘Cock-Eye’ Castle – seemed derisive.
“Don’t knock the Djinn until you’ve fought them, Meat,” came Icefish. “You might be able to go faster. Those things can turn on a tin lid.”
The Confederated Union’s last circulating coin, the quarter, was called the ‘tin’ or the ‘tin lid’ for how it looked, although it was only a bit over an inch in diameter.
“Use your speed. They get on your six, hit the burners, shake them off that way. Do not try to duel Djinn, they’ve got a stall speed like nothing,” said Mordar.
“We can take them,” said O’Connor, a little embarassed. Fuck you, Cock-Eye.
“Damn right we can,” said Mordar. “Engage.”
* * *
Captain Steve Bradford watched his digital map with dismay, as reports came in and his RTOs in the back seat updated them. As he updated them, as the cumbersome road trains slowly made their way into a turn. The shortest of the three was three hundred yards long; the longest was four hundred and change. They’d take five minutes to do a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, and right now Bradford wasn’t sure they had one minute.
The first aircraft pass had been ineffective, mostly. One of the road trains’ trunnions – the eight-foot-diameter wheels went in quads, a four-wheeled trunnion on each end of the seventy-foot-long carrier car – had been shot to crap and both axles were dragging, slowing the turn. The armor on others had been pecked, and something was burning on Landcrawler C.
Two of the semis, on the other hand, had been hit and were burning wreckage in the night. Another one was staggering along, something in the back of its trailer burning but the driver not just yet willing to give up.
Bail, idiot. Ditch it and bail with your cab intact!
Because those planes were coming back for another pass.
* * *
Flying Officer Second-Class Mabruk Idris carefully lined up one of the overland trains in his rockets’ sights as he came in again. Below was a firefight, the armored battalion engaging, the convoy and its protectors desperately fighting back—
And blips appeared on his radar. In the air, close and coming in.
The radio net erupted:
“Hostiles!”
“CU air about to engage,” said Squadron-Colonel Hafiz.
Looked to be eight of them, four going high to engage his squadron’s high cover. The CU were outnumbered three to two.
“Focus on the objective,” ordered Idris’ flight commander. “We’ve got them taken care of.”
* * *
Eight of the Djinn had been turning, about to make another pass on the convoy, when the Vipers showed up. The scene below was flashing lights and flares, burning vehicles and explosions. Tracer fire and missiles going in and out; a blazing candyland of red, white, yellow and green flashing back and forth across the rolling battlefield.
It was a bright double-moonlit, starlit night, and the visual accentuators on O’Connor’s plane weren’t truly necessary; he could see everything, look up and see more flashing tracers as the squadron commander and his flight engaged the enemy high cover.
His problem, C Flight’s problem, was that they were outnumbered at dirt level by two to one.
Fuck that, he thought. The thing to do when you were outnumbered was to reduce a few of the other side!
“Break right, Shaker. Watch his back, Meat,” said Mordar.
“Roger,” said O’Connor and Jamison.
Four of the Djinn were turning to react to the Vipers. The other four were opening fire on the convoy, cannon blazing and rockets blasting from wing pods.
“Rip through them,” said Jamison. “Take any shots you can but our job is to protect that damn convoy. We’re going after the ones going after it.”
Missile lock warning lit up. O’Connor banked right and accelerated, the Viper’s engines growling under him as he pushed the throttle forwards.
One of the Zinj planes attacking the convoy was about to be in his sights. He pushed the cannon trigger; sent a burst at where it would be.
Hit! Hit! He clearly saw the shells spark off the Djinn, something on it exploding. The strafing aircraft turn
ed to fight in the air, pushing for height and aiming.
Missile lock, and his threat indicator beeped hard. An oncoming Djinn; O’Connor pulled the stick back and hit the throttle again. The Djinn’s missile fired, blazing a trail through the flame-lit semi-darkness, completely missed him.
Looking for Jamison – ah, there he was, higher up. O’Connor angled his jet back a bit more, going up to five thousand feet—
Missile lock.
Hit the chaff button, no idea where that Zinj was.
Cannon shells flashed past him. A Djinn was above him and on his six!
Well, he knew what to do in that case; throttle up, turning, evading. More cannon-shells flashed past. Another Djinn appeared ahead, turning; O’Connor aimed the plane slightly and opened fire. At least one of the cannon-shells struck. He banked left, aiming at the Djinn, firing more – and then a missile streaked into that plane, blew it apart in a blazing fireball.
“Looks like I just made ace,” Mordar remarked.
I want to make ace! thought O’Connor. But for now, as he turned his plane and opened up on another Djinn, the chaos below irrelevant now to the fight in the air – as his missile-lock indicator lit up again and more fire came through his general vicinity – he had to stay alive!
* * *
Idris turned, going for height, firing at a Viper that raced past him for a moment. The one he’d fired the missile at – ah, there he was, turning around to open fire on someone else.
He hit the rudder and ailerons, slowing his plane and turning tightly. Lined the infidel up in his sights and opened up—
* * *
Fire ripped into O’Connor’s Viper, damage lights blazing and audio warnings shrieking. The plane slowed perceptibly and something scored across the top of his canopy. Fuck.
Zinj – there the bastard was, on his six and slightly above. Firing again. O’Connor hit the throttle and turned upwards, vertical, looping back; the Zinj banked left.
Burning wreckage fell from the sky above them; someone in the high-cover fight had scored a kill. Although those fights were merging now; O’Connor had seen one of the A Flight planes not too far above him.
He looped around the Zinj, hoping for a missile lock, getting one for just a moment and hitting the button.
A Skyfire heatseeking missile lanced out from the right-side wing of his Viper aiming at the Zinj no more than a mile away—
* * *
Missile lock! went the warning indicator and it was so close Idris could see it. He hit the flare button and slammed his throttle forwards, both of his supercharged turboprop engines going to maximum as he banked the Djinn into a hard right turn.
A second or two later the missile blew past, distracted by the flare Idris had released. He kept with his turn, bringing his plane toward the Viper, racing head-on with Idris slightly below. He opened up, both of his wing-mounted Gatling guns sending streams of red tracers at the underside of the Viper as it flashed over him. Sparks showed that something had hit and then the Viper was past him.
No big. Idris turned, wheeling his Djinn around, aiming to get on the Viper’s six – but where was the infidel?
* * *
O’Connor had aimed his plane up, hitting the afterburner. He couldn’t fly in as tight a circle as the Djinn, but he could apply more power and go faster. Now he looped down, firing for a moment at another Djinn that passed in front of him fighting someone else. Where was his one?
Ah. Turning upwards, in the lower right corner of O’Connor’s canopy view. He aimed down, hit the cannon—
* * *
Thirty-millimeter shells pounded into the left wing, its left engine and then the top of the fuselage of Idris’ plane. He didn’t need digital indicators to know it was bad, because his left engine was burning.
Frantically his right hand pounded on the fire extinguisher button, although that was supposed to work automatically. His left hand focused on the stick—
His left-side engine exploded. Feeding power to the right-side, but he’d taken hits on the rudder and the left-wing control planes—
A part of the Djinn’s left wing peeled away, no doubt damaged critically by the engine’s explosion.
Fuck. Fucking infidel.
Idris hit the eject button.
* * *
“GOT HIM!” O’Connor exalted as the Zinj pilot ejected, a parachute opening above him. He took his right hand from the throttle for just a moment to pound a fist in the air, a broad grin on his face.
He could see the Zinj pilot only a few hundred yards away, a dark dot under the parachute. Didn’t want to fly too close, jet wash could mess with the parachute, but he aimed to within a couple of hundred yards, slowing the plane and waggling his wings a couple of times in salute.
“You flew well with what you had,” O’Connor said.
Missile lock came the warning.
This fight wasn’t over. He hit afterburners, banked away from the defeated enemy warrior, went looking for the next Zinj.
* * *
‘Icefish’ Hauraki looked at his radar, filtered the chaos of radio communications for a moment to make sense of what had been happening here. The two fights had merged as the Zinj ground attackers had fought for height; the combat had disintegrated into a blazing twenty-plane furball.
But his Skulls had been more successful than not, so far. From what he could gather six – half – of the Zinj planes were down, for the loss of only one of his own.
Of course, one was too many. He hoped ‘Rumble’ Yoko had ejected successfully and would make it back somehow.
A Zinj crossed his sights about a mile away and he opened up, turning his plane and his cannon to aim the shells into the bastard’s flight path.
And it looked like they were running, exchanging height for eastwards speed and fleeing.
“Chase them?” asked Mordar. As she would. His indicators showed she was already turning—
One of the fleeing Zinj exploded. Somebody – Castle? – on the radio net cheered.
“No. We’ve got something on the ground. Let’s help those cavalry. Dollar, you and Junkie stay high cover in case they come back; Junkie’s wing lead. Sauron, I’m joining C Flight downstairs. Good job everyone, but this ain’t over – there’s a convoy on the ground that needs to make it home.”
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The Black Sheep (A Learning Experience Book 3) Page 43