Skyfire

by Maloney, Mack;

  Deep down inside, he knew this day would come. He just wished it hadn’t come so soon.

  Like a man about to face death, key segments of the last five years of Hunter’s unusual life flashed before his eyes. Five years ago, when the New Order still ruled America and he was the continent’s most hunted man, the difference between life and death had frequently been his aircraft, the beloved F-16. In those turbulent days when America had been fractured into dozens of small countries, kingdoms, and free states, and air pirates ruled the skies, Hunter’s F-16 had been the hottest bird around—no arguments, no debate. When the civil wars against the Circle erupted, his F-16 held sway over the aerial battlefield, challenging any aircraft the enemy could launch. His subsequent record was a perfect 1.000. In the final battles for independence and in the action against the Panama-based Canal Nazis of the Twisted Cross, his airplane, now converted into the “cranked arrow” design of the ultrasophisticated F-16XL, was in the vanguard of the United American air forces.

  Then his airplane was stolen—but not before he had been able to transfer just about one hundred percent of the F-16’s avionics and weapons systems out of the fighter and into his present mode of transport, the souped-up AV-8BE Harrier jumpjet.

  Even in the slower, less maneuverable if highly versatile AV-8, Hunter had established a kind of one-man rule of the skies over the barely united continent, the main deterrent to the rapidly dwindling number of air pirates being that they never knew where Hunter would be next. To them, he always seemed to be in just the right spot at just the precise time to foil their plans or just to pursue and shoot one or more of them down.

  And while the United Americans and the allies boasted a number of hot fighters—notably the squadron of state-of-the-art F-20 Tigersharks employed by the Football City Defense Force—they said that even when Hunter’s Harrier had sat idle in his barn back on Cape Cod, a case could be made that it was still the best plane around simply because of the man who owned it.

  But myths are myths and legends are lies, and luckily Hunter knew the difference. If he was to accept the mantle of “best fighter pilot who ever lived,” then he also could never forget the fact that he was the best because he flew the best.

  But this, too, came down to a question of numbers.

  It had been the first dictate of the now-destroyed hated New Order regime that the NATO forces destroy all of their military equipment, disarming completely in return for world peace. In the frenzy of technocide that followed, thousands of priceless fighter jets were destroyed, along with the vast majority of all of the US Armed Forces weapons materiel.

  As far as he knew, Hunter’s F-16 was the only one to escape.

  But it was more than that. Not only F-16’s had been destroyed per decree of the New Order. Other equally sophisticated, and in some cases, superior jet fighters had been demolished. Air Force F-15’s. Navy and Marine F/A-18’s. Navy F-14’s. But Hunter had always believed—or he had tricked himself to believe—that all of these hotshit fighters had met the fanatical New Order axe, mainly because he hadn’t seen any of them around in the ensuing five years. And with the American continental skies full of antique shitboxes like F-100 Super Sabres and F-101 Voodoos, and maybe an occasional dumptruck like an F-4 Phantom, it had been much easier for him to be labeled “the best.”

  But now, with his mouth going dry and his heart pounding through his flight suit, Hunter knew all that was about to change.

  He recognized the formation right away. It was Navy through and through. Air superiority fighters out front and on the flanks, three rows of fighter/attack craft, a chevron of purely attack planes and missile luggers, and a guard of four air superiority fighters bringing up the rear. Thirty-six planes in all, one deployed air wing of a Navy supercarrier.

  Actually, Hunter wasn’t one to have nightmares. But in his worst bad dream, he confronted a mass of superlative fighters while he was flying an old biplane, armed with only a water pistol, and there wasn’t even any ammo in that.

  He felt thrust into the middle of that disturbing vision right now. For just twelve miles from him and a little over a mile above, he could clearly see eighteen F-14 Tomcats, nine F/A-18 Hornets and nine A-6 Intruders. All of them were fully armed. All of them were heading directly for him.

  The Harrier was not carrying any air-to-air missiles. Its bomb racks had been packed with cluster bombs, and while Hunter was normally a cautious person to a fault, he had decided not to pack on board his usual compliment of two Sidewinder missiles for the attack on the Florida beaches. It had been a correct decision: the mission simply didn’t call for air defense weapons.

  But now he knew what his psyche had been telling him when it put him in the dream carrying a water pistol with no water.

  The jumpjet was armed with an Aden gun pod, featuring two fearsome 30mm cannons. Trouble was, the ammunition he had loaded up on was high-explosive incendiary shells, great for busting tanks and fucking up landing craft, but not so great against other aircraft. Worse still, he was carrying only about a third of a full bag of ammo, the rest having been expended during the air strikes against the Norse.

  But the cannons were all he had. And with a total of 114 shells remaining, he thought darkly that it could be a short fight.

  But fight he knew he must. Before him was ten times as much sophisticated airpower than he had wanted to believe was still left in the world and they were obviously heading toward predetermined attack targets along the Florida coast. United American targets.

  It was up to him to stop them. Or die trying.

  As it turned out, he came upon an ally. Two Boeing E-3 AWAC’s planes had been dispatched from Washington, DC, to Florida at first report of the impending Norse invasion. They had stayed in the air off the coast for two days, jimmy-rigging their tons of air-detection equipment to scan the oceans below, watching and waiting for the Norse subs to show up. When they did, the flying radio barns with the distinctive rotating radar dish attached to their tops, had served as the battle’s main eyes and ears, directing the American defending force to precise locations of enemy landing points and beaming communications back and forth at one decimal shy of the speed of light.

  Now, by providence, one of those AWAC’s was approaching from the north, flying about a mile above and six miles starboard of the naval air strike force. Hunter had to hesitate a beat and wonder what the AWAC’s pilot was doing. The plane was not only unarmed, it was slower than the slowest typical Boeing 707 simply because it spent every airborne moment lugging around a deep dish radar on its back.

  Yet, the AWAC’s pilot must have been aware of the approaching naval strike force. The gadgets on board an E-3 could detect planes half an ocean away. Why would he approach the enemy force in such an exposed way?

  Hunter had no more than a second to devote to this riddle. He had other things to do.

  The flight commander of the AWAC’s plane was a veteran US Air Force pilot named Logan who had reenlisted during the Circle Wars.

  Logan’s team of eighteen technicians situated in the body of his E-3 had spotted the formation of naval fighters and attack planes just moments before Hunter did. The thirty-six bogies had appeared out of the sea and onto the E-3 radar screens at a point about sixty-five miles off the coast of Florida. The AWAC’s planes, their equipment having been pressed into sea-surface duty, understandably took longer than usual to begin tracking the incoming force.

  But when they did, Logan had been quick to sum up the startlingly deteriorating situation.

  His first action had been to flash a warning of the approaching aircraft to Jacksonville, Charleston, and Washington simultaneously. Then he talked over their options with his co-pilot, and in a moment of incredible intuition and courage, decided that they would try a fake on the naval strike force.

  Praying for the Lord to send him some cool real fast, Logan approached to within five miles of the strike force and then turned on to a course parallel to it. Then, as calm as day, he began his radar
dish twirling.

  The pilots in the attack force spotted the AWAC’s plane immediately, but they, too, were mystified at its actions.

  From Logan’s point of view, that was the whole idea.

  He knew that very few things could break up the attack formation of a carrier strike force once it was heading to target. Enemy interceptors were one, enemy SAM’s were another.

  But going after pokey AWAC’s planes would take some discussion among the attackers. Should they ID the plane first before shooting it down? Who would go after the plane, the flanking F-14’s or the rear guard? Should they bother at all?

  Adding weight to this decision-making process was the fact that, in the naval attack pilots’ minds, the AWAC’s plane was undoubtedly sending streams of information on their strike formation’s range, heading, armament to some control point on shore. If this were true, then not only would the element of surprise be lost to the naval strike force, but possibly interceptors would be vectored toward them.

  The naval aircraft pilots had no way of knowing that Logan was not capable of this. There were no interceptor aircraft in the area. But by flying alongside the naval jets, even for a few critical moments, Logan was able to convince them that an opposing force was being vectored to the area. In reality, all Logan was buying was time. Time to warn the string of impromptu air bases opened along the Florida coast to suppress the sea invasion. Time to blare air-raid warnings in the few remaining populated areas.

  Time to stave off—if only temporarily—what would surely be a devastating attack on American territory.

  But unknown to him, Logan’s bold plan also provided some important time for the man known—at least until this day—as the best fighter pilot alive.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  IT WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE to determine if the F-14 pilot and his backseat radar officer ever saw Hunter coming.

  From all indications, they didn’t.

  One moment the Tomcat was flying on flank formation, closing in to his wingman while the strike leader decided what to do about the sudden appearance of the AWAC’s plane. The next moment the powerful carrier-based fighter was plunging into the sea, half its port wing and a third of its port stabilizer sheared off by a surgically precise cannon barrage.

  The wingman of the doomed fighter was closest to the action and all he saw was streak of green and red blur by him to the nine o’clock. The next thing he knew, his flight leader was spiraling down into the ocean.

  A hasty call back to his radar officer brought a startling report. The enemy plane that had just iced their comrade had not been picked up on the Tomcat’s state-of-the-art AWG-9 radar system. Nor had it been indicated on any of the F-14’s supplementary infrared detection or radio intercept systems.

  “It came out of nowhere” was how the back-seater put it.

  As the Tomcat pilot looked back on the downward spiral of smoke and fire that led to the ocean three miles below, he thought a moment and then called the strike leader.

  “Flank Four is down,” he told the overall commander of the strike force. “Enemy action …”

  A full two miles ahead of the flank guard, the strike leader was stunned at the news. He had had no indication that anything was amiss. He broadcast the general “under attack” signal to the rest of the strike force, then called over to Flank Wingman again.

  “Did you ID enemy type?” he asked.

  The flank wingman hesitated briefly before telling the strike leader that no aircraft make was made on the attacker. He stalled another few seconds trying to find the words to tell his leader that the attacker had not been picked up on radar, either.

  “Are you saying it was a stealth fighter?” the strike leader shot back somewhat sarcastically upon hearing the “came-from-nowhere” report.

  “We’re still evaluating” came the wingman’s rather obtuse reply.

  Now the strike leader had two problems. An enemy aircraft that might or might not be a stealth had penetrated his formation, and an AWAC’s plane had used the heavy clouds to his north to play hide-and-seek with him.

  However, he was certain that two radio calls would remedy both situations.

  With the snap of a mic button he ordered the two outer Tomcats on the right-side flanking flight to go after the AWAC’s plane. Then he called back to the left-flank wingman to tell him to break formation and search for the mysterious attacker.

  However, the strike leader soon realized he had a third problem: the left-flank wingman did not reply.

  Logan was prepared the moment he saw the two F-14’s break toward him.

  Even old Air Force jocks knew that Tomcats carried heat-seeking AIM-9 Sidewinders for close-in engagements. And the combination of the AIM-9’s advanced heat-seeking nose and the tons of hot exhaust pouring out of the E-3’s four engines spelled certain disaster for Logan’s plane.

  But the veteran pilot also knew another thing about the Sidewinder: it was almost a strictly shoot-from-behind weapon.

  So now, as the two Tomcats maneuvered for a spot up and behind the Logan’s AWAC’s, he went into a maneuver of his own. Calling back to his eighteen-man crew to strap down tight and hang on, Logan booted the E-3’s throttles up to max and then put the ship into an almost impossible turn.

  A few seconds later, the huge E-3 was heading straight for the Tomcats.

  The lead ’Cat fired a missile anyway, possibly more out of surprise than anything else. Proving Logan’s theory to a frightening limit, the AIM-9L went up and over the E-3, its heat-seeker never locking onto anything hot enough to hit.

  The Tomcats had broken away by this time, not in any mood to play chicken with the hulking converted airliner. Pulling into a pair of identical 5-g turns, the ’Cats once again began jockeying for a rear position on Logan’s tail. Once again, the crafty pilot banked his own ship in a nearly impossible turn and wound up—more or less—heading once again for the F-14’s.

  Two more Sidewinders were fired at him, but again, the heat-seekers fell wanting and they quickly went astray.

  But twice fooled was enough for the F-14 pilots. They had already spent too much time and valuable fuel pursuing the big plane, not to mention three wasted Sidewinders.

  After a brief radio conversation, the two ’Cat jocks armed their big nose-mounted six-barrel rotary 20mm M61 Vulcan cannons.

  Meanwhile, the strike leader had given up trying to contact his missing left-flank wingman. Leaving control of the strike force in the hands of his second in command, the strike leader jerked his Tomcat into a full inverted climb, looped over, and headed back to the left-flank wingman’s last position, his radar officer reminding him that they were about six minutes away from the coastline.

  Arriving at the spot within ten seconds, the strike leader could still see indications of two spiral smoke clouds, one “fresher” than the other, leading down into the sea. He put the big ’Cat into a gut-wrenching dive, pulling up barely three hundred feet above the surface of the water. Two seconds later, he was streaking over the wreckage of the first F-14 to get hit. A few seconds after that, he spotted the wreckage of the left-flank wingman. There were no signs of survivors.

  The first cannon barrage from the lead F-14 tore into Logan’s right wing.

  Firing from a position almost directly above the AWAC’s plane, the ’Cat pilot had poured it on for about three seconds, an eternity for a fighter pilot to have his finger on the trigger. The resulting fusillade tore up the E-3’s inboard engine and sprung numerous leaks in the wing-stored fuel tanks. Yet nothing absolutely critical had been hit.

  The second ’Cat’s shooting proved little better. A brief burst, fired way too early, resulted in only a few perforations on the E-3’s left wingtip. Now, as the two Cats angrily regrouped for a second run, Logan decided to play out his last card.

  Hulking and antique though it was, the E-3 Boeing-707-in-disguise was still an amazing aircraft. It was the first big airplane made to handle like a smaller one. Airline pilots quickly grew to love
it for its performance and its survivability. In fact, during its passenger-carrying days, some planes had gone through catastrophic malfunctions and still were able to fly on a single engine safely.

  But there was one more secret the Boeing aircraft possessed.

  Sensing the ’Cats were now back in a firing position, Logan once again alerted his now-terrified crew to hang tight.

  Then, with the cool of a fighter jock, he ignored the first stream of cannon shells rocketing by his window and put the big airplane into a roll.

  The second in command of the carrier Strike Force couldn’t believe his eyes.

  He’d been watching the curious engagement between the pair of F-14’s and the E-3, on one hand silently swearing at the two fighter pilots to hurry up and finish the job, while on the other feeling grudging respect for the E-3 pilot for his evading tactics.

  But when the second in command saw the F-14’s line up for their second cannon run, he knew the E-3 was as good as dead. So it was with astonishment that he watched the big airplane go into a complete 360-degree roll.

  The sight of the E-3 turning completely over looked startling and unreal, so much so, the Strike Force second in command felt a weird chill run through him. It was as if he was seeing it all in a dream. The laws of gravity just didn’t support such a maneuver.

  But turn over the big plane did, completely confusing the attacking pilots for a fourth time and once again postponing impending doom.

  The second in command could barely key his radio mic. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but he was compelled to call back to the strike leader and report E-3’s nightmarish maneuver.

  The strike leader never replied.

  Hunter had seen the E-3 roll off in the distance, and even though he had heard the rumors that the old Boeings were capable of such a maneuver, he never believed it until that very moment.