Typhoon Season c-14

by Keith Douglass

  But before Bird Dog could hit the trigger, Catwoman said, “Uh, Birdy-boy, you might want to remember how close we are to one of the most populous city in the world.”

  Bird Dog started to make a sharp retort, then realized what she was saying: The Phoenix had a range of over one hundred miles, and if it missed its target, it would simply fly until it ran out of fuel… or struck something else. Like a skyscraper. At this angle, that was likely.

  “Oh, hell,” Bird Dog said. He considered the range. “Okay, Sparrows.” Although the current distance was at the outer limit for the Sparrow, at least the missile wouldn’t free-fly into Hong Kong if it got dodged.

  He had two Sparrows on his wings. He assigned one of them a target blip, then triggered it off and felt the pleasant upward bump as their weight left the Tomcat. He watched the Sparrow depart on a strand of white smoke, and felt, as always, a strange sense of empathetic fear for the pilots on the other end. Missiles moved so quickly, they were like a bad dream. Especially if they were sniffing for you.

  “Come on, baby,” he said. “Come on…”

  Flanker 67

  Tai heard the warning alarm in his helmet, and saw the return image of the incoming missile on his Heads-Up Display. Cursed. Took his focus off the battle raging below, and turned it to the radar. Waited. Waited…

  He released a bundle of chaff and juked hard to one side without breaking out of his dive. The chaff expanded in the air behind him, creating a metallic cloud designed to fool radar signals. An instant later, the shock wave of an explosion rocked his plane. The missile had taken the bait.

  “Status?” he cried over tactical. All three of Sukhois reported back. Tai smiled.

  So far, the score was one kill for the PLA fighters, and zero for the Americans. That was about to change — but not in the Americans’ favor. As Tai’s plane shot through the spot where sunset turned to twilight, he was at last able to visually select a target from the possibilities below.

  Tomcat 302

  As Lobo bottomed out of her dive, she pulled the stick back and then sideways again, once more reversing both the Tomcat’s direction and its orientation, so now she was following the top curve of an outside loop back toward the bogey. If what she’d pictured in her head was accurate, the Flanker should now be above and in front of her, still climbing, clawing for precious altitude.

  And so it was. Better still, the reach between them was just about broad enough to —

  “Clear,” Handyman said.

  “Fox three!” Lobo triggered a Sidewinder.

  Given enough room, a Sidewinder would attain supersonic velocity in a matter of seconds. In this case, it didn’t have the chance. Nor did the Flanker. Lobo saw a flare pop out of the enemy fighter and start to ignite as a lure to the Sidewinder’s infrared seeker head, but the move was much too late.

  “Splash one!” Handyman cried as the Flanker turned into a fireball with wings. A moment later the wings were alone, fluttering down toward the water like falling leaves, flipping this way and that, preceded by a shower of miscellaneous smoking debris.

  “Oooh,” Handyman said, “that has got to hurt.”

  “Where the hell is my wingman?” Lobo said.

  Tomcat 306

  “Come on, Rock, shake him,” Two Tone said from the backseat.

  Hot Rock didn’t bother telling him to shut up. If he did that, it would look like he had time to chat.

  The Flanker pilot was good, he’d give him that. No sooner had Hot Rock taken out the helo than the Chinese plane was dropping in on his tail, cannon blazing. Ever since, the Flanker had been right there, trying to get a clean shot. An occasional burst ripped past, tracers stitching the air first on one side, then the other. Not one hit, though.

  The Chinese pilot was good, but Hot Rock was better. He felt it instantly in his heart, and in the seat of his pants. He knew he could take this guy. He could get on his tail and take him whenever he wanted.

  It would be the first real kill for Hot Rock Stone. You couldn’t count the helo, that sitting duck.

  And yet… what if he missed, after all? What if he reversed positions on the Flanker, took the offensive and then, for whatever reason, blew it? Everyone would know. Everyone would know that Hot Rock wasn’t good enough.

  This way, only he knew.

  “We got all these weapons here,” Two Tone growled, “and no one to shoot them at.”

  Again Hot Rock said nothing. He was giving the Flanker pilot all he could handle just keeping within killing range. Not quite throwing the Chinese plane, but not allowing the Flanker a clear shot, either. Hot Rock knew he could do this all day long, or at least until he ran out of fuel. Or the Flanker did. Or the fighting ended and they could all go home.

  “Heads up, boy,” Two Tone said. “Three bogeys straight up; one’s picked us out to bounce.”

  Hot Rock glanced up, and saw three flashes of light that winked out abruptly at the place where sunlight gave way to shadow.

  “Sparrows,” Two Tone said. “They’ll go where we want no matter what direction they start out in.”

  “Can’t keep radar lock like this,” Hot Rock grunted, half-rolling to the right, then abruptly left again.

  “Never mind; bogey’s too close now, anyway,” Two Tone snapped. “Hotshot, I suggest you get us off the killing floor here.”

  Flanker 67

  Too late, Tai thought in fury as he watched one of the SU- 27s erupt into flame. The fire ignited Tai’s heart as well, but he coldly shifted his attention to his target: the Tomcat that had fired the killing missile. He snapped directions over the radio, and he and his wingman sheered off and headed in for the kill.

  Tomcat 302

  “Lobo, my love,” Handyman said, “we got two Flankers who love the looks of your ass — not that I blame them.”

  “It’s our ass, sweetheart,” Lobo said, watching the radar, then looking over her shoulder and pulling the Tomcat into a hard climb. She spared a glance at the fuel indicator as well. Still okay, although that wouldn’t last long if she didn’t get off the afterburners.

  “They got lock,” Handyman said, businesslike, although the alarm in Lobo’s helmet told her all she needed to know.

  “Chaff,” she said, and felt the small bump as the foil bounced out of the Tomcat, hopefully to confuse the seeker head on the incoming missile. To increase the odds of that happening, Lobo changed the trajectory of her climb as well. A moment later, she felt the violent jolt of the shock wave coming after her.

  “Nice job, but they’re closing,” Handyman said. “Good position, too.”

  Meaning they were diving in on the Tomcat. “I don’t give a damn, I’m not going fishing anymore,” Lobo snarled.

  “Okay by me.”

  “Where the hell is my wingman?”

  Hot Rock’s voice came over the radio, calm as the surface of the South China Sea. “I’m just a little busy at the moment, ma’am.”

  Tomcat 306

  Two Chinese fighters above him and on his tail, water less than a thousand feet below, no place to go, nowhere to run.

  This was great.

  They couldn’t get him. They scissored him, they bounced him, they tried to herd him into a pincher. He slipped out of everything. Wing-sweep control set to manual, he took precise command of his airframe, adjusting speed and balance with exquisite finesse. Cannon shells whipped all around him, but none touched.

  The only problem, the only niggling uncertainty, came from the knowledge that his lead, Lobo, was also confronting multiple bogeys. She was a terrific pilot, of course, but she was also trying to get in a kill of her own. Generations of experience, not to mention the instructors in flight school, taught that the best defense was a good offense. Lobo flew that way.

  And she expected her wingman to help, if he could.

  But I can’t, he thought. I’m overloaded with bogeys, anybody can see that. I can’t help her at all.

  Hornet 108

  “Thor, break left,” a voi
ce snapped over the headset.

  Thor didn’t even think about it. He slammed the aircraft into a hard left turn. A moment later, he glimpsed a fierce explosion from the corner of his eye.

  “Splash one Flanker,” Bird Dog said coldly. “You okay for the other, Thor?”

  Thor looked back at the Flanker still hanging onto his ass. It was the same plane that had taken Reedy out. “You bet I am,” he said.

  Tomcat 304

  Bird Dog turned his attention away from Thor and focused it on the ACM farther down. He knew that his taking a Sparrow shot at one of the bogeys harassing Thor had been chancy from five miles out, but it had been the only assistance he could render from that distance. Fortunately the missile had functioned exactly as intended, and so had Thor.

  Now for the real thing.

  Bird Dog switched his attention to the low-altitude dogfights, and his weapons selector to “guns.”

  Tomcat 302

  Lobo kept trying to climb out, but the Flankers were faster than she was in the vertical mode. When flying one-against-two, the main goal of any fighter pilot was to keep both bogeys on the same side of your plane. To never get caught in the middle.

  Easier said than done.

  The intel was right about that, dammit. In fact, as she recalled, an SU-30 — cousin to the bogeys on her tail — had been the first jet aircraft to break the sound barrier in a vertical climb.

  Still, she found this situation unbelievable. She was used to having the upper hand in any altitude battle; although the Tomcat wasn’t king of the sky in an angles fight, it had always ruled in the vertical plane. Always.

  Until now.

  Unfortunately, in the horizontal field things were even worse. The Flankers really were as nimble as Falcons. She had all she could do to keep them from boxing her in.

  Looking to the left, she saw Hot Rock below her level, a pair of Flankers trying to get position on him. Still no help there.

  After what happened the last time she was shot down, Lobo hadn’t been sure she’d be able to strap a Tomcat on again, far less fight. Time and hard work had put that fear to rest. In fact, she’d once again become convinced that she was invulnerable, too damned hot a pilot to be shot out of the sky again, ever.

  Now she was beginning to wonder if that was true.

  Flanker 67

  Tai heard the radar-lock alarm in his helmet, but ignored it. Just one second more. One second more and his targeting pipper would close on the American jet. Just —

  There was a terrific concussion, the rear of his plane leaping up, making him fight the stick. Hit? Had he been hit? Pivoting his head wildly, he saw the fireball behind him, and the F-14 behind that, and knew his wingman had been destroyed. The Tomcat was stooping on him at tremendous speed, taking full advantage of gravity and momentum.

  From hunter to hunted in half a second. Tai jerked the stick left, then hard right, rolling out of the line of fire as tracers flickered past him, deceptively beautiful in the twilight.

  Tomcat 302

  “It’s Bird Dog!” Handyman cried. “He splashed one of our bogeys, Lobo!”

  “Peachy,” Lobo said, hearing the anger in her voice and wondering at it. So someone had saved her butt, and that someone happened to be the ever-cocky Bird Dog. Was she so petty she’d begrudge him her thanks? Hell, her eternal gratitude?

  Looking over her shoulder, she saw that the second Flanker that had been pursuing her was now busy evading Bird Dog. Good luck to him.

  She turned her attention to her wingman, who had problems of his own.

  Hornet 108

  “Got you,” Thor said as his targeting pip centered between the Flanker’s vertical stabilizers. He triggered the cannon, and watched the metal spine of the Flanker split open as if torn by a can opener. Flames and debris gouted from the wound, and Thor banked away hard to avoid sucking any of it into his engines. At the same time, he saw the Flanker’s ejection seat shoot up.

  “Long way down, bozo,” Thor said, and turned his own jet in that direction. Below, he could see the flicker and flash of jet exhausts against the dark water. Then he glanced at his fuel indicator, and cursed. He had no juice for more fighting. Not even close. Hell, he’d be lucky to reach the Texaco in time to keep from ditching the plane.

  He radioed Homeplate, and was reassured by one bit of news: Four more good guys were bustering in, due in as many minutes.

  “Godspeed,” he said to the fires below, and turned his tail to the setting sun.

  Tomcat 304

  The Flanker was a terrific airplane, no doubt about it. But it was dead meat, and Bird Dog Robinson was going to be the butcher. He had the speed, the trajectory, the weapons, and the experience. The Flanker was racing away at low altitude, undoubtedly fearing to take advantage of a marginal speed advantage for fear of simply moving out of gun range and into the grasp of a Sidewinder. Out of the frying pan, so to speak.

  Of course, Bird Dog was more than happy to use the cannon on this guy. That would be just fine, and he matched the Flanker swoop for swoop, not allowing him to pop up, not allowing him to jink free. Cut left. Bird Dog followed. Cut right. Bird dog moved the stick that direction…

  … and for once, his Tomcat didn’t turn. No, it turned, but much too slowly. The Flanker vanished off the targeting ring.

  What the hell?

  A sense of foreboding drenched Bird Dog like ice water. Even as he pulled back to regain altitude, he twitched the stick to the left and got quick response. Back to the right. Very slowly, the plane started to roll in that direction.

  “Catwoman?” he said over ICS. “We got systems trouble here or what?”

  There was a brief pause, then a cool-voiced response: “Losing hydraulics in the left wing, Bird Dog. Down to forty percent, and falling.”

  “Why?”

  “How the hell would I know? Maybe the warranty ran out.”

  Oh, Christ, mechanical failure. If the plane weren’t fly-by-wire, if the controls were linked directly to the flying surfaces, right now the left rudder pedal would be flapping like the tongue of an untied shoe.

  “By the way,” Catwoman said, “that Flanker? I think he’s in love with us, because he’s coming back for more.”

  Flanker 67

  Tai didn’t bother wondering why the American had failed to press his earlier advantage to its conclusion. All that mattered was he’d made a mistake, and it would be his last.

  Pulling the SU-37 up and around as hard as he could, squeezing his belly muscles against brown-out, Tai used the Sukhoi’s swiveling exhausts to full advantage. In an instant he was on the F-14’s tail, bringing his cannon to bear.

  The Tomcat cut left. Tai cut left. The Tomcat straightened slightly, then cut left again. Tai followed it, patiently trying to join the enemy plane and the gun pipper in the firing ring on his HUD.

  Again, the Tomcat cut left; he was practically in a spiraling dive now. No wonder the American had bounced Tai and his wingman from high altitude. Take away that advantage and the man was not much of a pilot. He just kept turning left, turning left, turning left….

  Turning into the sights of a better pilot flying a better aircraft.

  Tomcat 304

  “We got —!” Catwoman’s voice cut off as the Tomcat began to shake and bounce. A strange whistling roar filled the cockpit, and the few loose parts of Bird Dog’s flight suit began to flap wildly. Bird Dog was filled with fury. Getting taken out by a missile was bad enough, but he wasn’t going to go down to guns. No way was he going to be shot down like some World War One-era biplane pilot; give some PRC hotshot bragging rights for years to come. No way.

  He pulled the shuddering Tomcat even farther to the left, skating it on the edge of a spin from which he knew he would never recover, not without right rudder.

  “Catwoman?” he cried over ICS. “Catwoman —?”

  Flanker 67

  Tai’s glee turned to shock when he saw a piece of the Tomcat, a service panel or chunk of wing, come hurtlin
g back at him. It looked as big as a hangar door, and if it got sucked into the greedy intake of one of his AL-35s…

  He broke off hard, cursing the fates, yet certain that it didn’t matter, the Tomcat was dead anyway….

  Tomcat 302

  Lobo was ten seconds from closing on Hot Rock and his pursuers when she glanced over her shoulder and saw something stunning: Somehow, in only the last half minute, circumstances there had reversed themselves. The bogey was hurtling past Bird Dog’s F-14, which was itself dropping in a messy half turn, its aspect loose and wobbly. Pieces of metal were floating up off it.

  “Shit!” Lobo cried, making her decision instantly. Hot Rock was still being hunted by the other two bogeys, but at least his goddamned plane was intact. She knew where her services were required.

  Yanking her Tomcat into a hard left turn, she reversed direction and started to climb out. To her relief, Bird Dog’s plane had steadied and was now flying along straight and level, about five hundred feet above her. To her left, the Flanker was also turning, but for some reason he didn’t appear to be in much of a hurry. Perhaps his plane was also damaged.

  “Bird Dog!” she cried over the radio. “You okay?”

  “Hydraulic damage; can’t turn right. Took some hits. Think Catwoman’s hurt. Am I in one piece here?”

  “I’ll know in a second. Coming up on your six.”

  She glanced to her left again. The bogey had completed its turn, far out over the ocean. Lobo realized why and shouted, “Bird Dog! Break! Break!”

  He did so instantly, dipping hard left, evidently the only direction he could go, the perfect direction. Lobo blasted straight over his Tomcat, holding steady on course.