Day of the Cheetah

  and my aircraft are concerned-"

  "Then it's no longer your aircraft. You're hereby relieved of

  command." Elliott seated himself in the commander's seat be-

  hind the main radar console Control One and the main defensive

  radar operator, Control Three; he had his own screen, Control

  Two, but he didn't know enough about the new system to use

  it. He would have to divide his attention between three screens

  to stay on top of this fight. Other radar operators, Controls Four

  through Eight, would scan the sky around the AWACS at long

  range for aircraft and ships as well as focus in on each friendly

  aircraft involved in the fight and warn him of enemy aircraft

  around him.

  He hit the shipwide intercom button. "Crew, this is S-Five,

  General Elliott. I am taking command of this aircraft. Crew,

  prepare for air-to-air engagement. " He unplugged his headset

  cord from the intercom box and plugged it into the commander's

  net. "Control Three, put Five-Seven on a high CAP over this

  aircraft. He's responsible for a fifty-mile diameter around us.

  Control Four, can Dragon Five-Eight and Five-Nine get a re-

  fueling before their ETA?-

  A pause while the radar operator took in the news about the

  sudden change. of'command, then another few moments to get

  his mind back to the fight around them. "Affirmative, sir, but

  they'd have to wait zer-o-three minutes for the rendezvous."

  "No good. Get Five-Eight and Nine in to relieve Six as fast

  as they can-he's gotta be low on fuel. Communications, contact

  Dragon Control in Georgetown and have them scramble a third

  flight ASAP.

  Roger.

  Elliott glanced at Marsch, who stood behind him clenching

  and unclenching his fists-obviously angry, but also surprised at

  how well this four-star walk-on was deploying his fighters.

  "I understand you have command responsibility for this mis-

  sion, General Elliott," Marsch said, phrasing his words for the

  running tape recorders on the control deck.

  Elliott did not take his eyes off the main screen. "Colonel, I

  want you on Control Two. I want you to watch that Russian

  346 DALE BROWN

  Ilyushin and track any aircraft that try to peel away from it. I

  want you to identify the XF-34 and track every move it makes.

  If it gets away I'll hang your ass." Marsch shut up and went to

  do as he was told.

  "Dragon Five-Six, bogey at your six o'clock, six miles, MiG-

  29," Control One reported.

  "Two fighters breaking off from the transport," Marsch called

  out. "Looks like they're maneuvering to engage."

  Elliott muttered to himself, "Now we are outnumbered. I

  hoped those two would stay with DreamStar and the Russian

  AWACS. " Without ready help, Dragon Five-Four and Five-

  Six, he thought grimly, we're going to have to get out of this

  jam by ourselves.

  Douglas aboard Dragon Five-Six yanked his control stick hard

  right as he heard the warning from his AWACS. Meanwhile

  Coursey had rolled inverted and had pointed his nose down to-

  ward the transport, searching for Douglas. He spotted him sec-

  onds later, the big MiG-29 dead on his tail. But instead of

  following Douglas in his hard break, the MiG was in a dive.

  "Five-Six, this is Five-Four, your MiG's going vertical.

  Punch your tank. Catch him on the climb."

  But by the time Douglas had jettisoned his fuel tank and com-

  pleted his ninety-degree break to get away from infrared missile

  firing range of the MiG, his pursuer had built up enough speed

  in his dive to turn hard right and zoom upward. With his nose

  high in the air, Douglas rolled out of his break directly in front

  of the MiG.

  "Reverse, " Coursey yelled.

  Douglas heard the warning and banged the stick hard left. It

  was the right decision-the MiG pilot was expecting another

  right break to preserve his energy, was not expecting the left

  turn. He tried a fast cannon burst as the F-16 crossed in front of

  him but had no time to line up.

  "Extend and get your speed up, Doug," Coursey ordered.

  Douglas checked the airspeed readout on his heads-up display-

  it was down nearly to three hundred knots. "He's coming around

  behind you again. He yo-yoed on you. Don't dick with this

  guy-he seems to know his shit. " Coursey pulled his nose down

  and aimed it at the MiG. "I'm on my way, Doug, but you be

  smart, play in the vertical. Don't let him drop down on you."

  JL

  'P-

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 347

  The F-16 regained its speed quickly but the twin turbofans of

  the MiG-29 had three times the power of the Falcon. In an in-

  stant the MiG was back on Douglas' tail.

  "Let's try to sandwich this guy," Coursey said after he finally

  got into position behind and above the MiG. "Break left."

  Douglas pulled into a hard left turn but was forced to release

  back pressure on the stick or risk stalling. The break was not as

  quick or as clean as it would have been, and he offered an en-

  ticing target for the MiG, which instead of dropping down into

  a low-speed yo-yo maneuver chose to turn with Douglas.

  Exactly as Coursey had hoped. With the MiG in a left turn,

  Coursey used his diving-speed advantage and pulled directly be-

  hind the MiG, then immediately went to an AIM-132B short-

  range infrared missile-and fired. The missile tracked perfectly,

  missing the fast-moving MiG by only a few feet, but the explo-

  sion of the missile's warhead damaged something vital. The MiG

  pilot nosed his fighter over, trailing a thick black cloud of smoke.

  "Splash two MiGs, " Coursey called over the radio. "Coming

  up on your right side, Doug."

  "Dragon Five-Four, two bogeys at your four o'clock, ten

  miles . . ." The warning had barely been received when Cour-

  sey's radar-threat warning receiver bleeped.

  "Five-Six, break left." Coursey could see chaff stream out

  of Five-Six's right ejector, and then the F-16 was gone in his

  hard defensive bank. Coursey broke right, pumping out chaff

  and flares from his left ejectors, and straining against the G-

  forces to scan out the top of his canopy for his attackers. He

  spotted one of the MiGs just in time to see its cannon flashing

  and tracers stream toward him-the missile had missed but the

  MiG had enough power to press the attack and go in with his

  twenty-three-millimeter gun.

  The MASTER CAUTION light snapped on and the HUD dis-

  played a WARNING message. Checking the caution panel on the

  right side, Coursey found a half-dozen cautions lights illumi-

  nated but nothing immediately serious-rudder, nozzle, fuel

  leaks. No fire lights. The shells had ripped across his tail from

  the top but missed the engine compartment. With the nozzle now

  stuck in the military position, engine perfon-nance in afterburner

  would probably be degraded, and with the rudder damaged,

  landing might be tricky or impossible-if he managed to make

  it to dry land with his fuel leak.

&nb
sp; -M

  348 DALE BROWN

  Such inflight emergencies ran through Coursey's mind, but he

  was able to dismiss them for now ... his engine was running,

  his wings were still attached and personally he was undamaged

  except for his pride. The one overriding thought that stuck in

  his mind was that the Russians had gotten a shot off at him and

  had hurt his Falcon. They'd pay for that.

  Coursey executed a nine-G turn to the right to pursue the

  MiGs that had passed behind him. They were in loose route

  formation, the double-leader formation that was very e ive in

  covering each other, and they were both going after Douglas

  again. Douglas tried some hard horizontal moves but the MiGs

  matched him every time.

  "Go over the top, Doug," Coursey told him. "Hard as you

  can. Now.

  Dragon Five-Six suddenly heeled, pointing itself straight up

  in the air in a sharp Immelmann maneuver, held it there for

  seconds, then rolled inverted and began a sharp descent.

  "I'm right under you, Doug," Coursey said as he approached

  the area where Five-Six had begun his climb. "Roll out." Five-

  Six rolled upright a thousand feet above Coursey and sped away

  behind his leader. Coursey selected his M61 cannon and fired as

  the descendin MiGs came into view.

  A head-on gunpass was not exactly a high-percentage attack,

  but for sheer visual impact it was hard to beat-and this time

  Coursey got a bonus. As the second MiG banked away from

  him, he could see dark bits of material peel off the upper surface

  of the lead MiG's wings. It seemed a few of the F-16's twenty-

  millimeter shells might have caught the MiG's extended spoilers

  or speedbrakes and chopped them off . . .

  This was turning into a battle of attrition, and Coursey knew

  at this rate he was going to lose it. These fighters had undoubt-

  edly refueled off their "-76 tanker before the fight began and

  had enough fuel for hours of dogfighting-Douglas in Dragon

  Five-Six had to be down to minimums for recovery at George-

  town, and Coursey was in danger of flaming out any minute.

  Something drastic was in order . . .

  Coursey saw it immediately, far below him and to the left-

  the Ilyushin-76 AWACS-tanker-transport plane. For some

  reason the II-76 pilot had driven right into the middle of the

  dogfight. Coursey selected a radar-guided Scorpion missile and

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 349

  activated his attack radar as he went over the top and aimed right

  for the forward cabin of the Russian AWACS.

  His intentions were noted. Both MiGs broke off their attacks

  against Douglas and changed directions, climbing to line up on

  Dragon Five-Four. Coursey could see the Ilyushin disgorge bun-

  dles of radar-reflecting chaff and infrared decoy flares as the

  Falcon's APG-88 radar locked onto the aircraft less than two

  miles away. The radar-lock tone was intermittent from the II-

  yushin's self-protection jamming, but the instant it steadied out

  Coursey hit the weapon-release button on the contml stick, rolled

  and turned away from a murderous gun-pass by one of the MiG-

  29s. But the Scorpion was a "launch-and-leave" missile-it

  needed no guidance from the carrier aircraft after launch.

  The missile hit the forward edge of the radome, chewing a

  large piece out of the circular device. The wind blast immedi-

  ately lifted the broken, jagged edge and ripped the forty-foot-

  diameter radome off its su rt legs and back into the II-76's

  ppo

  T-tail stabilizer. The entire horizontal portion and half of the

  thirty-foot vertical stabilizer broke free of the aircraft and tum-

  bled away. The Ilyushin transport skidded violently several

  times, heeling over so sharply that it appeared to be heading into

  a spin at any moment, but somehow its pilot managed to bring

  the one-hundred-seventy-ton aircraft under control. The trans-

  port made a wobbly turn and headed south, trailing a long line

  of thick black smoke from its aft section.

  Coursey watched as the huge aircraft swerved southward. But

  as he was searching the skies for the two MiGs, a warning beeped

  in his helmet. He was down to less than fifteen minutes of fuel,

  and with a fuel-tank leak, probably much less than that.

  "Barrier, Dragon Five-Four is bingo," he radioed as he started

  a turn to the right. "I'm heading north toward the margaritas.

  Don't forget to send someone to pick me up."

  "Roger, Five-Four, " the controller said. "Use channel Bravo

  for rescue. We will-"

  Coursey never heard the end of the transmission. The dam-

  aged MiG had missed his shot at Coursey during the attack on

  the Russian AWACS, but his wingman did not miss. The AA-

  I I Archer missile detonated on target, igniting the fuel vapors

  in the nearly empty tanks and creating a massive fireball in the

  crystal-blue Caribbean skies.

  350 DALE BROWN

  There was one thing that was hard to teach new pilots and even

  harder to reinforce in older pilots, Maraklov thought-discipline.

  The two young MiG pilots on the Ilyushin's wing forgot it, and

  they got themselves splashed. The second two, more experi-

  enced pilots flanking the XF-34 underneath the Ilyushin, also

  forgot it and it cost them the effective use of the Ilyushin.

  Maraklov considered himself very damn lucky to be alive.

  The impact of the missile on the 11yushin's radar dome had forced

  the transport's nose down several meters; only his computer-fast

  reactions saved him from crashing into the Ilyushin's belly. He

  had dodged aside just in time to avoid the wild seesawing action

  of the transport as the pilot fought for control. Now he was

  tucked back on the Ilyushin's left wing, relaying damage reports

  to Sebaco Airbase via satellite transceiver and kicking himself

  for not finding his own way out of Nicaragua.

  He activated his radar and picked up the two remaining MiG-

  29s and the one F-16 Falcon still in the fight. They were widely

  separated from each other, neither side anxious to mix it up

  again. He deactivated his radar, activated the tactical data-link,

  which gave him an image of what the E-5 AWACS was trans-

  mitting to the F-16s. The AWACS was still tracking all the So-

  viet aircraft but had not paired any fighters with them. The

  data-link was rescrambled in random periods, and without

  the scrambler's seed code it took a lengthy frequency-scan to

  reacquire it once it was lost, but when ANTARES was tied into

  the data-link it provided an excellent means to eavesdrop on the

  Americans and use their own radar plane to find them.

  "Escort Three and Four, this is Zavtra," Maraklov transmit-

  ted on the convo 's command-frequency in ANTARES's corn-

  puterized voice, using the Russian word for "tomorrow" as

  DreamStar's call sign. "Join on the transport immediately."

  "We will engage the last American fighter," Escort Three

  replied. He was the one with flight control damage, anxious to

  settle the score. A real fool.

&n
bsp; "I gave you an order, join on the transport!"

  "But the American fighter is retreating, we can catch

  him-"

  "He's trying to trap you," Maraklov said. Too bad AN-

  TARES only transmitted his voice at one volume and one tone,

  because mentally he was screaming at the two Soviet pilots.

  "They have two American fighters waiting to bushwhack you.

  DAY OF THE CHEETAH 351

  Join on the transport's wing. " It was only a guess-the data-

  link picked up only the lone F-16 Falcon heading north toward

  Georgetown-but the American AWACS must have called in for

  more air cover as soon as they discovered the MiGs. Those

  fighters would be arriving any minute. Finally the warning sunk

  in, and a few minutes later Maraklov detected the two Soviet

  MiGs in tight fingertip formation just above and aft of the trans-

  port.

  "Escort Three, stay with the transport," Maraklov ordered.

  "Check your flight controls and fuel. Escort Four, you're use-

  less staying in tight formation. This isn't a damn air show. Take

  a position low and to the left, into the sun so you can watch the

  formation and we can watch you." These Soviet pilots were like

  rookies, Maraklov thought as the fighters deployed themselves.

  Lucky for them, their machines mostly made up for their care-

  lessness.

  "We can make it, Colonel," one of the MiG pilots said. "We

  could have broken you free past the Americans--

  "Don't tell me what we could have done. You ruined our

  chances by breaking away from the Ilyushin to begin with."

  "Our people were under attack, what was I supposed to do?"

  "Those fools in Escort One and Two should not have broken

  formation either," Maraklov said. "Their actions only provoked

  the Americans to attack. We must return to Sebaco and reorgan-

  ize . . . "

  Maraklov studied the data-link image just before it scrambled

  once again. The first F-16 was retreating north, but three more

  high-speed fighters were approaching. The reinforcements had

  arrived.

  If we can make it back before we are destroyed, Maraklov

  silently added.

  "Dragon Five-Seven, this is Barrier Command, you have the