by Bob Blanton
“A simulator doesn’t shoot real missiles,” the pilot shouted.
“She has two combat kills,” Blake said. “She took her two opponents out twenty percent faster than I took my two out, and I only had the two to worry about, she had all four.”
There were murmurs of appreciation from most of the pilots.
“Of course, she might have slowed down in her old age,” Blake said. “She had her two kills when she was thirteen, she’s fourteen now, so her reflexes might be slowing down.”
“This is a bunch of hype,” the pilot shouted. “Anyone’s going to win in a Fox against another jet. What’s going to count is Fox-to-Fox combat.”
“She also happens to be the only pilot we have who has gone against another Fox in real combat. The other pilot bugged out after a few minutes of engagement. We had two other Foxes coming for him, but he could have stuck around for another two minutes before he had to retreat. She forced him to drop on the deck and submerge to avoid her,” Blake said to further egg the pilot on.
“What kind of training did the other pilot have?” loudmouth yelled again.
“At the time, he was the most experienced Fox pilot there was,” Blake said. “He had far more hours than anyone else, including Catie.”
“Hey, why don’t we match the two up,” one of the other pilots yelled. “I’d like to see someone wipe the smile off of Kasper’s face.”
“Come on, Kasper, you’re not afraid of a little girl,” someone yelled. Catie gave the group a bright smile while she watched them razz Kasper.
“Sure, but no simulator bull,” Kasper said. “If we want to show what we’ve got, it should be with real jets.”
“Well, I happen to have two Foxes sitting on the runway,” Blake said. “You really want to take her on?”
“Sure, we’ll see how she handles a five-G turn,” Kasper shouted.
“Your funeral,” Blake said. “Okay, one of you gets to defend the airport, the other gets to try and attack. After one of you fails, we switch roles and rerun the exercise. Plasma cannons and lasers are at twenty percent. Your plane will let you know what damage you’ve received and change its responsiveness accordingly.”
Blake took a silver dollar out of his pocket, “Who’s going to call it? The winner gets to pick their role.”
“Hell, she can pick,” Kasper shouted. “I don’t care.”
“I’ll take defense,” Catie said.
“Just what one expects from a girl,” Kasper said.
“Okay, your Foxes are waiting for you,” Blake said. “Catie, you’re in Fox two, Kasper, you get Fox four.”
Kasper turned and marched out of the hangar, grabbing his flight helmet off the rack by the door.
“He is full of himself, isn’t he,” Catie whispered to Blake.
“Yes he is, and nothing we’ve done has tempered his ego.”
“Why don’t you just kick him out of the program?”
“Because he’s a damn good pilot,” Blake said. “And I know his father.”
“So, what are you expecting?” Catie asked.
“Utter humiliation,” Blake said.
“You think I can do it?” Catie asked.
“I’m sure; I’ve seen his simulations,” Blake said. “And the idiot gave you the pick. Playing defense first gives you an advantage in the next round when you’re on the attack.”
“Do you think he knew that?” Catie asked.
“I’m not sure he does much real thinking,” Blake said. “That’s why we need you to show him why he can’t just rely on reflexes and gut instinct.”
“Okay,” Catie said with a big sigh.
◆ ◆ ◆
Kasper had already taken off by the time Catie climbed into her Fox. She checked her radar and could see him rocketing off to the east. She fired up the engines and took off. Her mission was to protect the airport, so she decided that she would try and hover directly over it. That would put her closest to any angle of attack by Kasper. She took her Fox into a vertical climb and then adjusted the engines until she was just maintaining altitude. With the Fox tilted into the wind, it was holding pretty close to the same location; occasionally, Catie would adjust the angle to push it forward or let the wind push it back.
“What the heck is she doing?” asked one of the pilots in the briefing room. Everyone was gathered around the two big displays at the front of the room. One was showing the area above the airport, courtesy of the main camera on the terminal; the other was showing a split view of the two cockpits.
“I’ve never seen that done before,” Blake said. “She has it sitting on its tail, and is just maintaining position.”
“Where’s Kasper?”
“He’s off radar. He’s on the deck flying in from the east. He’s only three meters above the water doing Mach two.” They could tell that because his instruments were displayed on the split-screen.
“That’s crazy!”
“There you are,” Catie said. She adjusted her flaps and had her Fox rocketing toward Kasper’s position.
“How did she see him?”
“Look at her radar settings, she was expecting him to come in that way,” Blake said. “The little minx can read your mind.”
“She’s going to cross his path at Mach five!”
“What good will that do? She won’t be able to keep a beam on him long enough to do any real damage.”
“I would turn off my sonic suppressors,” Catie announced, “but he’s too close to the water. The shockwave would push him in. I think you should give me the kill.”
“We’ll mark it down,” Blake said. “Please continue.”
Kasper had climbed off the deck and was now pursuing Catie.
“He’s behind her, she blew it!”
Catie raced her Fox toward the airport and dove back down toward the water. Kasper cut through her arc and closed the distance to her. She immediately started climbing. She did a barrel roll and corkscrewed her jet to the right. Kasper kept mirroring her moves, taking every opportunity to cut into her lead by cutting the angles just a little closer than Catie did.
“He closing, she’s toast!”
Kasper had closed until Catie was just outside the range of his plasma cannon. He was sitting right on her tail, holding steady just below her Fox’s belly.
“I thought she was hot shit,” Kasper said. “I’m riding her like a pony.”
“Not smart,” Catie said. She was watching as Kasper closed in on her, holding an exact position off of her tail. She engaged her rear-facing plasma cannon.
Kasper’s instruments alerted him to the imminent damage that would occur if he stayed inside the cone of the plasma cannon. He immediately changed his vector and started dancing around behind Catie.
“Oh, why did that happen? He was out of range!”
“She was outside his range, but he was inside her range. Kasper’s plasma beam would be compressed by the velocity of his jet due to interactions with the atmosphere. Her cannon would be stretched for the same reason,” Blake explained.
“Too clever!”
“So, if he has to dance like that, she can just outrun him!”
“Only until he’s outside her range, then he can stop juking and close again,” Blake said.
“Here he comes!”
Catie started a tight corkscrew climb; everyone could see her watching Kasper mimic her moves. She slowly expanded the radius of her corkscrew.
“She’s sweating it! She can’t shake him.”
Catie banked her Fox hard as she crossed the edge of the airport; Kasper cut the arc and jumped in closer to her.
“The airport plasma cannons should have taken him out,” Catie said. “With that tight a loop, he wouldn’t have been able to maneuver out of their range soon enough.”
Blake rolled his eyes, “Damn it, why didn’t you point out that we didn’t set the airport weapons for the simulation?”
“Not my job,” Catie said.
“We’ll note it, please cont
inue,” Blake said, clearly exasperated that she was making him look as bad as Kasper for not taking the airport into account.
“How many times am I supposed to kill him?” Catie asked.
“They say three’s a charm,” Blake said.
Everyone in the briefing room laughed as they heard Catie snort into the mic.
Catie took her Fox into a seventy-degree climb.
“What’s the matter, can’t stand the heat down here,” Kasper said with a chuckle.
“Man, is he going to hate the debrief!”
Catie released a bunch of chaff from her jet.
“You’ve got to be kidding, I can see you,” Kasper said.
Kasper’s forward cameras flared as the area behind Catie’s jet lit up in a blaze.
“What happened?” Kasper yelled.
“Continue your mission!” Blake ordered.
“She’s gone!”
The room could see Catie was just fine. “She’s cut her engines!”
Catie’s Fox dropped like a rock, tail down. It fell below the chaff she had released, then she reengaged her engines. Kasper was just above the chaff, and had cut the angle of his climb as he tried to figure out where she was.
Catie cut the angle, so she was crossing just below Kasper. Right before he cleared the chaff, she engaged her plasma cannon and lasers. She had a one-second lead between her weapons engaging and when Kasper and his jet could figure out where she was and return fire. That’s all it took, his jet registered itself as killed.
“You’re dead,” Catie said.
“What the hell happened?” Kasper demanded.
“Wait for the debrief,” Blake said. “You have five minutes to set up your defense of the airport.”
“This is bullshit,” Kasper yelled.
“Five minutes!” Blake shot back.
◆ ◆ ◆
Catie climbed to thirty thousand feet and circled the area of the airport, waiting for Kasper to set up. Kasper finally set up a tight circle of the airport at ten thousand feet. By this time of day, the sun had climbed into the sky, so Catie couldn’t try Kasper’s trick of coming in out of the east. Or that’s what everyone assumed.
Catie turned up and headed directly into the sun, with the airport just to the west of her climb. She programmed a missile, then launched it just as she cut her engines again. With the Fox’s miniscule radar signature, and with her Fox directly between the sun and the airport, the missile was the only real radar signature that Kasper’s and the airport’s radar could pick up. Since it was programmed to look like a Fox as it made a Mach 5 northern loop toward the airport, Kasper’s radar was going wild, alerting him to the threat and the vector. Catie saw him change his vector toward the missile. Her Fox was falling out of the sky down toward the airport. She quickly programmed three more missiles while she kept adjusting the flaps to keep her descent angled toward the airport.
“He bit; he’s chasing the decoy!” someone yelled. The room was abuzz with energy as everyone tried to guess what Catie was up to.
“This is going to hurt,” Catie said into her comm as she adjusted the flaps on her Fox to bring it almost horizontal. The instruments showed a five-G turn as her Fox bit into the atmosphere, but flying backward, it was still plummeting. Catie released her three missiles and reengaged the engines.
The Fox started to slow its backward trajectory, but the engines couldn’t overcome all the momentum Catie had built up in her fall. At two-thousand meters outside the airport security perimeter, Catie engaged the space engines. The area behind her Fox lit up like a bomb had gone off. The helium molecules emitted from the space engines were traveling at twenty percent the speed of light and were creating a light show as they collided with atmospheric gases, causing anything combustible to ignite and other gases to fluoresce as they split and recombined with other gases. The expanding fireball crossed over the airport as Catie’s Fox finally gained forward momentum, just before it would have crossed into range of the airport defenses.
“What was that?” someone yelled. “How did she do that?”
Her first missile hit, it was an EMP missile; its high energy pulse would have blinded the airport defenses for two seconds while everything shut down and rebooted. Then the second missile struck. It was also an EMP missile. By the time everything had rebooted, the third missile struck. It was a max-yield warhead. If it had been real, it would have taken out most of the airport.
“Kal, get in here!” Blake yelled into his comm. “Catie has taken out the airport!”
Catie’s Fox was accelerating away at max acceleration. Kasper crossed over the airport and jumped on her tail. Catie looped up into a vertical climb; she corkscrewed so that she was between Kasper’s Fox and the sun.
“Did you learn anything?” Catie asked as she dumped chaff and cut her engines again. Her Fox started dropping like a rock. She engaged her plasma cannon as Kasper’s Fox passed her in the climb. She put her engines on full and gave them a boost with the space engines so she could recover the velocity lost when she cut the engines out. She was able to keep her Fox inside plasma cannon range, which was twenty percent higher at the fifty-thousand-foot level where she had led Kasper.
“You’re dead,” Catie said as she saw her instruments register the kill.
“Debrief in ten minutes,” Blake ordered.
“What the hell,” Kasper yelled. “I thought you said we had the same Foxes.”
“You do!” Blake said. “We’ll cover it at the debrief.”
“Yeah, right!” Kasper spat into the comm.
◆ ◆ ◆
Catie landed her Fox and was walking into the briefing room within three minutes. The entire room rose to a standing ovation as she came in. Catie was so pumped up, it looked like she was actually walking on air. She beamed a bright smile at everyone as she climbed the stage and took a position at the table next to Blake.
Kasper came storming in just as Catie sat down. “I thought we had identical jets,” he yelled. “But her jet was better than mine!”
“Yeah, it had a better pilot,” someone shouted.
“Bullshit, the game was fixed,” Kasper yelled.
“Lieutenant! Calm down, or pack your bag!” Blake yelled.
Kasper jerked to a stop, his jaw dropping. It took him a second before everything registered, and he snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”
“Have a seat, and we’ll go over the results and answer any questions,” Blake said more calmly.
Kasper marched to the table and sat on the other side of Blake from Catie. Catie just looked straight out at the other pilots with a steely gaze. She wasn’t letting any emotion show.
“I want to caution everyone; I will not stand for any outburst. I know emotions are high, but you need to demonstrate control, or we won’t have any use for you,” Blake announced in a stern voice. “First, I would like an assessment from the two of you of the other’s piloting skills.”
There was a groan from the room.
“Catie, you first,” Blake ordered.
“Pure flying skill, I would rate him a ten,” Catie said. “You’re the only pilot I’ve flown against who has had better reaction times and instincts.”
“What about the other aspects?” Blake asked.
“I’ll let the exercise speak to that,” Catie said.
“Okay,” Blake said, letting her skate on criticizing Kasper. “Lieutenant Mischeff, your assessment of Lieutenant McCormack,” Blake turned to Kasper. Catie did a short double-take, this was the first time she’d realized that Kasper was his call sign, she’d been assuming it was his name.
Kasper gasped when he heard Catie’s rank. He looked at her collar, and for the first time saw that she a wore Lieutenant’s insignia on it.
“I am unable to assess her abilities because I don’t understand how her Fox was able to do what it did,” Kasper said.
“Assume it was identical to your Fox,” Blake said. “We’ll get into the details later.”
“I
f it were the same as my Fox, I would give her a twelve,” Kasper said. “But there’s no way they’re the same!”
“Control yourself,” Blake ordered.
“Yes, sir.”
“Now the various engagements. The first was when she crossed you coming in toward the airport. Lieutenant McCormack, explain what happened,” Blake ordered.
“I took my Fox into a vertical climb over the airport. I adjusted the thrust, so it was maintaining constant altitude and relatively fixed position. I had my radar focused on the ocean surface to the east, assuming Kasper would try to use the sun to shield his approach. At eight thousand feet, my Fox’s radar had a good view of the ocean surface. I adjusted its parameters to pick up a wake that would be left by a jet flying close to the surface, as well as the jet,” Catie said.
Kasper’s eyes lit up as he realized how he’d been spotted. He nodded his head in recognition of the sound defense tactic.
“When I spotted the Fox coming in, I accelerated toward it and crossed its path at Mach five. As I communicated, I would have turned off my sonic suppressors so that the shockwave would have rocked Kasper’s Fox; however, he was so close to the deck that I didn’t risk it.”
“What would you have done in a real engagement?” Blake asked.
“I would have turned my suppressors off, blasted him with a plasma cannon as I passed, then looped back to survey the wreckage,” Catie said.
“And there would have been wreckage,” Blake said. “You were too close to the water, Lieutenant Mischeff; you would not have survived the shockwave passing over you.”
Kasper looked shocked. He did a couple of quick calculations in his HUD, then nodded his agreement of the assessment.
“Okay, the second engagement,” Blake prompted.
“Kasper jumped on my tail after my pass,” Catie continued. “I went through multiple rolls and loops to try and shake him, but he was able to continue to close the gap. He took up a fixed position behind me; I was just outside his weapons’ range due to atmospheric compression, but he was within my range since my plasma beam would be stretched by my velocity and atmospheric drag. I lit him up, and he started to dance to avoid fire.”