Strike Zone (44 page)

A four-ship element of Su-27 fighters, purchased from Russia only a few months before, was bearing down on
Raven
from the north. Indeed, there were so many boogies in the air at the moment that Zen told the computer to show only those in the flight path or with a better than sixty percent chance of intercepting them.

The Taiwanese UAV had completely disappeared. Zen was sure it was still flying—he was convinced he'd have seen the crash. But where exactly it was, he couldn't say. The only thing they had to go on was Stoner's guess that it was headed toward Beijing, and Jennifer's belief that it would have to fly a fairly straight course once it was out of its mother ship's control.

“Pricks are calling us killers,” said Wes on the interphone.

He was talking to Dog, but Zen couldn't help asking what he meant.

“Killer Fortress—they blame us for shooting down the SAR plane a few days ago. That's what the controllers are saying,” said Wes. “They want us.”

We ought to let the UAV blow up Beijing, Zen thought. These were the same bastards who had put his wife in the hospital, nearly killing her. The same bastards who had killed Fentress and the others. Let them all fry.

Zen tightened his grip on the Flighthawk stick. He nudged
Hawk Four
further east as a JJ-7, a version of the Chinese-developed MiG-21 ordinarily used as a trainer, darted toward
Raven
. It fired a heat-seeker
from seven miles out—obviously the pilot's training hadn't gotten very far—then kept coming.

“Turn off,” Zen told the pilot, speaking on his frequency in English. “If you don't, I'll nail you.”

Whether the pilot heard or not, he kept coming. Zen's targeting screen went from yellow to red as the JJ-7 pulled to within three miles of the Megafortress. Zen pumped thirty rounds into the plane's engine.

Fifteen seconds later, the canopy blew off and the pilot hit the silk.

Zen gave the computer
Hawk Four
, telling it to fly back into the escort position. Then he jumped into
Three
. . .

. . . and saw the dim glow of the Taiwanese UAV's tailpipe fifteen miles ahead.

 

D
OG SHOVED THE
Megafortress hard right as the first wave of Chinese surface-to-air missiles climbed in the air ahead of them. The missiles were the Chinese equivalent of SA-6s and would be easily confused by
Raven
's ECMs, but there were a half dozen of them, and with a warhead of just over 175 pounds, they couldn't be completely ignored. Delaney tracked them and pointed out another barrage of antiair a few miles ahead. Dog swung back west, zigging around the missiles.

“We're pretty visible up here,” said the copilot. “One of their radar planes is on a line to the east. I don't think he sees us with his radar—I think he's homing in on ours.”

“Can we get him with AMRAAM?” Dog asked.

“Sixty miles away,” said Delaney.

That meant no. It also meant that it was too far for the Flighthawks.

“
Raven
, I have our target visually,” said Zen. “He's in the weeds, maybe ten feet AGL. Ten miles and closing.”

No wonder they hadn't found the UAV, Dog realized; it was so low to the ground the radar couldn't sort it out through the ground clutter—odd reflections of the radio waves off the terrain.

But flying that low also cut down on the UAV's speed.

“Intercept in four minutes, a bunch of seconds,” added Zen.

“Are we close enough for Jen's takeover program?” Dog asked.

“Negative,” said Zen. “It's thirty miles away total. I'll be close enough to shoot it down before you're in range.”

“Missiles!” warned Delaney. “Breaking.”

The copilot said something else, but Dog lost it. Both of the operators at the stations behind him were now spending their time jamming radars and communications systems in their path. Dog had two more antiair missiles left aboard; he wanted to reserve at least one for the UAV, in case the Flighthawks missed.

“Sukhois on our six at twenty miles and closing,” said Delaney.

“When they're close enough, let them have it with the Stinger,” said Dog.

“Yeah.”

“Colonel, I'm going to put
Hawk Four
on that flight of J-8s coming at us from the west,” said Zen.

Dog had to glance at the sitrep map to remind himself exactly which flight Zen was talking about. All of
Raven
's high-tech gear and whiz-bang computers,
ergonomic controls, and audiovisual doodads couldn't completely erase the limits of situational awareness. There were just too many threats for Dog to process everything at once.

“Go,” he told Zen.

“I have to let the computer handle it. It's four on one—we may lose it.”

“Our priority is the ghost clone,” said Dog.

“Understood.”

“FT-2000 in the air!” warned Delaney. “He's homing in on our ECMs.”

“Can we break it?” asked Dog.

“Only if you want everything else they're firing to hit us.”

 

T
HE FOUR
C
HINESE
J-8 fighters came at
Raven
in a staggered line, each plane separated by about a mile and flying at different altitudes. The computer quickly recognized the pattern and calculated the best attack posture, prioritizing the targets in the order of the greatest threat to
Raven
. The strategy—a slashing attack that would take
Hawk Four
across the course of the flight and allow it to fire on at least two of the aircraft before maneuvering to catch a third from behind—was solid, and took into account the abilities of the enemy planes as well as the Flighthawk. It also gave the computer time to recover and change its strategy if the bandits drastically altered course and speed. The only problem with it was that by the time
Hawk Four
turned to catch the third plane, it would be out of communications range from
Raven
. Zen nonetheless approved the strategy as the best course, telling C
³
to stay in dogfight mode even if the connection
snapped—otherwise
Hawk Four
would have defaulted back to
escort and tried to find
Raven
.

“Go for it,” he told the computer, using exactly the same tone he would have used for Kick or Starship.

The computer's verbal translation system had been “trained” to recognize much of Zen's slang, and took
Hawk Four
on the intercept.

Zen turned his full attention back to
Hawk Three
. The Taiwanese UAV was now just five miles ahead.

A warning flashed on his screen:

Connection loss in three seconds

T
WO MORE MISSILES
exploded to the east of
Raven
. Dog saw a pair of Su-27s heading in from the northeast, coming on at about ten degrees off his nose. They were at twenty miles, firing radar missiles.

“They're on us,” said Delaney.

Dog hit his chaff, then jerked hard to beam the Doppler radar guiding the missiles. The maneuver would put the Megafortress at a right angle to the radar, temporarily confusing it.

“FT-2000 is changing course,” reported Delaney. “It's going for one of the missiles that was just launched.”

That's our one lucky break, thought Dog.

“
Raven
—I need you closer. I'm going to lose
Hawk Three
.”

Dog jerked back toward the Flighthawk.

“
Raven
—you have to get closer.”

“I'm working on it, Zen,” said Dog. The throttle slide was at the last stop; he could hit the control with a sledge-hammer and the plane wouldn't go any faster. “Wes, see
if you can reach any of these units. Tell them we're pursuing a cruise missile that's going to attack Beijing.”

“But—”

“Do it, Wes,” said Dog. “Deci, try the control program Ms. Gleason uploaded earlier. I know we're not in range yet but try it anyway.”

Lieutenant Deci Gordon was the other electronics operator. While he could dupe Wes's controls, he was tasked at the moment to ID and fuzz radars.

“I have to clear the ECM board to load the program and use it. I won't be able to bounce the radars,” explained the lieutenant.

“Do it.”

“On it, sir.”

 

Z
EN CUT HIS
speed, just barely keeping the connection to
Hawk Three
. The Flighthawk was undoubtedly a good deal faster and more capable than the plane he was chasing, but it was
Raven
's speed that counted, and the big airplane was already huffing and puffing. All he could do was sit and wait, hoping
Raven
would catch up—and that the flak dealer Delaney was now warning about wouldn't hit him in the meantime.

Maybe it would get the Taiwan plane at least.

Raven
rocked up and down but stayed on its course. Zen cursed to himself, pushing forward against his restraint.

Come on, damn it. Come on!

He tried selecting
Hawk Four
, which had been out of contact since firing on the second fighter in the attack group. The feed from
Raven
showed where it
was—about five miles out of range, launching an attack on one of the Chinese fighters.

It had already splashed two of the Sukhois. Not bad for a bunch of electrons.

Raven
shuddered beneath him. Something had just hit the plane.

Stinking Chinese. They didn't deserve to be saved.

Come on, baby. Come on.

Something rumbled on Zen's right—shrapnel from a missile had taken a nick out of the EB-52. Zen felt himself sliding left, even though the Flighthawk remained level.

The targeting screen blinked yellow.

Ten more seconds and he'd be in range. He could see the fat belly of the Taiwanese bomb strapped to the fuselage of the UAV.

Raven
stuttered in the air, her speed and altitude plummeting.

Nine seconds. Eight . . . 

Connection loss in three seconds

“Dog! I need six seconds!”

 

E
NGINE FOUR WAS
gone, and the oil pressure in three was dropping. The computer helped Dog compensate as Delaney struggled with the defenses.

“I'm losing
Hawk Three
!” shouted Zen over the interphone.

The computer—prudently—wanted to shut down engine three. But Dog stayed with it, squeezing the last ounce of momentum forward, trying to keep
close enough so Zen could complete the shootdown.

Just wasn't going to happen. Even the Megafortress could not defy all the laws of physics at the same time. The EB-52 shuddered violently.

He was going to lose it.

They had to get closer to the Flighthawk, or the whole mission would have been a waste.

Dog pushed the nose of the big plane downward, picking up speed. They had a good deal of altitude to work with—but every foot made them more vulnerable to the air defenses.

“Missiles!” said Delaney. His overstressed rasp sounded like an old man's last gasp for air.

“Zen, I'm going to try and dive as close to
Hawk Three
as possible,” said Dog. “After that, we may be bailing.”

“Roger that,” said Zen. “We need more speed—I don't have the Flighthawk.”

 

“W
ES, CAN YOU
try that program Jen gave us again?” he said. “Just broadcast it?”

“I'm doing it,” answered Deci Gordon.

The Flighthawk screen flickered.

“Control,” said Zen.

Red pipper.

Yellow—no shot.

Zen pressed the trigger anyway.

Fire.

Fire.

Fire you goddamn son of a bitch.

 

D
OG COULD SEE
a pair of flak guns starting to fire off his right wing. The Megafortress was still too high to be
hit—but it wouldn't be in about twenty seconds or so.

Come on, Zen, he thought. Come on.

 

Z
EN LET OFF
the trigger, seeing the bullets trail far short of his target.

Beijing lay about a hundred miles away. The Taiwan UAV was going to make it.

The computer buzzed with a fuel warning and put a script up on the screen: He had ten minutes of flying time left at present speed.

Figures, he thought.

The targeting screen went yellow. The Megafortress shuddered, then started to yaw hard to his left.

Connection loss in three seconds

We're toast, he thought.

And then, either because its own programming called for it to pop up so it could detonate its bomb, or because of the program Jennifer had prepared, the UAV pulled its nose up. The maneuver made it lose speed. Zen's targeting pipper went red.

He fired.

He missed.

The ghost clone climbed off to his right.

 

“S
UKHOI ON OUR
back, five miles, four,” said Delaney.

“Stinger,” said Dog.

“We're out of airmines.”

“Flares.”

“No more expendables.”

“Can you launch an AMRAAM?” asked Dog, wrestling with the controls.

Delaney didn't waste his tortured throat. The question wasn't really serious—the AMRAAM-plus would have to go backward to do any good.

This was going to be it, thought Dog.

“Zen—we need you to take the target out now,” he said calmly. “Crew, prepare to eject. Begin the self-destruct sequences on the gear.”

 

T
HE PREGNANT
W
danced upward and to the right. It must be answering Jennifer's control sequence somehow, thought Zen, trying to follow.

As he tucked his wing to the right, he got a yellow firing cue. And then a ball of red fire opened above him—shrapnel from a Chinese missile.

His screen blanked.
Hawk Three
was gone.