“We’re on them now, Ricky,” Kowalski reported.
“Right behind them, buddy,” Malloy added.
“Welcome to our little party, guys,” Ricardo replied.
“Dragons,” the controller interrupted. “One of the Flankers must have seen the fireballs and the Alert Five and is hightailing it out of Dodge.”
“Where’s the other one?” Ricardo asked, feeling a growing sense of doom.
“At your six! We’re on it!” Kowalski said.
Lian shot across the sky at Mach 2.3, closing the gap to the Super Hornets in seconds. She got an IR missile lock on the right jet and fired one of her Vympel R-73s.
Out of my way, asshole, she thought, watching the Super Hornet breaking away and dispensing flares before she idled the engines and deployed the speedbrakes, settling behind the twin tails of the bastard who had shot down Ren.
“A missile is too merciful for you,” she mumbled, arming the nose-mounted 30 mm GSh-301 cannon as she placed the tail of the American jet in the gunsights of her heads-up display.
This one’s for Ren.
“Missile!” Ricardo shouted. “I’m outta here!”
Amanda watched her flight leader break hard right, turning ninety degrees to the incoming threat while dispensing flares in an attempt to fool the missile; its turning radius typically could not match that of a modern fighter jet.
“Where’s the bandit?” she screamed, losing sight of Ricardo and straining her neck in every direction to find the Chinese fighter jet.
“At your six, Dragon Two!” reported Barlow from the E-2D. “He’s right behind—”
The sound of gunfire echoed all around her, and her control column shuddered as the sound of hammers striking the fuselage reverberated through the cockpit.
“I’m hit! Dragon Two is hit!”
Lian opened the cannon through the side of the Super Hornet’s fuselage for just three seconds, ripping into the metal alloy before her Irbis-E passive phased array radar showed two more enemy jets closing in on her.
Dammit.
She broke off the attack, but not before passing by the side of the bastard who had shot down her second in command. Her eyes scanned the side of the fuselage as she dashed by the Super Hornet’s port wing. Compared to her shiny Sukhoi, the American fighter looked as if it had been chewed up in multiple air battles. For a moment, Lian was glad to have added to its scars. The American now trailed fuel and debris.
And just before turning to the mainland in full burner, accelerating to Mach 2.25, well beyond the maximum speed of the American jets, Lian spotted the hot-pink lettering beneath the canopy.
Two things surprised her. First, that the pilot was a woman, Lt. Amanda Diamante. And second, the strange words below the name.
DEEDLE-DEEDLE.
Having lost the heat-seeking missile to a cloud of flares, Ricardo climbed back up to altitude, just in time to watch the Flanker-E’s twin engines in full burner disappear in the horizon. He rolled wings level for a moment before turning toward Amanda.
“Coming up behind you, Deedle,” Ricardo advised as he approached her. “Flanker-E checked out, no factor. How bad are you?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. My right motor’s losing power,” she trailed off. “I didn’t have any kind of warning; must have been a gun.”
“You guys have had enough fun for one day,” Kowalski said. “Get your asses home. We’ll cover the area.”
“Are you okay?” Ricardo asked while watching Kowalski and Malloy break off to run BARCAP and give them a safe space to work the problem.
“Right motor’s almost out,” she replied in a subdued voice. “That bastard must be one hell of a shooter, or he got mighty lucky.”
Ricardo keyed his radio. “From that distance, I’d say he was damn lucky. He almost took me out too.”
“Shit. I’m also losing fuel like crazy.”
“Liberty Bell, Dragon flight is going to the tanker,” Ricardo radioed as he started to rendezvous with Amanda.
“Negative,” Barlow said. “The tanker went sour, and we won’t have a spare one for about twenty to twenty-five minutes.”
“Dragons are going to the boat,” Ricardo radioed as he eased his aircraft under and to the left of Amanda’s plane.
“Copy, cleared to mom,” Barlow said, giving Dragon One a new radio frequency, and then switched frequencies to communicate with the Alert Five Super Hornets flying BARCAP.
Ricardo slowly moved to the right side of his wingman and surveyed the damage. “Yeah, Deedle, you have a half dozen holes. Little Swiss cheese. No obvious engine damage.”
“Right motor’s off. Man, the master chief’s going to be pissed,” she said.
“I don’t see any external damage to either motor, so I’m guessing the fuel line,” Ricardo said, given her loss of power and also the mist of fuel trailing the fighter jet.”
“Has to be,” Amanda confirmed. “I’ve checked everything else.”
“Well, you’re definitely streaming fuel,” Ricardo said dryly. “Don’t even think about staging the blower on that left engine.”
“Yeah,” Amanda replied with a chuckle. “That had crossed my primitive brain stem.”
Ricardo maneuvered his jet out to the left side of his wingman and stepped up. “Okay, our only chance is the boat. Deedle, you take the lead, and I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“Roger that,” Amanda replied as Ricardo eased behind her. “But I don’t think this is going to work, Ricky. According to my calculations, I’m going to come up short.”
“We’ll stay high and conserve fuel,” he advised in a calm manner. “How much gas do you have?”
“Less than four thousand pounds and dropping fast.”
Glancing at his chronograph, he noted the time, checked the distance to the aircraft carrier, and waited another minute. “What’s your total now?”
“I’m looking at three point seven,” Amanda replied in a resigned voice. “I’m not going to make it to mother.”
“I think you’ll have one shot at the deck,” Ricardo said in a positive tone.
“Yeah, sure thing, Coach.”
Ricardo switched to Vinson’s CATCC and checked in. He explained the challenging problem and switched back to Amanda. “Deedle, you’re cleared on arrival.”
“Ricky, this isn’t going to work,” she said in a frustrated but even voice. “The numbers don’t compute.”
Ricardo glanced at the helmet in the other cockpit. “Look, we’re going to start down in a couple of minutes. When we do, we’ll make an idle descent to abeam the boat. That’ll save a lot of fuel.”
“Copy,” Amanda replied in a lackluster voice while now looking at 3,400 pounds and working the rudder and stick to compensate for the asymmetrical thrust. “This is going to be very tight.”
“You can hack it,” Ricardo assured her.
Amanda grinned. “Sure thing.”
She spent the next few minutes scanning her instruments while the fuel level continued decreasing at a steady rate, which, though disconcerting, was at least predictable, allowing her to make a few more mental calculations.