DreamStar’s weapon system did not deactivate unless Maraklov deactivated it, gear up or down, but it was a moot point — DreamStar had only one AIM-120 missile left and very little fuel, not enough for any sort of engagement. The F-15 fighters would not have much chance of catching him on their own, but with the AWACS up and locked-on they could be vectored in with high precision and even process a missile launch, all without one watt of energy being transmitted from their own radars. So DreamStar would have to use its attack radar to find the F-15s, and that would give away DreamStar’s position to them.
Maraklov set one of his radios to the discrete frequency but did not reply — that would be suicidal. But he did hear: “DreamStar, this is Colonel Harrell, Eagle Squadron commander. We’re following vectors toward you. We’ll be all over you in a few seconds. Climb out of there, slow down and drop your gear or we’ll consider you a hostile and blow your shit away. Answer up. Over.”
A one-second burst of energy on the attack radar told Maraklov the story — six fighters, three pairs, all at different altitudes, arranged along the Colorado River and spaced about twenty miles apart. The closest was about thirty miles ahead, only two hundred feet above ground. The AWACS had moved northward a few miles to get a better look down the valley and to get away from the radar shadows from the Kofa Mountains.
“We’ve got lock-on, James,” Harrell said. “I got you at my twelve o’clock, twenty-eight miles. My wingmen know where you are. The Marines have set up a little surprise for you. Hiding down here in the mud ain’t going to help. Give it up before you get yourself smoked.”
That bit about Yuma Marine Corps Air Station was not exactly true, but it came close. The Marines could easily set up a surface-to-air missile blockade of the Colorado River mouth from Yuma Marine Corps Air Station. Harrell wouldn’t reveal that, though. But the odds were starting to pile up here, and they were all against him.
There was no way to even the odds, but Maraklov decided he wasn’t going to just surrender. Giving up DreamStar was unthinkable. It would make everything he’d done pointless. But if the F-15s didn’t get him, his lack of fuel reserves would. Well, he wasn’t going to make it easy for the F-15s to bring him down. It was time to put his DreamStar through its paces.
Maraklov pushed DreamStar to full power, trimmed for max speed and put her right down on the deck — fifty feet above the river bed.
“That was stupid, James,” Harrell called over the radio. “Very damn stupid. We’ve got you all the way. You can’t get away…”
Maybe, maybe not. But he wasn’t about to drive right into their laps so they could take easy shots at him. If they wanted him, they’d have to work for a shot. He had been cruising at about two to three hundred feet above ground, popping up occasionally to pass over bridges and power lines strung across the Colorado River. Now, two hundred feet would seem like two thousand compared to his present altitude. Using his computer-enhanced responses and DreamStar’s powerful radar in terrain-avoidance mode, Maraklov kept DreamStar less than fifty feet above ground. He did not try to pop up over tall transmission lines — he went under them. He could clearly see rafters and campers lined up on the banks, plugging their ears against the sonic boom that rolled over them as he roared past at Mach one — if he could have seen behind him, he would have seen a huge plume of white exploding off the Colorado River as DreamStar’s sonic wake crashed against the water. Birds pinged and slammed into the canopy and fuselage, but Maraklov kept going, too close now to be brought down by a damned duck.
Near the town of Picacho the steep mountain ranges on either side of the Colorado disappeared. He was only forty miles to the border. He broke away from the river and headed directly south for Yuma.
Suddenly ANTARES screamed “missile tracking” in his brain. The threat receivers had detected that an AIM-120 Scorpion missile had activated its radar and was tracking him — more likely, the F-15 had fired two missiles, since he probably was carrying two more and had at least three other wingmen with missiles. They had a lot of firepower on their side; they could afford to be generous.
Maraklov commanded a hard seven-G climb, almost straight up. He gained altitude to about a thousand feet, then flipped over and pulled hard in a nine-G descent straight down. Fifty feet above ground he yanked his fighter upright and pulled hard to the left behind a hill. The missiles followed his turns but overshot on the climbout, and when they turned to follow he had disappeared. The missile’s computer brain allowed the radar seeker to attempt to reacquire a target for three seconds, then tried to lock-on to any jamming signals in the area. None was present. The missile then began following steering signals from the E-3 AWACS radar plane and turned back toward DreamStar, but by then it was too late. The Scorpion missiles, designed for medium-range engagements at higher altitudes, ran out of fuel and self-destructed seconds later.
Maraklov rolled hard right and found himself back in the Colorado River valley near Laguna Airfield. He commanded DreamStar back down on the deck just in time to fly under a transmission line. At that moment, the scanner on the aft fuselage detected a growing heat source and issued a MISSILE ATTACK warning. An F-15 had dived down from its patrol altitude right on top of DreamStar and had quickly closed in to IR missile range.
In the literal blink of an eye Maraklov commanded DreamStar from max speed mode to max alpha — the slowest speed DreamStar could sustain. Within seconds DreamStar’s wings went from nearly flat to steeply curled; the two-dimensional louvers shuttled forward to redirect thrust down instead of aft; and DreamStar’s canards snapped upward, holding the nose high while the plane decelerated. In ten seconds DreamStar went from Mach one to two hundred knots — only DreamStar’s composite structure, lighter than steel but a hundred times stronger, could withstand the strain.
The two F-15 fighters had closed to three miles behind DreamStar when suddenly their quarry seemed to freeze in midair. At only a hundred feet off the ground there was no room to maneuver, especially with two fighters together in close formation. The lead F-15 broke hard right to avoid DreamStar, then managed to pull up hard enough to escape crashing into the low hills north of Yuma. His wingman was not so lucky — not able to keep up with the five-G pull, the second F-15 fighter pancaked into the desert floor and exploded before the pilot could eject.
Twenty miles to go. Gradually, Maraklov applied power and began to transition back to max-speed, being careful not to use gas-guzzling afterburner. He was over Yuma now, skimming just above tall buildings and radio antennae. The F-15s were still behind him but they weren’t attacking until DreamStar passed clear of the city. He screamed over Yuma Marine Corps Air Station with his airspeed nearly back at Mach one and saw F/A-18 fighters at the end of the runway, probably being held because of the F-15 fighters in pursuit. There was something else at the southeast end of the main runway, but he didn’t have time to make it out before—