Maraklov began a hard four-G inverted climb directly back toward Cheetah, presenting his smallest radar cross-section to the oncoming Scorpion missile, which corrected for the sudden climb but could not complete the turn in time to avoid plowing into the Sierra Madre mountains. ANTARES immediately brought its cannon on-line and activated its attack radar to track Cheetah in as it sped toward it.
J.C. watched in frustration as DreamStar dodged away from the AIM-120 missile, but he was ready for the move. “Set attack-mode air cannon. Arm cannon.”
“Cannon armed … Warning; radar weapon tracking, twelve o’clock. “
Powell touched the voice-command button. “All trackbreakers on and transmit.”
“Trackbreakers on and transmitting, “ the computer acknowledged as Cheetah’s powerful internal jammers activated — the jammers would keep DreamStar’s cannon from maintaining a lock-on. “I can’t believe how fast he can get his guns on-line. But he’s gotta be out of smash … Hang on.”
McLanahan needed no encouragement. J.C. pulled up into a tight climb, rolled inverted only five hundred feet above ground and again tried to line up on DreamStar.
DreamStar had easily locked onto Cheetah with the attack radar, and Maraklov could now track it through its sudden climb. But when DreamStar tried to follow Cheetah around to keep the guns on him, ANTARES warned that he was approaching stall-speed. DreamStar, which had not yet reached optimal flying speed so early after takeoff, had used all its energy in its tight evasive turn and its pitch-up to track Cheetah and had no power left to continue to track him with the nose high in the air. DreamStar’s canards pushed the nose down, and with that the guns were pulled off Cheetah.
Powell pushed Cheetah’s nose earthward and on the downside of the loop found himself lined up on DreamStar. He pushed on the right rudder to slew Cheetah’s nose to the right … no time to get a radar lock … just squeeze the trigger, hoping for a lucky hit.
“Altitude,” Patrick shouted. “Pull up.”
J.C. went to max afterburner and hauled back on the stick with both hands. He was so fixed on the image of DreamStar dead in his sights that he ignored the rocks and trees rushing up at him. Then he had to roll hard left to fly behind DreamStar to avoid hitting him. After that hard turn Powell found himself perilously close to stall speed and had no choice but to roll wingslevel at max afterburner and wait until he had regained speed.
“Dammit,” McLanahan shouted, “you had him, J.C. You could have nailed him—”
“This isn’t no Cessna 152 we’re fooling with, Patrick. He can turn and attack faster than we can. He could have launched a missile by now but he was only tracking us with guns — he never got off a missile-track signal. Maybe that means he doesn’t have any missiles.”
“Well, we’re below half-fuel right now. We need to tag him and head back, or we’ll be walking to Nevada.”
J.C. started a right turn back toward DreamStar. “Safe radar missiles,” he spoke into the voice-command computer. “Set attack mode infrared missile.”
“Infrared missile selected, warning; one missile remaining.”
“I got a visual on him,” Powell said. He touched the voice-command button. “Attack radar standby. Infrared scanner operate.”
“Attack radar standby. infrared scanner on.” Immediately the heat-seeking scanner locked onto DreamStar.
“He’s just running,” Powell said. “He’s not jinking and jiving anymore.” To the voice-command computer he ordered, “Slave infrared missile to infrared scanner.”
The Sidewinder missile’s seeker-head followed the azimuth directions of Cheetah’s scanner, but the missile did not indicate a lock-on. “We need to get in closer …”
“No,” McLanahan said. “His tail IR scanner has a greater range than our Sidewinder. Launch the Sidewinder in boresight mode — it should lock onto him after launch.”
“It’s worth a try.” It was easier than before for Powell to align himself with DreamStar’s tailpipe — Maraklov was indeed driving straight and level, accelerating as fast as possible. When he was aligned with DreamStar’s rectangular exhaust Powell commanded: “Infrared missile boresight.”
“Infrared missile boresight: caution; no target lock.” The missile would normally not launch unless it was tracking a target, but in boresight mode the missile could be launched straight ahead and the infrared seeker could attempt to lock onto a target while flight; it also was a tricky technique used against slow-moving targets to hit them outside the missile’s optimal range. It was not reliable because of the missile-seeker’s narrow field of view, but against hot targets that weren’t maneuvering it was at least a valid attack.
Powell hit the command button. “Launch.”
“Warning; radar target lock, seven o’clock.”
McLanahan strained again to search behind Cheetah’s twin tails. “Two … no, four fighters, two flights of two, right behind us. I can’t see what they are but they’re coming on fast—”
“I gotta break it off, Patrick—”
“No, stay on him; nail him—”
But even then it was too late. DreamStar had picked up the same radar indications as Cheetah, and the advanced fighter had made a hard break to the right and an even harder one up and down to shake off the radar-lock by the advancing strangers. A boresight missile-launch was impossible.
“Infrared missiles to safe. Set attack-mode radar missiles,” Powell ordered.
“Two jets going high, two coming in,” McLanahan said. “I can’t tell for sure, but they look like … they’re F-20s, Mexican F-20s … “
“Warning; radar target lock, six o’clock …”
J.C. yanked the stick hard right to stay with DreamStar, but it had regained its lost speed and was pulling away, staying at boulder level.
“They’re still with us,” McLanahan said. “Can you get a shot off anyway?”
“I think so … here we go …”
“Warning; radar missile lock. “ A missile was in flight, heading for them …
J.C. hit the voice-command button on his stick. “Chaff right.” The computer ejected two bundles of radar-decoying chaff from the right ejector rack as J.C. yanked Cheetah into a hard left bank, pulling on the stick until the computer issued a stall-warning message.
“No missile,” McLanahan called out, straining his head up out of the cockpit against the G-forces pushing him into his seat. “Didn’t see a missile …”
“They faked us out,” J.C. said, “they wanted to get our attention—”
“Damn it, get back on DreamStar.”
Powell began a hard right turn back toward DreamStar, but as he rolled out of the turn they heard: “American F-15 fighter, this is Mexican Air Force. You are directed to follow me at once.”
“Goddamn; there he is, left wing.” The F-20 Tigershark, the single-engine, high-tech version of the American F-5F Tiger fighter, was in loose route formation off Cheetah’s left wingtip.
“Number two is behind us,” McLanahan said. “Stay on DreamStar.” He switched to the VHF GUARD international emergency frequency. “Mexican Air Force, this is the F-15 Storm One. We are on an authorized search mission for Storm Two, which is at our one o’clock position. We have permission from your government to pursue and destroy this aircraft. Over.” So he lied a little.
“We have been advised that no foreign aircraft has permission to enter Mexican airspace. We will destroy both if you do not follow us immediately.”