ROGER, AIM-120 ARMED, WARNING, MISSILE ARMED, Sharon responded, and the left AMEAAM missile changed from green to yellow, indicating it was powered up and receiving target and flight information from the attack computer.
“Time to launch?”
TEN SECONDS TO LAUNCH, Sharon responded, with only a hint of hesitation.
They were still screaming earthward at 3,000 feet per minute, and the hills below were starting to become a factor. Mauer knew that he was getting a little target-fixated, so he expanded his look-down supercockpit display to a God’s-eye view of the surrounding area. Only one other plane within fifty miles, and that was a friendly, another F-22. The “primrose path” was steering him around some high terrain — the navigation computer had all of the terrain elevations programmed — but he was still flying close to those hills. The computer-generated flight path was too gentle and not aggressive enough for Mauer’s taste, so he laid his hands on the control stick and throttles and said, “Autopilot heading nav mode off, autopilot altitude nav mode off, fail-safe terrain avoidance mode on.”
ROGER, HEADING NAV OFF, ALTITUDE NAV OFF, WARNING, CHECK AUTOPILOT MODES, ROGER, TERRAIN AVOIDANCE MODE ENGAGED, Sharon replied. The F-22 s terrain-avoidance mode would provide a last-second emergency fly-up in case he strayed too close to the ground or the hills.
“Time to launch?”
SAY AGAIN, PLEASE, Sharon replied. Mauer was getting excited again — his voice was getting clipped, more high-pitched, and therefore harder for Sharon to understand. No matter — he saw the time-to-launch countdown on his virtual display and didn’t ask again. Fie was breathing faster and shallower. Relax, dammit, relax! he told himself. You’ve got this intercept nailed. Even without Sharon’s help, he had it wired.
Mauer now knew what the bandit’s target was: the industrial site, the fifty-acre military weapons and research facility. It was imperative that this plant be protected. The Air Force had assigned two F-22 Lightning fighters, their most modern and high-tech warplane, to the industrial site’s defense. A Patriot air defense missile site was active in the area, but with the F-22s operating in the area at the same time, the Patriot would be kept in reserve until the air defense fighters ran out of missiles.
“Tell me when to shoot,” Mauer said.
MAX RANGE IN FIVE SECONDS… MAX RANGE IN THREE SECONDS… TWO SECONDS… ONE SECOND… MAX IN RANGE… OPTIMAL IN RANGE, Sharon said.
Mauer keyed the intercom button: “AIM-120 shoot,” he ordered.
ROGER, AIM-120 SHOOT, AIM-120 SHOOT… WARNING, WEAPONS DOOR OPENING… AIM-120 AWAY. Mauer felt the rumble of the weapons doors sliding inwardly, felt the slap! of the gas ejectors forcing the left AM- RAAM missile into the supersonic slipstream, then saw a streak of white smoke arc across the sky from the belly of his Lightning fighter. The VD display showed an estimated “time to die” countdown: nine seconds… eight… seven… six… at five seconds, the AMRAAM’s own active radar seeker head activated, which would guide the missile in the last few seconds of its kill…
The bandit suddenly dipped from 1,000 feet above the terrain to fifty feet — literally in the blink of an eye! — then made an impossible left turn behind a tall butte. The AMRAAM, just seconds from impact, lost sight of its target. The missiles seeker head was only a ten-degree cone and its turn rate was about seven Gs — the bandit had turned ninety degrees and pulled fifteen, maybe twenty Gs. There was no way, no way, any bomber could turn like that. The AMRAAM missile was lost, smoothly and completely faked out by a move that would make Jerry Rice hang up his cleats.
Mauer yanked the Lightning fighter left. “Radar on, lock on bandit…” But before the ships radar could lock on and send new steering signals to the missile, it had plowed into the ground. Clean miss! That was the first time Mauer had ever seen an AMRAAM missile miss its intended target. What kind of bomber was this? The F-15E Strike Eagle was not this fast or agile with weapons aboard… was it a foreign job, like the Japanese FS-X or a Messerschmidt X-31? Maybe an F-16XL cranked arrow…?
Just then, Mauer glanced off to his right and saw it — a cloud of black smoke over the industrial site. Mauer had been hoping to reacquire the bandit on this southbound jog before it turned westbound again toward the industrial site, but he was too late. The industrial site was hit. Dammit, looked like a direct fucking hit — wait, no, not quite. The bad guys intel was obviously poor — the hit was on the center of the big building, mostly crating and shipping stuff and empty space. The bandit got a hit, but it didn’t do much harm!
Westbound again, radar on in wide-area look-down search — got him! BANDIT ONE O’CLOCK LOW, TWELVE MILES, Sharon advised.
“Lock bandit, arm AIM-120, AIM-120 shoot,” Mauer ordered immediately.
BANDIT LOCKED… ROGER, AIM-120 ARMED, WARNING, WEAPONS ARMED… AIM-120 SHOOT, AIM-120 SHOOT, WARNING, WEAPONS DOORS OPENING… AIM-120 AWAY, Sharon responded in rapid-fire succession, and his last AMRAAM missile was flying. But almost as soon as it launched, Mauer could see its white smoke trail wobbling, then breaking first hard to the left, then in a wide sharply arcing curve to the right, then again to the left in an even wider arc. He knew it was going to miss well before the “time to die” meter ran down to zero. That bandit had made two high-G jinks that again beat the hell out of the highly maneuverable AIM-120 missile.
Another cloud of black smoke—another hit on the industrial site, and this time it was on the smaller building southeast of the large building, where a lot of finished munitions and products were stored awaiting transportation. That son of a bitch had actually gone all the way around and reattacked, with a fighter on his tail! He had balls, that’s for sure— any mud-mover worth his wings would hit, then get out of the defended area as fast as he could.
Enough of this super-automated datalink shit, Mauer thought — time to call in some help. They were supposed to stay off the voice radios and use the datalink as much as possible, but he was in deep shit and his first priority was to defend his territory. He rocked the radio switch on the throttles up to the UHF position: “Saber One-Two, this is One-One on Red.”
“One-Two,” replied his fellow hunter, Captain Andrea Mills. She had a slight twinge of sarcasm already in her voice, and Mauer almost regretted calling her — he knew she knew he was having trouble.
“Come give me a hand with this bandit,” Mauer said.
“Roger, I’m on my way,” Mills replied, the sarcasm gone. Mills looked for every opportunity to rub her fellow fighter jocks’ noses in the macho hunter-killer game they all relished, but when it came time to get down to business, she was serious, focused, and as deadly as any swinging dick.
Mauer switched his heads-down supercockpit screen to a God’s-eye view and expanded it until Mills’s fighter symbol appeared — good, she was off to the north, racing southwestbound to cut off the bandit from the other major ground target in the area, the fighter base and Patriot missile emplacements. Mills was staying high, establishing a high patrol, so Mauer pushed his stick forward and zoomed down lower, closer to the bandit’s altitude. He had two missiles left, both heat-seekers with a max range of only seven miles, and he had to make them count. If the bomber got the airfield and the Patriot site, their forces would be left wide open to attack, the airborne fighters would have to find someplace else to land, and the fighters on the ground were sitting ducks and wouldn’t be able to depart.
At 3,000 feet above the ground, the hills and buttes looked close enough to scrape the bottom of Mauer’s fighter. He kept the power up at full military power, speeding westbound at Mach 1.5, searching for the bomber… but Mills’s radar locked on first. The JTIDS datalink transferred the bandit’s position to Mauer’s attack computer, and he again locked onto the bomber and began his pursuit — twelve o’clock, nine miles… eight…