Running away?
No, decoying him, as had the other F/A-18’s.
“We have bogies south,” said Galatica’s radar operator tersely. “In range for Phoenix launch in thirty seconds.”
“Clever bastards.”
Iowa
August 16, 1505
Colonel Bastian checked the overall position on the sitrep screen in the lower left-hand corner of his dashboard. Piranha, still undetected, was now closing on the Kitty Hawk.
He wished he could say that Iowa was also still undetected.
“Eight Tomcats, positively ID’d,” Ferris said. “They’ll launch any second.”
“Not a problem,” said Dog.
“Got it,” said Delaford.
“Yes!” added Ensign Gloria English. “We are within five miles of the aircraft carrier. Closing. We’re not detected.”
“If this were Option Four, they’d be dead. We could download to a sub now—boom, boom, boom!” sand Delaford.
“Tomcats are launching missiles!” shouted Ferris, so loud he could’ve been heard back on the tail.
“Evasive maneuvers,” said Dog. “If we’re in, we’re going to break, Tom,” he told Delaford. They were already at the extreme range for the Piranha system, and would have to close off contact to duck their attackers.
“Colonel, if we can hold contact for another sixty seconds, I can have Piranha pop up across from the Kitty Hawk’s bridge. Kind of put an exclamation mark on the demonstration,” Delaford said.
“Missiles are tracking,” said Ferris.
“Can we break them if we stay here?”
“Trying. The Tomcats are still coming. They want our blood.”
“We’ll hold our position as long as we can,” Dog told Delaford. “Hopefully, we won’t get nailed in the process.”
“It’ll be worth it,” said Delaford, whose project had faced considerable skepticism from the Navy brass.
Dog told the other Megafortresses they could break off.
“Sixty seconds,” said Delaford. “Right under the admiral’s nose.”
“Colonel, one of those Navy logs won’t quit.”
“Tinsel,” said Dog, giving the order to dispense electronic chaff designed to confuse the radar guiding the long-range missile.
“Fifty seconds,” said Delaford.
“Missile impact in twenty,” warned Ferris.
“Hang on, everybody,” said Dog. He pulled the Megafortress hard right, then back left, accelerating north briefly but then pulling back west, trying to stay within range of the Piranha buoy.
“Must’ve graduated from Annapolis,” said Ferris. “That missile isn’t quitting.”
Dog decided to do something he’d never be able to manage in a stock B-52—he twisted the massive plane through an invert and accelerated directly toward the AIM-54. Against a “live” missile, the strategy would have been dubious, since the proximity fuse would have lit the warhead as he approached. But the gear in the nose used to record a hit was a few beats slower than the real McCoy, and Dog just managed to clear the AIM-54 before it “exploded.”
“Shit, I lost the connection,” said Delaford as Dog recovered.
“Can you get it back?”
“Trying.” Dog could hear Delaford and English tapping furiously on the keyboards that helped them control the remote devices.
“We can drop another buoy,” suggested English.
“We should,” said Delaford. “But this one is closer. You know Colonel, I think they’re trying to jam us.”
“They have two jammers aloft,” said Ferris.
“Give me a course,” said Dog. “Delaford, is there any way to make Piranha spit in the admiral’s eye when it comes to the surface?”
“Working on it, sir.”
Galatica
August 16, 1507
Unlike the earlier attacker, these Tomcats not only knew Fentress’s Flighthawk were there, but considered them enough of a threat to target them with their Phoenix missiles. Ducking the long-distance homers wasn’t that difficult—Fentress had done so in about a dozen simulations over the past two weeks—but it did take time. It also cost him position—he lost control of Hawk Four as his Megafortress jinked out of the ECM-shortened communications range to avoid another volley of missiles. The onboard computer took over the robot, turning it toward the EB-52 in default return mode.
Fentress pulled Hawk Three higher, hoping to get into position to break the next wave of attack, which he expected to be close-in dash to fire heat-seekers. But the Tomcats had something else in mind; AMRAAM-pulses, fired from just over forty miles away.
A red-hot wire snaked around his chest. Not one but two of the Scorpions locked on his plane. These were considerably more difficult to avoid. Even in simulations, he’d never gotten away from a pair. Galatica, with its performance significantly hampered by the revolving radar dome in its upper body, would have an even more