Fourier's group of four F-15s passed fifty feet below the first Soviet formation, flying over nine hundred miles an hour faster than the large Soviet aircraft. The Americans stayed in formation, in a mallard-like V formation, flying so close that they almost looked like one large aircraft. Fourier made mental notes as they made their fast observation pass… The Soviet formation had broken into two separate cells; the lower cell consisted of four Sukhoi-27 Flanker air-superiority fighters and two supersonic Tupolev-26 Backfire bombers. "Look at all the stuff on those Flankers," Fourier's WSO said as he hurriedly made notes in a logbook. "Wing-tip missile, one underwing missile each side, one underwing bomb each side, one long-range fuel tank under the belly. Major league boom-booms."
"Heavy," Fourier said, taking a deep breath. His WSO was typing all the information into his satellite transceiver unit. "You'd better be getting all this out."
"Sent, repeated twice, awaiting acknowledgment," the WSO told him. "It looked like one full rack of six hundred pounders each under each wing of those Backfires."
"Like you said: major league." Fourier keyed his microphone switch for the first time since takeoff. "Tango November flight two, this is lead. Did you blow the whistle?"
"Lead, this is flight two lead. That's a rog. Acknowledgment already received. We've got four Flankers, and two Condor tanker-transports up here."
"Copy, flight two lead. We've got four Flankers; with bombs and two Backfires with bombs down here."
"Acknowledgment coming over the SATCOM," Fourier's WSO reported over interphone. "Message received says, 'Bravo November.' "
Fourier's grip tightened on the stick and throttle. He did not need the tiny codebook he carried on his kneeboard to decode that message. "Tango November flights one and two, check in with last message received. Red Lead has Bravo November."
"Two."
"Three."
"Four," came the short, jabbing replies from his own flight. "Blue Lead has Bravo November."
"Two."
"Three.
"Four. "
Fourier adjusted his oxygen mask, took a deep breath. "Send the reply," Fourier told his back-seater. Fourier heard a few keytaps, then: "Acknowledgment received."
The veteran F-15 pilot checked his heads-up display. The laser-derived threat-display projected onto his windscreen showed every aircraft around him, American and Russian, in detail — without one electron of energy coming from any of the American aircraft.
Up until now this had been just another routine fly-by patrol. Missions like this, shadowing Russian, Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi planes over the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia, were a common practice. Even playing "chicken" or "tag" with Soviet naval aviation Backfire bombers went on all the time.
But now the game turned dead-serious. Fourier felt sweat trickle down the back of his neck, felt the tension take over his body. His next command to his attack group — world wars had started over less… "Tango November flights, execute Bravo November… now."
The entire fly-by, the sending and receiving of all coded messages and the coordination to implement the order transmitted by Armstrong Station — all took a little over thirty seconds. In that time they had sped ahead of the startled Soviet aircraft by nearly ten miles.
On Fourier's order the two groups of four F-15 Eagles executed a hard left turn at ninety degrees of bank, pulling nearly seven "g" s as each pilot applied back-stick pressure. At the same time they decreased their throttles back from max afterburner to military power to avoid overstressing their fighters. They continued the hard turn until they were two hundred seventy degrees to the left of their original heading.
When the two groups rolled out of the turn they found the Russian planes dead ahead of them, less than eight miles away. "Fox One," Fourier said — and the skies were suddenly on fire.
Disorganized, with aircraft all around them in the pitchblack skies over Iran, the Russian pilots were forced to do the wrong thing: stay on their original heading. The four Backfire bombers accelerated and started a descent toward the protective radar clutter of the Elburz Mountains of northern Iran, but with escorts and wingmen all around them the huge bombers never strayed from their southeasterly course. The Flanker fighter-bombers followed the Backfire bombers down but dutifully stayed with the bombers in tight formation.
The Condor transport pilots, feeling safe with four of the Soviet's most advanced fighters surrounding them, took no evasive action. Two of the Condor's escorts accelerated to give chase to the undetected intruders, but their new and untried Kalskaya-651AG pulse-Doppler attack radars lost track of the American fighters when they went into their hard turns, and the two Flankers had begun to return to their formations. All twelve Soviet pilots felt safe from attack when the intruders disappeared… their threat-detectors and electronic countermeasures-equipment never gave any indication that the intruders had activated any airborne search or missile-guidance radars.
But with Silver Tower's space-based radar tracking both the American and Soviet aircraft, no airborne radars were needed. As soon as the eight F-15s were rolled out and heading directly broadside to the Soviets they launched their radar-guided AAM-155C Viper missiles, and with each Eagle launching six Viper missiles, the sky was suddenly filled with death-dealing fire.
The Viper missiles took their initial guidance vectors from the data-link between the Eagles and Armstrong Station, which helped to point the missiles toward their targets — no threatening radar signals that could have given the position of the Eagles away were transmitted. Once stabilized in flight, the Viper's own on-board terminal-guidance radars automatically switched on and started to seek targets on their own.
The two Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighters that had given chase were the only ones able to spot the missile launches and take evasive action in time, and the Viper missiles chasing them exploded harmlessly after their propellant was exhausted. One of the Backfire bombers had accidentally released a cloud of chaff as the bomber's defensive-systems officer activated his countermeasures equipment, and a Viper missile locked onto the radar-reflective tinsel and steered away a bare half-second before plowing into the bomber's left engine.
But those were the only three out of twelve Soviet aircraft survive. Forty-five Viper air-to-air missiles found targets that night, sending two and a half million pounds of Soviet machines, and men, crashing into the northern Iranian mountains.
Fourier and his seven attacking Eagles did not wait to check on the outcome of their assault; immediately after launching their Viper missiles they accelerated at max afterburner once again, climbed and turned westward for home.
Each had kept two Viper missiles on wingtip pylons ready to launch in case of pursuit.
But there was no pursuit. The two remaining Su-27 Flankers circled the area over the Elburz Mountains for a short time as the Russian emergency frequency was filled with the sounds of air-crew locator-beacons bleeping and buzzing, activated automatically on ejection or on impact with the ground. They copied a few calls for help and a few position coordinates of downed pilots or aircraft for possible rescue, then climbed out of the dark Iranian mountains and headed north for safer territory. The one remaining Backfire bomber decided to follow its escorts home instead of risk a lone penetration run toward Tehran.
"Tango November flight, post-release and station checks."
Fourier stripped off his oxygen mask as he received acknowledgments and bingo fuel-updates from his wingmen. He felt wrung out. He looked at the weapons-control and flight-director at his heads-up display with a sense of awe, and some mistrust. It was damned effective, this Armstrong Space Station. He'd always thought of the station in abstract terms, as an idea waiting to be made real, to have a real impact… He'd learned better this night…