“I do,” admitted Zen. “I assume you’d want this absolutely confidential.”
“I know I can count on you.”
“As much as anyone,” said Zen.
He really missed Breanna.
Zen rolled over, closing his eyes and trying to slip back to sleep.
11
Cowboy continued to climb, intending to use the altitude to help him build speed for an attack. There were six of them, moving tightly in a diamond, with one in the lead, then two, then three. The two aircraft on the ends split off, angling away from the others in what looked like a pincer movement. Cowboy assumed they were going to try and tuck around him if he stayed on his course.
“Ground, the aircraft just split up,” he told Turk.
“Yeah, I’m looking at it,” answered Turk. The feed from Cowboy’s F-35 was being piped through the Whiplash system into Turk’s display.
“They’re going to come behind me, I think.”
“What they’re looking for you to do is break one way or the other,” said Turk. “Then whichever side you’re on, the fighter in the lead and then the one behind will engage you head-on. The idea is to slow you down so the rest can swarm in.”
“Yeah?”
“They do it all the time.”
“So how do I beat it?”
“Come straight at them. All their attack patterns are optimized for a rear quarter attack because of their weapons,” added Turk. “If they’re armed, that is.”
“You don’t think these are armed?”
“We won’t know until they attack. No weapons radars.”
“Right,” said Cowboy. “But they sure look like they’re aggressive — they’re climbing.”
Aggressive or not, neither pilot could fire until they were in imminent danger — fired on or locked by a weapons radar. So they had to wait — or hope for a direct order from Danny Freah, who was empowered to interpret the situation according to his overall mission orders as well as the ROEs, or rules of engagement. So they had to prepare themselves for combat — and yet do nothing.
“If they go hostile, target the middle aircraft,” suggested Turk. “Fire your radar missiles.”
“Not at the lead?”
“No. They’re keying the attack off the plane in the middle. If it diverts, they have to re-form. It’s a vulnerability in a large formation — they were originally designed to work in pairs.”
“You sure?”
“I’m guessing,” admitted Turk.
Basher Three, which was flying top cover over the base, checked in. He was coming south. Turk told him to stay back over the base — the UAVs might split and make their primary attack here.
“You’ll know by their reaction when Cowboy fires,” he said.
At the speed they were closing, Cowboy had another thirty seconds before the UAVs were within firing range.
“You think these guys are hostile?” Cowboy asked Turk.
“Hell, yes. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, and they’re getting close. But the ROEs are pretty specific.”
“I’m working on that. Stand by. I’m going to patch Colonel Freah onto the shared frequency.”
Danny Freah came on the circuit. His voice was clipped and formal — Cowboy realized he was talking “for the record.”
“Basher, state your situation,” directed Freah.
“Colonel, I have six unidentified UAVs coming at me in what Captain Mako says is an attack pattern. I want permission to shoot them down.”
“Do you feel yourself in imminent danger?” asked Freah.
“I feel I’m about to be fired on, yes sir.”
“Permission to engage granted,” said Freah.
Wow, that was easy, thought Cowboy. He’d expected an argument, or at least more questions.
The F-35 had two AMRAAM missiles in its larger internal bay, along with a pair of Sidewinder heat-seekers on its wings. Cowboy dialed up the radar missiles, designated the two targets, and got good locks on both. Just as he was about to fire, however, he lost his fix — the little UAVs had initiated ECMs.
They also started a countermaneuver. The four planes that had stayed together separated into two groups. One charged upward while the other dove toward the earth.
It took Turk a few moments to figure out what they were doing.
“Dive on the ones that are hitting the deck,” he told Cowboy.
It was a counterintuitive move, to say the least.
“Why?”
“Trust me.”
Cowboy hesitated, but only for a moment. He pushed his stick in, plotting an intercept about five miles to the west, on his left in the airplane. As soon as the nose of his aircraft tucked downward, the two aircraft that had started to climb spun back in his direction.
“Roll on your wing and pull around as close to a 180 as you possibly can,” said Turk, telling Cowboy to change direction. “They’ll be on your nose in about thirty seconds. You’re going to want to fire right away.”
“I don’t have a lock.”
“Do it. They’ll get out of there anyway. Then push down and flip over. Look for the two fighters below you.”
“Easy for you to say,” muttered Cowboy, but he did exactly as Turk had suggested. The Lightning II slid down on its wing, then shuddered as Cowboy fought gravity and his own momentum through the turn. It was more a swerve than a pivot. The tail of the plane stubbornly resisted his input, and for a moment the aviator thought he would actually lose the plane; his airspeed had dropped precipitously, and his altitude dropped so quick he thought he was in a free fall. But the Pratt & Whitney F135-600 kept pumping thrust, the two-shaft power plant exerting some 43,000 pounds of force to shove the aircraft in the direction its pilot wanted. Cowboy grunted, fighting off the g forces smashing against his body as the two bandits moved magically into the sweet spot of his targeting pipers.
The aircraft shook as he fired, the doors to the bays opening and then closing as he pushed down his nose. Gravity seemed to welcome him. His airspeed jumped. He saw the other two planes some 8,000 feet below him, but he was too far off to fire the Sidewinders.
Rather than flipping over as Turk had suggested he pushed steeper into the dive, sure he would be able to close the distance before the planes reacted. But he was wrong; the UAVs seemed to disappear, and before he could react he realized they had managed to pull farther down toward the terrain, temporarily getting lost in the clutter.
Cowboy started a turn, guessing that the UAVs would be ahead on his right. The F-35’s radar found them behind him, at very low altitude. He tried to turn toward them but they were already moving away. He started to follow but then saw one of the drones that had split off earlier angling toward him from above. It had worked to within five miles and was closing fast; had he stayed on his course it would have come down right on his tail.
He lit flares and rolled right. Sweat poured from every pore in his body. Cowboy realized he’d made a mistake, leaving himself vulnerable. His RWR lit with a targeting radar — the drone was trying to get him.
It was the signal he’d needed, but it came at the wrong time — now he was the vulnerable one. Cowboy jerked his stick, tightening the turn so hard that he nearly blacked out, the g forces building so quickly that even his suit couldn’t quite keep up. But the maneuver broke the UAV’s grip. He saw it pass overhead, within range of his missile for a fleeting second.
Cowboy couldn’t react quickly enough, and the aircraft flew off. Basher Three, not close enough to take a shot, banked south to continue guarding the base.
It was over. All six of the UAVs were gone, moving back in the direction they had come.