Seconds later, the computers aboard those Coyotes finished feeding the targeting information they received into the AIM-120D missiles carried in their weapons bays. Both drones climbed higher, gaining altitude to clear the surrounding hills. Their bay doors whined open. One by one, twenty advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles dropped out into the night sky and ignited. Flashes lit the darkness. Propelled by solid-fuel rocket motors, the missiles raced southeast at Mach 4. For the moment, their own radar-seeker heads were silent, standing by to energize only when the missiles reached close range.
Federov’s radar display blanked out and then lit back up with a hash of greenish static slathered across its whole forward arc. He swore vehemently. He was being jammed. And based on the apparent signal strength, his radar-guided missiles were now useless. He pressed another switch on his stick, arming two of the K-74M heat-seekers his Super Flanker carried instead. Now he just had to get close enough to that American stealth aircraft somewhere out ahead of him to pick up its heat signature.
A new warning tone warbled through his earphones. “Christ,” he muttered. “What now?” Checking his threat display showed that he was being painted by a powerful airborne radar aboard that fleeing enemy aircraft. It was radiating across an astonishing range of frequencies and altering them with incredible speed. Frantically, his computer sorted through a database of recorded signals characteristics, hunting for a match.
Grimly, Federov held his course. Jamming or no jamming, that damned American plane couldn’t hide forever.
And then, suddenly, there it was. Another green diamond appeared almost in the center of his HUD, highlighting a small glowing dot. The Super Flanker’s infrared search-and-track system had detected a thermal signature. It was small, not much bigger than that created by a missile, but he had no doubt that this was the prey he was seeking.
Without waiting longer, Federov squeezed the trigger on his stick. At its heart, air-to-air combat was governed as much by instinctive reactions and intuition as it was by conscious thought. Two K-74 missiles released in sequence from under his fighter’s wings and lit off. At two and a half times the speed of sound, they slashed ahead across the sky, trailing fire and smoke.
To the colonel’s astonishment, the American stealth aircraft made no attempt to evade his attack. It didn’t even launch flares in an effort to decoy his heat-seeking missiles. Instead, it flew on, straight and level — seemingly completely oblivious to its fast-approaching doom.
Triggered by its laser proximity fuse, the first K-74’s warhead detonated within meters of the fleeing enemy plane. Ripped by dozens of pieces of razor-edged shrapnel, it spun out of control, slammed wing first into the Amur River, and disintegrated in a blinding ball of fire.
In that same instant, Federov’s computer finally found the match it had been seeking. Its report flashed onto one of the Super Flanker’s cockpit displays: Enemy radar is an AN/APG-81 identical to that employed by F-35 Lightning fighters.
“You mean it was an APG-81,” the colonel corrected ironically. “Now it’s burning wreckage.” He shook his head in disbelief. Why would the Americans waste a top-of-the-line fighter radar in a transport aircraft, especially one that hadn’t even tried to fight back?
BEEP-BEEP-BEEP.
Federov went cold. My God, he realized in horror. A huge number of AIM-120D radar-seeker heads had just lit up… and they were close, practically right on top of his fighters… coming in from the rear at Mach 4. That aircraft he’d just shot down had been setting them up for an ambush! “All Sentry Flights! Break! Break right now!” he shouted. “We’re under missile attack!”
Immediately he yanked his stick hard right, rolling away from the wave of AIM-120Ds in a high-G turn. He thumbed another switch desperately, setting off the Su-35’s defensive systems. Automated chaff dispensers fired, hurling cartridges into the air behind his violently maneuvering fighter. They burst, strewing thousands of tiny Mylar strips across the sky. Simultaneously, his wing-tip ECM pods spewed energy into a wide band of radar frequencies, hoping to jam the seekers on missiles that might be homing in on his aircraft.
Explosions speckled the night sky all around him as American weapons slammed home with lethal force. Frantic voices flooded through his headset. Chaff blossoms and jamming turned the Su-35’s radar display into a blur of static and false images.
Straining against seven times the force of gravity, Federov rolled inverted and dove toward the ground. With luck, he’d lose any missiles still homing in on him in the ground clutter. Something flashed past his canopy and impacted on the wooded slope of a hill below in a dazzling burst of light.
Too close, he thought grimly.
At five hundred meters, Federov rolled out of his dive and swung southwest. His threat-warning systems fell blessedly silent. Any enemy weapons that hadn’t scored kills were gone — either decoyed away by chaff, blinded by jamming, or run out of energy as they tried to turn with their desperately evading targets. For a time, he flew grimly onward, trying to make sense out of the reports pouring through the data links connecting him with his surviving fighters.
What he saw was a catastrophe. Five of his twelve Su-35S Super Flankers were gone, blown to pieces by high-explosive blast-fragmentation warheads. In the chaos, only one pilot had ejected successfully. The other four were dead, including his own wingman. His seven surviving aircraft were scattered across a huge stretch of the Amur River valley, wherever their wild evasive maneuvers had taken them.
“Sentry Lead, this is Warlord One,” a deep voice said over the radio.
Federov stiffened. This was Leonov himself, calling from Moscow. “Go ahead, Warlord.”
“It seems we underestimated this enemy, Colonel,” Leonov said. “Instead of a single stealth aircraft, the Americans have penetrated our airspace with a significant armed force.”
No shit, Federov thought bitterly. Aloud, he fought to sound coolly professional. “Yes, sir. What are your orders?”
“You will rally your fighters and continue the pursuit,” Leonov radioed coldly. “But this time I suggest you rely solely on IRST until you make positive contact.”
Federov gritted his teeth. In retrospect, his decision to conduct his fighter sweep with active radars had been a blunder — giving the Americans all the warning and time they needed to set their trap. He would not make the same mistake again. “Affirmative, Warlord One,” he acknowledged. “Sentry Lead out.”
Quickly, he selected a rally point on his digital map display and sent it to the rest of his pilots via data link. It was almost due south of where those missiles must have been launched at them. “We’ll form up here,” he ordered. “And then we hunt down and destroy those Amerikanskiye bastards!”
Nadia Rozek saw the seven remaining IRBIS-E radars wink off her threat display. The surviving Su-35s were about ninety nautical miles to their south-southwest. “The Russians have switched to thermal sights only,” she told Vasey.