For a moment, one of his fingers hovered over the radio button. Should he report this contact to Moscow and to the rest of his fighter force before engaging? No, he decided, it would be better to wait and signal a confirmed kill instead. If it were detected, a sighting report would only alert the Americans prematurely. Besides, the other Su-35s were too far away to intervene anyway. This was his fight. And his alone.
Instead, Federov swung in behind the fleeing enemy aircraft. Propelled by its larger, more powerful engines, the Super Flanker closed the gap fast. His thumb moved to the control for the fighter’s radar. Very soon now, he would light the IRBIS-E up and pop a couple of radar-guided missiles right up the unsuspecting ass of that American son of a bitch.
“Warning, warning, IR detection. Hostile aircraft at six o’clock. Range twenty miles and closing,” the Ranger’s computer said calmly.
Reacting fast, Nadia cued one of her displays to their rear-facing thermal sensors. She checked the image it showed. “Hostile aircraft is an Su-35 Super Flanker,” she said tightly.
“Well… bugger,” Vasey said reflectively. His eyes flicked across his own displays and the HUD. The Russian fighter had caught them squarely in the middle of the Sea of Okhotsk, far from any masking terrain features they could use to break contact. “We’ve nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.”
“It is unfortunate,” Nadia agreed. Her fingers tapped rapidly across a virtual keyboard. “Preparing defensive systems. SPEAR is ready to engage. Flares are set for K-74M heat-seekers. Chaff is configured for R-77 radar-guided missiles. Spinning up inertial navigation systems for both MALDs. Their GPS receivers are initialized.” Besides flares and chaff and SPEAR, the only other defenses carried by the XCV-62 were two miniature air-launched decoys slotted into an internal bay. In the circumstances, they were unlikely to be useful… since the Su-35 was almost close enough now to see them visually. Nevertheless, she was not prepared to give up without readying every possible option.
“Warning, warning, X-band radar powering up,” the computer said. And then, “IRBIS-E is locked on.”
“Engaging enemy radar,” Nadia said. She tapped a display, commanding their SPEAR system to try to jam or spoof the Super Flanker’s airborne radar.
“Warning, warning, radar missile launch detection at six o’clock,” the Ranger’s computer announced. “Two missiles inbound at Mach four.”
“Time to impact, twenty-six seconds,” Nadia said. She peered intently at her displays. “Countermeasures ready.”
Beside her, Vasey blinked away a droplet of sweat that stung his eye. This was going to be… difficult. The Russian fighter pilot behind them was certainly an eager bastard. He’d fired at almost the first possible moment, before SPEAR could break his lock-on. And now those two missiles headed their way no longer needed any radar data supplied by the Su-35. They were on inertial guidance, ready to shift to their own active radar homing seekers at close range.
“Countermeasures!” he rapped out. Nadia’s finger stabbed at her display. Instantly, Vasey yanked the Ranger into a hard right turn. G-forces slammed him back against his seat. The world started to gray out. His hand gripped the control stick, straining to keep them from rolling out of control and slamming into the sea.
Chaff cartridges tumbled behind them and exploded.
“Seeker heads are active,” the computer said.
Seduced by a chaff bloom, one of the Russian missiles veered away and detonated well behind them. The second kept coming.
“Time to impact eight seconds,” the computer said matter-of-factly.
Nadia strained against the G-forces to punch in a command on her display. “Engaging missile with SPEAR.”
Precisely calculated radio waves lashed the incoming Russian missile’s radar-seeker head, altering its perception of where it “saw” the Ranger. Not by much — just a small fraction of a degree horizontally and only a few yards vertically. But it was enough. The second R-77 slashed past the XCV-62’s cockpit and corkscrewed away into the sea, vanishing in a brief plume of white foam.
“New unidentified airborne thermal contact at eleven o’clock,” the Ranger’s computer warned. “Altitude three thousand feet. Range indefinite, but closing. Contact speed is high, sixteen hundred knots.”
Vasey rolled the aircraft into another evasive turn away from the Su-35 on their tail. “That’s probably a MiG-31 interceptor out of Yelizovo.” His face was an expressionless mask. “It seems our cup runneth over with bloody enemies today, Major.”
Federov glanced down at his now-useless radar display and cursed in frustration. His Super Flanker’s system could not pierce the wall of electronic noise broadcast by the enemy aircraft ahead. And without the ability to lock on to a target, his remaining radar-guided missiles had suddenly become deadweight.
He turned with the American stealth plane as it tried to evade, easily matching it maneuver for maneuver. His Su-35 was now less than fifteen kilometers behind and catching up fast.
Federov toggled another switch on his control stick, arming his last two heat-seekers. All the electronic jamming in the world wouldn’t stop them from homing in on the enemy’s thermal signature.
More seconds passed as the range dropped steadily. Fourteen kilometers. Thirteen. Twelve.
Now! He squeezed the trigger. The two K-74M missiles flashed out from under the Super Flanker’s wings and curved ahead trailing smoke and fire — already guiding perfectly on their target.
Instantly, the American stealth aircraft broke hard left, spiraling upward in a tight, climbing turn. Dozens of white-hot flares streamed out behind it, each a tiny sunburst against the night.
Federov saw both of his missiles tear through the falling curtain of decoy flares, ignoring them completely in favor of their real prey. They streaked upward after the desperately turning enemy plane. Any second now, he thought, feeling the joyful anticipation of a kill rising fast. The Americans were out of cards to play.
And then his smile vanished.
Less than a hundred meters from the enemy aircraft, both K-74s went wild. They spun away in different directions and detonated harmlessly high over the surface of the sea.
“Damn it!” Federov growled, unable to believe what he’d just seen. Did those American bastards have yet another new defensive system — some black-magic means of killing even IR missiles?
Abruptly, his Super Flanker rocked wildly, hammered by the jet wash of another large, fast-moving aircraft as it streaked past overhead… appearing as nothing more than a darkened blur against the starlit sky before it vanished astern. His jaw tightened. One of the MiG-31s based on the Kamchatka Peninsula must have decided to join the party.
But this would all be over before that other Russian pilot could circle back around, Federov decided coldly. Nobody was stealing this kill from him. He switched his fire-control computer to guns mode and saw a glowing pipper appear on his HUD. Maybe the Americans could disable his missiles… but nothing in the world could stop a 30mm armor-piercing incendiary round from striking home.
He shoved the throttles for the Super Flanker’s engines to afterburner and felt the jolt as his fighter accelerated. Gripping the stick, he focused entirely on staying with the fleeing stealth aircraft as it maneuvered desperately to shake him off its tail. Nothing doing, he thought. You’re mine.