As Federov’s speed climbed higher, the range decreased even more rapidly. He could see the gun computer estimates flickering down on his HUD. Four kilometers. Three kilometers. Two kilometers. One thousand meters.
He throttled back. Now that he was this close, there was no sense in risking an overshoot. His thumb moved to the guns switch on his stick. The maximum effective range for the GSh-301 cannon mounted in the Su-35’s starboard wing root was around eight hundred meters. He planned to get in even closer — close enough to be sure he could score the hits needed to rip that American aircraft apart in midair and send its crew tumbling to hell.
ZZZAAATTT.
Federov’s eyes widened in stunned horror as his instrument panels and cockpit displays suddenly erupted in a shower of sparks… and then went black. With its digital fly-by-wire system dead, the Super Flanker started to roll out of control. Frantically, he grabbed for the ejection handle.
Too late.
Still moving at more than six hundred knots, the Su-35S plowed into the sea and exploded.
“Ouch,” Hunter Noble muttered, seeing the Russian fighter auger in and vanish in a huge ball of fire and foam. “Bet that hurt.” He opened the intercom to the spaceplane’s aft cabin. “Nice work, Jacobs!”
“Thanks, Boomer,” Paul Jacobs replied. The former B-52 electronic warfare officer ran the S-29B’s defensive systems. The microwave emitters under his control had just proved their effectiveness in real-world combat — first by frying the electronics in the two Russian heat-seeking missiles just before they hit the XCV-62 and then by shorting out every computer and digital control system aboard that Super Flanker.
He eased back on the big spaceplane’s throttles and curved away to avoid overflying the Ranger at supersonic speed a second time. One side of his mouth quirked upward. I bet Constable Vasey and Nadia are already plenty spooked as it is, he thought smugly. He keyed his mike. “Wolf Six-Two, this is Shadow Two-Nine Bravo. Sorry we cut things a little close there. But don’t worry, we’ll stick with you from here on out. Hold your course across the Kurils and we’ll run interference if the Russians make another missile or fighter attack on you.”
There was a moment’s silence before Nadia Rozek replied. “Boomer?” Her voice sounded strained.
“Yep.”
“Where did you get an armed spaceplane?” she demanded.
Boomer winked across the cockpit at Liz Gallagher. “Well, Major, that’s sort of a long story. Tell you what, I promise you’ll hear all about it once we’re back on the ground.”
“Yes,” she said flatly. “I will. Wolf Six-Two out.”
Liz Gallagher arched an eyebrow at him. “That was Major Nadia Rozek? The ex — Iron Wolf commando? The one I’ve heard so many stories about?” Boomer nodded. “She sounds kind of pissed off,” his copilot said carefully. “Like maybe this was one surprise too many?”
“Well, she might be a little testy about that, I guess,” Boomer allowed. “But Nadia’ll get over it. After all, we just saved her life… and Brad McLanahan’s, too. Plus, we’re pretty good friends.”
“Oh, Boomer,” Gallagher said, shooting him a pitying smile. “That probably means she’ll only beat you half to death.” She shrugged. “But don’t worry, I’ll stick close to you.”
“You will?”
“Sure,” she said judiciously. “Somebody needs to supply the bandages.”
Thirty-Nine
Colonel General Leonov sat alone on one side of the large conference table. His colleagues among Russia’s national security and foreign policy elite were crowded practically elbow to elbow around the other three sides. I have become a plague carrier, he thought with morbid humor. No one wanted to risk even the slightest association with someone who had become a focus of Gennadiy Gryzlov’s ire.
“You were an idiot, Leonov,” the president said icily. “How could you let yourself be duped by so obvious a ploy?”
Leonov kept his voice level. “Without knowing that one of the American astronauts survived reentry, we had no way to judge that their attack on our surface-to-air missile defenses was only a feint.”
“Your ignorance of yet one more important fact is hardly a persuasive defense,” Gryzlov snapped. “For days, the world has trembled before Russia’s power. But now you’ve allowed the Americans to rescue their downed astronaut and run rings around you.” His eyes were coldly furious. “And your failure threatens to make the Motherland a laughingstock.”
“This was a covert operation by the Americans,” Leonov pointed out carefully. “They aren’t likely to publicize its results.”
Gryzlov snorted. “You think not? Then you’re an even bigger fool than I believed. Washington will be only too happy to spread the news to its allies, if only to stiffen the backs of those who had been wavering. We just lost six of our best single-seat fighters and fired off more than a hundred sophisticated missiles… and for what? To kill a handful of cheap decoys!”
Angrily, he shoved back his chair, stood up, and began pacing around the table. He loomed over everyone else in the room like a bird of prey on the lookout for its next victim. “Of what value, Colonel General,” he sneered, “is your expensive military space station if our enemies can still violate Russia’s sovereignty with impunity?”
Leonov kept his mouth shut.
“Now you show some wisdom,” Gryzlov commented acidly. He stopped pacing. “Despite the dominance we have achieved in near-Earth orbit, the Americans still apparently believe they can act freely against us here on Earth itself. They must be made to regret this error.”
“In what way, Gennadiy?” Foreign Minister Daria Titeneva asked. Her eyes were watchful.
Gryzlov bared his teeth in a cold, cruel smile. “By the most logical means, Daria. We will carry out an immediate reprisal attack, employing one of Mars One’s Rapira hypersonic warheads.”
Leonov nodded to himself. That was the logical move. And it was one he had anticipated as soon as Gryzlov had summoned his senior officials to this emergency meeting.
Titeneva frowned. “Firing those space-based missiles still involves serious risk,” she said slowly. “And it would not be in our interest to trigger an uncontrolled escalation of this conflict.”
“Weapons that we are too afraid to use are not weapons at all,” Gryzlov said with contempt.
“I understand that, Mr. President,” the foreign minister said. She looked straight up at him. “Which is why I agree that we should launch one of the Rapiras—but only against an uninhabited area first. Doing so would demonstrate the power of this new weapons system quite convincingly, especially if we couple it with a clear warning that further attacks against us or our interests will be avenged with overwhelming force.”
Gryzlov waved away her suggestion with obvious scorn. “That is the counsel of cowardice, Daria. I thought better of you.” He shook his head. “Pulverizing a few hundred square meters of dirt and rock will not terrify anyone. Especially not the Americans.” He looked around the table with a challenging stare. “Did the Americans ‘demonstrate’ the power of their first atomic bomb to the Japanese by dropping it on empty ocean?”