“Great. We just signed his death warrant,” Annie said. She cut the afterburners and started an orbit around the MV-22. “The only chance we got is to get him to do a one-eighty, and then tag all those antiaircraft sites.”
“I’m on it,” Duane said. His fingers flew over the attack computer controls, trackball, and touchscreens, designating targets and programming the missiles for launch. As they completed their orbit, the attack computers opened the middle bomb bay doors and spit a Longhorn missile into space. “Stand by for multiple missile launches.”
But their luck began to run out. The Longhorn missiles did have one major flaw: their big rocket engines, which ignited seconds after release, highlighted the launch aircraft like a bright neon sign. The other antiaircraft sites wised up and started moving to another firing location. Every time they launched another Longhorn missile, several ripples of 23-millimeter cannon fire streamed in their direction, and Annie was forced to dodge and jink away. It was a valiant effort, but it didn’t work. The AGM-89 Longhorn missile was able to lock onto a target once in flight, but without guidance corrections from the bombardier, its hit percentage decreased markedly. Deverill simply could not juggle six Longhorn missiles in the air at one time. After one orbit, there was still a ZSU-23/4 unit operational. “All missiles expended,” Deverill said breathlessly. “Triple-A still active, eleven o’clock, range indefinite. Sorry, Annie.”
“I’m not going to let that MV-22 get shot down,” Annie said.
“Terminator, this is Genesis,” Samson tried. “We show all air-to-ground weapons expended. You’re done for the night. Return to the refueling anchor.”
“Deactivate voice link,” Annie ordered to the satellite voice server.
“He can override,” Deverill reminded her. “You can’t shut off the general.”
“Just give me a heading and altitude on Hammer,” Annie said. “I’ll give it one more shot.”
“You’re going to ignore Samson? He’ll eat you for breakfast.”
“Do I gotta do it myself, Dev? Give me a damned vector to the MV-22.” Deverill shook his head, gave Annie a heading, altitude, airspeed, and range to the MV-22 Pave Hammer, then fell silent.
If it was possible, the weather had gotten worse — now, along with the structural ice, darkness, and poor visibility, they encountered strong, choppy turbulence. A few times, the turbulence was so bad they thought they had been hit by antiaircraft fire. In addition, the MV-22 was in. a slight turn. At first it was in a good direction — northwest, away from the advancing Russian army — but the turn kept on coming, and now they were headed back the way they came, toward the oncoming forces.
Again, Annie began her rejoin on the MV-22. She lowered flaps right to the landing position to slow down and stabilize faster. But it was obvious after only a few moments that it was not going to be any easier — the pounding caused by the turbulence was getting worse by the minute. “Damn it, I can’t do it,” Annie said. “The turbulence is too strong. I’m getting a cramp in my hand.”
“You’ve come this far, Annie. Keep it coming. Relax your grip on the stick.”
“I can’t do this, Dev—”
“Heels, just shut up and move it in,” Deverill said. “Nice and easy, but keep it coming. We’ve got about ninety seconds before we get within lethal range of that Zeus-23.”
Annie nudged the EB-1 closer, closer… “Three thousand feet … twenty-five hundred … good closure, two thousand … fifteen hundred …” But suddenly the MV-22 hit some turbulence and yawed hard left. Annie yanked the control stick left, avoiding a collision by just a few dozen yards. Annie had no choice but to bank away hard, back out to three-quarters of a mile.
“Why are they turning left?” Annie exclaimed, her voice strained and hoarse. “Don’t they realize they’re about to get their butts shot off?”
“Never mind, Annie,” Deverill coached. “Ease it back over. You can do it. Four thousand feet … c’mon, Annie, time’s a-wastin’, get it over there … whoa, whoa, a little too fast, two thousand … good correction, fifteen hundred … one thousand … good, five hundred feet … slide ‘er over a hair more…” He scanned the sky with the flashlight, aiming it where the electronic image said the cockpit was. “Trash Man’s probably got all his attention on his gauges, trying to keep himself upright. C’mon, you guys, look up, look up!”
“Crap, crap, crap, “ Weston swore to himself. The primary electronic artificial horizon had gone out when the triple-A guns got them, and now the backup gyroscopic artificial horizon was starting to look wobbly. He glanced over at the pneumatic pressure gauge and saw it was two dots below the green arc — the backup gyro instruments would probably go out very soon. When that happened, he’d have to rely on the electric turn and bank indicator, the pitot-static altimeter and vertical velocity indicator, and the backup “whiskey” compass — instrument flying at its most basic.
He knew he was in serious trouble. It would take all his skills to keep the big plane upright now. Any distraction, any emergency, any attack now that diverted his attention away from flying the aircraft, might send them into an unrecoverable death-spiral right into the ground. Weston tried to relax his grip on the controls, tried to loosen up.
“Where are you guys?” Briggs asked, frantically searching out the cockpit windows. “My pilot’s getting pretty antsy, and so’s his gauges.”
“At your nine o’clock, less than a half-mile,” Deverill replied. “Coming in fast.”
At that instant, Weston saw it-it looked like a flashlight beam, as if shining through a thick fog. Weston’s eyes darted back and forth, from window to instruments. He then had to scramble to stop a steeper-than-anticipated left bank. Shit, that came out of nowhere! An instantaneous distraction was all it took to start a violent maneuver. Weston quickly realized he couldn’t keep that up any longer — the plane was drifting farther and farther off course every time he looked out the window.
Suddenly he saw it, flying just below and to their left, less than a football field’s distance away. How in the world they’d avoided a collision, Weston couldn’t figure. “Tally-ho! Tallyho!” Weston crowed. “Got you in sight!”
“There it is!” Deverill crowed. “You see it, Heels?”
“Tally-ho!” Annie responded happily. Sure in hell, it’d worked. Her attitude changed instantly. Before she’d had visual contact, all she could think about was how to stay away from the MV-22. Now that she had visual contact, she wasn’t going to lose sight of him again, even if Deverill had to open the window so they could hold hands together. “I got you now, sucker.”
Her flying instincts and skills kicked in immediately. Seconds earlier, five hundred feet apart in the soup was too close — now fifty feet didn’t seem unreasonable at all. She smoothly, expertly tucked herself right underneath the pilot’s window — fortunately, the EB-1’s high angle of attack, with its nose sticking high above the horizon, helped Annie to get closer than she ever thought she could do.
Just then, a shrill warbling DEEDLEDEEDLEDEEDLE! warning tone sounded, followed by a AAA THREAT light on the threat warning display. “Triple-A, ten o’clock, inside lethal range!” Deverill shouted. And then the shells came, bright yellow pops of light slicing upward through the darkness. Duane knew that for every flash of light he saw, there were ten others zipping around with it. The snake of shells swung hard in their direction. They were too close to turn in either direction — there was no way out.