Air Battle Force

Eight

Tin Man, Tin Man, report,” Briggs shouted into his commlink. One by one his men reported in. Their datalinked vital-sign information already showed them all alive, but he really needed to hear their voices, too — and he thought it was important for them to hear his.

Last to report in was Chris Wohl himself. “You okay, Taurus?” he asked.

“Affirmative. But the folks at the airfield got creamed.” Actually, he thought “cremated” might be a better word. “Everyone, check your gear, check your weapons, set up a defensive perimeter, and get ready to move out. Top, I expect the Russians are going to move in with paratroopers next. Figure out likely drop zones nearby and draw us up a plan to move there.”

“Roger.”

“Base, this is Taurus. The airfield has been hit by multiple fuel-air explosions,” Briggs radioed back to Battle Mountain. “They came out of nowhere — probably cruise-missile attacks. Dasher One is out — shit, Base, I can’t even see the pieces.”

“We copy, Taurus,” Patrick McLanahan responded from his Battle Management Center in Battle Mountain. Damn it, he swore to himself, he should’ve known they’d lead off with a fuel-air cruise-missile attack — it’s exactly what Gryzlov did in Chechnya and Mary. He should’ve had all the ground forces move away from Chärjew across the border and then exfiltrate them. “The first wave of Russian bombers is turning northbound — I think they’re done for now. We’re picking up multiple waves of aircraft still inbound. Could be more bombers launching cruise missiles.”

“The fuel-air things won’t hurt us unless they drop one right on our heads,” Briggs said. “We’re far enough away from the airport now.”

“Can you find some shelter, Taurus?”

“We’re probably safer out here in the open, rather than heading back toward the airfield,” Briggs replied.

“Copy that. Any suggestions?”

“I think the Russians are going to turn this entire area into a moonscape, and then they’re going to start dropping invasion troops in,” Briggs said. “We can spread out to likely drop zones and see if we can tag a few of their drop planes. But if they get a sizable force on the ground, we’re done for the day. We can’t hold off a massive infantry assault for very long with the weapons we have.”

“What about Turabi and his army?”

“They’ve scattered,” Briggs said. “Assuming they survived the Russians’ air assault, I think they’ll be hightailing it back home.”

“All right. Take a look at the topo maps and come up with some guesses as to where they’ll insert troops, then deploy to those areas and wait,” Patrick said. “We’ll watch the satellite and radar imagery and let you know what happens. We have an Air Force special-ops group standing by in Samarkand to evacuate you if necessary. Keep an eye on escape routes into Uzbekistan. If things go to shit any more, you may have to get out of there.”

“Believe me, we’re watchin’ north all the time,” Briggs said. The Uzbek border was just fifteen miles from their position, across the Amu Darya River. “Okay, we’ll redeploy and stand by for instructions.” Then, to Sergeant Major Wohl, “Top!”

“Sir?”

“Do you have that plan ready to move to likely drop zones?” Briggs asked. “I want to bag us some Russian drop planes.”

“Already got it laid out for you, sir.” Briggs saw the flashing information icon in his electronic visor and selected it. He saw a chart of the Chärjew area, with lines drawn to the northern quadrants, showing the movement and positioning of Briggs and his seven-man Tin Man commando team. Briggs was surprised to see that Wohl had suggested that Briggs himself be deployed to the southeast, to the spot farthest away — three miles away, on the other side of the airfield. “Uh, Sergeant Major — you put me on the southeast side? Why don’t you just suggest I deploy to Los Angeles or something?”

“Pardon me, sir,” Wohl growled. There was no question, even through the satellite datalink, that Wohl was pissed off. “Are you questioning my deployment strategy?” He sounded as if the very thought of Briggs’s doing that was too unbelievable to even imagine.

“I’m not questioning your strategy, Top, just the choice of men in each position.”

“You are referring to where I positioned you in particular, sir?”

“Damn straight I am. I’m the farthest away from the action! Why?”

“As I understand it, sir, you have just two options: You can accept the results of my years of expertise in planning such assaults, or you can reject my recommendations and plan your own.”

“Answer the question, Sergeant Major.”

“Yes, sir. First, you are the team leader, and you should not be stuck in the middle of the most likely focus point of the assault. Second, you are the oldest member of the team with the exception of myself — but your relative inexperience cancels out your age advantage.”

“That’s bullshit, Top—”

“Let me finish, sir. Third, I’m not convinced that the Russians’ main axis of attack will be from the north. I think they’d anticipate we’d set up the bulk of our forces to the north. I think there’s a very good possibility that they’ll try to set up a major flanking force to the southeast, then try a pincer move to either pin us down or push us across the border — or both. If they try that, I want you set up down there to alert us. Now, are there any more questions you have about my plan?”

“No, Sergeant Major, there aren’t,” Briggs replied. He still didn’t like being stuck the farthest away, but at least Wohl had some pretty good reasons for doing it. Besides, Briggs thought, Wohl was right: The Russians might just pull a sneaky end-around and try to pin the Tin Men in between two forces. “Good job. Deploy the team per your recommendations.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” He said “thank you” as if he really meant to say “fuck you,” but he did it in a nice way. Briggs knew that Wohl liked to be questioned about his plans and tactics, just to show that he knew much more than the officers he worked for knew. “Red Team, check your weapons and gear, lock and load, clear your jump paths, then move out.”

One by one the Tin Men started jet-jumping toward their planned positions. Hal Briggs couldn’t help it — he stood and watched as his men flew out of their places of concealment, their weapons at port arms and their equipment bags slung across their backs, with a not-quite-upright stance. They flew about thirty feet in the air, trading altitude for distance. At the apogee of their flight, they transitioned to a feetfirst fall, still at port arms. A second hiss of compressed air signaled when they were about to hit the ground as they used a shorter, less powerful burst of air to arrest their fall. They really didn’t need to stop their fall with their powered exoskeletons, which could dampen out the shock of the fall very well, but unless there were enemy soldiers nearby, they were instructed to use compressed air to slow their descent rate to avoid overstressing the exoskeletons. Each man flew about one hundred feet. Chris Wohl, the biggest man on the team, flew a bit less; Hal Briggs, the smallest man, usually flew the farthest.

If it weren’t so serious, Hal thought as he watched them jet-jump away, it would be comical. They almost looked like big gray fleas jumping across the desert. But they were going off to fight a vastly superior force that was undoubtedly coming to smash them. If they were successful, lots of Russians would die; if they were not, they would be captured and certainly taken to Russia for interrogation.

If they were smart, they’d be running north, to the relative safety of Uzbekistan.

“Are you having a senior moment, sir?” Chris Wohl radioed half angrily, half sarcastically. “Or do you feel like questioning my deployment plan again before you get your ass in gear?”

“Bite me, Sergeant Major,” Briggs said, the pride evident in his electronic voice. “I’m good to go.”

“Sir, I think you should reconsider.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Goff shook his head. He was on the secure videoconference link with Patrick in the Battle Management Center, his image on one of the monitors at Patrick’s station. “It’s not going to happen, Patrick,” Goff said. “The president is pretty firm on this: He wants Maureen Hershel and President Martindale out of there and protected, your forces packed up and headed back to Battle Mountain, and that’s it. I’m sorry about your men aboard that tilt-jet aircraft, but the president doesn’t want any other action in Turkmenistan. If your men have the capability to get out of the area safely and make it into Uzbekistan, we have men and aircraft standing by to get you to Samarkand, and then we can airlift you home. It’s only — what, fifteen, twenty miles to get across the border? You guys should be able to do that in a few minutes, the way you move.”

“Sir, the Russians just bombed our position with fuel-air explosives,” Patrick argued. “We’re watching several more formations of jets, probably more heavy bombers followed by medium bombers, already inbound—”

“You told me that already, General,” Goff interrupted irritably.

“It’s only a matter of time before the Russians send in a ground-invasion force,” Patrick said. “They can take Chärjew with ease once they’ve flattened everything else.”

“That’s not our problem.”

“The Turkmen have voted to accept Jalaluddin Turabi as their armed-forces commander,” Patrick said. “He can organize the Turkmen army to hold off the Russian invasion—if we help them.”

“General…”

“If we don’t help them, sir, they’ll destroy Chärjew just like they wiped out Vedeno in Chechnya and Mary in Turkmenistan,” Patrick went on angrily. “Gryzlov will just keep launching bombers and sending in troops until he’s taken the entire country.”

“General, that’s enough,” Goff snapped. “The president has ordered you out of there.”

“But, sir…”

“Are you not hearing me, General? Don’t you get it? There’s no government in Turkmenistan anymore, Patrick — that’s been taken over by the Russians! Their army was led either by Russians or Taliban fighters — and now the Russians have executed their president. It won’t help your argument for the president, the Congress, or the American people to learn that the Taliban are now in charge of their military.”

Patrick fell silent. He knew there was no use in arguing any longer.

“Get your guys out of there, and do everything you need to do to protect Hershel’s return.”

“Yes, sir,” Patrick replied.

“Again, sorry about your tilt-jet crew, Patrick. The president and I will send our condolences to the families.”

“Thank you, sir.” Goff terminated the connection. Patrick threw his headset on his console desk and leaned back in frustration.

“Hal has redeployed his guys around Chärjew, waiting on the Russian airborne. He does not have permission to open fire yet,” David Luger, seated in the vice commander’s seat next to Patrick, said after a few moments’ silence. “It’s too hot to send in any special-ops guys there, if you’re thinking about an exfiltration, but they can hop on out of there pretty easily. Once they’re north of the Amu Darya River, they’re fairly safe — it’s a clear shot to the Uzbek border.”

Patrick was silent for several more long moments. He then pressed some buttons on his keyboard, calling up status reports on all of the men and women, aircraft, satellites, and weapons under his command. Several minutes later he put his headset back on. “Rebecca? Daren?”

“Go ahead, sir,” Rebecca Furness responded. “We’re both up.”

“I hope you two have had your crew rest.”

“Oh, shit — I don’t like the sound of that,” Rebecca responded.

“I’m in!” Daren Mace shouted happily. “What do you want destroyed, sir, and when?”

“Eta lehchi chim dva paltsa abassat,” Colonel General Yuri Kudrin, division commander of the Second Bombardirovchnyi Aviatsionnaya Diviziya (Heavy Bomber Division), Engels Air Base, radioed with a laugh in his voice. “It was easier than pissing on two fingers, sir.”

Kudrin was the commander of the organization that held operational control of the Russian Federation’s heavy-bomber and support regiments west of the Ural Mountains: Tu-160 and Tu-22M bomber regiments and an Ilyushin-78 air-refueling regiment at Engels Air Base; one Tu-22M bomber regiment at Belaja Air Base near Kirov; one Tu-22M and one Tu-95 “Bear” bomber regiment at Razan Air Base southeast of Moscow; and one Tu-95 bomber regiment at Mozdok Air Base in Chechnya. He had planned this raid on Chärjew in record time, launched a large bomber force with minimal preparation and briefings, and had been wildly successful. Now he was ramping up his entire division at Engels, preparing to surge his bomber forces full speed to destroy any opposition in Turkmenistan.

“No fighters up there?” General Anatoliy Gryzlov asked. He was speaking with Kudrin via secure satellite link from the command center in the underground fortress at Sivkovo, southwest of Moscow, built only recently to replace the command center at Domededovo, which had been destroyed in a clash between Russian and Lithuanian bombers several years earlier. “Not even surveillance radar?”

“Not a squeak, sir,” Kudrin replied. “All of the sorties are back, and not one of them was highlighted — not even search radars. The only radars up at all were from units controlled by our ground forces in Mary.”

“Did the fighters keep up with you?”

“We had no problem with our fighter escorts,” Kudrin replied. “We took one squadron from the One-eighty-sixth Fighter Regiment at Astrakhan all the way to the launch point, but they were bored waiting for something to happen.”

“Any trouble from Baku radar?”

“We were never within their airspace, sir. We stayed out over western Kazakhstan and west of the Aral Sea, then a straight shot across Turkmenistan to Chärjew. No radar coverage in that area at all. We didn’t need electronic jammers.”

“What support do you need for the follow-on attacks, General?”

“Only one: more fighter protection for Engels Air Base, sir,” Kudrin said. “I’d like at least another air-defense regiment in the area, preferably using the civil airfield at Saratov. Engels is definitely full now: The second strike team will be over Chärjew in about two hours, and I’ve got a third team ready to launch in fifteen minutes, just before the first strike team lands at Engels. We’ve got over one hundred heavy bombers flying out of here now every ten hours.”

“All of your bombers are launching out of Engels?” Gryzlov asked. “Isn’t that risky? If the Americans attack, won’t that disrupt all your attack plans?”

“The Tu-22Ms already require one prestrike and one poststrike refueling launching out of Engels, sir,” Kudrin replied. “If they launched out of Ryazan or Belaya, we’d need to give them an extra prestrike refueling. Coordinating all those launch and rendezvous times became too time-consuming and cumbersome. Engels has plenty of fuel and weapons — all they needed were the airframes.”

“General, I didn’t put you in charge so you could cut corners and make life less time-consuming and cumbersome for yourself,” Gryzlov said. He didn’t want to sound too angry — Kudrin was one of his most experienced air force commanders — but this plan didn’t sound right at all. He had a very bad feeling about this. “If you need more tankers and more mission planners, ask for them. I don’t want to overload Engels’s resources, and I sure as hell don’t want all our bombers knocked out by one attack on one base.”

“Yes, sir.” Gryzlov heard a frantic passing and rustling of papers, then, “In that case, I’d like to gain the tankers and fighters from the Eight-fortieth Fighter Regiment at Lipeck and the Ninetieth Fighter Regiment at Morozovsk,” Kudrin went on. “I’ll deploy the Eight-fortieth to Morozovsk, and we can set up another air-refueling anchor near Volgograd for the Tu-22Ms coming from Belaya and Ryazan. The fighters can use the refueling anchor as well.”

“Now you’re saying what I want to hear, General,” Gryzlov said. Kudrin worried too much about the wrong things sometimes — but usually all he needed was a little push in the right direction and he was back in step. “Your request for those units is approved — you’ll have authorization to deploy those regiments immediately. You’re doing good work out there. Let me know if you need anything else.” There was no reply, just the clicking and beeping of digital static. Oh, well, Gryzlov thought, Kudrin wasn’t much of a chitchatter….

Kudrin had hung up the phone in a hurry because, at that moment, he received the first warning that his base was under air attack.

“Search radar, SA-10, twelve o’clock, forty miles,” Daren Mace reported. “Coming quickly into detection range. Let’s step it on down, Rebecca.”

Rebecca pressed the command button on the control stick of her EB-1C Vampire bomber and spoke: “Terflew clearance plane one hundred feet.” The Terflew, or Terrain Following, system commanded the autopilot to fly lower until the aircraft maintained at just one hundred feet aboveground — less than a wingspan’s distance away. “Clearance plane set. How are we doing?”

“Shit, that SA-10 is going to nail us,” Daren said. The terrain in this area was completely and utterly flat, with only a slight rise north of the Volga River. Daren hit his command button. “Launch two TALDs.”

“Launch two TALDs, stop launch,” the computer responded. Seconds later two devices resembling large, fat lawn darts ejected from a bomb bay in the Vampire’s tail and began gliding away. The TALDs, or Tactical Air Launched Decoys, were small gliders with electronic emitters on board that, when activated, appeared as gigantic, slow-moving aircraft on an enemy’s radarscope.

“Still tracking us,” Daren said. “It’s got us and the TALDs together. Our trackbreakers can’t shake it.”

“Hang on,” Rebecca said. “Terflew off.” She jammed the throttles to full afterburner and hauled back on the stick. The Vampire bomber shot skyward at fifteen thousand feet per minute.

“That’s good… that’s all we need.” They were passing five thousand feet — way too high with an SA-10 in the area. “Rebecca, let’s get our nose down, we’re too high!”

“Warning, SA-10 height-finder, twelve o’clock, twenty-five miles,” the threat computer reported in a silky female voice. Seconds later: “Warning, missile launch, SA-10… warning, missile launch, SA-10!” The computer announced four more missile launches — an entire SA-10 launcher unit had just opened fire on them.

“Break right!” Daren shouted. Rebecca threw the Vampire bomber into a hard right turn. “Full countermeasures!”

“Countermeasures active,” the computer responded. From canisters in the tail, a bullet-shaped device unreeled itself at the end of an armored fiber-optic cable. The ALE-50 towed decoy was an external antenna for the Vampire’s jammers, designed to move the source of the bomber’s jammers away from the aircraft itself in case an enemy’s antiaircraft weapons could home in on the jamming.

The first SA-10 missile went right for one of the TALDs and scored a direct hit. The other three SA-10 missiles guided right for the Vampire bomber. The defensive computer system released two more TALDs, and one SA-10 guided on it — it was too inviting a target to ignore. Flying at three times the speed of sound, the last two SA-10s were only seconds away from impact….

“Break left!” Daren shouted. Rebecca instantly reversed her turn, flying toward the oncoming SA-10 missiles. But because of the turn, the towed decoy slowed down and moved sideways, making itself an even larger target. Both SA-10s guided on this big fat target, one hitting the towed decoy and the other detonating as it hit the debris field of its brother.

“Give me a right one-eighty and let’s get away from here,” Daren said. He unreeled a second towed-decoy array as Rebecca turned south. “SA-10 radar still tracking, six o’clock, twenty-three miles.” The modern Russian SA-10 antiaircraft system could control as many as twelve four-missile launcher vehicles and engage up to six targets simultaneously with two missiles per target — they were definitely still not out of the woods. “Base, did you take a picture yet?”

“Got it coming in now,” David Luger responded from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base. “The NIRTSats just downloaded the images. Stand by.” Days earlier Patrick McLanahan had ordered a constellation of NIRTSats — Need It Right This Second Satellites — inserted into a low earth orbit, designed to cover the region between Engels in Moscow — the largest bomber base in Russia and the origin of the air attacks against both Chechnya and Mary in Turkmenistan — and the Arabian Sea. Sixteen NIRTSats were launched four at a time from a rocket carried aloft by a modified DC-10 aircraft and inserted into their orbits. The TV-size satellites contained high-resolution synthetic-aperture radar sensors that could see and identify objects as small as an automobile from eighty miles in space. Sixteen satellites meant that one satellite passed over the area every three minutes.

The problem was, the images were high-resolution radar images — they saw everything that could reflect radar energy, including decoys and other targets that looked like threats, and threats could easily be concealed inside buildings or even simple shelters. The only way to draw the decoys out to plot their position was to give them something to shoot at. The cruise missiles carried by the Vampires — FlightHawks, StealthHawks, and Wolverines — were too small and stealthy to fool a strategic surface-to-air missile battery. They needed the real thing.

The SAR images were downloaded to Battle Mountain’s BATMAN Center and displayed on the large screens. The computers picked the most likely targets and quickly displayed them. “There it is,” Luger said. The image he was looking at definitely showed a standard brigade-level SA-10 engagement battery: a command-launcher vehicle, its four missile tubes already erect; two more simplified launcher vehicles, separated by about two miles from one another, only one of which had its tubes raised to launch position; a radar vehicle; a towed, mast-mounted radar for detecting low-flying aircraft and cruise missiles; and several service vehicles, including trailers with extra missiles and cranes to lift the reloads onto the transporter-erector-launcher vehicles. Other SAR images showed the front-level command vehicle, about six miles away, which coordinated the activities of several SA-10 engagement brigades.

“Nice to see you guys,” Luger said. He rolled a set of crosshairs onto the command-launcher vehicle and pressed a button. The geographic coordinates of the vehicle were instantly transmitted via satellite to the Vampire bomber and loaded into the attack computer. He repeated the process with the rest of both the SA-10 brigade and the front-level vehicles in order of priority. “I got all my pictures, guys. I’m ready anytime.”

“Set three hundred clearance plane,” Daren said. When they climbed to the proper altitude, he said, “Here they go.” Daren uploaded the target coordinates to the weapons in the aft bomb bay. The bay held a rotary launcher with eight AGM-165 Longhorn Maverick missiles. The two-thousand-pound Longhorn missile had a two-hundred-pound thermium-nitrate warhead, a two-stage solid-rocket motor that gave it a range of almost sixty nautical miles, and an imaging-infrared guidance sensor. Once he’d programmed the target coordinates, Daren ordered, “Attack commit Longhorn SA-10 brigade.”

“Attack commit Longhorn, stop attack,” the computer responded. After a short pause the aft bomb doors opened, and one by one the Longhorn missiles were shoved into space. After they’d fallen about sixty feet, their rocket motors ignited and the missiles shot ahead, then arced over and above the Vampire bomber and headed back for the SA-10 missile site.

Thirty seconds before impact the Longhorn missiles began transmitting imaging-infrared images via satellite to both the Vampire bomber and to the Battle Management Center back in Battle Mountain. David Luger recognized the very same SA-10 brigade photographed by the NIRTSats just minutes earlier. The Longhorn’s crosshairs were only a small distance off the command-launcher vehicle. He used a trackball to move them back on target, then locked them on. “Got target one,” Luger announced.

“I got targets two and three,” Daren said. He was looking at the infrared images being transmitted from the second and third Longhorns in a window on his supercockpit display. Again the crosshairs needed only slight adjustments to bring them dead on target, and he locked them on. Daren then switched to the first Longhorn, and he was able to watch as the Longhorn missile got closer and closer to the command-launcher vehicle, destroying it moments later. “Good hit on target one! Yeah, baby!” he crowed. Targets two and three were destroyed shortly thereafter, and the SA-10 threat from that site was gone. There were other SA-10 batteries in the area, and Luger loaded their coordinates as well, but they were far enough away at the moment not to be a threat. They needed the Longhorn missiles to knock down any threats closer to their target complex.

Daren selected a waypoint on his supercockpit display. “SA-10s are down. We’re heading in, guys. Center up, Rebecca. Clearance plane two thousand.” She made a hard right turn toward Engels Air Base. With the surface-to-air-missile threats reduced, they could afford to climb a bit higher to stay away from any optically guided antiaircraft artillery sites that might pop up in front of them.

Now that the SA-10 site had been destroyed by Longhorn missiles, the road was clear for an attack on the base itself. From then on, the Vampire bomber was little more than a manned missile-launching truck. David Luger had already identified two large antiaircraft artillery sites near both ends of the base’s long runway, and Daren fired a Longhorn missile at each of them and destroyed it moments later. One Longhorn took out the base’s surveillance-radar antenna, and the last two missiles were sent into the middle of the petroleum-storage facility, setting the entire complex of storage tanks afire.

But the main target was still alive — Engels’s huge inventory of bombers, poised to strike Turkmenistan again.

The center bomb bay contained a rotary launcher with eight AGM-177 Wolverine cruise missiles. The turbojet-powered cruise missiles had three internal bomb bays that could hold a total of three hundred pounds of ordnance, plus a fourth high-explosive warhead section. The Wolverines had been preprogrammed with their own “mission” to fly, so it was just a matter of flying within twenty miles of Engels Air Base, opening the center bomb bay, and letting them go. They were not as fast or as pinpoint-accurate as the Longhorn missiles, but they were perfectly suited for this mission.

One by one the Wolverine missiles flew over Engels’s twelve-thousand-foot-long runway, northern taxiway, and the mass aircraft-parking ramp, about two thousand feet aboveground. As the missiles cruised in, they dropped small canisters on parachutes. Called the CBU-97R Sensor Fuzed Weapon, or SFW, each canister had a small radar sensor in the nose that detected targets below, and it would steer itself and rotate its business end at its targets according to images picked up by the tiny radar. At a computed point in its fall to earth, the SFW canister detonated. Ten copper disks instantly melted and fired from the front of the canister, aimed toward the detected targets below. The white-hot blobs of molten copper could pierce steel up to three-quarters of an inch thick. But as the copper slugs pierced the outer armor they cooled, preventing them from blowing out the opposite end. The result: Each blob of molten copper became thousands of red-hot BB-size pellets that ricocheted around inside at the speed of sound, creating an instantaneous but deadly meat-grinder effect.

On Engels’s runway, taxiways, and aircraft-parking ramp, the result was devastating. Each SFW canister could hit as many as ten targets — aircraft, vehicles of all sizes, or buildings. Each bomb bay on the Wolverine cruise missiles held nine SFW canisters. The Wolverine would eject one SFW canister every few seconds as it cruised across the airfield, emptying one bomb bay per pass. Then it would orbit away from the base, turn around, fly down the runway or taxiway from a different direction, and drop another bomb bay — ful of SFWs.

The timing of the attack was perfect: The ramp and taxiways were choked with thirty-two Tu-22M Backfire and Tu-160 Blackjack bombers preparing for takeoff.

For the next twenty minutes, the eight Wolverine cruise missiles assaulted the base, staggering their attacks so that they deconflicted each other and so that the SFWs would not attack the same target. The results were spectacular and horrifying at the same time: When a Wolverine missile made a pass, the ground below it would suddenly erupt into a carpet of stars as the SFW did its deadly work, followed by explosions and a burst of flame; then the effect was repeated a few dozen yards away as the next SFW detonated. The Wolverines’ orbits changed slightly each time so there was no risk of a missile’s being targeted by ground fire or of its attacking targets that had already been struck. When the Wolverine’s three bomb bays were empty, the missile itself plunged into a final fixed target, detonating its internal high-explosive warhead on support buildings and hangars near the runway, power substations, communications buildings, nearby bridges, and weapon-storage areas.

While the Wolverines did their damage, Rebecca Furness and Daren Mace had their own job to do — get their Vampire bomber out of Russia alive.

Daren activated the Vampire bomber’s LADAR, or laser radar, arrays, which instantly “drew” a high-resolution picture of the world around the bomber in all directions for a hundred miles. Each LADAR “snapshot” took only two seconds but produced an image that was of nearly photographic quality — accurate enough to measure objects, compare their dimensions with an internal catalog, and identify them within moments.

“LADAR picked up a flight of four MiG-29s, five o’clock, thirty-three miles, our altitude,” Daren reported. “Second flight of two MiG-25s at nine o’clock, high, forty-seven miles, coming in at Mach two.” The Vampire bomber automatically turned slightly right to present a thinner profile to the MiG-29s and to point its hot exhausts away from the MiGs as well in case they attempted a shot with a long-range heat-seeking missile.

“Come and get us, kids,” Rebecca said. She hit the voice-command button. “Best speed power profile.”

“Best speed power,” the computer responded. The computer immediately set full military power and started a steep climb. The higher it flew and the faster it reached a higher altitude, the greater its average speed would be.

“MiG-29 radar lock-on, twenty-five miles,” Daren said. He hit his voice-command button. “Attack commit MiG-29s.”

“Attack commit MiG-29, stop attack,” the computer responded. It immediately turned farther right, almost going head-to-head with the MiGs, then opened its forward bomb-bay doors and ejected four AIM-120 Scorpion air-to-air missiles. The missiles dropped several yards below the Vampire, then ignited their solid-rocket motors, shot ahead, picked up the datalinked steering information from the Vampire, and began the chase. As soon as the missiles were away, the attack computer turned the bomber to the left and back on course.

The Scorpion missiles followed the steering signals until about ten seconds from impact, then activated their own onboard radars. The Russian MiG-29 pilots never realized they had been fired on until that moment, and their survival depended on their reaction. In combat-spread formation, each pilot had a specific direction to evade and enough room to do it. All he had to do was execute, without more than a moment’s hesitation.

The pilots that survived were the ones who reacted immediately when the threat warning blared — dropped chaff and flares and turned to their evasion heading as fast as they possibly could. Once the Scorpion missile switched to its own internal terminal guidance radar, it was easily spoofed — akin to walking along normally at first, then walking while wearing blinders. The Scorpion’s radar locked on to the biggest, brightest, and slowest-moving radar reflector within its narrow field of vision — which for two of the four MiG-29s happened to be the cloud of the radar-reflecting tinsel called chaff they left in their wake. But the other two MiG pilots were more worried about losing sight of their leaders or screwing up their formation work than about saving themselves, and the Scorpion missiles clobbered them easily.

Daren flashed on the LADAR once again after the Scorpions’ missile-flight time ran out. “Two Fulcrums down,” he reported. “Man, we sure—”

“Warning, missile launch MiG-25 AA-10, eight o’clock, high!” the threat computer reported.

Rebecca immediately threw the Vampire bomber into a tight left turn. At the same time Daren ordered, “Attack commit AA-10 and MiG-25!”

“Attack commit AA-10 and MiG-25, stop attack,” the computer responded. As soon as the bomber rolled almost wings-level, the attack computer opened the forward bomb doors and launched four AIM-120 Scorpion missiles. The first two were aimed at the large radar-guided AA-10 air-to-air missiles fired by the MiG-25 “Foxbats.” The Foxbats immediately peeled away after launching their missiles. Like the Scorpion missile, the Russian AA-10 missile had its own radar and locked on to the EB-1 Vampire when less than ten seconds from impact. Heading nose-to-nose with the oncoming AA-10, Rebecca started a series of vertical jinks, trying to get the Russian missiles to overcorrect and blow past the Vampire.

Successfully attacking an air-to-air missile with another air-to-air missile was a long shot — and in this case completely ineffective. Both Scorpions harmlessly detonated well away from the faster Russian missiles.

The first AA-10 missile flew just a few yards under the Vampire and hit the towed array as it homed in on the jamming signals from the array. The second AA-10 looked like it might miss as well, passing over the Vampire by a scant few feet, but it steered itself on target at the last moment and detonated right between the fuselage and the trailing edge of the right wing.

“Crap, we lost the number-four engine, and number three looks like it has a compressor stall,” Rebecca shouted. But the power-plant computers had already reacted: They had shut down the destroyed engine, brought the power on the number-three engine back to idle, then trimmed out the adverse yaw in the bomber by adjusting its adaptive skin. The computer also shut down the affected hydraulic, pneumatic, fuel, and electrical systems. Seconds later it automatically attempted a restart. “Damn it, number three’s not restarting. I think the computer’s going to shut it down in a sec—” Just then the fire number 3 warning light winked on, then off as the computer shut down the engine and cut off fuel. “There it goes.”

“Looks like a flight-control fault on the right. We’re losing both the number two and the emergency hydraulic systems,” Daren reported. “Weapon computers reset… bomb-door malfunction… looks like no more Scorpions today.”

“Base, this is Bobcat.”

“We see you, Rebecca,” David Luger said from Battle Mountain. “Continue your left turn to heading two-niner-five. Your bogeys will be at your twelve o’clock, sixteen miles, same altitude, two MiG-29s. We’re trying to analyze the malfunction in the number-three engine. If we can find it, we’ll attempt a restart from here.”

“You got some help up here for us, Base?” Rebecca asked excitedly. At that instant, they saw a spectacular flash of light directly in front of them, followed by a spiral of fire that spun down into the darkness below. “Never mind, I see it.” An unmanned Vampire bomber orbiting over Kazakhstan’s airspace miles southeast of Engels Air Base had fired ultra-long-range AIM-154 Anaconda air-to-air hypersonic missiles at the MiG-29s from over 130 miles away. The missiles had been fired at maximum range almost two minutes earlier and were just now finding their targets.

But at that extreme range, even with a sophisticated laser-radar attack system and ultraprecise guidance systems, the weapons were not perfect. The Anaconda missiles fired from the unmanned air-defense Vampire missed the fourth MiG-29 and one of the MiG-25 Foxbats bearing down on the stricken Vampire bomber — and moments later the MiG-29 opened fire from short range with two AA-11 air-to-air missiles. The AA-11 missile was Russia’s most maneuverable and most reliable antiaircraft missile — but it didn’t need to be to hit Rebecca and Daren’s EB-1C Vampire bomber. One missile detonated just aft of the number-one and — two engines; the other missile punched away most of the Vampire’s vertical stabilizer.

The warning and caution panel was lit up like a keno board. Rebecca now had both hands on the control stick, trying to keep her Vampire under control.

“You got it, Rebecca?” Daren shouted.

“Shit… damn it…” She never answered, but she didn’t need to — Daren could tell that she’d lost control. “I am not going to lose this plane…!”

“Time to jump out, Rebecca,” Daren said, managing to reach over and touch her hand. “It’s over. You did a good job—we did a good job.” She continued to fight the controls, but it was no use. The attitude indicator began to spin; the spin was verified by the rapidly unwinding altimeter and the pegged vertical-velocity indicator. Even the flight-control computer offered no suggestions. Rebecca’s Vampire was indeed dead. “Let’s get out of here.”

Rebecca swore, then gave the controls one more try. She saw the altimeter go below two thousand feet aboveground — and she couldn’t even tell which way was up anymore. “Get out!” she shouted. “Get the hell out.”

Daren nodded, straightened up in his seat, put his hands on his armrests.

He stood, and pushed his chair back. Rebecca followed right behind him. They squeezed past the technician at the console right behind the aircraft commander’s seat and looked at the flight-path depiction on his computer screen. The Vampire had just hit the vast floodplain of the northern Caspian Sea coast. “Impact,” the technician said. “Couple miles north of Lake Aralsor in Kazakhstan. You flew almost seventy miles with virtually no flight-control system and just two engines, and she still took three Russian missiles before she finally went down. That area is pretty marshy, and the plane was in an almost vertical spiraling dive — it may have buried itself a hundred feet into the mud.”

Rebecca studied the monitor, checking to see if the plane had gone down in an uninhabited area. As far as she could tell, it had. She opened up a bottle of water, took a deep swig, and passed it to Daren. “Crap — I hate losing a plane,” she said. “Even if it is a robot plane.”

Daren gave her a kiss on the cheek, then opened the door to the portable virtual-cockpit control cab. The small warehouse in which the VC had been set up on the tropical island of Diego Garcia was supposed to be air-conditioned, but the heat and humidity they felt as he opened the door were still oppressive. To them, though, after the past five hours in the VC, it felt glorious. Right beside them was a second VC, which another crew was using to control the unmanned air-defense EB-1C Vampire.

“Just remember, Rebecca,” Daren said, smiling as he took her hand and stepped out of the cab, “any landing you can walk away from is a good one.”

“Shut up, Daren,” she said. She smiled back, realized he was still holding her hand — and she gave his a squeeze. “Just take me to my room, get me a drink, get this flight suit off, then take me to bed.”

“Don’t we have to debrief our mission or something?”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation, pulled him to her, and gave him a kiss. “You have your orders, mister,” she said with an inviting smile. “Carry them out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Contact, two troop choppers inbound,” Hal Briggs reported. “I’ve got three more attack helicopters coming in farther south.”

“We’ve got a total of six troop and four attack helicopters inbound from the northwest,” Chris Wohl said. “The troop helicopters are outside the range of my weapon. They look like they’re unloading.”

“Three attack helicopters to the southwest,” another of his commandos reported. “Looks like they came right over the city. They… they’re firing, Red Team, attack helicopters opening fire with antitank missiles. Incoming, incoming.”

Hal Briggs steadied the electromagnetic rail gun using his powered exoskeleton, centered the helicopter in his electronic sights, and was about to squeeze the trigger when all three attack helicopters opened fire on his position. He immediately jet-jumped away seconds before a half dozen AT-16 laser-guided antitank missiles hit at exactly the spot where he’d been hiding a second ago. “Looks like they got some longer-range missiles on those choppers — they fired from almost six miles away,” Hal said. He studied his electronic tactical display — almost every one of his men had to dodge missiles launched at them. Whatever sensors the Russian attack helicopter gunners were using, they were extremely effective.

Hal immediately jet-jumped toward where he thought the troop helicopters had touched down. He found the group of two transport helicopters, one Mi-6 and one Mi-8, just as they were lifting off after offloading their troops. Hal raised his rail gun and was about to fire on the larger Mi-6 when the earth erupted just a few feet in front of him. One of the Russian Mi-24 attack helicopters had found him and had opened fire with an antitank missile, narrowly missing him. The rail gun was blasted out of his hands, and he flew thirty feet through the air from the force of the missile explosion.

Hal was able to get to his feet. The rail gun was gone. When he looked up, he heard it — the unmistakable sound of the heavy Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter bearing down on him. His suit registered a laser beam hitting him. He was being targeted with a laser-aiming device from the Hind. Less than two miles away — it couldn’t miss now….

Suddenly two small missiles streaked through the sky and hit the Hind helicopter from either side. The big chopper’s engines exploded, and it plummeted to the ground, cartwheeling for over a mile before the wreck of burning, twisting metal finally came to a stop.

“Ho there, my friend!” he heard a voice shout in Russian. “Byt v glubokay zhopi, eh, Comrade Robot?” It was Jalaluddin Turabi. He was holding an SA-14 man-portable antiaircraft-missile launcher. He handed the expended weapon to an aide and took back his AK-74 assault rifle. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“What are you doing here, Turabi?”

“We were busy retreating, getting out of Chärjew before the Russians dropped a nuclear bomb on us next,” Turabi said. “But then we ran into your little party here, and we thought we’d crash it. You don’t mind, do you?” He retrieved his portable radio and a map and issued orders in Pashtun. Moments later the desert around where the Russian soldiers had just alighted was obscured by mortar and grenade blasts. Several more shoulder-fired missiles flew through the sky, knocking down Russian helicopters.

“I think this would be a good time to get out of here, my friend,” Turabi said. “My men are scattered pretty thin. We can’t hold the Russians off for long.”

Just then Hal heard a beeping sound in his helmet. He shifted his electronic visor to mapping mode — and what he saw made him smile inside his battle armor. “Not quite yet, Turabi,” he said. As Turabi watched in puzzlement, Briggs simply stopped and stared at the Russian exfiltration spot, then turned and stared for a moment at another Mi-24 attack helicopter, about five miles away. “Where else have your men made contact, Turabi?” he asked.

“They are everywhere,” the Afghan replied. “They are coming from all directions. They—”

At that moment the Hind helicopter that was turning and lining up for an attack run exploded in a ball of fire. Seconds later the ground where the Russian soldiers were advancing on them disappeared under dozens and dozens of small but powerful explosions.

“We are under attack!” Turabi shouted.

“Not quite,” Briggs said. He pointed skyward. Turabi looked — just as a small, dark StealthHawk unmanned aircraft passed overhead. “Our little buddies are back.” As they watched the StealthHawk fly away, it launched an AGM-211 mini-Maverick missile on another Hind, shooting it out of the sky.

“Well, I never thought I’d be happy to see those devil birds again,” Turabi said. “I don’t suppose they could inform us as to where our friends the Russians are now?”

“They can indeed,” Briggs said. He took Turabi’s chart and a grease pencil and, using the electronic map projected onto his visor, drew the locations of all the known Russian airborne troops on the ground in the area. “Need some help with them, Turabi?” Briggs asked.

“If you would be so kind as to take care of the attack helicopters with your devil birds up there,” Turabi said after he reported the Russians’ positions to his men deployed around Chärjew, “my men can take care of the infantrymen.” He extended his hand and smiled broadly, his teeth gleaming white against his dark, burned skin. “I believe that makes us even now, doesn’t it, Comrade Robot?”

Hal Briggs couldn’t help but smile inside his battle armor. “Yes, we’re even, Turabi — I mean, Colonel Turabi.”

“I am happy enough just being Turabi, thank you,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, we have a city to defend. If you would kindly exit my battlefield by the most expeditious route, my army and I will get to work.”

“Sure thing—General Turabi,” Briggs said. The Taliban fighter smiled, nodded, and hurried off to lead his men into battle once again.