Ashes of Victory

— 7 —

An endless blanket of stars filled the skies of southern Asia from horizon to horizon, as Lt. Amanda Diamante followed Lt. Cmdr. Juan Ricardo approaching the coast. They were skimming the ocean, making their ingress at a shoreline entry point that gave them terrain masking from Iranian radar. Their airspeed remained well below the speed of sound to conserve fuel, avoid supersonic booms that would alert the enemy of their presence, and also because the ordnance carried externally was not designed for supersonic flight.

The suspected ammunition-storage complex on the outskirts of Zahedan, a city in Iran 150 miles inland, doubled as a terrorist training site for recruits from the United States and Europe. It sat at the southern tip of the Zahedan International Airport, where the Iranian government also maintained a large military base.

The naval aviator had read enough to know the “self-radicalizing” nature of the people she was about to hit. Generally disaffected teens and young men, angry at the governments and societies of their home nations, many of whom had begun their road to extremism online, following websites and Twitter feeds from known terrorist groups. Some had been recruited in mosques and Islamic “cultural centers,” quietly taken aside when their extremist feelings were demonstrated too publicly and offered the chance to express them in other ways.

Destroying a training camp known to include citizens from the US, UK, France, and other allied nations would have a high political cost, but the president had made his intentions clear.

There would not be any exceptions.

Space-based assets and unmanned aerial vehicles had confirmed the nature of the threat at the secluded compound.

Ricardo and Amanda rapidly approached the coastline with their exterior lights extinguished, flying a low-altitude profile.

Deedle, deedle.

Amanda frowned and glanced down at the flight control system (FCS) caution light, which indicated an error in the fly-by-wire system. Advanced jets typically used a computer to convey the pilot’s flight control inputs to the corresponding flight control surfaces. In the case of the F/A-18E, it was called the flight control system, and a caution light could indicate a possible malfunction — meaning the computer may not convey the correct fight-control commands.

Stabbing it with a gloved index finger, she reset it, and the light vanished just as the Super Hornet rushed inland from the south, fast and menacing, before turning northeast, skimming the rising terrain. They would attack the compound from the west, popping up at the last second to deliver their weapons from a low-angle dive. Off the target, they would egress in a southerly direction, remaining low level until reaching international waters to avoid Iranian SAMs, then climb to meet up with the KC-135 tankers en route back to Vinson before the sun came up.

That’s the plan, anyway, she thought as they followed the desolate topography and she inched her control column to the right, following Ricardo’s northeasterly turn before adjusting it back to place the Super Hornet in a shallow climb to clear the mountain range.

Maintaining radio silence, they loosened their formation while arming their Joint Direct Attack Munitions. JDAM technology converted unguided bombs, in this case standard MK 82s, into smart munitions called GBU-38 JDAMs — meaning they could place the five hundred pounders on the ground with ridiculous accuracy.

Amanda had just taken her hand off the Master Arm switch when she heard the familiar deedle, deedle again.

“Perfect fucking timing,” she deadpanned to herself.

After checking for other problems with her jet, Amanda quickly reset it again, and the caution light once more went out.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she shifted her gaze back to the tail of her flight leader as he—

Deedle, deedle.

“This can’t be happening!”

Hesitant to break radio silence as they approached their target, now less than forty miles away, Amanda again reset the FCS. The light went out, and everything seemed to go back to normal.

Glaring at the FCS caution light as if it were a rattlesnake, she started to thumb the radio switch and then stopped. We’ll be off the target in another few minutes. Suck it up, Miss Iowa.

Hugging the terrain twenty miles south of the compound, she shadowed Ricardo’s turn to their run-in heading, flying perfect formation and praying the flight controls would cooperate for the next few minutes.

When Ricardo’s aircraft began the pull to initiate their pop-up maneuver seven miles out, Amanda followed and began edging away from her flight leader to avoid a midair collision should her questionable fly-by-wire system decide to act up again. She could not wait to pull off target and head for mother Vinson.

When the F/A-18Es were almost vertical, Ricardo began his roll into the target roughly a mile west of the airport, and Amanda began her roll behind—

Deedle, deedle.

“C’mon!” she screamed, but continued to roll the aircraft, attempting to reset the FCS while momentarily losing sight of her flight leader. She eased the throttles back to maintain separation.

Seconds from bomb release, she saw the glow from Ricardo’s twin engines. Safely behind him, she concentrated on delivering her bombs on target, taking solace in watching the GBU-38s drop from her underside pylons.

But as she began a high-g pullout, bottoming out close to the ground, her fighter began an un-commanded roll to the left.

Deedle, deedle.

“For the love of—”

Amanda cocked the stick full right, but the aircraft continued to roll to the left. She instinctively pressed on the right rudder as the plane passed 110 degrees of bank.

But as she started to reach for the ejection seat handle, the jet began to respond. Sucking in a lungful of oxygen, she wrestled with the flight controls, frantically trying another reset.

No luck.

The nose of the fighter jet continued to rise higher as Amanda used the trim switch to bring it down to the horizon. The “trim” was basically a set of small control surfaces hinged to the end of the ailerons and elevators that could be used to partially counter the erroneous FCS commands.

“Ricky, I’m in trouble,” she said, finally breaking radio silence.

“Diamond, say posit.”

“I’m headed eastbound. FCS failure.”

“I’m heading your way, ease your power.”

“Easing the power,” she replied in a strained voice. “I’ve got a soup-sandwich going on in this fucking Rhino. Total FUBAR.”

“Hang in like you-know-who,” he said.

As hard as she tried to get the aircraft to turn right, it continued to roll left and yawed in uncoordinated flight, and the trim mechanism didn’t have enough play to counter it fully.

Amanda decided to try a shallow turn to the left and continue 270 degrees until the erratic jet pointed due south.

“I’m trying a two-seventy to the left.”

“Copy that,” Ricardo replied, knowing that Amanda was in serious trouble, but all he could do was follow her and hope that they were able to make it back to the ship.

He made a large heading change to where he thought her jet would be. “Diamond, flash your lights.”

“Roger.”

He searched the sky for her.

“Do you have a visual, Ricky?”

“Negative,” he replied in a worried voice.

Amanda continued to muscle the plane in an awkward turn to the left. “I’m headed north and coming around to the west.”

“Copy, let’s have the lights, Diamond.”

She left them on for six seconds. “Do you have me?”

“Negative. Say altitude.”

Keeping a level turn, she watched her flight instruments. “I’m at six hundred feet passing through west looking for a southern heading.”

“Copy that,” Ricardo replied. “I’m leveling at seven hundred feet.”

“Roger,” she replied, breathing hard, considering turning on her AN/APG-79 AESA radar, capable of tracking air targets, to locate her flight leader. But they were over Iranian territory and doing so would paint a big X on her back for the Sayyad-3 SAM stations that the intelligence briefing indicated were guarding the airport. She considered contacting one of the E-2D Advanced Hawkeyes airborne early warning and control planes overseeing all of the sorties, but their flight had taken them just north of the radar range of the nearest E-2D circling over the Arabian Sea. “This is a nightmare.”

“Hang in there. We’ll get you home.”

Amanda could now see flames from the target they’d destroyed. Two secondary explosions confirmed ammunition had been stored in one of the buildings. By the time she nursed her malfunctioning Super Hornet around to a southerly heading, she would be very near the bombed terrorist compound.

Breathing in gasps, Amanda keyed her radio. “I’m passing near the target, almost ready to roll out,” she said in a tight voice.

“Lights,” Ricardo replied.

She flashed her exterior lights.

“No joy. I’ll flash mine.”

“Oh no!” Amanda cried out, frantically shoving the nose of her Super Hornet down to avoid slamming into her flight leader. “You went right over me. Directly over me!”

“Shit! Turn straight south. I’ll find you after we’re out of Dodge.”

She tried to get the nose up, bottoming out at two hundred feet above the ground, but as the jet began to climb a few feet, it violently rolled to the left.

Amanda reached for the Martin-Baker Series-14 ejection seat’s handle and froze as the aircraft passed the inverted position. Punching out inverted at low altitude would be fatal.

Panic-stricken, Amanda paused as the aircraft rolled upright. She yanked the throttles to idle and extended the speed brake, slowing the Super Hornet to just over three hundred knots. “Losing control. Ejecting! Ejecting!”

Amanda pulled the firing handle on the side of her seat and immediately felt the flight harness retraction unit hugging her like a bear.

A series of bolts filled with an explosive charge detonated, jettisoning the canopy from the fuselage just as small rocket thrusters attached on its forward lip pushed it out of the ejection path, vanishing in the slipstream.

The wind noise roared inside the open cockpit, hammering her eardrums even under the helmet. A series of mechanical operations took place in under a second as the Mk14 seat moved into position up the rail and the system released the top latch. An instant later, the cables attached to her boots yanked her feet back, hard.

An emergency beacon started broadcasting even before the underseat rockets fired, blasting her into the darkness.

Amanda gasped as she accelerated like a missile. More than fifteen g-forces piled up on her in a second, compressing her vertebrae. The windblast took her breath away.

She felt like she was riding a roller coaster on steroids as someone punched and tugged on her from every angle. Amanda tried to get her bearings, but she had tunnel vision because of the extreme g-forces.

Then her seat kicked her in the back like a mule. Her head flew backward as she was shot forward by the drogue parachute’s firing from the back of the seat.

And that was the first time her sight cleared enough to see the ejection seat falling away, as the main parachute snapped and blossomed above her, violently yanking her skyward and upright with a powerful jolt against her shoulders.

Jesus!

She barely had time to reorient herself before her Super Hornet crashed five seconds later in a blazing fireball that spread across the ground and shot up into the night sky.

Amanda watched in shock and denial, then it hit her that the burning wreckage sat less than a mile from the terrorist compound, just beyond a dirt road snaking its way through a series of shallow and rocky hills toward the airport and the military base. She could actually see the beacon from Zahedan International Airport roughly three miles away.

She drifted for about a minute, but regretfully the prevailing winds carried her to the foot of a rocky hill between the remains of her bird and the compound she’d just hit. Secondary explosions rumbled in the distance as fires propagated across the base, reaching weapons, explosives, and fuel depots.

The terrain rushed up to meet her, and she rolled the instant her boots hit the ground with a resounding thud, just as she had drilled, ending on her side nearly out of breath, the parachute fluttering behind her.

The sporadic splashes of red, yellow, and gold from the compound, as well as from the burning jet, lit up the darkness around her.

Get up.

Ignoring her aching back and neck, Amanda managed to sit and take stock of herself.

Her ankle throbbed a little from the Mk14 leg line yanking her feet back prior to ejection, but she was able to flex it and seemed otherwise uninjured. Pushing herself to her feet, she staggered around to gather her parachute and quickly piled some rocks on it to keep it from becoming a signal flag blowing in the breeze. She began walking away from the crash site, her mind still fuzzy, unclear.

Get it together and start thinking.

She stopped for a moment when she heard Ricardo’s jet circling. Grabbing the AN/PRC-149 naval survival radio strapped to the vest she wore over her flight suit, and circling slowly to get a look at her surroundings, Amanda set the volume on the lowest setting, keyed the switch, and whispered, “Dash-One, Dash-One, I’m okay, just a sore ankle but can walk.”

“Roger that. I’m contacting CSAR now,” Ricardo shot back, referring to combat search and rescue.

“Copy,” she whispered.

In order to help coordinate the rescue effort, Ricardo needed fuel, so he turned south, toward the closest KC-135R tanker circling over the Arabian Sea.

He spoke clearly to Amanda. “Dash-One is going to top off the tanks; back ASAP.”

“Hurry.”

“You bet; hang in,” he radioed as he shoved the throttles forward.

A sudden sense of loneliness came over Amanda as she listened to the sound of the fighter jet vanishing in the southern skies.

Get away from the crash site and to high ground as fast as possible.

Moving swiftly but quietly, she removed her helmet, torso harness, G-suit, scarf, nutrition bars, and Nomex flight gloves, keeping just her water flask, her radio, and her sidearm, a standard-issue Sig Sauer P229. The 9 mm semiautomatic was holstered across the chest of her flight vest. Remembering her survival training, Amanda spent the next fifteen minutes laying a false trail away from the hill, dropping items at random for nearly a quarter mile. She then doubled back and headed up the shallow hill flanking the dirt road, breathing heavily and working the soreness out of her ankle as she crested it. She then hid behind a clump of boulders that provided her with a reasonable vantage point over the burning wreckage.

From here, she could also see the first signs of daylight in the east: just a faint band of lavender forming between the starry sky and a distant mountain range.

That’s not good.

Something else suddenly caught her attention: headlights, coming from the direction of the airport.

And that’s worse.

She spotted five sets following the winding road, kicking up a column of dust. As their high beams crisscrossed each other in the darkness, she was able to make out three large Soviet-style military trucks and two armored half-tracks.

Crap.

During her entire military career, Amanda had known there might come a time where she could face precisely what she now faced. She had also heard stories of the fate of captured soldiers and downed pilots in the hands of jihadists. It was the stuff of nightmares.

The thought of what the bastards inside those trucks could do to a female pilot who had just bombed the hell out of them sent a chill down her—

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.

She inhaled deeply, trying to find strength in the words from that old crop duster pilot quoting General Patton.

The vehicles passed within seventy yards of her position as they steered toward the wreckage, and peeking over the rim of the boulder hiding her, she felt a wave of panic.

The open truck beds were full of soldiers.

Iranian troops.

Amanda estimated at least a dozen men in each vehicle.

They pulled off the road and stopped a couple hundred feet from the remains of her jet. The soldiers piled out of the vehicles and spread out around the burning wreckage.

Two of the trucks had powerful spotlights that swept the area around the crash site, stabbing the night.

She checked her watch. Ricardo had flown away almost twenty minutes ago, meaning that CSAR should already be on the way, and hopefully with some escorts.

Swallowing the lump forming in her throat, Amanda continued watching the men below and heard a loud commotion when someone found her parachute and assorted flight gear. Several of the troops began walking in the direction of her discarded items.

The distraction is working, she thought, feeling a sense of hope. But then three soldiers armed with AK-47s decided to head the other way, their flashlight beams leading the way, up her hill.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

She drew the Sig, whose magazine held fifteen jacketed hollow-point rounds plus one in the chamber.

Sixteen rounds would buy her only a short reprieve before the inevitable happened. But if Amanda were to be completely honest with herself, she would admit that she could only use fifteen rounds.

Because the last one would be for her.

No way those bastards are capturing me alive.

As the trio climbed up the hill and Amanda tightened her grip on the weapon, a single thought flooded her mind.

Ricky, where the hell are you?

The higher Ricardo climbed, the more daylight he saw over the horizon. As soon as he shot back over the Arabian Sea and in range of an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye, the controller gave him an initial vector to the nearest US Air Force KC-135R Stratotanker. Deciding that it was safe to turn on his AN/APG-79 AESA air-to-air radar, Ricardo promptly located the four-engine aircraft.

With assistance from a mission system operator in the Advanced Hawkeye, he had initiated a request for a navy HH-60H Seahawk strike-rescue helicopter. The CSAR vessel had already been dispatched.

With time slipping away and Amanda in grave danger, he closed in on the tanker at an excessive rate. With his experience, Ricardo felt confident he could handle the rendezvous without underrunning the tanker.

The KC-135R orbited at 25,000 feet and 250 knots. Ricardo maintained 470 knots until he glimpsed the tanker in a left-hand racetrack pattern. Expediting the rendezvous, Ricardo approached the aircraft on a constant bearing line to join on the left wing of the tanker.

“Jumbo Fifteen,” Ricardo transmitted in a clipped voice, “Dragon One-Zero-Eight has you in sight.”

“Roger, call port observation.”

“Copy that.” Ricardo waited until the last second before he simultaneously brought his throttles to idle and extended his speed brake. Slowing, he cross-controlled the airplane and leveled the F/A-18E at 24,500 feet and 285 knots. Extending his refueling probe, he rapidly ascended and stabilized his Super Hornet at 250 knots on the KC-135R’s port wing.

He keyed his radio and spoke rapidly. “Dragon One-Zero-Eight, port side, nose cold, switches safe, requesting nine point five.” The report indicated Ricardo’s 20 mm M61A2 Vulcan cannon was not armed and he wanted 9,500 pounds of jet fuel.

The tanker pilot responded, “Dragon One-Zero-Eight, cleared in for nine point five.”

“Roger, One-Oh-Eight cleared in.”

Ricardo eased behind the Stratotanker and smoothly plugged into the refueling basket on his first attempt. As the fuel gauges slowly climbed, Ricardo’s thoughts focused on Amanda, some four hundred miles away.

Amanda held her breath as the three soldiers approached her hideout, their yellow beams sweeping across the row of waist-high boulders. A few seconds later, she heard a familiar sound. The men also heard it because they immediately stopped and turned to look in its direction.

Nervously alert, when she recognized the telltale sound of an approaching helicopter, her heart jumped to her throat.

Oh God, let it be one of ours.

The soldiers remained focused on the noise, and Amanda sensed that none of them knew if it was friend or foe.

Time stood still as the sound of the approaching helicopter seemed to become fixed at a distant point. She counted the seconds hoping for a miracle. If the helicopter were Iranian, it would be overhead any moment.

Amanda closed her eyes for a moment, listening, then realized what was happening.

CSAR’s waiting for air cover!

She heard more orders being shouted, and she guessed it had to do with growing concern about the helicopter. The minutes seemed like hours as Amanda became jumpier… and the voices only grew louder.

Then the beams from their flashlights began to move again toward the hilltop, approaching her position.

While he watched his fuel state increase, Ricardo coordinated with the Advanced Hawkeye for more fighter aircraft to cover the rescue helicopter. Finally, after receiving 9,200 pounds of jet fuel, the waiting became too great. He eased out of the basket and retracted his refueling probe. “Jumbo Fifteen, thanks for the drink, switching.”

“Dragon cleared down and to the right, good luck.”

“Down and to the right, thanks.” He lowered the nose, selected burner, and switched to the Advanced Hawkeye. “Liberty Bell, Liberty Bell, Dragon One-Zero-Eight, any help on the way?”

“Roger that,” the mission systems operator replied. “You have two Rhinos at your seven o’clock, three miles, in burner. Dragon Four-Zero-Seven and Four-Zero-Two have a tally on you, switching them to your frequency.”

“Copy that.” Ricardo eased his power back and waited a few seconds. “Dragon Four-Zero-Seven and Four-Zero-Two, Dragon One-Zero-Eight with you.”

“Ricky Ricardo,” a calm voice came over the radio that he recognized as belonging to Lieutenant Commander Trey “Mullet” Malloy, leading a two-plane F/A-18E Super Hornet section. “We’re closing fast.”

“Bring ’em!”

Aboard the HH-60H Seahawk search and rescue helicopter, call sign Astro Six-Five, Lieutenant Commander James Borland, the helicopter aircraft commander, checked in as Ricardo, and his new wingmen began descending in burner.

“Dragon One-Zero-Eight, Astro Six-Five is holding. We have a visual on smoke from the crash site.”

“Roger,” Ricardo replied. “We’re inbound to clear you an LZ.”

When Ricardo had a visual on the wreckage, he keyed his radio. “Okay, Dragons, arm ’em up.”

“Roger that,” Malloy replied from Dragon Four-Zero-Seven.

“Zero-Two with a copy. Armed.”

With daylight only minutes away, Amanda couldn’t leave the boulders without being seen. The soldiers were coming closer. She said one last prayer, feeling raw panic in the pit of her stomach as she gripped the pistol in both hands and waited.

When one of the men came within fifty feet of her, she inhaled a breath and steadied her weapon.

Sorry, Mom. Sorry, Dad. Maybe I should have stayed on the farm, she thought just before she started to squeeze the trigger. But she stopped when hearing the roar of jet fighters approaching. The soldiers paused and looked up at the trio of Super Hornets in trail formation. She heard boots pounding as the soldiers down on the road began running for their trucks. Then she heard what she presumed was their commanding officer yelling angrily, giving orders. It became clear the boss was planning to stand his ground, rather than run from the incoming jets.

“Diamond, are you clear of the wreckage?” Ricardo’s voice came over the radio, barely audible since she had turned the volume nearly to off. He sounded worried.

“Affirmative. I’m clear,” she whispered. “Top of the hill behind some boulders. Got three guys almost on top of me,” she whispered.

“I see you. Hang on.”

“Astro Six-Five,” Ricardo radioed the Seahawk the moment he spotted Amanda on the hill overlooking the wreckage and the line of trucks. “We’re in hot; you are cleared in for the pickup.”

“Astro Six-Five is on the way,” the CSAR helicopter commander radioed, determination in his voice.

Muzzle flashes erupted from multiple points on the ground as the soldiers began firing at Ricardo’s Super Hornet.

He turned the control column toward the closest truck and opened up the Vulcan for just a few seconds. Twenty-millimeter rounds ripped into the vehicle, nearly cutting it in half. Some of the soldiers began running toward the remaining trucks while others disappeared in the opposite direction. A few of the ground troops, including the three men closest to Amanda, dropped to the ground and warily watched the three F/A-18Es.

Ricardo and his wingmen pulverized another truck as it tried to make an escape in the opposite direction. In an effort to save ammunition and fuel, the pilots pulled up and circled the wreckage when the helicopter appeared. The last truck and the two half-tracks roared off at full throttle. The rest of the soldiers were left stranded in the open. Several started running uphill, toward Amanda’s position.

Ricardo managed a quick breath and keyed his radio. “Diamond, keep your head down!”

“Wilco,” Amanda uttered in an uneasy voice.

“Astro Six-Five,” Ricardo radioed, “do you have a visual on the wreckage?”

“That’s affirm, we have a visual,” the CSAR pilot replied. “We’re about forty seconds out.”

“Roger, forty seconds.” Ricardo snapped the jet into a tight turn to align himself with his target. “Astro, I’m going to make a firing run from east to west. The pilot is behind some boulders atop the hill a hundred feet south of where I’ll be aiming.”

“We have the downed pilot in sight,” the CSAR pilot said excitedly. “Making our approach now, taking a few rounds!”

Ricardo keyed his radio. “Hang in, we’ll cover you.”

“Astro has a copy,” Borland replied, concentrating on making an abrupt flare and landing close to the pilot, but a number of soldiers were now firing uphill when they realized where the helicopter was headed. “It’s getting hot over here!”

“I’m in,” Ricardo announced firmly.

Amanda watched as Ricardo rolled in and began his run. Knowing when he would be firing at the soldiers rushing up the hill, she covered her head a second before the dirt began flying, and the ground trembled under her feet as hundreds of 20 mm rounds pounded the desert.

As Ricardo pulled up at the end of his pass, he glanced over his shoulder at the two orbiting Super Hornets. “Dragons, keep their heads down, faces in the dirt!”

“Zero-Seven!”

“Zero-Two!”

Amanda waited a moment and then looked over the edge of the boulders. One of the men was dead, but the other two, though hollow-eyed and stunned, looked at her. Both reached for their rifles.

But Amanda was ready, firing in rapid succession, scoring direct hits in the chest, two each, the reports echoing in her ears.

Then she began running toward the incoming helicopter.

“Zero-Seven’s in hot,” Ricardo heard Malloy say.

Ricardo saw Amanda fire at the soldiers and run, but two more Iranians had made it to the hill and were about to shoot her in the back.

“Diamond, get down, get on the ground!”

He saw Amanda dive like a runner stealing second. As she lay spread-eagled, Malloy used his 20 mm cannon to rip the two soldiers to shreds.

Borland kept the Csar helicopter ready for an immediate departure.

“Astro Six-Five is taking fire, taking more hits!”

“Diamond, get up!” Ricardo yelled. “Run for the helo!”

Amanda jumped to her feet and scrambled as fast as she could. After covering half the distance to the helicopter, she watched as the earth to her right began flying into the air from AK-47 rounds fired from an unseen position. She dove again as the helicopter’s door gunner opened up with the M240 machine gun.

Before she could react, a helmeted crew member had already sprinted from the side door, pulled Amanda to her feet, and helped her to the waiting Seahawk.

They crawled aboard while rounds continued pinging the fuselage like hammers. As the HH-60H began to lift off, it started to spew smoke.

Sliding on a pair of green David Clark noise-canceling headphones already jacked into the helicopter’s intercom, Amanda grabbed on to an overhead pipe as the door gunners continued pounding the hillside with their M240s. Meanwhile, the Super Hornet trio unloaded more rounds on the remaining soldiers. She could hear their chatter in the squadron frequency as they cleared the way for the Seahawk.

The helicopter’s left General Electric turboshaft belched more black smoke and fire and the entire fuselage vibrated. Then she heard it spool down, smothering the flames.

“Hey, are we going down?” she asked a helmeted gunner.

“Negative, ma’am!” he replied, his M240D trained on the ground. “The Navy provided us with a spare engine!”

The Super Hornets made a final sweep with the cannons for insurance before Malloy decided to risk another pass to drop a couple of bombs on what remained of Amanda’s bird — just to make sure it was destroyed.

Amanda watched the show as the helicopter steered away from the kill zone. But apparently, Malloy was not satisfied, because he made yet another pass with his canons blasting, tearing up the road and any remaining soldiers, even though they no longer posed a danger to the helicopter. Ricardo and the other Super Hornet were already moving away from the kill zone escorting the CSAR helo.

What the hell is Mullet doing? she thought as the big Seahawk accelerated away into a clear and bright morning, but remained close to the rocky terrain to avoid SAMs until they reached the shoreline. A moment later Malloy also joined the egressing convoy.

“Hey, Mullet, I think you missed a couple,” Amanda heard Ricardo say.

“Just making a statement, man. Nobody fucks with the Dragons.”

Amanda shook her head.

The pilot handed control to the copilot and stepped away from the cockpit to check in on his passenger.

Plugging back into the ICS, he looked at the disheveled fighter pilot. Her flight suit and hair were dirty from her dive for cover, and her hands were scratched and bleeding. A corpsman daubed at a cut on her chin with gauze. “You all right, Diamond?” Borland asked.

Amanda smiled for the first time that day, then winced as she opened the cut on her chin further. “Never been better, Lieutenant! You and your guys definitely rock!”