Ashes of Victory

— 22 —

What a glorious morning, Skipper,” commented Lt. Cmdr. Trey Malloy to Cmdr. Benjamin Kowalski while they finished their walk-around of their Alert Five Super Hornets as the first rays of sunlight made their debut.

“So, you’re the damned weatherman now, Mullet?” asked Kowalski.

Malloy shrugged. “It’s the only profession where you can be wrong half the time and still keep your job.”

Kowalski grinned, then said, “What you’re looking at here is just the calm before the storm.”

Somewhere around midnight the prior night, the Chinese destroyer Qingdao, no longer satisfied with trailing the Vinson flotilla, had decided to turn off all of its lights and paint the carrier with its fire-control radar.

“What is it with these guys? Don’t they know how dangerous a game they’re playing?”

Before Malloy could reply, Kowalski turned around and climbed the boarding ladder to his jet as wisps of steam floated out of the catapult tracks. Across the deck, Ricardo and Amanda taxied their birds into position.

Taking a deep breath and praying that his boss was wrong, Malloy also went up his boarding ladder.

After launching off the bow, Amanda worked the control column and throttles to make a running rendezvous with her flight leader. Working closely with Vinson’s departure controller and the other controllers in CATCC, the aviators began climbing to their briefed altitude to set up a holding pattern. Their orbit would be halfway between the carrier and mainland China, south of the Taiwan Strait. Their mission included keeping an eye on the Chinese destroyer.

“Dragon One-Oh-Eight cleared to the BARCAP station,” the flight controller said, referring to the barrier combat air patrol, the airspace between the carrier strike group and the direction from which the most likely threat could originate. Ricardo and Amanda’s mission was to relieve the F/A-18Es that had been flying BARCAP for the past four hours. “Contact Liberty Bell.”

“Switching,” Ricardo replied.

Flying a loose parade position off Ricardo’s wing, Amanda changed radio frequencies in time to hear her flight leader check in with the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye.

“Liberty Bell, Dragon One-Zero-Eight with you; flight of two.”

“Dragon One-Zero-Eight Liberty, roger,” Lt. Cmdr. Steve Barlow said from the E-2D as they climbed to altitude. “Dragons, the duty BARCAP is at your eleven o’clock, six miles, descending out of flight level two-one-zero.”

“Dragon One copy,” Ricardo replied.

“Dragon Two,” Amanda said, and a few moments later she spotted the pair of Super Hornets from the Bounty Hunters, VFA-2, in the northwestern skies.

“Dragon One has a tally on the Hunters, no conflict,” Ricardo reported.

“Roger that,” Barlow replied.

The relieved BARCAP jets broke off to return to Vinson as Ricardo and Amanda leveled off.

“Deedle, let’s go max endurance.”

“Two,” Amanda replied, easing her throttles back to match her flight leader’s airspeed.

“I’m going to slide out a tad, Ricky,” Amanda said. “Relax for a few.”

“Okay,” Ricardo said. “Don’t go to sleep on me.”

Amanda replied with a simple double click of her mic.

As they settled into their routine holding pattern, Amanda scanned the sky behind her flight leader while contemplating the odds of Beijing making a play for Taiwan. With only one carrier operating in the region, would China really attempt to invade the island?

She shook her head, working the flight controls on automatic. Her mind still worked to process the fact that she wasn’t just in the strait, but in this instance, her BARCAP flight represented the very front line of the US Pacific Fleet shielding Taiwan from the might of the People’s Libera—

“Dragons, we have company. Two confirmed bandits climbing from Fuzhou,” Barlow reported.

Amanda snapped out of her mental nap.

“Dragon One.”

“Dragon Two,” Amanda said.

“They’re at your four o’clock,” Barlow said with an uneasy voice. “Ninety-six miles, climbing through one three thousand.”

“Roger that. Deedle, let’s go in place, starboard ninety, and then combat spread.”

“Two,” Amanda replied, her throat suddenly going dry as she shifted her jet almost a half mile from Ricardo’s wingtip.

Halfway through the turn, Ricardo keyed his radio. “Let’s take it to them. Coming up on the power.”

Click-click.

“Dragons,” Barlow said, “we have two more bandits in trail… also from Fuzhou. Mother is launching the alert birds.”

“Christ,” Amanda mumbled under her oxygen mask. “Here we go again.”

Col. Lian Guõ climbed through ten thousand feet at Mach 1.2 in the second two-plane section. At her request, Major Ren led the first pair of Sukhois a dozen miles ahead, closing in on the pair of Super Hornets flying a racetrack pattern.

Let’s see how he handles himself as flight leader in real combat, she thought, considering that their mission today was a bit more aggressive than their first one yesterday: perform a flyover of the American aircraft carrier before returning to base.

Lian frowned, uncertain of the order given the high degree of risk, but General Deng Xiangsui had seemed confident that the coward Americans would not go beyond following them and perhaps locking a missile, like they had the day before.

“But they’ll never fire, my dear Lian,” he had told her. “Their rules of engagement prevent it.”

Jiujiu, I hope you’re right, she thought as she leveled off at eighteen thousand feet with her wingman glued to her starboard wingtip. I hope you’re right.

Amanda could feel a sudden surge of adrenaline and her pulse quickened. She felt hyperalert, and a pregame anxiety rose in her chest. She inhaled and exhaled a couple of times to relax herself. “Ricky, we have enough fuel for a short engagement, but we’re going to have to rely on the Alert Fives to bail us out.”

“Master Arm on,” Ricardo said with determination in his voice.

“Master Arm on,” Amanda replied, before adding, “These idiots are going to screw around until someone gets hurt.”

“Yup,” Ricardo replied.

“Deedle, I hold the second group twelve miles behind the first two.”

“That’s what I see,” Amanda replied.

“When the lead pair is at seven miles, let’s start a tight merge and see what they do.”

“Roger that,” Amanda replied, biting her lower lip under her mask before asking, “Do you think they’ll engage, go a few rounds with us?”

“Who the hell knows,” Ricardo admitted. “Bastards are totally unpredictable.”

“Man, I miss the Russians,” Amanda said.

“Yeah, at least those guys understood the risks. These characters are batshit crazy.”

Click-click.

Head onto the Su-35S jets, Amanda watched the rapid closure rate.

At seven miles, Ricardo keyed his radio. “Let’s merge,” he declared in a commanding voice. “Now!”

“Two!”

Both Super Hornets snapped into tight ninety-degree turns toward each other. To Amanda’s surprise, the two Flanker-E pilots eased their noses down and passed under the tightly clustered navy jets.

“They’re headed straight for the carrier!” Amanda said, swinging her head as they blurred by.

“Deedle, blowers now!” Ricardo ordered.

She slammed her throttles into afterburner, following her lead, pulling almost nine g’s, her jaws tight as she endured the mounting pressure.

“Copy,” Amanda groaned as the F/A-18Es crossed nose-to-nose at a combined closure rate of more than 1,200 miles per hour, forty feet apart, their four engines burning fuel at a tremendous rate.

“Dragons, you have the two additional Flankers now on your six with a full head of steam,” Barlow reported from the E-2D.

Amanda verified that the second set of Flankers had indeed closed the gap to less than seven miles.

“Get the Alert Five Rhinos on them,” Ricardo said. “We have a full plate at the moment!”

Mullet Malloy shot skyward after Dover Kowalski. On his radar, he could see the pair of Chinese Su-35S jets closing in on Vinson with the BARCAP F/A-18Es on their tails, and several miles behind them two more Flankers-Es closing in on them.

He grew more concerned about how this all would play out as he settled behind his flight leader’s right wingtip. Kowalski requested a private word on their current frequency with Vinson’s skipper and his own superior, Capt. James Buchelle, commander of Carrier Air Wing 2. As Kowalski’s wingman, Malloy had to remain on frequency and thus became privy to the conversation.

“Dover?” came the gruff voice of Capt. Peter Keegan. “I’m here with Jimmy. What do you need?”

“Gentlemen, we can’t let these guys near mother,” Kowalski started. “The Russians used to overfly us all the time, and we didn’t have any problems. But these aren’t the Russians. We can’t take the chance of having mother going up in smoke. Just one well-placed bomb and it’s game over.”

Static silence filled the air.

“Besides,” Kowalski pressed. “If we let them get away with this rope-a-dope shit, they’ll keep pushing the envelope until we don’t have any options.”

“How much time do we have?” asked Buchelle.

“About three minutes, sir,” Kowalski shot back.

“What’s your consensus?” Keegan asked, with obvious stress in his voice.

“Have the BARCAP splash the Flankers,” Kowalski said. “Now. Take them down.”

“Stand by,” Buchelle replied.

Malloy took a deep breath as he waited for the standard chain of command discussion. Keegan and Buchelle were now conferring with Rear Admiral Jack Swift, the commander of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, the highest-rank officer aboard. Within thirty seconds, their decision was passed onto the duty officer in CATCC, who immediately relayed the command to the Advanced Hawkeye’s combat information center officer.

“Dragon One, Liberty Bell,” Amanda heard Barlow say. “You have authority to splash the bandits! Repeat you have permission to shoot down the bandits!”

Amanda’s breath caught in her throat as Ricardo keyed his radio: “Copy, Liberty, taking them down.

“Deedle, you take the leader,” Ricardo instructed in a firm, steady voice. “I’ll take his wingman.”

“Roger that,” Amanda replied.

“Take the shot!” Ricardo ordered.

Amanda heard the missile lock on the AIM-120 AMRAAM mounted on her port-side rail and, squeezing the trigger on her control column, she said, “Fox three,” in a voice far calmer than how she felt.

A moment later, she watched the plume of the twelve-foot-long missile tracking its target, just as Ricardo fired one of his AMRAAMs.

Do your job, she thought as the supersonic missiles locked on to their individual targets, who suddenly realized they had been fired upon and began sharp right turns and dives while dispensing chaff. But given their proximity, the AMRAAMs’ active radar ignored the countermeasures and easily guided the missiles straight to their prey. A second apart, both Flanker-Es exploded in mushrooming black clouds, just as their pilots tried to eject, but the rapidly expanding fireballs engulfed their respective ejections seats. No chutes appeared.

“Missile! Missile! The Americans have fired missiles on us! Countermeasures released… ineffective. Ejecting! Now!”

Lian tightened her grip on the control column as Ren and his wingman vanished in twin fireballs.

You bastards!

Tears welling in her eyes, the PLAAF colonel pushed her dual throttles into burner while ordering her wingman back to base.

“But, Colonel,” her wingman began. “I’m not supposed to leave your—”

“Now! It’s an order! I’m doing this alone!”

“Liberty Bell,” Ricardo radioed as burning debris fell from the sky. “Splashed two Flanker-Es, two Flanker-Es down!”

“Copy, two bandits down,” Barlow confirmed. “Stand by for the two bandits at your six.”

“Roger that,” Ricardo said, feeling the adrenaline rush. “Dragon Two, in place starboard turn, now!”

“Two!” Amanda exclaimed as she began to experience task overload. She was just getting over shooting down the Sukhoi, and now she had two more on her tail.

Keep it together and stay focused, she thought.

“Where are those Alert Five Rhinos?” Ricardo asked.

“We’re on them now, Ricky,” Kowalski reported.

“Right behind them, buddy,” Malloy added.

“Welcome to our little party, guys,” Ricardo replied.

“Dragons,” the controller interrupted. “One of the Flankers must have seen the fireballs and the Alert Five and is hightailing it out of Dodge.”

“Where’s the other one?” Ricardo asked, feeling a growing sense of doom.

“At your six! We’re on it!” Kowalski said.

Lian shot across the sky at Mach 2.3, closing the gap to the Super Hornets in seconds. She got an IR missile lock on the right jet and fired one of her Vympel R-73s.

Out of my way, asshole, she thought, watching the Super Hornet breaking away and dispensing flares before she idled the engines and deployed the speedbrakes, settling behind the twin tails of the bastard who had shot down Ren.

“A missile is too merciful for you,” she mumbled, arming the nose-mounted 30 mm GSh-301 cannon as she placed the tail of the American jet in the gunsights of her heads-up display.

This one’s for Ren.

“Missile!” Ricardo shouted. “I’m outta here!”

Amanda watched her flight leader break hard right, turning ninety degrees to the incoming threat while dispensing flares in an attempt to fool the missile; its turning radius typically could not match that of a modern fighter jet.

“Where’s the bandit?” she screamed, losing sight of Ricardo and straining her neck in every direction to find the Chinese fighter jet.

“At your six, Dragon Two!” reported Barlow from the E-2D. “He’s right behind—”

The sound of gunfire echoed all around her, and her control column shuddered as the sound of hammers striking the fuselage reverberated through the cockpit.

“I’m hit! Dragon Two is hit!”

Lian opened the cannon through the side of the Super Hornet’s fuselage for just three seconds, ripping into the metal alloy before her Irbis-E passive phased array radar showed two more enemy jets closing in on her.

Dammit.

She broke off the attack, but not before passing by the side of the bastard who had shot down her second in command. Her eyes scanned the side of the fuselage as she dashed by the Super Hornet’s port wing. Compared to her shiny Sukhoi, the American fighter looked as if it had been chewed up in multiple air battles. For a moment, Lian was glad to have added to its scars. The American now trailed fuel and debris.

And just before turning to the mainland in full burner, accelerating to Mach 2.25, well beyond the maximum speed of the American jets, Lian spotted the hot-pink lettering beneath the canopy.

Two things surprised her. First, that the pilot was a woman, Lt. Amanda Diamante. And second, the strange words below the name.

DEEDLE-DEEDLE.

Having lost the heat-seeking missile to a cloud of flares, Ricardo climbed back up to altitude, just in time to watch the Flanker-E’s twin engines in full burner disappear in the horizon. He rolled wings level for a moment before turning toward Amanda.

“Coming up behind you, Deedle,” Ricardo advised as he approached her. “Flanker-E checked out, no factor. How bad are you?”

“I’m trying to figure that out. My right motor’s losing power,” she trailed off. “I didn’t have any kind of warning; must have been a gun.”

“You guys have had enough fun for one day,” Kowalski said. “Get your asses home. We’ll cover the area.”

“Are you okay?” Ricardo asked while watching Kowalski and Malloy break off to run BARCAP and give them a safe space to work the problem.

“Right motor’s almost out,” she replied in a subdued voice. “That bastard must be one hell of a shooter, or he got mighty lucky.”

Ricardo keyed his radio. “From that distance, I’d say he was damn lucky. He almost took me out too.”

“Shit. I’m also losing fuel like crazy.”

“Liberty Bell, Dragon flight is going to the tanker,” Ricardo radioed as he started to rendezvous with Amanda.

“Negative,” Barlow said. “The tanker went sour, and we won’t have a spare one for about twenty to twenty-five minutes.”

“Dragons are going to the boat,” Ricardo radioed as he eased his aircraft under and to the left of Amanda’s plane.

“Copy, cleared to mom,” Barlow said, giving Dragon One a new radio frequency, and then switched frequencies to communicate with the Alert Five Super Hornets flying BARCAP.

Ricardo slowly moved to the right side of his wingman and surveyed the damage. “Yeah, Deedle, you have a half dozen holes. Little Swiss cheese. No obvious engine damage.”

“Right motor’s off. Man, the master chief’s going to be pissed,” she said.

“I don’t see any external damage to either motor, so I’m guessing the fuel line,” Ricardo said, given her loss of power and also the mist of fuel trailing the fighter jet.”

“Has to be,” Amanda confirmed. “I’ve checked everything else.”

“Well, you’re definitely streaming fuel,” Ricardo said dryly. “Don’t even think about staging the blower on that left engine.”

“Yeah,” Amanda replied with a chuckle. “That had crossed my primitive brain stem.”

Ricardo maneuvered his jet out to the left side of his wingman and stepped up. “Okay, our only chance is the boat. Deedle, you take the lead, and I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“Roger that,” Amanda replied as Ricardo eased behind her. “But I don’t think this is going to work, Ricky. According to my calculations, I’m going to come up short.”

“We’ll stay high and conserve fuel,” he advised in a calm manner. “How much gas do you have?”

“Less than four thousand pounds and dropping fast.”

Glancing at his chronograph, he noted the time, checked the distance to the aircraft carrier, and waited another minute. “What’s your total now?”

“I’m looking at three point seven,” Amanda replied in a resigned voice. “I’m not going to make it to mother.”

“I think you’ll have one shot at the deck,” Ricardo said in a positive tone.

“Yeah, sure thing, Coach.”

Ricardo switched to Vinson’s CATCC and checked in. He explained the challenging problem and switched back to Amanda. “Deedle, you’re cleared on arrival.”

“Ricky, this isn’t going to work,” she said in a frustrated but even voice. “The numbers don’t compute.”

Ricardo glanced at the helmet in the other cockpit. “Look, we’re going to start down in a couple of minutes. When we do, we’ll make an idle descent to abeam the boat. That’ll save a lot of fuel.”

“Copy,” Amanda replied in a lackluster voice while now looking at 3,400 pounds and working the rudder and stick to compensate for the asymmetrical thrust. “This is going to be very tight.”

“You can hack it,” Ricardo assured her.

Amanda grinned. “Sure thing.”

She spent the next few minutes scanning her instruments while the fuel level continued decreasing at a steady rate, which, though disconcerting, was at least predictable, allowing her to make a few more mental calculations.

It’s going to be damned close.

She breathed deeply, trying to quench the fear worming its way through her gut at the thought of having to eject again. And if that painful memory alone wasn’t enough to feed her determination to make it to that flight deck, the image of her crop-dusting mentor, Commander Ripley, loomed in her mind.

Courage is fear holding on a minute—

“Dragon Two, let’s push,” Ricardo said as he inched the throttles back.

“Copy,” Amanda responded. She glanced at the fuel. Just under 2,700 pounds left in the tanks.

They continued the smooth descent and spotted the ship when they reached eleven thousand feet. Vinson had a clear landing area, and other planes were holding overhead the carrier.

Downwind descending through five thousand feet, Amanda was looking at 1,700 pounds of fuel. I’m going to be sucking fumes when I roll into the groove.

In preparation to eject if it came to that, she removed her kneeboard and began trimming the jet for level flight close to the ship. To save fuel, Amanda kept the landing gear in the up position. At an altitude of 1,500 feet, she had to add power with just under 1,400 pounds left in the tanks, or around 130 gallons.

“Gear and hook,” Ricardo reminded his wingman.

“I’m going to hold them till the one-eighty,” Amanda declared, deciding to reduce drag by keeping the landing gear and the tail hook retracted until she made the final 180-degree turn to align the nose with the carrier’s stern at an altitude of 500 feet.

The fuel burned faster at the lower altitude and increased power on her single engine.

Ricardo keyed his radio. “Let’s switch to the LSO.”

“Roger that.”

Ricardo checked in with the landing signal officer, unofficially known as “paddles” because back in the day LSOs would stand on the ship’s stern and face the incoming plane holding colored flags or paddles to guide them onto the flight deck. “Okay, Dragon One-Oh-Eight with you.”

“CAG Paddles copy,” the controlling LSO replied. “Understand Two-Zero-Six has damage on the right motor and low fuel?”

“That would be critical fuel and complete loss of right motor,” Ricardo calmly explained as they leveled their Super Hornets at 1,200 feet.

“Okay, Dragon Two,” the senior LSO radioed in a calm, reassuring voice. “We’re rigging the barricade. Fly a smooth stabilized approach, and I’ll talk you aboard.” The barricade webbing was an emergency recovery system used when there was a chance of not making the normal arresting-wire landing. It consisted of upper and lower horizontal loading straps stretched across the flight deck between stanchions. The sections were joined together by vertical engaging straps designed to snag the wings of the landing aircraft.

“Roger,” Amanda said as she tried to remember the process for a single-engine approach to the barricade. Her training also forced her to go through the single-engine rate-of-climb numbers should she have to go around, though she didn’t think she had the fuel for a single approach, much less for a go-around. She also noticed the SH-60 Seahawk plane-guard helicopter keeping pace with the carrier.

God bless those helo guys, she thought. But I hope they don’t have to fish me out of the drink.

Unable to stop herself, she gazed at the fuel status and cringed when she saw 1,040 pounds.

On the flight deck, as the well-trained crew raised the barricade, a loud voice made an urgent announcement over the 5MC. “Emergency Rhino abeam.”

Amanda watched the ship’s stern past her left wingtip and continued for another mile, completing the downwind leg before beginning a descending left turn to 073 degrees to line up with Vinson’s stern. She also dropped her tailhook. Don’t blow this pass in front of the entire air group.

“You’re lookin’ good,” the LSO said, adding reassuringly, “Just be smooth and fly the ball.”

“I’m on it,” Amanda replied. Reaching for the gear handle, she lowered the landing gear. All three indicated safe.

Rolling wings level over the wake of the ship, Amanda spotted the bright yellow-orange meatball. “Rhino, ball, state nine hundred pounds.”

“Roger ball,” CAG Paddles replied. “Clear deck. Keep it smooth, relax, and BREATHE.”

Amanda inhaled deeply as she shot a quick look at the flight deck, gripping the stick so hard, she overcontrolled.

“Line up,” the LSO coaxed. “Keep it nice and easy on that power. You’re a little low.”

Making the correction to align the jet with the center of the angle deck, Amanda allowed the jet to get too low and slow.

“Power and more power,” CAG Paddles urged. “Give me more power and line up.”

Adjusting the throttle, Amanda overcorrected and added too much. Her jet rose well above the desired glide path.

“Too high, Dragon Two. Lower. Lower!”

Although Amanda remembered the entire procedure for making an approach to the barricade on one engine, a single step flashed in her mind: You never want to be too high, because you could catch the top of the barrier with your landing gear if you had to go around.

As she tried to correct her height by setting up a faster-than-desired sink rate, the LSO hit the wave-off lights while ordering, “Dragon Two, go around! Now!”

Dammit, she thought while pushing the single engine to military power and clearing the top of the barrier by just a dozen feet.

“Dragon Two, turn downwind after you get yourself turned around, and turn in as soon as able.”

“Turning in now,” she said, working the throttle, rudders, elevators, and ailerons to get herself ready for another pass as her gas level reached six hundred pounds. “What’s my final bearing?”

“It’s still zero seven three. Line up.”

“Roger.”

Once again, she turned downwind, passed abeam the ship’s stern, and, after a quarter mile, made a 180-degree descending turn to line her nose with the carrier. She knew better than to spot the deck, but the meatball was going high on the Fresnel lens.

“Paddles, ball’s shooting up from the depths.”

“Dragon, cut power,” the LSO replied.

Once more, she overcorrected by idling the engines and made the problem worse as her fuel dropped below three hundred pounds. She silently cursed the asymmetrical thrust on the single engine, her constant worry about flaming out, and the damn helo shadowing her — distractions that were impeding her from making a proper approach.

You can do this, she thought, correcting the problem.

“Dragon has the ball,” she reported as she descended onto her moving target.

“Power!” the LSO radioed as the jet approached the round down of the flight deck. “Power, POWER!”

Amanda shoved the throttle forward two seconds before the Super Hornet slammed onto the deck a dozen paces from the ramp, skipping the one, the two, and finally snagging the number three wire. The latter arrested her forward momentum, propelling her into her harness as she groaned from the sudden deceleration while also rolling into the barricade just a foot left of the centerline. The vertical straps killed any forward motion by snagging the leading edges of both wings.

Taking a deep breath and relieved to be safely on deck, she idled the jet while the arresting wire pulled it backward to allow the tail hook to drop the cable.

Her heartbeat drumming against her temples, Amanda found herself holding her breath. She exhaled hard and took a deep breath, trying to calm her heartbeat.

It took the crew a minute to lower the barricade, and she followed the directions of the yellow-jersey flight director to a spot clear of the foul deck line. And it was there that she spotted Maintenance Master Chief Gino Cardona standing by with his arms crossed, his mirror-tint sunglasses reflecting the morning sun as he shook his head.

Shutting down the engine and unfastening her oxygen mask, Amanda breathed a deep sigh of relief. She noticed her hands were shaking. She was pretty sure, though, that her panties were still clean.

And that’s something to be proud of, I guess.

Lian grew angrier as she approached the coast at Mach 2.3. Her N011 pulse-Doppler radar, capable of tracking up to fifteen aerial targets, showed two Super Hornets flying a racetrack pattern almost sixty miles behind her. The other two jets had returned to the carrier. And higher above, an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye similar to the one she had buzzed yesterday kept a watchful eye on the airspace.

I lost two pilots. I can’t go back empty-handed.

She had three Vympel R-37 long-range air-to-air missiles, which she could fire at the American aircraft in shoot-and-forget mode, letting the missiles’ active radar homing track their respective targets.

But Lian was also aware of the countermeasure capabilities of a Super Hornet, which could evade one, maybe even two missiles if the pilot was a really, really good stick.

But three?

Making her decision, she slowed down to make a tight 360-degree shooting run, briefly pointing the nose toward the southwestern skies. Picking at random, she locked all three R-37s on one of the BARCAP Super Hornets, firing them at five-second intervals while still turning.

The thirteen-foot missiles, each with a range of more than two hundred miles, shot off and made slight turns before rocketing up to Mach 6.0, or 4,603 miles per hour.

At that insane speed, over twice that of a 9 mm bullet, the lead missile closed the sixty-mile gap in forty-six seconds.

“Missile lock! Got three missiles on my Rhino!” Kowalski heard Malloy scream as he broke right to place the lead missile at a ninety-degree angle and began dispensing chaff.

Jesus Christ, he thought, staring at the incoming vampires on his radar, all closing in on Malloy’s bird at a staggering speed.

It took a moment for Kowalski to do the math before he shouted, “You can’t shake them, Mullet! Too fast and too close! Eject! Eject!”

“I’ve got this, Skipper!”

The first missile went for the chaff, exploding in an impressive ball of fire and shrapnel less than a half mile from Malloy. Instead of ejecting, Malloy performed a second turn to once again position himself at ninety degrees from the second missile while releasing more chaff. The maneuver worked, fooling the second missile, which detonated a couple thousand feet from the F/A-18E.

“Dammit, Mullet!” Kowalski screamed. “Get the hell out of there!”

“Nope. I’ve got it, Skipper!” he replied, making a third turn after releasing more chaff. “This one’s for the history books!”

The third missile also went for the chaff, and for an instant Kowalski thought the hotshot pilot had indeed written a new chapter in missile-evasion techniques. But the vampire detonated just a bit too close to the jet, tearing into the rear fuselage.

“I tried, Skipper! Punching out! Need a helo and a driver!”

Malloy’s canopy blew back in the slipstream followed by the Mk14 ejection seat firing. But before it could achieve enough separation, the blast propagated to the front of the Super Hornet.

One second Kowalski watched his wingman shooting away from the jet, and the next instant flames swallowed the entire bird and Malloy as the blast ignited thousands of pounds of jet fuel.

“Dammit!” he cursed beneath his oxygen mask as he flew around the falling debris in the hopes that somehow the Martin-Baker ejection seat had managed to punch through the fireball.

But after thirty seconds, Kowalski keyed his mic, “Liberty Bell, Liberty Bell, Dragon Three-Three-Niner reporting that Dragon Four-Zero-Seven is gone.… Mullet… he bought the farm.”