First Strike

TWENTY-ONE

With seventy-five miles of airspace between his aircraft and the island, Korsov was beginning to relax. The rest of the flight had hardly noticed when he departed, and, although there had been one question from the flight leader, no one has followed up. They had their hands full dealing with the waves of American aircraft coming at them. The shore-based missiles were giving them some cover, but he gathered from the radio traffic that most of the ZUS-9 trucks had been eliminated somehow. Something about a MiG firing on them — no, that was impossible. While it wasn’t inconceivable that there could have been a defector, there could have been no motivation to destroy their own antiair missile sites, none whatsoever. Not with the Americans breathing down their necks.

He was holding the AGI on his radar now. It was only a matter of minutes before he was in area for a quick pick up. He had used afterburner the entire way — no use worrying about fuel consumption now, not when he expected to abandon this airframe shortly.

The sudden deedle deedle of his ESM warning system snapped him out of his pleasant anticipation of the future. Who was…? He glanced at the scanner, and noted it was another MiG. But why would another MiG set off his warning system? It wouldn’t. Not unless he’d been swept by fire control radar specifically in launch mode.

Another contact snapped into being on his screen and he stared at it in disbelief. The sheer shock stunned him for a second, and then he began working rapidly.

An incoming missile — and from another MiG! Had they somehow detected his treachery and broke off one covertly to follow him? A MiG, of all things — he could understand a Tomcat chasing him down, although most of their attention was still fixed on the air battle off the coast.

Why another MiG?

Well, no matter. He had been a senior instructor at their advanced fighter tactics school not so long ago, and anything the pilot facing him knew Korsov had taught him. He should’ve known it would come to this. Everything had gone far too smoothly. There would have to be one final test, one final confrontation.

Korsov turned back to face the other MiG, now regretting the long sprint in afterburner. He would have to watch his fuel, and watch it carefully. He began climbing rapidly, pumping chaff and flares as he did so, creating a curtain of metal and heat behind him, hoping it would hide him for even just a few moments. He also activated his IFF transponder on the off chance that a missile IFF seeker head wasn’t malfunctioning. Finally, he gained altitude, knowing that he might be able to outmaneuver the other pilot.

The other MiG was heading straight for him, ascending to meet him, searching for another lock on him. But the avionics resisted targeting a friendly, now with his IFF on, and that would work in his favor as well.

The first missile selected a particularly attractive flair hanging in the air and detonated inside its plume, satisfied that it had found its target. Korsov considered abandoning his dash to the south. He could turn north and try to circle in behind the other MiG.

But whoever was chasing him had already thought of that. The MiG cut around in a curve, trying to position itself behind him for a tail shot. The simple heat seeker wouldn’t care that his IFF was screaming out a warning. It would see only heat — nice, tasty heat — and it would home in on it.

The other pilot was also smart enough to keep the sun behind him, producing not only a glare in Korsov’s eyes but an enticing target for the no-brainer heat seeker that Korsov wanted to fire.

Who is it? Korsov ran through the faces and names of the men assigned to the first squadron and rejected each one as lacking sufficient balls even to attempt to come after him. Could it have been someone from the second flight? No, they were still too far to the east and dealing with the mass of Tomcats intercepting them.

No matter. He would make short work of him, and then continued his intercept to the AGI.

“This is no novice,” Tombstone said, grunting against the G forces. The light, quickly accelerating MiG was constantly challenging his ability to remain conscious during maneuvers that would have been prosaic in a Tomcat. “Whoever he is, he’s good — real good.”

“Tombstone — you know I have some time in Hornets,” Greene said. “You’re good, real good in this MiG. You already proved that. I’m just reminding you, pilot to pilot. You’re fighting an equal now, not a Tomcat. Remember, as maneuverable as he is, you are too.”

“I know that,” Tombstone said. “But, you’re right — this is going to take both of us. Eyes and ears, Jeremy. If you got any thoughts, I want to hear them.”

“I’m trying get a lock on him, but damn!” Greene said. “The avionics do not want to target another MiG — they do not. Whatever IFF is built into it is recognizing him as a friendly.”

“Does it work the same way for us?” Tombstone asked.

“It should. The bottom line is, I wouldn’t guarantee that either one of you can fire smart weapons on the other.”

“Then he knows that, too.”

“I imagine so. There’s a reason he has the gain turned up on his IFF.”

“Okay. We do this the hard way.” Tombstone put the MiG into a hard turn. The other pilot was already climbing, exposing his tailpipes to Tombstone, but, before he could toggle off a heat seeker, the MiG abruptly turned, and came back down toward him head-to-head, and closing fast.

“Shit!” Tombstone felt the MiG shudder and swore quietly. “Any damage?” He tried all the controls, assessing her response. “I don’t think so.”

“Looks all right back here — wait, no. I lost radar. We must have taken a round in the radome. And I wouldn’t vouch for the communications, either.”

“Two can play this game,” Tombstone said. “Where is he? You’re going to have to keep him in visual for me.

“Low, three o’clock.”

Tombstone rolled his MiG inverted and located his target. The other aircraft was rising to meet him. Tombstone flipped nose on to him and pivoted, so nimble that the turn was almost midair, and then launched a heat seeker. The other MiG immediately filled the air with chaff and flares, but the missile had achieved its main purpose, that of shaking up the other pilot and breaking his concentration. Every time he had to stop to evade a missile, there was a chance he would make a mistake.

“I don’t see any damage,” Greene said, his voice strained as he twisted in his seat to keep the MiG in view. “He’s climbing again, Tombstone — seven o’clock and going high. And I think east—missile launch!”

“I hope you’re right about the IFF,” Tombstone said quietly. “Because I’m about to try something.”

Tombstone ignored the missile completely. The other pilot was counting on it to shake him up to make them break off from the offensive, into the defensive, for just a moment, just as Tombstone had done a moment ago when their positions were reversed. But if Greene was right, the missile couldn’t target them, and he could play on the false assumption. Play on it and win. Tombstone put the MiG into a short arc, intending to make it look like the beginning of an expected evasion maneuver. But, instead of completing the turn, he turned back toward the other contact while simultaneously ejecting his own mass of chaff and flares. With any luck, there might be one, maybe two seconds when the other pilot didn’t know what was going on.

He was at a perfect angle for a gun shot, the other aircraft beam on to him. He let rip an extended blast from the nose cannon and had the satisfaction of seeing a short line stitched down the metal fuselage. But had he hit anything vital? Judging from how well his own MiG had absorbed several rounds, he suspected that key components had additional shielding he hadn’t been told about.

“Any damage?” Tombstone shouted, turning away from the contact and climbing for altitude. “Hydraulics, anything?

“I don’t see anything, but I can’t see it all,” Greene shouted, frustrated beyond measure. “I know you got him, but I can’t see what it did.”

Korsov swore quietly as he saw the other aircraft ignore the smart missile and continue toward him. His aircraft shuddered as the rounds from the nose cannon connected and warning lights popped on. The main hydraulics line had been punctured, and he was losing hydraulic fluid. He toggled the primary valves shut electronically and switched to the secondary loop. The MiG had triple redundancies built in to all control systems, so, while leaking hydraulic fluid certainly posed a fire hazard, it wouldn’t cause him to lose control.

He circled back around to meet the other contact, still trying to figure out what happened. There was something inconsistent in the other pilot’s reactions. After the first missile, he behaved as though he thought it would actually target him. But any MiG pilot would have known that such could not be the case, that the only thing he had to worry about was the heat seeker and the guns. Could he have forgotten? Again, Korsov mentally surveyed the faces of the pilots in the first flight. No. Not a one of them would have forgotten that single most vital concept.

Then who? It was almost as if—

A thought struck him like a bolt of lightning, and all at once everything made sense. The vague reports of a MiG firing on the antiair sites, the questions shouted out that one aircraft was at too low an altitude — it was a MiG, but it was not a Russian MiG!

Then who? A pilot from a former client state, drafted into the service of the Americans? Or an American himself?

Yes. An American. That explained the unexpected appearance of the MiG. It had launched from the aircraft carrier, closed the air battle, and proceeded on to Bermuda. Once finished there, it had noticed his aircraft departing, and chosen to give chase.

Outrage boiled over him. How dare they! Insult to injury — well, the pilot would pay for this. It was probably a Hornet pilot, the most comparable aircraft the Americans possessed. But, regardless of how experienced he was, he would never know the MiG as well as Korsov did. Training and experience would make the killing difference.

It was time for a sucker punch.

“I lost him,” Greene announced. “He’s in the sun somewhere, and I can’t make him out in the glare.”

“Let’s just take a precautionary shot, then,” Tombstone said. He toggled off another heat seeker toward the sun and followed up with a short burst of the gun. “Anything?”

“No. The radar’s completely down.”

A sudden thought occurred to Tombstone. “Do you remember how many rounds they carry in the nose gun?”

“Not exactly. I remember it was less than the Tomcat, that’s all.”

“Shit.” Tombstone’s instinct told him that he had expended approximately half of the rounds in his gun, but his instincts were based on the larger carrying capacity of the Tomcat. With a MiG, who knew how low he was? “Is there any way to check in the avionics?”

“No. It’s down — everything down.”

Suddenly, the aircraft came screaming in on them, coming out of the sun, apparently completely undamaged. Tombstone toggled off the short burst, falling away in a barrel roll as he did so in an attempt to evade the return fire. He took a visual on the sun to maintain situational awareness, then tried to duplicate the maneuver the other had attempted.

“He’s coming at us, Tombstone — his radar’s still working.”

“I know — the heat seekers, though.”

“You have to finish this, and finished it fast,” Greene said quietly, his voice taking on an odd note. “Stoney, he knows his aircraft — we’re just amateurs. If you try to fight him one-on-one, we’re going to lose. So, at least get us down to a survivable altitude for ejection.”

“No punching out, not unless we’re hit bad,” Tombstone said. He did, however, descend 2,000 feet, putting them at the very edge of the ejection envelope. “And if we’re going down, we’re taking him with us. You think he knows how to play chicken?”

Now content that he knew who the other pilot was, Korsov toyed with him. Yes, the man appeared to be a competent aviator, but he was not a veteran MiG pilot. He had a heavy hand on the controls and missed opportunities for maneuver that any one of his former students would have recognized.

Korsov turned again, trying to get the advantage of the sun again, but the other aircraft turned to intercept him. He turned as well, then began firing, positioning the nose gun carefully and directing its fire for maximum effect.

The first few rounds hit. The MiG pulled up nose high and the inexperienced pilot evidently overcorrected, sending her tail over nose, tumbling, somersaulting across the sky. Korsov watched the MiG depart controlled flight, faintly disappointed. ACM should end with fire and smoke, not with a quiet splash in the ocean three miles below.

Well, a kill was a kill. Korsov rolled his neck, working the tension out that always settled in during the combat. He turned back to the south. Critically low on fuel, he contacted the AGI and ordered the master to make best speed toward him. He proceeded at max conserve speed to the south. In another five minutes, he would commence his descent — his final descent. He would eject from the aircraft at 3,000 feet.

The aircraft shook violently, the engines screaming like banshees as the aircraft tumbled though the sky. Tombstone fought the disorientation as he tried to stabilize her motion into a flat spin. Anything was better than this wild uncontrolled motion — there was no way even to begin to recover from this, and there wasn’t even a very good chance of ejecting. More than likely, they’d smash into the aircraft within microseconds of punching out.

Recovering from a flat spin in a Tomcat was almost impossible. But maybe, just maybe, if he stomped hard enough on the control surface and kicked in afterburners, he could manhandle the lighter MiG. The engines might be able to overpower, at least temporarily, through brute force, the aircraft’s gyrating motion. Then maybe he could convert the flat spin into something he could deal with.

Sure enough, the MiG slowly went nose down, and after four more gyrations, quit swapping nose with ass. Now she was headed straight down, her speed increasing with every moment, every support structure howling in protest. Tombstone pulled back on her, watching all the controls redline, fighting against the blackness. Behind him, he heard Greene shouting, coaching him, insulting him, anything to keep him conscious.

Finally, when the strain on his arms was almost unbearable, the death dive flattened out slightly. The MiG’s nose twitched upward ever so slightly. Tombstone cut back slightly on the power and increased the angle on the control surfaces. Ever so gradually, the MiG began to respond.

But would it be enough? The altimeter was already unwinding past 10,000 feet and he still had not regained control.

Can’t rush it — too much too soon, and you’ll stall. Not enough, and you’ll never make it.

A Tomcat could withstand far more stress in her structural members than the men in her, and Tombstone forced himself not to pull up too hard on her. But, dammit, she had to recover fast, or there’d be no chance at all.

Remember, your reflexes are based on a Tomcat. This aircraft is lighter — yes, she’s tough, but not that tough. You don’t know how much she will take.

Her wings were thrumming in the air, vibrating curiously as the air poured over them. She started to shake, more violently than she ever had before, and for a moment he was afraid they were not going to make it.

But, then, ever so slightly, her nose came up. Not much, but enough to send a surge of hope coursing through him. He eased back on the throttle.

Her airspeed indicator quivered and started dropping. He pulled back harder, willing with every ounce of his being into her sinews of hydraulic lines, making himself one with her. He felt her pain, the agony at her wing roots, the excruciating pain in her control surfaces. Yet valiantly she fought on, trying her best to respond to the insane demands he placed on her. And, gradually, she did it.

They could have been in the dive for hours. It seemed to him he had spent a lifetime inside the MiG’s cockpit, straining to pull her up, fighting the forces of drag and gravity. How she had managed to hold together he would never know, but somehow she had.

He heard Greene gasp in relief in the back seat. Tombstone did not yet trust himself to speak.

Every second of level flight sent adrenaline coursing through him. He tried a few, cautious maneuvers, testing her aerodynamics — yes, she was fine, no sluggishness or unexpected jolts indicating damage control surfaces. Finally, when he was satisfied that she was not seriously damaged, he said, “So we’re still here.”

“Yeah,” Greene managed.

There were a few seconds of silence, and Tombstone said, “Why didn’t you eject? After all you’ve talked about it — well — I thought—”

Silence. “Because I thought you would pull us out,” Greene said finally. “No, that’s not fair. I knew you would. And I—there he is!”

Tombstone scanned the area outside of his canopy, looking for what had caught Greene’s attention. His eyes were burning fuzzy from the force of pulling down during the dive. “Two o’clock low — it’s him!”

Now Tombstone had a visual on the other MiG. Yes, it was the MiG they’d been chasing, the one he simulated this death fall in order to trick into complacency. Because his plan had worked exactly as he hoped. Everyone knew — knew with absolute certainty — that a MiG could not recover from a flat spin.

Tombstone had known better. He had trusted his instincts with her, had put his life in her hands, and she had come through for him. Sometimes what you know wasn’t as important as what you believed.

“The tail number — did you see the tail number!” Greene shouted. “It’s the same MiG, Tombstone — the MiG in Chechnya!”

And so it was. Tombstone recognized the tail number, along with the odd streak of red along the vertical stabilizer. “How the hell — never mind! Any second now he’s going to realize that—”

Too late. The MiG jinked violently out of the way as the pilot evidently looked up and saw his adversary still airborne.

Tombstone dove after him, holding his fire for a few seconds then slammed his finger down on the fire button.

It was like seeing a ghost. Korsov shuddered as he looked up and saw the MiG cruising above him. It could not be — no MiG could recover from that violent a spin.

An ancient dread crept into Korsov’s soul, one born in the flat targas of Russian. This is no aircraft, not a MiG with an American pilot. It was a demon, a lost soul cruising these winds — and it was searching for him.

With a cry, Korsov cut away from it, thinking only of running. Panic threatened to overwhelm him and he caught himself, realizing that the surest way to die was to panic.

The AGI — she is so close! I have to find her. And if it’s a demon, she can follow me to hell.

Korsov turned, his hand on the ejection handle, checked his altitude, and said a silent prayer to his ancestors that he’d survive the ejection at this altitude. He yanked down on the ejection bar.

“Oh, dear God,” Tombstone breathed. His mouth dropped open as he stared in shock at what was happening.

Just as the first of his rounds splattered against the MiG, the canopy popped open, and a lone pilot smashed out into the air at a forty-five degree angle in his ejection seat. The helmeted figure turned toward them, as though taking a closer look at them. Just as he did so, the first of Tombstone’s rounds passed just above him.

“I didn’t mean to — I didn’t know he was going to — oh, dear God.”

Any aviator in the world would have understood Tombstone’s anguish. Because as much as he wanted to down the MiG, as much as he had had every intention of blasting her out of the air, he would never, ever, strafe a pilot ejected from an aircraft. Never. Once the pilot was removed, he was no longer a factor. Pilot’s didn’t kill other pilots under chutes.

“He was clear when you fired, Tombstone. He was. The only thing you hit was his aircraft. What happens to him now is not your fault.”

Even in the violent rush of ejection, Korsov knew vaguely what was happening. The sound of the rockets, the hard punch of the ejection seat, the fiery blast of the rocket that shot him clear of the airframe. As soon as he ejected, the force of the rocket spun him around until he was facing the other MiG. He saw the helm of the pilot in the front seat and he saw the tail number. One part of his mind registered astonishment. It was the same MiG he’d seen in Chechnya.

He saw the bright flash of the tracers, and cried out in fear, his voice lost in the tumbling air stream around him. Surely he wasn’t strafing him! And then he realized that he’d ejected just as the pilot fired. No, he wasn’t strafing Korsov. He was only shooting at the aircraft.

Why was he continuing to tumble through the air? By now the chute should have opened, should have started braking his mad disoriented fall through the air. Any second now — any second now — and then he saw it.

Overhead, the stark white collapsed fabric of his parachute. Although the shots had missed him, they had severed the lines connecting his parachute to his harness.

With a cry, he slapped the release button, and let the chute fall away from him, He deployed the secondary chute, jerked hard, and shouted at the violent deceleration, at the pain of the straps grinding into his crotch. Above him, the secondary chute was filling with air and slowing his descent.

The ocean was rushing up to the him. Fast, he was going too fast — but it was still survivable. Yes, he might break a leg, might sustain other injuries — but this was survivable. He would survive, just as Russia had survived. And would survive.

“His secondary deployed,” Tombstone shouted. “He lost the primary, but the backup was okay.”

“Wonderful, I supposed that means I have to call SAR to come get him,” Greene said sarcastically. “That makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? He tries to shoot us down and we pull him out of the water.”

“It’s going to be tough to call SAR with our radios out,” Tombstone pointed out. “We’ll have to wait until we’re back on board the Jefferson. Maybe he’s got a hand-held dialed to air distress.”

“Another exciting experience, but no longer a first. We’ve already landed a MiG on an aircraft carrier, haven’t we?”

“I got half a mind to set down in Bermuda, swap seats, and let you try it,” Tombstone shot back. “Show some respect for your elders.”

Greene laughed and Tombstone knew that the pilot would be all right.

“So I suppose he’s got a life raft?” Greene asked.

“At least a flotation device. There’s probably a life raft in the ejection seat pan, just like ours.”

“He better hope so. Pretty warm water out here…” Greene didn’t have to finish the thought. Warm water meant an abundance of kelp and microscopic animals and plants that were at the bottom of the food chain. It also meant that you’d find the small fish that fed on them, and the larger fish that fed on them, and so on up the food chain to the ultimate predator in the ocean — the sharks. While warm water would not kill a man with hypothermia, it was home to sharks.

“He’ll see the raft as he goes in,” Tombstone said. “Swim over to it and wait it out.” But, both of them knew that a life raft was no absolute protection against sharks. “That AGI he was heading for is still too far away to pick him up before we can get back to the ship and send the SAR out.”

“It’s going to be a bit tricky getting back to the Jefferson anyway, with no radios,” Greene pointed out. “To them we’ll be just another MiG that they missed somehow.”

“The Hawkeye is keeping track of us,” Tombstone said. “At least, I hope they are.”

“Yeah. Let’s hope so.”

Tombstone put the MiG into a gentle bank and headed back toward the carrier.

Korsov hit the water feet first at thirty miles an hour. He hit so hard that at first he thought he’d broken his left leg, but that quickly became the least of his concerns. He punched down through the water, the dark closing over him as he descended until he floated alone in black water.

His training took over. He pulled his knife and cut the risers to his parachute. He kicked away from them and watched the bubbles for moment. They were rising, indicating the way up. He followed them, kicking harder, forcing protesting muscles to propel him upward. His lungs burned and some part of his brain was insisting he must breathe, must breathe, that he could breathe water if he really put his mind to it. He resisted, forcing himself up. Finally, when he thought he could stand it no longer, he broke the surface.

He gulped down great quantities of air, flushing his lungs of the carbon dioxide. A small wave splashed in his face. He choked, then started breathing again.

The life raft — he saw it off in the distance, and he figured he could probably make it. The AGI would probably pick him up before he could even reach it, but he had to try. He turned in the water, oriented on it, and started to swim.

Just then, something touched his shin. It molded itself to him and surged over him to wrap around his lower legs.

Blind panic descended. Visions of giant sea creatures and tentacled monsters out of his wild nightmares overcame him. He screamed, beating the water, trying to kick his legs and escape, but it continued enveloping, now up to his waist. He cut at it with his knife, but the nightmare wrapped around his hand. He jerked back, dropping the knife as he did. It disappeared into the blackness below almost immediately.

With one arm pinned against his side and both legs immobilized, Korsov sank lower in the water. Another wave washed over his head. He choked, and tried to cry out, gulping down more salt water. Panic overcame his reason and he screamed, twisting and fighting against the demon. It tightened around him and covered his face, plastering itself against his mouth and nose.

As his consciousness faded and he began sinking, he realized it was his parachute shroud.