Top Gun (52 page)

Their work done, the A-10s climbed back into the sky to give the A-7 Corsairs their chance to go to work. The enemy helipad
was a one-hundred-foot-square outline scratched into the desert floor, protected by a larger circle of flashing strobe-light
setups meant to simulate AAA fire. The A-7s were all carrying live ordnance: bombs, rockets, and loaded cannon. It would be
the Corsairs’ task to first accurately target and take out the AAA emplacements and then bomb the helipad.

Andy and the rest of Pinto flight were cartwheeling high in the sky, on the lookout for MiGs, when the A-7s began their attack.
Andy saw the first rocket salvo being fired, the 100
MM
Matra rockets sizzling downward like streaks of fire to demolish the helipad’s defensive batteries. It was one hell of a
light show: The ground strobes were flashing madly like crazed, monstrous fireflies as the rockets erupted in white smoke
and cherry-red flame, sending debris flying. Above it all, the glittering silver A-7s were crisscrossing the sky in tight
bat-turns, like enraged hornets darting over their torn open nest.

Andy was looking forward to seeing the A-7s drop the really big stuff they were carrying beneath their wings when his constantly
scanning gaze caught distant movement in the crystal-clear sky. He looked hard and counted five specks arranged in the classic
Soviet step formation: three were flying line abreast, while higher up and about a quarter-mile back, two more were bringing
up the rear. Andy radioed his alert: “Pinto lead, three. Five bogies approaching at four o’clock!”

There was a moment’s silence crackling over the airwaves, and then Beckman calmly answered, “Roger, three, I’ve got them.”

“Yahoo!” Johnson cheered. “Nice call, three! How about it, boss?” he now addressed Beckman. “Since our element spotted them,
we get first crack, right?”

“Roger,” Beckman replied. “Happy hunting, Andy. Your two-ship gets dibs. My element will remain here to shepard the lambs.”

“Roger,” Andy replied, appreciating Beckman’s strategy as he and Johnson peeled off to do battle with the enemy, now about
five miles away. It wouldn’t do for all of Pinto flight to be decoyed away from the strike force, leaving the Mud Movers and
Warthogs vulnerable to possible attack from another formation of enemy fighters that might be waiting in the wings.

Meanwhile, the enemy planes were holding their step formation as the Stiletto two-ship dead-on approached; merge point was
now about three miles. Andy was still too far away to make out the Attackers’ individual camo paint schemes, too far away
to see if there was a flat-black one mixed in the formation.
Oh well, what the hell,
Andy thought.
A kill was a kill.

“Man, look at them out there arranged like bowling pins,” Johnson muttered. “Don’t I wish we still had Sparrows now. The two
of us could take out all five from here.”

Andy laughed. “Hey, it isn’t fun if you do it the easy way.” He dialed his radio to the Operations frequency and transmitted:
Ops, Pinto element three/four, do you copy?”

“Roger, Pinto three,” replied one of the controllers who refereed the war games from hundreds of miles away, thanks to his
high-tech radar and microwave equipment.

“Ops,” Andy continued. “Pinto three/four engaging five bogies. Fox Range, sector 5-D, do you copy?”

“Roger, Pinto three,” Ops said. “Fight’s on. Out.”

“Out, Ops,” Andy said, dialing back to Pinto flight frequency. Now, thanks to the sensors mounted in the participating aircrafts’
wings, Ops would follow the action, recording it for replaying later during the mass debriefing if events warranted.

“Pinto three, what say I take the two flying high?” Johnson radioed. “You take the trio flying low.”

“Why so generous?” Andy kidded his wingman as he ran a quick check on his weapons systems. Everything was in order. His HUD
air-to-air combat display was framing in luminous green the five aircraft now rapidly looming in his windscreen.

“Hey, man, I’ve only got three kills to my credit so far this week,” Johnson explained. “I’ve been hurting since they took
away my Sparrows. I know I haven’t got a chance at winning the Warlord trophy, but
you
do. If I can’t have it, I’d at least like to see somebody from my squadron nab the prize.”

“Thanks, pal,” Andy said as the Attackers formation broke apart in a five-way defensive split. “Let’s get ’em!”

Range was now one mile. Andy could easily make out the various paint jobs on the five F-5E’s busy carving up the sky. Robbie’s
black bird wasn’t among them, and once again, Andy wasn’t sure how he felt about that: was he more disappointed or relieved?

But there was no time to think about that now. It was time to go to work.

Andy saw Johnson’s Stiletto leap forward on a cone of flame as his wingman went to afterburn to make a tight circle through
the sky. Johnson put himself behind the rear pair of Attackers that were painted a mottled tan and chocolate to blend into
the desert floor when viewed from above. The two stub-winged F-5E’s banked steeply to get away in a classic Attackers gambit
that had proved highly effective a few days ago, thanks to the little F-5E’s maneuverability and the visiting players’ inexperience.
This time, however, Johnson was ready for the trick. He pulled his Stiletto up and climbed steeply, then rolled inverted,
dropping down right smack on the banking Attackers’ tails.

Andy heard Johnson call, “Fox two,” indicating to Ops that he’d fired a Sidewinder. A few seconds later, Ops overrode all
frequencies to announce, “Ivan four, you’ve been burned,” and one of the Attackers Johnson was pursuing dropped away to fly
off to the enemy regeneration point.

Johnson stayed on his remaining bogie’s six, again calling, “Fox two.”

“Ivan 14,” Ops called. “You’ve been burned.”

Good for you, Stan,
Andy thought.
You’ve just added two kills to your tally.
But now it was time for Andy to bag his own pigeons.

The trio of F-5E’s he was after were spread out to try and cage in his Stiletto, but before they could tighten the noose around
Andy he used his bird’s superior speed and agility and his own ability to sustain G-punishment to fly out of their trap. The
desert horizon in front of his Stiletto tilted madly, and Andy grimaced against the physical stress he was suffering as he
skidded into a severely tight bat-turn that put him into position to attack the nearest enemy plane. The Attacker craft was
painted green and tan, with a large 67 stenciled on its nose and vertical tail. As Andy came around into position on his target’s
six, he executed a low-speed yoyo, popping his speed brakes and going into a shallow dive in order to drop beneath the Attacker
craft, taking advantage of the fact that the F-5E pilot had a large blind spot beneath his bird’s long, broad snout.

Lose sight, lose the fight,
Andy thought. Once he was safely tucked beneath the Attacker with a clear shot at the guy’s underbelly, he pulled up, using
the Stiletto’s zoom ability to close to point-blank range.

“Guns, guns!” Andy called over the radio, squeezing the trigger mounted on his control stick, which activated his bird’s cameras.
He kept his eye on the small video monitor mounted beneath his HUD display as he kept his target framed in the cross hairs
of his camera for the stipulated three seconds, waiting while the equipment installed in his bird for the Red Sky exercise
relayed the picture to Operations.

Ops decreed, “Ivan 67. You’ve been shot down.”

“Pinto three!” Johnson called. “Twin bogies on your tail. I’m on my way!”

Andy immediately banked away, jinking his bird to make himself a difficult target. He glanced behind him and saw the two blue
and yellow F-5E’s on his six-o’clock dive out of sight.
They’re trying to pull their own low-speed yoyo move,
Andy realized.

Andy waited a beat, calculating when the Attacker duo would be beginning their pull-up toward his belly, and then lifted his
Stiletto’s nose, going to afterburn in a short climb that culminated in a rolling maneuver that put him on a course head-on
at his pursuers.

The F-5E’s, taken by surprise, executed a two-way defensive split. Andy locked onto the tail of the closest and called, “Fox
two!”

Ops was awarding him the kill as he closed on the last bogie from five o’clock. The Attacker must have noticed Johnson coming
in fast from eleven o’clock, because the F-5E went to afterburn, banking starboard, intending to skid out of the way and leave
Andy and Johnson staring at each other across empty space.

As the Attacker turned, Andy cut across the F-5E’s twin glowing tail pipes, executing a bat-turn of his own that kept him
locked onto the enemy’s six. He called a Fox two, and knew he had his target dead to rights. Ops agreed, raising his score
to ten.

“Beautiful flying, Andy!” Johnson congratulated him.

“Thanks,” Andy replied.

“Roger that,” Captain Beckman cut in.

“Thanks, sir!” Andy chuckled, glancing toward the strike force, which was now a distant, orbiting cartwheel of glinting specks
against the blue: a guy ate up a lot of sky in a dogfight. “I just hope ten kills is enough to win the Warlord trophy.”

“I think you’ve got bigger worries than
that,
Andrew.”

What? Where?
Andy thought as Robbie’s voice filled his helmet. Andy stood his bird on its tail and went into a frantic, vertical roll
to search the clock for his tormentor.

Robbie’s laughter echoed in Andy’s ears. “What a lovely pirouette,” Robbie sneered.

Andy saw the flat-black Attacker craft emblazoned with the red I on its nose and tail dropping down to fly alongside him.
Andy thought.
How does the fucker do that? One instant he’s not there, and then he is. Does he have the power of invisibility?

“Sorry I’m late for our appointment, Andrew, but I had pressing business elsewhere ridding the sky of you visiting players.
Then I thought it would be prudent to return to base for a refueling.”

“That’s okay, Robbie,” Andy managed, trying hard to put the grit back into his voice, even though he was feeling anything
but confident about the coming, inevitable confrontation. “In case you haven’t noticed, I was sort of busy myself, clearing
the sky of unwanted Attackers.”

“Yeah, I’ve been watching you mop the floor with my guys,” Robbie replied. “It was a very impressive performance, but now
are you ready for some
real
dogfighting? I’ve got a full twenty minutes’ worth of gas to spend here, although I hardly think it’s going to take anywhere
near that long to settle this little rematch.”

Andy checked his own fuel. Yeah, he had plenty of gas left.
Lucky me,
he thought.
I’ve got enough gas, but what about nerve?

Andy’s spine had turned to jelly. He’d hardly gotten over his last humiliation at Robbie’s hands, and now here it was time
to suffer another ass-whipping.
I can’t do it,
Andy thought.
He’s too good. I can’t beat him.

“Well?” Robbie taunted. “You want to try? Or you just want to give up? It’ll be just be you and me, Andrew.” Robbie paused
to ask sharply, “Isn’t that right, Beckman? You and the rest of Pinto flight will stay out of this?”

“If that’s what Lieutenant Harrison wants?” Beckman hesitated.

Andy’s finger hesitated before pushing his radio’s transmit button.
No way in hell I can beat him.

“That’s what I want, Pinto lead,” Andy said. “Okay, Robbie. It’s just you and me. Fight’s on!”

(Two)

“Fight’s on!” Major Robbie Greene heard Andrew say.

Greene popped his speed brakes, dropping back behind the Stiletto, which immediately went to afterburn. Fire licked out from
the Stiletto’s tail pipe as it shot away. Greene cobbed his own throttles. He was pressed back against his seatback as the
dark F-5E hurled forward.

Let’s make this short and sweet,
Greene decided, preparing to call a Sidewinder shot. Greene had been hoping for a better showing from Andrew. He’d been hoping
that the kid might at least put up a valiant struggle before losing. He’d been hoping…

Greene paused, pondering it, concluding that he wasn’t sure
what
he’d been hoping concerning Andrew. He’d had mixed emotions toward his half brother since their run-in behind the ice-cream
parlor a couple of weeks ago. Take that dream he’d had, for instance. In the dream Greene had been involved in an air duel
with Andrew just like this one, except with live ammo. In the dream Greene had won the shoot-out, blasting Andrew’s Stiletto
out of the sky, but just before the ruined Stiletto fell away Greene had pulled up alongside it to peer into its cockpit.
He’d seen himself sitting wounded where Andrew was supposed to be.

The dream had so unsettled Greene that he’d decided to stay away from Andrew for the rest of the time the kid was at Ryder.
Greene wasn’t clear in his own mind why he’d changed his mind early this morning, scribbling that note of challenge and having
an aide affix it to Andrew’s helmet.

Now, as Greene prepared to call his Sidewinder kill on Andrew, he told himself that he’d done the right thing by challenging
his half brother to this rematch. Maybe someday they could bury the hatchet. Maybe not. Regardless, it was important that
today Greene proved to the kid who was the better fighter jock.

Andrew’s Stiletto was just a quarter-mile ahead now. It was time to end the rivalry between them once and for all.

“This is good-bye, Andrew,” Greene radioed. He fixed the fleeing Stiletto in his gunsight and radioed, “Fox two…”

At that instant the Stiletto went into a steep climb, directly into the sun!
Nice move,
Greene thought, smiling. Leading a heat-seeker into the sun could blind its infrared tracking system. Now Ops would not award
Greene the kill, because Andrew had managed to wrest for himself the benefit of the doubt.

“Ivan one,” Ops radioed as expected. “Negative Side-winder shot on Pinto three.”

“Nice move,” Green radioed to Andrew as the Stiletto executed a vertical reverse, falling over out of its climb. “Nice, but
not nice enough. Here I come after you, kid.”