The battle of Bandar Deylam is over, but the effects are long lasting.
"Okay, Tori, here's what we're going to do." Captain Castle smiled briefly. "If they stay in one group, we're going right up the middle. I want you to stinger the ones on the far right and the far left. Then switch to guns and try to kill one on the merge. If you can get two, that's even better. Use short bursts and shoot to kill, not just to get hits. The most vulnerable aiming point on these things is the tail rotor; next best would be the engine exhaust."
"Got it, sir," the lieutenant acknowledged as she ran through another system check. She rose and twisted to look back through the cabin. "Looks like our tail gunners are ready to rock."
Captain Castle advanced the throttles to full power and the engines screamed their war cry as the Osprey hurled itself toward the oncoming enemy formation. Tori noticed that he seemed to be talking to himself. He glanced sideways at her and his lips quirked upward in a sheepish grin. "Just a little tag of Kipling Lieutenant," he said. "Seemed appropriate."
"Kipling?"
"Yes, it goes like this: 'When your officer's dead and the sergeants look white, remember it's ruin to run from a fight."
"Marines don't run, sir."
"No, Lieutenant, we don't run."
The line of Havocs was closing quickly.
"Engage, Lieutenant," and two Stinger missiles raced ahead, diverging to track the targets at the extreme ends of the enemy formation. The sight of the smoke trails seemed to unnerve the two enemy pilots, and they turned in to evade. There is no escape from a Stinger at that range, and both Havocs took a direct hit on the engine intake, and both tumbled into the sea.
More importantly, their sudden turn had crossed the line of flight of the next in line, causing those two to take evasive action. Miraculously, the Osprey made it through the merge unscathed, since the Iranians were suddenly too busy avoiding aerial collisions to engage the Osprey effectively.
Tori Ellis had no such distractions as she switched to the belly-mounted Bushmaster auto cannon and in one burst removed the tail rotor of the Iranian flight leader's aircraft. She also got hits on two more; however, they remained in the fight.
In the years to come, the next three minutes of this fight would be studied intently by untold numbers of students of aerial warfare as they sought to grasp the art of the kill. They would comment about the precision of the fire that ripped and tore, sagely admire the masterful tactics that nullified the overwhelming numbers and technical advantage enjoyed by the Havocs, and marvel at the elegance and grace of the maneuvers, almost as if they were watching a highly choreographed dance.
But it was nothing more than two young warriors offering up their best to the god of battles. The offering was accepted, and Havoc gunships began to come apart as Tori Ellis hit them again and again with merciless precision.
The Marines on the LCACs were close enough to the action to follow the fight visually, and, considering the dire outcome that would result should the Osprey lose the fight, everyone on the four-remaining craft who could manage, was riveted to the scene. Cheer after cheer erupted as the gunships went down or exploded catastrophically. Havoc number five lost a rotor blade and spun madly as it met the surface in a shower of spray.
No one noted or cared at the time, and it would be some years before anyone did the math, but Rick Castle and Tori Ellis had just become the second and third Marine aviators to achieve the status of flying ace since the Korean War. Shortly after that achievement was recognized, it also would become apparent that the young lieutenant had also achieved a perhaps even more notable status. She was the first female ace in American history.
But for the moment, it was still not a sure thing that the two would survive to see that recognition. There were still three Havocs in the fight, and the Osprey was not undamaged. In fact, the crew was not undamaged either. The lieutenant had caught a couple of fragments in her forearms that were messy and painful but not immediately life threatening. The Captain's condition was considerably more serious; he had taken a substantial fragment of an exploding cannon shell in the right thigh, and by this time his flight suit was quite thoroughly soaked with blood.
Captain Castle weighed the options with some difficulty. He could tell that his reflexes were getting slower and just thinking analytically required a supreme effort. The frantic maneuvering of the last several minutes had ironically brought the combatants back to the same positions that they had held at the beginning of the fight. The three remaining Havocs were heading southwest towards the Wasp and its LCACs, with the crippled Osprey directly between and heading directly toward the Iranian gunships.
Captain Castle knew he couldn't repeat his opening maneuver because the Osprey was now running on only one engine, severely reducing its maneuverability. However, the most troublesome development was the ammo situation. The display showed that less than 50 rounds remained for the Bushmaster. Add in one remaining Stinger, and whatever fifty-caliber ammo the tail gunners had left…and that was all. Not nearly enough for a crippled aircraft to fight off three enemies that were now faster and more maneuverable.
###
Tori saw his eyes go dark, and she knew he had made his decision. Her eyes went wide with utter shock as he reached for the rotor tilt control and brought the aircraft to a hover, hanging motionless fifty feet above the choppy surface of the Persian Gulf, with three ravening wolves closing for the kill.
"You ever read Clausewitz, Lieutenant?"
"On War? Yes, sir." Tori managed to tamp down her surprise and get out an intelligible response to the unexpected question.
"Do you remember what he said was the most vulnerable part of an enemy force?"
Tori thought frantically, then "Oh, my God! The mind of the enemy commander! You're going to try to psych him out?"
"Something like that… Ahh! Now, that's interesting!"
The lieutenant followed his gaze and gasped as she realized that the Iranian choppers had also halted in a hover not 100 meters distant.
"What are they doing, sir?" the lieutenant wondered aloud.
"Trying to decide whether we're bluffing," he answered, "Trying to decide whether they can take us. Trying to decide whether they're ready to die today."
"What are we going to do, sir?"
"Stinger the first one that moves or fires, then concentrate on the middle one and pound it till it goes down or you run out of ammo."
Several hundred human beings seemed to slip into an alternate reality where breathing was unnecessary. American sailors and Marines on the amphibious ship Wasp, the surviving LCACs, and of course the crew of the Osprey, seemed frozen in time, waiting to see what the Iranian gunships would do. Tori Ellis had the right of it. Rick Castle was calling the tune, and daring the Iranian flight leader to pay the fiddler.
The captain reached painfully for a switch and transferred weapons control to his own console. Lieutenant Ellis was too shocked to respond as he rotated the Osprey ninety degrees to the left and triggered the only remaining Stinger missile.
It disappeared into the distance, no conceivable target in sight.
Tori exploded, "YOU IDIOT!" She snatched her helmet off and ripped at her seat harness, fully intending to choke the living daylights out of her boss for being so…
He was pointing weakly at the Havocs. It took a few seconds longer than it should have for her to realize she was looking at the rear aspect of three Havocs that were heading back toward the coast at top speed.
She fell back into her seat; the Iranian leader had done the same math that she had, only coming to a slightly different conclusion. Since only an idiot would waste their last missile, therefore the crazy American must have plenty more and was simply warning them off.
She blushed hotly and turned to apologize, only to hear the strained whisper, "Copilot's airplane," as the captain slumped forward, unconscious.