AUTHOR'S NOTES: Running late again, but between job and being distracted by shiny things (like fireworks), it took me awhile to put this chapter together. You get an extra long one to compensate. This chapter was originally going to be even longer, but approaching 8000 words made me decide that Area 51 will have to wait until next time.
This chapter is all dogfight. Enjoy...and if you liked it, leave a review.
McCarran International Airport
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of Canada (Provisional)
24 April 2002
"Good morning, ladies!" Amoncio Glass boomed as they walked onto the tarmac. It was nine in the morning, and still fairly cool. "And Mr. Wilkerson! Good to see you as well."
"Mr. Glass," Lonzo Wilkerson said. He clearly wanted to tell Glass exactly what he thought about him, but it was time for diplomacy.
Glass waddled up to the five women. Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, along with Raven and Riana, were all in flight suits and G-suits already. Ruby knew she probably looked like how she felt; she had gotten barely five hours of sleep, too busy thinking about Raven's advice with Oscar. Everyone else looked chipper, if slightly disgusted, except for Riana, who looked confused. She had been told to just get dressed in flight gear and ask questions later. "You look like warriors. I'm glad to have you with us. I looked over your flight plans this morning and Dennis briefed my people. I think it looks great. Six hours, there and back, and everyone's…" The Mafia boss glanced at Wilkerson. "…everyone's happy. I'm certainly going to extend you the Emperor's Package for another week. Any problem arranging tanker support?"
"Nope," Raven answered. "One of my people will be waiting for the return trip." She was telling the truth, though Ruby Flight were surprised to know that the Branwen Tribe had aerial refueling capability. She nodded towards the four pilots standing well behind Glass. "Your people know how to refuel?"
"Yes, of course," Glass said impatiently. "Well, shall we be off? Sorry that I am rushing things, but you understand I want to get everything back well before nightfall."
"Just to be sure we're on the same page," Raven said. "We take off, me, Ruby Flight, and, ah—"
"Raider Flight," Glass grinned.
"Raider Flight. Right. We all take off, nine fighters. We fly thirty minutes ahead of the transports—"
"An hour," Glass interrupted.
"Thirty minutes," Raven growled. "An hour puts way too much space between us and the transports."
"They'll be escorted by the rest of my air wing," Glass insisted. "That gives you another twelve fighters."
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Raven groaned. "Those antiques couldn't escort a flying whorehouse. Leave them so they don't become GRIMM chow."
"It's my operation!" Glass shouted.
Ruby sighed, stifled a yawn, and brushed past both the Mafia boss and the bandit queen. She marched up to the four members of Raider Flight. She was shorter than the two men and the two women, but she set her face the same way she did with her trainees at Red Flag. "You stand at attention!" she snapped. "You're under my command for this operation!" Despite her diminutive height, despite a face that still made Ruby Rose look like she was a teenager playing fighter pilot, her voice whipsawed across the tarmac, turning the heads of the ground crew finishing fueling and loading the weapons on the nine fighters. Her silver eyes were hard. The four Mafia pilots came to attention instinctively.
Ruby walked slowly down the line of the four pilots, her eyes roving up and down. There was silence on the tarmac, as Raven and Glass stared astounded at her, while Ruby Flight now wore the same look of confusion as Riana did. She stopped at the fourth pilot, then walked back, just as slowly. The four Mafia pilots were all dressed in tailored flight suits and G-suits of black and silver, their flight suits bloused into their boots, which were shined. They wore no patches. Ruby's flight suit was worn, the olive drab faded, her boots scuffed with use; one shoulder held the GRIMM-in-crosshairs patch of the 64th Aggressors Squadron, the other a subdued USC flag; her nametag held her wings, her rank, and defiantly her personal insignia of the flaming rose. "What are your names?" she finally said.
There was a tall man at one end of the line, who had a foot in height on Ruby, his face chiseled and out of a recruiting poster. "Rafael Eastman, ma'am!" Raider Flight wore no rank, but either they hadn't noticed that Ruby was just a 1st Lieutenant, or didn't dare bring it up.
"Donna Laird!" This from the second person in line, a redhead woman about Yang's size and build.
"Mike O'Neill!" Another redhead, this one male, not quite as tall, muscular or handsome as Eastman.
"Leona Stockman!" The last was an African-American woman, who was as tall as Eastman, but slim.
"Uh-huh," Ruby said, clearly unimpressed. "Any of you have combat time?" They hesitated, then shook their heads. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She pointed at Raven. "She's your flight lead. You do what she says. If the GRIMM show up, stay high and stay fast. Use vertical tactics. You know what those are?" Another four nervous nods. "Good. Don't get low and slow with them; they'll eat you up. Don't leave your wingmen. Cover each other. Watch your fuel—you'll only have about 20 minutes combat time over Reno, if the GRIMM jump us there. If we end up against Beowolves and Ursa, climb above 25,000 feet and try to pop them with radar shots. You've got Sparrows, not AMRAAMs, so you're going to have to keep the missile on the target until it hits. One of you plays eyeball and the other one shooter. Understand?" Yet another four nods. Ruby pointed at the immaculate Mafia F-16s, painted in black and silver as well. "If you get into a turning fight, you can turn inside any GRIMM. If we run into stealth Kobolds, your Sparrows are as useless as tits on a bull. Pop 'em with Sidewinders or gun them. If they go into a dive, ride them until they hit the ground; GRIMM are programmed to play possum. Got it?" The last two words were barked out like a drill sergeant.
"Yes, ma'am!" all four shouted.
"All right." Ruby spun on one foot and marched back to her flight. Blake looked impressed; Weiss and Yang were fighting laughter; Riana still looked confused. "Raven, you've got command of Raider Flight."
Raven gave a short, sharp nod. "You've got it, Lieutenant Rose." Ruby could tell she was fighting a smile, and there was something wistful in those reddish-brown eyes; Ruby knew she was seeing Summer standing in front of her as much as Ruby.
"Mr. Glass, we'll be wheels up in fifteen minutes. The transports will follow thirty minutes behind. Leave the others here to protect Vegas in case the GRIMM do an end run around us." Ruby's tone of voice brooked no argument.
Glass blinked in surprise. "All…all right, Lieutenant Rose."
"Ruby Flight, let's go." Ruby stopped in front of Wilkerson. "Colonel, with your permission?" She came to attention and saluted. Yang, Blake, and Weiss quickly followed, with Riana slowly joining in.
Wilkerson returned the salute with the crispness of a Marine. "Good luck, Ruby Flight. Oh, and you've got Disco." He stepped back.
"Disco?" Glass asked.
"Jamming support," Yang lied smoothly.
"Oh…of course. Well…" Glass smiled winningly. "I'll leave you to it."
The five women of Ruby Flight walked towards their aircraft, leaving Raven to start haranguing Raider Flight in extremely filthy and insulting terms. Once they were out of earshot, Yang started shaking with laughter. "Oh my God, Ruby," she snickered. "Right out of Twelve O'Clock High and Battle of Britain. The only thing you didn't say was 'stick to me like glue.'"
"I wasn't acting, Yang," Ruby said. She paused. "Well, okay…maybe a bit. But I really did try to give them good advice. They're going to die otherwise."
"They're probably going to try to kill us," Blake advised. She motioned with her head towards the tarmac. "If Glass was launching the transports, they'd already be out here. I don't see anything but us and the Raiders, and those guys from Tucson." Briar Flight had evidently left; there were four F-16s with the Arizona state flag on the tail, Air National Guardsmen of the 162nd Fighter Wing. They were there to defend Las Vegas, as no one had confidence in Glass' other aircraft. She glanced back at Raider Flight. "Though I feel a lot better about our chances. I think Ruby scared the bejesus out of them."
"Glass did expect the transports to launch an hour later," Weiss argued, though even she didn't sound like she believed it.
"We'll assume they're legit," Ruby told them. "But just in case, let's establish a new frequency just for us. I don't even want Raven to know."
"Good," Yang put in.
"If I say…" Ruby hesitated, trying to think of something. It popped into her head. "If I say 'Boba,' then we'll switch to this frequency." She read off the numbers. "We'll switch back to the regular one if we need to. We'll let the AWACS in on it too—glad Colonel Wilkerson was able to arrange that." It had been the Disco Wilkerson had alluded to. "Anything else?"
"Loadouts?" asked Yang. "Are we bothering with AMRAAMs?"
"I had them load some on you, Weiss and Blake," Ruby replied. "Just in case Glass' bunch want to get nasty. I'll go with 'Winders only."
Yang grinned. "Works for me." She checked her F-15: it had four AMRAAMs nestled under the fuselage, and four Sidewinders under the wings, with drop tanks as well.
"Any other questions?"
"Yeah." Riana raised her hand. "What the hell am I doing here?"
"Oh, you're coming with us," Blake said casually.
"I'm what?"
"We can't leave you here," Blake explained. "Glass thinks you're FBI or DEA, but he also might have figured out you're CIA. Either way, if things go wrong and he really is trying to kill us…or just because he feels like it…he might kidnap you and hold you as a hostage. Or maybe you just disappear." Riana opened her mouth to say something, but Blake held up a hand. "Yeah, we know your grandmother will go ballistic and probably put a Tomahawk up his ass, but he doesn't know that, and you'd be worth a lot of money on the open market."
"Thanks for that reminder," Weiss sighed, remembering the late, unlamented Vernal's threat to sell her into sex slavery in Tijuana.
"So if you come with us and be my backseater," Blake finished, "you're out of Glass' reach."
"But not the GRIMM!" Riana exclaimed, her face pale.
"I thought you liked this fighter pilot shit," Yang reminded her.
"That was just for fun! I didn't think I'd…" Riana stopped herself, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. "But you're right. It would be safer." She nodded, accepting the situation—or trying to. "Okay. What do you want me to do?"
"Well…" Blake smiled. "We might just 'accidentally' get too close to Groom Lake. I took the liberty of borrowing a really good camera from Colonel Wilkerson. You know how to use one, right?"
"Sure!" Riana chirped. "It's a hobby of mine, actually."
"So you 'accidentally' get some good long-ranged shots of Groom Lake. You have a good telephoto lens on that camera, so…" Blake let her voice trail off.
Riana took another deep breath. "Well…what the hell. You're gonna die of something. I'm in. Sounds like fun." That last statement was clearly sarcasm.
Over the Former Nevada Test Site
65 Miles Northwest of Las Vegas
24 April 2002
Ruby took her hands off the stick and throttle of the F-16 for a moment, flexing her fingers, then flexed her toes inside her boots. "Damn," she breathed into the oxygen mask, and yawned. "I need a nap." She chuckled at that. "Man, I must be getting old. I used to go on four hours back in flight school." She raised her visor, rubbed her eyes, wished she had a cold soda, and went back to flying.
It was a beautiful day for it. The sky was cobalt blue and cloudless; the desert below was not much to look at, all brown and shades of brown; she spotted lighter tan in the distance—dry lakes. Wonder if they get any rain out here? If the Air Force doesn't chuck me out next year, I hope the next place I get assigned to isn't in the stupid desert. Someplace like Homestead…nah, southern Florida's too sticky. North Bay up in Canada? Nah, too cold.
Ruby's head was automatically moving even as she thought about what assignment would be a good one. Ruby Flight was in a combat spread, with Weiss a mile out to Ruby's right and slightly behind, the blue-gray Typhoon stark against the brown of the desert. About six miles away were the specks of Blake's F-18D and Yang's F-15; she wondered if Riana was still enjoying herself. She sounded like she was scared shitless. I don't blame her. It reminded Ruby of Little, but Little had been too ignorant of air combat and it had happened too quick for her to get scared, at least at first. Riana did know. Boy, Arashikaze's going to be super pissed if her granddaughter buys the farm…
Ruby kicked the tail around a bit. About ten miles behind them was Raider Flight and Raven. Most pilots would have trouble recognizing who was who, but Ruby's silver eyes picked out the slightly larger speck that was the Night Raven, leading the four Raider F-16s, also in a combat spread. Well, at least they know enough to do that. They're kinda far behind us, though. She toggled the radio button. "Raven, Ruby Lead. Close up to six miles, in trail."
"Roger. Raiders, push it up."
"Raven, Raider Lead." Ruby recognized Rafe's voice. "We do that and we won't have enough to get back home from Reno." Damn, Ruby thought, radio discipline, you big handsome moron.
"We'll have a tanker waiting, Raider Lead. Do what I tell you." Raven's voice was harsh, and for once Ruby appreciated it.
"Ruby Flight, Ruby Lead. Let's get up to angels two-five. Ruby Three, Ruby Four, swing out east a bit more. Raider Flight, maintain angels eighteen." Rafe acknowledged, then Yang and Blake. Ruby trusted her sister and Blake would know what to do. Hopefully they could edge out towards Groom Lake and get some pictures; flying directly over it would be too risky, showing what Ruby Flight was really up to.
Ruby took off her oxygen mask, scratched her nose, then put it back on. She saw something strange below her, and dipped the wing of the F-16 a little as she began her shallow climb. Twenty thousand feet below her was a sea of craters—some large, some small, some shallow, some deep. "Whoa," she gasped as she saw one to the north, a gigantic crater that looked like some huge meteor had landed there.
"Passing over Nevada Test Site, Ruby Lead," Weiss reported, as if reading Ruby's thoughts. Ruby nodded, although Weiss couldn't see her do so. That's where they tested all the nukes back in the 1950s, she thought. I remember reading about that. Guess that was a big one up there in the north. She remembered the Belchanow detonation six months previously, the one she had seen the mushroom cloud for—malevolent in the darkness, shot through with purple lightning and suffused with blue, where the radiation ionized the air. Bet there's one bitch-kitty of a crater there now—
There was a flash in the corner of her eye, and Ruby instantly looked in that direction. She saw it again, distant, like the sun glinting off of something. But is it on the ground? Maybe wreckage, or trinitite from one of the nuke tests? "Ruby Two, Lead, anything at eleven o'clock, about thirty miles?"
Weiss had her radar on, the eyeball to Ruby's shooter. "Lead, Ruby Two, negative. No contacts."
Another glint, from a slightly different angle. Then Ruby sensed movement. Once more, another pilot might not have sensed either the reflected light or the movement, but whatever genetic quirk had given her silver eyes was showing her both. Okay, contact to the northwest, but there's nothing that should be coming from the northwest…unless… "Raider Lead, Ruby Lead," Ruby said quickly. "Your bunch have anything up here today?"
"Uh, negative, Ruby Lead, nothing out here but us, as far as I know."
Ruby quickly switched to Guard frequency; it wasn't encoded and everyone with a radio would hear her, but there was no time for anything else. "Disco, Ruby Lead! Any contacts northwest my position?"
The E-3 Sentry AWACS—Disco—was well to the southeast of Las Vegas, orbiting over the Grand Canyon, but its powerful radar eyes could see all the way to Reno. "Ruby Lead, Disco, negative; you are the only contacts northwest of Bullseye." Ruby knew Bullseye was code for Las Vegas.
Ruby did two things in rapid succession: the first was to switch on her radar; the second was to drop her visor. "Ruby, Raider: tally-ho, bandits, eleven o'clock low, two-one miles." Her radar scope showed nothing. "Be advised, bandits are Kobolds." Fucking stealth GRIMM! Ruby thought in alarm. She quickly scanned the sky in front of her, and saw more movement to the northeast, towards the tan expanse that she was fairly sure was Groom Lake. "Tally-ho! More bandits, two o'clock low, twenty miles!"
"Ruby Lead, Raider Lead, are you sure—" Rafe began.
"Ruby, Yang!" Yang was already reverting to tactical callsigns. "I got a spike on your bandits! It's a single—keeps fading in and out."
"Ruby, Weiss. Confirm. Bandit, nineteen miles, bearing zero-eight-one, angels eighteen." The Typhoon's radar was the best of any of theirs, next to the F-15's; Ruby didn't know why Weiss or Yang were picking up stealth drones that were supposed to be invisible, but there was no looking a gift horse in the mouth.
"Ruby Flight, drop your tanks, break and take 'em! Raider Flight, Raven, hang back and engage any leakers!" Drop tanks were punched off all four aircraft, falling into their slipstream with little wisps of fuel. Now they would have to turn back long before they reached Reno, but that was a secondary concern.
"Ruby, Raven, roger. Get me a raid count when you can. Raider Flight, Lufbery Circle, now." Ruby knew what Raven meant, but she hoped that Raider Flight did. A Lufbery Circle was pulling all four fighters into a wide circle, with each aircraft in trail. It would put Raider Flight completely on the defensive, but any GRIMM that tried to break the circle to engage one aircraft would find themselves with at least one other behind them. It was the perfect defensive formation for inexperienced pilots, especially against GRIMM; thinking pilots could pick off the Lufbery with long-range missile shots, but Ruby hoped that the Kobolds weren't programmed that well.
Then there was no more time to think about that, because they were at the merge. There was no mistaking them now: two Kobolds, the little silvery triangles unmistakable, flying along in the same combat spread that Ruby and Weiss were in. They were flying straight and level. Wait a minute, Ruby thought, not even the GRIMM are that stupid! She quickly checked the sky around her. "Oh shit! Tally, two Kobolds, eight low!" There were two more of the stealth drones, low against the desert hills and mountains, waiting to pounce when Ruby and Weiss attacked the two Kobolds coming in from the north. Another quick glance, another half-second: the first pair were now climbing. "Weiss, defensive break, now, now, now!"
"Going high!" Weiss reported. She climbed her Typhoon away from Ruby, dropping flares and chaff behind her. Ruby turned into the Kobolds from the north, and was rewarded with her Sidewinders growling as they picked up the heat from the remorseless desert sun reflecting off metal.
Then the Kobolds broke hard to the left, suddenly realizing the threat. Ruby stole a quick glance behind—the GRIMM to the south were after Weiss, but they were slower, unable to match the Typhoon's climb, and already passing behind Ruby. She had a few seconds to kill the other GRIMM in front of her. Everything else disappeared now: no thoughts of Oscar, marriage, future plans, anything. Her breathing slightly accelerated along with her heart rate, though far less than a doctor would assume of a woman in combat; her fingers were light on the side stick and throttle. She ceased to be Ruby Rose; now she was as much a part of Crescent Rose III as if she was built with it.
The leftmost Kobold was a bit slower than its mate, and Ruby gave a minute twitch of the stick with her right hand and a slight pull back of the throttle to shed speed, forcing both GRIMM further out in front of her, avoiding the overshoot. Her target was now in trail, and she switched to guns as the twin exhausts of the GRIMM centered in her canopy. Another quick look behind-the two Kobolds had lost both Ruby and Weiss, and were looking for new targets-and Ruby was satisfied her tail was clear. She centered the pipper between the exhausts and the twin, rounded tails, and pulled the trigger. The M61 Vulcan roared as it spit several hundred twenty millimeter shells in a second, half of them tearing into the Kobold's rear. Suddenly the GRIMM shot straight upwards, and Ruby instinctively followed it, obeying her own earlier instructions to ride her kill. She readied another burst, then saw the GRIMM stall, roll over, and dive for the desert below, a mass of flames. Shit, it was already dead! Ruby ignored the flaming wreckage as it fell past her, and tried to acquire the other GRIMM.
Weiss leveled out at 35,000 feet, rolled inverted, and looked around. Her sudden climb had thrown off the GRIMM, which had evidently lost sight of both her and Ruby. The two Kobolds had leveled off, evidently searching for new targets. She held the Typhoon steady and saw another Kobold on fire, with Ruby following it. She's all right…okay, let's get these other two before they reacquire someone. She couldn't see Yang or Blake, hoped they were all right, then rolled level and dived. She also picked the leftmost Kobold of the pair she was on. Her helmet sight picked up where she was looking, transmitted it to the infrared sight ahead of the canopy, which transmitted it to the DUST fire control system. As she dived, the Kobolds suddenly split up, but instead of a defensive break going high and low, they split up left and right. The rightmost GRIMM would be out of position in seconds, so Weiss ignored it, staying on her previous target. She heard the growl in her helmet and fired a Sidewinder. "Weiss, Fox Two." The GRIMM never detected the missile until it was too late, and the drone disintegrated under a direct hit. "Weiss, splash one." She instantly snapped the stick right to pick up the second Kobold.
"Raven, Raider Lead, I have a lock," Rafe said. They were beginning to turn into the Lufbery Circle.
Raven held behind and to the right on Rafe, letting the F-16 have the lead. "Raider Lead, Raven. Hold fire. You might be tracking Ruby Flight. Let them do what your boss hired them to. If any Kobolds break through, I'll handle them." She glanced down into the cockpit out of habit, to the Night Raven's rearward facing camera. The interceptor had no vision to the rear—typical for the Russians, Raven groused—but luckily, the camera set between the twin tails made up for it. The problem was, she had to put her head down to see it, which took her out of scanning the sky around her. All the same, Raven was glad she did. As Raider Flight turned east, Raider Two—Donna—was falling behind into trail. So were the others, but Raven felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. There was something wrong with Donna's movement, and suddenly Raven remembered Cinder Fall doing much the same thing to Vernal over Tsushima.
Still, the Raiders were inexperienced fliers, so it could be accidental. "Donna, you keep your three-nine line off my ass if you know what's good for you."
"Go to hell, Raven!" Donna shouted, and suddenly Raven's RWR began to shrill as Donna locked on with Sidewinders.
Raven, however, was too good to get caught by amateurs. "Rearward defense pod, shoot!" Raven shouted. Her hands were already moving, jamming the throttles forward and jerking the stick backwards. The effect for Donna was if the Night Raven had simply stopped in midair, its nose rising upwards, above and over her, but before her mind had time to register that, she was already dead. The Night Raven's rearward defense pod, nestled in the trailing edge of the wing, fired a rocket behind Raven. It went straight down the intake of Donna's F-16 and exploded, blowing the fighter in half.
Raven shoved the stick forward, pushing the nose back down to gain airspeed. Rafe was already turning away from her, but he was no threat at the moment; the other two Raiders behind her were. She wanted to radio Ruby Flight that it was a trap, but there was no time…and Raven also had her pride. It'll be a cold day in hell before I get tagged out by a bunch of fucking Mafiosos!
Another look at the rear camera confirmed her assumption: the trailing pair of F-16s were coming after her, and her RWR was shrilling for her attention again: she doubted the Raiders could get enough of a return off the Night Raven for radar missiles, but the her engines were meat and drink for heat seekers. She checked her airspeed and broke right, and the RWR quieted. Raven divided her attention between the sky in front and to the sides and the rear camera, and saw that Mike and Leona, at least, had been paying attention in flight school. She broke with Raven, cutting inside the turn and using the F-16's superior manueverability, while Mike went into a high barrel roll to catch her in a pincer when she leveled out; one of the Raiders would be in excellent Sidewinder parameters when she did. Raven smiled underneath her mask. Not bad, kids, not bad.
Raven waited half a second, then slammed the stick left and kicked left rudder, reversing her turn even as Leona fired, too soon. Two Sidewinders left their rails, but their target was already gone, as Raven dumped flares behind her and passed underneath Mike. The two missiles suddenly found his F-16 an even better target. He managed to dodge the two AIM-9s, which had a poor angle, but it threw their formation into disarray as he climbed. And Raven, with the situational awareness that had made her legendary in her time, was rolling upwards and behind him. A quick check of her rear—it was clear—and Raven opened fire. The heavy thirty millimeter cannon in the wingroots ripped through the F-16, tearing off its tail. As the Viper flopped backwards, Mike ejected.
Splash two, Raven thought. Two more to go. Oh, there you are, Rafe. The fourth F-16 was coming in behind her, even as Leona tried to get back in the fight. This just got interesting.
"There you are!" Ruby shouted, though no one could hear her. The Kobold was now well below her, headed north. Ruby dived after it, and to her surprise, the GRIMM started weaving back and forth, slowly. It didn't do a hard break, even as the Sidewinders started to growl again. It's like it's…trying to clear its tail? Ruby abruptly remembered that the Kobolds could be flown by human pilots, and wondered if there were human beings in these.
It didn't matter. The GRIMM's weaving had slowed it down, and Ruby knew she would overshoot if she tried to slow down and get behind it. Instead, she dived past, pulled up, climbed to kill some of her speed and kinetic energy, and then rolled over to visually acquire the GRIMM again, Ruby now thinking in four dimensions, three plus time. The Kobold was where it was supposed to be: out in front. Ruby switched back to Sidewinders and fired. It guided perfectly and detonated beneath the Kobold, blowing it in half. "Ruby, splash two!" she called out.
Now where did Weiss go? Ruby looked around, checked her tail—it was clear—then spotted the unmistakable arrowhead shape of the Typhoon. There was a fireball in its wake, so Weiss had killed something, and now she was turning hard to the east; Ruby followed her direction of flight and saw yet another Kobold. But then she spotted something else—behind Weiss. It was a fifth Kobold, angling in from the west, tracking on the Typhoon.
Blake switched to radar and picked up one of the GRIMM as well, though the return was weak. Her eyesight was not as good as Ruby's, but now she could see the four Kobolds coming towards them, higher than they were, dots against the blue sky. "Yang, tally four bandits, twelve o'clock high, sixteen miles."
"What do I do?" asked Riana frantically.
Blake felt stupid; she had actually forgotten about her backseater. Riana had been silent since they took off, though she had seen the other woman pull out the camera and start messing with it. Blake also remembered that Riana wore glasses; there was no way she could see the GRIMM coming right at them. "Keep your head moving!" Blake quickly ordered. "Look around us, sides and rear, and let me know if there's anything behind us! Make sure your straps are tight!" To her surprise, Blake saw on the HUD that she had a radar lock on one of the Kobolds. Someone didn't get a good stealth coat, I guess? "Here we go, Riana! Blake, Fox Three!"
"Yang, Fox Three!" Both of them fired at the same time. Two AMRAAMs dropped from beneath the F-18 and the F-15 and were gone in seconds, leaving no smoke trail behind them. Suddenly the radar lost contact with the Kobolds, but Blake could see that the missiles spooked them, even as the AMRAAMs also lost their lock and missed: all four made a hard turn to the east, then split up: two stayed in the turn and headed to the north, descending as they did so; the other two reversed theirs to head south. Blake spotted the wide expanse of tan in the distance, made a split-second check of her navigation display, and knew that was Groom Lake. She made an equally quick decision, and prayed it was the right one. "Yang, Blake! Split and take the Kobolds to the east! I've got the ones to the north!"
"Blake, Yang, on it!" Yang didn't question it. The F-15 suddenly climbed and was gone, as if Yang had hit a disappear switch. Blake pushed the throttles forward and dived. "Hold on, Riana!"
"Oh my Goood!" Riana felt the stomach-churning sensation of zero-G for a split second as the Hornet dropped, and held onto the camera for dear life: her brain, seized with terror, fixated onto the camera as something she needed to protect. Condensation filled the sky around the F-18 as they hurtled into denser, somewhat more moist air. Riana didn't think she could get any more terrified, but she was wrong, as the mountains of the Nevada desert rose above her. Blake came out of the dive, which pressed Riana back into her seat, and she deeply regretted eating french toast and bacon that morning.
Blake, for her part, was as much in her element as Ruby was. The desert floor shot past less than a hundred feet below them: the Kobolds had leveled off at two hundred feet, but now Blake was in their blind spot. She switched to Sidewinders, but that was something the GRIMM did detect, and they broke hard to the left—but one was too slow. It was also too close for missiles, so Blake quickly switched to guns, rose up slightly, and pulled the trigger. The F-18 shuddered as the nose-mounted Vulcan fired, and gun gas drifted back for a moment across the canopy. Blake stitched the Kobold from nose to tail, and the GRIMM burst into flames, then rolled over and hit the side of a mountain.
"Weiss, Ruby, check six, you've got a Kobold on your ass!" she called out. Ruby was now the one to go into a hard break. "I'm on him!" She heard a double-click on the mike, fighter pilot shorthand from Weiss to let Ruby know she was a bit busy.
Ruby knew that, from a distance, this was either impressive or slightly comedic. Weiss was pursuing a Kobold, trying to get into guns range, while behind her, a Kobold was pursuing her—and behind that one was Ruby. She switched to guns herself, knowing that if she fired a Sidewinder, it was anyone's guess which target the missile would guide on. Weiss began to jink and drop flares, but the Kobold was matching her, and it would have a firing solution in a second.
Not on my watch! Ruby made a quick calculation, hoped she was right, and shoved the throttle forward. The Kobold grew in her windscreen from the length of her thumb to nearly filling it, but by that time, Ruby pulled the trigger and held it down. The Vulcan emptied itself in two seconds, but it tore the Kobold to pieces, hitting the GRIMM with so many shells that the drone seemed to come apart like a pinata. "Ruby, splash three!" Then Ruby was vaulting the doomed GRIMM, spared a quick prayer that it wouldn't blow up underneath her, and was closing in on Weiss. Ruby quickly jerked back the throttle and raised the nose of the F-16 to kill some of her momentum; Crescent Rose bounced a little as it hit Weiss' jetwash, and Ruby settled in behind Weiss and to her right, so close that Ruby could read the German warning labels by the engine exhausts.
Weiss seemed to take forever to fire, and Ruby shifted in her ejection seat impatiently. Probably only seconds had passed, but Ruby finally keyed the radio, because the Kobold was trying to outrun them, and failing badly. "Holy shit, go on and shoot him, Weiss!"
At that moment, Weiss fired a Sidewinder, and the Kobold tumbled end over end when it was hit. "I just did, Ruby! Mein Gott!" Ruby edged out a little so Weiss wouldn't collide with her if she turned right. "Scheisse! Tally two Kobolds, eleven o'clock high!"
Where the hell are all these Kobolds coming from? Ruby wondered, but then she saw three more specks ahead of her, down low, and strained to see if they were yet more GRIMM, or if it was Blake and Yang. One of the specks flamed and exploded, and the other two broke high.
Yang hummed to herself as she split away from Blake and climbed; she didn't like breaking up the mutual protection of a wingperson, but she had a feeling she knew what Blake was up to. Weird that we're close like that but not close like that, Yang thought, then shoved those thoughts aside much as Ruby had with Oscar.
The two Kobolds that had reversed their turn came out over the mountains, but they had clearly expected to find targets in front of them that were no longer there. Yang rolled upside down and watched them from ten thousand feet above, waiting to see what the drones would do. I bet they'll reverse again and head for Blake…yep, there they go. And here I go. Time to sayo your fucking naras. Yang dived, but remained inverted, intending to roll out behind the two Kobolds, but suddenly one of the GRIMM must have detected her. The two went into a defensive split, and one of the Kobolds climbed to meet her. Her Sidewinders growled, so Yang gave a little shrug and pulled the trigger, firing despite still being upside down. She wasn't sure if the missile would work, but it shot off the rail, closed the distance in an eyeblink, and struck the GRIMM in its needle nose. The GRIMM exploded, the kinetic energy actually sending it burning past her as she continued her dive.
Well, that was easy. Yang now rolled level and spotted the other Kobold in a dive. She risked a quick check of the radar; whichever Kobold that was having trouble with its stealth was not this one. "Okay, we do it the old-fashioned way," Yang said aloud, and for a moment imagined herself in Pops' P-51, dueling the Germans over Europe, back in the day when everything was settled with guns at visual range.
Yang closed the distance on the Kobold, when it did something she had never seen a GRIMM do before: it went into a hard break, but continued it into a descending spiral. Yang bet that her F-15 was more maneuverable, even if it was twice the Kobold's size, and followed it into the spiral. She cheated the turn tighter and tighter, watching the G-meter increase, feeling the G-suit squeeze her middle. Darkness appeared at the edge of her vision, but Yang didn't quit, knowing that the Kobold could only continue the spiral for another ten seconds before it hit the desert. She bore down hard with her stomach muscles, breathing hard into the oxygen mask to keep blood in her brain. Come…on…
Finally the GRIMM's self-protection algorithm kicked in, and it came out of the spiral, accelerating away from her. Yang's hands were already moving. The real one pushed up the throttles as the metal one centered the stick. The blackness cleared from her vision and now the GRIMM was right in front of her. She almost fired a Sidewinder, then realized she was a bit too close for that, and switched to guns. A caress of the trigger, and the Kobold pitched upwards, a wing separated from the narrow body, and it went back into a spiral, this time terminating on the desert floor. Yang watched it explode and grinned. Yeah, baby!
Then she saw something ahead of her, flashes of light off reflections and dust kicked up from the desert floor. Raven?
The other Kobold was climbing high, in a break that Blake knew she couldn't match; the GRIMM didn't have to worry about a human pilot. Blake snapped the throttles forward and the stick back, then pressed down on the left rudder pedal, throwing the F-18 into a high-speed yo-yo, over the top to drop down behind the Kobold as it came out of its break.
The sudden climb was the breaking point for Riana's digestive tract. She felt the vomit coming up and tore off her oxygen mask. She had thoughtfully put a barf bag in a pocket of her flight suit, but there was no time to get to it, even if she could reach it. There was simply nothing she could do, and as the Hornet reached the apex of its climb, Riana threw up all over the instrument panel. Oddly, as she did so, something moved out of the corner of her eye, and with a strange clarity, Riana knew what they were. She spit and grabbed the oxygen mask. "Blake, we've got GRIMM at our two o'clock low!" Then she vomited again as Blake came out of the roll.
Blake's head instantly went to the right, even as she heard Weiss' tally call. The new arrivals were going to have to wait a second, because abruptly Ruby, Weiss, Blake and the Kobolds—Riana was too busy wishing she was dead, which was probably for the best—all realized that they were occupying the same airspace at the same time.
Two Kobolds shot past underneath Blake, about two hundred feet below the diving Hornet, with Blake tracking the Kobold she had been pursuing. Weiss then cut behind both the new Kobolds and the F-18, while Ruby frantically rolled right and climbed to avoid a massive midair collision between all three Kobolds and Blake. Three things then happened in rapid succession: Blake fired both wingtip Sidewinders and split-S to clear her tail for Weiss, who dispatched one of the other Kobolds with another missile. The remaining Kobold, sensing an enemy behind it, climbed—directly into Ruby's gunsight. A last flaming comet marked the end of the Kobolds, and just like that, the sky was clear.
Blake rolled out and came out of the dive with a thousand feet to spare over the Sedan Crater. "Whew," she breathed. "That was not fun." She watched as Weiss passed overhead, and the burning remains of two GRIMM fell in their wake. She heard Riana groaning and did a quick check around them. "Yang, Blake—you okay?"
"Blake, Yang, peachy keen. Splash two; heading south to help Raven."
"Roger." Blake keyed the intercom with her foot. "Riana, you still with me?" She saw a shaky thumbs-up in the mirror. "Okay…sorry about all that. Let's go take a look at Area 51." She left off the intercom and radioed Ruby. "Ruby, Blake—going to go check on Objective Alpha." Blake hoped Ruby would get the reference. "Hold high; we have to go in single." One aircraft won't make whoever's at Groom Lake suspicious, but two might.
"Roger, Blake. Pick you up on the hop." Ruby leveled off high, watching the sky for GRIMM. She glanced to the right and saw missile trails and contrails. Raider Flight got jumped?
Raven was regetting her earlier overconfidence, and wondered if Raider Flight had lied to Ruby. It was either that or they had natural talent, because Leona and Rafe were giving Raven a run for her money.
She had dived again, using the heavier weight of the Night Raven, knowing that she would lose a turning fight even to amateurs flying F-16s; she had to fight vertically, where new pilots struggled. However, Rafe dived after her and Leona held high, daring Raven to climb, where she would be sandwiched between the two Raiders. Raven gave an idle thought to calling for help, but dismissed it: she would win this fight or die in the process. Death was not something Raven Branwen had feared for some time; there were far more frightening things in life.
Still, Raven had some tricks up her sleeve. She pulled out of the dive, but got lower and lower, until her shadow flicked at the Night Raven's tail on the desert floor, the interceptor's huge engines leaving furrows in a dry lakebed. Rafe was game, and got lower as well, betting that he could outfly the veteran. He was slightly higher, so she couldn't merely shoot him down with the rearward defense pod, but that meant his Sidewinders wouldn't guide, as there was too much heat reflecting off the ground. He closed the distance, putting the gun pipper ahead of her, letting the huge Night Raven simply fly itself into the gunsight. Rafe checked his airspeed and saw that both aircraft were flying across the desert at nearly six hundred miles an hour. It would be a snapshot, but the Night Raven was so big that he was likely to hit something. Raven was flying straight and level, and the chiseled nose entered the bottom of the gunsight.
Then Raven had what she wanted. Her eyes had been constantly moving, checking the way ahead—mountains loomed at the end of the lakebed—the rearward-facing camera, her altimeter, and her speed. She saw Rafe edge slightly forward, and knew he had his gun solution. School ain't over yet, boy, she thought, and opened her speedbrakes. The four perforated lengths of metal opened up on the spine of the Night Raven and along its smooth bottom, slowing the interceptor down. The F-16 shot past, Rafe already firing, but his shells only kicked up dirt ahead of the Night Raven. Raven quickly closed the speedbrakes and raised the nose. "Sidewinder, target F-16, shoot two!" Two panels opened in a blur along the bottom of the fuselage, kicking two missiles into the slipstream; they ignited a moment later and headed for the F-16. Rafe panicked: a sharp break with flares might have decoyed the missiles off, but instead he climbed. This only gave the two Sidewinders a better heat source. The two missiles struck the F-16 in succession, turning it into a fireball and killing Rafe instantly.
Now, however, Raven wondered if she would be joining him. The sudden deployment of the speedbrakes and raising her nose to fire had killed her airspeed, and there was no room to recover from a stall. She slammed both throttles forward to the stops, prayed that the tough engines would not quit, and dropped the nose for a moment. The airspeed went back up, out of the danger zone, but now there were mountains filling her windscreen. Raven grabbed the stick with both hands and pulled back into her gut, gritting her teeth as the Gs seemed to crush her. The Night Raven was designed for hard climbs, however, and the canards on either side of the nose slid backwards to decrease drag. Raven cleared the mountains, but now there was yet another threat: Leona and her F-16.
The remaining Raider had watched in horror as Raven had dispatched three of her friends, and both Donna and Rafe were dead; Mike was drifting down in his parachute, but into a desert of craters with no water for miles. Now the Night Raven was climbing hard, shock diamonds in its wake from two glowing afterburners. Leona crammed her own throttle forward, her teeth bared under the oxygen mask, tears in her eyes. She dropped in behind the climbing Night Raven, which was starting to lose power: even the massive Tumansky engines could not give it the same ability as the F-16's, to accelerate in a climb. They did make superb heat sources for Leona's Sidewinders, however.
"You fucking die—" she began, but then her RWR went off. A veteran instantly would have abandoned their attack and dived to break the lock, and figured out where it was coming from later. However, in her inexperience, Leona hesitated, looking at her HUD to see where the threat was coming from, even as the threat warning panel glowed red with RADAR. Her hand began to move the stick, but the two AMRAAMs were far quicker than she was. Both slammed into the F-16 a fraction of a second later, and the Viper was simply blotted from the sky.
"Yang, splash three." Raven rolled level as the F-15 passed her on the right. "You're clear, Raven."
Raven smiled. "Well, I'll be damned."