Dale Brown - Dale Brown's Dreamland 04 - Piranha(and Jim DeFelice)(2003) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Still,
the EB-52 was a tough airframe. Teijen held her up,
swooping left and right, and managed to take out one of the Navy fighters who
apparently didn’t believe the brief on the potency of the Stinger tail weapon.
There was no shaking the Tomcat flight leader, however, who came in close and
winked his cannon, then rubbed their noses in it a bit by putting his plane
directly over Gal’s tail.
                 “You
be sunk,” said the pilot with a laugh.
                 The
computer and the event moderator concurred.
                 “Yeah?”
said Teijen . We’ll see how loud you laugh when your
carrier goes down.”
                 Raven
                 August
16, 1507
                 Zen’s
finger strained against the slider on the back of his combined stick-throttle.
He had the engine nailed on the redline, trying to hustle the Flighthawks back
to help Fentress fend off the rear-end attack. The Navy attackers had done an
excellent job against the Dreamland planes, overcoming their technological
disadvantage with shrewd tactics and kick-butt flying. They didn’t call these
guys Top Guns for nothing.
                 Not,
of course, than Zen would admit that in mixed company—mixed company meaning
anyone who showed an affinity for bell bottoms and pea coats. Naval aviators
might have proven in combat they were every bit as good as Air Force jocks, but
no red-blooded USAF zippersuit would say so—except
under extreme duress.
                 And
maybe not even then.
                 Zen
calculated a good merge on two planes coming in on his left figuring to turn
and then let the Tomcats’ superior speed bring them to his gunsights .
That worked fine for one of the planes, but the other wingman simply
accelerated out of range as Zen brought Hawk Two to bear. He twisted off and
gave the robot to the computer, telling it to target a new knot of Tomcats
aiming for Iowa from the west, the computer handled if fairly well, but with
four Scorpion AMRAAMs in the air, and its need to engage the enemy at close
range, it was soon over-matched, taken down by a simulated explosion about fifty
feet of its wingtip.
                 In
the meantime, two Tomcats closed on Iowa for Sidewinder shots. As Zen tried to
dive on them, his seat spun wildly, moving in the opposite direction—Raven’s
pilot, Major Alou, was jerking madly to avoid a fresh missile attack. The
movement disoriented Zen, who had an image in his screen more than four miles
away. He had to break off his attack after pumping dozen shells at the F-14,
doing some damage but not enough to splash it.
                 The
air was thick with flares, electronic fuzz, and dummy weapons. Zen rolled
around and found himself approaching Raven. Making the best of the situation,
he slid Hawk One into a gradual turn, figuring to try and catch the planes that
were closing on his mother ship. At the same time, he got a warning tone from
the computer that his fuel were getting low.
                 The
Navy fliers stayed just out of reach of Raven’s Stinger as they kicked off
their missiles. All but one of the Sidewinders missed their mark; the one that
did explode caused “fifty-percent damage” to the right wing control surfaces
and some minor damage to the power plants. Enough, claimed the moderator, to
rule the Megafortress down.
                 “Down?”
said Alou. “Down? No way.”
                 The
other crew members’ reactions were considerably less polite. Zen had one of the
Tomcats fat in his pipper —he laid on the trigger,
then whipped across the air like a stone slipped on a pond to nail the second.
                 Except
that, under the engagement rules, he was dead once the Megafortress was.
                 The
Tomcat jocks were laughing. Zen had considerable trouble restraining himself
from riding Hawk One over their