James Huston - Fallout

On his left, what he couldn’t see was that Thud had stayed at altitude and was racing downhill toward him, rapidly closing the distance. To Rashim’s right, Luke was locked in a death fight with Khan.

Luke was on the ragged edge of the aircraft’s performance. He reversed his airplane and pulled his nose up to slow down and to slice in on Khan’s F-16. He waited for Khan to pull into him aggressively again, as he knew he would. Luke would be ready to cut inside his turn and drill him. Khan had wrestled back, keeping the fight neutral, no one gaining an advantage, countering every one of Luke’s moves, but this time, instead of pulling into him, Khan suddenly broke off and headed for the power plant behind Rashim.

Luke was surprised. He leveled his wings, waiting for Khan to commit himself. He saw Rashim with Khan following him. He jerked his MiG over on its back and pulled down toward the ground, his throttles at full throw, accelerating with gravity’s help to chase the fleeing F-16s. They were bugging out. Luke made sure his spine was straight so his head wouldn’t get buried in his lap by the huge Gs he was about to pull. He yanked back hard on the stick and loaded up the MiG with eight Gs. He went to full afterburner and stayed after Khan, who fell in a mile behind Rashim.

Luke had no idea what Khan was doing, but he was going with him. He eased back on the stick as they leveled out at ground level. Khan tore toward the Pacific. Luke glanced up to his left and saw another MiG descending, much faster than Luke, cutting across toward the lead F-16.

The F-15s finally arrived and crossed from Luke’s right to left, above and behind the MiGs, joining in the tail chase of the fleeing F-16s. There were too many airplanes too close together for anyone to lob a missile.

“Thud, that you going after the westernmost F-16?”

“Yeah, Stick. I’ve got him. No way he’s getting away.”

Thud was going at least two hundred knots faster than the F-16. Luke watched as he closed on Rashim. Thud had pushed his MiG-29 toward the F-16 nearly supersonic. Rashim stayed low. He knew that Thud was too close for a missile shot and, with the closure he had, was likely to overshoot and expose himself. Rashim was content with that.

Thud rushed in with reckless abandon.

Luke didn’t like what he saw. He transmitted, “Thud, watch your closure.”

Thud didn’t reply.

“Thud, pull off and let me have a shot at him. They’re bugging out! Thud!”

“I’ve got him,” Thud replied. “As soon as he sees me closing on him, he’ll come back at me. Then I’ll have him.”

He had gotten it almost completely right. Rashim was looking over his shoulder. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to get away. He’d done what he’d come here to do. Rashim pulled back on the stick, and the F-16 instantly went to 9.5 Gs, as much as the computer would allow. He pulled up and back, directly into Thud.

Thud pulled back on his throttles and tried to increase his distance from Rashim.

Rashim expected that. He kept his eye fixed on the nose of the MiG-29 as he pulled, and flew his fighter right into Thud.

The two fighters collided like cymbals and burst into flames. Airplane and canopy parts littered the sky and fell to the ocean.

“Thud!” Luke cried. He fought the instant nausea that ripped into his gut. “No!” Luke gasped for oxygen through his mask. He pulled back on his throttles and came out of afterburner. He put his head back against the ejection seat. He couldn’t do it.

“You want us to take the last one?” the F-15 lead asked.

Luke watched as Khan’s F-16 got smaller as it headed out into the Pacific. He waited, then jammed the throttles forward as Glenda spoke in his ear, “Low fuel! Low fuel!” His eyes darted to the fuel gauge. She was right, but it didn’t matter. If he had to go swimming to get Khan, then that was just how it was going to be. He’d strangle him to death in the water.

Khan had taken advantage of the midair to make his escape. He was down on the deck, fifty feet off the water. He had a mile head start on the fighters chasing him. Luke and Stamp were right behind him at the same speed. It was a race to the middle of the ocean. He had nowhere to go. The flight of four F-15s flew cover above them, ready to pounce. The lead was ready. “Nevada Fighter, pull off. We’ve got a sweet missile shot on him.”

“Negative. I’ll take my shot, then you can have him.”

“Roger. Fuel state?”

“About twenty minutes. I’m okay,” he lied.

Luke was surprised. Khan was clearly planning on running west until he ran out of gas, then crashing into the ocean. But if Khan knew he was going to die, Luke was surprised he didn’t want to go down fighting as Rashim had just done.

Stamp was apparently thinking the same thing. “Any idea on his intentions?” he asked.

“None.”

Luke didn’t want to get too close. He settled in one mile behind Khan, waiting for him to commit himself, with the image of Thud’s airplane exploding branded into his mind. If he fired a missile now, it would hit the water instead of the F-16. But if he had to wait much longer, Luke would run out of gas and crash into the ocean himself. He had to act soon to have any chance of landing back at Miramar, the Marine Corps air station in San Diego.

As Luke contemplated his options, they reached seventy-five miles off the coast, in the middle of nowhere, with no land in sight. Khan suddenly pulled into a hard left turn, still fifty feet off the ocean.

“Here we go,” the F-15 pilot said.

Luke pulled up slightly as the turn took him by surprise. He had closed the distance to Khan too fast. He pulled up quickly into a high yo-yo to keep from overshooting. He looked down at Khan from a high perch position. Khan was in a tight five-G turn right on the surface of the ocean, circling. Suddenly he pulled up into a climbing spiral away from the ocean.

Luke hesitated. He couldn’t imagine what Khan was trying to do, but it was the opening Luke had been waiting for. He rolled in and locked up Khan with his radar. He selected Archer and directed his helmet-mounted sight toward the climbing F-16. He heard the growl from the Archer seekerhead. Khan was far enough away from the water to give Luke a clear shot. The F-15s above at ten thousand feet watched in anticipation as Luke pulled hard to line up his last missile shot.

Luke leveled his wings, his breath coming in short, quick gasps. He pulled the trigger, and the Archer hissed off the missile rail toward the F-16. Luke watched in shock as the canopy came off the F-16 and Khan ejected before the missile even arrived. “What the…” Luke said to himself. The ejection seat and rocket motor threw Khan away from the F-16 seconds before the Archer missile hit the Viper in the belly and cut it in half. The F-16 rolled over and headed for the water in its two pieces, flames coming out of both ends. Khan floated down gently in his silk parachute as he inflated his survival vest and deployed the seat pan on his ejection seat.

Luke rolled wings level and pulled his throttles back to idle, slowing quickly. He watched Khan float to the ocean. “Catfish, splash the fourth bogey. The pilot jumped out. Get the Navy out here to take this guy into custody.”

“Roger, copy.”

Luke looked down at his TACAN. “We’re on the 298 radial for 98 from Miramar.”

“Roger that.”

Luke’s heart climbed quickly into his throat and choked off any thought of speaking as he watched Khan touch down and splash into the ocean. A hundred yards away from him, a periscope pierced the ocean’s surface. It was barely moving in the water. Seconds later the submarine’s sail broke the surface in a bath of white foam. Khan had freed himself from his parachute and swam with a gentle backstroke toward the surfacing submarine.