Jim DeFelice - Cyclops One

The Pakistanis were most likely to use a bomb; he’d look for an F-16 flight.

The AWACS warned of one flying south out of Islamabad, a two-ship formation streaking due south. As Howe got it on the wide screen with its shared data, Cyclops started plucking Indian IRBMs out of the sky.

“North Two, get north.”

“I’m on your six.”

Atta looked down from the heads-up screen to the more detailed target list at the left side of his glass panel. There were six live targets, two of them SAMs and the rest ballistic missiles. The computer — with Sergeant Peters’s approval — ranked the SAMs first. But the ballistic missiles were higher and farther away, which meant they were much more complicated shots.

And more critical. Besides, the SAMs were ID’d as early-model Crotales, which had a maximum effective altitude about twenty thousand feet below where he was flying.

“Override one, override two,” he told the computer, punching the screen quickly to confirm the shots. “Acquire.”

The computer buzzed its acceptance. Atta could feel the laser turret whirling in the nose ahead of him, trying to lock on the new target. A second tone sounded and the triangle in his HUD blinked green, showing he had a lock.

“Fire,” he said, though this was superfluous: His finger had already pushed the button at the top of his grip, and in combat mode the computer accepted either command.

The laser shot was practically instantaneous. The beam tracked with the rising target for an infinitesimally small time, a highly focused blowtorch rubbing the skin of the missile. The beam heated part of the fuel tank in the second stage of the Indian Agni rocket, expanding it so quickly that it exploded in the space of half a second. The computer cycled up the target list, once more putting the SAMs on top; Atta quickly reprioritized them and took his shot at another ballistic missile. This was a harder shot; the laser caught the solid propellant first-stage motor but failed to destroy it immediately, sending the rocket off course but leaving it intact. Atta had to verbally order a fresh shot, since the computer was programmed to accept sending a missile off target as a hit.

“We’re locked and being tracked,” said the copilot. “Pak SA-2 battery.”

Unlike the Crotales, this missile was fully capable of reaching the Cyclops aircraft, especially since it had to fly a predictable path for the laser. But Atta held off ordering the ECMs, fearing that they would degrade the radars helping him target. By the time he fired and destroyed the third target — another Agni — the Pakistanis had fired two missiles at them.

They probably saw this as a holy war against the infidels.

Idiots.

The computer moved the missiles to the top of the list. Atta hesitated a second, then approved the selection of the first one.

“More Crotales — where the hell did the bastards get all these missiles?” the copilot asked.

The first SAM went down easy. The second SA-2, however, tracked off its expected course, and the computer seemed to take forever to get a lock. Atta felt his cheeks puffing out with his breaths as he finally fired and took it out.

More SAMS, various contacts; the adrenaline buzzing in Atta’s brain started to shake his concentration. He felt confused, fatigue overwhelming him.

The target list offered an SA-2 climbing through five hundred feet.

Another Agni had just launched.

Atta overrode, took out the ballistic missile.

“Captain!” His copilot’s voice went up an octave.

The pipper was yellow: no shot.

“ECMs,” said Atta. He took the yoke from the computer and swung around much tighter than the automated pilot would have allowed, pulling 6 g’s to get back in the firing track. Stabilizing, he went back into firing mode, allowing the electronic brain to hold the plane steady. The piper went red and he fired — a good hit on the first blast. The missile imploded.

Atta heard a popping sound that seemed to come from behind him. At the same time the left engine whined and the plane seemed to fall into his hands.

“We’re hit — shrapnel in the left engine,” said the copilot.

Unlike before, his voice was extremely calm. Atta interpreted that as a bad sign.

Timmy angled westward, following Howe back toward the border. The AWACS operator screamed out contacts, Cyclops Two chopped down missiles, the radio crackled with talk from the F-15s. The chaotic jumble was music to Timmy’s ears.

Howe had sorted through the confusion and come up with a coherent plan. A pair of F-16s were charging toward the Indian border well to the west.

“We’re going to take those planes out,” the lead pilot told him. “They’re the only aircraft on the board that may have nukes. I have the plane on the right.”

“Two.”

The F-16s were just over two hundred miles away, streaking perhaps fifty feet off the ground as they approached the Thar or Great Indian Desert in the center of the border area. The gear aboard the Velociraptor not only allowed the aircraft to “see” them — incredible in itself — but gave hints on how to best counter them.

Not that Timmy thought he needed the hints.

The F-16s were moving at over six hundred knots, and the gap between them closed at something over thirty-three miles a minute. But they might just as well have been moving backward as far as he was concerned.

“Your man is turning,” warned Howe as the Falcon cut to the east.

“On him.”

Timmy nudged his stick, pushing to his right to stay with the F-16. It wasn’t clear whether the Pakistani was merely changing his position behind his leader or striking out on his own course. The planes were now roughly a hundred miles ahead, a bit over a minute and a half from firing range, depending on what happened in the next thirty seconds.

The HUD painted in its holographic display, a yellow dagger at about eight o’clock, relative to his position. The tactics section shaded an intercept attack point at his request, helpfully plotting a turn that would bring him onto the bandit’s tailpipe.

And then the F-16 disappeared.

Was it lost in the ground clutter, simply obscured by irregular terrain or jumbled returns or some anomaly in the coverage area, which was being cobbled together from three different inputs? Or had the pilot flown a bit too low and bought it in the darkness?

Timmy stayed on the course the computer had plotted, figuring it was by far his best option. Two Indian MiGs were in the vicinity, but he did his best to ignore them. Howe said something over the radio that he didn’t quite catch; Timmy leaned forward and started to rock gently, willing the F-16 back into the sky.

When it finally appeared, they were separated by less than twenty miles. The Pakistani pilot had managed to get down below ten feet, a mark of either superior flying ability or tremendous stupidity — maybe both. The piper’s boxed fist closed around the Pakistani plane and held it there as the AMRAAM popped out from the Velociraptor’s belly and flashed toward its target.

Timmy was only vaguely aware of the Velociraptor’s applause when the missile rammed home. He was too busy ducking two Indian MiGs that had been vectored into the area to find the F-16 but found him instead. The MiGs launched homers; he countered with tinsel and laid on the revs, spooling the turbos to max power and escaping north.

Howe, meanwhile, had taken out his F-16 and was running back toward Cyclops. As they crossed the Pakistani border, a pair of Mirages turned out of the northwest, coming to meet them. They were at twenty-seven and thirty thousand feet, below Howe but above Timmy; their turn took them between the two aircraft — and right into Timmy’s screen.