Kevin Miller - Declared Hostile

AAA detonated in black puffs ahead of her, and, over the city, she saw SAM plumes and heard the anxious calls of the Whisks who were in the middle of everything. Condor was intoning about bandit contacts nearby, the Jellies were shooting HARMs somewhere behind her, and an emergency beeper was going off in her headset. Where is Killer? Macho was task saturated, and Annie’s calm voice broke through the confusion.

“ Lumber two-zero has control. Release it, Macho.”

Annie’s use of Macho’s personal call sign snapped Macho out of her funk, and with one last check of symbology, she mashed her thumb down on the pickle switch. Over 1,500 pounds. of weight fell from her wing, and Macho rolled up left to see the SLAM-ER fall earthward. A second later, its wings deployed, and the turbojet engine lit off.

“ Lumber two-one, rifle away!”

“Roger,” Annie answered.

Macho heard Killer release his weapon, but the strike common frequency was clobbered with threat calls and intercept comms to the Whisks . Then, Macho heard Condor talking to her .

“ Lumber two-one. Leaker, one-eight-zero at fifteen. Seventeen thousand. Hot! ”

A bandit was running on her, and maybe on Killer, who was now trailing her as they egressed northeast. Annie and Blade, with their heads down controlling the weapons, were vulnerable. Macho looked over her right wing to the south, then whipped her head left to find Killer. She saw nothing.

“Killer, you with me?” Macho asked on the tactical freq.

“Negative! Dump some gas!”

Macho reached down and energized the fuel dump switch for a second, seeking section integrity with Killer despite the fact that the bandit would also see a cloud of fuel and get an early tally on her.

“Visual! I’m at your left, seven long! Check north!” Killer directed.

“ Lumber, Condor , your bandits are retreating south.”

Deliverance! Macho thought. As she rolled out of her turn, she saw Killer joining on her left wing and saw Annie in her southbound run, controlling the weapon. Condor said the bandits were retreating which implied south, and Annie and Blade were heading south. They would need help.

“Annie, Macho has a visual, six clear,” Macho transmitted, informing her flight lead that she had eyes on her. They were three miles apart.

“Roger. Blade is in spread with me. You guys join up, if you can, and sanitize ahead of us.”

“Roger!”

With this audible, Macho and Killer pulled hard across the horizon, plugging in the burners and pointing to a position in front of their leads to intercept. Macho’s radar cursor bounced back and forth on her right display screen as she pulled her nose through the low afternoon sun, and both pilots listened to the Whisk/Condor commentary to regain situational awareness.

The Whisks were now two flights of two in lead-trail and separated by five miles. Both flowed along the coast, outside of the multiple threat envelopes in Caracas. The FAV seemed to be opposing this strike to a much greater degree than the Americans had seen before. Annie’s Lumber division was pretty much one gaggle as she and Blade concentrated on flying the missiles into their target launchers, while Macho and Killer joined on them to sanitize the airspace ahead. The FAV fighter — they didn’t know which kind — was running south from the Americans and was, for now, no factor. Macho knew, though, she would have to watch it.

“ Lumber two-zero, five miles—” Annie transmitted, and Blade followed in sequence. The senior aviators were tracking their targets and, via data link, would fly the missiles into them. About thirty seconds to impact. Macho was now on Annie’s left wing.

Flying the airplane, monitoring the radar, avoiding a midair with her wingmen, and trying to make sense of the fighter comm, Macho froze when a contact popped up on her screen.

Inside twenty miles! And hot!

Her responsibility.

The pop-up contact entered Macho’s radar search volume from below, like a shark attacking prey on the surface. Although surprised, and for a moment speechless, Macho recovered.

“Annie, contact on our nose, twelve miles! Angels ten! Hot! Egress now!”

With no time to ask Condor for a declaration, Macho bumped the castle switch and was rewarded with a lock. The bogey was coming right at them, and Annie, in the closer aircraft, was vulnerable.

“Three miles!” Annie transmitted, almost protesting. So close!

Macho put the bogey in her HUD field of view and saw a speck against the green background of Venezuela. Just then Macho saw a missile plume shoot out ahead of the “dot” in the target designator box. Horrified, she keyed the mike.

“Smoke in the air! Annie, break left! Chaff flares! ”

Macho pulled the trigger, hard . With AMRAAM selected, she waited for the launch sequence to begin, and, for a moment, she wondered if the missile was hung on the fuselage station. Then the missile shot ahead with a rumbling VROOOMMM that she heard in the cockpit. Macho was mesmerized as she watched the white plume billow in a graceful arc up and then down as the fiery rocket accelerated ahead of her at twice the speed of sound.

“ Fox three. Annie, break now! ”

Everyone seemed to be talking on the radio at once, but Macho’s frenzied comms got through Annie’s end-game concentration. Annie rolled and pulled inverted, spitting out expendables, her data link momentarily losing the SLAM-ER — which was now seconds from impact.

Above her, Macho pulled hard left and picked up the enemy missile trying to follow Annie. Macho could now identify the bandit as an F-16 Viper. She saw it break hard right to avoid the AMRAAM missile she had fired at it.

The missile’s warhead exploded just behind the Venezuelan, and, for a moment, Macho thought the Viper had survived. Then a flame burst from the empennage, and black smoke poured from the tail as the fighter continued in controlled flight to the east. The enemy missile tracking Annie had burned out. It seemed Annie’s last-ditch defense and flares had caused it to drop lock or to lose the energy needed to catch her.

In her defensive maneuver, Annie had reacquired the target on her data link display and, with seconds to spare, slewed the SLAM-ER into the air-surface missile launcher and guided it in. She did not know if her missile had destroyed the target. No time to worry about that. Blade keyed the mike.

“ Lumber two-two, time out on the western launcher. Egressing north. Visual on one and two.”

As the Firebird division of Lumbers egressed north, Macho jinked into the burning F-16 to put it in the HUD field of view. Evidence. She then reversed back and overbanked down to join Annie and the others, all hightailing it to the get-well point. Lumber three-four was doing the same, and Annie hoped at least three of the four targets were destroyed. Just then she heard a cry.

“ I’m hit! Whisk one-two is hit! ”

Annie snapped her head left and saw a speck of flame trailing black smoke about ten miles away and north of the city. It appeared the jet was feet wet in a slow turn to north.

“Get it out to sea!” Whisk lead commanded, but it was no use. The stricken Rhino seemed to corkscrew, and soon a wingman sang out with a welcome report. “Good chute! Whisk one-two is down approx 10 miles north of the harbor!” The Americans could see the blinking lights of numerous AAA batteries along the coast, their black puffs hanging in the air above Caracas. They also saw the plumes of a few unguided SAMs hoping for a lucky shot against the Yankee fighters.