Eagle Station

“Radar detection!” Alexey Balandin, his weapon systems officer, yelled from the rear cockpit. “Small contact, probably a stealth aircraft, bearing three o’clock moving to four o’clock at very low altitude. Indeterminate range!”

Christ, Grigoryev thought coldly. Somehow the Scion aircraft had sneaked around his flank… and now it was trying to slide in behind him.

“We show the same contact,” Rudensky, Phantom Four’s pilot, radioed excitedly. “Turning to engage.”

Grigoryev yanked his stick right, rolling the big, twin-tailed MiG into a hard 4-G right turn as he followed his wingman around. A green diamond blinked into existence on his HUD. The enemy stealth aircraft was now somewhere out ahead of them, off to the northeast. He banked back left to keep the target centered and thumbed a switch on his stick. Two missile symbols appeared in the corner of his HUD. Two of his four R-37M radar-guided missiles were armed and set for a salvo launch as soon as they got a solid lock on this target. “Weapons hot!”

And then just as suddenly as it had first appeared, the green diamond vanished from his HUD.

“Contact lost!” Balandin said over the intercom. “I’m attempting to regain a lock.”

“We’ve lost it, too,” Rudensky admitted a second later. “But the enemy aircraft was definitely headed northeast. And it was moving at around nine hundred kph.”

“Did anyone get a range?” Grigoryev demanded.

Balandin sounded hesitant. “It wasn’t close, sir. Probably more than a hundred kilometers out.”

Grigoryev nodded to himself. Having failed in its bid to slip past them undetected, the Scion aircraft must now be running hard — hoping to open the range further and evade their search again. “We’ll chase along this heading for a while,” he decided. “But stay on your toes. This bastard’s a slippery customer. He may try that trick again.”

Acknowledgments flooded through his headset as he trimmed the MiG-31 for level flight and headed northeast at high speed.

Scion Seven-Zero

That Same Time

“SPEAR disengaged,” Nadia reported. She looked across the cockpit with a slight smile on her face. “Both MiGs have turned northeast. They are pursuing my now-invisible ghost.”

“Nice work,” Brad told her. She’d used their ALQ-293 Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system to spoof the enemy radars — creating a brief false contact for them to chase. To avoid triggering the anti-manipulation software protections built into Russian avionics, she’d deactivated SPEAR after a few seconds. Russian radars and other electronic systems now conducted periodic self-tests, looking for anomalies showing that their security was being penetrated. Although it was a crude measure, it did hamper Scion’s ability to use SPEAR unchecked.

Much as he’d like to believe those enemy pilots would go on hunting along the wrong heading while the Rustler bolted for home, he knew that was a fool’s dream. All too soon the Russians would figure out that they’d been tricked. He needed to finish this fight before that happened.

Brad pushed his throttles all the way forward and turned northeast after the MiGs. The XCV-70 accelerated smoothly, breaking past the sound barrier and going to 800 knots in seconds. Burning more fuel now would hurt them later… but going supersonic was the only way he could pull within Sidewinder range of those enemy fighters.

“Tease ’em again,” he requested. “Only this time, plant the lure to make it look like we’ve dodged north of them, okay?”

Again, Nadia’s fingers flashed across her displays, issuing orders to the SPEAR system. And again, the MiG-31s took the bait, swerving north to follow the flickering false image she’d planted in their radars.

Brad banked again, this time turning to come in behind and to the left of the Russian interceptors. Two target brackets popped onto his HUD. Each outlined a twin-tailed MiG-31, still invisible to the naked eye at this distance.

“Range now twenty-five miles,” the Rustler’s computer said.

He clicked a button on his stick. Three missile icons popped onto his HUD. They had three AIM-9X Sidewinders left in their internal weapons bays. Quickly, he assigned two of the heat-seekers to the lead MiG, saving the last missile for its trailing companion.

“Assigned targets are beyond effective missile range,” the computer cautioned.

“Not for long,” Brad murmured. “Just hold your horses.”

“Command not understood,” the Rustler responded primly.

Nadia snorted in amusement. Sky Masters — designed computer systems were high-tech marvels, but they had definite limitations, especially where English-language idioms were concerned.

Phantom Three

That Same Time

“Contact lost again,” Balandin reported over the intercom.