Executive Intent

“Formation two is heading back to the carrier-they must be low on gas,” Frodo reported, his voice strained. “The last guy from formation three is orbiting over his leader. Looks like we’re in the clear.”

Boxer looked over at her mission commander and saw his fingers shake as he tried to type in instructions on his supercockpit display. “It’s okay, Alan,” she said softly. “You did good.”

Frodo raised his oxygen visor. He sat quietly for a few moments, staring at his lap; then: “You could have gotten us killed, Boxer,” he said in a low, trembling voice.

Gia didn’t know what else to say except, “Sorry, Frodo.”

His head snapped over toward her, and his eyes were blazing. “Sorry? You’re sorry? That’s it?”

“I guess so.”

“You should’ve bugged out when they started to lock us up,” Frodo said. “We should’ve turned around when we found out they were serious.”

“Our job was not to turn around, Frodo-our job was to probe the fleet and report,” Boxer said. “I’m not the kind of person to turn tail and run at the first sign of danger.”

“But why the high-speed passes? We could’ve flown right into one of those close-in cannons. Hell, we were flying so low they could’ve hit us with a damned mop stuck out a porthole!”

“They pissed me off, and I wanted to show them they couldn’t scare me off,” Boxer said.

“They almost shot us out of the sky! They almost killed us! I’ve got two sons at home, Colonel. You could’ve made them fatherless, and for what-because you got pissed? Thanks a lot, Colonel.”

“Don’t worry, Major-I’ll tell the review board you objected to going in and recommended we turn around,” Boxer said. “You won’t take any flak for my actions. Just find us a place to land.”

“Armstrong to Fracture Two-One.”

Boxer switched her comm panel to the primary control frequency. “Two-One, go.”

“Everyone all right?” Jessica Faulkner radioed from Armstrong Space Station.

“We’ve been better,” Boxer replied. “We lost number four, lost the rudder, probably lost most of the horizontal stabilizer, and I feel a bad vibration in the tail. We’ll do a controllability test before we try air refueling or landing, but I think we’re going to end up ditching or crash-landing.”

“We’ll pass that along,” Gonzo said. “Your tanker is about three hundred miles east, heading toward you for the rendezvous. We have limited coverage on you right now, but as of three minutes ago, your tail was clear. If you can’t tank, the closest air base is Salalah, Oman, about four hundred and fifty miles east-northeast. Got enough gas for that?”

“Barely.”

“That’s your only hard-surface runway for a thousand miles, guys, unless you want to try Al Mukalla, Yemen,” Gonzo said, “but the Russians might spot you and try for some payback. We’ll keep an eye out for you as much as possible and pass along your information. Good luck.”

It was not looking good as the Air Force KC-767 aerial refueling tanker rolled out in front of the Vampire bomber. “Rudder control is almost zero,” Boxer said as she slowly, carefully pulled the throttles back. “Elevator control is about fifty percent-it looks like the mission-adaptive system is having to work overtime to compensate for the loss of the tail stabilizers.” She started to bring the power back, but the vibrations increased below 400 knots, and below 350 knots indicated airspeed, the vibration almost made the plane uncontrollable. “Looks like our limit is three-fifty, Milkman,” Boxer radioed to the tanker. “What’s your max?”

“Our published max is three hundred,” the pilot responded, “and the most I’ve ever done in an emergency is three-twenty. The plane gets real twitchy in pitch above that.”

“And we’re not too responsive in pitch ourselves,” Boxer said.

“I’m willing to give it a try,” the tanker’s boom operator said.

“Thanks, but I think we’ll divert to-”

“Bandits!” Frodo shouted. “Two Su-33s…no, two formations of Su-33s, six o’clock…damn, just fifteen miles, with the second formation three miles in trail! My rear LADAR array must be shot off-I picked them up on the threat receiver only!”

“Time to bug out, Milkman,” Boxer said. “We’ll hold them off for you.”

Just then, the threat-warning computer blared: “Caution, caution, radar tracking, Su-33.”

“He’s right on top of us!” Frodo shouted.

At that moment they heard a heavily accented Russian voice radio, “American bomber, this is Russian Southern Fleet patrol aircraft on GUARD. We have you and your tanker aircraft on our radar and long-range optical sensors. We have more fighters in pursuit. You cannot escape. Your aircraft is badly damaged.”

“I can’t see them except on the threat receiver,” Frodo said. “I can’t launch an AMRAAM as long as they stay in the rear quarter.”

“Can we try an over-the-shoulder launch and have the missile track on its own?” Boxer asked.

“It needs an initial bearing and distance from the fire control computer to launch-it won’t take info from the threat receiver,” Frodo said. “The AMRAAMs are deadweight unless they appear on the lateral arrays.”