"So why no answer?" his backseat wondered.
"Oh, damn," the wingman croaked. "They're locking onto us."
"I see it," Steele cried. Radar told him that the F-16's were arming and locking their missiles onto them. He called for a split. He sent his F-15 left. The wingman went right. The two bogeys were not yet visible. But it wouldn't take long. They were approaching one another at over thirteen hundred miles per hour.
Steele radioed the airborne-warfare commander at Davis. He explained the situation and got a Weapons Hold command. He was not to fire unless fired upon. And his instrumentation was screaming that he was about to be fired on.
"It's our asses," he growled. "Screw it. Master armament on," he told his backseat officer.
"Master arm on," backseat called back.
The oncoming planes whipped between the separating F-15's so fast they were a blur.
"Did you see them?" Steele radioed his wingman. "F-16's. Confirm. They're ours."
"Then why the hell did they lock on?" Steele said anxiously, twisting in his cockpit to get a fix on them. "Attention, unidentified F-16's, this is Captain Steele out of Davis-Monthan. Do you copy? Over."
The helmet earphones were eerily silent as Steele sent his bird careening around in a slow 180. The unresponsive planes were also coming back.
"Bogeys are jinking back," the wingman warned. "I got them."
"They're trying to lock on again."
"Okay, wingman, we have to assume they got a good look at us too. We can't assume these are friendly birds. Repeat. These are not friendly birds."
"Roger. Good luck, Steele. "Stay sharp."
Steele saw the F-16's closing on him. Thirty miles separated them. Then twenty-five. Steele maneuvered the nose of his jet until the T-for-target symbol on his canopy lined up with a dot projected by the fire-control system.
"Select Fox-1," he called. "Roger. "
Steele kept his bird steady. Twenty miles. Then nineteen. Eighteen. He was within firing range now. He hesitated. These were American birds. What if their radios weren't working? He dismissed that thought instantly. Not both planes. Not at once.
"Seventeen miles," he called tightly. "Fox-1!"
A Sparrow missile fwooshed out from under the wing. Steele banked sharply. Sky and earth swapped perspectives. When he came back around, his radar man was screaming excitedly.
"Good hit. Good kill!"
Steele didn't see it until he got the jet level again. The sky was a pristine blue. There was a blot like floating ink. Falling from it, trailing fire and smoke, was a pinwheeling aircraft. As he watched, one wing separated from the fuselage like a broken blade.
"I got one!" Steele shouted exultantly. "Where's your kill?"
There was no answer from his wingman. "Stockbridge. Do you copy?"
Captain Stockbridge didn't copy. He would never copy anyone again. Steele realized this when two jets formed up and jinked back on him like darts at a target. Both were F-16's. Stockbridge was the one going down. "They got Stockbridge," Steele said in an arid voice. "Aw damn," the wingman said hoarsely.
Steele saw the F-15 Eagle auger in as he tried to get a radar tone on the approaching bogeys. It hit the desert floor in a splatter of boiling flame.
"Any parachutes?" he asked his backseat anxiously. The reply was subdued.
"No, no chutes. Sorry."
"Not as sorry as those two are going to be," Steele promised when he finally got a tone signal. "Fox-2!"
A Sparrow rocket cut loose for the approaching attackers. They split, but not before a boil of fire spat from one wing tip.
"He got a missile off," Steele warned. He threw the plane into an evasive turn, and G-forces smashed him against his seat. The blood drained from his head faster than his constricting G-suit could fight it. His vision went gray, then black. He fought to stay conscious.
He pressured the fly-by-wire stick right. His vision went gray again. Then black. He risked joining his wingman as a smoking hole in the desert, but Steele had no choice. He had to lose that missile.
The desert floor spun under the F-15's nose as it fell into a tailspin, a heat-seeking missile fixed on its tailpipe. Steele recovered. He leveled off hard, skimming the ground. The Sparrow, not as maneuverable, kept going. It kicked up a cloud of dust when it hit.
"Still with me, guy?" Steele called.
"Barely," the radar man said.
"Where are they? Do you have them on visual?"
"I'm looking, I'm looking. There! I see them. They're banking. Jesus Christ!"
"What?"
"I see markings."
"Identify."
"You're not going to believe this, but they're Zero markings."
"Say again. I don't read you."
"Zeros. You know. Like the Japs used to fly." Steele's mind raced. He was so focused on his flying that his brain refused to sort out the chatter of his radar man. Did he say they were Zeros? They were F-16's. Steele had seen that as plain as day.
Then the radar man was shouting. "They're diving!" Captain Curtis Steele couldn't go down. There were mountains on his right. So he climbed.
His F-15 stood on her tail and strained toward the sun.
"Lock him up!" the backseater cried. "I can't get a tone," Steele said. "There're two of them. You gotta."
"I can't get a fucking tone," Steele shouted, pounding on his instrument board. "I'm gonna go through them if I can."
Steele held the stick steady. He let them lock on him. He intended to bluff his way through. It would take nerve, but anyone willing to strap on forty thousand pounds of careening machinery and go head-to-head with another jet had that in spades.
The paired F-16's were diving now. Steele focused on the space between their wings. If only they didn't launch too soon....
Then, sickeningly, his afterburner flamed out and Steele felt himself lifted out of the nearly horizontal seat back as the powerless F-15 Eagle began to fall back like a dart thrown up into the air.