| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The Hunters - Part 1 |
| Date: | Fri, 29 Aug 1997 23:52:23 +0100 |
>>>>>[TO: SIGANet Archive
FORWARD TO: General L S Cunningham, UCAS AF
I'm tired.
We won.
Just watch the fucking tape.
+++++begin video
The bait is another Buzzard, perhaps the same Buzzard, cruising along in
the dark, star-studded sky with its four turboprops leisurely turning
and its navigation lights bright: a smear of light to the right shows
the Louisiana coast, twelve miles away.
Two CAS interceptors are settling in to escort the Buzzard away from CAS
airspace, one on either side of the converted transport: Luzzi and
McGee, trailing it in echelon, blink their formation lights and break
away in a perfect crossover turn.
"Another wasted night." McGee says, his tone irritable.
"Shut up." replies Luttwidge conversationally: they're still barely
three miles from a flying antenna farm designed to monitor, record and
analyse every electronic emission in the sky.
Lilith - flying in combat spread with Lynch, following the two MiGs and
perhaps five miles back - has a grandstand view of the action, as
tonight's Quiet Sky ends in another inconclusive drift back to base. She
suddenly focusses on something to her right: you can see nothing there
in the recording, and it's too far aft for IRIS or LoLite to see, but
her eyes are fixed on _something_.
"Game on..." she whispers, before keying her mike.
"Leopard Lady. I have visual on a Ghost. Psycho, he's closing on you
from six o'clock low, range two miles. Hold course and speed."
Merely two clicks in return from Lynch, as Lilith flicks her MASTER ARM
switch, selects guns, and double-checks that the cameras and IRIS are
recording.
"All hunters, converge on Psycho and the Lady. Do not acknowledge."
Luttwidge's voice is surprisingly calm. "Be ready to engage if
necessary. Get him on camera. Psycho, Lady, stand by to datalink video
back to base."
"Lady. Turning in now, now, _now_." The horizon snaps through ninety
degrees as Lilith snaps into a punishing turn, the G-meter registering
seven gravities as the nose hauls around and suddenly she's in lag
pursuit of the Ghost -
The speck in the distance is suddenly a canard-delta planform as the
Ghost breaks into Lilith, closing head-on and flashing over the top of
the canopy; Lilith reverses her turn and lights afterburners, racing
against time and angles to trap the Ghost before he can vanish into
cloud-
"Psycho. We sandwiched him perfectly. I'm on his tail, two thousand
yards back. He's very stealthy, I'm illuminating him in boresight mode
at full power and there's nothing on scope. Usable IR signature. He's
diving for cloud, I'm going to lose him there. Cameras going. Good IRIS
image, crap on LoLite." Lynch's voice is ragged from the Gs he's
pulling.
Lilith, still turning, pulls around enough to see the twin spears of
blue-white flame from Lynch's engines, as he follows his prey in a
climbing scissors: the afterburners flick out as she watches.
"Psycho. Anyone else picks him up, watch out. He's a canard delta and he
bleeds speed like crazy in a scissors, it's very easy to overshoot. Like
I just did. He's broken into cumulus and I lost him. Leopard Lady, stay
high, I'm going low to see if he drops out of the cloud." You hear the
G-suit hissing and Lynch talking around the strain of the turn.
"Control. Any hostile action?"
"Psycho. Negative. I repeat, negative. The Ghost passed up a guns shot
at the Lady, could have taken at least one heatseeker shot at me in the
scissors. He's trying to evade, not fight. So far." Lynch, in a near-
vertical dive, is rapidly disappearing towards the sea below.
Lilith, throttling back, is scanning the night: looking for the telltale
flicker of movement that will reveal the Ghost's location. "Lady.
Suggest Pinkett joins Psycho on the deck. McGee, Luzzi, Talley, sweep
around the cloud. I'll watch top. He breaks, we may get a lock from
IRIS. Arashi, suggestions?"
"Climbing clear. I have an idea that may work." Arashi says calmly. A
few seconds later, Lilith's threat receiver chirps, telling her an
unfamiliar J-band radar is operating, though not scanning her directly.
"Psycho. I'm below the cloud base. No sign of him yet. I'm being lit in
Juliet: is that you, Arashi?"
"Roger that, Psycho. I have you clear. Steer two two five, buster.
Pinkett, steer two seven five." Arashi's voice is calmness itself.
"Control. What the hell are you doing, Arashi?" Luttwidge's tone is
curious, rather than hostile, for a change.
"Arashi. Psycho says the Ghost is completely invisible in J-band, so I'm
tracking him with frequency-agile pulse-doppler lookdown. And I see the
sonofabitch."
"Damn!" Lynch's voice, admiringly.
"Say again, Arashi?" Luttwidge sounds fascinated.
"I wanted a look down, to pick him up as a hole in the sea return, but I
got nothing. Then I thought he might use active stealth like the
Valkyrie, bouncing what I wanted to see back at me and filling the hole.
So now I have MAX interfaced with my antenna, scrambling my frequencies
fast enough to give his stealth processor fits. Besides Lynch and
Pinkett, I'm tracking a patch of nothing moving at four hundred knots.
It's a hole in the sea return, and it's our Ghost." Arashi's voice is
almost triumphant. "Lynch, he's ten miles ahead of you. Pinkett, you're
fifteen miles out. Since I have you all on targeting radar, let's hope
I don't give the Buzzard an eyeful, too."
Lilith eases her MiG-57 into a maximum-economy orbit, conserving fuel in
case the unexpected happens.
+++++end video]<<<<<
-- 1Lt L R W Lynch <23:34:48/08-28-58>
Strategic Intelligence Gathering Agency
