The GAMs kept closing.
In spite of her terror, Joanne retained enough presence of mind to release countermeasures, but they didn't help.
At fifty-six thousand, Johnny knew he wasn't going to get away. He was going to die on his very first combat mission. The missiles were twelve seconds back and still closing. There wasn't even time to eject safely. He felt suddenly angry. And disappointed. What would his mother think when she got the news that he died his first time out? And that bastard Dunn — another Lincoln killed in action. This would make his freaking day.
Then Johnny's instincts took over and he forgot his fear. He killed his rockets, rolled inverted, and fired them again, diving headfirst toward the ground at mach 4, right back into the sights of more Sirian gunners. Joanne let loose a strangled scream, but the G forces prevented her from doing more.
The PulsarFighter dove right out from under two of the missiles before they could track. The third was coming at a flatter angle, and Johnny did a corkscrew as he leveled out. He began to twist and spiral, changing direction constantly at high G. The missile tried to match, but Johnny continued to evade, turning faster than the missile could adjust.
After forty seconds he climbed again, at a forty-degree angle. The two missiles he'd left up high were diving back down, searching for him.
He kept it up for over a minute, until all three missiles were miles behind and finally lost their fix. They eventually fell back into the mountains where they exploded on Sirian territory.
Johnny felt weak. His heart still hammered from the close call, his mouth so dry his tongue seemed stuck to his lips. He had the awful feeling that he could use at least an hour in the head.
Checking his nav holo, he wasn't sure of his position, especially in relation to the rest of the squadron. By now several more pairs of PFs would have hit the target, but where were Onja and Tommy?
* * *
Flying strictly on jets, Tommy Royal had pulled up to twenty-six thousand feet, closely monitoring his cockpit sensors and taking readings from his AI. It quickly became apparent that his problems weren't over; not only had the port rocket engine failed, but his port jet engine had also sustained damage. It was still turning, but the temperature had risen alarmingly. Tommy gritted his teeth and began to sweat. He leveled off at thirty thousand and babied his engines, flying back into the rainstorm to cool the portside jet. As yet he was still unaware of Johnny's problems.
But Onja was aware of them. Her VR holo showed Johnny's sudden desperate climb, and she could see why — three GAMs were after him, and Onja felt her heart stop. If he was triangulated …
She wanted to call out to him, but years of experience told her he had his hands full — he didn't need advice from a spectator. Instead she watched silently, following him electronically, and prayed to every god and goddess she knew of. She saw him elude the first two and then begin his twisting, dodging run to safety from the third.
She didn't see how it ended, for at that moment her own alarms went off. Swinging around to her other holo, she saw a GAM streaking up from the surface after her and Tommy.
"Incoming, Tommy!"
Tommy already knew; his HH showed the rapidly closing missile. He quickly forgot about babying his engine and banked hard left, away from the GAM, jamming maximum throttle to both jets. He managed to make mach 2.2, but that was all. He climbed, but the GAM was still closing. He turned and dove again, turning left, trying to keep the damned thing behind him. If he turned the other way, the missile would cut him off, so he kept bearing left, watching the temperature climb into the red on the port engine.
"This isn't looking too good, Major!" he reported tersely. "You better stand by to eject!"
"I'm not ejecting over Sirian territory," she told him bluntly. "I'll go down with the ship first."
"Better to get captured than to get killed!" he said.
"There's a price on my head, Tommy. You know what they'll do to me."
"I know. But they won't kill you. I don't want you to die, Onja."
"Then outrun that missile!"
He tried. He really tried. As the warhead approached ever closer he lit the starboard rocket, letting it push him to the left. At least it was pushing him away from the GAM.
But it wasn't enough. To outrun one of those things you needed both rockets, and it didn't hurt to have a good head start. Thirty thousand feet wasn't much of a lead.
* * *
"Joanne, can you pick out the Major's fighter?" Johnny asked as he skimmed the tops of the clouds at forty-three thousand. "We need to form up on them."
There was a brief hesitation, then his gunner's voice came back, fraught with tension.
"They're about ninety miles dead ahead, Johnny! God, it looks like they've got one after them, too! They're evading, but it's gonna get them!"
Johnny's heart froze, and he increased thrust on his rockets. Five seconds later he saw them burst out of the clouds thirty miles ahead, a single plume of rocket exhaust gleaming in the sunlight. He frowned; why weren't there two rocket exhausts? He began to climb after them, closing the range to twenty miles.
Johnny saw Tommy climb to sixty thousand, staggering to the left in a steady slow turn, depending on a single rocket engine. He also saw smoke trailing from the port side. The jet engine was billowing black smoke, and then he knew they'd taken some kind of damage on their attack run.
"Look out, Johnny! The missile ... "
He saw it through the cockpit window on the left, a pencil line of white exhaust as it leaped out of the clouds and continued to pursue his flight leader …
… as it continued to pursue Aunt Onja.
Johnny saw the weapon's incredible speed and intuitively realized that Tommy Royal wasn't climbing nearly fast enough. He didn't have a prayer of outrunning that thing. In fifteen seconds, maybe twenty …
Johnny made no conscious decision. Without warning he veered hard left, into the path of the rising GAM. He passed across its trajectory, within five thousand feet, then jammed jets and rockets to maximum thrust, driving everything past the red line, ignoring his AI's squawks of protest. Joanne's gasp over his headset told him she realized what he was doing, but there was no time to worry about her. Right or wrong, he'd done it, and there was no taking it back.
Now he had to fly.
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