Jihad
5.3 America
5.3 America
by Red MacDonald
Copyright © 2013 Red MacDonald
All Rights Reserved.

The Faithful, North African and Middle Eastern Islamic nations, are plotting to seize the oil resources of the Middle East. By controlling the earth's oil and its major trade routes, they plan to bring the world to its knees. Then, when the entire world is kneeling, the Faithful of Allah will read to them from the Koran, preaching the message of Islam, the True Faith. The Faithful will stop at nothing to achieve their goal. But how far will they go? And how many lives will it cost?

5. Straits of Sicily

5.3 America:

* * * * *

5.3.1 Romulus

The command, "Execute battle plan alpha. Execute! Weapons Free!" echoed in every earpiece throughout the fleet. Commander Peter Stoikovitz, the Air Controller of Leprechaun 4, knew exactly what he had to do. "Leprechaun 4 to Romulus. Execute plan alpha. Target Topaz One. Read my box. Acknowledge."

Lt. Sam "Brownie" Brown, Romulus' pilot, looked to the man on his right, his aircraft commander, Lt. Commander Tobias "Toby" Turnbridge, and waited for his signal. Toby was concentrating on his scopes and busily integrating the data feed from Leprechaun 4 with his own. Without looking up from his scopes, Turnbridge extended his left hand in a thumbs-up. Brownie pushed Romulus into a gentle left turn and settled on a westerly course, avoiding the fighters of Sierra One.

They could have jammed the fighters and fighter bombers if they had wanted, but the ships of Topaz One were their targets. Jamming aircraft was child's play for an EA-29 Regulator like Romulus. Because of their inherent space limitations, fighters and fighter bombers could not have highly sophisticated systems. Even the best fighters with a mini-aegis system were susceptible to 'white noise.'

But, jamming fighters was dangerous. Fighter pilots knew when they were being jammed, because their radar screens turned into 'snow storms'. It was SOP for at least one fighter in a "package" to have missiles targeted to home in on a jamming signal. Furthermore, every pilot had a built-in set of Mark One Eyeballs that could be used to detect even a stealthy Regulator. Any fighter pilot could shoot down an unarmed Regulator once they had found it.

Ships were much more challenging. They had the size to incorporate many systems plus backups. They also had large crews to handle sophisticated counter-measures to overcome jamming. A typical guided missile ship had a primary pulsed-array detection radar with a redundant, frequency-agile sweeping radar. Each missile battery and anti-aircraft system had its own guidance and tracking systems plus backups. All ships had low-resolution, short range systems for close-in defense. A big guided missile destroyer could have fifteen to twenty radars, all of which would have to be jammed for an attacker to stand a chance against a missile ship's powerful array of weaponry.

That was the Regulator's forte. Its weapon was the AIL ALQ 109 Tactical Jamming System installed in what would have been the bomb bay in a normal Avenger. The internal TJS had sixteen Active/Passive jammers with the ability to tune-in on any radio or radar frequency. Depending upon the mission, the ALQ 109 could emit 'white noise' creating so much static that the enemy's detectors would be overloaded. It could also send false signals that would make the enemy's systems detect too many or too few targets. It could even make targets appear to be in a different place than they actually were. Further, if there were more than sixteen different types of radios, radars and other communications transmitters, the Regulator could be fitted with up to four additional pods under its wings. Each of those pods could handle two additional jamming channels. So, a Regulator had more than enough capacity to blind and maim even the most sophisticated detection, targeting, tracking and guidance systems.

Romulus avoided the fighters of Sierra One by flying westward until they were far behind. Then, the big plane turned southeast, heading directly for the destroyer and frigate rounding Cape Bon. Because of its stealth characteristics, the Regulator could approach within twenty miles before the enemy ships could see it on their radars. That gave the EA-29's crew plenty of time to analyze the ship's radars and devise the best jamming methodologies.

As Brownie flew Romulus directly towards Topaz One, Toby and the two warrant officers seated just aft of them studied each signal emitted by the enemy fleet. They watched each radar and radio emission until they knew each system's characteristics.

Brownie was beginning to get a little nervous. Regardless of how stealthy his Regulator was, if he approached too closely, the plane would be detected. He was about to warn his commander when Toby growled, "Gotcha, you son of a bitch!", and sat back. Brownie breathed a quick sigh of relief and changed course to the northeast away from the enemy's missilery.

As Romulus sped away from Topaz One, Toby called in his strike packages. "Romulus to Skywalker and Banana Marguerita. We've got you covered. We will begin emitting in two minutes. Good luck!"

Romulus turned back towards its enemies, as its crew went to work. Within seconds, the Algerian DD and frigate were deaf, dumb and blind. Romulus had fulfilled the squadron's motto: We maim so that others might kill.

* * * * *
5.3.2 Skywalker & Banana

The call came in, "Romulus to Skywalker and Banana Marguerita. We've got you covered. We will begin emitting in two minutes. Good luck!"

Lt. Peter "Skywalker" Lucas, normally known as Talon 2, acknowledged. He blinked his landing lights twice and looked around at the other three Hornets in his section. Each of them blinked in return. Skywalker pushed his joy stick lightly to his right, easing his throttleator forward. His fighter turned quickly, losing altitude. He looked to the south, saw the French-built fighters high overhead and tried to cross his fingers. Not that he was superstitious or anything, but every little bit helped.

The entire success of his mission depended on Romulus' ability to blind the missile ships. The rest depended on his Hornet's paint job. If the enemy couldn't detect him electronically and couldn't see him visually, his attack just might work.

He glanced over his right shoulder. In the distance, he could see three tiny dots following his Claw Flight. They had to be the Banana Margueritas, carrying the big ordnance. If he didn't do his job, they'd be sitting ducks.

Skywalker glanced up and back. The swarms of French-built fighters hadn't seen his flight and were quickly disappearing behind him. He hoped that if they couldn't see his Hornets, then they'd also miss the Avengers. If not, he'd have to turn and fight them off. But that would be an uneven contest. His four fully loaded Super Hornets would not be a match for thirty or more air-to-air armed fighters. He glanced back again. They were gone. They were Bunker Hill's problem.

He radioed to his flight, "Skywalker to Claws. Illuminate!" He spoke again, this time to his plane, "Radar, IR, ground search." Instantly, his Hornet's computer complied, and his screen seemed to expand downward as his APG-75 "Mini-Aegis" and his Forward Looking Infra-Red reached out scanning the sea below him.

There they were! The DD was out in front, with a FiG trailing slightly to starboard. Behind them, fanning out into a line, were six sleek missile boats. He could see that the smaller craft were building up speed and rapidly overtaking their larger, slower escorts. They were making their missile runs!

"Skywalker to Claw Flight, go for the missile boats! They're moving up to attack. Designating!"

One of the electronic advances inherent in the new Hornets was the ability of a group of fighters to merge its command net. This gave Skywalker the ability to designate targets to each plane in his flight without confusion or question. Ten seconds later, he had assigned six targets to his flight.

Skywalker blinked his lights again. He flexed his wrist and pulled his joystick to his left while pushing it forward. His plane's right wing lifted as the left fell away, revealing the line of missile boats dancing on their hydrofoils. But, a fifty knot ship was no match for his six-hundred knot attack plane.

He spoke to his computer, "Arm Wildcat One and Wildcat Four." The computer highlighted both missiles in red, and the message "Armed" flashing beneath them.

"Target!" The aiming block filled, as the reticle crosshairs centered on the two missile craft furthest away.

"Volley Lock. Claw Flight, Skywalker."

The firing sequencers of each of the four planes were now locked together. When all six missiles were ready, his plane would issue the firing signal. Six Wildcats would fire at the same time, and his four planes would egress to the south.

"Locked" appeared on his screen. He spoke to his computer, "Skywalker, fire!"

Skywalker's panel light blinked once, and then again. Wildcats launched from his extreme left and right pylons, and he could see that each of the other five were paralleling them. He pulled back the nose and applied power, climbing almost instantly to fifteen thousand feet, heading southeast towards the coast. He kicked the plane again into a sharp left bank and aimed Claw Flight back at the enemy fleet. As he looked, and began to feed data into his attack computer for his second attack, the six missile boats bobbing along the sea below exploded virtually simultaneously.

"Split! I'll head for the big ship of the left. Shorty, you two take the one on the right." He muttered again at his computers, "Arm HARM one through four." The computer activated the four missiles attached to his inner pylons. "Now, you bastards, illuminate me!" he cursed.

The High Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles were wonderfully efficient. They homed in on a radar's signal and blew up the transmitter. But, the radar had to be working, pumping out energy, for the HARM's detector to read it and home in on the signal. As long as the two ships remained under EmCon, emitting no signals, the HARMs were worthless.

A white tower of flame lifted off the destroyer's foredeck and turned back towards him. Another. Another!

"Fucking optical back-ups!" he exclaimed. He watched the missiles closely as they neared him. Playing with missiles was a dangerous occupation, but it was the ultimate thrill. It was all in the timing. All he had to do was wait and ... now!

He jammed the throttleator forward to the detent while pulling the stick violently towards him, then forward and left. He leapt upwards. Then he dropped like a rock and twisted into a gut-wrenching left-hand descent. The combination of the wing LERX's molded configuration and the vectored-thrust engines had virtually flipped his plane around its axes. If it hadn't been for the quick gimbaling of his conformational "Lazy Boy", the G's would have been too much for him. With it, he could pull 10 Gs, but it hurt like hell.

After his acrobatic performance, Lucas leveled out and looked around. The missiles that had been chasing him were now far behind and heading nowhere fast. "Love you, baby!" he crooned to his machine. The computer responded with a little red heart on the cockpit display.

"Get out of there, Skywalker. We're coming in." It was the Big Banana. The Avengers were making their runs.

He warned his flight, "Claw One to Claw Flight, go to CAP. Execute!" He eased back his throttleator, and pulled the stick back. As he climbed, he spoke to his plane, "Computer, disarm HARMs. Arm gun. Arm Sidewinders. Radar and FLIR to Air Search." Ten seconds later, his four Hornets rendezvoused at fifteen thousand feet over the two warships.

Far below them, three sea-gray, bat-like shapes skimmed above the water towards the enemy vessels. Air Lance missiles erupted from the Avengers and flashed towards the ships.

A barrage of missiles leapt from the decks of the warships. As long as Romulus jammed them, the ships couldn't use their radars to guide their missiles accurately. So, the ship-launched missiles were guided optically. Their missile's performance would be significantly degraded, but they still had a fifty-fifty chance of hitting something. The rest of the barrage was shoulder-mounted AA types fired by the ship's crew in a "golden BB defense". They were doing the only thing they could. They had volleyed everything they had in the right general direction and hoped they'd get lucky.

Six Air Lance missiles entered the wall of fire. Two emerged. A second volley from the ships reduced that number to one. The frigate disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire.

"Banana to Claw, we're coming around again. We'll have to use the bombs."

Skywalker knew what that meant. The Avengers would have to fly dangerously close to the remaining ship. Just the slightest error would mean the loss of a plane and crew, and he couldn't help them. All he could do was watch and hope.

The three tiny forms approached the destroyer. More missiles rose towards them. The Avengers twisted and turned in the air. Two of them penetrated the wall of death, but the third was blotted out of the sky in a soundless puff of smoke. The two survivors pressed the attack and suddenly veered off.

The ship turned to starboard in an effort to avoid the bombs, but it didn't turn fast enough. A huge, black cloud engulfed the vessel. A gush of flame and smoke erupted from the gaping hole. For just a split second, the hull bulged. The ship's superstructure lifted up from its decks, before it collapsed back onto itself. Within seconds, the destroyer split into large flaming pieces, spinning around like children's toys in a bathtub.

"Banana Leader to Leprechaun 4. Topaz One sunk. One aircraft lost. Returning to Halsey."

Lucas knew one of his friends had just died. Regardless, he was still in a fight for his life and that of over ten thousand others down there on the sea. "Fight now, grieve later," he chided himself. It was an old Navy tradition.

* * * * *
5.3.3 Bunker Hill

Captain Grigory Yuhovitch sat in Bunker Hill's CIC just behind Commander Eugene Halbertson, the fleet's Missile Boss. It was up to them to handle the air threat, while the Hornets and Avengers knocked back the enemy surface action fleets.

The four massive SPY 1D "Aegis" system panels were just a small part of what made Bunker Hill important. The really important and essential part was the computer - the "guts" of which were contained in a small, three-foot cube. Inside it were one-thousand Intel 801086s. Each of these "Decade 2000" processors was capable of 500 GigaFlops. Together in their 10x10x10 cube they had unbelievable computing power.

Yet, even that wasn't the real secret of the ship. It had taken ten years and a consortium of the finest minds from Microsoft, Intel, IBM, Texas Instruments and several other companies to develop the computer's multi-threaded, parallel-processing operating system. When it was all put together, the Bunker Hill could identify over one-thousand air and sea targets, classify them in order of threat, target them, assign appropriate missilery, and destroy them. It was an incredible piece of engineering.

The Threat/Attack Coordination, Control and Targeting System quickly assimilated the real-time data from all the Eyes, Ears and sensors of the fleet. The four air raids were quickly broken down and analyzed.

Sierra One was easy pickings: sixteen Rafale's, fourteen Mirage 2000s, and sixteen Tornado GR2s. The computer easily assessed that the GR2s were the "bad guys" and accorded them the highest priority on that threat axis.

Sierra Two was much more interesting, if only because of the mix of aircraft. Once again it was a three-tiered formation. Up top, at thirty-five thousand feet were twenty-four MiG-29s. From their flight characteristics, it was obvious to the computer that they were flying CAP. Below them were eighteen Su-22s. Although fully capable of supersonic speeds, they were flying slowly, at only 600 mph. Further, they were "bulky", as they would appear if carrying ordnance. Down low there were twelve ancient MiG-21s. At one time, they'd been a top of the line fighter. Now, they were mostly used as target drones, except here in North Africa, where they were still in service. And, they were "funny". Whatever they were carrying, it was BIG! The computer was suspicious. So, it targeted the MiG-21s as a higher priority than the more capable Sukhois.

Sierra Three and Four were confusing even with the masses of sensors and the enormous computing power available. Gene Halbertson remarked, "Whoever these bastards are, they know their business!"

Sierra Three and Four had started out as a single mass of aircraft. Then, they split into two streams, with Sierra Four heading northeast before turning back towards the fleet. That was Sierra Four's mistake. They had opened the distance between themselves and the fleet. The Tomcats could handle them.

"Missile Boss to Air Controller, target Sierra Four. Blinders under MiG-31s. Send in the Tomcats. We'll catch the leakers."

"Air Controller to Missile Boss, acknowledged. Knights to attack Sierra Four."

That still left Halbertson and his computers with the unresolved problem of Sierra Three. The top group of twenty-four had to be MiG-31s. They were very dangerous adversaries for a fighter and a tough one for even an SM-4. The other two groups of eighteen and twenty could be Su-27s, Su-35s or MiG-29s. They were virtually indistinguishable on radar. What was vexing Halbertson was the shadow beyond them. It was low, but keeping pace. Something was up, and the Missile Boss didn't like it. Not one single bit!

The TACCATS computer totaled the threats. To the stern, there were sixteen priority one, fourteen priority two and sixteen threes. Sierra Two had twelve first priorities, eighteen seconds and twenty-four thirds. Sierra Three, in spite of its large numbers, contained only third priorities. The Tomcats would be handling Sierra Four. The computer then totaled the priorities calculating a total of twenty-eight first priorities, thirty-two seconds and one-hundred and two thirds.

Finally, TACCATS compared the number of missiles and their capabilities against the targets. Bunker Hill had one-hundred and eighty-one missiles, of which one hundred and sixty-one were SM-4s. The Garibaldi had ninety-six missiles, of which eighty-five were SM-3s. Both the Carson and the Neill had eighty-two of which seventy were SM-4s. That gave them three hundred and eighty-six missiles against one hundred and eighty targets.

Assuming, and TACCATS did, that eighty percent of the missiles would do their job in spite of the best efforts of a determined enemy, they would only need two hundred and three to down all the enemy aircraft in Sierras One, Two and Three. That would leave the fleet with one hundred and eighty-three AA missiles for the still unresolved problem of Sierra Four and that cloud behind Sierra Three. All these calculations took the computer less than one-tenth of a second to assimilate, resolve and display on the screen for its masters, the humans, to make the final decision. Computers are efficient idiots, while humans, in spite of their faults, are their masters.

Next came the missile assignments. The problem for TACCATS was to distribute the missilery targets assigned to each ship. It did this not only to maintain missile control and targeting, but also so as not to deplete any one ship's armaments to the point it became a target rather than as asset.

For instance, if Bunker Hill were to use all her one hundred-sixty one missiles, she could probably down the entire enemy force. However, thereafter, she would be defenseless. Garibaldi, Neill and the rest of the fleet would have to protect her as well as themselves. Further, Carson was the ASW Screen Command Ship. Since it would be difficult for her to perform both jobs at the same time, she was not included in the initial mix of AA missilery. TACCATS assigned one hundred and three of Bunker Hill's SM-4s, fifty-five of Garibaldi's SM-3s and forty-five of Neill's SM-4s to the battle, leaving each with about a thirty-six percent of the AAMs with which they had started.

When the missiles were completely allocated by the TACCATS, each of the other ship's computers was updated. The preliminary sequences preparatory to launch were initiated, the weapons armed, and the timing sequences of the four Aegis systems updated. The final step was interfacing the SPQ-12B fire control and guidance systems to control the individual weapons without interfering electronically with any other ship's systems.

Without warning, every screen aboard every ship and plane went blank, twitched several times, and returned to life besmirched with snow-like fuzz. They were being jammed!

Halbertson looked at his boss, "Well, now we know who is who." He pointed to the areas of greatest fuzziness covering the images of Sierra Three and Four. "Those are the Libyans...probably some of their Badgers."

As they spoke, the egg-heads, nerds, and computer jocks of the fleet went to work. This electronics war was as serious and as deadly as any other aspect of the battle. This was the hinge upon which the battle would turn.

The techies had an intrinsic advantage in the Aegis radar systems. Unlike older types that emitted and received on only one or at most a few frequencies, the Aegis literally used thousands. Further, each element of array pulsed at its own individual rate.

Jamming an Aegis system was almost impossible, except with "white noise" techniques. Essentially, the jammers were creating so much electronic radiation that they swamped all the detectors in the array with spurious, random and nonsensical garbage. The operators could still "see" large targets, but, instead of a clear, crisp picture, they saw the image through a haze. Small objects, like missiles, were undetectable, since their return signals were hidden in the murk.

Some of the technicians tried to boost their radar's signal. However, that was like turning up the brightness on a television set. The entire picture "bloomed" with even more noise caused by signal broadening. Obviously, that wasn't the answer.

Other technicians turned to basic signal averaging techniques to combat the interference. "Noise" is random. For every "up" there is a "down", for every "left" a "right". By taking many readings and averaging them, the ups and downs canceled each other out as did all the other noise components.

The only problem with the technique was that noise is reduced as the square root of the number of tests. It took four pulses of an element in the array to reduce the noise to one-half its value. It took nine to bring it down to one-third. It took one hundred to bring it down to one-tenth where missiles could be easily detected. All that processing took time.

Time was their enemy and the attacker's friend. In the three seconds it took to reduce the noise to bearable limits, a missile could travel more than a mile. So, the techies turned to the highest level of their technology, the Null-Wave System.

All forms of radiation, including sound, light, radio, radar and microwave, travel in waves. Such a wave crests and troughs at exact and regular intervals. It had been well know for centuries that two waves could interact with one another. If the two waves were "beating" at exactly the same frequency, and the waves and troughs occurred at exactly the same time, the two would reinforce each other. The crests would become larger and the troughs deeper. However, if the waves and troughs of the waves were exactly opposite, they canceled each other out as though neither existed.

The problem had always been that the control required to do this was incredibly difficult, except in laboratories where time was not an issue. For many years, it had been considered impossible to do in the field because of the enormous complexity of the detectors, the computers and the transmitters needed to null a wave. Then came the TACCATS with its enormous power and incredibly fast computational speeds. Suddenly, the technology was available to attempt nulling a wave by sending a second one into it which was exactly "out of phase". This had first been accomplished at MIT some ten years before.

However, a second problem remained. Modern radars used the millimeter-band wavelengths to achieve high resolution. This meant that to defeat a radar by jamming a similar millimeter wave source was used. In turn, this meant that to defeat the jamming a powerful millimeter wave source had to be developed. Not only would this have to be powerful, but widely flexible. It had to be tunable to many frequencies, with a variable power level to meet and cancel the jamming, while not creating further jamming all by itself.

The resulting research led to entirely new MASERs, and a backup array of these incredible devices. Not that they were perfect, nor did they provide complete immunity from jamming. Instead, they were an important tool the techies used to defeat, deflect or deter attacks upon American ships, planes and personnel.

The screens slowly cleared as the "noise" was cut dramatically. The combination of careful tuning and close coupling of the transmitter and receiver did its part. The computer enhancement techniques added even more confidence. Finally, the MASERs added their electronic magic to the mix. When Bunker Hill's Wizards had finished their difficult and demanding job, the noise was only twice the normal background radiation. They could see to target missiles or anything else for a radius of two hundred miles.

* * * * *
5.3.4 Attack on Sierra Four

Captain William "Buck" Henry, better known as CAG, and his Radar Intercept Officer, Lt. Charles "Chunky" Smith, were leading the Knights. Normally, his squadrons would be three hundred miles from the fleet, looking for the enemy. Then, he could use his Phoenix missiles to destroy enemy aircraft that were one hundred miles further out. In this engagement, he faced a situation where the enemy was only one hundred miles away. He was too close to the fleet for his Tomcats to do their job. It wasn't worth lighting his afterburners.

"Air Controller to CAG. New course, One-Zero-Two; Angels Four-Oh. Your targets are thirty-six Blinders, range One-Six-Five. They are escorted by thirty-six MiG-31s. Buster, CAG, and good shooting."

Nine McDonnell F-34D Tomcat II, Air Superiority Fighters flipped on their Hughes AWG-12 "Aegis" Surveillance/Attack radar systems, their FLIRs, and their Northrop Hi-Res Television Cameras and headed east-southeast. On queue, each of the big birds accelerated smoothly through the once dreaded sound barrier and climbed to forty thousand feet at Mach two-point-five.

The enemy formations appeared on the edge of their screens and then disappeared in a spiral of noise. CAG knew from long years of training and experience that this was just a temporary problem. The boys and girls on the ships, and in the Eyes and Ears had also seen it. They would correct this minor technical malfunction in just seconds. But, at fifteen hundred miles per hour, he was covering half a mile a second. It wouldn't take too many seconds to get into big trouble, especially with MiG-31s hanging around. At the same time, he knew that Pollux had been assigned to cover his squadron electronically. There was no doubt in his mind that the Regulator could do a far better job of blinding the MiGs and Blinders than the enemy could do to him.

The only thing left for him to do was to get his offensive systems ready. "Arm Phoenix One through Four. Arm AAMRAM One through Four. Arm Sidewinder One and Two. Arm Gun! Maintain dual control. Air Search Mode all sensors. Maintain verbal and sensory warning." CAG's plane was armed. Its sensors reached out for any scrap of information, and its computer was alive to receive anything from any confirmed source in the fleet. But, with all the jamming, his best sensor package was the built-in, binocular, light enhancing, 3-D, stereoscopic device located in the front of his own skull.

His screens cleared quickly as the geniuses figured out what was going on, and countered it. His sensors worked ... not perfectly, but he had only five percent degradation. He owed that whole crew a drink, or two. If any of them drank, that is. Hmm! He'd have to find out.

There they were, just like Leprechaun One had said...a big bunch of MiG-31s flying top cover. Just below them, obviously heavily loaded, were the Blinders. His targets! Thirty-six Blinders. It was a wonderful coincidence that his nine Knights had exactly thirty-six AIM 56D Phoenix IIs.

He issued the orders, "Knights from CAG. Bomber spread. Phoenix attack at seven-zero miles. Volley fire. Prepare to designate. Designate!"

The computers buzzed though their calculations in microseconds. Each Badger had an AIM 56D assigned to it.

"Volley Fire, Knight Squadron, CAG, code Buck,"

Nine Tomcat's computers interfaced with each other, integrating the information and commands already transmitted to them. Unless they received a canceling order from 'CAG, code Buck', they'd launch at the first opportune moment.

CAG's plane lurched to the left and automatically recovered. His first Phoenix had released. He chuckled a little as he watched the missiles disappear trailing light gray smoke.

Original model Phoenixes had flown before of a towering white cloud. Anybody with two eyes and most with just one could see it easily and duck out of its way. With the -56D, they had no such warning. It pays to be fast and have a big warhead, but sneaky is really important, too.

Five seconds later, Buck's second Phoenix launched from under his left wing. Ten seconds later, after his final two had launched, his fighter was almost three thousand pounds lighter. It began to handle like an airplane again, rather than like a city bus.

"Knight Squadron, break right on command. Follow me. Go, go!"

There was no sense in following the Phoenixes in towards the targets. They were "intelligent birds", needing no more help to find and destroy their targets than had already been given to them. If some of them missed, his T-2s had one more chance. He had exactly enough time to circle, wait for the Phoenixes to do their damage, and then follow up with his AAMRAMs.

Of course, after the second attack, he'd have to run like hell. The MiG-31s would be on him like ducks on a bug. His T-2s would have to run and hide under the protective umbrella of the fleet's missiles. The SM-4s were smart enough not to shoot down their own fighters. But, if MiGs were on their tails, God help them, ‘cause the United States Navy sure wouldn't.