In any case, it beat bombing an already bombed-out city like Manchester.
Hunter keyed in on the bombing group’s interplane frequency and heard a symphony of crisp orders and responses. The group was tightening up, proper prebomb etiquette. The gun crews were testing their weapons, again, another routine item on the checklist. Various things involved in bomb-dropping itself—bay doors, fusing systems, gyros, and of course bombsights—were being checked in a very methodical, professional way.
There was a whole new feeling running through Hunter right now. These guys of the 13th had pride, man. They were ready to do the job, come what may. And he was sure they had to be astute enough to know that it would probably get rough over the target, especially with exactly one fighter plane riding cover.
Hunter knew he had to do everything in his power to help protect them.
Everything…
It happened about two minutes later.
Hunter was checking his own fuel load, at the same time watching a fuzzy yet discernible picture of the Isle of Man on his homing TV. As he understood it, the earliest warning they could get of fighter opposition would be from the “Homer.” The camera would pick up a large number of rising indications, run a crude memory check on them, radio this data back to the Circle and if the Main/AC computer back there caught on, it would positively ID them as unfriendlies. All this took a while, needed 100-percent electronic and atmospheric cooperation and the Main/AC couldn’t be too busy when the call from the group came in. The problem was every Main/AC everywhere was always too busy because everyone seemed to rely on them, or were tied to them slavishly.
This is what had happened the mission before—and why the Natter attack had been such a surprise.
And this is what happened today.
But in the end it didn’t matter—Hunter detected the swarm of enemy aircraft even before some of them left the ground.
It all started when his body began shaking.
It was so intense at first, he thought something was wrong with the Mustang-5. His eyes flash-scanned the control panel and saw no red or blinking lights. He pushed the systems diagnostic button and everything appeared green. Only then did he realize he was shaking and not the airplane.
The feeling was not a new one, just a forgotten one.
The tingling at the end of the fingertips. The buzzing at the base of the skull. Eyes suddenly looking in all directions at once. It was an intensity rivaling that of his first time airborne in the Pogo—but definitely with a very different vibe.
Trouble is coming, a voice was saying crisp and clear in his head, even more so than the voices of the 13th Bombardment pilots. Do something about it…
The next thing he knew, Hunter was diving.
He’d slammed the nose of the Mustang-5 down to the floor and now he could see the northern coast of the Isle of Man coming up at him very, very fast.
And up ahead, about 45 degrees in his field of vision, he saw them.
At first he would have sworn they were a flock of birds, and in a way, they were. They were just heads and wings really, white, almost reflective. They were not trailing any smoke, any exhaust or flames at all. They looked, for want of a better word, graceful. And they weren’t the particularly ungraceful Natters.
What were they then?
Hunter increased power even as he was passing through Mach 1 in a dive. These things were swooping up towards the bombers and he was moving so fast and had dove on them so unexpectedly, they hadn’t seen him yet.
He keyed his homing TV and got a split-second bead on one of them close-up. The German Iron Cross was painted on its wings. And there were serial numbers on its very short tail. And he could see a bubble-type canopy at the very front of the snout. And underneath each one, he saw a load of antiaircraft rockets.
And suddenly the name just popped into his head. These things were Horton flying wings.
Hunter’s breath caught in his throat—not so much upon the realization that a swarm of weird deadly interceptors was rising up to attack the bomber group, as that something his psyche had warned him so early that they were coming.
How could that have happened? It was the same feeling which had caused him to look down at the two U-boats that day, and he supposed, that got him through the knife fight with the Natters the day before. But never had he had the feeling this intense—not in this place anyway.
But the feeling was more than just an early warning system—this vibe had given him an outstanding advantage that every pilot wanted more than anything else if he was about to get into a dogfight.
He’d seen the enemy—and they hadn’t seen him.
The Horton flying wings were designated Ho-IXX. They were built of tubular aluminum, and their wings were sturdy plywood. This gave them a swiftness never before seen in a German interceptor, another example of the great leap forward in the Reich lately.
They were powered by two massive BMW-Juno 5000 engines, double reheat monsters that made up nearly 60 percent of the strange aircraft’s weight. These made the planes extremely powerful and maneuverable.
But to cut down the weight even further, the aircraft’s small cabin wasn’t pressurized. Instead the pilot wore a pressurized suit and a helmet that really was out of a sci-fi movie. Again the extra lightness gave the little wing a measure of grace.
But there was a problem. The German flying wings were interceptors—platforms from which missiles could be fired into a bomber stream with great accuracy. But there was a difference between interceptors and fighters. Fighters could do what interceptors could do—shoot at bombers. But the fighters could also dogfight, due to their weapons. Usually interceptors could not.
And this day, in this world, the Horton wings were purely interceptors.
And the Mustang-5 was a fighter.
Hunter kept on diving, way down, right to the deck. He streaked across the beach on the northern tip of the island, turned the big plane over and then started climbing again.
Now he had three advantages. He was behind the enemy, they didn’t see him and his plane was a better fighter than theirs.
It was odd because the Hortens were flying in a long chevron formation, almost mimicking the shape of their wings themselves. Hunter could see their strategy as clear as day. They would rise up into the bomber stream—knowing the bombers would have to be going very slow while going into their bombing runs—and start flooding it with their antiaircraft rockets.
It was also obvious the Germans had brought the wings in to specifically defend the power plant on the Isle of Man.
Hunter could just barely see the bomber stream coming into view now. He was so low, and the sun was so bright, that spotting them was a little difficult. He increased throttle and began to climb. The 12 wings were laid out for him in perfect fashion.
He climbed more, sneaking up on them—3000 feet, 4000, 4500…
Still they were completely unaware of him. The bombers he figured must be at 22-Angels by now, their bombing altitude. Clouds had moved in. They were hiding the bomb group! Excellent!
Hunter opened up at exactly 5000 feet. His four guns screamed streaks across the sky. For whatever reason the plane was overloaded with tracer bullets—and he found it a great, if familiar aid. His first barrage tore into the first pair of wings.
And that’s where Hunter found his fourth advantage: like the Natters, the Horten wings were loaded with a very volatile rocket fuel known as S/W-Stoff. Hunter knew it was highly flammable because all it took was a few hits and the first wing just disintegrated, even quicker than a Natter.
He tore into the second one, then a third one. They too blew up immediately. He turned and knocked off a fourth wing. It too went up like a matchstick. But this is the last one he would take by surprise. By now the rest of the Horton group saw him and began evasive action.
With the precision of an aerobatics team, they broke into a starburst. Each one turning over in an opposite direction from the others.
This did not
slow down Hunter though. He simply picked the two wings closest to him and dove on them. He hit one just as it was at the bottom of its loop. There was no explosion this time—Hunter drilled a barrage right into the cockpit and killed the pilot outright
He continued on through his own loop and wound up on the number two man’s tail. One quick barrage from his four guns tore off the plane’s tiny tail. It was enough to make him lose control. The pilot knew he was cooked and pulled his ejector seat. It worked—but it horribly cut his neck on the way out.
Hunter could see the blood spraying in all directions as the chute opened and the hapless pilot began to descend.
Now he had six left. They were scattered all over the sky—and all thoughts of going after the bombers were gone.
But suddenly and very unexpectedly Hunter began vibrating again. What was this? He turned and saw another swarm of aircraft coming up right at him. These weren’t graceful or elegant or anything even close to it. These airplanes were down and dirty motherfuckers—they looked it and they sounded it.
But again, what were they exactly?
They were very strange looking. Big, swept back wings, two- or three-man canopy. Wide bodies. Jet engines. This was a German hybrid: an Me-110 fighter-bomber and a Me-262 jet. Again, to Hunter, it looked like those two airplane designs had been melted down into one. Appropriately enough they were known as Me-666s.
They were coming on very fast and two were gluing themselves on Hunter’s tail.
Damn—he’d fallen for something here. These fighters were protecting the interceptors, an odd but effective tactic.
And he’d made a huge mistake. He should have suspected the Isle of Man would be defended in depth. But it was too late to worry about that now.
In the next second, rockets were whooshing by him. And bullet streams. Not only did he have one of the beasts on his tail, but a wing had come around and got on his six o’clock as well.
Now what? As suddenly as the thought hit his brain, he began spinning. Around and around, the Mustang-5 was screeching back in protest but kept turning. For a moment, Hunter felt like he was back in the Pogo. Turning, twisting, and avoiding anything fired at him.
To the brutal turn he added a back-breaking climb. The bolts were coming apart as he pulled at least 8gs, way too much even for the rugged Mustang-5 to take. He kept spinning and climbing and like lions after the swift feet they tried to catch, the Me-666s gave up on him.
Hunter pulled back around, drenched in sweat, and somehow managed to throw a stream of slugs into the wing that had been pursuing him. It exploded.
But then he saw the Me-666s were rocketing past him and up to where the bombers should be.
Hunter felt a shiver go through him. Combined, the Horton wings and Me-666s would slaughter the 13th.
He couldn’t let it happen.
He pushed the throttle ahead, did an inverted loop—and began climbing…
If anyone had been there to see it, the next two minutes were a display of aeronautical ability like none ever seen in this place—this strange, but not-so-strange alternate universe.
Hunter quickly caught up with the remaining Me-666s, and splashed one with a 10-shot tracer barrage.
Then he turned up and under two more of the swift, mean-looking aircraft—they had rear guns, radar-controlled no doubt, and they started firing at Hunter, but neither scored hits. The Mustang-5 simply seemed to move out of the way at the split-second before any enemy shells could hit it.
It was a strange thing, almost eerie to see. The American jet jinking, jagging, ducking, spinning, going every which way except in the path of the enemy bullets.
All the while the Mustang’s guns were firing and shredding the tails off of a pair of still-ascending Me-666s. The two planes each lost a half a tail section. Both had no choice but to fall away.
Next the Mustang did a 180-degree loop that seemed impossibly tight, and impossibly g-straining. The big jet somehow turned inside the small swifter flying wings, nailing one with a long steady burst, then just catching the other with a quick short one. Either way, the result was the same. The wings were packed with fuel—rubbing two rocks together would have blown one of them up. Tracers were catastrophic.
The Mustang then rolled once again and kept climbing—up toward the clouds, again where the 13th Heavy Bombardment Squadron should be.
There were three Me-666s left, and two wings. The American airplane once again pulled hard gs, got on the tail of a Me-666, squeezed off what looked to be as few as 10 bullets from each gun—perfectly placed to rip the starboard wing off. The pilots bailed out even before the huge perforation in their fuselage caught fire.
The Mustang-5 pulled 8 gs backward now—winding up in a head-on with a flying wing. Two short bursts—the German pilot was dead. The wing beside him tried to break away. A dive and another close-in shot by the Mustang-5. After that, it was elemental. Sparks hit S/W-Stoff. Wing explodes.
Now there was just a pair of Me-666s left but even two could cause havoc in among the steely-eyed bombers of the 13th Heavy.
Hunter pulled incredible gs screeching out of his dive, somehow looped right up again, and a burst of his tracers which seemed to have the right amount of English on them. They went right through the pilot’s compartment, killing both.
That left only one.
Again, if there had been any witnesses to this most astonishing air combat—any who lived, that is—what they saw next would defy adequate description.
It was again an exercise in rather superhuman flying and optical illusions. For at one second it seemed as if the lone Me-666 was pulling away from the Mustang-5—just as a matter of the angle and being in the right place at the right time, it was far away from the rampaging American jet.
It might also have seemed not impossible that this lone German fighter could still plant an antiaircraft rocket barrage into the 13th Heavy Bombardment squadron and do catastrophic damage. Or the German plane could have easily just turned away and retired at its leisure. After losing every one of its colleagues, no air commandant would fault the last plane from leaving the field of battle, if just to tell the tale.
But whichever way the German pilots had decided to play it, they would never get to act, because in the blink of an eye, the Mustang-5 seemed to disappear from one space in the sky and reappear in another, this one looking right down the throat of the German attack plane.
Any witness might have argued whether there was a long burst from the Mustang, or a short burst, or even no burst of fire at all. Because it seemed as if the German airplane, in trying to get out of the way of the suddenly diving fighter, simply seemed to come apart in a flash of fire and smoke.
Not quite an explosion, not quite a disintegration either. The plane’s atoms just chose that moment to disassemble catastrophically, taking the atoms of both crew members with it.
And after that, the sky was suddenly empty again. Very empty.
Inside the cockpit of the Mustang-5, Hunter was not cold any longer.
He was sweating bullets. The canopy was fogged up from his exhalations, many of the dials and switches frozen in place from the continuous onslaught of g-forces.
He was sucking on his oxygen mask like he’d just run the marathon. But there was a grim satisfaction to his heavy breathing too. He’d done similar amazing flying things in another life—this he was sure of now. But that was really secondary to him at the moment.
What was foremost was he’d broken his neck, almost literally, and risked his life more than a dozen times inside of four and a half minutes to protect the 13th Heavy Bombardment Group from harm and allow them to perform their mission.
Too bad they weren’t around to appreciate the effort.
That was the hard, cold fact Hunter slowly came to as he searched the sky for the 132 gigantic bombers.
It was a useless endeavor for the first few moments. It seemed as if the squadron of bombers had vanished into thin air while he was battling in the cosmic dogfight.
Only by flying higher, up to 35-angels did Hunter finally spot them. Not going in over the target, as their mission called for. Nor had they all been shot down by yet another phantom squadron of German fighters.
No, the 13th Heavy Bombardment Squadron was now heading northwest, back out over the North Channel, making for the open spaces of the ocean and a return trip home.
That’s when it hit Hunter like a hammer on the head. For while he was breaking ass and elbow and risking life and limb to protect them, the 13th Heavy Bombardment Squadron, at first sight of the enemy interceptors, had turned tail and run away.
Three hours later, Hunter was slumped in a chair in the 2001st’s briefing room.
Payne was standing at the podium, the usual tortured look on his face. Behind him, the Main/AC was whirring softly.
“These are very serious accusations,” he was saying to Hunter.
“They are not accusations,” Hunter was firing back. “They are the facts. The truth. No room for interpretation. No need for it either.”
“You are claiming that an entire bomb group left the field of battle for no reason at all,” Payne said, trying to spin Hunter’s story a little.
But Hunter wasn’t buying it. He was cold, he was hungry, he was tired and he was very pissed. But he was not a fool.
“No—they had a reason,” he retorted. “They were cowards, they ran away.”
He slipped further down into his seat. He was beyond exhaustion now.
Payne was shaking his head—but not quite in disbelief. More in futility. Plus, he was hiding something. Hunter could feel it.
“And I’ll bet it isn’t the first time they’ve done it either,” Hunter continued wearily. “They looked to be in pretty tight formation as they were flying away from me.”
Payne tried again. “But you still have to admit that no one was on hand to verify your story,” he told Hunter.
That’s when Hunter lost it. Payne was either the war’s biggest pussy, or he was hiding something very big. Hunter flew out of his chair and made three threatening steps toward the officer.
Sky Ghost Page 13
