Collateral Damage d-14

by Jim DeFelice

  He’d rehearsed the weapons procedures several times before taking off, and had of course used them many times during his earlier stint testing the A–10E. But as he closed in and got ready to pickle his weapons, his mind blanked. Fingers hovering over the buttons that controlled the Tactical Awareness Display, he momentarily couldn’t recall how to set it up.

  Just like the A–1 °C. Slew the target by using the control on the throttle.

  The cursor started moving. He edged it into position, “hooking” or zeroing in on the tanklike launcher on the ground.

  Digital Weapons Stores. Move quickly. Let’s go!

  He brought up the screen on the display. Turk felt the sweat pouring down the sides of his neck. His hands were wet and sticky inside his gloves. He thought of taking them off but there was no time. Time in fact was disappearing, galloping away.

  The firing cue was rock solid in the HUD.

  Big breath, he reminded himself. Big, slow, very slow, breath.

  Someone on the ground was firing at him with a machine gun. He could see tracers.

  Far away. Ignore them.

  Both the cue and the launcher seemed to shrink.

  Shoot the bastard.

  The target was dead on in his sights. Turk pressed the trigger, pickling an AGM–65E2/L laser-guided Maverick missile.

  The missile popped off the A–10E’s wing. The infrared seeker on the missile homed in on the laser target designated by the A–10. A little under four seconds later, 136 pounds of shaped explosive burrowed through the body of the middle SA–6, igniting inside the chassis of the launcher. A ball of fire leapt skyward. Turk shuddered involuntarily, banking to his right and starting to look for whatever had been firing at him earlier.

  “There’s another radar unit flashing on to the south,” said Beast. “Straight Flush. Has to be pretty close.”

  The Straight Flush radar was used to control the SA–6s. Turk pulled back on his stick and started to climb in Shooter Three’s direction, covering his back while he hunted for the radar.

  The radar flicked off.

  Beast cursed.

  “Still there somewhere,” said Turk.

  “They have an optical mode. Be careful.”

  The surface-to-air missiles could be launched and guided by camera. In that case the range was some eighteen miles.

  “Gotta be down there behind that hill,” said Beast. “On the right. See it?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Probably just the radar. But watch yourself. We’ll swing in from the south,” added Beast, already starting to bank. He didn’t want to come straight over the hill; if there was a launcher set up in its shadow, it could fire before he saw it.

  Turk closed the gap with his leader as he came around north with him. A cluster of houses appeared off his right wing as he turned.

  A lump grew in his throat.

  “Oh yeah. I see him,” said Beast. “All mine.”

  By the time Turk spotted the launcher, Beast had already fired. Turk watched the missile hit, a geyser of smoke, vapor, and pulverized metal erupting upward. A half second later there was a flash of white and then orange, then little flicks of red in a black cloud that seemed to materialize above the launcher.

  “Scratch one SA–6 launcher,” said Beast, recovering to the west. “You want to get that radar van?”

  “I see it on my left,” said Turk, finally spotting the telltale antennas.

  “All yours.”

  Turk steered gently to his mark, fired on the truck, then came back to join Beast. The A–10E trucked along contentedly.

  “Let’s do a racetrack here,” said Beast, suggesting that they circle in an orbit above the desert. “Come up to twelve thousand.”

  They were at 5,000 feet. The climb to twelve in a laden A–10A could take a while, but with the uprated engines it was easy for the A–10E. Turk spun upward while Beast called in the kills to both the controller and Ginella, who was still working with her wingman on the tanks.

  Ginella and Paulson had discovered another group of tanks just to the south. She told Beast to stand by while they went and checked them out.

  “We can be down there in a flash,” said Beast.

  “Just hold your horses. You’ve done enough for now.”

  “Got plenty of arrows left.”

  “Stand by.”

  “Roger that, boss lady.”

  Beast was now in an almost jaunty mood, his tone much more animated. The strike on the radar and missiles had been his first ever hits in combat. He called out the altitude markers as they rose, clearly enjoying himself.

  “So did this feel as good as taking down those Mirages the other day?” he asked as they circled.

  “It was OK.”

  “Just OK? I’d think better than this even.”

  “This was good. Doing a job. I’m a little unfamiliar with the plane,” admitted Turk. “I kept thinking I was going to screw up the weapons system. So it was good to kind of get past that.”

  “Just about foolproof,” said Beast. “But I bet it’s easier in your Tiger, huh?”

  “The Tigershark can target by voice,” said Turk. “Or by pointing.”

  “See, that’s not flying.” Beast was almost gleeful. “That’s push button. Don’t even need a pilot. This is flying. This is fighting. Right?”

  “They’re both good.”

  Traffic on the channel spiked as another group of aircraft came nearby. Beast switched over to a different radio channel so they could talk plane-to-plane. The Hog pilots spun out a little wider to survey the area, making sure there were no further threats. Everything looked clean.

  “I’ll bet those Frenchies we met yesterday are eating their hearts out about now,” said Beast. “We just made the skies safe for them.”

  “So I guess we’re out of the doghouse, huh?”

  “Oh, that’s the thing with G. Her bark is worse than her bite. You take care of business, she’ll give you a long leash.”

  “She was right. We kinda got carried away.”

  “Ah, don’t let her fool you. I bet she was pleased as hell. Hearing that a pair of zipped-do-my-dah fancy French whiz jets got their fannies smacked by two of the ugliest planes in the Air Force? She loved it. Especially since one of ’em was flown by a nugget and the other by a retard? Ha.”

  “I guess I should be glad I’m not the retard, huh?”

  “Oh, you’ll like G eventually,” said Beast, laughing. “She’s a good leader.”

  A few minutes later Ginella hailed them on the main squadron frequency, telling them to come north.

  “All tanks splashed,” she added.

  “We still got some missiles here,” said Beast. “What do you want us to do with them?”

  “Oh, I have something you could do with them,” answered Paulson.

  “Settle down, munchkins.” Ginella called into their airborne controller, telling him that they had accomplished their task.

  “If you have nothing for us, we’re going to fly the prebriefed course home,” she told him. “And per our brief, we’ll strike any—”

  “Standby Shooter One. Standby,” interrupted the controller.

  “That’s a good sign,” said Beast. “He’s looking up some trouble for us in a hurry.”

  The controller came back a few seconds later, asking what their fuel and weapons situation was. Ginella had already given him that information, but she replied evenly; they had six missiles between them and a full store of gun ammo. The fuel was fine, with more than twenty minutes left before they would have to head home.

  “Rebels are reporting a mortar crew working out of a pair of Hi Liners on Highway designated A3 on your maps,” said the controller. “Can you check that out?”

  “Roger that.”

  “Stand by for download.”

  Before the Hogs had been upgraded, the controller would have delivered what was known as a nine-line brief — the mission set in a nutshell, beginning with an IP or initial point for
them to navigate to, elevation of the target, its description, and other related matter. Now the nine-line brief came to the plane digitally; the target was ID’ed on the Tactical Awareness Display. The moving map on the TAD gave a top view of the tactical situation, showing Turk’s location in the center. An A–1 °C would have gotten this as well, but in the A–10E it came directly to Turk’s helmet.

  It wasn’t the Tigershark, but it was a lot better than writing the instructions down on the Perspex canopy — the method used in the original A–10A.

  The target area was roughly 150 miles due north. Cruising a few knots north of 300, it took roughly twenty-five minutes to get close. But because it was almost on their way home, they would have plenty of time to complete the mission without getting close to their fuel reserves.

  Coming north took them past the town where the Sabre accident had occurred. It was some miles to the west, well out of sight, but Turk couldn’t help glancing in that direction as they drew parallel.

  The images from the news video came back. All of the action today — getting up, getting ready, flying, fighting — had made him temporarily forget the images. He tried not to think about them now but it was impossible. They were horrific, all the more so because they were unintentional accidents.

  Killing an enemy wasn’t a problem. Killing someone who was just there, in their own house…

  “Shooter One to Three. Beast, can you see those trucks out ahead?”

  “Yeah, copy. I’m eyes on.”

  “They have guns?”

  “Stand by.”

  The trucks were on a side road almost directly ahead of Shooter Three. Turk watched as he tucked on his wing to lose altitude.

  Damn, I’m his wingman, he thought to himself belatedly. He pushed down to follow.

  The trucks were Toyotas, ubiquitous throughout the Middle East. They had four-door crew cabs. Whatever was in their beds was covered by tarps.

  “Stay behind me,” Beast told Turk. “I’m going to buzz them.”

  “I’m with you.”

  Beast took Shooter Three down to treetop level — or what would have been treetop level if there were any trees. The attack jet winged right next to them, flew out ahead, then rose suddenly. Turk, flying above as well as behind, tensed as he watched the trucks for a flash.

  Nothing happened.

  “Got something in the back, that’s for sure,” said Beast. “But I’d need X-ray eyes to tell you what’s going on.”

  “All right. Let me talk to Penthouse,” said Ginella, referring to the air controller by his call sign.

  “We should just splash them on general principles,” said Beast.

  “Don’t even kid around on an open circuit,” snapped Paulson.

  “Oh, Lordy, I got a hall monitor along with us today.”

  Paulson couldn’t think of something witty enough to respond before Ginella told them she was going to take a run at the trucks to see if she could spot anything out of place.

  “Otherwise they’re clean and we have to let them go,” she told them.

  “I don’t think so, Colonel,” objected Beast.

  “What you think does not count, Captain. Pauly, you’re on my six.”

  “The place everyone wants to be,” said Paulson.

  Beast and Turk climbed and circled above while the squadron leader took another two passes at the trucks. The vehicles were moving slowly, but it couldn’t be said suspiciously. They didn’t react to either pass, not even shaking their fists.

  As Turk turned in his orbit north, he saw a dust cloud in the distance.

  “I’m going to get a better look,” he told Beast.

  “Go ahead, little brother. I’m right behind you.”

  Turk nudged the nose of the hog earthward. The more he flew the plane, the more he liked it. It was definitely more physical than the Tigershark. While the hydraulic controls had been augmented with electric motors to aid the radio-controlled mode, the plane still had an old school feel. He knew what older pilots meant when they talked about stick and rudder aircraft and working a plane. You got close to the Hog when you used your body. She was like another being, rather than a computer terminal.

  The cloud of smoke separated into three distinct furls. They were made of dust, coming from the rear of a trio of pickups, speeding across the desert.

  Now that seemed suspicious. Turk reported it.

  “Weapons on them?” Ginella asked.

  “Don’t see anything.”

  Turk felt himself starting to sweat again as he got closer. He pushed the plane down closer to the ground, through 500 feet, then hesitated, looked at the altimeter clock to make sure he was right. The dial agreed with the HUD.

  His airspeed had been bleeding off, and now he was dropping through 150 knots — very slow with weapons on the wings. But the Hog didn’t object. She went exactly where he pointed her, nice and steady.

  Turk came over the trucks at barely 200 feet. Sensing that he was pushing his luck, he gunned his engines, rising away.

  “Nothing in the back, not even tarps,” he told Ginella and the others.

  His thumb had just left the mike button when a launch warning blared — someone had just fired a missile at him.

  RUMORS OF REMORSE

  1

  Over Libya

  Turk’s first reaction was: Are you kidding me?

  He said it out loud, nearly insulted by the audacity of the enemy to fire at him.

  Then learned instinct took over. He hit the flare release, pounded the throttle, and yanked the stick hard, all at the same time.

  The decoys and sharp turn made it difficult for the missile to stay on his tail. At such low altitude, however, the harsh maneuver presented problems for him as well. In an instant his plane’s nose veered toward the dirt and threatened to augur in. He pulled back again, his whole body throwing itself into the controls — not just his arms, not just his legs, but everything, straining against the restraints.

  “Up, up, up,” he urged.

  The Hog stuttered in the air, momentarily confused by the different tugs. Finally the nose jerked up and he cleared the ground by perhaps a dozen feet.

  “I have a launch warning,” he told the others belatedly. “Missile in the air. I’ve evaded.”

  “We’re on it,” said Ginella. “Come south.”

  “The trucks—”

  “Didn’t come from the trucks,” said Beast. “Came from that hamlet south. It was a shoulder-launched SAM.”

  Turk swung his head around, first trying to locate his wingman — he was off his left wing, up a few thousand feet — and then the hamlet he’d mentioned.

  “Shit,” he muttered to himself. He’d been ready to splash the trucks, blaming them for the missile.

  He angled the Hog to get into position behind Beast. Ginella, meanwhile, called in the situation to the controller. The missile was shoulder-launched, surface-to-air, sometimes called a MANPAD, or man-portable air-defense system. While the exact type wasn’t clear, more than likely it was an SA–7 or SA–14, Russian-made weapons that had been bought in bulk by the Gaddafi government.

  The hamlet where the missile had been fired was the same one that had reported being attacked by mortars — a fact Ginella pointed out rather sharply when she got the controller back on the line.

  “Is this a rebel village or a government village, Penthouse?” she demanded. “Are we being set up?”

  “Stand by, Shooter.”

  “Screw standing by,” said Beast. “I say we hose the bastards.”

  “Calm down, Beast.” Ginella’s voice was stern but in control. “Are you there, Penthouse?”

  “Go ahead, Shooter One.”

  “We’re going to overfly this village and find out what the hell is going on down there,” she told the controller.

  “Uh, negative, Shooter. Negative. Hold back. We’re moving one of the, uh, Predator assets into the area to get a look.”

  “How long is that going to take?”
<
br />   “Listen, Colonel, I can understand—”

  “By the time you get a UAV down here, we’ll be bingo fuel and the bastards will be gone,” she told him. Bingo fuel was the point at which they had just enough fuel to get home. “I’m not sure they’re not gone now.”

  It took nearly a half minute for the controller to respond. “Yeah, you’re OK. Go ahead and take a look.”

  By that time Ginella had already swung toward the town. The Hogs spread out in a pair of twos, each element separated by roughly a mile.

  Flying as tail-gun Charlie, Turk kept watch for sparkles — muzzle flashes — but saw nothing. A white car moved on the main street, but otherwise the place seemed deserted.

  “What do you think about that car?” Beast asked as they cleared the settlement.

  “Didn’t look like much,” said Turk. “All buttoned up.”

  The Hogs circled south, building altitude. The car left the village and headed for the highway. Beast suggested they buzz it, but Ginella vetoed the idea.

  “Waste of time,” she said.

  “Probably has the bastards who shot at us,” said Beast.

  “Unless they’re stupid enough to take another shot,” said Ginella, “we’ll never know. And we’re almost at bingo,” she added. “Time to go home.”

  2

  Desert near Birak Airport

  Three years before, members of the coalition of rebels had chased Muammar Gaddafi progressively south. Now history was repeating itself, with the new government being pushed farther and farther from the coast. There were certainly differences this time around — different factions of the government had broken away from the main leaders and established strongholds in neighboring Algeria and Niger — but the parallels were upmost in Kharon’s mind as Fezzan drove him south from Tripoli. It seemed some places were stuck in a cycle of doom, and would just continue spiraling toward hell until finally there was nothing more to be consumed.

  Most of the journey south was boring, a long stretch of empty highway flanked by even more desolate sand and waste. Two checkpoints made it worth the money he paid Fezzan, however — clearing the barrier ten miles south of Tripoli, manned by rebels, and stopping at the gates to Birak to the south.