Top Gun

by T. E. Cruise

  Andy’s dive drew him to within 1,500 feet of the F-5E. His gunsight was about to lasso Robbie’s bird, a black cross trailing a fiery glow outlined against the lighter, sand-colored desert floor that was now hurtling upward. Andy centered the pipper on the F-5E’s tail pipes and thumbed his radio switch.

  Bye-Bye, Robbie, he thought. “Guns, guns,” he began gaily.

  And then the incredible happened. One moment Robbie’s bird was still diving toward the ground, and the next the black bird’s nose was up and it was slithering away out of Andy’s gunsight the way a wiggling trout will slip from an unwary fisherman’s net. Before Andy quite knew what had happened, his ultrapowerful jet had overshot Robbie’s nimble little bird.

  “Mustang three, no kill. I repeat, no kill on Knight seven,” Andy heard Captain Bartlett announce.

  Who made him referee? Andy thought distractedly. The Stiletto’s altimeter was unwinding fast. Andy struggled to level out, and then began wildly searching behind his three-nine line—the area of sky between three o’clock and nine o’clock behind his wings—for a glimpse of Robbie.

  “Hey, Harrison!” Johnson radioed. “Don’t look now, but Knight seven is on your tail.”

  (Two)

  Major Robbie Greene watched through the F-5E’s canopy as Andrew streaked past in his Stiletto at nine o’clock low, overshooting. Green then skidded his little Scooter around, dropping sideways through the sky in order to save gas as he gave pursuit.

  Andrew’s F-66 was a beautiful-looking bird, Greene thought. The Stiletto was painted ghost gray, with a blue wolf’s head against a white circular background on its vertical tail, and number 34 painted in large black numbers on its nose. Earlier, Greene had been on a routine flight through this sector when he’d spotted the Stiletto flight being led by its bumblebee-striped instructor. Curious, Greene had made one quick pass, which was when he’d identified Andrew’s airplane by its number, and then used his afterburners to come around behind in order to bounce his half brother.

  It had been totally out of line for Greene to have hassled Andrew, of course, but Greene was feeling especially mean toward his half brother for a couple of reasons. There was Gail Saunders, of course. Initially, Greene had been somewhat relieved when he’d heard that Gail had been seeing another guy because it got him off the hook with her, but Greene’s attitude about that had done a nosedive when he’d found out that it was Andrew who was poaching on his territory. Gail was her own person and could see who she wanted, Greene knew, but that didn’t mean he’d cotton to her putting out the welcome mat for his half brother.

  But Gail wasn’t even the half of it. What was really pissing Greene off was that he felt Andrew’s father Don Harrison was currently to blame for this mess GAT was currently facing concerning the GC-600 crash in Paris. Greene had telephoned his mother and grandmother concerning the incident, and from what they had implied he concluded that if Don hadn’t been so all-fired anxious to debut the jetliner, the accident never would have happened. No doubt Uncle Steve was doing his best to keep the company flying straight and narrow, but Don Harrison was fucking things up.

  Like father, like son, Greene now thought as he locked onto Andrew’s six. As soon as Andrew had called “Fight’s on,” Greene had known he’d had the kid licked from the way Andrew had come rocketing after him. The Stiletto he was flying was a fabulously powerful, easy-to-fly bird, thanks to its computer-augmented fly-by-wire controls. Maybe the Stiletto was too easy to fly, because the F-66 could run away with the overconfident and underexperienced fighter jock, in much the same way a powerful car can creep over the speed limit on a highway if the driver becames lax. That’s what had happened when Andrew had overshot Greene. Greene had simply waited for the Stiletto to build up speed on its downward straightaway plunge, and for Andrew to become distracted by his anticipation of his kill. At the right moment Greene had more or less stood on his Scooter’s brakes. Poor Andrew was streaking past before he quite knew what was happening. Maybe next time the kid would pay more attention. The Stiletto was capable of outmaneuvering the F-5E, but then, a crate was only as good as the man inside it.

  Just now, Andrew’s Stiletto had leveled out at 9,000 feet and was gradually climbing as it hightailed it across the sky. Greene allowed the gap between himself and Andrew to widen. For one thing, his F-5E couldn’t catch a Stiletto, and for another, Greene didn’t have the gas to try. The F-5E’s little fuel tanks gave it notoriously “short legs,” and Greene was coming close to bingo fuel: just enough juice to get home on. It meant he couldn’t afford to engage in any fancy maneuvers to bag Andrew, but then, there was more than one way to skin a cat.

  The Stiletto was now about a mile away. Greene watched as Andrew hit his afterburner, stood his Stiletto on her tail, and pretended she was a rocket ship going to the moon.

  Greene smiled. That was what all the new kids on the block did: count on their hardware to get them out of hot water. Andrew was figuring to go where Greene couldn’t and in that way get the altitude advantage to bounce the F-5E. Greene expended a little more of his increasingly precious fuel to accelerate, closing the gap between himself and Andrew, and then used his little Scooter’s leading edge slats and automatic maneuvering flaps to point his bird’s nose up toward the Stiletto—as if he were planning to climb, or to send a Sidewinder right up the Stiletto’s white-hot tail pipe.

  Yes! Greene thought in supreme satisfaction as Andrew was suckered into his ploy. Quick as a wink, the Stiletto had slid over the top of its climb to point its nose directly at Greene in order to counter his bluff. Greene watched the Stilleto come toward him like a roller-coaster car rambling down the track. As Andrew disappeared beneath the F-5E’s long, flat nose, Greene bat-turned to follow him down, grunting against the Gs as he exchanged a canopy full of blue sky for a panoramic view of the desert.

  Greene was careful to keep his throttle well back. He would let gravity provide his afterbum. Meanwhile, he knew that Andrew would have to lose energy leveling out of his own power dive. It would be in that instant, while the Stiletto was leveling and slowing, and the F-5E was still diving and accelerating, that Greene would gain momentary advantage.

  But the Stiletto was still spiraling down toward the desert floor. Pull out, kid, Greene thought nervously. He didn’t want the kid splattered across the sagebrush. How would Greene explain it to their mother? And after all, you couldn’t humiliate a dead man….

  Greene was vastly relieved to see the Stiletto finally flatten out of its dive. Andrew was down around 3,000 feet now; he had nowhere to go but up. Greene watched as Andrew raised his bird’s nose in order to climb. The Stiletto, flat out of energy, slowed noticeably. Greene could catch her now.

  He held his dive. At 5,000 feet, about a quarter-mile behind and above the Stiletto, Greene put his circular gunsight on the F-66’s spine and radioed “Fox two”, the call sign for a Sidewinder missile launch.

  Greene then realized that Andrew might later claim that, if this fight had been for real, the hot desert floor might have decoyed the heat-seeker. He dropped the F-5E a couple of thousand feet in order to level off behind Andrew, locking his pipper on the Stiletto’s glowing tail pipe, and again called “Fox two,” indicating that he’d just launched a second imaginary missile to go chasing after the Stiletto on a beeline straight up its ass. Then, just for the hell of it, Greene called, “Guns, guns,” meaning that if this had been for real, Greene would just now be mopping up Andrew’s remains with his F5-E’s twin, 20MM cannons.

  “Mustang three, you are a mort,” Greene heard Captain Bartlett radioing to Andrew.

  “Captain, you should have counted the little squirt out when I launched my first fox,” Greene chided mildly.

  “I wanted to give the kid a little advantage over you,” Bartlett explained. “Not that it made any difference.”

  “Roger.” Greene checked his fuel. Another few seconds dawdling around here and he’d have to get out and push, but as it was, he was pretty confident that he�
��d make it back to Ryder with at least enough gas left in the tanks to soak the cotton wad in a Zippo.

  And as Greene pointed his F-5E toward home, he had the pleasure of listening to Captain Bartlett lecturing his class;

  “Mustang three, you have just been deep-fried by one of the best. Mustang flight, what have we learned from watching the way Major Greene waxed Lieutenant Harrison?”

  (Three)

  Ryder AFB

  “I can’t begin to tell you how stupid I felt,” Andy was complaining. “Major Greene made me look like an idiot!”

  Gail smiled sadly in commiseration. Join the club, she thought. Robbie’s good at making people feel like idiots.

  It was a little after seven P.M. She and Andy were at the ice-cream parlor near the commissary. It was a boldly colored, brightly lit, bustling place, popular with families on the base. The parlor had a black and white tiled floor, round marble tables, and bent wire chairs with pink seating cushions. The walls were decorated with childlike depictions of airplanes buzzing sundaes and banana splits the size of aircraft carriers. Gail had brought Andy here in the hopes that she could cheer him up after the awful waxing he’d taken earlier that day. She herself had just worked a double shift and was bone-weary, but when Andy had called with the doleful news she’d roused herself to shower, and then put on her best white sundress, the one that showed off her tan and her auburn hair. She was determined to bring Andy out of his funk, because a fighter jock’s self-confidence was his primary asset, and Andy was seriously lacking in that department thanks to Robbie Greene.

  And thanks to me, Gail thought guiltily. She blamed herself for the drubbing Andy had suffered. In all her scheming to make Robbie jealous, it had never occurred to her that he would go so far as to persecute Andy in retaliation. What had happened today was all the more mind-boggling because it had come so unexpectedly. She’d been seeing Andy just about every night for the past couple weeks, and she hadn’t heard a word from Robbie about it. As a matter of fact, their mutual friends had told her that Robbie seemed not the least bit perturbed that she was seeing someone else. She’d not seen fit to tell Andy about her previous relationship, reasoning that any sensible Red Sky player would be scared off by the knowledge that he was dating the girlfriend (make that ex-girlfriend) of the leader of the Attackers squadron. Now she couldn’t bring herself to tell, because if she did, what would Andy think of her for having gotten him into this humiliating mess?

  “Listen, Andy,” she murmured, trying to comfort him. “There was no way you could have beat Major Greene.”

  “She’s right, man.”

  Gail looked up. A dark-haired, gangly, hawk-nosed young man in a flight suit with lieutenant’s bars on his shoulders was standing over their table.

  “Oh, hi, Stan,” Andy said. “Sergeant Gail Saunders, allow me to introduce Lieutenant Stan Johnson.”

  “Hi,” Gail said, shaking hands with Johnson.

  “Sit down and join us, Stan,” Andy invited and as Johnson pulled out a chair. Andy told Gail, “Stan’s one of my squadron mates who was there today, a witness to the rout.”

  Johnson shook his head. “He’s kicking himself like he actually had a chance,” he told Gail. “Face it, Andy. You were waxed from the word go.”

  “You’re not exactly cheering Andy up.” Gail glowered at Johnson, feeling impelled to rise to Andy’s protection. He was a funny kind of fighter jock, she’d come to learn. Andy was confident, sure; there was an underlying steeliness to him very much like the quality of strength she’d come to know in Robbie, but Robbie had a blustering side to him as well. Gail guessed it stemmed from some sort of insecurity. She didn’t know what exactly. In all the time they’d known one another—slept together—Robbie had never seen fit to confide in her.

  Andy wasn’t like that. He didn’t seem to feel the need to bluster, to ruffle his mane to seem larger than he was. Take the way Andy dressed when off duty, in a summerweight service uniform of silver-tan trousers and short-sleeved shirt with his rank insignia pinned to his collar. She liked it that Andy was secure enough in his identity that he didn’t feel the need to strut around in a flight suit like the rest of his breed.

  “Stan’s right,” Andy said, desultorily fiddling with the straw in his black-and-white ice-cream soda. “I never had a chance, I was just too dumb to know it. It was only later, when Captain Bartlett reconstructed what happened for the squadron’s benefit, that I realized just how badly I’d been outclassed.”

  “It was like watching a matador handle a bull,” Johnson marveled. “Greene just kind of hung in the sky like a chopper, popping his flaps, causing Andy to overshoot so that he could put himself on Andy’s tail.”

  “But I still wasn’t all that worried,” Andy ruefully added to Gail. “What did I have to worry about, even if Greene was on my six? I had the superior, more powerful bird.”

  “And that’s when Major Greene used your own superior strength against you, like in judo or something,” Johnson chattered.

  “Thanks, Stan, but you don’t have to quote Captain Bartlett’s words back to me.” Andy sulked. “I remember them quite well.”

  “I was explaining things for the sergeant’s benefit,” Johnson said, sounding miffed. “It was eye-opening to watch the way Andy was zipping back and forth, powering through the sky”—Johnson’s left hand was drawing swoopes in the air —”while Greene’s little black bird was just sort of making these minimal, ultracool moves.” He fluttered his right hand in tight turns, keeping his fingers pointed toward his left.

  Gail glanced inquiringly at Andy.

  “The major had to keep his maneuvering to a minimum because he was so low on fuel,” Andy explained, pausing to cast a scowling glance toward Johnson. “Greene moved around just enough to keep me where he wanted me.” He smiled thinly. “The way a cat just kind of now and then sticks out a paw to swipe at a wounded mouse.”

  “You’ve got to be making it sound worse than it was,” Gail insisted.

  “Actually, I’m making myself sound better.” Andy smiled sadly.

  “It was like the major was doing mind control on you or something.” Johnson shook his head. “It was like he knew what you were thinking before you did—”

  “Of course Major Greene knew what Andy was thinking!” Gail said impatiently.

  Both men looked at her blankly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Andy asked.

  Gail rolled her eyes. “Smarten up, you two! I’ve seen it so many times, I’m sick of it! You guys always show up at Red Sky thinking you’re something special, and then you’re dumbfounded when the instructors and Attackers are able to wax you. When will you guys get it through your thick heads that you’re here to learn, not to show off! The staff here flies ACM day in and day out. There’s no way any regular-duty Air Force squadron is going to be able to compete with them off the bat. The thing to concentrate on—assuming you lug-heads can concentrate on anything besides your own egos—is how much better the squadron will be doing toward the end of the training program.”

  Johnson was nodding. “That’s what Captain Bartlett told us today.”

  “Well, he’s right!” Gail said adamantly.

  “You think so?” Andy asked softly. He was looking into her eyes like Johnson wasn’t there. He took her hand.

  Gail felt a pleasant shock at his touch. She resisted her impulse to pull away. Poor Andy had already taken enough hits to his self-confidence on her behalf.

  And anyway, it wasn’t as if she didn’t like him touching her. She liked it fine. They’d been holding hands and necking a little since last weekend, with Andy was proving to be extremely adept at getting her over Robbie. So much so that now Gail was worried about how she was going to get over Andy once he was gone, if she allowed herself to fall for him.

  Now, studying Andy, the way he was looking at her with his dark eyes so intent, she felt her heart surrendering despite the consequences. He really cares what I think, she realized. What I have to say matters
to him.

  In all the time she’d been with Robbie, she couldn’t recall one time he’d actually listened to her. It was weird. The two men—Robbie and Andy—often struck her as being two peas in a pod, but at other times the difference between them was like night and day.

  “Listen up, Leutenant Harrison,” she began. “Haven’t you learned quite a lot today?”

  “Yeah, I did.” Andy nodded.

  “Okay. Then you must realize that the tricks Major Greene pulled on you today he’ll never be able to pull on you again, and he doesn’t have an unlimited bag of tricks.”

  Take it from me. I ought to know, she added to herself as she watched Andy expectantly to see if she was getting through to him.

  He squeezed her hand. “I am going to beat him, Gail,” he vowed softly. “You’ll see I will—”

  “That’s fine,” she murmured, feeling moved. “I think you can beat him.” She swallowed hard. Her heart was pounding. “In a way, you already have.”

  She wasn’t sure what she would have said next, if they hadn’t been so rudely interrupted.

  “Well, well, isn’t this a scene right out of Norman Rockwell,” Major Robbie Greene sneered, standing with his hands on his hips, looking down at the table.

  “What do you want?” Andy demanded.

  “It’s a hot night.”

  What a bastard he can be! Gail thought as she watched Robbie shrug, feigning innocence. As if he didn’t know they’d taken to hanging out here!

  “I just came in for an ice-cream cone,” Robbie continued. “I didn’t expect to find you children. I would have thought it was past your bedtime.”

  He stared accusingly at Gail, or maybe she was just reading too much into his expression, but in any event, she had trouble meeting his gaze. Here Robbie was, the same guy as always with his good looks and dreamy eyes, but tonight, looking at him standing there in his flight suit with that red ascot wrapped around his throat and that ugly expression on his face, Gail felt like she was gazing at a stranger.