Free Hogs #2: Hog Down by Jim DeFelice

everything.
    Besides,
he wasn’t flying a stinking Strike Eagle or a BUFF. He was in a Hog.
    Mongoose
mapped a quick game plan— a low-altitude scream and pop, quick away, then up
for the border, head for a tanker, track directly south instead of KKMC. The
tanker contingency was a nod to their dwindling fuel supply and any problems
that might follow their close encounter of the Scud kind.
    A-Bomb
practically took his ear off with a war whoop when he told him they were going
to nail the bastards at fifty feet.
    “See,
this is what I’m talking about,” said his wingman. “This is the way to fight
with a Hog.”
    Mongoose
could feel the mask pinching his jaw as he worked to keep his voice flat.
“We’ll swing back and use what’s left of the sun,” he told his wingmate. “It’s
lined up almost perfectly. Let the fucking chips fall where they may.”
    “Yeah,
I’m on you. Show me the way.”
    The
flight leader marked the INS and gave the ABCCC the location. Then he swung
northwest, working to get into position to make a straight-on shot up the road,
sun at his tail. He began picking up momentum, energy and speed fanning each
other as the plane revved herself toward a feeding frenzy.
    “Ready?”
he asked A-Bomb as he geared into the attack.
    “I
was born ready.”
    Mongoose
felt the plane roar as her nose sniffed out the underpass. The ground became a
pebbly blur, the asphalt of the highway a thick black arrow pointing her toward
hell. Mongoose sorted out the target area ahead in his windscreen, working his
eyes deliberately, slowing the world down so he could nail the crap out of it.
The underpass was very wide and deep, maybe even designed from scratch as a
bunker area. There were three support vehicles in the front on his right,
lighter trucks that as far as he was concerned were mere annoyances. Two Scud
carriers were at the left end of the thick underpass. There was a big cloud of
dust and sand beyond the roadway, a tractor or something moving. The terrain
rose to the right; he saw more activity there, a truck moving around.
    If
there was going to be any air defense, it would be there. His RWR was clean but
shit, at this altitude, a guy with a water pistol could get a bead on you.
    The
pilot blew a long, hard wad of air from his mouth, trying to control his
adrenaline. Anger rumbled through his stomach— he wanted to nail the Scuds and
wring Saddam’s neck personally.
    Bad.
    Push
the buttons and do your job. Checklist mode. Getting angry got you killed.
    He
was at two hundred feet, nearly dead on. He kept coming, nose in the dirt, eyes
starting to itch, a vague pinch around the edges of his body, partly from the
increasing g’s and partly from tension. He edged right slightly, felt himself
falling into that perfect space, his spine aligned with the plane’s spine. The
missile carriers had grown from distant cigarettes to thick, enticing sausages,
and finally into big fat targets filled with very combustible fuel.
    Mongoose
squeezed the trigger, the gun growling an angry roar as its one-and-a-half
pound charges leapt toward the enemy. The pilot leaned into the trigger, his
eyes following the smoke. He gave the ship rudder to hold the line of bullets
into the rear of the missile truck nearest the road. The force of the gun was
so awesome it held the Hog back, slowing it in mid-air so that the plane seemed
to hang around him, defying all laws of gravity and motion.
    The
underpass evaporated beneath the onslaught. He pushed his aiming point to the
right without a clear target, searching for the next missile. He fired and he
fired and finally the Scud’s rear fin or something was right there, right in
the middle of his bullets. He fired some more and thought he could feel the
heat of his gun firing. The plane rocked with the cannon, everything jumbling
into one tremendous quake. He’d nailed the rear units of both missiles.
    Webbed
in fine fuzz of total concentration, Mongoose pushed himself and the plane