Free Final Storm by Mack Maloney Page B

answered with an OK hand gesture and pushed the required buttons.
    The engine exploded in a wail of power and fury. Then the F-16’s other systems quickly rose to full power. This was a very special time for him—it was as if another part of him was coming to life. Hawk Hunter the man was receding, held in suspended animation as Hawk Hunter the pilot—“the best ever”—took over. His very essence surged into the airplane’s flight systems and washed back to him again. It was as if the little fighter jet was also undergoing a metamorphosis—becoming a living, breathing thing instead of an inanimate piece of steel, rubber, and plastic.
    Suddenly the man seated in the cockpit became secondary—Hunter’s inner being had entered into a higher state of consciousness as it continually flowed from him into the F-16’s controls and back again. The onboard computer didn’t need manual inputs—Hunter’s brain provided the instant data it required. The rudder and stabilizers and wing surfaces didn’t have to depend on their electronic controls—they moved as Hunter’s limbs moved. And when the radar and radio systems crackled with life, it was as if they were Hunter’s eyes and ears and voice.
    Once again that very special feeling entered him—the sensation that set him apart from common stick jockeys. He couldn’t describe the feeling to anyone—it would have been useless to try. It flowed through him every time he was in the cockpit of an airplane—any airplane.
    But it was especially acute in the F-16 that he had grown to love.
    Hunter took the next few minutes to go through the pre-flight checklist and to review his flight plan.
    His immediate orders called for him to take the other five F-16s and fall in with the rest of the great air armada that would transit to the NATO airbase in Rota, Spain—ironically the same place where his friends Jones, Toomey, and Wa were stationed.
    Soon enough, he would know their fate, and what would have been his, had he been with them….
    His orders told him that the air convoy was forming up in three groups: The first was composed of the big boys, the C-5A Galaxies and the C-17s, laden with tons of heavy cargo. They would be guarded by two squadrons of F-15C Eagles, the kick-ass air-superiority fighters that, with its two powerful engines, were the fastest strike planes in the NATO inventory.
    This first flight would be led by an E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning And Control System aircraft, commonly known as AWACS. Its 30-foot rotating radar dish would scan the skies ahead and below to warn of any hostile forces within striking distance.
    In the second group would follow most of the slower C-130s and C-141s, along with all the civilian air transport planes. Their escort would be provided by a flight of reactivated A-10A ground attack planes. Officially nicknamed “Thunderbolts,” the men who flew these squat twin-engine airplanes had quickly dubbed them “Warthogs” because of their ungainly appearance.
    Ugly or not, under the right conditions, the A-10s could chew up columns of tanks with the forward-pointing, seven-barrel, 30mm GUA-8 GE Gatling guns mounted in their noses. Plus, these particular A-10s had a deadly mixture of Standard ARMs (Anti Radar Missiles) and Rockeye cluster bombs slung under their wings.
    The problem with the Thunderbolts was that they were slow— very slow. The lack of speed made them chop-licking targets for any Soviet grunt armed with a portable SAM. What’s more, the sub-sonic ’Bolts were true attack airplanes. In other words, they were definitely not dog-fighting aircraft.
    Without a trace of smugness, Hunter couldn’t imagine what help the A-10s could be, should the convoy run into trouble somewhere over the two thousand miles of ocean between Langley and Rota.
    Bringing up the tail-end of the convoy was the third group, the KC-135s and the KC-10 airborne tankers, which would be refueling any stragglers as well as the fighters, whose fuel