Air Battle Force by Dale Brown

SA-4’s radar, presenting the smallest possible radar cross-section, then furiously started yanking the control stick forward and back in sharp, fast cycles. They hoped the SA-4 would try to match their fast altitude changes and eventually crank itself off a smooth intercept track. “Trackbreakers on . . . chaff . . . chaff . . . Oh, shit, hang on! ”
    The SA-4 missile missed—but when it was only a few hundred feet away from the left side of the Vampire bomber’s nose, the missile’s three-hundred-pound warhead detonated. The cockpit was filled with a blinding yellow-red burst of light from the fireball. Patrick closed his eyes in time, but Rebecca was looking directly at it when the warhead went off. She screamed just as a giant invisible fist slammed into the bomber’s nose. It felt as if they were tumbling upside down out of control. . . .
    But when Patrick was able to get his bearings again, he discovered with surprise that they were still upright. One multifunction display on the pilot’s side was out, and two generators on the left side were offline, but everything else seemed all right.
    All except Rebecca. “Shit!” she cried. “I can’t fucking see! You got the aircraft, MC!”
    â€œI’ve got the aircraft,” Patrick responded. He issued voice commands to the autopilot and got the plane leveled off at five hundred feet above the ground, turned away from the SA-4 site, and heading for the Afghan border—in three minutes they were across. Between the city of Andkhvoy and the Turkmen border, Patrick started a climb, and in ten minutes they were at a safe cruising altitude, heading south across Afghanistan for a perilous Pakistani frontier crossing.
    â€œPatrick, I’ve got the generators back online,” David Luger reported as he and several technicians studied the real-time reports datalinked from the stricken Vampire bomber. “Engines, hydraulics, pneumatics, and electrical are all in the green. We’ve got the aircraft. How’s Rebecca?”
    â€œI’ll be all right,” she muttered. Patrick examined her eyes carefully and found no apparent damage. “I’m just flash-blinded, that’s all. It’s coming back. Give me a couple aspirins out of the medical kit and see if there’s any eyewash or salve in there.” She stared out her windscreen. “Hey, there’s something wrong here. I can’t see out my windscreen. Is it me or something else?”
    Patrick looked, too. “The windscreen is all blackened and crazed—the blast from the SA-4 might have instantly delaminated it.” He shone his flashlight outside toward the nose. “I think we might have some problems out there. Do a check of the refueling system, Dave.”
    â€œStand by.” It took only a few seconds. “Yep, looks like we got a problem—self-test of the refueling system failed. Looks like your slipway doors are damaged.”
    Patrick got out the high-power floodlight and looked. “I see all kinds of sheet metal loose out there,” he reported. “Looks like the slipway doors might have been blown loose and are jammed or hanging halfway inside the slipway.”
    â€œWe’re in deep shit if we can’t refuel, guys,” Rebecca said.
    With the help of the technicians back at Battle Mountain, Patrick began reading the flight-manual checklist for the refueling system. The checklist eventually directed him to pull the circuit breaker that actuated the slipway doors. “Last item—manual slipway door-retract handle, pull,” he read.
    â€œGive it a try, Muck,” Luger said. “You got nothing else you can do.”
    Patrick firmly and positively pulled the small T-handle on the upper instrument console, then shone the big spotlight outside again. “Well?” Rebecca asked.
    â€œStill looks the same. Looks like the slipway door ripped off its