A revised novel chapter: The Pursuit

Below is a greatly revised rough draft of my novel project.  I want to have all of the "slap-bang" action of a good military thriller, but as I have begun to develop the back story, many larger themes seem to emerge on their own that deserve to be explored.

The final version, should it ever see the light of day, will be much more polished and streamlined.  The idea of to include enough "jargon" to add detail and authenticity, basically to draw you as the reader into that cockpit until you can small the foul rubber of the oxygen mask.  The challenge is to do so without bogging down the smooth flow of the narrative.  Enjoy!

Evgeny Golubev taxied past a line of sleek MiGs and bulbous-nosed Yak-25 test bed aircraft at the test range near Akhtubinsk.  The vibration of the idling Lyul’ka engine and bouncing over the large, roughly-laid hexagonal  concrete pads that made up the hardstand and taxiway could not distract him from the awakening, ravenous pit in his stomach.  The T47 test program was winding down and in recent weeks his thoughts wandered to his next assignment, whatever it might be.  The programmed flight test would be the first all-up test of the new K-8 weapon system with automatic ground guidance against a radio-controlled VUM target drone.  The sudden news of high-speed intruders headed south from Vladimirovka had changed things.  Each of the two brightly-painted missiles hung from the tiny delta wings of his large interceptor carried only 40 kilograms of test equipment, not live warheads.  However, Golubev’s airplane was the only one available with a hope of catching the Capitalist aggressors before they slipped away.

Although by far the most advanced aircraft at the field, his Sukhoi T47 jet , call number 475,was singularly inelegant, looking for all the world like it had been made out of a section of bright silver stove pipe, with incongruously sleek semi-delta wings and empennage countered by the ugly spike of a large central conical radome projecting from the inlet duct.  The Oryol radar housed inside had checked out for the trials mission scheduled for the morning, as had the pair bright orange K-8T missiles under the wings.  Pausing at the end of the runway, Golubev goosed the mighty Lyulka engine in the rear of his plane and checked the gauges.  Oil pressure and turbine inlet temperature looked good, engine response felt right.  For a brief moment while he awaited final clearance to depart, Golubev examined the array of small, multi-colored lights arrayed around the square display for the Oryol radar.  Voiceless commands relayed from the ground by the Lazur’ data link system would illuminate different lights to prompt a response by the pilot…a far cry from the cables and simple instruments of his beloved Pe-2.  Golubev chuckled bitterly.  A child’s jewel box for juvenile pilots.  His checks complete, Golubev readied for take off.

“475. Request permission for maximum departure.”

“Roger, 475.  Cleared for maximum departure.  Take course 100 and climb to 110.”  To achieve maximum speed at best fuel economy, Golubev would cruise out at 11,000 meters.  The intercept would take place over 400 kilometers east of his starting point, and even under the best of circumstances he knew that his fuel state would be critical.

“475.  Departing.”

Selecting afterburner, Golubev’s discomfort evaporated as he was slammed back hard in his seat as the big Sukhoi jet hurtled down the runway.  Pulling his gear and flaps up quickly and coming out of afterburner, Golubev continued to accelerate at full military power to best climb speed.  Although possessing tremendous power making his interceptor the fastest in the Soviet Union at Mach 2, at full afterburner the thirsty AL-7F-1 turbojet would exhaust his fuel supply in just over eight-and-a-half minutes.  Golubev would have to conserve fuel to close with the speedy intruders and depend on GCI to get him in the right position to intercept them.  The airspace was now surely full of Soviet interceptors, but they lacked either the speed to close on the targets or the range to line up on them and make the intercept with cannons or simple beam-riding missiles.  Golubev would run close on fuel but besides his clear speed advantage, his Sukhoi T-47 carried the most advanced interceptor weapons available, even if they were test articles.

As the Sukhoi interceptor climbed out, the Lazur’ data link system was activated and course information from silent ground controllers was fed directly into the autopilot.  Immediately, Golubev’s head slammed hard into the side of the canopy as the jet bucked and spastically hunted for its designated electronic position in the sky as he sped upward on 15,000 pounds of thrust.  The basic Su-9 interceptor that his aircraft had been modified from was a nimble, responsive aircraft, if a bit nose-heavy.  His T47 tried responding instantaneously to the Parkinsionian electronic hand of Lazur’ guidance rather than the smooth, coordinated direction of an experienced pilot.  Momentarily nauseous as he held on and watched the direction lights on the instrument panel before him, Golubev became enraged at the entire situation.  His prototype had not been wired with a switch to disengage the autopilot control.

“475. Disengage autopilot—immediately!”  His aircraft shook and wobbled for several more seconds as it continued its ascent towards the stratosphere, but finally went slack as its electronic seizure passed and he took full control.

Maintaining his course of 100 degrees and a speed of Mach 0.9 for several more minutes, Golubev passed 10,000 meters and began to level off at his assigned cruise altitude.  Glancing at his watch, he estimated that he was about ten minutes away from his target.  Above the top of the radar display, a yellow “>” light illuminated and Golubev followed the command to begin a gentle right turn.  Under computer control from the ground, the optimum geometry needed to smoothly put his interceptor behind the fleeing American intruders was relayed for the pilot to follow and steer, making all of the decisions for him.  Golubev’s job with this new modern wonder was simply to execute.  The light went off and the center light came on indicating that he was on course.  The left and right arrow lights flickered to direct adjustments to his intercept geometry, as needed.  Suddenly, an amber “100” light came on.  100 kilometers to the target.  At that instant, the Lazur’ system passed a command deep into the bowels of the Sukhoi interceptor and the Oryol radar began to awaken from its cold mechanical slumber and its hundreds of vacuum tubes began to warm up.  Meanwhile, another command was passed to his altitude indicator, moving a pair of cross hairs to 7,500 meters.  Golubev began a gentle descent taking him below the contrail level and down to an altitude where the antenna for the Oryol could establish a good “look-up” angle on the target and maintain a clear view, free of any extraneous reflections from the ground far below.  Accelerating to just below the speed of sound during his descent to 7,500 meters, the tracks of his interceptor and the American planes began to converge as he approached from their low right and began to fall into trail behind them.  At 40 kilometers—two minutes away from crossing their track if he continued east, the Lazur’ activated Golubev’s radar and steered the antenna up and to the left toward the targets now crossing ahead from his left.

Watching the director lights in his peripheral vision, Golubev stared intently at the small B-scan radar display in front of him.  Target azimuth from his interceptor was displayed to the left and right of the “0” marking at the bottom center, while range was displayed vertically out to 40 km at the top.  The radar was less sensitive from the rear of a target, so as he continued closing he expected to see his first blip at somewhere inside of 25 km to target.  Seconds dragged on interminably as he unconsciously steered his T47 according to the Lazur’ command lights.  The “φ” light came on, giving the command to engage afterburner and close with the target.  Golubev felt a sharp kick as the huge AL-7F poured forth in its fury.  The heavy nose of his interceptor suddenly dipped down as he crossed over into the supersonic realm, but Golubev instinctively eased back on the stick as he remained intent on his radar scope.  Finally, a faint, ephemeral blip began to show at 17 kilometers range.  With each sweep of the Oryol radar antenna as it scanned the space in front of his interceptor, two blips began to resolve at about 20 degrees right as they became brighter.  After several good, consecutive blips, Golubev double-checked the position of the contact, confirmed that the Lazur’ showed that it was not friendly, and felt for the range gate switch on the throttle through the heavy glove of his left hand.  He adjusted the position of the two short horizontal bars until they were bracketed over the closest target, the one on the right, now at 13 kilometers slant range.  Golubev set the selector switch to fire a single missile.  The “Zakhvat” light came on indicating that the Oryol had locked on to the target as the scope display changed to a large set of cross hairs superimposed on a circle, with two small, bright blips just above it at the one o’clock position.  A bright, yellow “↑” illuminated, giving the command for Golubev to trade speed for altitude in a zoom climb toward his target, reducing the vertical component of his slant range to the American planes to pop up somewhere within 8,000 meters of his target, right in the heart of the launch zone for the R-4MT missile.  Pressed downward in his seat as he ascended, Golubev’s rage flew in front of him as he maneuvered to put his target in the center of the reticle on his screen, waiting for the small white light indicating that his missile was “seeing” its target and ready to launch.

Far to the south, over the southern shoreline of the Caspian Sea, Major Carl Hunt sat in the dimply-lit belly of the RB-47H, listening to the cacophony of electronic signals being recorded by its equipment.  He could hear the cascading, almost bubbling tones of the Scan Odd rasping Scan Fix radars of MiG-17 and MiG-19 interceptors searching for the escaping Voodoos.  Occasionally, one set of tones would change to sharp, paired “ticks” as the antenna scan rate changed to try to acquire the targets.  Closing his eyes, he could paint a mental picture of the chase with Soviet interceptors being guided to points in front of the Voodoos, reaching out, nearly getting a fix on them only to run low on fuel and return to base, as the tones faded out, replaced by yet more trying to find a better position.  He opened his eyes as he heard a new set of tones, vaguely familiar but not quite right.  For a moment, it almost sounded like a Scan Three search tone, unique to the Yak-25 Flashlight-A interceptor.  A relatively slow, low-to-medium altitude interceptor typically encountered in Europe or over the vast frozen reaches of northern Soviet territory, the subsonic Yakovlev aircraft would be hopelessly outmatched by the speed of the F-101s at altitude.   But the faint tone persisted as the rolling electronic surf of electronic signals continued to merge in and out from his headphones.   Hunt fiddled with the center frequency of his sensitive receiver equipment to try to get better reception of the new signal.  Tuning down slightly into the low portion of X-band, the signal became clearer.  The oscilloscope display showed the characteristic rapid pulse frequency of the Scan Three, but the transmitting frequency was definitely lower and the scan pattern of the antenna sounded different.  Expecting the signal to drop out at any second as all of the others had, Hunt closed his eyes and listened intently, trying to capture and memorize every nuance of the ghostly signal in his headphones.  He froze as he heard the tone change rate from a broad search to a narrow acquisition scan pattern.  Whatever it was that was carrying the modified radar must have been very fast to not only close the distance, but be able to do so within the matter of a few minutes.  Momentarily exhilarated at the haul of new signals intelligence collected and digested in the bowels of the sleek Boeing bomber, Hunt went cold and numb as the tone changed again, from a manic ticking to the harsh, grating metallic sound of an epileptic grinding a huge steel pipe on rough concrete.  Whatever it was had just locked onto a Voodoo and was most likely preparing to fire.

Climbing through 9,000 meters, Golubev edged the throttle back to decrease his rate of closure as he leveled off.  He thought that he could see two faint pairs of smoke trails ahead and above him.  As he closed inside 8,000 meters to the target, he picked out the trailing aircraft, with the unmistakable planform of an American F-101, although its sleek lines were spoiled by a very large store on its centerline, surely a fuel tank.  Golubev keyed his mic.

“475.  Targets in sight.  Two type F-101 fighter.”

“You are understood.”

“475.  I am attacking the rear target.  Attack by four-fourths.”

Well within range and now settled just to the left into his target’s “deep six” position, Golubev pressed and held the trigger on his control stick.  The left R-4 missile roared from its launch rail and began to corkscrew crazily as lanced up and away at Mach 3 on a sharp tendril of gray smoke, the green tracer on the aft end of the missile tracing a tightening spiral as it converged on the distant target.  The test missiles had been rife with quality problems with their solid rocket motors due to inconsistent molding of the rubber-based fuel often causing the thrust to be off-center.  The proportional guidance system of the missile struggled mightily to compensate, but the problem often led to a “miss” of the target.    Golubev eased the stick forward to maintain vertical separation as he watched the missile through his canopy.  After three seconds, the smoke ceased and Golubev saw the flare steady as it approached the tail of the American F-101 ahead of him.     

“475.  Missile away...there is a hit”

With no warning, Lundquist saw a blur of motion over his right shoulder, punctuated by flash and a puff of smoke and debris from the aft end of Smith’s Voodoo as it seemed to buck forward with the impact.  He caught a glimpse of a large, cartwheeling orange object arcing above the stricken airplane, shedding large fragments as it disintegrated and began to fall to earth.  Instinctively snapping left to avoid the object, Lundquist rolled slightly right and looked back.  Low, just at the edge of his vision, Lundquist could just make out a purplish-gray contrail below him, headed by a fleeting silver dart of a Soviet interceptor.    Turning his attention back to Smith’s aircraft, Lundquist could see that the left nacelle and wing were clearly damaged, but the tough Voodoo still kept flying.  Red hydraulic fluid was beginning to leak back from the spine of the aircraft, along with two white plumes of vaporizing fuel issuing from the torn rear of the engine nacelle and a gash on the spine near the Number 4 fuselage tank.  A brief explosion of flame and fragments from the red line painted on Smith’s aft fuselage was grave evidence that the turbine in his left engine had failed.  The stream of fuel vapor from the engine slowed to a trickle as Smith shut down the dead left engine, pumping ragged black smoke behind it in its death throes.  Now on only one engine, Smith’s Voodoo began to descend toward the thick air below.  The white stream of fuel from the emptying fuselage tank traced a path to his dying airplane that could be seen for miles.  Lundquist activated the Model 102H pod and, positioning himself a few hundred feet behind and below Smith’s left wing,  dropped chaff to try to break the Soviet interceptor’s radar lock and buy some time. 

Golubev noticed the Lazur’ indicators around his radar display go out.  The American planes were somehow jamming the data link system to his interceptor.  His radar still had contact until he saw a diaphanous puff of material issue from the underside of the other, intact American aircraft.  An elliptical blotch of static spread across the center right of the Oryol radar display as the two target blips merged into it and disappeared.  The attack display disappeared as the radar broke lock and began to reset and acquire the target.  Golubev spat out a curse.  At least ten seconds would be wasted just to reacquire the target, ten precious seconds of fuel wasted as the dial continued its inexorable descent.  Golubev was in perfect position for a cannon kill and had every advantage over both American aircraft.  His T47 retained space provisions for the pair of wing root-mounted cannons mounted in its Su-7 predecessor.  But in this modern Soviet age of industrialization and technology, such anachronisms were deemed unnecessary.  With voice communications out for the moment, GCI personnel would never hear Golubev roaring invectives at the Americans and at that stumpy, bald peasant Khrushchev and his preoccupation with his toys.  Seconds passed, and he watched the blip of the other American F-101 resolve only to be spoiled by yet another well-timed cloud of chaff.  Fifteen or twenty more goddamned seconds!  The large American fighter weaved ponderously in the thin air ahead of Golubev in a series of check turns to throw off his tracking solution and keep a tally as he held station, two kilometers below and six behind him, waiting for the radar to lock on again while keeping an eye on the fuel gauge.  Golubev punched the side of his canopy in rage.  The pain in his now cracked fifth metacarpal felt good.  For the first time in years, Golubev felt truly alive again.

A minute had now passed, and Golubev couldn’t get his radar to lock on to the damned American with his damned countermeasures.  With a useless missile on the right wing, no communications, and the fuel needle visibly moving down to 800 liters of fuel, Golubev began to consider his options.  There was no way that he was getting back to Akhtubinsk.  Fuck!  His right hand throbbing as tried to crush the life out of the control stick of his jet, Golubev advance his throttle and closed and the second target, fishtailing slightly as he battled the weight and drag of the dead missile under the Sukhoi’s tiny wing.  He moved up and pulled abreast of the American fighter, scarcely 15 meters away off of his left wing.  Unconsciously adjusting for the wobble of his interceptor, Golubev could clearly see the steady, insolent blue eyes of the American pilot staring back at him, laboring under his oxygen mask.  Golubev knew that American fighter aircraft were generally larger and heavier than Soviet designs, but was briefly impressed with the graceful mass of the F-101, but his thoughts instantly turned to more sanguine matters.  Laden with the large underslung pod, which he now surmised to carry electronic countermeasures, Golubev noticed that in the thin air at 11,000 meters the American seemed to struggle to stay in the air, riding nose high with its great mass borne by an impossibly small wing.  The American and his stricken wingman completely vulnerable deep within the territory of his Rodina, and there was nothing Golubev could do about it.  Unless…he pulled forward ever so slightly and gently applied right rudder, sliding the sharp wingtip of his interceptor through the American’s cockpit….  The only regret is that I can kill only one American today by doing so.  What do I do?

Lundquist was shit-out-of-luck and he knew it.   He could see the pair of empty missile pylon under the left wing of the Soviet fighter, which appeared to be some variety of Fishpot interceptor.  The cylindrical nose forward of the cockpit carried a neat row of four small, red stars.  No one had ever seen a Fishpot this close before, but it didn’t quite look like the picture from his deck of aircraft identification cards back in his quarters.    The Soviet pilot had cold, hard brown eyes, no doubt amped up over his recent near kill and just dying to add another notch….  The hard eyes looked back toward the Sukhoi fighter’s left wing, gauging position and distance.  Crap.  Jettisoning the pod would turn out to be a windfall for Soviet technicians, so that was out.  But, damn it!  What else am I supposed to do?  He could accelerate but judging by the engine on that damned interceptor off of his wing, “Ivan” over there would have no trouble keeping up while he burned up fuel and would have no hope of making the border, with or without the pod.  Already teetering on the edge of a stall, maneuvering was also out of the question.  With regard to fuel, he should have turned back by now…what’s he doing here?  All that Lundquist could do was stare back and wait to see what the Soviet pilot would do.  Well, just make up your mind and either way let’s get it over with….

Golubev checked his gauges and then looked back over at the American pilot calmly watching him, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.  I hate this fucking invader and his country as much as anything I have ever hated in my life.  Just slide my wing right into his face and it is done.   But would I be throwing my life away by doing so?  And if so, for what?  For what?  He stared for a long minute into the eyes of his American counterpart, but already knew the answer to his question.  Golubev keyed his microphone to report to ground control, unsure if it would get through.

“475. Target position 50 kilometers south-southeast of Gurev.  Target course 180, altitude 110.  Target speed 900.”

There was no response.

“475. Fuel 500 liters, unable to return to base.  Making for Gurev.”

Again, his transmission was met by silence.

Golubev glared over at Lundquist once again and carefully edged his jet even closer.  With his left hand, he flashed what looked like a “victory” sign at the arrogant American.  Lundquist saw the unneeded translation in the enraged face of the Soviet pilot: I will gouge your fucking eyeballs out if I ever see you again.  And with that, Golubev slid his airplane away, smartly banked right, and peeled away from the lumbering American fighter, leaving them alone once again within the infinite expanse of the burning blue canopy above.

Lundquist repositioned ahead of and about a thousand feet above Smith as they went “feet wet” over the azure expanse of the Caspian Sea, its brilliance further highlighted by the dun-colored ground and haze around and below them.  He could see the Tupqaraghan Tubegi peninsula ahead of him, jutting westward into the sea.  Early warning and GCI radars stationed at the tip at Fort Shevchenko were trying to paint his aircraft as the pod’s ECM equipment continued to scream its silent rage into the ether.   Lundquist seemed to have slipped by the MiG-15s based at Astrakhan, at least temporarily, and he flew on to live for at least that moment but had so far yet to go.  Ahead lay Baku and the MiG-17s of the 82^nd Fighter Aviation Regiment which were surely taking off and beginning their slow climb to circle lazily at a perch along his flight path at 50,000 feet or more.  Even with the unladen RF-101s headed that way, he could be sure that at least several flights would turn their attention to him as he continued south toward Mehrabad.  He had five chaff cartridges left.  How can I be sure that these pods are jamming their radars and GCI?  If I can’t maneuver with the MiGs waiting out there, how can I throw them off?  Smith was in very bad shape, the recce birds were now far ahead.  His pod was now useless with the airplane barely getting by on the power of one touchy and overburdened Sundstrand generator.  The same pods that were keeping them alive right now could prove to be their death sentence.  Giving in to the flood of cortisol as the immediate danger passed, Lundquist began to shake uncontrollably, alone in the azure at 36,000 feet, with that damned pod as his only protection as he continued south toward the faraway Reshte-ye Alborz mountains and the safety of Iran.  Will I be alive an hour from now?