Arctic Storm Rising Dale Brown (literature books to read TXT) 📖

“Where?” the Tu-142 commander pilot demanded.

Bashalachev peered down again at his scope. “At our nine o’clock now,” he reported. “About twenty kilometers to the east.”

“Nice work, Yuri! We’re coming around to make another pass over the target,” Zinchuk told him.

Immediately, the huge plane banked sharply to the left, turning steeply to circle back toward what its radar had picked up.Over the intercom, Bashalachev heard the colonel on the radio to Moscow. “Operations Control, this is Prospector. Silver Lode.Repeat, Silver Lode.”

“Silver Lode” was the short code phrase indicating the possible—but not certain—discovery of the stolen PAK-DA stealth bomber on the ground.

At that same moment, Captain Connor “Doc” McFadden saw one of the Su-35s emerge out of the murk—headed straight at him. Desperately,he yanked his stick hard right, hurling the F-22 into another brutal, high-g, diving turn to avoid a possible collision. TheRussian fighter roared past no more than a few yards above him and then disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

McFadden craned his neck around hard against the enormous forces pinning him against his seat, desperately searching for anysign of the enemy aircraft that might already be swinging around to slot in right behind him. But there was nothing. Justa churning cauldron of dark gray cloud.

Halfway through its tight, diving turn, his Raptor burst back out into the open air. Alarms blared through the cockpit. Alertedtoo late, McFadden whipped his head back around to the front . . . just in time to see the huge, propeller-driven Tu-142 directlyahead. “Oh, shit—”

Moving at more than five hundred knots, the F-22 slammed into the Russian reconnaissance plane’s right wing and sheared itoff. McFadden was dimly aware of a tremendous, shattering impact that seemed to go on forever, but that could really onlyhave lasted for milliseconds at most. Thrown forward against his straps with rib-smashing force, he saw a mass of blurredred caution and warning lights ripple across the cockpit.

Horrified, he looked up through his canopy and saw the Tu-142 tumbling out of control. Slowly, the huge aircraft rolled overon its left side, trailing debris and burning fuel from the jagged stub of its missing wing. Time to go, he thought groggily. Moving in what felt like slow motion, he reached down between his legs, gripped the ejection seat handle, and yanked hard.

Above McFadden, the F-22’s canopy blew off and spun away to one side. And then the ejection seat’s rocket motor fired. Ithurled him up and out of the stricken Raptor—directly into the path of the razor-edged shards of metal spiraling down fromthe stricken Russian turboprop. Several fragments ripped through the ejection seat’s parachute before it could fully deploy.Others tore into the seat itself and killed him instantly.

A thousand meters higher, Major Vadim Kuryokhin’s Su-35 raced out of one of the towering columns of cloud—still hunting forthe highly maneuverable American stealth fighter he’d been tangling with over the past few minutes. To his horror, he sawthe Tu-142 spinning toward the ground, wreathed in flames from nose to tail as it fell. “My God, Ilya,” he shouted over theradio. “Those bastards just shot down our recon plane!”

“Two copies. Arming missiles,” his wingman replied coldly. Moments later, Troitsky called out, “Target locked. Missiles fired!”

“Shit-shit-shit-shit,” Lieutenant Allison “Cat” Parilla snarled, seeing the two heat-seeking missiles fall away from under the wings of the Su-35that had just swung in a couple of miles behind her. Their motors ignited in bursts of flame. Trailing smoke, they streakedacross the intervening sky, moving at more than two and a half times the speed of sound.

Immediately, she broke hard left, spiraling upward in a tight, climbing turn. Her thumb stroked the countermeasures button. Dozens of white-hot flares streamed out behind the F-22, each a miniature sun against the glowering mass of dark storm clouds on all sides. Seduced by the flares, both Russian missiles veered away and detonated harmlessly.

Parilla reversed her evasive turn and rolled into the clouds again. She’d seen the steering cue for McFadden’s Raptor vanishsuddenly off her HUD. Now she knew why. The Russians had decided, for reasons of their own, to turn this cold air war hot.The green diamond identifying the Su-35 that had just tried to kill her slid into view, pulling out ahead of her aircraftas the other pilot desperately turned in an effort to bring her back into his sights.

“Too late, asshole,” she snapped, squeezing the trigger on her stick. One AIM-120 AMRAAM and then a second dropped out ofher main weapons bay. They flashed away into the gray haze at Mach Four, already guided by their own internal active radarseekers, since the range was so short, essentially point-blank for missiles designed to reach out and kill at more than eightynautical miles.

A dazzling orange flash lit the clouds. In that same moment, the target diamond blinked off her HUD, signaling the destructionof the enemy aircraft. But before she could fully savor the kill, shrill, chirping tones through her headset warned that thesecond Su-35 had locked on.

Reacting fast, Cat Parilla dove for the deck. More flares rippled out behind her violently maneuvering Raptor. One of thetwo missiles closing in on her chose a decoy instead and went off harmlessly in her curving wake. She never saw the second,which arrowed on through the spreading cloud of tiny suns and detonated just above her cockpit.

Major Vadim Kuryokhin saw the American F-22 stagger when his missile exploded. Slowly at first, and then faster, the Raptorrolled over and fell away, spewing smoke and fire. Eager to confirm his kill, he followed the stricken aircraft down intothe clouds, tracking it by the red-tinged glow. Abruptly, it flashed brightly, spraying glittering sparks outward throughthe concealing gray mists.

Had that dying F-22 just blown up? he wondered. Deciding he’d seen enough, the Russian Su-35 pilot started to turn away—and slammed head-on into a jagged mountain peak shrouded in cloud. His fighter disintegrated in a ball of fire.

Some kilometers away, Alexei Petrov came outside into the blizzard’s unnatural darkness and freezing winds. Bondarovich’smen finally had the necessary repairs to their aircraft shelter in hand, freeing