The formation breaks before me as my first missile goes active. Can’t see what type they are yet, but they drew close, have to be older fighters- Floggers? Fishbeds?
The lead aircraft dives for ground, trying to outrun the missile lancing towards him at mach 4 in thicker air. My radar still has him, but my eyes are up, on the other bandits scattered to the winds. Standard planeform, leading edge intakes… Tigers.
My next radar missile is cued, I’ve dropped the lock, leaving my first shot to track the lead Tiger into the dirt. Close scan, 10nm now, and there’s the formation, reconstituted to bear down on their attacker. New lead aircraft locked, track-while-scan, fox 3.
He doesn’t have time to process what just happened as his plane melts out from under him. Splash one.
The two survivors are splitting wide, going to trap me in a pincer. Like me, they’re down to sidewinders, like me, it’s an even fight.
At least on paper.
I slice toward the second aircraft, pulling lead as he turns a bit too wide, a bit too sluggish. My sight drifts lazily onto his black dot in the bright white clouds, missile seeker growling a challenge in my ear. I fire, but the missile is dead off the rail. I’ve been hasty, but as the second missile growls to life, I re-center on what I know.
Not yet.
He pumps out flares, he knows I’m lining up for the kill.
Not yet.
Finally, the g-forces are too much, he unloads his wings, flies a little more level for a bit too long.
Fox 2.
At these speeds, at this angle, with this missile, the outcome is certain. The flare of my sidewinder disappears for a moment, then in the next, the Tiger turns into a fireball.
Ejection seat, parachute. On to the next.
I spot something below- just rising through the clouds.
The lead bandit, no doubt wondering what has happened to his wingmen, returns to the fight to see two parachutes, a missing aircraft… and me.
He’s smart. He knows he’s low and slow, and he doesn’t know what weaponry I still have aboard. He shoots across my nose, past me, into a hard bank, and as I turn to answer, he’s already diving through the clouds again.
He needs to be fast- and nothing gives speed back like gravity.
I answer. I’m down to my gun, only a few scant seconds of fire, but it’s enough. I’m on him as we push through the lower side of the cloud bank, and he breaks hard, hoping I’ll overshoot. My Viper can pull G’s, more than my body can, but I’m no fool- I pull a hard nose-up, cut into his turn, and then we take our places on the stage.
In breathless Hollywood schlock, a dogfight is a white-knuckle show of dominance, a barrel-chested fight for position, to line up the kill on whatever generic pastiche of The Enemy the propaganda machine has decided is the existential threat to consumerism this year.
In reality, it’s a dance- and the better your partner, the better it is.
He rolls through my path, I roll through his. My eyes lock on his aircraft, in its brown-and-gold camouflage, even as we roll through the sky, tracing ribbons through the air. Lower and lower, until we run out of sky, down to the dirt.
He breaks first. Snap-roll into a hard bank left. It surprises me, and for a moment, he has me.
I’m not so used to being the hunter than I don’t know how to act as prey. Throttle up, keep the speed, keep options open. Wait for his move, then counter.
He drops out of the roll, but he’s too slow, and I reverse his turn. For what feels like an eternity we dance across the desert, both not ceding the advantage, my foe slipping out of my gunsight again and again.
In that moment, I’m not a human being in a cockpit- I feel alive, I feel correct, hunting an agile little bird on my mighty wings, my eyes locked, my claws bared, my every instinct keeping me from slamming into unforgiving sand even as we dance on the edge of disaster. I am an apex predator, and it’s no longer about the kill- it’s about seeing what my foe will do to survive.
Lock. Lock.
I’m broken from my brush with truth by the aircraft’s annunciator. My opponent has drifted into my sight, dead in the center of the gun pipper.
My heart sinks as I pull the trigger. It’s over too soon.
Gunfire rips through his aircraft, a plume of fuel leaking from his fuselage in a bright white cloud.
But he isn’t dead.
He pulls up, his formation lights go on. Fence-out, white flag, he’s done, and he knows it.
I pull up beside him, verify this is no feint. I like to think our eyes meet, that we share a moment of understanding- that this is just nature, this is how things go, that there’s no hard feelings, that I respect him so very deeply.
Instead, I wave my wings and turn for home.
Moments later, I see him eject.
Good. No blood today.
I might love the hunt… but bloodlust has never been my style.
Maybe that’s the one human thing I kept.