Fly Into Black
by Michael G. Crawford
Chapter Thirteen
Tilting forward, the gunship accelerated across the gap, its five blade rotor sounding like a Gatling gun as it sliced and chopped at the air. Richter flicked his eyes down at the foliage to his right. They had to be there. It only made sense.
Reaching up, he pulled the tiny IR screen down in front of his right eye. The support for the screen blocked his view upward, but he didn't care, he doubted anyone would be coming at him out of the sun anyway. The screen was alive with images as the afternoon sun beat down, producing an incredible number of hot spots in front of him. He then reached over and enabled the FLIR pod, which scanned all targets in a 45 degree search pattern on either side of the cockpit. He realized he would get a large number of falses from this device as well. But he was looking for the unexpected, the movement rather than just the fact of heat.
The desolate terrain in this hills was not as alive with beasts during the day, so tracking humans should be much easier. In fact he knew what it was like down there. When he had lived with his Dad at Carswell AFB, he had ventured into the south and had seen the rattlesnakes and huge lizards sunning themselves on the rocks. Only the cold blooded beasties would be out now, perhaps even the more cold blooded of the humans.
He scanned more carefully now, as he flounced up and over the lip of an arroyo, its deep v-cut canyon able to hide just about anything from the air.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed an unusually wide chunk eaten out of the canyon, certainly large enough to set the chopper down on. He had seen other seemingly unnatural terrain all over the area. It was unnerving to see how nature produced objects that looked man-made. The infinite variety of her changes never ceased to amaze Richter and he sighed as drank in the diversity.
Another item in his peripheral vision demanded his attention. It shocked him really, as he had been unconciously circling the dip in the canyon while contemplating the stark beauty of the terrain. A short, bright flash. Many of the chopper pilots might have reacted by raising up and turning toward the flash to investigate. But the theory of evolution predicted that they would not make that mistake more than once, they were not the survivor that Crash Richter was.
Ricther shoved the stick forward while simultaneously forcing the collective control in his left hand downward. He also cycled the throttle down by twisting his wrist on the collective handle. The chopper fell like a rock toward the bottom of the canyon, momentarily stealing Richter's breath. Unlike other helos, the Apache, because of its incredible maneuverability, was set up for G-suit usage, and Richter never failed to hook up. The G- suit hissed, crushing his abdomen in a vise.
With another hiss the suit grabbed at him again when, seconds later, he slammed a stop to the downward motion with full power and full up collective. Then rising only a few inches, he un- conciously measured the "stickiness" of the ground effect upon the chopper.
Overhead, as he jerked his head back to look up, a small shoulder launched Coyote rocket blasted over the rotor, completely ignoring the chopper hiding in the hole. His combat reactions had once again saved him from certain death. There would have been no time to fool the wary little missile with electronics.
With that in mind, he fired up the incredible wealth of anti-missile gear on the Special Forces bird, just as the Coyote blasted a chunk out of the arroyo rim behind him, scattering debris into his rotor, scaring him to death. That's all he'd need now, a fair sized rock to unbalance the rotor.
Then taking the kind of chance which had earned him the "Crash" nickname, he backed the chopper up and out of the arroyo right into the still raining fragments of the blast. Mouthing a silent prayer, he hoped that his twin jet engines didn't eat any of the rocks either. Since small birds were not in the Apache's diet, rocks would certainly be disaster. Fortunately it took another 3 minutes to reload the Coyote launcher, so as long as they didn't have two of the French manufactured weapons...
No time for that now. He didn't stop to congratulate himself as he rose safely out of the canyon. Spinning a long arc up and away from the arroyo, he waited impatiently for the acceleration to gain him the acceptable airspeed and altitude he needed before turning back into the launch area. As he performed the fighter like scissors turn, he managed enough altitude to get above the shadow of the small hills.
"Base, Red 1...Coyote launched this unit. Request weapons free."
"Roger Red 1, copy Coyote. Make one pass first. If non-combatants are clear, then your weapons are free, confirm."
"Copy Base, no non-coms. Red 1 to condition 2."
He finished the top part of his slide, jammed the right rudder pedal, forcing the tail to spin around to the front, and as he momentairly hung there, he hoped like hell they weren't finished loading yet.
With a sigh the G-Suit released a little pressure as he went negative G, and then grabbed a little as he now slid downward back to the launch area. Almost instantly the bird was back up to around 150 miles an hour, and the ECM gear began its whistling response to the launch of another Coyote. Fortunately the little missile was horrible at a face-on target, so once again his luck held out. The combination of the Apaches's low IR profile carbon composite nose piece and the well shielded engine outlets served to present no target. Combined further with the ECM gear, the Coyote screamed up at him but with no real target identified yet. The defense system automatically chunked a flare down toward the ground and a part of Richter's conciousness noted the Coyote veering to follow its new target.
"Booom" rocked the explosion, but he never really took much heed. The killer instinct was alive now, and little outside pierced his concentration on the target area. The IR screen was flashing the lock-on from where the missile was fired, and even if he did have to break off, all he had to do was stare at the spot, select "Screen Designation", and his weapons systems would know exactly where he wanted the ordinance to go.
But his orders were clear, and had been worked up a long time ago. Insure no human cover was being employed before going active on ANY provocation.
As a purely second thought, he switched on the recon cameras and toggled the record mode switches for them and the weapons systems. A launcher siting in the weapons system was more than enough to cover his ass on this one...if he got out alive.
The TFR - Terrain Following Radar - dropped him down inside a parallel canyon and he resisted hauling back on the collective, the chopper flying herself in on the attack run. He double checked the arming switches, confirming that despite the attack run, the chopper was only free to fire anti-missile rounds. No Air to Ground action yet.
As he buzzed over the launch point, he knew he was soliciting new Coyotes. But the FLIR and his little screen only blinked with light blue marks indicating very large animals down there. It was stupid of them. Down there, all they had to do was hide behind a really hot rock sunning in the rays of the afternoon sun, and they would be invisible. Of course, the normal reaction was to retreat into the shadows, and that's exactly what they did.
As he blasted over, he started a fast "burn" turn quickly angling his exhaust away from the launch area. The IR system computer tallied six definite IR bodies down there, and Richter felt the familiar rush of adrenalin.
If those weren't human cover, then it could only mean one thing. A group of unfriendlies were trying to sneak across the U.S. border into Texas.
Then another set of telltales lit up on his FLIR display as the unit continued to scan the area below him. The display shocked Richter to the degree that he almost froze. But instinct saved him again, as he dove for the trees, clipping several branches in the process as he tried to bury the chopper in the terrain.
Another Coyote screamed over and Richter knew he was in trouble. The FLIR pod had catalogued at least another five individuals on the ridge directly south of the previous launch point. And he now had two launch points blinking on his display. Still exposed he thumbed in the whole damn flare suite as he arced high in the air, chewing up ground and air alike, blasting in a 45 degree climb out of the canyon, dipping and turning as he rose.
The FLIR pod bleeped at him as another red blinking launch site appeared on its screen. As the he cranked his head around to look at the flare pattern, he thought he spied a smoke trail, and knew he was going to die. The Redeye rocket that produced the smoke was a U.S. product, and although terrible at oncoming aircraft, was down right deadly against a hot trailer, a plane with its exhaust facing it.
Richter slammed the stick to the right, the stall warning blasting its complaint, and the chopper fell out of the sky, slicing downward and to the right. If he did fly into the ground it really didn't make a damn bit of difference...He was dead anyway if he didn't avoid the missile. With the G- suit squeezing his guts out, and his eyes stinging with the excess blood rushing up again in response to the negative Gs, his vison blurred for a moment, and he fought the urge to loosen his grip on the stick.
Somehow he won the battle, and kicking in the rudder, he chanced a glance at the altimeter. It didn't appear that he had enough height, but he could try anyway.
"Base, Red 1, I have a strong force here, better then fifty. Better send me in some help quick. I am arming weapons."
He didn't hear any reply, but then he really didn't expect any. This was for the record in case he lived through it all. He punched in the arm switches for the HOT missiles, and the submunitions pods. He was scared shitless, and he wasn't going to fuck around playing nice guy.
He yanked back on the stick at the very last moment, and bounced up and over the ridge, catching some of the unfriendlies out in the open. The optical mag unit showed him a clear shot of a fatigue dressed soldier as the man dove for cover.
Hoping again he could be heard, and hoping he was free, he once again tried the radio, "Base, Red 1, I have confirmed military action here. Anytime fellas."
"Copy Red 1, help is already on the way."
He sighed in relief, rotated the weapons console switch to HOT, and squeezed the trigger. Three pair of small anti-ground missiles flashed away and arced down to the designated launch points. With individual clouds of smoke and belching fire, the areas were marked at least for the next hour. He thought he saw a body fly in response to the explosions, but of course it could just be some morbid wishful thinking.
Switching to ACE, he now raked the ground with 75mm machine gun fire from the pods on each of the stubby wings protruding from the either side of the Apache. The ground lit up again with smoke and a host of the blue IR markers blinked with a cross on them to indicate the probability of hits on the troops down there.
Then he was by them arcing up and around on the rudder again hoping for another pass. He toggled back to HOT and switched his targeting to "EYE" as he fixed his sight on a spot just below an overhanging edge of one wall of the canyon. Squeezing the trigger, two HOT missiles streaked in at better than Mach 1, covering the distance in seconds. The wall gave way, and a thousand tons of rock and debris rained down on the small group of men at the bottom of hill. Shifting his eyes again, he spied other men moving to different cover. But his trigger finger was agile, and another pair of HOT missiles streaked into where he judged the center of the main force to be.
Another Redeye sounded in the ECM gear, and he veered left than right as he dipped to avoid, the missile screaming over his head again, this time only missing the rotor by inches. Recovering from the rollout, he barely missed a huge tree top, and shaking with fear, he crested a hill and then dropped down behind another to take stock.
He was only half empty of rockets, and had almost a full load of ammo for the guns. His early estimate of 12 men was now updated by the IR computer to be 15. And those were only the ones spotted by the rather dumb computer. Damn it wasn't exactly an invasion force. But it was certainly a concerted effort at moving some people across the border. Was another Terrorist Raid on for this summer? He suddenly realized his tapes and IR targeting data would be extremely valuable now. He couldn't afford to get shot down now.
"The cavalry is here" sounded in his headphones, the welcome voice of his commander bringing certain relief.
"Rog-GER. Passing target data via link" Richter radioed, and in a milli-second the information was passed to the helo squadron approaching the action area. The radio came alive again,
"Take a right 90 and come take a peek at our handiwork", radioed his boss, and Richter edged the chopper up and to the right to swing around at right angles to the action area. Then he saw a fantastic sight.
Rising over a hill separating the action area from the West, five Apache choppers rose out of nowhere, there missiles and machine guns raking the sides of the hills, blasting smoke and fire in a two mile radius. Then another wave of three choppers blasted over dropping anti-personell bomblets into the canyons, their fragments whistling and ricocheting off the walls. After a minute, the smoke began to drift away, and the choppers stopped their search passes.
After several minutes of no action, Richter and several Blackhawks dove in for high impact landings and Crash joined the men disgorging from the BlackHawks in looking over the dead. They counted 13 bodies, all but four of them were armed with AK-47 assualt rifles and carried no identification.
The other four appeared to have been carrying duffels of some rather nasty plastique and silenced weapons. They were also dressed in civilain clothes and carried Visas from Honduras. Richter assumed these would be found to be false. He wondered where they had come from.
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