Rainbow glanced at her radar screen. The MiG-21’s primitive systems were still able to tell her that there were four planes ahead of her. She had Lightning Dust at her side, and a cargo plane of others to protect.
That would have been bad enough. But she knew what - and who - she was facing.
Vapor Trail had survived, somehow. Rainbow had intentionally not checked for an open parachute after shooting her down. At the time, she didn’t want to remember the event any more than she had to.
But Vapor had survived. She now flew for the Freedom Army in some of the best jets in the region. And she wanted revenge.
“You think you can just say sorry for trying to kill me and make it better!?” burst out Vapor Trail after Rainbow’s apology.
“Not that it helps, but I want you to know that I don’t hate you.”
“You’re damn right it doesn’t help! I don’t care how you feel about me, you tried to kill me!”
“You know as well as I do that I didn’t have much of a choice,” said Rainbow. “If I hadn’t taken the shot and let you get away, they would have killed me instead. Where were you even going? You didn’t have enough fuel to go anywhere.”
“That’s not the point!” Vapor shouted.
“I think it is. When it came down to you or me, I made my choice. It wasn’t just about my life, I had to be there for my friends.”
Vapor laughed, that signature Death laugh, but somehow even creepier this time. “Your friends? You know they would stab you in the back.”
“They’re all on that cargo plane, escaping together,” said Rainbow. “And anyway, what are friends? People you would do anything for. I never wanted to hurt you, Vapor, and I don’t want to now, but I’ll stand between them and you if I have to.”
“Three, Four, go after that plane,” said Vapor. “Two, on me.”
Rainbow’s radar revealed that two bogies split off to the west, after the C-130. She immediately turned hard to give chase. It put Vapor on her wing, but Rainbow meant what she said about protecting her friends.
The MiG slid through a mach but Rainbow didn’t notice, racing to get ahead of the oncoming Floggers. She knew where they should be and took a guess where her trajectory would bring her back into the mix.
Rainbow strained her eyes scanning the sky. A tiny spec that could have been a divot on the canopy caught her eye, but no, it moved. She squinted. It was the C-130.
She looked further east, spotting two fast-moving dots against the sky. She turned in.
The MiG-23’s were more sophisticated than Rainbow’s old -21. When she turned her radar on them, their warning gear went off and both of them turned nose-on to face her.
Rainbow glanced over her shoulder. Lightning’s Su-22 was there, hanging back far enough to be her own target. Rainbow twisted in her seat back to the fight, grit her teeth, and selected guns.
With over a thousand knots’ closing speed between the planes, Rainbow had a fraction of a second. Too soon would be useless, too late could get her killed. Her finger closed around the trigger.
The burst of machine guns was short, and Rainbow was immediately pulling hard on the stick. She twisted her neck over her shoulder, searching for her opponents. One of them had gone up in flames, momentum still carrying the now-wrecked jet forward but gravity beginning to take over. Rainbow focused on the other jet, which had started a turn of its own.
She scarcely paid attention to the head-on gun kill she’d just made at nearly mach two of relative speed. She barely noticed the g-forces. They shoved her hard into the seat, but her focus was too great to let a little thing like that enter her mind. Her vision had narrowed to a tunnel, but she was already focused like a laser.
The other Flogger had slowed, spreading its wings to turn harder. Rainbow completed her turn, purposely matching her opponent’s radius. They reversed course and she followed, selecting her next weapon.
The missile’s tone was good and she let it go. The Flogger suddenly popped a string of flares and reversed its turn. The primitive Atoll missile took the bait.
Advancing the throttle, Rainbow got closer, cutting inside her opponent’s turn. They reversed again and Rainbow followed, setting up an opposing weave, back and forth. Mentally timing it, Rainbow tracked the jet with her eyes, lining up for when they would cross in front of her again. Her 23mm guns cut it in half.
“Harmony Two engaging!” Lightning warned.
Rainbow looked up as if her name had been called close-range, pulled from her concentration. Rainbow knew Lightning, and knew she would never directly ask for help, but her plane wasn’t a dogfighter like Rainbow’s and she was facing two aware enemies.
The three of them were already circling and weaving when Rainbow arrived. She tried to tell which plane Vapor was flying, but had to settle for engaging the closest target.
“Get the plane!” shouted Vapor.
The other Flogger broke away, streaking towards the distant C-130.
Rainbow’s breath seized. If that was Two departing, then that meant Vapor was right in front of her. She could have the kill in seconds.
But that wouldn’t stop the other Death pilot from killing everyone.
Rainbow tore off after them, leaving Vapor unchecked, with Lightning. This was another choice, deciding who lived and died. She prayed she was making the right one.
Rainbow could already tell that the race to the C-130 was going to be tight. She had an angle on the other pilot, who was chasing the cargo plane from directly behind. Rainbow pulled a little lead, aiming for the intercept from the side and hoping beyond hope that she could get there in time.
Her heart seemed to stop as she saw the missile come off the Flogger’s rail. It was going to pass by Rainbow and drive straight at the undefended C-130.
The countermeasures button on the stick shattered under her thumb. The MiG’s entire load of chaff and flares poured out. And amazingly, it worked. The heat-seeker detected the massive bloom and adjusted course, turning off-axis to instead aim for Rainbow.
She had nothing left to decoy it again.