Read Online Ascent by Jed Mercurio by Ascent (com v4.0) - Free Book Online
Authors: Ascent (com v4.0)
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get out of there!”
The MiG fell in a long arc. Gnido wept with pain and with foreknowledge of the end. They were a good way south of the Yalu, operating over UN-controlled territory. He could still eject but to be captured would betray the presence of the VVS. If captured and then returned, no doubt he’d be persecuted as a traitor. He stayed in his straps and rode the jet all the way down. When it hit the ground it shattered. The splinters were so small and they were wrought so fast that the aircraft appeared to vanish.
Yefgenii glimpsed Kiriya and Skomorokhov turning in parallel with a pair of Sabres. Glinka had relocated to Kubarev’s wing but was operating too high to protect him from attack. A moment later a Sabre punched in behind Glinka. Yefgenii thought of Gnido and of his body smashed because of Glinka’s dereliction of duty. Had they been on the ground he could’ve abandoned Glinka. On the ground his acts meant nothing. But how he conducted himself in the air expressed his values, and in the air a countryman remained a countryman even if he was a coward.
Wisps of smoke trailed past his cockpit as Yefgenii soared back into battle. Some of the wisps curled. Some stretched. Jet-wash had churned this piece of sky into a hundred vortices that kicked his nose and belly and tried to spin his wings. He was still rocking when his guns opened on the Sabre. Fumes puffed out of its engine like a giant string of beads. Yefgenii kept on him. Shells kicked out from his nose into the American’s wings and tail. They were ripping up his ailerons and elevators. The Sabre began to buck out of control. Seconds later the pilot ejected. Yefgenii and Glinka were clear.
“Glinka, follow me down!”
With Glinka covering his tail, Yefgenii sank behind the Sabre pair that was scissoring in and out of engagement with Kiriya and Skomorokhov. He opened fire and the wing of the rear Sabre sheared clean off. It spun off to the side and on the second or third spin its fuel tank ruptured. A point of light expanded into a sphere of flame that burned itself out in less than a second. The surviving Sabre swung south for the P’yŏngyang-Wŏnsan line.
Someone was transmitting. “Min fuel.”
Kiriya clicked. “Shit, me too, we’ll have to let the fucker go.”
The MiGs disengaged. Soon the Sabres and the MiGs were pointing home, leaving behind them a sky beaded by puffs of gray and black smoke and beneath the smoke a shower of metal and far beneath that two parachutes blooming like new white flowers on the green and brown oblongs of earth.
In the tower they took Kiriya’s transmission that, of the six aircraft that set out, only five were returning to base. The widow looked into the east. She wondered if the young blond leitenant was among the ones coming home. She recognized his plane, felt something this time, for the first time.
Ground crews watched them angle onto the dispersal. All the guns were blackened. All the fuselages were pockmarked. The ground crews dragged chocks on short thick ropes, then, when the pilots cut their engines, wedged the chocks under their wheels.
The widow held the ladder as Yefgenii stepped down the rungs. “Any luck, Leitenant?”
He gazed down at her. He was the biggest of the pilots and he was two rungs off the ground. “Two and a half.” He grinned.
She’d never seen him smile. He had a big boyish smile. “Half?” She laughed. “What happened to the other half?”
He realized she had an image in her mind of half an airplane flying home, maybe cut off at the wing roots with the pilot’s bare ass hanging out behind the cockpit. “No!” he laughed. She started laughing too. He said, “When the actions of two pilots lead to a kill, each gets half.”
Now she blushed for not having known. “Yes, of course, how silly of me.” She ducked away and pretended to examine the tires for cuts and creep.
Yefgenii wondered if perhaps he’d sounded too arrogant, too flippant. He’d enjoyed her
The MiG fell in a long arc. Gnido wept with pain and with foreknowledge of the end. They were a good way south of the Yalu, operating over UN-controlled territory. He could still eject but to be captured would betray the presence of the VVS. If captured and then returned, no doubt he’d be persecuted as a traitor. He stayed in his straps and rode the jet all the way down. When it hit the ground it shattered. The splinters were so small and they were wrought so fast that the aircraft appeared to vanish.
Yefgenii glimpsed Kiriya and Skomorokhov turning in parallel with a pair of Sabres. Glinka had relocated to Kubarev’s wing but was operating too high to protect him from attack. A moment later a Sabre punched in behind Glinka. Yefgenii thought of Gnido and of his body smashed because of Glinka’s dereliction of duty. Had they been on the ground he could’ve abandoned Glinka. On the ground his acts meant nothing. But how he conducted himself in the air expressed his values, and in the air a countryman remained a countryman even if he was a coward.
Wisps of smoke trailed past his cockpit as Yefgenii soared back into battle. Some of the wisps curled. Some stretched. Jet-wash had churned this piece of sky into a hundred vortices that kicked his nose and belly and tried to spin his wings. He was still rocking when his guns opened on the Sabre. Fumes puffed out of its engine like a giant string of beads. Yefgenii kept on him. Shells kicked out from his nose into the American’s wings and tail. They were ripping up his ailerons and elevators. The Sabre began to buck out of control. Seconds later the pilot ejected. Yefgenii and Glinka were clear.
“Glinka, follow me down!”
With Glinka covering his tail, Yefgenii sank behind the Sabre pair that was scissoring in and out of engagement with Kiriya and Skomorokhov. He opened fire and the wing of the rear Sabre sheared clean off. It spun off to the side and on the second or third spin its fuel tank ruptured. A point of light expanded into a sphere of flame that burned itself out in less than a second. The surviving Sabre swung south for the P’yŏngyang-Wŏnsan line.
Someone was transmitting. “Min fuel.”
Kiriya clicked. “Shit, me too, we’ll have to let the fucker go.”
The MiGs disengaged. Soon the Sabres and the MiGs were pointing home, leaving behind them a sky beaded by puffs of gray and black smoke and beneath the smoke a shower of metal and far beneath that two parachutes blooming like new white flowers on the green and brown oblongs of earth.
In the tower they took Kiriya’s transmission that, of the six aircraft that set out, only five were returning to base. The widow looked into the east. She wondered if the young blond leitenant was among the ones coming home. She recognized his plane, felt something this time, for the first time.
Ground crews watched them angle onto the dispersal. All the guns were blackened. All the fuselages were pockmarked. The ground crews dragged chocks on short thick ropes, then, when the pilots cut their engines, wedged the chocks under their wheels.
The widow held the ladder as Yefgenii stepped down the rungs. “Any luck, Leitenant?”
He gazed down at her. He was the biggest of the pilots and he was two rungs off the ground. “Two and a half.” He grinned.
She’d never seen him smile. He had a big boyish smile. “Half?” She laughed. “What happened to the other half?”
He realized she had an image in her mind of half an airplane flying home, maybe cut off at the wing roots with the pilot’s bare ass hanging out behind the cockpit. “No!” he laughed. She started laughing too. He said, “When the actions of two pilots lead to a kill, each gets half.”
Now she blushed for not having known. “Yes, of course, how silly of me.” She ducked away and pretended to examine the tires for cuts and creep.
Yefgenii wondered if perhaps he’d sounded too arrogant, too flippant. He’d enjoyed her
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