And now, storytime.
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Teniente Capitan Basil "Turk" al-Rihani finished picking over his TBE Alicanto and returned to where his navigator-gunner and the crew chief stood. "Everything look good, sir?" the chief asked.
al-Rihani frowned at the Alicanto. Instead of a torpedo, the ground crew had mounted a sort of long belly-tank, with small brass pipework sprouting under the wings, all the way to the wingtips; nozzles trailed off the leading edge. "I suppose that looks okay, chief," al-Rihani said. "Did I understand I can jettison it if I need to?"
"Yes sir. We set the spraying equipment up so that you can jettison the tank and the sprayer gear with the same process you'd use to drop a torpedo." The chief paused. "But we'd prefer you to bring these tanks back, because we've only got three of them built - and here you are with two."
"I'll do my best, chief," al-Rihani said. "But no promises. Rumor has it that the last crew up saw some fighters across the border a few days ago."
The crew chief shrugged. "If it's a choice between you and the tanks, sir, I can build new belly tanks."
Momentarily satisfied, al-Rihani stalked across to where his wingman, Teniente Alvaro Gomes, had just finished picking over his own bird. "What do you think?"
Gomes apparently didn't need to spend much time thinking it over. "It's draggy. It'll take twenty knots off our speed, no doubt about it."
"No doubt."
"Why aren't the Air Force boys doing this? This isn't our area of operations."
al-Rihani shrugged. "The FACh doesn't have any pilots qualified for the Alicanto; the Armada's got to do it." He gave Gomes a long, studious look. "Were you paying attention in the briefings?"
"No, I was dreaming of my girlfriend," Gomes replied.
al-Rihani snorted in amusement. Alvaro had been flying on his wing ever since the Peruvian War - both Gomes and al-Rihani wore the kill-marks of the battleship
Huascar on their planes - and the difference in their respective ranks no longer really mattered much any more. "Well, saddle up," al-Rihani ordered, shaking his wingman's hand. "Good luck, Trauco."
"Good luck, Turk," Gomes replied.
A few moments later, the Alicanto's big 2,200-horse Incitatus-II engine whined and slowly rumbled to life, and al-Rihani finished his checks before turning to look back at his navigator. "Okay back there?" he said.
No response. al-Rihani bounced his gloves off the navigator's head and held up the jack for his microphone. Suitably chastised, the sergeant plugged in his microphone. "Sorry skipper."
"Now give me my gloves back." Sergeant Vilumilla tossed the gloves back through the "greenhouse" that separated the pilot and gunner-navigator positions.
"Ready to go, boss," Vilumilla reported.
al-Rihani switched on the radio. "Roja One ready for takeoff."
"Roja Two ready for takeoff," Gomes immediately added.
"Roja One and Two, you are cleared for departure on runway one," Control reported.
al-Rihani made sure the talk button was switched off. "Controller could have just said 'go'," he muttered. "There's only one runway to start with." He taxied the Alicanto down to the end of the airstrip and advanced the throttle. The Inci-II's rumble rose to a roar, and the torpedo bomber bounced down the dirt airstrip.
Can't wait for the proper carrier to finish...
Airborne and with gear up, al-Rihani tested the maneuvering of the modified Alicanto. The belly tank was even more awkward than he'd feared - the Alicanto was now so dragged down that it barely got above two hundred sixty knots. al-Rihani had personally taken it to three hundred. Worse yet, the plane now maneuvered like the bomber it was.
Vilumilla called out their course, and al-Rihani checked it against his own notebook; years of over-ocean flying, sometimes with untrustworthy navigators, had inspired him to be cautious. Gomes, who felt the same way, would double-check al-Rihani's course even though all he really needed to do was follow the leader. Radio silence indicated his concurring opinion of the direction they were taking.
"Now crossing the Bolivian border," Vilumilla announced.
al-Rihani glanced down as the Altiplano dropped into the scrub-lands of eastern Bolivia. It was still quite mountainous, much more than the Gran Chaco; the fields below struggled along towards cultivation. Another sixty miles and fifteen minutes brought the target - a town called Valle Grande - in sight. North of town, patches of green fields erupted through gray-brown patches of scrub trees.
Odd that in my first bombing mission in the Alicanto, I'm attacking... weeds!
"I'll take a first pass," al-Rihani announced. "Trauco, follow me down and drop about three hundred yards behind me, on the deck. We'll alternate our passes."
"Right, boss."
al-Rihani advanced the throttle from cruising speed to three-fourths open, and began a gentle glide-bombing approach. Granted, he wasn't carrying bombs, but the experts - if the Ministry of Agriculture pilot was actually an expert - said it would be a good enough approach.
"There."
As the Alicanto roared over the field at treetop level, al-Rihani glanced to starboard. There were workers fleeing the fields - borandis production was manpower intensive. The hacienda itself was rich - the damage from the 1936 earthquake had apparently been repaired - but the workers apparently lived in a squalid and dust-infested shanty-town. Even Chilean Army recruits had better housing, apparently; and al-Rihani thought
those conditions were criminally repressive.
"Got it. Your turn, boss."
"Any ground fire?"
"Nothing yet."
al-Rihani looped the Alicanto around and set up for his run. A slowly dispersing yellow-green fog hung over the plantation. As Gomes looped around to take the high-lead position for the next run, al-Rihani clicked open his switches to activate the sprayer gear, and released a five-second stream of chemical defoliant over the field of drugs.
"Another run?" Gomes asked.
"Hold up," al-Rihani said, circling.
Sergeant Vilumilla activated his microphone and talked on the main channel. "The wind's dispersing the chemicals. I think we're going to fast and too high."
"I think you're right," Gomes said. "Lower and slower?"
"Let's try right above stall speed, and maybe... five to ten meters altitude," al-Rihani said. "Keep a
sharp eye open for obstacles. Maybe open your flaps..."
"Right. Flaps set to combat... my turn," Gomes announced, tucking in behind al-Rihani again.
Throttles cut low, al-Rihani led the two Alicantos back towards the drug plantation. A few riflemen stood by the hacienda taking potshots at them; with rifles they stood little chance of hitting let alone seriously harming the Alicantos.
"That's doing the trick."
"Switch off. This pass will finish this field, then we'll be on to El Trigal to get the ones there."
"Whups," Gomes said. "Hang on, boss." His Alicanto wobbled in al-Rihani's mirror; he dove slightly. "Sorry. Stalled out - apparently with the tanks, we're stalling at a hundred fifteen knots."
"That'll make landing exciting," al-Rihani said. They were training to land the Alicanto on carrier decks at ninety knots. "You want to take lead this time?"
"On it," Gomes said, circling around. al-Rihani dropped back and opened up the tanks again, flying low across the field.
It feels more like a motorcycle run at this altitude...
Vilumilla suddenly screamed. "
Fighters four o'clock high! BREAK RIGHT!"
al-Rihani saw nothing, but like Lieutenant Gomes, Sergeant Vilumilla had been with him for years. If he said their were fighters, there were fighters. If he said to break right, al-Rihani trusted him. He reached forward, slammed open the throttle, and pulled the Alicanto into a tight chandelle. Trees reached up to grab the Alicanto - missed by a meter - and suddenly al-Rihani's windscreen was filled with the sights of four monoplanes going the other way, machine-guns flickering. It might have been a perfect attack if Vilumilla hadn't spotted them.
al-Rihani looked around frantically for his wingman and spotted him a half-mile to port. "Trauco, status?" He fell back on Gomes' nickname.
"Am okay! You?"
"We okay?" al-Rihani demanded.
"Think so," Vilumilla replied. He had set up the rear 7.62mm machine guns. "They're coming back around!"
All four enemy fighters were looping around after Gomes, and with the speed of their initial dive, they were still moving faster than the laden Alicanto. al-Rihani estimated they'd be in firing position in less than five seconds. What to do, what to do...?
"Trauco, break right," he said, pushing his own throttle to war emergency power. His finger paused momentarily over the switch that would dump the tanks - the crew chief's warning flashed through his mind. He decided not to drop the tanks and winged over hard to port.
Gomes' Alicanto turned in tight. Not as tight or as fast as the enemy fighters - but they were suddenly distracted as al-Rihani brought his own bomber straight at them in a head-on pass. He had one in his sights and pressed the yoke for the Alicanto's 13mm guns... nothing.
al-Rihani snarled as the four fighters buzzed directly overhead, and armed his guns. Gomes rolled his plane around, taking advantage of the distraction to escape pursuit and rejoin his leader.
Vilumilla added his opinion from the back seat. "Fixed gear monoplanes. Look like Fokker DXXIs or Aguila Is. They're coming at us again, seven... eight o'clock. Whatever they are, they're turning like tops."
"I'm with you, Turk," Gomes said. "Thanks for the save... Christ, you're leaking fuel from all over!"
"What?" al-Rihani said. He glanced at his instruments. Nothing appeared out of order... wait, the sprayer gear was active. "Oh. That's it. Check now."
"It quit. Here they come again."
"Port turn." al-Rihani winged over and turned into the attack, and Gomes followed him through. The fighters tried shooting, but their tracers passed well under the two Alicantos, moments before they again passed on opposite directions. This time, the fighters split into elements, each turning their own way.
"They aren't Fabos!" Vilumilla announced. "Repeat,
not Fabos!"
"They're not Bolivian Air Force? Who else is flying fighters around here?" There was no response to al-Rihani's question; both bombers were turning in to face the next attack. The now-split enemy elements acted in concert, one making a head-on pass and the other prowling around to get on the tail of the Alicantos. Not quite perfect timing; al-Rihani acted on instinct and cut underneath the second set of flanking fighters. Gomes followed, and blew a burst of thirteen-millimeter at the tailing fighter, which pirouetted disdainfully away from the tracers.
"Gonna kill us on the deck," al-Rihani said. "Trauco, we need to climb and..." A reflection caught al-Rihani's eye: he looked, and saw four more fighters a thousand meters overhead, circling to prepare an attack. "Ten o'clock high! Four more birds."
"Boss, we're in deep stuff," Gomes said unnecessarily.
al-Rihani took a deep breath. "Tanks off." He uncovered the switches and released the torpedo shackles holding the chemical tanks and the sprayer line to the plane. The Alicanto jerked and it felt like the plane had freshly healed from an injury.
"Dropping tanks - away."
"They're coming down," Vilumilla warned.
Too soon, too soon, al-Rihani swore.
Give me another fifteen seconds to build up my speed!
"We're going up," he announced, swinging to meet the new attack head-on. The first four set of attackers were looping around in wing pairs, waiting to pounce... al-Rihani would figure out how to survive that after he survived the newcomers' attack.
"Still on you, boss..." Gomes reported. The two Alicantos climbed, and al-Rihani knew on instinct that they would stall out before the ambushers had dived past. Worse, one of the wing pairs slowed their dive, looping shallowly to wait for the bombers to stall out...
The Alicanto started bucking as it lost lift, and al-Rihani wrestled with it. "Come on baby, come on little china, keep us up..."
Fighters fell past, guns rattling. The armoured glass in al-Rihani's windscreen stopped three rounds and starred with cracks, and finally, the Alicanto abruptly snapped nose-down in a stall. The world spun briefly, and two more fighters zipped past, going down - and another pair, heading up.
The Alicanto stopped spinning quickly, and al-Rihani saw Gomes pulling out just ahead of him. "Trauco, you're leader, I'm your wing," he snapped. "Not enough time to get back into formation."
"I'm leader," Gomes acknowledged. "Breaking right."
Two of the fighters closed in on the Chileans from starboard, and weren't able to turn sharply enough to come in on the Alicantos' tails. Gomes maintained their dive to build up speed again, and leveled off just over the trees before pitching the nose up and clawing back for altitude.
Vilumilla unleashed the rear machine guns at a target al-Rihani couldn't see, but felt in his five o'clock high. A stream of tracers passed to port. Far too close.
"Two on our tail!" Vilumilla screamed over his machine guns. "
Break right hard!"
Gomes turned in hard and al-Rihani followed, pulling with everything he had. His vision darkened around the edges and narrowed - the gee-forces crushed him down into his seat. He felt the hydraulic assists working the Alicanto's control surfaces, lightening the feel of his stick.
Follow the leader, follow the leader, follow the... follow... follow...
It felt like eternity before his oxygen-starved brain recognized the Alicanto ahead of him moderated its turn and leveled out, al-Rihani still holding on his wingman's tail. He took a look around and forced himself to reorient; two enemy fighters overhead... and six astern, wobbling through their own turns. Blood was flowing again in al-Rihani's brain.
"Those planes may dance, but the pilots can't hold on as long," al-Rihani mumbled. "And if they do, they'll pull their wings off while the Alicanto's still going!"
"I don't... think I can... do that again," Gomes wheezed over the radio. "Think I... blacked out."
"Hold together, Trauco," al-Rihani said. "Breathe."
Vilumilla sounded drunk when he reported. "Two at six o'clock high. We're outrunning them. They're... diving to overtake. Fifteen seconds to range."
al-Rihani reviewed his instrument panel. The engine temperature was in the lower end of the red - they'd been running the Incitatus-II engine on WEP for too long.
Can't stop now. Aside from that, everything seemed to be in order...
"Pull up," al-Rihani said. The trailing fighters were overtaking them faster than he'd hoped, and with all the turning, the Alicantos hadn't yet made it to their top speed. "Pull up, Trauco." Gomes pulled up, but too shallowly; he wobbled uncertainly as if disoriented. "Pull up. Pull up."
"Can't see, I've got blood in my eyes," Gomes abruptly said.
al-Rihani saw the two fighters fill his aft mirrors and pulled hard back on the yoke, then inverted. The Alicanto rolled and spun, and a stream of tracers passed beneath him. A fighter passed on the trail of the tracers; al-Rihani continued his role and swung down onto the little fighter's tail. It was turning to draw a bead on Gomes' weakly-jinking Alicanto - al-Rihani brought his plane to bear first and stabbed the gun switch.
The Alicanto's two wing-mounted 13mm guns snarled and spat a line of shells at the enemy fighter. The pilot had snap reflexes and tried to pull away, but instead he passed through the stream of shells, then pulled back through it. Pieces flew off the plane as he dove away, out of the fight but still in the air. The fighter's wingman pulled away to follow his leader, and al-Rihani let him go.
"Still with me, Trauco?"
"I've got blood in my eyes," Gomes said. "I can only see anything out of my right eye, boss, and it's all blurry."
That's bad. al-Rihani looked around for the remaining six fighters, and found two climbing astern. Although the Alicantos were finally maxing out their speed, the little fighters could apparently still outclimb them - but not by much.
"Okay, Trauco. I'm on your wing. We're heading east-southeast, altitude 6,000 feet, and we need to get ourselves turned back around to head home."
"Roger. The fighters?"
"Behind us and heading more south. We have to pass through them. I'll talk you through it."
"Roger."
Well, this is really going to make things harder. al-Rihani had heard of people talking blind pilots down to land, before; he'd never heard of someone talking a blind pilot through air combat. "They won't have as high a flight ceiling as we do," al-Rihani continued. "We're going to climb to thirty-six thousand and pass over them. Is your gear all working? Oxygen system?"
"Yes. I can see a bit from my right eye, but it feels like I'm weeping blood."
"Throttle back to nine-tenths," al-Rihani said. The engine temperature gauge on the Alicanto was maxed out - the ground crews would almost certainly replace them after such abuse.
"Done."
"Pull back a bit and let's climb. We've got enough of a lead that we can take it gentle."
The trailing fighters mimicked their movements, but although they could climb just a hair faster - al-Rihani watched them closely - they were slower overall. The Alicantos slowly, inevitably, pulled ahead. Apparently the enemy pilots saw it, too. The leading two fighters nosed down and began building up speed. al-Rihani felt his stomach constrict: they looked like they were going to make it.
Just barely.
"Gomes, go back to full throttle," al-Rihani ordered. "Two of them are diving on us. Keep climbing and keep your wings level. Be ready to break if I call you to."
"Roger."
al-Rihani stomped the rudders and slewed his plane back and forth as the fighters slowly closed the gap, letting Gomes open up a gap. The leader fired and idiotically emptied his guns before he came into range; Vilumilla waited and fired off several bursts of thirty-caliber from the rear gunnery position. The leader dove to avoid, lost too much altitude, and fell astern, out of the fight.
His wingman braved the machine-gun fire and zeroed in on Gomes, who's rear-seater fired off his own machine-gun bursts. "Shallow turn to port," al-Rihani ordered, hoping the enemy fighter would be too distracted to notice he was about to cross in front of al-Rihani's guns. Gomes began his turn and, sure enough, the fighter slowly winged over to follow.
al-Rihani horrifically realized he'd timed it wrong. The fighter - al-Rihani recognized it finally as an Aguila-I - slid straight towards him, the pilot so fixated on his target that he didn't see al-Rihani's Alicanto. al-Rihani shoved the yoke down, but the starboard wingtip of the Alicanto and the port wing of the Aguila caught each other. The Aguila seemed to be sucked in towards the Alicanto, and the plane's port wingtip drove straight toward's al-Rihani's windscreen, which shattered under the impact. Then the planes separated, the Aguila tumbling away to port and the Alicanto wobbling with three-quarters of a starboard wing.
"What the hell is wrong with you," al-Rihani shouted. The roaring wind stole his words away, but he fought to keep the plane level. At this speed and altitude, al-Rihani started to feel short of breath; he turned on his oxygen and tested the radio. "Vilumilla?"
The wind nearly deafened him, but he could hear the tinny response. "How the hell did we survive that?"
al-Rihani glared around at his plane and waggled his wings. The right wingtip was gone and his overhead canopy was ripped away and the windscreen was mostly gone. al-Rihani shoved on a bit of the twisted metal that dangled in his way, and the piece broke off and tumbled away. The Alicanto no longer felt stable and it wasn't climbing as fast; but it was airworthy and the engine kept howling.
Vilumilla continued shouting in mad exhilaration. "That bloody idiot's still airborne! He's a few thousand feet below us, but it looks like he's recovered. Holy mother of God, how did he survive that?
How did WE survive that?"
Gomes interrupted, the voice on the radio thin and nearly inaudible through the roaring wind. al-Rihani hunched over into the shelter of his cockpit to hear better. "What happened, Turk? Where are you?"
"I'm behind you about four hundred meters," al-Rihani said, shaking himself back to the present. "Level out your wings, starboard, fifteen degrees... too far. Stop there. Keep climbing! We just got rammed by one of those fighters, but we're still up."
"Are you okay? What's our escape route?"
"I think we're okay. I've got no canopy left. Vilumilla and I are about to get really cold. We're passing six thousand meters. Let's keep going and get the hell past these guys and back to base!"
A spattering of machine-gun fire from the back seat drew al-Rihani's attention, but he belatedly realized his aft mirrors had been ripped off. He twisted around and spotted the four remaining fighters struggling to keep up - they had dived, but couldn't quite overtake the Alicantos this time, and slowly slid astern. The fight was over. There was no way the fighters could overtake them now.
Just to be safe, al-Rihani talked them up to eight thousand meters before turning southwest. The Aguilas followed at a lower altitude before the Alicantos outpaced them, and they disappeared astern. He didn't begin shaking until his Alicanto bounced to hard landing on Potosi's dirt runway and rolled into a spot next to Gomes'
Roja Two. al-Rihani exhaustedly climbed out of the smashed cockpit - and his knees promptly gave underneath him and he ended up sitting on the Alicanto's port wing, shaking so hard he couldn't move. When he finally regained control, he limped across to where medics were helping Gomes from his Alicanto.
"How is he? How is he?" al-Rihani demanded.
One of the medics blocked his way and babbled something about a burst cataract; he pushed al-Rihani into the front seat of a geep and reviewed him critically. "You've got cuts all over your face, sir. Sit still... look at all that glass. What did you do?"
al-Rihani pointed to his plane. From arm's length, he realized that it nearly looked like a write-off. The medic whistled at the spectacle, but promptly returned to pawing over the glass in al-Rihani's face. The Turk hadn't even known it was there.
Staring at his damaged plane, al-Rihani started shaking again. "How the
hell did we survive that?"
Gomes, escorted by orderlies and with a bloody bandage over his eye, took the seat next to him. "You okay, Turk?"
"Got some glass shards in my face. You?"
"They say some sort of blood vessels burst in my eyes. Must have been in that turn. Going to be blind for the next few days because of the bandages, but I'll be back up again in a week, you know."
One of the medics shook his head in mock disgust. "Pilots!"
"Turk, I've been thinking," Gomes continued. "Next time we have to go up to Bolivia..."
al-Rihani chuckled and guessed what his wingman was going to say. "Next time we're going to be flying Pulquis, and we're going to own that damned sky."
"Right behind you, boss."