“Let us handle your light-work, Ranger lead.” Lonnie said glancing down at his instruments. The MiG’s expansive radar range gave their ship the first look on the Yerrill. He had flown with Xi enough times to know what was going on in the backseat. The four large bandits were scintillating targets and Xi was happy to assign one of their big R-33’s to each one. Xi knew that once unloaded, Lonnie would gain a little more agility on the controls and once they merged with the Yerrill fighters, their distance advantage would become irrelevant. It was simply best to unleash them now on high-percentage shots. 

Lonnie wheeled the MiGs in a long arch to position the sun behind their backs for the shot. Both men scanned the sky constantly, each man’s head rotating with eyes squinting, searching for any dot, blip or smudge in the sky. The Yerrill could be crafty stealth fighters and total reliance on radar and sensors would get a pilot killed fast. Both men knew the game well.

“Doubt they’ve had to deal with anyone with our kind of range on this side of the fence.” Lonnie said.

“Well they’re gonna get an education in about ten seconds.” Xi replied. His tone was cold and confident. Lonnie enjoyed it wildly. Xi was a stone-cold logic, but from behind at the helm of their weapons systems his killer instinct came to light. He had launched the R-33 from under the MiG so many times it felt much like reaching out his own arms to pluck away the Yerrill like a great hand from the sun itself. Once unleashed the slow-moving craft had little chance of escape. “Ranger three, Fox three” Xi said over the squad channel. He wasn’t totally sure if he’d made the right usage of the western nomenclature for missile shots but was sure their western counterparts would understand soon enough.

The large missiles dropped away in a deliberately staggered order. Each one’s rocket engine sprang to life sending the weapon scurrying away on its Mach 5 journey. From the front seat Lonnie briefly watched them hydra away and seek out the slow moving Yerrill. For a moment all was seemingly still until four large plumes of fire erupted on the edge of the horizon with black smoke trailing to the ground.

“Splash four.” Xi reported over the com. The western codewords felt silly to him.

“You’ve caused quite a stir.” Lonnie said. He rocked the wings to signal Yuri to fan out and get ready to merge. They were holding the advantage with the sun behind them and altitude below them. However the Yerrill had become quite unruly at the sudden loss of their larger craft. Those that remained on the highest tier of their formation turned in the direction of the pair of MiGs and accelerated.

Xi took a last quick glance underneath the MiG-23 taking stock of the Bulgarian’s weaponry as he felt Lonnie lay on the afterburner. “You know he won’t be able to keep up with us.” 

“He won’t have to.” Lonnie replied. “This will all be over in about thirty seconds.” He caught a brief glimpse of their mach number accelerating. “Stick with us for this pass Ranger Five,” Lonnie said over the com. He wasn’t ordering the other pilot, but he knew the other MiG wouldn’t keep pace the same way another MiG-31 would and they would have to compensate for each other. He had a fair level of confidence the man he was speaking to was fully competent in what he was doing- [i]if he was crazy enough to survive in that relic of an aircraft[/i]. “We’ll cut straight through and scatter them, you turn inside of us and we’ll cover you on the next pass.”

The weight of the straps tightened on his shoulders and Lonnie licked his lips inside his mask. His pulse quickened to a physical throb of adrenaline in his throat as the small black dots in the windscreen grew exceedingly quickly and the MiG’s warning systems lit up and sounded as the range closed rapidly and the alien sensors locked on to them. Their arcing electrical shots went wide and scattered as the as the Yerrill pilots struggled to climb against them into the sun and handle their weapons in the blind. Lonnie rolled slightly as the first pair flashed by in a blur. He caught a glimpse of another attempting to bank away rather than face them directly and cranked off an Archer shot. The little missile burst away from its hard-point and immediately tracked down the Yerrill straggler impaling it in an orange flame. Another pair flashed by with weapons blazing, He hauled back on the stick into a zoom climb rolling and keeping their speed to check if Ranger Five was still with them.