In at the Death by Harry Turtledove

Author:Harry Turtledove
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345500519
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-07-30T16:00:00+00:00

XI

Jonathan Moss savored the feeling of being at a forward air base again. He was a little southwest of Atlanta—not too far from where he’d pounded the ground with Gracchus’ guerrillas. Comparing what he could do now with what he’d done then was funny, in a macabre way. The new turbo fighter could take him as far in an hour as he could march in a month.

Every time he flew off towards Alabama, he hoped to pay the Confederates back for all the time away from his specialty they’d cost him. The pilot who’d shot him down might have killed him instead. So might the soldiers who’d taken him prisoner. He didn’t dwell on that. Resenting them for turning him into a guerrilla helped keep and hone his fighting edge.

His biggest trouble these days was finding someone to fight. The Confederates didn’t—couldn’t—put up many fighters any more. He had a pretty good notion of what his Screaming Eagle could do, but he wanted to put it through its paces against the best opposition the enemy could throw at it.

If the turbo wasn’t going after the latest souped-up Hound Dogs or Razorbacks or Mules, it didn’t have much point. It carried enough firepower to make a fair ground-attack aircraft, but only a fair one: it went so fast and covered so much ground, it couldn’t linger and really work over a target. It had bomb racks, but using it as a fighter-bomber struck Moss as the equivalent of using a thoroughbred to pull a brewery wagon. Sure, you could do it, but other critters were better suited to the job.

And so he wished the United States had come up with it a year and a half earlier. It would have swept Confederate aircraft from the skies. As things worked out, enemy airplanes were few and far between anyhow, but getting them that way had taken a lot longer and cost a lot more.

His pulse quickened when he spotted a pair of Hound Dogs well below him. The newest Confederate aircraft got a performance boost by squirting wood alcohol into the fuel mix. They were a match for any U.S. piston-engined fighter. They weren’t a match for a turbo—not even close.

He gave the fighter more throttle and pushed the stick forward. As he dove, he wondered what kind of pilots sat in those cockpits. These days, the Confederates had two types left: kids just out of flight school who might be good once they got some experience but didn’t have it yet, and veterans who’d lived through everything the USA could throw at them and who’d be dangerous flying a two-decker left over from the last war.

The way these guys stuck together, leader and wingman, told him right away that they’d been through the mill. So did the speed with which they spotted him. And so did the tight turns into which they threw their aircraft. The one thing a turbo couldn’t do was dogfight a Hound Dog. You’d get in trouble if you tried.

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