Then status boards lit up before her as Feng flipped on the chameleonware. Outside, the plane’s skin retuned itself, bending light, bending radar. The cockpit windows suddenly dimmed. Heat-masking cowlings were emerging from the engine housing, closing slowly around the exhaust nozzles of the disabled engines to mask the hot metal from infrared.

Faster, Sam willed. Faster.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

MISSILE LAUNCH. RADAR NO LOCK.

“Firing decoys.” Feng called out as his fingers danced across his console.

Sam turned the yoke, gently, gently, fighting the urge to yank hard, to send the children flying across the cabin. She felt the plane shudder slightly as the active decoys launched themselves out into the thin air at eight thousand meters, firing up their radars, taunting the missiles…

Sam pushed the yoke forward, down, down towards the clouds, down into that storm. They’d lose altitude, lose range, but if they could evade the Burmese fighters.

“Took the bait!” Feng said.

Sam felt the twin explosions buffet the plane as the radar-guided missiles blew themselves apart, taking out the decoys. She heard them an instant later, let herself smile a tight smile. The clouds were still a thousand meters down. She kept them turning, veering from their old course and heading.

BEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

MISSILE LAUNCH.

“Heat seekers.” Feng said.

Sam’s stomach knotted. Her eyes found the engine cowling display. Eighty percent closed. Was that enough? If the missiles could see them, they had to fire flares. But if the stealth was already good enough, flares would clue the fighters in to their general position. She turned to Feng, found him staring intensely at their now fully passive sensor displays.

“On us!” Feng cursed. His fingers tapped in a blur, launching flares.

Sam turned the yoke the other way, harder this time. She heard a yell from the back, a thump of a body, didn’t let herself think about it. They had to live.

The next boom was so loud she thought they’d been hit, then another. The plane shuddered, then was in smooth flight again. Sam pushed the yoke forward, turned it again. Less than five hundred meters to the clouds below. Her eyes scanned over displays.

One hundred percent closed! Chameleonware fully green!

Sam turned, looked at Feng, found him studying the displays.

“They’re close,” he said, “Their radar’s all over us. Looking hard. But they’re not seeing us.” He looked up and grinned at her.

Then a blinding flash lit the cockpit and a thunderclap struck them as lightning burst in the clouds ahead, the shock of it confusing the chameleonware for an instant.

The plane shuddered again. Panels went red. Warning tones sounded. A display showed bursts of red streaking from the fighters behind them, straight at their craft.

“Taking fire!” Feng yelled. “They saw us! Hit to the right wing.”

COLLISION ALERT.

Fuck! Sam thought. An arrow streaked past them on her tactical display. The plane shuddered again, the controls fighting her.