"Didn't you have a run-in once ?"

"Yeah, a Forger put a heat-seeker up my ass a few years back. Got my Tom back all right, though." Robby paused for a moment. "They said it was an accident, supposedly the pilot was punished."

"Believe it?"

Jackson gave the Russian battlegroup a last look. "Yeah, as a matter of fact."

"First time I saw a picture of that thing I said to myself, there's a Navy Cross that hasn't happened yet."

"Chill out, Shredder. Okay, we seen 'em. Let's head back." Robby moved the stick to turn back east. This he did in a leisurely maneuver rather than the hard bank and pull a younger fighter jock might try. Why stress the airframe unnecessarily? Jackson would have thought if he'd bothered to think about it. In the back seat, Lieutenant Henry 'Shredder' Walters thought the CAG was just turning into an old guy.

Not that old. Captain Jackson was as alert as ever. His seat was jacked up about as far as it would go, because Robby was on the short side. This gave him a good field of view. His eyes swept in a constant pattern left-right, up-down, and in to look at his instruments about once a minute. His main concern was commercial air traffic, and also private planes, since this was a weekend, and people liked to orbit the Rock to take pictures. A civilian in a Lear Jet, Robby thought, could be more dangerous than a loose Sidewinder

"Jesus! Coming up at nine!"

Captain Jackson's head snapped to the left. Fifty feet away was a MiG-29 Fulcrum-N, the new naval variant of the Russian air-superiority fighter. The visored face of the pilot was staring at him. Robby saw that four missiles were hanging on the wings. The Tomcat only had two at the moment.

"Came up from underneath," Shredder reported.

"Clever of him." Robby took the news with equanimity. The Russian pilot waved. Robby returned the gesture.

"Damn, if he wanted to -"

"Shredder, will you cool it? I've been playing games with Ivan for almost twenty years. I've intercepted more Bears than you've had pussy. We're not tactical. I just wanted to fly back here and get a look at their formation. Ivan over there decided to come up to look at us. He's being neighborly about it." Robby edged his stick forward, taking his aircraft down a few feet. He wanted to eyeball the Russian's underside. No extra fuel tanks, just the four missiles, AA-11 'Archers' NATO called them. The tail hook looked flimsier than the one the Americans had on their planes, and he remembered reports of landing problems the Russians had experienced. Well, carrier aviation was new to them, wasn't it? They'd spend years learning all the lessons. Other than that, the aircraft looked impressive. Newly painted, the pleasant gray the Russians used instead of the high-tech infra-red-suppressive gray that the US Navy had adopted a few years ago. The Russian version was prettier; the USN paint was more effective in concealment, though it did give the planes a painfully leprous appearance. He memorized the tail number to report to the wing intelligence troops. He couldn't see any of the pilot. The helmet and visor covered his face, and he wore gloves. Fifty-foot closure was a little tight, but not that big a deal. Probably the Russian was trying to show him that he was good, but not crazy. That was fair enough. Robby came back up level and waved to thank the Russian for holding a steady line. Again the gesture was returned.