The Tomcat's engines lost their whine and the engine-failure light came on. First engine one, then two, flashed their red warnings. A silence now filled the cockpit with the exception of a computerized voice warning of engine stall, and the eerie quiet outside was almost as loud as the engines it had replaced. He didn't panic as training kicked in and he went into automatic. He fought the stick, bringing it forward, then to the left; all the while a soft hum now filled his ears, seemingly coming from outside the aircraft.

"Flameout! Flameout! Range Rider Two is going tits up; repeat, we're a dead stick," Ryan called. "Mayday, Mayday! "

"Aw fuck!" Henry said almost too calmly from the backseat as he clenched his teeth together.

Ryan brought the stick all the way forward, at the same time lifting both feet from the pedals that controlled the Tomcat's rudder, allowing the ship to automatically control the spin they were in. This brought the Tomcat to a nose-down attitude, a straight position to gain speed, and now the huge aircraft hurtled toward the sea below like an arrow.

"Trying engine restart," Ryan said, keeping his voice under control.

The Tomcat was equipped with an air-powered generator used for emergencies like this. Rushing air caught vanes, and those turned a generator, and that in turn supplied the aircraft with enough power to restart her engines without the help of ground facilities. At least that was the way the engineers had designed her. This was one scenario you trained for but never actually did outside of a simulator. The high-pitched whine of the rushing stream of air outside the cockpit was close to unbearable.

Derry heard the distress call made by Vampire as his wingman plummeted to the sea. He thumbed the safety release for his Sidewinder missiles, but he couldn't get a lock.