"Got it."
"After you toggle her over, just ease the throttle forward, and pray." He settled himself into the right-hand seat, tugging at the tourniquet. "When we enter the hypersonic regime, I don't know what will happen. Above Mach 6 or Mach 7 we may begin to critically overheat. Or the airframe stresses could just tear this damned samolyot apart. Whatever happens, though, you've got to keep pushing her right on out, to stabilize the shock wave in the scramjets and bring them to full power."
Vance glanced up at the screen—thirty seconds—and fingered the sidestick and the throttles, trying to get their feel. As he began lowering the massive flight helmet, he noted that with the engines on military power they had exactly eighteen minutes of JP-7 left. When he kicked in the afterburners to push them into the hypersonic regime, the fuel readings would start dropping like a stone. But this was their ball of string, their way out of the maze. Would it work?
"Remember," Androv said with finality, "just talk Petra through any problems you have. And try to capture an attitude of sixty degrees alpha . . ."
"Yuri, are you ready for us to escort you back?" The radio voice, speaking Russian, sounded through the cabin.
"I'm still thinking it over," he answered.
"Don't be a fool. I have orders to down you with AA-9s. My weapons system is already turned on. Warheads are locked. You're as good as dead. If I push the fire button here under my left thumb, you're gone in fifty seconds."
"You just made up my mind," he said, and nodded toward Vance. "Go."
"Firing one and two," was the radio response.
Vance grabbed the throttles. "Petra, do you read me?"