But at least, at least it hadn't fallen into the hands of the
Americans. No more humiliating episodes like that in 1976 when the traitorous Lieutenant Viktor Belenko defected with a MiG 25 Foxbat, exposing all its secret electronics to the West.
A slam of acceleration hit him, and he felt a circle of black close in on his vision. It was the darkness of eternal night, the music of the spheres. His last sight was the airspeed indicator scrolling past Mach 6.1. Almost four thousand miles per hour.
The starship Daedalus had just gone hypersonic.
He didn't see it, but look-down radar had shown the two Acrid AA-9s exploding a thousand feet below. When the scramjets powered in, the infrared-homing AAM lost its lock on them and detonated the other missile, sending a supersonic shock wave through Daedalus. AAMs, however, were now the least of their problems.
Skin temperature was pushing 2,200 degrees and the cockpit was becoming an incinerator. At forty-eight thousand feet they were rapidly turning into a meteorite.
His vision was gone, but just before losing consciousness he shoved the hydrogen throttles all the way forward and yanked back on the sidestick, sending them straight up into the freezing black above.