ice pellets hammered the nose cone. The lightning was continuous, a strobe effect that turned the cockpit into a flickering cage. I pushed the throttles.
Twenty thousand feet. Thirty thousand. Suddenly, the shaking stopped. I burst through the top of the lower storm deck into a black, star‑filled sky. Above me, the stars were cold and indifferent. Below me lay a massive, rotating white plateau of clouds — the sprawling violence of the typhoon. I gasped for air, realizing I’d been holding my breath since the brakes released.
At 40,000 feet, I pushed the throttles and the Raptor slipped into supercruise, breaking the sound barrier without afterburners. On my tactical display, the patch was holding. Fuel was flowing. And there, pulsing on the far edge of my radar screen, was a single red triangle. The bomber.
Davies’ voice crackled in my headset, distorted by the storm’s interference. “Target is dropping
