Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (13 page)

“Come on, come on, eject,” Han pleaded with his colleague’s
corpse.
 
He spotted another inbound
missile, and snap-rolled.
 
More chaff and
a steep climb.
 
The roaring engine clawed
at the sky.
 
The Chinese air-to-air
missile stayed with him.
 
Han selected
the external fuel tank and unlocked it.
 
He rolled the Fighting Falcon upside down and pitched into a dive,
releasing the teardrop tank as the airplane plunged.
 
The near-empty container was weightless for a
moment and wobbled from the sloshing avgas still inside.
 
To the enemy missile, one radar return became
two.
 
This gave Han a 50-50 chance.
 
We are
The Gamblers
.
 
He grimaced, as he
struggled against self-induced Gs.
 
The
Chinese air-to-air missile turned for the fuel tank.
 
Han won the bet and got a kick in the pants
as the Lightningbolt obliterated the decoy.
 
Han let out a cheerful howl.
 
Disoriented
by chaff and seemingly unsure of its purpose, the last Chinese air-to-air
missile passed high and flew off.
 
Major
Han called out to his wingmen to reform.
 
Only one Fighting Falcon arrived on-wing as new symbols appeared at the
upper edge of the radar screen.

“Flankers now 10 miles out.
 
They’re supersonic,” Han told his friend.

“Let’s get them, major,” Han’s wingman had also tasted the
poison of loss.

“AMRAAMs,” Han responded.
 
The Taiwanese selected their advanced medium-range air-to-air
missiles.
 
The computer locked them onto
targets.
 
“My lead,” Han said.
 
“Pam One: Fox Three.”
 
He squeezed the stick’s trigger and the
Fighting Falcon shook.
 
The large
air-to-air missile flashed from beneath the wing and raced into the orange sky
on puffy smoke.
 
Then just a dot, and
then a silent fireball expanded and contracted in the distance.
 
Smoking debris fell from within its fury, and
a rolling smoke ring rose above.
 
One down, three to go
, Han counted.
 
The Taiwanese light warplanes dashed at the
Chinese heavy ones.
 
They merged at a
combined 2,000 miles-per-hour.

“Take them down the left,” Han ordered.
 
“We’ll turn in tight.
 
Stay with me.”

The enemy jets appeared, dots at first that quickly grew to
intimidating silhouettes.
 
Han heard the
wind they drove, and then the fearsome roar of big, angry engines.
 
As the Chinese Flankers approached and passed,
time and speed slowed for Han.
 
He made
out the Flanker’s unique nose, the red star on the pilot’s white helmet, and
the enemy jet’s wide shoulders and rear radar housing that poked from between twin-engines
and tails.
 
Violent buffeting snapped Han
back, his chest vibrating from the powerful thrust.
 
Han banked into the turn.
 
The G-force meter shot up to nine, and the
suit inflated.
 
“Ten G’s.”
 
Han’s view of the instruments went hazy and
started to tunnel.
 
Through distant
echoes, he heard his wingman’s repeated request to slacken the turn.
 
Han backed off, clearing his vision in time
for a cognitive glance at the radar.
 
A
wheel of airplanes turned in the sky, and the little Taiwanese fighter-bombers
gained position.
 
One of the three
Flankers split off and dove.

“Stay with these two,” Han ordered.
 
However, it was too late.
 
His wingman had been tempted out of
position.
 
“
Gan
,” Han swore and kept his Fighting Falcon with the two
Flankers.
 
The Chinese cut in hard and
wobbled as their low-camber wings stalled.
 
An explosion and a hail of bits pitter-pattered on Han’s canopy.

“Pam Two?”
 
Realization came instead of an answer: his wingman—his friend—had just
died.
 
In that distracted moment, the
Flankers popped speed brakes and slowed down so fast that Han almost flew right
between them.
 
Han instead threw the Fighting
Falcon away.
 
Although ramming the enemy
might be effective, it was his job to live long enough to send at least 15
Chinese pilots into the afterlife.
 
With
his two wingmen dead, that responsibility now became 45.
 
A midair collision seemed less acceptable than
racking up such numbers, Han supposed.
 
Too close to use the cannon, Han relaxed the turn to gain some
distance.
 
He looked to the
infrared-guided Sky Sword air-to-air missiles mounted on his wingtips, and made
computer inputs to wake them up.
 
A
glowing green crosshair appeared in the heads-up display, and an anxious trill
flooded the cockpit.
 
Han maneuvered and centered
the floating reticle on the silhouette of a Flanker.
 
The trill changed to a solid tone as the Sky
Sword acquired the enemy’s hot engines.

“Pam One. Fox One.”
 
The Sky Sword streaked off to take a swing at the heavy fighter.
 
Han saw the Flanker fold in half.
 
Its rear fuselage separated and exploded as
the canopy blew off the tumbling forward section.
 
With the cockpit coming apart around him, the
Chinese pilot ejected and parachuted into the Taiwan Strait over which the
dogfight had wandered.
 
With one Flanker
left in his windscreen, Han wondered about the one he could not see.
 
“Where are you?” he asked aloud.
 
Han selected his last air-to-air
missile.
 
It locked and begged for
release.
 
Han pulled the trigger and the
missile was a shooting star in the purple sky.
 
Firing and forgetting, Han dropped the Fighting Falcon’s nose and hit
the afterburner.
 
He had to quickly
regain his airspeed.
 
Speed was life.

The missing Flanker landed on Han’s six—it fell in behind
his tail—and sent a spurt of cannon fire that whipped by.
 
Han evaded and cornered at a high bank angle,
came around, and saw the big Flanker again.
 
Its engines were torch blue in the night sky.
 
Han jerked the nose up to an extreme
angle-of-attack, fired his own cannon, and sent sparkling tracers at his
foe.
 
The Fighting Falcon swayed in its
unnatural position, its thin wing no longer generating lift.
 
A whooping filled the cockpit.
 
Then a female electronic voice affectionately
known as 'Bitching Betty' announced the stall.
 
The Fighting Falcon spun and toppled hard, slamming Han against the
canopy.
 
He purposely released the side
stick and let the avionics take over.
 
Several disorienting pitches and yaws, and the Fighting Falcon automatically
recovered and returned to level flight.
 
Han grabbed the stick and took back authority.

There was a near flash.
 
A Chinese Thunderclap—a dangerous heat-seeker based on stolen Israeli
and Russian technology—was on the loose.
 
Han dropped flares to offer an alternative to the Fighting Falcon’s hot
engine and leading edges.
 
Then he spotted
his adversary on radar.
 
He craned his
neck to the twinkling stars, caught the Flanker’s silhouette among them, backed
off the throttle and dove.
 
The
Thunderclap ignored the string of hot flares and chose instead to snuggle with
the warm Fighting Falcon.

“Pull up. Terrain,” Bitching Betty expressed with her
monotone synthetic voice.
 
Han saw the
black ocean.
 
“Pull up. Terrain,” Betty
repeated.
 
The altimeter spun toward zero.
 
Han yanked the airplane out of the dive and
dropped flares like turds of fright.
 
The
Thunderclap followed unerringly.
 
Han
pumped more flares and jerked the airplane into a plumb ascent, his slamming
into the back of the seat.
 
He felt his
midsection flatten as his organs squirmed and oozed into new gravity-induced
shapes.
 
Han rolled the Fighting Falcon
and looked down.
 
The red streamer of
missile thrust continued toward his falling flares.
 
He watched as, one-by-one, the flares snuffed
in the sea.
 
The Thunderbolt’s tail fire
disappeared as it impacted the water.
 
Shifting from defense to offense, Han changed radar modes for a broad
sweep and found the Flanker watching from a cloud perch on high.

Detecting Han’s radar, the Flanker locked its own on the
Fighting Falcon, and swooped back in.
 
Han put his nose on the enemy.
 
A
spear of flame erupted from the Fighting Falcon and a ribbon of tracers reached
for the Flanker.
 
The Chinese warplane
jerked away in a barrel roll, escaping the stream of explosive bullets.
 
Approaching from behind, another airplane
appeared on Han’s radar.

“Pam One.
 
Bo
Two.
 
On your six,” the radio crackled.
 
An identification friend or foe code identified
the radar blip as friendly.
 
The Chinese
pilot was now outnumbered—an unfamiliar and uncomfortable first—and bugged-out
due west.
 
Han realized he was soaked
with sweat and shaking.
 
He shifted in
the restraints.
 
Like its optical
illusion namesake, a Mirage 2000 belonging to the 499
^th
’s Cobras
appeared beside Han’s Fighting Falcon.

“Nice to see you, Bo Two,” Han transmitted.

“Proceed to ALS 260.”
 
The Mirage driver was all business.
 
He has lost friends today
,
too
, Han understood, all too well.

“Your lead,” Han acknowledged.
 
Han settled the Fighting Falcon behind his compatriot,
and they both turned east toward their alternate landing strip, a six-lane
highway that ran down the middle of Taiwan.

◊◊◊◊

Secretary Pierce shivered in what she called ‘the tomb,’ her
dedicated bunker deep beneath the Truman Building.
 
Fourth in line for presidential succession,
hers was one of many fortresses under the American capital.
 
From this continuance of government shelter,
the secretary communicated with leadership and her ambassadors, embassies, and
consulates around the world.
 
Pierce
adjusted her colorful blazer against the chill.
 
The secretary of defense and the national security advisor were before
her on a video screen.
 
She leaned across
the table to adjust the small camera and microphone.

“Better?” she asked the screen.
 
The secretary of defense nodded.
 
Carrying papers, Richard Ling entered the
bunker.
 
He took a seat far enough away
to remain off camera.

“Secretary Tillison.
 
Dr. Westermark,” Pierce greeted the men.
 
“How are the Taiwanese holding up?”

“The Chinese have air superiority over the Strait, but most
of Taiwan’s air force has survived the first blows,” the secretary of defense initiated.

“Are we helping?” Pierce prodded.
 
The national security advisor jumped in to
explain that, with damaged air bases on Guam and Okinawa and the
George Washington
carrier strike group
out of action, the options for assisting Taiwan had become quite limited.
 
“How long to get Andersen and Kadena cleaned
up?” Pierce asked.
 
The secretary of
defense responded that engineers were repairing the runways, and they would be
reopened in about five hours.

“The Chinese could hit them again, though,” the secretary of
defense said, lifting both eyebrows.
 
He
then, more cheerfully, added that the 31
^st
Marine Expeditionary Unit
was departing Japan, and that all available fast-attack submarines were being
surged into theater.

“How’s the
GW
?”
the national security advisor inquired.

“Afloat.” Defense gave the short answer, before elaborating
that
George Washington
was combat-ineffective,
unable to do what she did best.
 
He said
the supercarrier had made it to Manila, and Mobile Diving & Salvage Unit
One had flown in to crawl over her from stem to stern.
 
GW
’s
escorts—the cruiser, destroyers, frigate, and submarine—had since formed the
new Task Force 16.
 
Although two littoral
combat ships
—agile, stealthy,
corvette-sized surface combatants—had since headed
out of Singapore to
join them, these paltry ships represented the only American naval assets
currently near Taiwan.
 
Pierce and the
national security advisor shook their heads in disbelief, and the secretary of
defense rubbed bushed eyes.
 
“On top of
all this great news, the Chinese are massing ground forces along the Taiwanese
Strait, as well as near Xinjiang and Tibet,” he added.