Black Star Rising

by Robert Gandt

  With that thought, Maxwell sensed the presence of danger. Could a Dong-jin be out here?

  He snapped the CFD goggles back in place. He scanned the area from behind, across the front of the jet, to the other side. The Chameleon was turning to the new northwesterly heading. The last two Flankers were exiting the area, probably returning to Lingshui. Carruthers was on station a quarter mile abeam and slightly aft of Maxwell’s left wing.

  Nothing else in the area.

  Or was there?

  Maxwell blinked, squinted to refocus his eyes, then scanned again. Nothing.

  It would have been a lucky accident if the CFD goggles were able to pinpoint the chromatic frequency the Chinese had selected for the Dong-jin. Anyway, why would a Dong-jin be there if they sent SU-27 Flankers to kill the Growler?

  Peering into the empty green haze through the CFD goggles, Maxwell didn’t have an answer. He only know knew that he was getting a loud and clear gut feeling.

  Something was out there.

  <>

  Gen. Zhang Yu watched the fireballs plunge toward the sea.

  From his perch high and outside the SU-27s’ pursuit curve, he had expected to observe the destruction of the enemy jet. Instead, one of the attacking SU-27s exploded. While Zhang stared in shock, the second fighter erupted in a roiling ball of fire.

  What happened? He hadn’t seen even the metallic glint of an air-to-air missile. Did it come from the jamming aircraft, the one the Americans called a Growler?

  No. He was certain that nothing came from the direction of the target, which was still in a turn away.

  Zhang and his wingman, Captain Tsan, had arrived only a minute before Major Chun, leading the flight of SU-27s, had received authorization to kill the enemy jet. It was an American Growler. It could be on a mission to jam the Hainan air defense network.

  Now Chun’s SU-27 was a heap of debris. So was his wingman’s, and at least one of them was dead. Zhang had glimpsed the flutter of a single parachute canopy.

  Like a computer processing a problem, Zhang’s brain began assembling the disconnected bits of information.

  Something killed the two SU-27s from behind.

  Zhang rolled his Dong-jin into a steep left bank and peered into the sky where the pair of SU-27s had been. With his naked eyes, he saw nothing. Nothing but the falling debris of the destroyed fighters.

  He reached for the spectrum-sensing goggles that were hinged to the side of his helmet and swung them into place over his visor. Again he peered into the sky, sweeping from side to side.

  Still nothing. He kept scanning, peering up, down, directly behind the decoy. Nothing out there. No visual clue to—

  What was that?

  Something below his left wing, perhaps three kilometers away. A faintly visible object, shimmering like a mirage.

  As Zhang stared, the object disappeared. A second later, he saw it again, but in a different place. Were there more than one?

  The pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. With a rush of clarity, Zhang knew what happened to the SU-27s.

  The enemy Growler wasn’t a Growler. The SU-27s were lured into a trap.

  Zhang knew now what the shimmering objects were. If only he could get a clear view, he would turn them into the same kind of hellish fireball that they had made of the SU-27s.

  But couldn’t they do the same to him? Zhang reversed the Dong-jin into a hard right bank, keeping his jet high and inside where he’d last spotted the ephemeral objects. Could they see him? Did they have spectrum-sensing technology?

  There was no way to be sure. The only prudent thing to do was to remain out of range and exit the area. The order of battle had just been radically changed. The one-sided conflict was now a two-sided stealth war.

  Zhang’s turn was taking him behind and above the Growler, which was just rolling out of its turn on a northwesterly heading. Zhang had a good view of the aircraft’s bulbous-nosed, stubby-winged shape.

  It wasn’t a Growler. Zhang had encountered such an aircraft before. It was an unmanned decoy, something the Americans had developed that could imitate a real warplane. They had employed the decoy before during the war in the Taiwan Strait.

  “It is not too late,” said his systems officer, Captain Po, from the back cockpit. “We can kill the enemy jamming aircraft.” It was the first time Po had spoken since they witnessed the downing of the SU-27s.

  For a moment, Zhang considered. Po, incompetent idiot that he was, still hadn’t figured out that the aircraft was a decoy. But at least he had the spirit of a warrior. And perhaps he was right. They could fire a heat seeking missile and be gone before the Americans detected them.

  No. It would play into the hands of the enemy. The invisible jets—they were undoubtedly some version of the American Black Star—were waiting for such an opening. Even if they couldn’t spot him, a single bullet or missile from the Dong-jin could mark his position. It would set him up for a kill shot.

  Zhang took another glance at the decoy aircraft. It was a tempting target, fat and vulnerable as a low-flying goose. The words of Sun Tzu came to him: He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

  This was a time not to fight. He swung the nose of the Dong-jin toward the safety of Hainan.

  Chapter 13 — Gut Feeling

  USS Ronald Reagan

  South China Sea

  1140 Saturday, 28 April

  “Three-oh-one, Rhino ball, five-point-two,” called Maxwell.

  “Roger, ball,” answered the voice of Slim Chance, the LSO.

  More radio playacting. Maxwell had just reported that he had the ball in sight and that his fuel remaining was five-thousand-two-hundred pounds. He identified his aircraft as a “rhino”—an F/A-18 Super Hornet.

  Gear down, hook extended. He rolled the Black Star’s wings level in the groove a quarter mile behind the USS Ronald Reagan. A white ribbon of foam trailed behind the hundred-thousand-ton carrier.

  The flight deck and the viewing platforms in the island were again empty of non-required personnel. Instead of the usual half dozen assistants and LSOs-in-training on the LSO platform, Slim Chance was alone. Even the PLAT—Pilot Landing Aid Television—that videoed every carrier landing was blacked out. The Black Star would return to the Reagan the same way it left—in secret.

  Maxwell forced himself to concentrate on the Fresnel Lens—the glowing yellow ball mounted to the left of the landing area. The ball was slightly beneath the row of green datum lights that marked the correct glide path to the carrier deck. It told Maxwell that his flight path was below the optimum glide slope.

  He nudged the throttles an increment forward. The Black Star’s descent rate flattened. The ball eased up between the datums. On glide path.

  The ramp swept beneath him. In his peripheral vision he saw the LSO platform blurring past the left wing. On the right, the carrier’s massive island structure loomed like a granite outcropping.

  The Black Star’s wheels slammed onto the steel deck. By habit and training, Maxwell shoved the throttles forward in case the hook missed a wire.

  It didn’t. He felt the hard, reassuring bite of the straps into his shoulders. The jet lurched to a stop on the center line.

  “Hey, boss,” said O’Toole. “We just made history. First crew to land a Black Star aboard a real ship.”

  O’Toole’s mouth was engaged again.

  “Don’t expect to get your picture in the paper. This thing doesn’t exist yet.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  <>

  “Run it,” said Boyce.

  Commander Harvey Wentz pushed the play button on the video machine.

  While they waited for the plasma monitor to come to life, Boyce gazed around the intel compartment. Seated at the long steel table, still wearing their sweat-stained flight suits, were the Black Star crews. By the bulkhead were Admiral Hightree and Wentz. Dana Boudroux was wearing her blue jump suit, seated at the far end of the room. Cool and aloof as ever.


  It was strange, Boyce thought. When they were in Hanoi, he had detected signs of a thaw in the Ice Queen. To his critical eye it looked as if she was warming up to Maxwell. But something happened.

  A black-and-white image appeared on the monitor. It was from the digital tape recording of Maxwell’s head up display. In the foreground was the standard HUD symbology—the velocity vector showing the direction the aircraft is flying, the horizon, and the digital read outs for altitude, heading, airspeed, Mach number, angle of attack.

  A grayish object was squiggling in the corner of the HUD view.

  “That’s the Chameleon,” said Wentz. He aimed the red beam of his laser pointer at the image of the decoy jet. “He’s just been given the heading that would penetrate the Hainan air defense zone. Any moment now you’ll see—ah, there they come.”

  Two long twin-finned shapes swept into view, in a steep bank to point their noses toward the Chameleon.

  “The Flankers,” said Boyce.

  The audience watched in silent fascination. Through the HUD they could see the Flanker on the right. The illuminated seeker circle on the display enclosed the Chinese jet like the loop of a lasso. The SHOOT cue was flashing.

  The blurred image of the Sidewinder air-to-air missile appeared in the bottom right corner.

  Seconds ticked by. Boyce, who had already watched the tapes, realized that he was holding his breath.

  The aft section of the Flanker exploded.

  Then the second Flanker.

  “Pause it there,” said Boyce. He stepped up to the screen where the image flickered, the motion frozen. He peered at the screen, studying the debris pattern. “Now advance it three seconds at a time.”

  The image started, stopped, started and stopped. “Anybody see anything else there?” said Boyce.

  The screen was empty except for the debris pattern of the Flankers.

  “Just the Chameleon and the Flankers,” said Boyce. “And the Black Stars, who are not visible to the cameras. No sign of any Dong-jins, which are also invisible. None of the Black Star crews picked up anything with the CFD goggles either.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” said Dana Boudroux. It was the first time she had spoken during the briefing. “The goggles are fine-tuned to the precise chromatic frequency of the Black Star. Even a very slight wave-length variation, and they’d be ineffective.”

  “Why don’t we have something like the spooks in signal intel use?” asked Boyce. “You know, some kind of device that scans an entire spectrum until it finds something?”

  She shook her head. “Electrochromatic sensing doesn’t work that way. I could explain the technical reasons for it, but it would be best if you just took my word for it, Admiral.”

  Boyce shot her a baleful look. “I’ll be the judge of what would be best, Doctor. Just tell me this. Why don’t we have a set of goggles that can see the Dong-jin?”

  “Without having the Dong-jin’s new skin cloaking generator to study, we’d have to build a thousand sets of goggles with different frequency sensors. And then we would still probably miss.”

  “You’re saying there’s no way to penetrate their cloaking without actually having that piece of equipment to study?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Shit,” said Boyce. He saw Hightree giving him the look again. “Umm, pardon my French, folks, but I’m frustrated. I need to know whether the Dong-jins were at our party today.”

  “They were,” said Maxwell.

  Every head in the room swung to him. The room went quiet.

  “Excuse me?” said Boyce. “You saw them?”

  “I didn’t get a visual on them. But I know that something was out there watching the show.”

  “If you didn’t see them,” said Harvey Wentz, “how do you know they were there?”

  “A gut feeling,” said Maxwell.

  Wentz chuckled. “Since when do gut feelings count as intelligence reports?”

  “Since I took command of this unit,” snapped Boyce. “I know about gut feelings. If Maxwell says something was out there, it would be extremely dumb of you to discount it.”

  Wentz made a sour face and folded his arms over his chest.

  “For what it’s worth,” said Sharp O’Toole, “I had the same gut feeling. I thought I saw something shimmering out there, but when I focused on it with the CFD goggles, it was gone.”

  “Okay,” said Boyce, “If it’s true, then what does it mean?”

  “That they can’t see the Black Stars any better than we can see the Dong-jins,” said Maxwell.

  “Stalemate,” said O’Toole.

  “Negative,” said Boyce. “We achieved our first objective. The Flankers took the bait, made a pass at the Chameleon, got hosed by Brick and Crud. If the Dong-jins were out there, it means they couldn’t do anything about it. Two Flankers splashed, which is a little message from our Commander-in-Chief to the ChiComs. That should give them something to think about before they target any more of our assets.”

  “You achieved one other objective, Red,” said Admiral Hightree.

  “Sir?”

  “You saved Capt. Stickney’s UCAV from the Flankers. Sticks sends his thanks.”

  Boyce nodded. The Chameleon cost upward of five million a copy. It had gotten back to the Reagan in one piece and was now nestled in its enclosed berth off the hangar bay.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Boyce. “That thing.”

  <>

  Shahezhen Capital air base, Beijing

  This is undignified, thought General Han Jianli.

  Han swiped at the trickle of sweat that ran down the inside of his shirt. Through the glare of the afternoon sun he watched the fighter taxiing across the ramp. In the shimmering heat waves, the twin-finned jet looked like a bird of prey.

  In normal circumstances it would have been beneath the dignity of the commanding general of the PLA air force to be standing out here like an enlisted peasant from the provinces. Han Jianli was not only the third highest ranking officer in the PLA, he was a member of the all-powerful Central Military Committee. It was not the habit of such a figure to wait in the midday sun for an ordinary wing commander to arrive in his jet.

  But this, of course, was no ordinary wing commander. General Han squinted against the harsh glare, watching the SU-27 jet roll toward him, then lurch to a stop. While the engines whined down, a flag-festooned bei-jung—an open-topped military utility vehicle—wheeled up to the jet’s boarding ladder.

  The pilot tossed his helmet to a waiting ground crewman, and climbed into the bei-jung. Thirty seconds later, the vehicle rolled up to the long red carpet where General Han and his staff stood waiting.

  The pilot hopped out, drew himself to attention, and snapped a salute. “General Zhang Yu reporting as ordered, sir.”

  Han returned the salute. As always, he had to force himself not to wince at the sight of the man’s wrecked face. Every senior commander in the PLA knew Zhang by personal acquaintance or by reputation. His face was one that many knew in their worst dreams.

  Zhang shook hands with Han, then with the staff officers. Each bowed deferentially to Zhang, even though most outranked him.

  With the courtesies out of the way, Han turned and led the procession inside the sprawling headquarters building. General Han’s command complex filled one entire wing of the building. The Shahezhen air base was twenty kilometers outside Beijing and served as the central command base for the PLA air force. Beneath the hexagonal building lay a rabbit warren of fortified chambers that could survive the discharge of medium-yield nuclear weapons.

  Han led them to the thickly carpeted conference room where he conducted meetings with his unit commanders. In the center stood a long table. The walls were covered with framed photos of PLA air force aircraft. At the far end of the room, smiling down like a benevolent cherub, was a bust of Mao Tse-tung.

  Han waited until the white-coated stewards had served tea and placed dim sum trays before each of the seated officers. />
  “It was kind of you to come on short notice,” said Han.

  “I welcome the opportunity to confer with my commanding general,” said Zhang.

  “We expected you to arrive by transport aircraft, not in an SU-27.”

  “I command a fighter wing. A commander should set an example for all his airmen.”

  Han kept his face blank, pretending not to notice the veiled insult. Few senior officers in the PLA air force still flew operational fighters. Han himself had abandoned the cockpit years ago, preferring the upholstered cabins of the PLA’s executive transport jets. In his opinion, it was foolish for commanders to put themselves at risk by flying supersonic fighters.

  He knew better than to order Zhang to remain on the ground. Zhang was a legendary figure in the PLA air force. Flying the Dong-jin, he alone had visited more carnage on the enemy than the rest of the PLA air force combined.

  Although the true story behind his disfigured face had been skewed to protect the secret of the Dong-jin—the official version had him flying SU-27s—Zhang’s exploits made him a cult figure in the briefing room of every PLA air force unit. Even his ghoulish face was seen by junior fighter pilots as a mark of patriotic honor.

  But there was a more basic reason why General Han would not chastise Zhang. Not only was Zhang Yu a legendary war hero, he was reputed to still be an officer of the dreaded Te-Wu, the secret police of the PLA The Te-Wu was a nearly autonomous unit whose role was to cleanse the PLA of traitors and dissidents. Such a connection gave Zhang an influence far in excess of what his relatively junior rank would confer on him. Officers in every branch of the PLA, including Han himself, shuddered at the thought of a late night visit from the Te-Wu.

  General Han was afraid of Zhang Yu.

  No, thought Han, he wouldn’t order Zhang to stop flying. Gen. Zhang Yu would be permitted to fling himself into more battles. If his reckless spirit should eventually bring him to an untimely end, then so be it. With the rest of the PLA, Han would publicly mourn the loss of a national hero—and then privately rejoice. He could sleep without fear of the Te-Wu.