Black Star Rising

by Robert Gandt

  The jet was at slow speed.

  The whine of the turbine engine swelled in volume. Maxwell peered into the haze. He saw nothing, but he knew without a doubt what it was. And who.

  Zhang. Zhang would come back to strafe the crew.

  He saw the yellow blinking light first. A gun muzzle. No sound, no chatter of an automatic weapon, just that yellow blinking light. He knew the sound came later.

  Whap, whap, whap. It sounded like hailstones. Bullets ripping through his parachute. He felt a sickening lurch as one of the risers separated.

  Brraap. Brraap. The sound of the cannon caught up with the bullets.

  Maxwell raised his arms, instinctively protecting his body. He kept his eyes on the yellow blinking light. It flickered, extinguished, flickered, extinguished again. He knew what the pilot was doing. Firing short, selective bursts, like someone playing with a flashlight.

  He saw the Dong-jin. It was close, close enough that he could see the wavy, wispy shape of the jet. It had the amorphous look of a jellyfish, coming directly at him.

  The little yellow light again. The wispy shape was wrapped like a shroud around the light. Maxwell stared at the muzzle of the cannon.

  He knew it was coming. He felt a dull smack, then nothing.

  <>

  O’Toole lost sight of the Dong-jin.

  He had glimpsed it for only a moment—a shimmering silhouette—moving at a surprisingly low speed. Then he heard that awful growling noise, like the sound of a concrete drill. The gun. The noise sent a wave of raw fear surging through his nervous system.

  The roar of the jet engine faded. O’Toole tried to follow the sound. It seemed to be arcing around him, moving back to where he had first heard it.

  Circling for another pass.

  O’Toole could see Maxwell’s parachute. Ribbons of nylon were streaming from the canopy. Something was torn, flapping like a loose shoestring. He could see Maxwell hanging slumped in his harness, head flopped over on his shoulder. Both arms dangled at his sides. The rips in the chute were causing it to descend faster than O’Toole’s.

  A feeling of hopelessness swept over O’Toole. He guessed this was how a swimmer felt when he saw a shark coming. That murdering sonofabitch strafed Maxwell while he was hanging in the straps. Now he was coming for O’Toole.

  This wasn’t the way a fighting man was supposed to go out, he thought. Letting some gomer shoot at you while you were a defenseless target.

  He corrected himself. Defenseless my ass. He was a marine, goddamnit. Marines were never defenseless.

  He pulled his sidearm from its web holster. The butt of the pistol—a Colt .45 semiautomatic—had a nylon lanyard that kept it connected to the holster.

  He heard the distant roar of the jet changing pitch. Coming closer. He swung himself around in the chute to face the oncoming sound.

  He saw the muzzle flash. A second later he made out the shape of the stealth jet itself. It was coming directly at him, wavy and ghostly-looking in the afternoon haze.

  O’Toole superimposed the sight of the pistol over the gray shape. He squeezed off a round, feeling the recoil of the big pistol. It felt good. Crazy as hell, but good.

  He fired again. And kept firing.

  <>

  “Minimum fuel, General. We must leave immediately.”

  Zhang heard the urgency in Po’s voice. He had no doubt that the dutiful systems officer would remain with the Dong-jin until it ran out of fuel—if Zhang so ordered. But Po knew that a worse fate would befall him if he didn’t warn Zhang about the impending fuel problem.

  “I know,” said Zhang. He had already turned the Dong-jin’s nose in the direction of Hainan Island and their base at Lingshui. He had used up his remaining 30 millimeter ammunition and most of his fuel. They had barely enough for the flight back to Lingshui. The flight management computer was showing that they could expect to touch down with 200 kilos of fuel—less than fifteen minutes flying time.

  Too close for normal operations.. Today, of course, had not been a normal operation.

  The Dong-jin had prevailed over the Americans. Two Black Stars destroyed, both crews annihilated. The PLA air force had lost one Dong-jin, one SU-27. Such losses were regrettable, particularly the Dong-jin, but acceptable.

  It was the most glorious day of Zhang’s career. The war in the South China Sea would soon be over. When the history of the campaign was made public, Gen. Zhang Yu would be recognized as the greatest military hero in the People’s Republic of China.

  He pushed the throttles up. He would climb to a higher altitude where the Dong-jin would obtain the longest range for its meager remaining fuel.

  Zhang took one last glance over his shoulder. He saw the curving shoreline of the atoll where the two chutes had descended. One was landing about a hundred meters inland. The other hadn’t reached the island.

  It was fitting, thought Zhang. Let the sharks dispose of the remains.

  <>

  Borne on the fifteen-knot breeze, the inert body dropped into the sea. He plunged beneath the surface, bobbed up, and was dragged across the waves by the wind-filled parachute canopy. After fifty yards, the chute collapsed onto itself and spread like a mat across the surface.

  The man was still attached to the chute by the harness fittings. The canopy settled in the water like a sea anchor. The man slowly sank beneath the waves. Sea water filled his mouth and nostrils.

  His eyes opened.

  Darkness was enclosing him like a coffin. He tried to breathe and sucked water into his lungs.

  He was drowning.

  Panic overtook him, and he clawed wildly for the surface, flailing with his arms and legs.

  His foot struck something. He kicked again and felt his boot dig into a soft, yielding surface.

  Sand. The water was shallow. He kicked against the bottom and propelled himself upward, thrusting his head above the surface. He coughed, gasped, then sank back under the water. Again he kicked off the bottom. He expelled water, trying to suck in air. Trying not to let his panic kill him.

  He made two more round trips to the bottom, kicking back to the surface. He gasped for oxygen, fighting the panic that had seized him like a wild animal.

  In a series of tiny flashes, his brain was returning to life. Then he remembered. He had a life preserver attached to his SV-2 survival vest.

  He found the toggles and yanked them. The flotation device swelled around him and he popped like a cork to the surface. Between fits of coughing, he regurgitated what seemed like gallons of sea water.

  Finally he thought about the Koch fittings—the attachments that fastened him to the parachute. One at a time, he released the fittings. He disentangled himself from the shroud lines and let the parachute sink beneath the surface.

  His vision was clearing. He saw that he was only about fifty yards from the shore. He paddled and kicked toward the shore until he felt his boots again scraping the bottom. He reached a depth where he could stagger through the two-foot surf onto the shore.

  On the rocky beach he collapsed to his knees. For several minutes he heaved his insides out, purging himself of the warm, salty water. His head throbbed. Waves of nausea kept sweeping over him.

  He pulled his helmet and scalp liner off and dropped them on the sand. Between sessions of retching he looked at the helmet. There was something peculiar about it.

  The left side of the helmet had a groove through it, as if it had been struck by a thin round object. He continued to stare at the helmet. What happened to it? What made that groove?

  It came to him. The yellow winking light—the Dong-jin’s automatic cannon. Strafing him while he descended in the chute. He recalled the whap of the shells tearing through the nylon of the parachute. Then a blow on the head.

  He could see it now, a thirty-millimeter-sized groove through the composite shell of the helmet. The bullet missed his scalp but walloped him hard enough to knock him senseless.

  He gave himself an inspection for other damage. No othe
r bullet wounds. Nothing broken or badly sprained. There was only this throbbing headache from the bullet slap, and the nausea from a belly full of sea water.

  His brain was idling at one-tenth its normal power. He felt like a sleepwalker who had awakened to find himself in a strange land. He sat on the rocky beach, fighting back the nausea, and assessed his situation.

  I was shot down. I ejected. The sonofabitch strafed me in the parachute. He missed, except for the round that whacked my helmet, and then I nearly drowned, but I didn’t, and now I’m on this damn island.

  What damn island?

  I was with. . . He had to think for a moment. O’Toole.

  Maxwell forced himself to his feet. A wave of dizziness swept over him, and he nearly toppled over.

  The island rose inland to an elevation of no more than ten or fifteen feet. The surface appeared to be a porous rocky substance, probably of volcanic origin. Pale green scrub brush, three to four feet high, covered most of the terrain as far as he could see. There was no sign of habitation, no movement anywhere, no sound except the low rumble of the surf.

  He remembered the radio. In its Velcroed pouch on his torso harness was the CSEL— Combat Survivor Evader Locator. With it he could talk to the SAR units and Sandy—the search-and-rescue unit and their gunship escorts.

  And he could talk to O’Toole, wherever he was.

  Wobbling on his feet, Maxwell pulled the radio from its pouch. He was still fumbling with the ON switch when he glimpsed something over the nearest brush-covered ridge. Something white, ruffling in the breeze like a laundry on a line. It was just visible over the tops of the scrub brush.

  The canopy of a parachute.

  Maxwell lurched across the beach. His legs tried to buckle beneath him. The toe of a boot caught a loose rock and he pitched onto his hands and knees. Shaking his head, he rose and continued toward the low ridge.

  He staggered up the shallow incline, stumbling over rocks, pushing with his knees through the clinging scrub brush. At the crest of the ridge he could see for nearly a mile across the interior of the island.

  He saw the ruffling white parachute canopy, snagged on an outcropping of rock. It was still attached to the figure lying motionless against the ridge.

  Despite his dizziness, Maxwell broke into a trot. As he trotted, he heard a disembodied, crackling voice.

  “Dragon One-one, this is Battle-ax.”

  The CSEL emergency radio. He had already forgotten that he’d turned it on.

  “Answer up, Dragon One-one. We need a comm check.”

  Maxwell didn’t answer. He kept running toward the figure on the ground.

  <>

  “How much fuel?” Zhang asked.

  The stealth jet was parked inside the fortified hangar. The big bi-fold door had already sealed it off from the rest of the base at Lingshui.

  “Slightly less than two hundred kilos,” said Po.

  Zhang nodded. Ten minutes flying time, perhaps less. Closer than he had expected, but such risks were sometimes necessary.

  Po was waiting beneath the Dong-jin’s nose. Zhang dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  He waited until the young officer had gone inside the operations office. Then he began his inspection.

  First he examined the pointed nose of the jet. He walked along the leading edge of the right wing. The dull gray surface always reminded Zhang of the skin of a shark. Hard, dark, smooth. He studied every millimeter of the radar-absorbent surface, sliding his hand over its surface.

  Two meters from the tip of the left wing, he found what he was looking for. He focused the beam of his pencil light on the small hole in the leading edge. He put his finger in the indentation, guessing at the caliber. A heavy blunt round, ten or twelve millimeter.

  Zhang had to laugh. It was so stupid. Stupid and audacious. But he was a soldier, and he could almost admire the audacity of the man who made this hole in the Dong-jin.

  The bullet had come from the second of the two parachutes. Zhang had already killed the man in the first. He was certain because he had seen the man’s body slump after the barrage of cannon fire. He was almost out of ammunition, and for the second target Zhang forced himself to wait. He was flying the Dong-jin at a slow speed, giving himself the easiest shot.

  He waited until he was close enough that he could see the man’s face. The figure in the parachute was aiming a weapon. Firing at him.

  That was when he felt it—a tiny plink—somewhere in the airframe of the Dong-jin. Zhang didn’t believe it. No one could hit an onrushing jet fighter—an invisible jet fighter—with a handgun.

  He had squeezed his trigger again, only for a second. The rattle of the cannon abruptly ceased. He had spent the last of his ammunition, but it didn’t matter. He could see that the last burst had been on target.

  Chapter 22 — Hellfire

  Northeast Cay, Spratly Islands

  South China Sea

  1745 Monday, 30 April

  Maxwell stopped trotting. There was no reason to hurry. Slowly he walked through the scrub brush. The parachute was flapping in the light breeze.

  O’Toole was lying face down. A pool of blood had accumulated beneath him.

  Maxwell knelt beside him. He knew what he’d find. O’Toole’s upper body had been hit by at least two thirty-millimeter rounds.

  Gently, Maxwell rolled him over. He released the Koch fittings that still attached O’Toole’s body to the chute. He detached the oxygen mask, then removed the helmet. He closed O’Toole’s eyes.

  A dull, metallic object caught his attention. It lay in the dirt beside O’Toole, still connected by its lanyard to the web holster. Maxwell picked up the Colt .45 and looked at it. The slide was open, and the extended ten-round magazine was empty.

  A voice crackled again from the emergency radio. “Dragon One-one, this is Battle-ax. Speak to me, Dragon.”

  Maxwell felt a great weariness come over him. He sat on the ground beside O’Toole’s shattered body. He pulled out the emergency radio and stared at it for a while.

  “Damn it, Dragon One-one,” said the voice, “answer up.”

  Maxwell keyed the transmitter. “Dragon One-one hears you, Battle-ax.”

  “About time, Dragon. Authenticate, please.”

  Maxwell had to think. What the hell was the authentication code for the mission? His head throbbed. A deep fatigue had settled over him.

  Finally it came to him. “Golf Bravo forty-five.”

  “Say the status of you and Dragon One-two.”

  Maxwell turned to look at the body of Sharp O’Toole. His eyes were closed, and he looked as if he were asleep.

  “Dragon One-one Alpha is okay. Dragon One-one Bravo is dead.”

  A silence of several seconds passed. Maxwell thought he heard Boyce sigh over the frequency. “Copy that,” said Boyce. “Listen to me now, Dragon. I want you to move to the east end of the island as fast as you can. You’ve got ground contacts moving your way from the west.”

  Ground contacts? Maxwell’s brain was still not up to speed. How did Boyce know where he was? How did he know about ground contacts?

  He stared at the CSEL EMERGENCY RADIO—and then it came to him. It was automatically transmitting Maxwell’s encrypted longitude and latitude. But how did Boyce know about the ground contacts? Did they have a surveillance drone in the area?

  “Move, Dragon,” said Boyce. “Get out of there.”

  “What about Dragon One-one Bravo?”

  “We’ll do our best to recover him, and that’s a promise. Take his radio and sidearm with you. Use your handheld GPS to find the eastern tip of the island.”

  Maxwell had forgotten about the GPS—the Global Positioning Satellite receiver—in the vest pocket of his flight suit. It was the size of a pack of cigarettes, battery powered, and had a tiny back-lit screen. He pushed the ON button, then stuffed it back in his pocket without waiting for it to boot up.

  He looked again at O’Toole’s body. I let the Dong-jin shoot us down. O�
��Toole would be alive if—

  Something caught his eye. Over the ridge a hundred yards to the west. Silhouettes against the sky.

  Troops coming his way. A column of them, jogging along as if they knew exactly where they were going. And something more ominous. The whop whop of rotor blades.

  Ours or theirs?

  Boyce’s voice came over the radio again. “Dragon One-one, move, damn it! You’ve got ChiComs inbound.”

  He knelt over O’Toole’s body. He removed the emergency radio, the .45 pistol, and the extra magazine of ammo. He wobbled to his feet and took one last look at the marine’s body. Sorry, Sharp. It was my fault.

  Then he keyed the mike on the CSEL. “I hear you, Battle-ax. Dragon One-one’s moving out.”

  <>

  Running made him want to puke again. His boots pounded on the loose rocks. His head throbbed, and the sea water that remained in his stomach kept gurgling to the surface. The scrub brush grabbed his legs, slowing him, making him want to stop and walk. Fatigue was seeping through his bones.

  Little geysers of dirt erupted six feet behind him. A mini-second later came the crackle of gunfire. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the dark-clad troops one ridge to the west.

  The bastards were shooting at him.

  No more time for puking. With renewed energy he scrambled over the next low ridge. He ran like a sprinter through more rocks and scrub brush.

  The whop whop of the rotor blades was becoming louder. And in the background Maxwell picked up another noise—a distant buzzing that sounded like a lawnmower.

  He took another glance over his shoulder. Oh, hell. There it was, coming over the ridge—the dark shape of a helicopter. And he no longer had any doubt whose it was. He recognized the camo-painted, slope-nosed shape of a Z-9, the Chinese knock off of the French Dauphin. This one was configured as an assault ship with weapons pylons on either side of the fuselage.

  His breath was coming in hard rasps. His legs felt heavy and clumsy. The weight of the SV-2 survival vest was slowing him down. He stopped long enough to unclasp the vest. He threw it into the brush and resumed running.