Black Star

by Robert Gandt

  What an irony, he reflected. In all their years of preparing for a war with Taiwan, it was assumed that China would strike Taiwan. Now this. Taiwan was attacking China.

  Unbelievable. The mouse biting the cat.

  The first weapons to strike the mainland were the HARMs—High Speed Anti-radiation Missiles—launched by the initial wave of Taiwanese F-16s. These were the radar-hunting missiles that locked on to the energy-emitting radars of the Chinese air defense network.

  There was no shortage of targets. Along the entire south China coast, GCI—ground-controlled intercept—sites were probing the sky over the Taiwan Strait. For the permanently situated sites, there was no escape even though the control officers abruptly shut down the emitters when they realized the sites were targeted by incoming missiles.

  Colonel Zhang knew the Taiwanese had long ago designated the air defense command post for a first strike. Without the command hub, the air defense sites along the China coast would be shooting in the dark.

  Listening to the explosions outside, Zhang marveled again at the turn of events. Why did they launch a pre-emptive attack? It did not fit their behavior pattern. Despite all their bluster about independence and sovereignty, Taiwan politicians always conducted themselves with restraint. Why had they suddenly taken such an audacious course?

  In a flash of insight, it came to him. The woman. Soong, the successor to the office of President. Because her husband was assassinated, and then her patron, the troublesome Li Hou-sheng, she was behaving like a woman. Which was to say, irrational.

  She had started a war.

  So be it, thought Zhang, listening to the sounds of warfare outside. Taiwan had sealed its own fate. China would finish the war.

  He turned to the captain who manned the communications console. “How many S-300 units still in action?” The S-300 was the new Russian-supplied surface-to-air missile with both low and high altitude capability.

  The captain shook his head. “None of the stationary units are responding, Colonel. All the mobile units report that they are deploying. None are yet functioning.”

  Zhang nodded. It was bad news, but he wasn’t surprised. The first targets in any air attack were the air defense sites. Without doubt, the coordinates of every fixed air defense site on the coast had been locked into the guidance systems of the anti-radiation missiles.

  The mobile units were another matter. Not until they actually emitted radar signals, tracking incoming targets, could they be located by the Taiwanese fighters. It became a cat-and-mouse game, the air defense radars emitting only long enough to get SAMs—surface-to-air missiles—into the sky and locked on to targets. Then they would shut down and revert to jamming and decoying to thwart the incoming HARMs.

  Zhang could see the tension in the other personnel in the command bunker—the captain at the communications console and the half dozen enlisted technicians. With each fresh explosion, they grew closer to panic. It was vital that they not lose their nerve now.

  In truth, he wasn’t unduly worried. His fortified shelter here at Chouzhou was in no danger from the Taiwanese bombs and missiles. It was unfortunate that the Taiwanese had seized the opportunity to strike first. But it was only a matter of hours before the battle would have begun anyway.

  The air defense network would take some damage, but Zhang had no doubt the data link and voice communications channels would remain open. They would recover. By morning, with the light of day to help him, he would be clearing the sky of Taiwanese fighters.

  <>

  Cmdr. Craze Manson caught Maxwell in the back of the ready room.

  “Skipper, we need to talk.”

  Maxwell braced himself for trouble. Craze Manson never needed to talk unless he was up to something. “About?”

  “The XO. I may be out of line, but this guy’s got a serious credibility problem in this squadron. You know what I mean. Nobody is comfortable having him here.”

  He knew where Manson was going with this. Everyone knew that Craze Manson carried a massive chip on his shoulder. Newly promoted to commander, he made no secret of the fact that he had expected to be the next XO—executive officer—the number two job. In practice, the XO slot was the last stop before taking over command of the squadron.

  Maxwell and CAG Boyce had agreed that Craze Manson was a bad choice. Instead, Bullet Alexander, who was just completing a tour with the Blue Angels, got the nod to be the Roadrunners’ new XO.

  “I must be missing something,” said Maxwell. “Bullet’s got a solid reputation.”

  “On the showboat circuit, maybe. Not out here in the fleet.”

  Maxwell nodded. A tour with the Blues, everyone knew, gave you name recognition and could be a career-booster. In the opinion of many in the fleet, it had more to do with show business than it did the Navy.

  “What are you saying, Craze? That Bullet can’t carry his weight?” “Look at his record. The guy’s never flown a combat mission. He’s been a poster boy for most of his career—the Blue Angels and the cocktail circuit. With all the qualified people in the zone, how did we get someone like that as our prospective skipper?”

  For a while Maxwell didn’t reply. It was true that Alexander had a classic case of bad timing. He missed Desert Storm because he was in post-graduate school. He was on shore duty during the Bosnia and Kosovo operations. He missed Afghanistan while he was assigned to the Blues.

  But Maxwell and Boyce had agreed that Alexander was the right officer to be the new XO. Neither wanted the quarrelsome Manson be second-in-command of the Roadrunners. Or any other squadron.

  He said, “Bullet’s got more Hornet time than anyone here, including you or me.”

  “What kind of time? None in combat. He’s got fewer traps on the boat than most first-tour pilots. He’s a damn carpetbagger.”

  Maxwell had to smile. Carpetbagger. It was the same label Manson applied to him when he was new to the squadron. He’d come back to the fleet after a long tour as a test pilot and then an astronaut. He was a carpetbagger too.

  And a poster boy.

  They had stopped calling him that after his three MiGs and the strikes in Iraq and Yemen. No more poster boy.

  He had to admit that some of what Manson said was true. Alexander was a little short in real-world experience. Flying the air show circuit with the Blue Angels was not the same as serving in the fleet. It was tough to lead a squadron into combat when you hadn’t been there yourself.

  But he had chosen Alexander over other more qualified candidates because he sensed that Bullet had something special. An inner steel, a strength of character. He was a warrior.

  He hoped he was right.

  He could tell by Manson’s hard expression that he wasn’t buying it. Which was not surprising. Between the two existed a mutual dislike that went back to Maxwell’s first months in the squadron. It came to a peak one day when Manson walked out of a department head meeting called by Maxwell, when he was the newly appointed XO. It was a critical moment. Manson had challenged his credibility.

  He followed Manson outside the meeting room. Without warning, he seized his shirt collar and rapped Manson’s head against the bulkhead. Before Manson could recover from his disbelief, he did it again.

  By the third bang against the hard steel bulkhead, Manson had gotten the picture. Though his eyes were glazed, he was seeing Maxwell in a new light.

  Since that day, an uneasy truce simmered between the two men.

  “Look, Craze, if I didn’t think Bullet was a solid player, I wouldn’t have taken him on as XO. How about doing me and the squadron a big favor. Reserve judgment on him. Give the guy a break, okay?”

  Manson’s expression didn’t change. “I take it that you are rejecting my opinion in this matter?”

  “Take it any way you want. That’s the way it is.”

  With exaggerated stiffness, Manson drew himself up to attention. “Will that be all, sir?”

  “I sure as hell hope so.”

  A dark shadow passed ove
r Manson’s face. He turned on his heel and strode out of the ready room.

  Maxwell shook his head. There was some kind of rule that every squadron had to have one asshole like Craze Manson. It was part of the integral structure of the military. Manson was a perpetually disgruntled officer who had climbed as far as he would go in the Navy’s pyramidal system. It was unlikely that he would ever command a squadron of his own, and he would make life miserable for anyone who passed him on the way up.

  Maxwell watched the door slam behind Manson. Damn. He had enough to think about—losing the President of Taiwan, a possible war, running a squadron—without worrying what Manson was up to. Maybe he should warn Bullet that someone was gunning for him.

  No. If Bullet was going to take command someday, he had to deal with problems in his own way.

  And then he had a thought that made him smile. Manson. Maybe it was time someone slammed him into a bulkhead again.

  CHAPTER 5 — CATFISH

  Taiwan Strait

  0645, Thursday, 11 September

  “Razor One, this is Fat Boy. Bandits airborne off Longyan, thirty miles from the coastline, climbing out of twenty-five thousand.” The voice of the Taiwanese controller in the E-2C cracked as he called out the targets.

  “Razor One, roger,” said the F-16 flight leader.

  Razor was the collective call sign of the flight of four F-16A’s flying CAP—combat air patrol on the southern edge of the battle area. Their station was midway between the southwest end of Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.

  Twenty seconds ticked past. The flight leader was becoming impatient with the controller. He wanted some hard information. “Bogey dope,” he called. How many bandits were out there? What bearing? Where the hell were they going?

  “Fat Boy has a single group, heavy, thirty east of Alpha, heading east, climbing. Range 120.”

  “Razor,” acknowledged Major Catfish Bass, the flight leader. The bandits were coming his way, still a hundred twenty miles out. “Heavy” meant the controller was seeing multiple contacts within the group. That figured, thought Bass.

  He checked his own situational display, trying to project the bandits’ flight path. A hundred twenty miles was still too far out to commit. The trick was to draw them out over water, away from their SA-10 surface-to-air coverage. Into the killing zone.

  Bass glanced over each shoulder. Perched on his left wing in a close combat spread was Lt. Wei-ling Ma, his wingman. Abeam his right wing was the second element, led by Capt. Jian Tsin, and his wingman, Lt. Choi Lum.

  All young and eager, new to the F-16 Viper. Only Jian had more than a hundred hours in the Viper. None had never seen combat.

  Bass was a United States Air Force exchange officer assigned to the Taiwanese air force. An instructor pilot from the F-16 replacement training unit at Luke AFB, outside of Phoenix, he had racked up over fifteen-hundred hours in the Viper, including a combat tour in Southwest Asia. Bass’s job was to provide tactical training to pilots of the Taiwanese air force.

  For a second an image floated across Bass’s mind. He could visualize the apoplectic rage his boss— a two-star at Fifth Air Force HQ in Yokota—would have when he learned that Bass was flying combat missions against the PRC. The old man would have a shit fit.

  He shoved the image from his mind. Screw it. It would take a team of lawyers a week to decipher his orders. They were written in such typical Air Force mumbo-jumbo that they could be interpreted half a dozen ways. By his own loose interpretation, they did not exactly rule out operational missions. Then again, maybe they did. At the moment, he didn’t want to think about it.

  “Fat Boy has the group feet wet, heading east. Range eighty.”Eighty miles, coming this way. By the time they merged, the fight would be well outside the range of the deadly SA-10s.

  “Razor. Turning nose hot.”

  Razor flight wheeled around and pointed their noses at the threat. Four radars scanning the blue sky ahead. They would soon be in detection range.

  Bass saw them in his scope. “Razor One, contact, single group, bearing one-zero-zero for eighty miles, hot.” “Hot” meant that the bandits were heading towards them.

  “Fat Boy confirms. Those are your bandits. Razor One is cleared hot.”

  “Razor copies. Razor flight, knockers up, tapes on.” It was the signal to his flight to flip their master armament switches from Safe to Arm. Then turn on the HUD video cameras mounted in the cockpit of each Viper.

  Bass made another visual check on his flight. Wei was where he was supposed to be—abeam his left wing in combat spread. Jian’s element was still correctly positioned off to the right.

  So far, so good. His guys were hanging in there.

  Early in his exchange assignment, Bass had run into the caste system of the Taiwanese air force, where tactical proficiency was less valued than political connection. Bass made it his business to identify the young fighter pilots with the greatest potential, regardless of their rank and connection.

  These three—Wing-lei, Jian, and Choi—were his handpicked students. For weeks he had drilled them in the complex discipline of four-ship tactics. They were eager and aggressive, almost worshipful in the way they emulated Bass’s jargon and body language.

  Bass’s radar was showing a gaggle of at least four, maybe six fighters, clustered together at 25,000 feet. Forty miles and closing.

  His left thumb pushed the mike button, “Razor, gate.” The signal for afterburners. The four F-16s accelerated to supersonic speed.

  Bass squinted at the horizon. He knew he’d see a firing solution in his multi-function display long before he could visually acquire the Communist fighters, but he wanted a mental picture of how the fight would flow. Judging by their speed and altitude, the bandits were probably Chinese F-7s, home-grown variants of the Russian MiG-21 Fishbed. They were fast but obsolete. They might even be hauling iron bombs to a target on Taiwan. So much the better.

  These gomers were toast.

  The night before, Bass had stood on the blackened tarmac of the fighter base, his stomach churning, and watched his young pupils launch on the first wave of attacks against the mainland. Much as he wanted to go with them, he knew better. He couldn’t risk having the Chinese capture an American pilot in the act of bombing them. If the Communists didn’t kill him, Major General Buckner would do it for them.The initial attacks had gone well. The F-16-launched HARM missiles had succeeded in shutting down the Chinese coastal air defense sites. Behind the HARM-shooters, the F-16 and Mirage 2000 strikers had smashed their mainland targets—air defense complexes, the fighter bases at Fuzhou and Longxi, the supply depots and the port facilities at Xiamen and Mawei.

  In all, sixty-three F-16s and forty-five Mirage 2000s participated in the attack. Two Vipers and three Mirages had not returned. That was an amazingly good ratio, considering the grim pre-strike threat appraisals. They would have suffered a much higher loss rate if China had not been caught flatfooted.

  Well, thought Bass, kiss that advantage goodbye. Taiwan’s lean little air force was outnumbered three-to-one. Their best hope was their qualitative advantage. In addition to the new F-16s, the Taiwanese had sixty-some French-built Mirage 2000s, plus a hundred older Northrop F-5s. Overall, they were superior to anything the Chinese could put in the air—with the exception of the Russian-built Su-27 Flankers.

  As in every air war, it depended on the guys in the cockpits.

  As the dawn approached, Bass had reached a decision. He could no longer keep himself out of the fight. He assigned himself to lead a CAP—combat air patrol—over the strait. At least he wouldn’t be hanging his unauthorized American butt out over the forbidden Chinese mainland. Really, he told himself, it wasn’t much different than a regular training mission over the strait.

  Yeah, right. Try running that one by the general.

  The voice of the controller in the Hawkeye broke through his thoughts. “Fat Boy has bandits flanking north.”That meant the Fishbeds had taken a thirty degree or so turn
to the north. Setting themselves up for the fight. Bass was sure they were getting GCI—ground controlled intercept—commands.

  The strait between China and Taiwan had become an electronic shooting gallery. “Razor flight, check right forty.” He would answer the bandits’ flanking maneuver with an offset intercept.

  As he brought the nose of his F-16 forty degrees right, he saw each of his other fighters moving with him, adjusting their positions to maintain a line abreast formation. Bass wanted to head off the oncoming Fishbeds, stay in front of them, keep them from getting around his wall of Vipers. At the right moment, he would turn into them, bracket them, kill them with AIM-120 missiles.

  With his right thumb, he slid the armament selector to AMRAAM. The AIM-120—called AMRAAM for Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile—was the great equalizer. The most modern missile in the U.S. inventory, it was one of the items withheld from the Taiwanese until just a few weeks ago. With a range of over thirty-five miles, the AMRAAM could kill from a greater distance than anything the Chinese possessed. Or so Catfish Bass fervently hoped.

  Again he checked his scope. Range twenty-five. Six of them, still in a cluster. No, make that two flights of three, stacked in a vertical split of two thousand feet.

  Like fat geese waiting to be killed.

  “Razor, bracket,” he ordered, banking his Viper hard to the left. Wei-ling matched the turn, and they rolled out forty-five degrees off their original heading. Jian’s element rolled hard to right, also offsetting by forty-five degrees.Now the flight of Vipers was split, heading ninety degrees apart. The maneuver would put the Vipers on either side of the Fishbeds.

  Almost in range. Bass’s plan was to target, shoot, and shoot again. Take out as many as he could before they merged. He had no intention of getting into a turning fight.“Fat Boy shows the bandits maneuvering.”