Black Star

by Robert Gandt

  The sky became bright as high noon. He could see the surface of the ocean, his escort ships, the faces of the sailors in their gun turrets.

  Chi Chuan, the fueling ship, had taken the Moskit missile amidships. Twelve thousand tons of fuel oil erupted in a thousand-foot-high inferno. The blaze was lighting up the Taiwan Strait for a hundred square miles.

  It took eight seconds for the blast to reach Kai Tang. A dull rumble of thunder, then a wave of super-heated wind swept over the frigate. Lei saw the men in the gun turrets duck behind their armor, shielding their faces from the heat. The orange light danced on the skin of the ship like a rising sun.

  “Captain,” Lei heard the surface watch officer report, “we show a second Harpoon strike on the target. Looks like the Sovremenny has taken heavy damage. He’s slowed to five knots.”

  “Is he firing more missiles?”

  “No, sir. No more radar separations. Looks like we shut his missile batteries down.”

  Lei’s eyes were still on the blazing tanker a mile astern. A hundred-fifty sailors had just been incinerated by the blast that his Phalanx guns had diverted from Kai Tang.

  A seething anger was taking a grip on him. “Give me a bearing and distance on the Sovremenny.”

  “Three-one-five degrees, eighteen kilometers, Captain. He’s reversing course. Looks like he’s making for the coast.”

  Lei turned to the OOD. “Steer three-one-five, full speed ahead.” Then he barked into the sound-powered phone. “Fire control, reload and stand by all guns, ready torpedo tubes one and two.”

  “Aye, sir.” A pause, then, “What are our intentions, Captain?”

  “Intentions?” Lei glowered out into the darkness. “We’re going to blow him to hell.”

  <>

  Time to kill the beast.

  Chiu took one last look at the ominous shape of the remaining Black Star. In the dim red light of Shelter Four, it looked like a living object—a great, bat-winged bird of prey. Killing this thing would give him pleasure.

  Lieutenant Kee was watching him, waiting for his signal. Chiu gave him a nod, and Kee headed for the door.

  Chiu unhooked two grenades from his belt. With slow, deliberate movements, he pulled the pins, one after the other. He tossed one into each jet intake atop the wings of the Black Star. Then he turned and hurried out of the shelter, following Kee.

  They were twenty yards away when the grenades exploded, half a second apart. It felt like a subterranean tremor, shaking the ground under Chiu’s feet. He saw the walls of the Shelter bulge outward. The bi-fold door ripped free at one hinge, and black smoke billowed out the gap.

  The beast is dead. Chiu turned his back on the destroyed building and headed for Shelter Three.

  Maxwell and the woman were already inside the cockpit. “How much longer?” Chiu called from the floor of the shelter.

  “One minute,” said Maxwell. “The auxiliary power unit is starting now.” Chiu could hear an ascending whine as the auxiliary power unit inside the jet’s belly cranked up.

  He heard a series of explosions outside, three in a row, not more than two or three kilometers away. Mortars, probably fired from just outside the perimeter. If the PLA units managed to take out the helicopters, it was all over. Their only allies were the dissidents who shut down the power station and took out the air defense net. They had long ago run for safety.

  He glanced at his watch. Forty-six minutes since they landed at Chouzhou. Already sixteen minutes over his allowance. In twenty minutes, dawn would come. If they hadn’t left Chouzhou by then, they’d be dead.

  In the cockpit, Maxwell and the woman were wearing their helmets with the strange goggles. She was talking to him on the intercom, giving instructions, reading the instrument markings, explaining what the displays meant.

  Chiu reflected again on what would have happened if he had found her before Bass and Maxwell. He would have put a bullet in her without hesitation. He still had the nagging thought that perhaps he should have done that anyway.

  Why had she sneaked away? According to her story, she had gone to find the Black Star squadron commander—someone she called Zhang—in order to kill him. Instead, she had found the other pilot, Major Han, a former colleague who she thought was dead.

  And so he was, thanks to Maxwell and that ancient blunderbuss, the .45 caliber pistol.

  Which made a nice bit of irony. In accordance with Chinese tradition, it meant that Maxwell, having saved the troublesome woman’s life, was responsible for her.

  The notion almost—but not quite—made Chiu smile.

  “Ready for engine start,” Maxwell called out. “Stand clear when she energizes the skin cloaking field. There may be a static discharge.”

  Chiu wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded and moved to the side door.

  “When I give the thumbs up, raise the bi-fold door. Then run like hell.”

  About time. This had turned into the longest night of Chiu’s life. If he lived beyond dawn, it would be a miracle.

  Waiting in the commandeered Bei-jung vehicle was Kee and the wounded American. As soon as the door to the shelter opened, Chiu would join them and they would race for the waiting number three helicopter.

  More explosions pounded the apron outside.

  “Colonel,” said the commando on the man-pack radio, “helo two reports that the armored column is breaching the perimeter at the southwest corner.”

  “Order the Cobras to engage them.”

  “They’re already engaged, sir. They’re taking fire from the APCs, and they can see mobile missile launchers approaching.”

  Hurry, Chiu urged the American in the Black Star. Their lives could now be measured in minutes.

  The whine of a jet engine filled the expanse of the shelter. Then another. The second engine was still accelerating when Maxwell flashed a thumbs up.

  Chiu understood. Raise the door.

  While the door was raising, Chiu climbed into the waiting Bei-jung. Kee was in the driver’s seat, with the unconscious Bass in the back seat.

  He saw Maxwell watching from the cockpit, waiting for the shelter door to fully open. He climbed into the waiting Bei-jung.

  “Go,” he ordered Kee, sitting in the driver’s seat. “We’ve done all we can for them.”

  As the vehicle pulled away into the darkness, Chiu looked back and gave the pilot of the Black Star a salute.

  CHAPTER 21 — EGRESS

  Chouzhou Air Base, People’s Republic of China

  0538, Monday, 15 September

  At least the stick and throttles were in the right place. But that was all. Not much else about the Black Star’s cockpit—the four display screens, the enunciator panels with script that looked like chicken scratchings, the enumerated gauges indicating mysterious values—made much sense.

  He had located the airspeed and altitude read outs—all in metric, of course. The rest was hieroglyphics to him. Like one of those movies, Maxwell thought, where the hero climbs into an alien space ship and flies it away.

  Not that far from the truth. The Black Star—this Black Star, anyway—was about as alien as it got.

  Another hour. Sixty more minutes—that’s how much he needed—to familiarize himself with the cockpit layout. Mai-ling could have educated him about the unintelligible Chinese instrument symbology. He would have had time to match up the layout with what he remembered from the Black Star back in Dreamland.

  Now he’d do it the hard way. Cold.

  “Canopy coming closed,” said Mai-ling over the intercom.

  He heard the electric whine of the big Plexiglas canopy, then a clunk as it locked shut. They were enveloped in near-silence, closed off from the howl of the Black Star’s two jet engines, from the whump and clatter of the firefight taking place on the base perimeter.

  “APU shut down.”

  “APU shutting down,” Mai-ling replied, confirming that the auxiliary power unit was no longer on line. She sounded excited, thought Maxwell. It occurred to him
that although she knew the Black Star’s systems, she wasn’t a flight crew member. The hard part—flying the jet—lay ahead of them.

  “Confirm nav system initialized.”

  “That’s a problem,” she said. “I put in the base coordinates, but I can’t tell whether the nav computer accepted it.”

  Maxwell couldn’t tell either. The situational display looked okay to him. It would have to do.

  “Fuel quantity check.”

  “Eighty-three hundred kilos,” she replied. Then she did the math for him. “If it helps, that’s 18,000 pounds, plus a little.”

  “Thanks.” Maxwell didn’t know the fuel burn rate of the Black Star’s engines. Somewhere around five thousand pounds per hour, he estimated. Figuring extra for take off and climb, it gave them around three hours endurance.

  Through the expanding cavity in the shelter opening, Maxwell could see the expanse of Chouzhou air base sprawled out before him. The taxiway from the shelter veered forty-five degrees to the right, then joined the approach end of runway one-six. It was the closest runway—but the shortest. At the far end of the field was the east-west runway, zero-nine and two-seven. It was ten thousand feet long.

  “What runway did the Black Star use when they took off at Chouzhou?”

  “The long one,” she said.

  “They never used one-six?”

  “No. Too short. Why?”

  He didn’t answer. He tried to remember how long runway one-six was. He pulled the diagram of the Chouzhou runway complex from his cargo pocket. Runway one-six was 1,980 meters in length. He did a rapid calculation and came up with a rough runway length. About 6,500 feet.

  That was short, very short for a fully-loaded jet. Was it too short?

  As a test pilot, he always calculated to the foot how much runway distance his jet required to lift off. Lacking data about the Chinese Black Star’s performance, he didn’t have a clue. The original Black Star, he remembered, had been sluggish in take off performance. But that was at Dreamland, some 4,000 feet above sea level, where the hot, thin air took a slice out of a jet’s performance. Chouzhou was nearly at sea level. Maybe this version would do better.

  The big electro-hydraulic bi-fold door was nearly open, and through the chasm he could see flashes and eruptions of flame in the southeast quadrant, where the commando landing zone had been.

  Forget the long runway. It would be runway one-six, too short or not.

  “Time to leave town.” He advanced the throttles. The Black Star lurched forward, trundling along on its tall, spindly landing gear.

  They rolled out of the red-lighted shelter, onto the darkness of the apron. Maxwell lowered his night vision goggles and peered into the greenish landscape ahead. He could see the curving taxiway, the distant runway, the perimeter fence beyond.

  He tested the nose wheel steering, making gentle turns left and right. He tried out the brakes, tapping the pedals with his feet. The jet skittered almost to a halt, its nose bobbing downward. He had to jam hard on the right pedal to keep from slewing off the taxiway into the dirt.

  “What are you doing?” said Mai-ling.”

  “Testing.”

  “You’re supposed to steal this thing, not test it.”

  “Be quiet. You’re a systems officer, not a check pilot.”

  “I’m a concerned crewmember.”

  “Then be concerned and shut up.”

  “But I—”

  She shut up. Something ahead caught her attention. Maxwell saw it too—a massive dark shape—rumbling toward them.

  An armored personnel carrier. It was charging through an opening in the perimeter fence, just beyond the petroleum farm.

  Illuminated in the glare of the burning fuel fires, the APC was on an intercept course. It’s turret gun was swiveling toward the Black Star.

  <>

  Kee was driving too damned slow. Chiu could feel the time slipping like sand through his fingers. “Faster. Move this vehicle!”

  “It’s too dangerous, Colonel. We mined this route. I have to watch for the explosive units.”

  Chiu just grunted, sorry for his outburst. He didn’t believe in yelling at his troops. Kee was a good officer.

  The bad news kept pouring in. Over the man-pack PRC-119 radio he heard the number one helicopter pilot report a column of armored personnel carriers three kilometers from the field perimeter. Two PLA assault helicopters had already blundered inside the base perimeter, probing for the invading party. Each had been shot down by a missile-firing Cobra gunship.

  It was only a matter of minutes before the PLA overran them.

  Ahead he could see the landing zone, three hundred meters away. The first two Chinooks had already lifted, carrying half the commando unit. The rest were maintaining a perimeter around the zone.

  The Cobra gunships were doing their best to keep the armored column at bay, but they were taking heavy fire now. The other two Chinooks were ready to lift, waiting for Chiu and Kee and the wounded American.

  Chiu could see that Bass was in bad shape. His eyes were closed, and he slipped in and out of consciousness. Before they reached Taiwan—if they reached Taiwan, Chiu corrected himself—he’d probably be administering last rites to the dying American.

  Chiu had the man-pack radio in the back seat of the Bei-jung, staying in contact with the helicopters. The Cobras had done a good job of suppressing the oncoming PLA armor, but time was against them. Already the APCs had breached the perimeter, breaking through the fence south of the fuel farm.

  A mortar exploded a hundred feet ahead of them, setting off two more secondary explosions from the mines.

  Another mortar, this time closer to the number three helicopter. Where were they coming from? Were the PLA troops inside the fence already?

  He snatched up the transceiver from the man-pack. “Whiskey One, this is Reaper,” he said, calling the lead Cobra gunship. “We’ve got incoming mortars. Can you spot them?”

  After a lapse of several seconds, “Whiskey One is looking, Reaper. Troops are concentrating in Zone Two, coming out of the APCs. They’re probably setting up mortars.”

  “Try to suppress them. They’re getting the range on the helos. We’ll have to—”

  The next mortar exploded fifteen feet from the Bei-jung. The blast rocked the vehicle rock up on its side. Chiu heard the scrape of metal against earth, of glass shattering from the windshield.

  The Bei-jung lay still. Dirt and broken glass settled onto the wreck.

  It took him a moment to orient himself. He realized he was lying against the right door. Kee was atop him, writhing in pain. From the back, Bass emitted a low moan.

  He untangled himself from Kee and pulled out his knife. As he tried to slash the canvas cover of the vehicle, he felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. His collar bone. He switched hands and finished ripping away the canvas. He helped Kee climb out of the damaged Bei-jung.

  Kee’s face was bleeding. He was blinded from the shattered glass of the windshield, and his left arm seemed to be broken.

  With his left arm, Chiu pulled Bass out of the Bei-jung. His chest wound was bleeding again. Chiu made another compress with a piece of the slashed canvas and applied it to the wound.

  For a moment he gazed around in the darkness, assessing his situation. Things had rapidly gone to hell. The Bei-jung was totaled. The left front tire was blown and steam was gushing from under the hood.

  Waves of pain were radiating from his shoulder down through his left arm. Kee was ambulatory, but he couldn’t see well enough make to the helicopters without assistance. Bass would have to be dragged.

  He heard more mortars, closer to the two Chinooks. The landing zone was still a hundred meters away.

  From inside the vehicle came the crackle of the radio. “Reaper, Reaper, this is Whiskey Two. Come in Reaper. Do you read?”

  Chiu retrieved the transceiver. “All teams, this is Reaper. Pull back to Charlie Three.” Charlie Three was the first of the two Chinooks still at Chouz
hou. “Launch Charlie Three as soon as you have everyone aboard.”

  “Copy that, Reaper. Where are you? Are you boarding Charlie Four?”

  “We’re on our way. Be prepared to launch immediately if we don’t make it. If your position becomes threatened, go without delay. Acknowledge?”

  “Charlie Three copies.”

  “Charlie Four copies, but Reaper, we’ll come to—”

  “I just gave you orders! Stand by to launch. Reaper out.” Chiu released the transmit switch and hooked the transceiver to his belt.

  “Lieutenant Kee, you will follow me. Keep a hand on my shoulder so you won’t get lost.” He bent over and seized the collar of Bass’s utilities with his good hand. He began to drag him across the ground.

  Bass cried out in pain. He shook his head. “You guys won’t make it if you try to drag me along. Go on, Colonel, haul ass for the helicopters. Get out of here.”

  “I won’t leave you behind,” said Chiu.

  “I’ll be a prisoner. That’s my problem.”

  “No, it’s my problem.”

  Bass gave him a wary look. “What does that mean?”

  “No prisoners.” Chiu unholstered his Beretta. “I have to kill you.” He aimed the pistol at Bass’s forehead. “Is that your choice?”

  With wide, unblinking eyes, Bass peered into the muzzle of the pistol. “You’ve got a point, Colonel. Maybe I’ll just come along for the ride.”

  “Good decision.” Chiu holstered the pistol and seized Bass’s collar again. He ignored the frequent moans as Bass bumped along on the uneven ground. Kee plodded along behind, hanging on to Chiu’s sleeve.

  The mortar shells were landing with greater accuracy. Chiu saw Charlie Two, the second Chinook, kicking up a storm of dirt and blown debris. The big chopper lifted and tilted its nose toward the southeast fence.

  From thirty meters away, Chiu saw Charlie Four’s twin rotor blades whopping the air. From the open cargo door, the crew chief saw them coming out of the darkness. He jumped out and came running to help with Bass. The American was unconscious again, limp as a bag of laundry.