Black Star

by Robert Gandt

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  The clunking from the main gear abruptly ceased. Maxwell sensed a blur of earth and trees and buildings beneath them. Finding air beneath its wings, the Black Star lifted into the morning sky.

  He raised the landing gear. The airspeed indicator was slowly ticking upward. Two-fifty. Three hundred. The altitude read out—also metric—had left zero and was slowly increasing. Carefully he raised the flaps.

  With the airspeed accelerating through 320 kilometers per hour, altitude a thousand meters and climbing, he gave the stick a gentle nudge to the left. The jet rolled into a crisp left bank.

  He was pleasantly surprised. The airplane had a solid, responsive feel to it. The controls were balanced and harmonized. Just like the original model he remembered at Dreamland. The Chinese might be copycats, but they got this part right.

  The bright rim of the sun was breaking the eastern horizon. In the gathering dawn, the shoreline of China stood out like a dark paint stroke against the grayness of the Taiwan Strait.

  “Are we okay?” Mai-ling’s voice sounded weak and faraway. It was the first time she had spoken since the take off.

  “We’re okay. You were right, by the way.”

  After a couple of seconds, “About what?”

  “The runway. It wasn’t long enough.”

  “Next time you will believe me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He put the jet through a series of quick turns, then a rapid 360 degree roll to the left.

  Not bad. As fighters went, the Black Star was definitely not a hot rod, but it had good subsonic performance. The turbofan engines lacked afterburners for augmented thrust. The radical, kite-like shape was designed for stealth, not speed.

  Nonetheless, he was surprised. The Chinese Black Star seemed to be stable in all axes, even though it didn’t have vertical fins. The elevons—surfaces in the trailing edge of each wing—provided pitch and roll control and extended downward to act as lift flaps for take off and landing. For directional stability, the tail-less fighter was fitted with computer-driven control tabs—two on the top wing surface and two on the bottom.

  He pulled the nose up, then rolled to the right.

  “You’re making me sick.”

  “Sorry. I need to know how this thing flies.”

  “Why? All you have to do is land it.”

  Maxwell didn’t reply. Maybe that was all he had to do. Maybe more than that.

  With that thought he lowered the UV goggles—the Chinese-developed helmet device that penetrated the Black Star’s skin cloaking. They were over the strait now, flying what seemed to be a very flyable airplane. In the distance he could see the dark hump of Taiwan jutting from the horizon like the spine of a dinosaur.

  The sky was empty. No other aircraft, friend or foe. Either one would kill them in an instant if they could see them. But they couldn’t. The Black Star was invisible to all of them.

  All except one.

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  “At what altitude did they report the target?”

  “Unknown,” said Yan from the back seat. “Central Command reports that they took off a little over ten minutes ago. They would be level at cruise altitude by now.”

  Zhang shook his head in frustration. It meant the stolen Dong-jin could be at any altitude from the surface to over fifteen thousand meters. It complicated the task, but did not render it impossible.

  He was certain that the enemy pilot was surely heading for an air base in southern Taiwan. Probably Chai-Ei, which had lengthy runways.

  But first they had to cross the Taiwan Strait.

  Yan’s voice came over the intercom. “Colonel, a course of two-three-five degrees should place us directly in their flight path. We can position ourselves in mid-strait and set up a barrier orbit.”

  Zhang grunted his acknowledgment. He swung the Dong-jin’s nose to the southwest, toward the middle of the strait. He and Yan would have to acquire the Dong-jin visually. The only way was using the special ultraviolet goggles developed in Zhang’s lab at Chouzhou.

  The Dong-jin’s stealth masking technology used visual-spectrum light to mimic background scenes of varying intensities. It rendered the jet virtually invisible to the naked eye. But the masking did not extend into the ultraviolet spectrum, where it dramatically increased the radiance. Seen through the UV goggles, the Dong-jin stood out against the flat sea like a neon sign.

  As he climbed into the dawn sky, Zhang considered how he would initiate his attack. When they were developing tactics for the new stealth fighter, they had not considered such a scenario. One Dong-jin engaging another in air-to-air combat had been unthinkable.

  In such a fight, the Dong-jin’s own onboard radar was useless. Even the deadly Archer missiles were of limited use, and in the rear quarter only. The Dong-jin was an awkward dogfighter, having traded agility for stealth. The absence of a vertical tail made it increasingly unstable at higher angles of attack.

  The UV goggles were his ultimate advantage. With them he could see through the Dong-jin’s veil.

  A thought inserted itself into his brain. Had the thieves also taken the UV goggles? Probably not, he decided. The goggles were kept in a locked container in a separate, guarded room in the operations building, apart from the normal flight gear. Even if the commandos had broken into that particular room, it was unlikely that the foot soldiers would recognize the goggles for what they were.

  He would attack from behind with the Archer missile, then follow up with a gun attack using the Dong-jin’s thirty-millimeter cannon. So far it had worked with astonishing success.

  As he climbed into the morning sky, Zhang wondered again about the pilot of the stolen jet. Who was he? The Dong-jin was one of the most technologically complex aircraft ever built. How did he know enough to climb into it and fly it away?

  Was he Taiwanese? Zhang doubted it. Chinese? Not likely. His pilots were all hand picked for their ability and for their loyalty. Each knew with a certainty that his family would be tortured to death if they ever contemplated such a betrayal.

  Who then? American?

  Possibly. Only someone with knowledge of their own stealth jet technology would possess the skill to steal the Dong-jin. Shooting down an American would be an even sweeter pleasure.

  “Attach UV goggles,” Zhang ordered.

  “Already fixed and functioning, Colonel.”

  Zhang pulled his own goggles from the compartment in the side console. He had to fumble for half a minute before he could get them fixed to the attachment on the front of his helmet, then he activated the tiny battery pack.

  Peering around, he saw that nothing much changed—except the view of his own jet. The Dong-jin’s wings—the leading edge portion on either side, which was all he could see from the cockpit—were shimmering with a brilliant ghost-like radiance.

  The goggles were working.

  They were still climbing, going through ten thousand meters. In air-to-air combat, higher was better. Altitude translated to energy, which was life itself to a fighter pilot. And in the thin light of early morning, the stolen Dong-jin would contrast better with the gray-green surface of the sea below.

  On his passive sensor display, Zhang detected a flight of four F-16s headed west. He ignored them. Down low he saw the silhouette of something, an old S-2 Tracker, he guessed. Probably hunting submarines. He ignored him, too. He had a more urgent target.

  Five minutes elapsed. They were at the calculated intercept point.

  No sign of the Dong-jin. Zhang’s frustration was mounting. The whole war might hinge on finding the stolen stealth jet. The thought that he could miss the intercept crept into his mind. It was a hateful thought. He could already imagine the report he would have to make to General Tsin. We were defeated, General, because we lost our Dong-jins. One destroyed by commandos, one stolen by—

  Yan saw it first. “Two o’clock low, Colonel. About ten kilometers.”

  Zhang swiveled his head. He had to squint, blink several times, refocus
his eyes. Then he saw it too, ahead and to the right. A thousand meters beneath them, flying straight and level. A diamond-shaped object, shimmering like a wraith.

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  “How do I arm the weapons systems?”

  “It depends,” she answered. “What do you want to arm?”

  “Everything. Heat seekers, the cannon, flare dispenser.”

  It occurred to him again how maddening this arrangement was—using the systems officer in the back to handle armament selection. Especially an untrained systems officer like Mai-ling.

  “I handle the flares from my console back here. You can select the air-to-air missile stations and the cannon on your number three display, the one on the right. I have my own armament display back here.”

  But this time, without the pressure of an armored personnel carrier bearing down on him, the display was making more sense. Yes, there it was. An icon in the shape of a gun. Not much doubt about that one.

  He touched it. The icon blinked twice, then changed color.

  Two other icons were in the shape of missiles. One, he guessed, would be a heat-seeker, probably an AA-11 Archer. The other appeared to be radar-guided. Probably an AA-10. He selected the heater.

  Mai-ling explained how to uncage the Archer missile’s heat-seeking head and cause it to track a target. She was just getting into the radar-guided launch sequence when she abruptly stopped. “Oh, shit.”

  “Oh shit what?”

  “Are you wearing your goggles?”

  “Yes.” He didn’t tell her he had been wearing them since shortly take off.

  “We have company. High, angling in from the left toward our tail.”

  Maxwell peered through the goggles, looking for the incoming fighter. “I don’t have him. Where is he?”

  “Coming toward us, curving in from the left.”

  He rolled the Black Star into a hard left turn.

  “It’s the Dong-jin, Brick.” Mai-ling’s voice had gained an octave.

  “The what?”

  “The other Black Star. It’s Colonel Zhang, and he sees us.”

  He was still having trouble with the goggles. Damn these things. It was like peering through binoculars. When he moved his head, he would lose focus in one or the other eye.

  Ninety degrees into the turn, he saw it. In the purplish glow of the UV goggles, it looked like a kite. A glistening, diamond-shaped kite. The kite was in a classic pursuit curve, arcing toward their tail.

  Setting up for a—what?

  Mai-ling’s excited call told him. “Missile in the air!”

  Maxwell saw it track and pull lead. It had to be a heat seeker. Their Black Star was invisible to radar.

  He broke left, into the missile. “Flares. Dispense flares now!”

  This was nuts, depending on someone in the back seat to actuate the infra-red decoys that would save their lives.

  “They’re out. Flares are dispensing.” Her words spewed over the intercom like a fast-track audio tape.

  Maxwell didn’t know how tightly he could turn the Black Star. How many Gs would the jet take before it stalled? Did the flight control computer limit the G pull to prevent a stall?

  He pulled harder, tightening the turn into the oncoming missile. At seven Gs he felt the jet shudder, and eased off on the stick. Okay, now you know. The flight control computer didn’t care whether he stalled or not. But he couldn’t turn tightly enough to defeat an Archer missile.

  He wondered vaguely what sort of seeker head the missile had. How could it be tracking a stealth jet that emitted almost no IR signature? He remembered taking a Sidewinder shot at the Black Star that came after the Chameleon decoy. The Sidewinder lost its lock because it couldn’t find enough IR signal.

  A second later, he had an answer. “The missile’s lost tracking,” said Mai-ling. “It’s going ballistic.”

  Their missiles don’t track stealth jets any better than ours.

  Maxwell saw that his break turn had also spoiled the Black Star’s pursuit curve. The ChiCom pilot was going wide to the right, in a flight path overshoot. Now they were even.

  Good. He pulled the nose up, further aggravating his opponent’s overshoot. Fight’s on, Colonel.

  CHAPTER 23 — THE MOST PRIMITIVE WEAPON

  Taiwan Strait

  0648, Monday, 15 September

  Zhang was getting an uneasy feeling. Instead of a quick kill, a missile shot backed up by a guns pass, he was now neutral in a one-versus-one turning fight.

  As if the pilot of the other Dong-jin had been expecting him. Waiting for him.

  “He’s reversing, Colonel. He’s in a right—”

  “Shut up,” snapped Zhang. “I see him.”

  It had to be a gwai-lo—a Caucasian foreigner. An American gwai-lo, probably. Wearing my UV goggles. The gwai-lo’s use of vertical tactics was eerily reminiscent of the F/A-18 pilot who had tricked him into shooting the decoy drone. The one who nearly killed him.

  He saw the enemy Dong-jin’s nose come up, reversing the turn hard to the right.

  He kept his own left turn in, and pulled harder, underneath the opposing Dong-jin. Toward the gwai-lo’s six o’clock. As the enemy crossed over the top, Zhang rolled wings level and pulled up, trying to gain angular advantage behind him. He continued to roll, racking the Dong-jin into a hard right turn.

  The enemy countered, going up and making a hard left turn back into him.

  Gwai-lo bastard. They were now in a flat scissors, a level turning fight, crossing nose-to-nose, then reversing to cross again, each trying work himself inside the other’s turn. From such an engagement, there was no escape. If either combatant tried to turn and run, the other would have an easy shot.

  Zhang cursed himself for losing his initial advantage. The enemy pilot had surprised him with his initial break turn. He hadn’t counted on their having the UV goggles.

  Firing the Archer missile had been a mistake. It would only have scored a kill if the American—he was now sure that it was an American—had continued on his course. The Archer’s heat seeker head was unable to track the faint IR signal of the Dong-jin in a maximum-performance turn.He should have used the cannon. Zhang’s favorite killing tool was the cannon. It was the most primitive, most visceral of aerial weapons. And the surest. The nose-mounted thirty millimeter gun in the Dong-jin gave no warning, required no special technology. Deadly and efficient. All he had to do was position himself behind the enemy fighter.

  Which was proving to be more of a problem than he anticipated.

  Another reversal. Zhang still held a slight angular advantage, but the enemy was gaining an advantage in altitude. Impossible! The gwai-lo was out flying him.

  Again the enemy Dong-jin passed over his nose. Zhang rolled with him, nudging the nose upward, trying to get the gwai-lo centered in his HUD.

  For an instant, barely a heartbeat, he had a shot. He squeezed the trigger, felt the gut-pleasing, staccato machine gun chatter resonate through the airframe of the Dong-jin. He saw the tracers arc through the void between him and the enemy jet.

  And miss. The tracers were falling behind and beneath the enemy.

  A split-second later, Zhang felt his jet buffeting, trying to stall and drop from beneath him. He relaxed pressure on the stick, lowering the nose, letting the diamond-shaped wing regain stable flight. Another mistake.

  Again the two fighters swept past each other. They were so close Zhang could see the enemy pilot peering at him through the top of the canopy. Who was he? Zhang wondered again. Where did he learn to fly the Dong-jin? Zhang could almost feel a grudging admiration for his boldness. Almost.

  The missed shot and the near-stall had cost him more advantage. Now they were even in the scissors, crossing nearly canopy to canopy. He resisted the urge to yank the stick again, try for another shot —and stall out in the process. The gwai-lo had maintained his altitude advantage.

  Be patient, Zhang ordered himself. Wait for him make a mistake. He doesn’t know this airplane. You do.

>   He reminded himself that he had already scored thirteen air-to-air kills with the Dong-jin. Fourteen, if he counted the lumbering Airbus carrying the Taiwanese President. That made him, Col. Zhang Yu, the top scoring fighter ace in the world at the moment.

  The thought made him almost giddy. It was appropriate—no, inevitable—that the pilot of the stolen Dong-jin be added to Zhang’s list of victories. Kill number fifteen. He would be a triple ace.

  The scissors fight had depleted the airspeed of both jets. With each turn now, they were bleeding off altitude. The duel was taking them southward, down the middle of the strait. Away from the coast of Taiwan. Away from the coast of China.

  “We will be fuel critical in a few minutes, Colonel,” said Yan in the back seat. “We have to turn back to Chouzhou.”

  Zhang glanced at the fuel counter. Yan was correct. The lower altitude and the need for maximum thrust were depleting their fuel at a horrific rate.

  But turning back was not an option.

  “Colonel, I repeat. Our fuel is low. We have to—”

  “I heard you. We have to destroy the other Dong-jin first. We will choose a field on the coast that is nearer our position. Keep a continuous radius of action for our fuel state.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The two fighters were in a stalemate. Zhang knew that in the end it would be fuel—and the distance to a safe landing—that would determine the outcome. He was not willing to forfeit the last flyable Dong-jin because he exhausted his fuel in a fight with a damned gwai-lo bandit. The Dong-jin was too precious to lose.

  But the worst of all outcomes would be if the gwai-lo got away in the stolen Dong-jin. That could not be permitted.

  Zhang would have to gamble.

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  “This looks bad, Brick. We’re getting farther and farther away from Taiwan.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “We’re running out of fuel. Eleven-hundred kilos.”

  “I know that too. I’ve got a fuel counter.”

  “What are you going to do?”