“Have you made contact with the stealth aircraft?” Sun asked excitedly.
“Negative,” Yi replied. “We get intermittent radar contacts, but nothing solid. We are currently attempting to make contact via Optronics, and our fighters are airborne and beginning the search. Over.” “Admiral Yi, you will destroy that Nationalist frigate,” Sun ordered. “Order a full-scale attack by every vessel in your battle group. You are permitted to use every weapon in your arsenal...” He paused for a moment, then emphasized, “. . . every weapon. Do not allow that rebel frigate to escape under any circumstances. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Yi replied.
“Admiral Yi, you will then launch an immediate attack on Quemoy Island from long range,” Sun said. “Again, you are ordered and authorized to use every weapon in your arsenal. Do you understand?”
There was a very long pause, during which Sun thought they had been cut off; but then: “Comrade Sun, I must have clarification,” Admiral Yi radioed. “You are authorizing and ordering me to use any weapon in my battle group to attack and destroy the Nationalist military forces on Quemoy Tao. Is that correct?”
“Yes, that is correct,” Sun said. “Any and every weapon in your arsenal is free to use. Your attack will commence immediately. And find that stealth bomber and blow it out of the sky! ”
When Sun looked up after that interchange, he saw almost everyone in the command center staring at him. The senior controller’s eyes were bulging. “Sir ... I am sure you are aware that the Mao battle group carries nuclear attack weapons. Your order to the Mao could be interpreted that you ordered a nuclear attack against—”
“I ordered nothing of the kind, Comrade Dai,” Sun said. “Only the minister of defense or the president can issue such an order, correct?” The senior controller nodded blankly. “Now, what I want is an immediate launch of those fighters. Crews should be responding to their planes by now. ”
“Yes, sir,” the aide said. “The alert has been issued. I shall type up the order and submit it to the chief of staff for his approval.”
Sun swung on his aide angrily and shouted, “Did I order you to type anything or submit anything to General Chin? I want those fighters in the air in less than thirty minutes—I will notify the general and get his approval. I want to be notified personally of every development immediately. Now, move!”
As the aide hurried off, Sun knew that he was never going to tell Chin or anyone else of this—until and unless the American stealth bomber was brought down. Then his hope was to personally deliver a gun camera tape of an American stealth bomber being shot down to President Jiang—and use it to begin his campaign to rid China’s waters of the United States and its lackeys.
ABOARD THE EB-52 MEGAFORTRESS
In attack mode, AGM-177 Wolverine missiles moved too fast to be tracked by NIRTSat satellite snapshots, but the missile’s datalink information allowed McLanahan to watch in absolute fascination as the missiles closed rapidly on their quarries.
All Wolverine missiles were programmed to execute a turn shortly after launch so the enemy could not simply trace the missile’s flight path directly back to its launch point; missiles coming from many different directions also made it appear as if there were more attackers out there. Each Wolverine missile executed its “dogleg” as it glided down from launch altitude to sea-skimming altitude, between fifty and one hundred feet above the sea, guided by a pencil-thin radar beam that precisely measured the distance from the belly of the missile to the waves. During the glide, the missile automatically opened its turbojet engine air inlets and exhausts, warmed up the electronics for its radar and imaging infrared sensors, and activated its threat sensors, countermeasures system, and GPS satellite navigation system. With the GPS locked on to at least three satellites, it now had target circular error accuracy of less than thirty feet; once it locked onto eight satellites, its navigation precision was good to within six inches in both position and altitude. Just before reaching its cruise altitude, the computer commanded the turbojet engine to start, accelerating the missile to over four hundred miles an hour.
With a ripple of microhydraulically controlled skin, the Wolverine missile turned on a dime and headed for its first target. Once lined up on target, it activated its radar for just two seconds and compared the range to the target received from the radar to the range to target on its navigational flight plan—the two figures were within seven feet of each other. The missile sampled the GPS navigation information again, then took a longer radar fix of the target, getting bearing as well as range— now the two were within two feet of each other. Satisfied, the missile signaled back to the EB-52 Megafortress that it was on course and ready to attack.
Patrick McLanahan opened a new computer window on his large supercockpit display, then ordered the sensor feed from the missile displayed in the window. The radar image showed a bright white rectangle, with the missile’s sensor’s crosshairs centered on it. McLanahan switched to imaging infrared, and a small orange speck appeared; magnified, McLanahan could discern the long, gracefully swept bow, tall amidships superstructure, and huge bow-mounted 100-millimeter gun of the big Chinese Jiangwei-class guided-missile frigate. McLanahan ordered the missile to alter course to align itself with the longitudinal axis of the Chinese frigate for its attack.
Just then, a bright orange circle superimposed itself on the Chinese frigate’s icon on the supercockpit display; simultaneously, Vikram called out, “Foxtrot-band air search radar up. ...” Then, a few seconds later, along with a slow-paced deedle . . . deedle . . . deedle! warning tone: “. . . India-band target tracking radar ...”
“Looks like they’re locked onto all four Wolverine missiles,” McLanahan said.
Suddenly they heard a fast-pitched deedledeedledeedle! warning tone in their headsets. “Missile launch!” Vikram shouted. “No uplink bearings in our direction . . . second missile launch .. . three, four missiles in the air, tracking the Wolverines ... X-band gun control radars up on the patrol boats, looks like they got a lock-on too. Shit, looks like every Wolverine missile is an item of interest.”
“Pick up my window numbers twenty and twenty-one,” McLanahan suggested, “and watch the Wolverines in action.”
The instant the first Hong Qian-61 antiaircraft missile left the Chinese frigate’s rails, the Wolverine missile immediately matched bearings to the uplink signal’s bearing, which meant that both missiles were heading nose-to-nose. Then, an instant before impact, the Wolverine missile accelerated to its top speed of 600 miles an hour, released bundles of radar-decoying chaff and infrared-decoy flares, and jinked away, using its mission-adaptive fuselage to turn twice as fast as the antiair missile could possibly turn. The HQ-61 missile still had a solid radar lock and hit— on the cloud of chaff.
As soon as it executed the first twenty-G turn, the Wolverine missile immediately dropped more chaff and flares and executed another turn toward its first target. It picked up the “Round Ball” fire-control radar trying to track it, and dropped more chaff and flares. The gunners aboard the Chinese Huangfeng-class patrol boat opened fire with their 30-millimeter guns, shredding the chaff cloud with hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Seconds later, the Wolverine missile, untouched, sped overhead and dropped its first bomb-bay load of thirty-six baseball-size bomblets. The Wolverine missile couldn’t fully align with the vessel’s longitudinal axis after evading the gunfire, so only about half of the bomblets hit the vessel—but it was enough to cause a fire in two of the patrol boat’s Hong-Yang-1 anti-ship missile canisters. With the two port launch canisters on fire and the two starboard canisters damaged, the skipper of the patrol boat had no choice but to stop his attack run and jettison all four of his missiles overboard before they exploded and sank his ship. With nothing but his 30-millimeter gun remaining, he was effectively out of the fight.
The same Wolverine missile did better on the second and third PLAN patrol boats. Instead of crossing perpendicular to the target’s path, the missile scatt
ered its second load of bomblets directly down the second vessel’s centerline. The two aft HY-1 missile canisters exploded, driving the vessel’s stern down, then flipping the 173-ton patrol boat end- over-end through the air before crashing down into the sea. The Wolverine’s third target, a lightly armed but faster sixty-eight-ton Houku-class patrol boat, managed to start a fast turn toward its stricken partner just as the Wolverine began dropping bomblets, so only a few of the one- pound bomblets hit the ship, causing minor damage. The Wolverine’s final suicide-attack target, the lead Jiangwei-class frigate, finally stopped it with a double punch from two HQ-61 antiaircraft missiles and murderous fire from the frigate’s two starboard 30:millimeter guns.
But even as advanced as the Jiangwei-class frigate was, its biggest fault was its downfall—its lack of antiaircraft armament. The Jiangwei had a single Hong Qian-61 sextuple missile launcher forward—only six missiles, and no magazine reloads. The frigate fired one missile at each Wolverine missile shortly after they got within range, then fired the last two at the first Wolverine missile to get close. It stopped that Wolverine—but two more Wolverines, attacking from different directions, struck the frigate with 250-pound warheads after successfully attacking their assigned primary targets with bomblets.
The fourth Wolverine missile used the success of its three brothers to score the biggest hits. With all of its previous targets already hit and disabled, the fourth Wolverine had the luxury of expending all of its weapons—three bomb bays full of cluster bombs, plus a 250-pound penetrating blast warhead—on the Jiangwei-class frigate alone. McLanahan switched his supercockpit window to the sensor view of the fourth Wolverine missile; the rest of the crew called up repeater views of the strike sensor on their multifunction displays and watched as the last Wolverine dropped its first load of cluster munition directly on centerline, circled around, dropped again, circled in the opposite direction, dodged some cannon fire, dropped its last load of cluster bombs in the stern area of the frigate, executed an impossibly sharp triangular course reversal, and plowed into the frigate just a few feet above the waterline, directly amidships on the starboard side.
“Shit! Did you see that?” Nancy Cheshire shouted. “That thing was alive! I saw at least a dozen fires on that ship before the last hit! Excellent!”
“Oh . . . my . . . ,” was all Vikram could say.
“Let’s get out of here, pilots,” McLanahan said. “We’re supposed to be on our way to the air refueling track.”
“High-speed aircraft climbing rapidly, now at two o’clock, twenty- three miles, heading north,” Emil Vikram reported. Vikram’s threat scope was a duplicate of McLanahan’s God’s-eye view, but it displayed only air-borne targets—the sudden appearance of two high-performance fighters less than thirty miles away were the main targets. “Nav radars fired up on the carrier, bearings locking on the Kin Men—I think they might be able to use their nav radars to target the Taiwanese frigate. That carrier might be ready to let go with a big salvo. Sun Visor fire-control radars from the second destroyer locking on the Kin Men too.”
“I’m going within Scorpion missile range of the frigate,” Brad Elliott said. “We’ll back up the frigates antiair weapons. Patrick, we’ve got to attack that carrier now. There’s no way it’ll get away unless we attack! And if it launches more fighters, we’ll be sitting ducks! ”
“Brad, we are already in deep shit by launching those Wolverines,” McLanahan argued, looking over the top of his instrument panel to look at Elliott in the pilot’s seat. “My nose is cold until we get—”
“Missile launch! I’ve got two missiles lifting off from the Mao . . . going supersonic! ” Vikram shouted. “Two Granit missiles on the way! ”
“Dammit!” McLanahan shouted. “Emitter, can you get them?”
“I’ve got them!” the defensive systems operator shouted. “I’ve got the missiles! ” He touched the Granit missile’s symbols, then touched the command trigger on his interphone panel and said, “Launch commit Scorpions one and two.”
WARNING, WARNING, LAUNCH COMMIT SCORPION MISSILES. Then, after a few seconds: missiles away. At that instant, one AIM-120 radar-guided missile leapt off a wing pylon from each wing and streaked toward the Chinese anti-ship missiles.
“The Kin Men is launching missiles!” McLanahan shouted. “Stand by for a second salvo from the—”
“I’ve got a second salvo from the carrier! ” Vikram shouted. “Another two Granit missiles lifting off... Square Tie radar down, must’ve got hit by a Rainbow missile . . . looks like the Taiwanese frigate is firing more antiaircraft missiles . . . Sun Visor radar down ...” Vikram immediately fired another two Scorpion missiles at the Chinese anti-ship missiles.
“Range to the lead destroyer is down to twenty miles,” McLanahan warned. “Let’s do a left turn to reposition. Left turn heading one-six-zero. We’ll go out two minutes, then—”
Suddenly, Vikram shouted, “Another missile launching from the Mao ... this one going ballistic! They’re launching an M-11 missile! Missile heading toward the mainland . . . turning east, heading for Quemoy . . . another missile lifting off! Two M-11 missiles in the air!”
McLanahan shouted, “Brad!” but Elliott already had the EB-52 Megafortress in a hard right turn. “Lock ’em up, Emitter! You’ve only got a few seconds ...”
“They’re out of range!” Vikram shouted. The M-ll missiles were huge 13,000-pound solid-fuel rockets; they lifted off slowly but accelerated quickly and flew to much higher altitudes .and speeds than anti-ship cruise missiles. “Dammit, I missed them!”
“Get ready in case they launch a second salvo! ” McLanahan shouted. “We—”
“Shit, I’ve got that lead Chinese destroyer in sight!” copilot Nancy Cheshire shouted. While they were focusing on the Chinese M-ll missile launch, they had drifted to within twelve miles of the Chinese destroyer Kang—and there it was, right in front of them, way out on the horizon but close enough to see its enormous size. “Continue right turn, let’s get out of here! ”
“Missile launch!” Vikram shouted. “Second salvo of M-ll missiles in the air! ” But he was ready for them this time—within two seconds of detecting the launch, two Scorpion missiles were in the air chasing them down. But seconds later, they heard a dee die dee die dee die! warning tone in their headsets. “Missile launch!” Vikram shouted. “That destroyer launched Crotale missiles on us!"
“Full countermeasures!” Elliott shouted. Vikram immediately activated the EB-52’s AN/ALQ-199 MAWS (Missile Approach and Warning System), which used rear- and side-looking radars to search for the incoming missiles. Once the radars locked onto the incoming missiles, the computer system automatically ejected chaff and flare decoys to try to steer the incoming enemy missiles away. At the same time, tiny laser emitters popped up from the Megafortress’s fuselage and fired beams of laser energy at the missiles, attempting to blind the missile’s sensitive seeker heads.
The Chinese destroyer Kang had shut down its tracking radars because of the Tacit Rainbow anti-radar missiles buzzing around, so the only guidance left for the Crotale missiles was their own heat-seeking sensors, which were sensitive both to decoys and to the MAWS laser beams. One by one, the French-built Crotale missiles were diverted safely away from the Megafortress, and they crashed harmlessly into the sea.
ABOARD THE CHINESE AIRCRAFT CARRIER MAO ZEDONG
“Kang reports launching Crotale missiles at extreme range on a large multi-engine aircraft that closed to within sixteen kilometers of their position,” the officer of the deck reported to Admiral Yi on the bridge of the carrier Mao. “They also reported spotting anti-missile decoy flares on the horizon. They have lost contact.”
Admiral Yi was already on the communications links, taking reports from squadron leaders in his fleet. “Hit? Hit by what? We detected no missile launches from the Nationalist frigate.”
“They appeared out of nowhere, sir,” the skipper of the Jiangwei-class frigate 542 reported. “Four large high-speed
targets, all from different bearings, all around us. We fired -61s, but they all missed; we tracked them with fire-control systems, but they evaded our gunners. Patrol boat 1107 destroyed and lost with all hands. Patrol boats 1209 and 1136 on fire. Minor damage to patrol boat 1332. We have suffered major damage, one fire on deck three starboard not yet under control, one hole just above the waterline. We are being assisted by patrol 1108.”
“Were they fighters? Maybe rebel F-16s dropping bombs?”
“Sir, I have never seen aircraft move like that,” the skipper replied. “I swear to you, sir, they seemed to be able to move at right angles, as if they were on rails. They were subsonic, but we could not track them— our antennas could not move fast enough! ”
It had to be some American secret weapon, Yi told himself as he blankly hung up the phone. Unless the Nationalists were getting help from cosmic sea gods, that was the only explanation—some kind of high- maneuverability air-launched missile fired by the American bomber. “Vector the fighters to the last bearing of those flares,” Admiral Yi ordered.
“Bridge, Combat,” the intercom blared. “Fighters have made visual contact! They report contact with an American B-52 bomber! ”
Yi s mouth dropped open in surprise. A B-52, a nearly forty-year-old plane—and it had wreaked havoc throughout his battle group. “Shoot it down! ” Yi shouted. “Tell those pilots to engage! I want to pick up that plane’s wreckage and show it for all the world to see! ” He then concentrated on his watch. “Missile flight time?” he shouted.
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