When he reached the door, he was surprised again. It was unlocked. He frowned; then, with Lobo right behind him, he eased the door open.
Something on the outside hurled the door open with superhuman strength, flinging Tombstone up and out. In an instant he was drenched by a rain that pounded down on his back like a million ballpeen hammers. He gasped in shock, stumbling in the same blast of wind that had grabbed the door. Only by flinging himself sideways, tightly against the wall of the prison, was he able to halt his helpless flight.
Squinting against the blasting rain and wind, he saw Lobo standing uncertainly in the doorway. He shook his head, then looked around.
Through horizontal sheets of rain he saw various buildings move in and out of sight: long, low structures for the most part, with trees arching overhead. The trees were mostly evergreens, their crowns tossing madly. Tombstone noted that most of their branches grew from the leeward side of the trunk; these trees had been shaped by weather like this. Straight ahead of him, perhaps thirty yards away, was a narrow paved road. Nothing moved along it.
Soaked to the skin, beginning to shiver, he considered the options. Wherever they were being kept, the obvious direction to go was east. Since major storms in this part of the world cycled counterclockwise, the wind would be coming from somewhere between north and east, so at least he knew what direction to head. After that… who knew?
He was about to beckon Lobo out of the doorway when he heard a new sound, weaving in and out of the wind: a distinctive, high-pitched whistle. Tombstone turned his head in time to see something rushing along the strip of road. For an instant the weather parted, giving him a clear view of a manta-shaped aircraft, with upturned winglets, lifting off the road. It bobbed, recovered crisply, and lofted out of sight into the slanting rain. There were red stars painted on the winglets.
The bogey. The one Tomboy had been sent to the South China Sea to investigate.
Tombstone rushed back to the doorway, and gasped with relief when he got out of the wind and rain. “Did you see that?” he said.
Lobo nodded. “It must be the thing that shot down the Air Force jet.”
Tombstone nodded. “So we’re not in a regular prison. They’re keeping us at an air base.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Probably in hopes of preventing an attack on the base. Insurance. That would be why they let us show our faces in the compound; to let Washington know where we are.”
Lobo nodded.
“The good news,” Tombstone said, “is that we must be close to Hong Kong. That would be the air base the Chinese would want to protect. If we can reach the city — ”
“How?”
“Find a vehicle. Or a prisoner. Or both.”
She nodded.
“Let’s head toward where the bogey came from. Start looking there.”
She nodded again.
Together, they plunged into the storm.
1530 local (+8 GMT)
USS Jefferson
Before the chaos began, Bird Dog was in his stateroom trying to relax. He’d picked up his copy of The Art of War. One thing about Sun Tzu: If you were having trouble sleeping, just read The Art of War awhile. Trying to make sense of it numbed the brain.
At the moment, Bird Dog was plodding through the chapter on “The Nine Varieties of Ground,” which was a ridiculous pastime because he was, after all, a naval aviator. No ground around, not unless you counted the ocean floor, and only the submariners cared about that. Still, he forced himself to continue. Even if he found nothing practical for himself in The Art of War, he had to remember that for his enemies, the book was a treasure house of information.
So. Per Sun Tzu, the nine types of real estate were: Dispersive, Frontier, Key, Communicating, Focal, Serious, Difficult, Encircled, and Death. These were rated in order of the trouble they’d cause a general during battle, starting with the army’s own homeland — nice and safe — and progressing out into “death” territory — land in which the army could be trapped with virtually no chance of escape, far less victory.
Right now, if you wanted to stretch the metaphor, Jefferson could be said to be occupying Difficult ground: “any place where the going is hard.” Sun Tzu’s advice for dealing with Difficult ground? “Press on.”
“Guess the navy’s doing everything right, then, eh, Sun?” Bird Dog muttered, and closed the book.
At that moment, a series of jarring vibrations shivered through his rack.
1537 local (+8 GMT)
Flanker 67
This was not optimum, Tai thought angrily. The formations were ragged, the voices over the combat radio channel too tense. Not tense because of the promise of combat, though. These were brave men, and eager for blood. No, the problem was the weather. The storm. No one had counted on that. No one had expected to be fighting the Americans in near-blindness.
The PLA fighters had excellent radar, powerful enough to fry a rabbit crossing the runway; that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that using radar exclusively was new to most of the pilots — certainly, using it in the middle of a storm, with visibility diminished nearly to zero, was new to them. The fact that such combat would be a first for most of the Americans, too, was of no consolation, because everyone knew the Americans trained extensively in flight simulators. And while “virtual” experience was not the equivalent of the real thing, it was better than nothing. And nothing was what the Chinese pilots were building upon.
Damn this storm.
No wonder the men were worried, even though they outnumbered the American fighters currently in the air. And even though there would be no American reinforcements in the immediate future, thanks to the ambush Mr. Blossom had arranged. From all reports, the carrier had taken damage. How bad was not yet known, but bad enough. There would be no help there. For the American pilots, even returning to their ship might be out of the question.
So from the Chinese perspective, there was good news as well as bad. Not to mention the special surprise Tai suspected would be out to help the Chinese.
Personally, Tai Ling was not worried at all. This was one battle — fought blind or not — that the Americans would never forget.
No, correct that.
This was a battle the Americans would never survive.
1538 local (+8 GMT)
Tomcat 306
USS Jefferson
“Say again?” Hot Rock heard the disbelief and tension in his own voice. The same question was echoed over the air by other BARCAP pilots.
“I say again,” came the brisk response from the E-2 Hawkeye. “Fifty Flankers inbound your location, bearing 000, ETA ten minutes.”
“Fifty Flankers,” Hot Rock murmured, feeling sweat spring out along the spine of his flight suit. That was damn near a three-to-one ratio against the Vipers.
“Vipers,” the E-2 said crisply, “be aware Homeplate took a hit and is red deck. Repeat, Homeplate has a red deck. There will be no backup. You are weapons free. Fire at will.”
Hot Rock felt the sweat begin to trickle. Jefferson damaged, the fighters weapons free… it could only mean that the Chinese had struck the carrier, and effectively. How? By submarine? It seemed incredible.
On a more immediate note, it meant that the odds facing the BARCAP pilots were not only three to one, but unlikely to improve. No help would be rushing in….
“Better hope we don’t use our go-juice too quick, youngster,” Two Tone said. “There’s only one Texaco in the sky — and lots of planes bound to get thirsty.”
“Here we go, Hot Rock,” came over his headset from his new lead, Neanderthal. “Try to stay with me.”
Neanderthal’s Tomcat banked hard right. Hot Rock followed.
Until now they had been flying, as much as possible, in the direction of the wind. Going that way, the air was almost smooth. But come around, and life turned into a hell of buffeting and vicious vertical wind shears. Not to mention lack of visibility. The entire world was the striped, irregular gray o
f oily rags. And this was the outskirts of the storm.
Best to ignore the view entirely. Stare out there for more than a few seconds, denying the brain reliable visual reference points, and in no time you’d start to think you were on the verge of a stall, or had entered a power dive, or even that you were going backward. There was no escaping it — no one, however hot on the stick, could fly in by the seat of his pants in zero visibility.
Instead, you watched your instruments. The blips on radar, those were real. Readings from altimeter, variometer, airspeed indicator, attitude indicator — those were real. When a pilot flew instruments, he became as dependent on artificial sensors as was any RIO.
“Picking up the bogeys now,” Two Tone said. “Yep. I’d call that a shitload of Flankers.”
“Phoenixes,” came over the radio.
“Phoenix ready,” Two Tone said. “Got us a nice juicy Flanker all picked out, Rocker.”
“Roger,” Hot Rock said, switching the weapons selector switch to the appropriate setting.
A moment later, the order came: “Fire when ready.”
As with the helicopter, Hot Rock didn’t allow himself to think: He toggled the switch and made the Fox call. The upward bounce of the Tomcat when the missile’s weight dropped away was barely noticeable in the general tumult.
He watched the missile’s progress on radar, knowing that the pilot of the targeted Chinese plane was doing the same thing. For all the Phoenix’s weaknesses, Hot Rock was glad the PLA didn’t have anything like the big radar-guided killer.
“Miss,” Two Tone said. “That’s a miss.” Meanwhile, over the headphones came whoops from a handful of more fortunate Vipers. Sounded like three or four had successfully taken out a Flanker.
Three or four… out of fifty.
The Vipers hurtled northwest into the claws of the wind, intending to engage the Chinese as far as possible from Jefferson. Meanwhile the Flankers, with the wind quartering on their tails, intended to do just the opposite. Hot Rock and Two Tone began assigning missile tags to incoming blips.
“Hang tough, amigo,” Two Tone said. “Don’t leave your lead for anything this time.”
“What do you mean, ‘this time’?”
“Just thinking of that helo you shot down. Some people might have questioned that if I hadn’t backed your story, you know? So this time stick with your lead, stay in position. Don’t do anything fancy on your own. That’s what I’m suggesting.”
“But I — you — ”
“Heads up, Rock. Here come the bad guys.”
1538 local (+8 GMT)
USS Jefferson
Beaman struggled into his OBA, or oxygen breathing apparatus, and mustered with the rest of his damage control party. Hosemen, investigators, and on-scene leader — they fell into their assigned positions automatically.
“Beaman,” the team leader said. “Get going. Cut around the forward end of it — see how big it is.”
Beaman nodded. As the primary investigator, his first task was to figure out where the edges of the fire were so that Damage Control Central, or DCC, could order smoke and fire boundaries set. First they would try to contain the fire, keep it from spreading, contain the smoke in the damaged area with heavy curtains hung from the hatches. Then while essential systems were being rerouted through the multiple system redundancies that existed on every Navy ship, the fire party would start nibbling at the edges, forcing flames and heat back into a smaller and smaller area until they could finally extinguish it.
At least, that was the plan. Reality always threw some monkey wrenches into the mix.
“You, Jones — get down to the first deck, see if the overhead’s starting to buckle. We stop it from moving down first, people. You know why.”
Beaman nodded. He did indeed. Starting three decks below the hangar bay, the aircraft carrier was honeycombed with ammunition lockers. Sure, they were equipped with sprinklers, watertight doors, Halon systems, everything the carrier could bring to bear in the way of fire control. But three decks wasn’t all that far away, not if this was a class D fire, a metal-burning conflagration. Given a little time, the fire could eat through steel deck plates like they were hot tortillas.
“It might have missed the hangar queen,” Beaman said. “They were moving her forward last time I saw.” The hangar queen, an aircraft that was virtually impossible to ever get flying again but served as a valuable source of parts, had been spotted directly ahead of them.
Even two hundred feet away from the fire, Beaman could feel the waves of heat rolling over him. The fire billowed and roared, battered the overhead, and reached out for them with tentacles of sparks.
“Get moving. Be safe,” the team leader said. He gave Beaman a swat on the rear as Beaman and his designated messenger broke off from the pack. “We’re right behind you.”
As they neared the edge of the fire, the hosemen behind Beaman arced a stream of fog into the air, showering it around him from a safe distance away. It wasn’t particularly useful for actually extinguishing the fire, but that wasn’t the point just yet. The mist cooled the air off to a temperature that his fire-fighting ensemble could withstand.
Never step where you can’t see. Beaman edged out just a bit from the fire, out to the edge of the cloaking smoke that roiled like a snake in the air. The banshee scream of the fire was louder now, reducing the voice of the team leader on his communications handset to a harsh whisper.
The rest of the damage control party was out of sight now as Beaman and his messenger moved around the far wall of the inferno. No secondary explosions yet, and it looked like — two more steps — yes, by God, one break. He could see the hangar queen safely out of the way. Safe for now, at least. Another five minutes and the gutted hulk of the queen would simply be more fuel in the fire. And then they would have a problem — once the aircraft’s metal ignited, there would be damned little chance of extinguishing the blaze.
Beaman backed off a bit until the noise was at a tolerable level. He toggled the transmit switch and screamed, “Hangar queen’s clear. Checking the far side now.” He slipped the walkie-talkie into a pocket on his fire fighting suit and motioned to the messenger to follow him. If he lost communications completely, his messenger would be his only link with the team leader.
Back close to it now, as close as he dared. The air inside his ensemble scorched the delicate lining of his noise, rasped against the back of his throat as he sucked down heaving breaths. Sweat cascaded down his face, his neck, his entire body, trickling down to soak his dungarees and seep into his boots. Another few steps, another one step — Beaman struggled against the blackness crowding in on his vision, knowing on some level that he was too close, too damned close, that he had to —
He felt someone jerk him back by his elbows. He stumbled and fell awkwardly onto the deck. Heat from the steel plates blistered through the fire retardant gear. He could feel the skin along his leg where he landed starting to stick to the fabric. Beaman let out a scream, then shoved himself up and away from the deck, drawing on reserves of energy he wouldn’t have guess that he had.
“Too close!” Beaman could make out the words that the investigator mouthed, unable to hear over the noise.
Too close. Too damned close. Beaman shook his head, clearing away the fog that threatened to consume his consciousness. Get himself killed, pass out or something, and he’d put the whole team at risk trying to come after him.
He nodded to let the messenger know he understood, then motioned them forward. They resumed their achingly slow progress around the fire, inching forward in the near-complete darkness.
Another two steps, and Beaman felt the heat start to decrease drastically. Was it possible — yes, by God. Through the veil of partially combusted missile fuel, burning bits of debris, he could see the open hangar bay doors. Outside, the gale raged, the wind blowing parallel to the length of the ship, sucking the smoke outside and creating a draft on the entire hangar bay.
But how could they contain
the fire already raging inside? If only there were some way to channel the force of the storm into the hangar bay, let Mother Nature’s rain dowse the flames, cool the inferno to a point that the man-made fire fighting systems had a chance to beat it out?
Could they push it overboard? Sure, if they were up on the flight deck with yellow gear and Tilly, the flight deck crane that was used to hoist burning aircraft over the side. But down here?
Wait. It just might be possible — he stepped back farther from the flames, felt the air inside his suit start to cool slightly. He lifted the walkie-talkie to his masked face and started shouting.
“He wants to what?” Batman roared.
“Turn abeam to the wind, Admiral,” Coyote said. “Open the hangar bay doors on both sides. According to DCC, it might just work.”
“What idiot is down in Damage Control Central?” Batman snapped. “This is lunacy — the last thing we need is to feed more oxygen in to the fire. All that’s going to do is spread it and gut this air craft carrier like a — like a — ” Batman spluttered to a stop, and Coyote leaped into the silence.
“I think it will work, Admiral. Frankly, with fires topside and in the hangar bay, it’s our only chance. We can fight one, maybe both for a while. But not much longer if we have any chance of ever using the flight deck again. It’s going to buckle — and that will be the least of it.” He pointed at the damage control schematic of the ship. “Another five minutes, and it’s going to get to the catapults. Then you can kiss that flight deck good-bye for good.”
Batman was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What about the men on the deck? We’ve lost internal communications with Repair Eight. The wind shifts and it’ll foul their plan of attack completely.”
Typhoon Season c-14 Page 23