by Dale Brown
with this class of warship, but he knew that Taiwan, one of
the richest and fastest-growing nations in the world, could af-
ford the best military hardware. Well, it may be a modem,
high-tech boat, but it was no match for the Mao and its escorts.
"Have Communications transmit a Flash priority message to
Taiwan Operations headquarters, advising them that we are in
contact with a rebel warship. Have the patrol helicopter main-
tain visual contact and report if-"
Just then, the officer of the deck interrupted: "Captain, mes-
sage from the Nationalist fxigate Kim Men. They are ordering
that we not approach Quemoy Island any farther or we will
be fired upon!"
"They what?" Yi exploded, nearly rising out of his seat in
total surprise. "They are trying to tell us where we can sail?.
Are they crazy?" The idea was laughable-the smallest ship
in Admiral Yi's carrier battle group was twice as big and four
times more heavil armed than this Nationalist toy boat! This
was obviously some kind of publicity stunt. "Put them on the
phone. This is ludicrous! What ... ?" The officer of the deck
122 DALE BROWN
nodded, and Yi picked up the ship-to-ship radio handset and
keyed the mike button: "Nationalist vessel Kin this is Ad-
miral Yi Kyu-pin, captain of the People's Republic of China
People's Liberation Army Navy aircraft carrier Mao Zedong
and commander of this task force," he said in Mandarin Chi-
nese. "Repeat your last message, please."
"Carrier Mao Zedong, this is Captain Sung Kun-hui, captain
of the Republic of China Navy Quemoy Flotilla frigate Kin
Men," a voice responded in Mandarin. "You are approaching
territorial waters of the Republic of China, and we demand
that you remain clear."
"We are peaceful vessels in Chinese waters, not Nationalist
waters," Yi responded angrily, "and we will pass through this
area as we please. Do not approach this task force. This is
your last warning." Yi turned to his first officer in surprise
and muttered, "This is some kind of trap. I want a full long-
range sweep of the area, all sensors. Look for any other ships
or subs in the area. Maintain formation speed and heading."
He keyed the mike again: "C4ptain Sung, this is Admiral Yi.
We intend to continue on to ouri destination, which is classified
and which I am not permitted to reveal. Do not approach this
task force. Over."
"Admiral Yi, you and your escorts are then hereby ordered
to heave-to immediately," Sung replied. "If it is necessary,
we will use deadly force to stop your ships and force you to
comply. Heave-to immediately. Maintaining this course to-
wards Quemoy Tao will be seen as a hostile act."
Yi shot out of his chair, nearly dropping the ship-to-ship
phone in total shock and -surprise. "This bastard ... he is
threatening us with force? I will blast his puny little toy boat
straight to helL " He picked up the phone and keyed the mike:
"Your request is utterly foolhardy and without cause, rebel
captain!" Yi sputtered into the ship-to-ship phone. "I warn
you, Captain, that if I see any of your guns traverse in my
direction, if I see your helicopters leave your deck or even
spin up their rotors, or if you approach my task force any
closer, I will order my escorts to attack without further warn-
ing. How dare you threaten warships of the People's Republic
of China on the high seas like this?"
"And how dare you, Admiral," Sung responded, "bring
nuclear warheads into our waters?"
Yi looked puzzled, his eyes darting back and forth across
FATAL T ER RAI N 123
his brid . ge. "What did you say?" he replied. "I am no t carry-
ing any such weapons!"
"With all due respect, sir, you are a liar, Admiral Yi," Sung
radioed. "You and your ships are carrying at least six ther-
monuclear warheads on your M- II ballistic missiles and SS-
N-19 anti-ship missiles. You loaded the warheads while at sea
via submarine and commercial traders, in violation of the
United N ' ations Missile Technology Control Regime Treaty.
The Republic of China strictly prohibits the transportation of
nuclear warheads or nuclear-capable missiles into our waters.
You will be detained until the warheads and missiles are con-
fiscated. I now order you to heave-to immediately. This is your
last warning."
Admiral Yi was virtually beside himself, his eyes spinning-
not from anger or confusion this time, but in utter disbelief,
because the rebel captain's information was maddeningly ac-
curate: the Chinese warships were indeed carrying nuclear
warheads. Three of the six M- I I land attack missiles and three
of the P-500 Granit missiles, what the West called SSN-19
"Shipwreck," carried in the forward vertical launch tubes
were armed with NK-55 thermonuclear warheads, small se-
lectable-yield warheads powerful enough to destroy an aircraft
carrier or a small city. It was impossible to tell how in hell
Taiwan had found out. Security and secrecy had been pains-
takingly maintained throughout the transfers, and the ships
never docked at any port after on-loading the warheads, so
access to the ship could be carefully controlled. A spy on the
ship? Improbable, but it was the only ...
"Admiral Yi, this is Captain Sung. You will be considered
a hostile target if you do not stop. What is your response?"
Get a hold of yourself, Yi, the captain told himself This
could be part of some elaborate ruse, some sort of propaganda
ploy to embarrass the People's Liberation Army Navy-per-
haps they were only guessing about the missiles and warheads.
If the media showed pictures of a lone, lightly armed Taiwa-
nese frigate challenging the Chinese carrier battle group, it
would be a monumental propaganda coup for Taiwan and its
Western partners. Perhaps he only wanted a photo opportu-
nity? Perhaps this was all a big show, some sort of act of
bravado. Sung and his crew faced certain death if Yi's escort
ships unleashed even one of their missiles, and even the escort
Kang's twin-barreled 130-millimeter guns could shred that alu-
124 DALE BROWN
minurn-hulled Nationalist toy boat in a few minutes.
But Yi had a bad feeling about this: this was no photo op-
portunity or publicity ploy. The rebel warship was serious-it
meant to board and search a foreign warship nearly twenty
times its size! "Sound general quarters, all ships, all hands at
battle stations, not an exercise," Yi shouted. "Get the fighters
up on deck and ready to launch, full air defense weapon load.
Comrade Chong, report to the Combat Information Center,
prepare to take charge of the engagement if they get a lucky
shot off and hit the bridge. I will take the battle helm from
here."
" They cannot be serious!" the first officer, Chong, shouted
as the quartermaster sounded the general quarters bell. "They
mean to engage us?"
" If they try, it will be the shortest naval engagement in
history," Yi said angrily. "Officer of the deck, signal the task
force to shift to combat formation. Brin- the formation to
thirty knots, give me twenty degrees to port to put our guns
on the starboard side. Get Helicopter Group One on deck
armed for anti-submarine warfare, and Helicopter Groups Two
and Three ready for rescue duties." Yi knew that Taiwan had
a small force of F- 16 and F-5 fighter-bombers and, although
they were very far away, they could do some damage if they
got through the Kang's Crotale Modulaire surface-to-air mis-
sile screen-they could easily overwhelm Yi's small fleet of
Sukhoi-33 fighters and close-in weapon systems.
"All stations report manned and ready," the officer of the
deck reported a few minutes later. "The group also reports all
stations manned and ready for combat. Estimate five minutes
before the group is in combat formation. Interceptor flight one
is up on deck, ready to launch in about ten minutes."
"Very well," Yi responded. "Combat, range to the rebel
frigate?"
"Range fifteen thousand meters."
Well within range 'of the frigate's Harpoon missiles, Yi
thought, but if the rebels were going to use them, they
would've done it long ago. "Cowards," Yi said to the captain
of the Taiwanese frigate acidly. "You should have taken the
shot when you had the chance-now you have no chance."
To his officer of the deck, Yi ordered, "I want a lookout to
watch that frigate-if it tries to launch its helicopter or traverse
that gun, I want to know about it immediately. Send a Flash
FATAL TER RAI N 125
priority signal to fleet headquarters; notify them that we are
being threatened by an armed Taiwanese frigate that is order-
ing us to sto' and be boarded. Advise them that we are pro-
ceeding at best speed and ask for instructions-and I want
permission to engage and destroy that patrol boat if neces-
sary.
THIRTY MILES NORTHWEST OF THE CHINESE
CARRIER MAO ZEDONG
THAT SAME TIME
"That PLAN battle group's got everything lit up, crew," de-
fensive systems officer (DSO) Air Force First Lieutenant Emil
"Emitter" Vikram reported, referring to the Chinese People's
Liberation Army Navy vessels. "Rice Screen Golf-band air
search, Crotale antiair, Square Tie Type 331 anti-ship target-
ing, India-band Sun Visor fire control, Great Leader satellite
communications, jammers across the entire spectrum-he's
broadcasting everything but AM and FM golden oldies. He's
leaking so much power out his side lobes that I can feel it in
my fillings. "
"We get the message, DSO," retired Lieutenant General
Brad Elliott, the pilot, replied. Vikram had been the youngest
and one of the brightest engineers at the now-closed High
Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, but he had the least
amount of flight experience, so he still hadn't learned to com-
pletely control his excitement when using the interphone.
"Just give us the important news and record the rest. Co, you
should be double-checking the 'combat' checklist. If you're
just sitting there with nothing to do, with a Chinese battle
group ready to attack just twenty miles away, you're probably
missing something."
"Hey, I was born ready, General," the copilot retorted,
causing an exasperated scowl from the pilot. "My checklist's
complete-I'm just waiting for the fur to start flying." Sitting
across from Elliott, monitoring the four large color multifunc-
tion displays on the forward instrument panel, was his copilot,
Air 'Force Major Nancy Cheshire. A longtime test pilot and
engineer, Cheshire had spent several years at HAWC as one
126 DALE BROWN
of Elliott's most talented pilots and flight test engineers; she
had already flown two secret strike missions in the EB-52 as
part of Brad Elliott's classified stealth raiders. When HAWC
had closed, she had been assigned as one of the first female
B-2 Spirit stealth bomber pilots in the U. Air Force-but she
had readily given up that choice assignment when McLanahan
and Elliott had asked to "borrow" her to fly one of Jon Mas-
ters's Megafortress strategic escort "flying battleships."
This Megafortress was loaded for bear with both offensive
and defensive weapons. Instead of a standard weapon pylon,
each wing held a large teardrop-shaped stealthy fibersteel fair-
ing that contained the external weapons on ejector racks. Each
wing weapons fairing held six AGM-177 Wolverine stealth
turbojet cruise missiles, which were targetable rocket-powered
cruise missiles with a range of up to fifty miles, fitted with
three small internal bomb bays that could carry a variety of
weapons or other payloads. The Wolverine missiles on this
mission carried a mix of payloads-half were configured as
area jammer/decoys that could simulate a massive bomber or
fighter attack and completely shut down radar screens and dis-
rupt enemy air defense systems for miles in all directions; the
other half carried cluster bomb packages so each missile could
attack three targets, then dive into a fourth. Each pylon also
carried four radar-guided AIM-120C AMRAAMs for bomber
defense-in total, the same number of missiles as on a F-15
Eagle fighter-that could be fired at enemy targets up to thirty
miles away, even behind the bomber.
Internally, the EB-52 Megafortress was armed with twelve
AGM-136 Tacit Rainbow anti-radar cruise missiles in the for-
ward part of the bomb bay, which were small turbojet-powered
missiles that would loiter over an area and automatically attack
an enemy radar that activated nearby which transmitted spe-
cific threat frequencies-the missiles could orbit for up to an
hour over a twenty-five-square-mile area. The aft section of
the fifty-foot long bomb bay contained the bomber's maximum
offensive punch that would hopefully not be needed on this
mission-a rotary launcher with eight AGM- 142B Striker mis-
siles. The Strikers were rocket-powered, supersonic bombs
with a 1,000-pound high-explosive warhead that carried a sat-
ellite navigation system and TV and imaging infrared terminal
guidance packages that gave them precision-kill capability;
wings that unfolded after release from the bomb bay gave the
FATAL TERRAIN 127
Striker missile a ballistic cruising range of nearly fifty miles.
"I show us in COMBAT mode and ready to fight," retired
Lieutenant Colonel Patrick McLanahan, the offensive systems
officer, said. McLanahan could sense the tension in the voices
of everyone on board, even Brad Elliott. It had been over two
years since Elliott had flown in combat, and almost a year
since losing command of HAWC, and his nervousness and
hyperalertness were obvious. McLanahan checked the mission
status readout on his weapons display. The mission status read-
out was a direct satellite. lin
k with U. Pacific Command head-
quarters at Pearl Harbor, which indicated their orders
continuously. Although McLanahan could override PAC-
COM's orders, the active datalink was the same as a direct
verbal order from U. Pacific Command. "Datalink mission
status is CHECK FIRE, and my nose is cold. Everyone stand
by. 11
McLanahan's offensive systems suite was dominated by the
SMFD, or Super Multi Function Display, a two-by-three foot
screen on the forward instrument panel, from which Mc-
Lanahan controlled all of his systems and weapons. Using a
Macintosh-like interface, McLanahan could display any
combination of flight, navigation, weapons, systems, or sensor
information on that screen, and resize, stack, or move any of
the windows around with ease. McLanahan controlled the
SMFD in three ways: he could touch the screen with a finger
to manipulate windows; he could use a trackball and pointer
like a mouse; or he could issue commands to the computer by
hitting a switch near his right foot and speaking to the com-
puter. Using all three methods together allowed McLanahan to
operate his systems with incredible speed and accuracy.
Part of McLanahan's air intelligence suite was the "God's-
eye 11 view of the area supplied by Jon Masters's satellite re-
'connaissance systems. A string of small low-orbiting satellites
developed by Sky Masters, Inc., nicknamed NIRTSats (Need
It Right This Second Satellite), scanned the Formosa Strait
with powerful synthetic aperture radars, then downlinked the
information to the EB-52 Megafortress via satellite relays. This
produced an overhead image of the area depicting all of the
ships, aircraft, and landmasses on the SMFD computer moni-
tor. McLanahan could manipulate the image in thousands of
ways, zooming in and out to individual targets or back to get
128 DALE BROWN
the "big picture" tactical situation, and he could use the real-
time image to pick targets to attack.
"The PRC vessels are redeploying their ships," McLanahan
reported. "They're turning west, trying to get out of Taiwa-