by Jeff Edwards
Again, there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing, but keep fighting, and try to ride out the storm.
The TAO caught her eye. “Captain, request permission to engage inbound hostile air contacts.”
Silva nodded. “Permission granted. Hit ‘em! But do not let up on that surface contact.”
The TAO issued orders to Weapons Control, and eight more SM-3 missiles leapt into the fray.
And then the number of air contacts on the Aegis display began to multiply rapidly.
Silva’s grin grew wider. There were at least twenty new air tracks on the screen—more aircraft than she had ever seen, in even the most exaggerated training simulation. But the new symbols were not the warning red color of hostile forces. They were blue.
CHAPTER 54
STRIKE FLIGHT
VFA-228 — MARAUDERS
BAY OF BENGAL
WEDNESDAY; 03 DECEMBER
0054 hours (12:54 AM)
TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’
The Air Controller’s voice was low, but distinct in the headphones of Rob Monkman’s flight helmet. “Hammer, Bandits three-one-zero, for eighty, Angels two-zero.”
For all its Spartan brevity, the communication was packed with information. The Air Controller had just informed the leader of Hammer Flight that hostile aircraft had been detected eighty nautical miles from Hammer’s position, bearing three-one-zero, flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet.
The lack of the modifiers ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ indicated that the enemy planes were not directly approaching, or running away from Hammer. The absence of other modifiers relegated the message to a simple update, for purposes of situational awareness. No action required, but keep your eyes open for the bad guys.
The flight lead’s response was even shorter. “Hammer.” Translation: This is Hammer Flight Leader. I hear and understand.
Monk checked his AN/APG-79 radar for any sign of the enemy aircraft. The green-on-green monochromatic display seemed to glow under the image intensification of his night vision goggles, but the screen was clear of hostile contacts. His plane’s radar hadn’t acquired the targets yet. Not really a surprise, considering the range.
He lifted his head and went back to scanning the sky through the false green brightness of his night vision gear. The APG-79 was excellent for aerial combat, but it didn’t have nearly the range of the massive APS-145 radar array carried by the E-2D Hawkeye.
Per standard operating procedure, the E-2D was hanging back outside of the engagement area, supplying Airborne Early Warning coverage for the fighters. With its superior radar sensors and crew of air controllers, the Hawkeye could provide real-time target-cueing and tactical instructions to the American fighter pilots, allowing them to coordinate with a speed and precision that most nations could not even approximate.
Hammer Flight was one of three divisions assigned to the fighter sweep for this mission. Each division was composed of four F/A-18E Super Hornets, which could fight as a single coordinated unit, or split off into two independent sections to engage separate forces.
Monk was wingman to Lieutenant Dan Coffee (callsign Grinder), the division lead of Hammer Flight. His job was to keep Grinder in sight, follow the senior pilot’s orders, and shut the hell up until his input was asked for.
Monk didn’t mind. They’d be getting the order to engage any minute now, and then it would be time to give some Chinese pilots a taste of what they’d given Poker.
Somewhere, about a hundred miles back, was the strike package: a mixed-bag of Hornets and Super Hornets, tooled up for anti-surface action. Their mission was to take out the Chinese carrier with Harpoons and Mavericks.
Monk wasn’t thinking about the strike package. He wasn’t really thinking about the mission at all. He kept seeing the Chinese air-to-air missile blast through Poker’s canopy. No warning. No provocation. Just a shot in the face, and the smoking wreckage of Poker’s plane tumbling into the ocean.
The Air Controller’s voice came over Monk’s headphones again. “Hammer, Bandits three-zero-five, for sixty, Angels two-zero.”
Grinder’s single word acknowledgement came a second or so later. “Hammer.”
Monk glanced at his radar again. Still no enemy contacts, but the screen now showed eight hostile air symbols, being fed to his system from CED, the cooperative engagement data-link transmitter aboard the Hawkeye.
Monk’s knuckles tightened on the stick. It wouldn’t be long now.
He felt his lips move, and heard the low repetitive murmur of his own voice, but it took him a few seconds to realize that he was actually speaking. It was nearly a chant. “Payback time. Payback time. Payback time. Payback time…”
He chopped it off short, and went back to scanning the night sky for visual contacts. Within a few seconds, the chant started again, apparently of its own accord. “Payback time. Payback time…”
“Hammer, Bandits three-zero-zero, for forty, Angels two-two, hot. Commit!”
Monk grinned. That was the magic word—commit. The keys to the kingdom. Go after your assigned targets, and kill them.
Grinder’s response was as laconic as ever. “Hammer.”
A half-second later, Grinder turned left out of the formation, and began closing on the Bandits, trailed by the other three pilots of Hammer Flight: Chuck ‘Barnstormer’ Barnes, Sheila ‘Redeye’ Lewis, and Monk.
Grinder’s voice came over the ‘back’ radio, the circuit assigned to Hammer Flight for internal comms. “Hammers, sort by desig.”
Target designators appeared on Monk’s head-up display, bracketing two of the hostile aircraft symbols, identifying the enemy planes he was assigned to kill.
Monk keyed his mike. “Two, sorted.”
This was followed immediately by acknowledgements from Barnstormer and Redeye.
“Three, sorted.”
“Four, sorted.”
Using the old radio-only method, the target sorting process could have taken two or three minutes. With the help of the CED data-link, it was finished in three seconds. Everyone knew who their targets were. Now, it was just a matter of closing to missile engagement range.
Grinder climbed to 35,000 feet and poured on power, gaining speed and altitude for the coming engagement.
Monk adjusted his own speed and altitude to maintain position off Grinder’s starboard wing. “Payback time. Payback time…”
At 34 nautical miles, an electronic chime told Monk that his APG-79 had acquired radar contact. He glanced down at the display to confirm that both of his targets were now on the screen. They were.
He selected two AIM-120 AMRAAMs, designated one for each of his assigned Bandits, and allowed the fire control computer to give them their first look at the targets.
The Normalized In-Range Display—better known as the NIRD circle—appeared on his head-up display. One of his Bandits was sliding into the engagement envelope, but the second hostile was still slightly out of range. He held fire until the range bar for the second Bandit slipped past the six-o’clock position on the NIRD.
Both targets began to sheer off. Shit! Their threat-receivers had detected his radar lock! The range bars for both Bandits scrolled to the left, rapidly approaching the maximum range caret. He had maybe a second and a half before they slipped out of the envelope.
Shoot now? Or wait for a better opportunity?
It wasn’t a conscious decision. He thumbed the weapon selector, shut his eyes, and jammed the trigger twice.
“Fox Three! Fox Three!”
That was the code phrase for launch of an active radar guided missile.
Through his eyelids, Monk could see two green flashes as the missiles tore away into the night. The image processor circuits in his goggles were programmed to keep the output of the light intensification algorithms from harming his eyes, but there was no sense in spoiling his night vision.
The AMRAAMs blew through Mach 2 within seconds, and began gobbling up the distance to the Bandits. The 13,000 foot altitude advantage
put the missiles into a dive, gravity and inertia giving them still more speed as they streaked toward the turning Chinese warplanes.
Off Monk’s port wing, Grinder pumped out two AMRAAMs of his own, and executed a tight left turn to bring his flight into a lag pursuit behind the J-15s.
Monk nudged his throttle and banked left to maintain his position on the lead plane.
The Bandits dropped chaff, jinked and jived impressively in their attempt to break missile-lock, but the AIM-120 missiles were too close, and moving too fast. A pair of fireballs in the distance told Monk that both of his birds had found their targets.
Grinder’s AMRAAMs caught up with their Bandits a couple of seconds later, and two more explosions illuminated the night sky.
Then Monk’s own radar warning receiver was shrieking. Somebody had radar lock on him.
A flashing arrow on the HUD told him that the threat was four-o’clock low. He keyed his radio. “Two, spiked, four-o’clock low! Breaking right.”
Without waiting for a reply, he broke hard to the right, trading speed and altitude for a violently-sudden change in position. His g-suit clamped down on him like a python as the leg and abdominal modules constricted to keep the blood from pooling in his lower body. He grunted repeatedly through the turn, using voluntary muscle contraction to force blood pressure into his upper torso and brain. His cone of vision narrowed, but he knew where his physical limits were, and he didn’t come close to graying out.
The tone was silent when he rolled back into level flight. He had slipped out of the radar lock, for the moment at least.
The adrenaline in his veins screamed for him to go after the threat, find and kill whichever bad guy had locked onto his plane. But that was not his job.
He brought his nose back around to the left, and began to look for Grinder. He keyed his radio. “Two, naked and blind.” This is Hammer-Two. I have broken free from enemy radar lock, but I cannot see my flight lead.
Grinder’s reply came quickly. “One, blind. Furball.” This is Hammer-One. I can’t see you either. This fight is turning into a free-for-all.
Monk acknowledged the transmission. “Two.”
Grinder was right, this was a furball. The sky had become a seething cluster-fuck of shooting-dodging aircraft.
Monk checked his radar and then did a quick visual sweep. He spotted his next target, and began angling in for the kill.
USS Towers:
“All Stations—Sonar. Hostile torpedo has broken acquisition.”
On the Aegis display, Captain Silva watched the symbol for the enemy torpedo swerve away from the Towers. Finally, something was going right.
She was about to issue another order when the Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net again.
“All Stations—Sonar has multiple hydrophone effects off the port beam! Bearings one-zero-three, and one-zero-seven. Initial classification: friendly torpedoes!”
Friendly? That got everyone’s attention.
The Undersea Warfare Evaluator punched into the circuit. “Sonar—USWE. Say again the classification of the new torpedoes.”
“USWE—Sonar. They’re friendly, sir. U.S.-built Mark-48s, and they’re locked onto a new broadband contact, bearing zero-niner-zero.”
“Sonar—USWE. What’s the classification of your new contact?”
“USWE—Sonar. Classification unknown, sir. I’ve got plenty of blade noise and lots of broadband, but narrowband is too chaotic to get a read. Whoever he is, he just kicked it up to flank speed to get away from those 48s.”
Silva keyed her headset. “Sonar, this is the captain. Any sign of the sub that launched the Mark-48s?”
“Ah… Negative, Captain. Whoever our friend is out there, he’s running slick and silent. We’re not getting a peep out of him.”
“He can be as quiet as he wants,” the TAO said. “As long as he keeps that bad guy off our back.”
Silva nodded. “You’ve got that right.”
On the tactical display, two blue torpedo symbols were racing toward a hostile submarine symbol.
Silva raise an eyebrow. “If I ever find out who’s in command of that friendly sub, I’m going to kiss him on the lips.”
A junior Operations Specialist spoke up before he could stop himself. “Even if it’s a girl, Captain?”
Silva gave the young Sailor a mock glare. “Seaman, is that an indirect way of asking about my orientation?”
The Sailor’s ears turned bright red. “No, sir! I mean, no, ma’am!”
Silva turned back to the Aegis screen. “If our guardian angel turns out to be female, I’ll shake her hand and buy her a beer.”
“Sounds like a plan to me, Captain,” the Operations Specialist said.
Silva scanned the tactical display. “TAO, why did we stop hitting that surface contact?”
The Tactical Action Officer cleared his throat. “It’s not there anymore, Captain. SPY isn’t picking up anything big enough to make a radar return.”
“Okay,” Silva said. “Then our job is done. We’ll wait until the fighter boys have finished mopping up the enemy air cover, and then we move in and pick up survivors.”
This pronouncement was met with silence.
Silva examined the faces of the men and women around her. “I know what some of you are probably thinking,” she said. “But if we’re supposed to be the good guys, we damned well have to act like the good guys. When the fight is over, we’re not leaving any sailors in the water. I don’t care what color uniform they’re wearing.”
The TAO nodded slowly. “Aye-aye, Captain.”
Silva inhaled deeply, and let out a long breath. “Maybe this isn’t the kind of order Captain Bowie would have given. But it’s my order. And it is not subject to debate.”
The corners of the Tactical Action Officer’s mouth curled up in the barest suggestion of a smile. “You misunderstand us, ma’am. This is exactly the kind of order Captain Bowie would have given.”
There were silent nods of agreement around the compartment.
From somewhere in the semi-darkness, an unidentified voice spoke. “Alright, people. You heard the Skipper. Let’s get to it.”
Hammer-Two:
Monk watched his third kill of the night come apart in midair, scorched fragments of wreckage sifting down toward the dark ocean like flaming confetti. Counting the two J-15s he had nailed during his last mix-up with the Chinese, he now had five confirmed kills. Monk had just officially become an ace, but nothing in the world could have been further from his mind.
He didn’t care about honors, or awards, or bragging rights. He was looking for another Bandit to kill.
The mission had gone according to plan. The fighter sweep had cleared away enough of the hostile air cover to allow the strike package to get in and do its job. After ten or twelve air-launched Harpoon strikes, the Chinese aircraft carrier, Liaoning, wallowed powerless on the wave tops.
Through his night vision goggles, Monk could see the crippled ship low in the water, listing heavily to starboard, flames rising from her flight deck in several places.
Monk tore his eyes away from the burning ship, and went back to scanning the sky for another enemy aircraft. Three or four seconds later, he found one. Or rather, it found him.
The incoming missile must have been a heat seeker, because Monk’s threat warning receiver never detected any sign of enemy radar emissions. He was cruising low and fast when the missile struck. The shock was as hard and abrupt as a head-on car crash.
His helmet ricocheted off the inside of the canopy with brain-numbing force, and tattletales began flashing all over his instrument panel. The Super Hornet—lithe and nimble just a few seconds before—was suddenly a shuddering and dying beast.
The cockpit was filling with smoke, and his port engine was on fire. He was losing power and altitude quickly, and the black sea was rushing up to meet him.
He keyed his radio. “This is Hammer-Two. I am hit and going down. This is Hammer-Two. I am hit and goin
g down.”
He released the mike and started to reach for the ejection handle between his legs. Then he caught sight of the Chinese aircraft carrier again, the flames billowing green through the lenses of his night goggles.
Maybe there was time to put his dying F-18 through one final maneuver. Nothing fancy: just a simple turn and a change of altitude.
The controls were nearly unresponsive now, and he was almost out of time. He fought the stick to bring his nose around to the left, and then pitched over into a shallow dive with the stricken enemy warship framed squarely within the window of his HUD.
Another nighttime approach on an aircraft carrier, but this time there would be no landing. No surge of deceleration as the arresting gear brought his plane to a straining halt. No coffee and friendly banter in the debriefing room. This was not going to be that kind of landing.
The burning form of the aircraft carrier was growing larger. The moment of impact hurtling closer.
He could do this. He could ride his Hornet all the way down, plunge his sword directly into the heart of the enemy. Bring it all to an end, in a furious cataclysm of fire.
Later, he would never remember reaching for the eject handle. But the yellow and black loop was suddenly in his hand. He wrapped his fingers around it, and pulled.
The canopy blasted clear, and the acceleration hit him in the lower spine as the ejection seat rocketed him out of his plane, and into the night sky. His universe became a maelstrom of darkness and rushing wind.
And then the drogue deployed, pulling his chute open, and he was floating down toward the ocean under an unseen dome of taut nylon.
Monk wanted to see the impact. He needed to see it. He prayed that he would be facing the right way when it happened.
Maybe it was luck. Maybe it was fate. Or maybe it was just the wind. But his parachute turned slowly as he descended, and the enemy ship swung into view as the instant of collision occurred.
His wounded Hornet rammed into the superstructure of the Chinese aircraft carrier at several hundred knots. Kinetic energy, the plane’s fuel load, and the remaining munitions synergized into an expanding sphere of flame and destruction.