Alpha Strike

CHAPTER 13

Shih Tan glanced up at the sun. Even though it was already midday, the hazy morning fog still hung in the air. Hot, humid, and dull — how much worse could military duty get?

A lot worse, he recalled, if the reports of his friends were to be believed. Last summer, a typhoon had swept into the South China Sea, and his friend’s cadre had been evacuated with only hours to spare before the pounding winds became too strong for the helicopters to operate.

Despite the heat, Shih Tan shivered at the thought of being marooned in the bamboo structure during one of the vicious storms. He glanced up at the Mischief Reef base camp. While strong enough to survive the normal vicissitudes of summer storms, no bamboo structure could possibly survive a typhoon out here.

He wondered why it had taken the authorities so long to decide to evacuate the base camp for the typhoon. Certainly, there was classified material at the site, and that would have to have been destroyed. The equipment, too. Years of occupying the tiny rock had led to the accumulation of radio gear, spare parts for the tanks, and the numerous bits of jetsam and flotsam that human beings accumulate whenever they inhabit confined quarters.

Despite the comforts of Buddhism as a religion, Shih Tan had no illusions about his own equanimity in facing death. Back on the mainland, he had a wife and two children. Given any chance at all, he’d fight to see them again. While human life might have been less valuable than tactical advantage to his politico-military superiors, Shih Tan valued his own skin.

“Doesn’t look so special from up here, does it?” Batman asked over the ICS.

Spook Two was on its second special surveillance mission. After the ship-based radars had proved that the ripple-skinned Tomcat was almost impossible to track or target, Batman had convinced Tombstone to let the two Spooks fly CAP above the Mischief Reef area.

“Not to me. But then, we’re not politicians,” Tomboy replied.

Maybe you aren’t yet, youngster, Batman thought, glancing back at her. I wasn’t at your age, either. But, oh, if you ever put that fourth full stripe on, the world changes, Yes, indeedy, it does.

After six months in the Pentagon, Batman was just starting to get a feel for the place. It was a massive readjustment, going from being a captain in the Fleet, with all the courtesies and privileges that went with it, to being a Captain in the Pentagon. Hot and cold running admirals, the joke went. An aviator captain, qualified to command a Carrier Air Wing at sea, was barely senior enough to make coffee in the Pentagon. Not until the Captain learned the ropes, anyway. Batman had figured that out fairly quickly.

He’d never been entirely sure exactly what his first billet there entailed. He remembered going to a lot of meetings, reading countless white papers, and reviewing tech manuals. Some of the material seemed to bear some relationship to the F 14 program, but much of it didn’t. That last puzzling study, for instance, on military health care and Navy Exchange operations. He still had no idea how that’d ended up in his In box, much less in the urgent stack.

Finally, he’d run into Admiral Dunflere, another proud member of the F14 community, in the cafeteria. The Admiral had been a Commander when Batman was a senior Lieutenant, and remembered him.

More importantly, the Admiral had a vacancy on his staff and wanted him. Batman had jumped at the chance to transfer out of whatever it was he was doing into the JAST shop.

It was only later that he learned how to manipulate the system sufficiently to be forced to conduct frequent field inspections on the JAST birds, and to wangle himself into the training pipeline. Admiral Dunflere seemed perfectly content to receive his weekly field reports via the laptop computer and modem, and Batman took full advantage of his new-found freedom.

And this was what it’d gotten him. An extended trip away from the five-sided office building and back in the cockpit. He glanced down at the Chinese camp perched on top of Mischief Reef and wondered if Tombstone really had any idea of what he was in for on his next tour to DC.

Well, at least Batman’s politician days were on hold for a while.

“See anything unusual?” Tomboy asked, breaking his train of thought.

“Nope. You?”

“Not a thing. As long as we’re out here, though, maybe we can take another swing around it. After that incident last week, it wouldn’t hurt.”

“You got it. Let’s do a little more op testing on this Tomcat on the way back, though.” Batman stood the Tomcat on its tail, reveling in the feel of gravity cementing him back into the ejection seat. God, how he’d missed that! He punched in the afterburners and let the full-throated roar wash over him.

At ten thousand feet, he rolled the Tomcat out into level flight, completing the Immelmann. The Mischief Reef camp was now almost two miles below them. He eased back on the throttle and put the Tomcat into a gentle descent, bleeding off altitude and speed at the same time. Experimentally, he flicked off the auto-angle control and swept the wings forward. He felt the increase in drag and speed and let the aircraft slow almost to stall speed before reengaging the auto-control.

“Looks like everything works as advertised,” he advised Tomboy.

“Roger.” Had his RIO not been so much junior, Batman might have been tempted to hear the slightly grumpy note in her voice. He smiled. Backseaters never appreciated aerobatics.

Shih Tan glared at the aircraft circling so far away in the sky. Out of range of the Stinger missiles, no doubt. Despite the destruction of the neighboring rock camp, his superiors had taken no steps to upgrade the offensive capabilities of the island. The missile emplacements that were barely masked by bamboo screens and the Stingers were their only protection.

He’d heard the blast from Island 203 and rushed outside in time to see the rain of litter and rock fall back into the ocean. One sentry said he’d seen the American aircraft dip low over the island and release a bomb, but two other lookouts couldn’t confirm the report. Still, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind where the bomb had come from. The American aircraft had been the only possible source of it.

The lack of defenses on his tiny island bothered him. While it was well within China’s span of control, and should have been sacrosanct in the South China Sea, there was no telling what drove the Americans to do anything. Attacking an undefended, tactically unimportant island was just the latest in a series of American actions that made little sense to the rest of the world. That China should have to tolerate that sort of aggression in her own seas bothered him more than he could say.

Had Shih Tan been in charge, he would have armed the tiny islands to the teeth and ringed them with every capability in the Chinese navy. Not that there were really so many ships, but it was critical to maintaining China’s face in the region to put a stop to the American intervention.

A slight breeze rose up, ruffling the damp hair on the back of his neck. He heard the distant whine of insects, but dismissed it. In the next second, his head snapped up, and he gazed frantically around.

Insects? This far out at sea? It wasn’t-The vast bamboo structure behind him erupted in a fiery explosion. He barely had time to process the information in his brain before the shock wave reached him, blasting him off his feet and into the warm waters of the South China Sea just seconds in front of the fireball.

Shih Tan hit the water hard and plummeted fifteen feet beneath it. He retained just enough consciousness to try to struggle to the surface. He heard a muted series of thuds as debris hit the water around him, flames instantly extinguished and steam churning the water. As he stroked for the surface, he saw a film of flames spreading out above him, broken only by debris crashing through it to the water.

“Shit!” Batman yelled, instinctively putting the Tomcat into a sharp climb. “What the hell was that?”

Tomboy craned her head around and looked back at the surface of the ocean. Thick black smoke flecked with flames covered the surface of the ocean, obscuring Spratly Three.

“I don’t know, Batman,” she said finally. “But it looks like whatever happened to the other camp just happened again.”

“Where’re those goddamn Flankers!” he demanded. Over tactical, the other three Tomcats were buzzing about the explosion, each RIO denying that they’d seen anything out of the ordinary, and double-checking each other visually to ensure that all the weapons they’d left with were still on the rails.

“Fifty miles to the west.” She gave him a bearing to fly, then added, “Thor’s on his now, and I still don’t know if the other three were ghosts or real contacts. The one Thor intercepted didn’t have anything on his rails, and there was no indication of any communications downlink. Whatever happened to that camp, I don’t think Thor’s Flanker had anything to do with it.”

“It’s a damned strange coincidence that he just happened to be out here, don’t you think?” he asked sarcastically. “I mean, a nasty, suspicious mind might just be tempted to think that there’s some connection between a Chinese Flanker cruising toward an American battle group and a Chinese outpost smearing itself across five square miles of ocean.”

“Don’t have to tell me that,” she answered. “But you have any idea about what could have done it? It wasn’t us, and it wasn’t them. So who?”

“I don’t know, Tomboy. But if I had to bet between us being responsible and the Chinese, I know where my money’d be.”

“You and me both. Wait, Homeplate’s talking.”

“Flankers have turned and are headed back toward Vietnam,” she heard the Jefferson TAO say. The TAO then reeled off orders and directions recalling the five Tomcats and the Marine Hornet to the boat.

“And that ought to clinch it,” Tomboy said. “Soon as he saw the explosion, he turned and ran for home base.”

“Not exactly. He ran for Vietnam. And for a Chinese Flanker, that’s a little bit different than home,” Batman said.

“At some time,” Mein Low said, “we will have another conversation on this matter. You must know that we have only the best intentions for our southern brothers. In the interest of regional security, we must stand united. Would you have either of our countries become slaves to the American culture, as the Japanese have become? I think not. For too many years, we have both fought to avoid that.”

Bien nodded politely. “Naturally, the differences in culture are too extreme to permit that to happen. The Chinese have always been supportive of our independence.” While they have simultaneously fought to prevent us from assuming control of our own destiny. Throughout the Vietnam wars, first with the French and then with the Americans, you have sought to control events in our country.

“Our joint operations have been the beginning of even more cooperation,” the Chinese Commander continued. “You are wise to understand that we must present a united front to the world on this issue.”

“My pilots have gained a great deal of useful experience operating with your forces,” Bien added politely. Experience in being the victims of your aggression! In every exercise, we are forced to play the hapless victims patrolling the skies, while your Flankers pounce on them. It is just good joss, as you would say, that no one has been killed thus far.”

The Chinese Commander permitted himself a small smile. “We have tried to share our experience with you,” he agreed. “Your forces have shown much progress. Together, I believe we can repel this American battle group. With one stunning sweep, we will ensure that they will never meddle in our affairs again!”

“Our wish as well,” Bien murmured. At least that much was true. Vietnam needed neither Chinese hegemony nor American imperialism any longer.

“Then we are of one mind. As I said, we will talk more about these matters when we approach a final solution.”

Bien executed a tiny bow, one that almost verged on insolent. Pig.

The Chinese Commander stared after him as he left. Scum.