Black Star

CHAPTER 20 — PREFLIGHT

He missed.

Damn, thought Maxwell. He was always shocked by the ferocity of the Colt .45. The muzzle flash and deep-throated boom felt like a Howitzer going off in his hand. Sparks and shattered plaster erupted from the shelter wall next to the man’s head.

From thirty feet away Maxwell fired again. Another flash, another shower of concrete and sparks from the wall behind the man.

He was a pilot or crewmember, Maxwell guessed. He was wearing a PLA flight suit and some kind of torso harness. The man had released his grip on Mai-ling. He whirled and got off a snap shot with his own pistol. Maxwell felt the 7.62 bullet whiz past his ear. After the heavy boom of the Colt, the Chinese pistol sounded like a popgun.

The man was scooting backwards toward the cover of the parked vehicle. Maxwell fired again. And missed.

Why didn’t you practice with this damn thing? He got off two more fast shots. Damn! Both went wild, spraying more concrete and sparks.

The man was backing up to the vehicle, aiming the 7.62 with both hands — when he stumbled over the body of Catfish Bass. Off balance, he lurched backwards, firing another round into space.

Maxwell followed him with the muzzle of the .45. He fired again. Sparks and a metallic twang came from the vehicle as the Glazer bullet ripped into the car’s frame.

He took a deep breath and leveled the sight of the .45. The Chinese pilot was regaining his balance, taking aim with his pistol. Squeeze. Don’t flinch. It’s your last chance.

The .45 boomed in the darkness. Instead of feeding a next round, the Colt’s slide remained open. The chamber was empty, all seven rounds expended from the magazine.

For what seemed like an eternity, Maxwell and the Chinese pilot held eye contact. Maxwell kept the empty weapon trained on him. Neither man moved.

In slow motion the Chinese pilot lowered the pistol to his side. He tilted back against the vehicle and slid to a sitting position on the concrete.

Maxwell walked up to him and removed the pistol from his hand. He was motionless, eyes staring into the night sky. The small hole in his chest was matched by a gaping exit wound in the back of his flight suit. A dark swath of blood glistened on the side of the vehicle. The last .45 slug had taken out the man’s heart.

“Is he dead?” The tiny voice came from Mai-ling, huddled against the shelter wall.

Maxwell nudged the Chinese pilot with his foot. He fell over onto the concrete. “Very.”

She walked over to the man’s body. For a long moment she stood over him, looking into the dead man’s face. A look of sadness covered her face.

“Is that who I think it is?” said Maxwell.

She nodded. “Shaomin.”

“I’m sorry. I had to—”

“I’m glad he’s dead.”

A groan came from Catfish Bass, lying with his knees drawn up to his chest.

Mai-ling swung away from the dead man and knelt over Bass. Maxwell helped her open the top of his utility coveralls, checking his wound.

As he knelt over Bass, Maxwell sensed another presence looming out of the darkness. He snatched Shaomin’s 7.62 pistol and jumped to his feet.

Colonel Chiu — dark-clad, black-faced — materialized in the gloom of the pathway. “I told you that ancient gun was useless.”

“I hit him, didn’t I?”

“One hit, six misses.”

“How do you know?”

“I was standing over there.” He pointed across the pathway. “Watching your superb display of marksmanship. I’ve seen blind men shoot better than that.”

“Why the hell didn’t you shoot him?”

“I could see that you needed the practice.”

Maxwell felt a rush of anger. He could still hear the Chinese pilot’s bullet whizzing past his ear. He fought back the impulse to punch Chiu’s lights out. Later, he told himself. Later he’d deal with this asshole. “Listen, Colonel, we’ve got a big problem. Catfish is badly wounded. He can’t fly in the Black Star.”

At this, Bass tried to sit up. “The hell I can’t.” His voice was a low croak. “Just get me in the cockpit and—”

“He can’t fly anything,” said Mai-ling. She was applying a compress to his wound. “He’s got a bullet in his chest and he’s lost too much blood.”

Chiu looked at Maxwell. “You’ll have to fly it by yourself.”

“No way. It’s a two-man jet. I can’t even decipher the instruments without a Chinese-speaking systems officer.”

A flurry of automatic fire a few hundred yards away drew Chiu’s attention. From just beyond the perimeter of the field came the sound of armored vehicles. To the east, on the opposite horizon from the fuel fire, the sky was beginning to show pink. “Our time is up,” he said. “We have to get out of Chouzhou. If you don’t fly the Black Star, then I’ll destroy it.” He patted his belt on which half a dozen grenades were hooked. “I’ll blow up both jets and the equipment—”

“I can fly the Black Star.”

They stared at Mai-ling. Chiu shook his head. “No. Not you.”

“Why not? I helped build the airplane, and I know the systems. I can interpret the instruments for him.”

“You’re a defector and a security risk. I won’t permit it.”

Maxwell’s anger peaked again. Chiu was a pigheaded idiot. “It was your job to get me to the airplane. It’s my call how and with whom I fly it.”

Chiu’s face hardened. “I can’t permit her to jeopardize the rest of the unit.”

“You’re already jeopardized. Do you want to report to your superiors in Taiwan that you failed?”

A moment of tense silence passed. Maxwell knew he had touched a nerve. The muscles in Chiu’s jaw were knotting.

“Why should I trust any of you? It’s not your country at war.”

“We’ve just put our lives on the line for your country,” said Maxwell. “Bass and I, and Mai-ling too. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Another silence. Chiu glanced at his watch, then glowered at Maxwell. “So quit wasting time. Go. Get in your damned airplane.”

Another flood of orange blazed from the starboard vertical launcher. A plume of fire trailed the second Harpoon into the night sky, a mile behind the first.

As his eyes re-adapted to the darkness, Commander Lei could see the ghostly shapes of the ordnancemen on the forward deck. They were scrambling to load the three fresh Harpoons.

The umbilicals from the two provisioning ships — the great wallowing 20,000-ton supply vessel and the tanker— had been disconnected and both ships were dropping astern. For mutual protection they would remain with Kai Yang’s group. Each carried its own single turret of twin five-inch thirty-eights.

If we only had the Aegis, Lei thought. Then he ordered himself to stop wishing for the impossible. Fight the ship.

His eyes went to the clock face again. He calculated the missiles would take three minutes to reach their target. A lot could happen in three minutes.

“Are you tracking the Harpoons, fire control?”

“Yes, sir. Both missiles locked on and tracking. We’ve got… stand by. It looks like another contact… it’s separating from the first — it’s a missile! They’ve got a missile in the air.”

“What is it? What speed?”

A few seconds passed. The fire control officer’s voice was hoarse. “Fast. Supersonic now. Inbound time is one minute, twenty seconds.”

Lei took a deep breath. Supersonic. It had to be a Moskit anti-ship missile. It was the deadliest ship-to-ship weapon in the world. It was coming at them at over twice the speed of sound.

“Fire control, ready the SMS battery.”

“Aye, Sparrows ready to fly.”

The RIM-7 Sea Sparrow was a medium range surface-to-air missile adapted from the AIM-7 Sparrow carried on air force and navy fighters. It was radar-guided and was effective against attacking aircraft and incoming subsonic missiles.

Against a low-flying, supersonic Moskit, the Sparrow was outmatched. “Second missile in the air, Captain. Two Moskits inbound, one minute and one-and-a-half minutes to impact.”

Lei could imagine the sea-skimming missiles hurtling through the night faster than a rifle bullet. Dodging them with a surface vessel was hopeless.

But he didn’t have to give them an easy target. “Hard to port, steady on 290 degrees.”

“Aye, port to 290 degrees.”

The turn would point Kai Yang’s bow directly into the oncoming missiles. It presented the smallest possible target, but more importantly it gave his five inch guns and the Phalanx CIWS — Close-in Weapons System — the ability to fire from both port and starboard turrets. The Phalanx was a last-ditch weapon — a radar-directed six-barrel twenty millimeter cannon with a rate of fire of 4,000 rounds per minute.

Lei hung onto the brass rail on the bulkhead, steadying himself against the heel of the ship as it turned hard to port.

“Third missile in the air, Captain. Another Moskit, one minute, forty-five seconds out.”

“Activate the EWS,” Lei ordered, though he was sure it had already been done. The SLQ-32 electronic warning system was intended to jam the radars of enemy fire control and guidance systems. Lei was also sure the Moskit 3M80 missiles had guidance units that could counter the jammers.

“Launch RBOC,” he ordered. Seconds later, he heard the boom of the chaff canisters being launched. The Super RBOC — Rapid Bloom Onboard Chaff — threw up a cloud of fine aluminum foil intended to decoy and confuse the radar homing unit of the anti-ship missiles.

Lei wasn’t optimistic. The Moskit was a smart missile with a guidance unit that wasn’t fooled by decoys.

“Fire control, stand by the five inchers. Commence firing as soon as you have a radar solution. I want a wall of shrapnel out there, proximity fuses.”

“Standing by, Captain.”

Shooting supersonic missiles with five-inch guns was more an act of defiance than anything else. Like swatting flies with a sledgehammer. Lei would use every weapon he had. If these were the final minutes of his career, he wanted the record to show that Kai Yang went down shooting.

It occurred to him that none of his crew — not the officers on the bridge or in fire control or surface watch, nor any of the enlisted signalmen or gunners or loaders — were exhibiting signs of panic. They were going about their duties with poise. Their voices were calm. No matter how the battle turned out, Lei told himself, he would always savor this moment.

He wished he had been able to close with the Sovremenny before the missile fight began. At closer range — eight or ten miles — perhaps the Moskits would have more difficulty locking on. Even with the Sovremenny´s superior firepower, he was certain that his gunners could direct their fire with more accuracy than the PLA crew. It would be sweet to pound the Russian devil ship with a barrage of five inch shells—

“First missile, thirty seconds out,” called the watch officer.

“Do we have SMS acquisition?”

“Not yet, sir, still trying — there! There it is, the first missile, six miles. Sparrow away.”

As the fire control officer spoke, a blaze of light from the starboard side signaled the launch of the Sea Sparrow missile.

Then another flash. “Second Sparrow away.”

More flashes. A steady thunder erupted from the five inch gun turrets. In his peripheral vision Lei caught similar flashes from behind and off the starboard aft quarter. The supply ship and the tanker were opening up with their own guns. So were the two destroyer escorts.

A wall of fire was going up against the Moskits. It was everything they had.

“Forward battery reports the new Harpoons loaded and ready, Captain.”

Lei could barely hear him over the roar of the guns. He had three more Harpoons. Fire them or save them? If the incoming Moskits struck Kai Yang, it wouldn’t matter. The unfired Harpoons would be useless. But if he somehow evaded the first volley of Moskits, he would need them.

“Fire Harpoon One.”

“Aye, captain.”

This time the flash of light from the Harpoon launch was almost undetectable. The bow of the Kai Yang was already ablaze with the muzzle flashes of the five inch guns. The night sky looked like a pyrotechnics display, shells bursting in a mile-wide pattern.

Lei was peering intently toward the west. The horizon was a yellow pencil line, illuminated by the glare of the exploding shells.

Something, a reddish pinpoint of light, was emerging from the curtain of fire.

“First Sparrow is a miss!” called Fire Control.

The Moskit was already through the wall of five inch fire. Lei could see it now, sizzling over the ocean at only a hundred feet altitude.

Coming at them.

Through the steady thunder of the guns, he heard a new sound. A deep-throated, staccato hammering noise.

The Phalanx Gatling guns. They were on automated fire, locked on to the incoming Moskit. The combined moan of the two Phalanx turrets, spitting a hail of depleted-uranium penetrator shells, sent a high-frequency vibration up through the deck of the Kai Yang. Lei could feel it in the soles of his shoes.

The red pinpoint of light was zigzagging in a crazy mosquito-like path. No doubt about it, thought Lei. Definitely a Moskit. Its autopilot was programmed to deliver violent evasive maneuvers during its final flight path.

“Fifteen seconds to missile impact,” called out Fire Control.

Where will it hit? Without taking his eyes off the western horizon, Lei removed his battle helmet from its hook on the bulkhead and set it on his head. Instinctively, his hand checked the buckle on his life vest.

As he watched, the zigzagging Moskit steadied its course, aiming straight for Kai Yang.

“CIWS hits!” called out Fire Control. “The Phalanx is getting hits on the missile.”

Lei stared, fascinated, at the incoming Moskit. It was low, trailing fire like a comet.

Four hundred meters short, the missile exploded. Flaming chunks soared like meteors in a shower toward Kai Yang.

Fragments rained into the sea in front of the bow. Pieces skipped off the water and clanged into Kai Yang’s hull. Larger pieces arced through the sky, descending toward the frigate and her escorts.

Lei saw a cluster of flaming debris hurtling directly for the bridge. He ducked as a piece impacted the deck at the base of the superstructure. Another blazing chunk struck the gun turret on the starboard side. More shrapnel ricocheted off the deck, slicing through antennae and stowed equipment and ventilator shafts.

He raised his head and peered through the window. The forward deck was ablaze. The starboard five inch turret was a mess of smoking steel.

“Twenty seconds to second missile impact.”

The remaining five inch guns were still hammering. Another Sparrow leaped from its launcher and blazed off toward the wall of gunfire. The Phalanx cannons were moaning like demons from hell.

Another red pinpoint of light appeared, zigzagging through the shell bursts.

The pinpoint erupted in a brilliant flash. Like an exploding star, the pieces radiated out in a shower of burning fragments, plunging into the ocean a mile short of Kai Yang.

“A Sea Sparrow kill,” announced the fire control officer.

Before Lei could acknowledge, he heard the surface watch officer’s cold voice. “Our first Harpoon is gone. Looks like they killed it.”

Lei wasn’t surprised. The Sovremenny had defensive weaponry every bit as good as Kai Yang. The slow-flying Harpoon was not a difficult target. Nothing like a Moskit.

“Third Moskit, thirty seconds to impact.”

Okay, thought Lei, they’d been lucky. Two out three misses with a Moskit was as good as they could hope for. Here comes number three.

As he waited, he saw the damage control party in asbestos suits scurrying across the forward deck, extinguishing the blaze, checking for survivors. He wondered how many were killed in the gun turret. The ship had only taken fragments from the destroyed Moskit. What kind of hell would they experience with a direct hit?

You’ll know in fifteen seconds.

As he strained to pick up the telltale red point of light through the shellfire, he heard the watch officer call out, “Harpoon strike! We’ve got impact on the target ship.”

Lei wanted to know more. Which Harpoon, the second or the third? What was the Sovremenny doing? Was it slowing, turning, sinking? Launching more missiles?

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the red point of light zigzagging through the turbulent sky toward them.

Number three. By its frenetic close-in zigzagging, Lei could tell that the missile had not been touched by the Phalanx, nor by a Sea Sparrow. With every undulation it returned to its relentless inbound course to Kai Yang.

The missile burst through the curtain of five-inch fire, flying a corkscrew pattern. The Phalanx Gatling guns on either side of Kai Yang were moaning in a ghostly death rattle. The missile continued inbound. Still untouched.

From his bridge, Lei watched in morbid fascination as the fire-tailed Moskit took one last swerve, then aimed for the bow of Kai Tang. Here it comes. He clenched the brass hand rail with both hands and kept his eyes on the incoming missile.

Lei saw a flash in the flight path of the missile. The Phalanx, he realized. The Gatling gun was hitting the Moskit. Another flash. The red plume behind the missile sputtered and diverged from its previous angle.

Lei ducked as the missile skimmed over the bridge of Kai Tang. He braced himself for the explosion.

Nothing.

He swung to follow the track of the low-flying Moskit. His eyes located the red plume in time to see it transform into a billowing orange ball of flame. Lei watched in horror as the ball of flame expanded, exploding outward like a newborn star.

The sky became bright as high noon. He could see the surface of the ocean, his escort ships, the faces of the sailors in their gun turrets.

Chi Chuan, the fueling ship, had taken the Moskit missile amidships. Twelve thousand tons of fuel oil erupted in a thousand-foot-high inferno. The blaze was lighting up the Taiwan Strait for a hundred square miles.

It took eight seconds for the blast to reach Kai Tang. A dull rumble of thunder, then a wave of super-heated wind swept over the frigate. Lei saw the men in the gun turrets duck behind their armor, shielding their faces from the heat. The orange light danced on the skin of the ship like a rising sun.

“Captain,” Lei heard the surface watch officer report, “we show a second Harpoon strike on the target. Looks like the Sovremenny has taken heavy damage. He’s slowed to five knots.”

“Is he firing more missiles?”

“No, sir. No more radar separations. Looks like we shut his missile batteries down.”

Lei’s eyes were still on the blazing tanker a mile astern. A hundred-fifty sailors had just been incinerated by the blast that his Phalanx guns had diverted from Kai Tang.

A seething anger was taking a grip on him. “Give me a bearing and distance on the Sovremenny.”

“Three-one-five degrees, eighteen kilometers, Captain. He’s reversing course. Looks like he’s making for the coast.”

Lei turned to the OOD. “Steer three-one-five, full speed ahead.” Then he barked into the sound-powered phone. “Fire control, reload and stand by all guns, ready torpedo tubes one and two.”

“Aye, sir.” A pause, then, “What are our intentions, Captain?”

“Intentions?” Lei glowered out into the darkness. “We’re going to blow him to hell.”

Time to kill the beast.

Chiu took one last look at the ominous shape of the remaining Black Star. In the dim red light of Shelter Four, it looked like a living object — a great, bat-winged bird of prey. Killing this thing would give him pleasure.

Lieutenant Kee was watching him, waiting for his signal. Chiu gave him a nod, and Kee headed for the door.

Chiu unhooked two grenades from his belt. With slow, deliberate movements, he pulled the pins, one after the other. He tossed one into each jet intake atop the wings of the Black Star. Then he turned and hurried out of the shelter, following Kee.

They were twenty yards away when the grenades exploded, half a second apart. It felt like a subterranean tremor, shaking the ground under Chiu’s feet. He saw the walls of the Shelter bulge outward. The bi-fold door ripped free at one hinge, and black smoke billowed out the gap.

The beast is dead. Chiu turned his back on the destroyed building and headed for Shelter Three.

Maxwell and the woman were already inside the cockpit. “How much longer?” Chiu called from the floor of the shelter.

“One minute,” said Maxwell. “The auxiliary power unit is starting now.” Chiu could hear an ascending whine as the auxiliary power unit inside the jet’s belly cranked up.

He heard a series of explosions outside, three in a row, not more than two or three kilometers away. Mortars, probably fired from just outside the perimeter. If the PLA units managed to take out the helicopters, it was all over. Their only allies were the dissidents who shut down the power station and took out the air defense net. They had long ago run for safety.

He glanced at his watch. Forty-six minutes since they landed at Chouzhou. Already sixteen minutes over his allowance. In twenty minutes, dawn would come. If they hadn’t left Chouzhou by then, they’d be dead.

In the cockpit, Maxwell and the woman were wearing their helmets with the strange goggles. She was talking to him on the intercom, giving instructions, reading the instrument markings, explaining what the displays meant.

Chiu reflected again on what would have happened if he had found her before Bass and Maxwell. He would have put a bullet in her without hesitation. He still had the nagging thought that perhaps he should have done that anyway.

Why had she sneaked away? According to her story, she had gone to find the Black Star squadron commander — someone she called Zhang — in order to kill him. Instead, she had found the other pilot, Major Han, a former colleague who she thought was dead.

And so he was, thanks to Maxwell and that ancient blunderbuss, the .45 caliber pistol.

Which made a nice bit of irony. In accordance with Chinese tradition, it meant that Maxwell, having saved the troublesome woman’s life, was responsible for her.

The notion almost — but not quite — made Chiu smile.

“Ready for engine start,” Maxwell called out. “Stand clear when she energizes the skin cloaking field. There may be a static discharge.”

Chiu wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded and moved to the side door.

“When I give the thumbs up, raise the bi-fold door. Then run like hell.”

About time. This had turned into the longest night of Chiu’s life. If he lived beyond dawn, it would be a miracle.

Waiting in the commandeered Bei-jung vehicle was Kee and the wounded American. As soon as the door to the shelter opened, Chiu would join them and they would race for the waiting number three helicopter.

More explosions pounded the apron outside.

“Colonel,” said the commando on the man-pack radio, “helo two reports that the armored column is breaching the perimeter at the southwest corner.”

“Order the Cobras to engage them.”

“They’re already engaged, sir. They’re taking fire from the APCs, and they can see mobile missile launchers approaching.”

Hurry, Chiu urged the American in the Black Star. Their lives could now be measured in minutes.

The whine of a jet engine filled the expanse of the shelter. Then another. The second engine was still accelerating when Maxwell flashed a thumbs up.

Chiu understood. Raise the door.

While the door was raising, Chiu climbed into the waiting Bei-jung. Kee was in the driver’s seat, with the unconscious Bass in the back seat.

He saw Maxwell watching from the cockpit, waiting for the shelter door to fully open. He climbed into the waiting Bei-jung.

“Go,” he ordered Kee, sitting in the driver’s seat. “We’ve done all we can for them.”

As the vehicle pulled away into the darkness, Chiu looked back and gave the pilot of the Black Star a salute.