Sky Masters

12

It had been hanging around for so long now, big, slow, and galumphing, that they had humorously dubbed it Syensheng Tz, Old Gas. They could see the thing easily, almost a hundred miles away and at high altitude — a single, unescorted, vulnerable B-52 bomber. It was cruising westward at a leisurely four hundred and twenty nautical miles per hour. Although it was definitely getting closer, on its present course it would pass well out of HQ-91 missile range of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy missile destroyer Kaifeng. It was obviously giving the Chinese ships a wide berth.

Even so, if the aircraft carried antiship missiles, it was still a substantial threat: it was within Harpoon missile range of the destroyer, yet outside the range of the destroyer’s missiles, and there were no fighters nearby that could reach it. The commander of the destroyer Kaifeng, a Luda-class destroyer with over three hundred men on board, wanted very close tabs kept on this intruder. “CIC, bridge, status of that B-52,” the commander of the Kaifeng requested.

“Bridge, CIC, air target one still at seventy-eight-nautical-miles range, altitude ten thousand meters, speed four-two-zero knots, offset range six-zero nautical miles. No detectable radar transmissions from aircraft. It is within Harpoon missile range at this time.”

“Copy.” The commander was carefully trying not to let his frustration and impatience show. American B-52s had been flying these “ferret” missions for many days now, passing just inside missile range of the destroyer’s missiles, then hightailing it out when missile-guidance signals were aimed at it. It was always one bomber, always at thirty thousand feet, always challenging in this same location. It stayed high and relatively slow — very nonthreatening despite being within extreme range of Harpoon antiship missiles it might be carrying. It was obviously collecting intelligence information — it was probably crammed with sensors and recorders, hoping to intercept radio messages or analyze missile fire control radar signals…

… or it was crammed with antiship missiles, ready to strike. “Comm, bridge, any response from that plane about our air-defense warnings?”

“None, sir,” the communications officer replied. Kaifeng, as well as other ships in the South Philippines Task Force commanded by Admiral Yin Po L’un, had been warning all aircraft to stay away from this area for days now. The area over the Celebes Sea had been a very well used airway for travelers heading to Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore through Samar International Airport, but the People’s Liberation Army Air Force had refused all access to the region, and air traffic to and from Manila was tightly controlled. All air traffic was forced to fly farther south through the sparsely populated islands of northern Indonesia. Philippines supply routes in the South China Sea were virtually isolated. But with the nuclear explosion near Palawan and the extreme danger of radiation poisoning and contamination, these areas were being studiously avoided anyhow.

The American Air Battle Force, however, was obviously ignoring all warnings.

“CIC, bridge, position of our fighter coverage.”

“Sir, Liang-Two flight of eight J-7 fighters are over Nenusa Archipelago, one hundred eleven kilometers northwest of the B-52. They are less than ten minutes from bingo fuel and have already received permission to return to Zamboanga for refueling. Sichuan-One-Zero flight of four Q-5 fighters are three hundred kilometers northwest of the B-52, headed southeast to take over for Liang-Two flight.”

Damned sparse fighter coverage, Kaifeng’s commander thought to himself. Because that bomber was a “ferret,” running away at the first sign of trouble, they were not giving it as much fighter attention as they should. Well, that was going to stop right here and now.

“CIC, bridge, chase that damned plane out of here,” Kaifeng’s commander ordered. At this point chasing “Old Gas” out of antiship-missile range was more important than revealing radar frequencies. “Hit them with the fire-control radar.” That was usually plenty to make the B-52 turn and run.

“Yes, sir,” the combat information officer responded. “Shall I recall Liang-Two flight to provide air cover?”

“Get a fuel state from them. If they have not reached bingo fuel yet, have them engage. If they have reached bingo, engage with the HQ-91 system. Then vector in Sichuan-Ten flight and have them chase that B-52 out past two hundred kilometers.”

The warning tone over the interphone system for a missile acquisition radar was different from a search radar — in general, the more serious a threat, the faster and more insistent the tone. The appearance of a “Search” radar gave a rather leisurely “Deeedle… Deeedle… Deeedle.” When the Chinese Golf-band air-search radar changed to an India-band missile acquisition radar, the tone was a fast, loud “Deeedledeeedledeeedledeeedle!” At the same time, “Missile Warning” lights illuminated at every station of the EB-52C Megafortress bomber orbiting at thirty thousand feet over the Philippine Sea.

“Missile warning, twelve o’clock,” the electronic warfare officer, First Lieutenant Robert Atkins, announced. “India-band radar… ‘Fog Lamp’ SAM director for an HQ-91 missile. This’ll change to missile launch at any second.” Atkins’ voice became squeakier with every passing moment — he was an engineer, not a crew dog, and he never thought he’d be taking these behemoth modified B-52s into battle.

“Don’t sweat it,” Major Kelvin Carter, the Megafortress’s pilot, said, trying to project the most confident voice he could. “They’re just trying to scare us out. Easy on the jammers until the shit starts rollin’.”

Carter’s words did little to calm young Atkins down, so he turned back to the peace and security he usually got from the one thing that he knew he could trust in this screwed-up world — his equipment. Designed at the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center several years ago by a near-mythical engineer named Wendy Tork, Atkins had improved on Tork’s groundbreaking designs and produced what was probably the best electronic warfare suite ever to leave the ground.

Atkins was sitting before a complex of multi-function displays on the Megafortress Plus’s upper deck, scanning the skies for enemy radars and programming the bomber’s array of jammers against each one. His ECM system automatically processed the electronic signals, analyzed them, identified them, pointed out their range and bearing from the Megafortress, and selected the appropriate jamming packages to use against them. It could do the same with a hundred other signals from very long ranges. The system would also automatically dispense decoys against radar or heat-seeking missiles to protect them from missile attacks.

A B-52G or -H Stratofortress bomber had performed all the other “ferret” flights from Guam in the past few days, but tonight it was an EB-52 Megafortress pulling the unenviable task of drawing the attention of the Chinese Navy and assessing the threats present around eastern Mindanao — a regular B-52 was hardly qualified to take such a risk.

All in all, the system relegated Atkins to a “verbal squawk box” role — what the others called “crew coordination” was still a foreign concept to him, since everything on the Megafortress was so automated — as it should be, of course. Why risk an extra human life on board, when a computer could do the job faster, better, and cheaper anyway?

His directed defensive weapons were designed to operate automatically as well. The Megafortress had eight AGM-136A TACIT RAINBOW antiradar cruise missiles in clip-in racks in the forward part of the bomb bay, plus a rotary launcher with eight AGM-88B HARM High-Speed AntiRadar Missiles in the aft bomb bay. The electronic countermeasures system would automatically program both the HARM and TACIT RAINBOW missiles for a particular enemy radar system they encountered. In case that particular radar was shut down during a TACIT RAINBOW attack, the missile would stay aloft for several minutes, search for just that radar, home in on it, and destroy it after reactivation. If another ship tried to shoot down the subsonic TACIT RAINBOW cruise missile with radar-controlled guns, Atkins could launch supersonic HARM missiles at the radar and destroy it.

The bottom line: he had designed all this to be totally automatic, and it was obvious that he didn’t fit in with this crew. Why in hell then was he here?

Seated beside Atkins was the Megafortress’s “gunner,” Master Sergeant Kory Karbayjal. Karbayjal and the other noncommissioned officers flying that position still liked the name “gunner” or “bulldog,” although the term was an anachronism — the old .50-caliber machine guns or 20-millimeter Gatling gun of other, more conventional BUFFs were gone, replaced by the EB-52’s array of defensive missiles. The Megafortress carried twelve AIM-120C AMRAAM missiles on wing pylons, and it carried fifty small Stinger rear-firing heat-seeking antiaircraft missiles in the tail launcher.

That was another job that could be done by computers, too, although Karbayjal obviously enjoyed his work. Karbayjal, a twenty-six-year veteran of the B-52, had flown the old D-model BUFFs, the ones where the gunner sat in the tail in a tiny compartment with his machine guns and used only his eyes to spot enemy fighters. He took it upon himself to look after young Atkins just as much as he looked for enemy fighters, something that Atkins resented as well.

The navigators, Captains Paul Scott and Alicia Kellerman, were downstairs keeping track of their position and preparing for fighter combat — the four Megafortress strategic escort bombers on this mission carried no ground-attack weapons because they were all designed to blast through enemy defenses and give the other strike aircraft a better chance of reaching their targets. Scott could use his attack radar to designate and track targets for their AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, while Alicia Kellerman controlled the dorsal ISAR radar and kept track of all other aircraft and enemy ships in the area. The pilots, Major Kelvin Carter and Lieutenant Nancy Cheshire, were very quiet — they were obviously steeling themselves for the battle that was about to begin.

Using the large dorsal side-looking radar in ISAR (inverse-synthetic aperture radar) mode, Kellerman had already identified the largest ship ahead as a Luda-class destroyer even before its weapons radars came up, so Atkins had already anticipated what kind of radars and weapons the vessel had and how to deal with each one. The Megafortress’s ISAR system had also mapped out the locations and movements of the other vessels in the south and west groups of Chinese ships and had passed that information to other aircraft.

The “Missile Warning” light was still on, and they were driving closer and closer to the Chinese destroyer. Atkins still had no jammers on the missile acquisition radar — jamming the signal too early would surely elicit a very angry response from the Chinese. “We gotta shit or get off the pot here, kids… a few more miles and we’ll be under attack…”

“Sixty seconds,” the crew navigator, Captain Alicia Kellerman, announced. Like most of the crews from the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Kellerman was an ex-crew member — formerly on KC-135 tankers — who put their engineering degrees to good use at the Dreamland research facility. Although flying was part of their job descriptions, flying into combat was completely unexpected — but Kellerman loved it. “Start countermeasures in forty seconds, release configuration checks completed… thirty seconds.”

Suddenly Atkins got an inverted “V” bat-wing signal on his radar threat-warning scope. The computer monitor hesitated momentarily, then issued a stream of identification data. “I’ve got a fighter, twelve o’clock, range… range is undetermined yet, but he’s outside forty miles. Stand by, Paul.” Paul Scott was ready to use the EB-52’s attack radar to lock onto the fighter and provide fire control instructions for their AIM-120 air-to-air missiles, but it might not yet be necessary. “I’ve got a range-only radar. Skyranger type 226, probably a J-7 fighter, Chinese copy of a MiG-21F. Max range of the radar is only twenty miles, and he’s well outside that… fighter radar’s down.” The Skyranger radar was useless for searching for targets because it supplied only range information to the fighter’s computers — this J-7 fighter needed ground-controlled intercept radar to attack targets. It was still deadly, but it was not very sophisticated — Atkins’ tiny AIM-120C missiles had a better radar than the J-7 fighter. “There could be more than one out there.”.

Great, Carter thought. Here’s where the shit hits the fan. “Paul, get a range and a firing solution on them,” Carter said. “We can’t stay radar-silent forever.”

“Copy,” Scott said. He slaved his attack radar antenna to Atkins’ threat-warning receiver bearing and switched it to “Radiate.”

“Got ’em,” Scott called out, switching off the radar immediately. “I counted at least four fighters, forty-five nautical miles, slightly above us. Could be four groups of two.”

Aboard the lead JS-7 fighter of Liang-2 air-defense group, the threat radar suddenly lit up with a fighter-style threat symbol — but it was from one of his own fighters. “Liang flight, lead, keep your damned radars off.” The radar indication quickly disappeared. He was leading a group of rather young, inexperienced pilots on their sixth overwater air-defense mission, and they were constantly flipping switches in their cockpits to keep from getting too bored.

The JS-7 fighter was one of the newest and best fighters in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force. Originally offered only for export as the Super-7, but later purchased in small numbers by the Chinese government itself, it was a major upgrade of the J-7 fighter, incorporating a lot of imported technology to bring it up-to-date with the rest of the world’s best fighters — a French-made multimode attack radar and heads-up display similar to the American F-16 Fighting Falcon, West German/British/Italian-built high-performance Turbo-Union RB199 engines, additional weapons racks to carry ECM pods, and greater fuel capacity. Because there were so few, and because they were so far advanced over their older J-7 cousins, they were used only as flight leads for fighter patrols, where they could vector other J-7 fighters in on targets while attacking targets of their own.

Another radar threat indication flashed on his Thomson-CSF BF screen. He was about to chastise his charges once again… before realizing it was from in front of him instead of beside him this time! There was another fighter out there! An American fighter — out here?

“Fayling, this is Liang flight,” the lead J-7 pilot radioed, using the universal call-sign for all Chinese seaborne radar controllers instead of broadcasting the destroyer’s name. “Fighter warning. Twelve o’clock, type unknown. What are you tracking?”

The Sea Eagle radar operator aboard Kaifeng replied, “Liang flight, we have been tracking a B-52 bomber at your twelve o’clock position, not a fighter. Over.”

“I have a fighter-type radar, not a bomber.” Curse it, the destroyer had been tracking this intruder all this time thinking it was a bomber. How could he be so stupid…? “Request permission to close and identify. Over.”

“Liang flight and Sichuan flight, you are clear to close and identify. Liang flight, say your bingo.”

“Liang flight is two minutes to bingo,” the flight leader reported. “Request permission to send all but myself and one wingman back to base. We will identify the aircraft and engage until Sichuan-Ten flight is in position. Over.”

After a short wait, the radar controller aboard Kaifeng replied, “Request approved. Homebound Liang elements climb clear to twelve thousand meters on heading two-nine-zero, vector clear of inbound Sichuan-Ten flight. Liang-Two flight of two, your target is at twelve o’clock, seventy kilometers, altitude ten thousand meters, climb to twelve thousand meters to intercept. Sichuan-Ten flight maintain heading one-five-three. Low patrol, descend to five thousand meters and go to frequency yellow. High patrol, descend to nine thousand five hundred and meet your controller on frequency yellow-5. Target is four-four-zero bullseye. Good hunting.”

The lead pilot aboard the JS-7 fighter quickly determined the target’s range by the bullseye call — the distance from Davao Airport, a common navigation point for all Chinese fighters — and found that he was within radar range. The JS-7 fighter used an upgraded French radar system called Cyrano-IV, which was very close in capability to the amazing American F-16 fighter radar — it could lock onto multiple targets at fantastic ranges and could attack several targets at once with missiles or guns. “Liang flight, take combat spacing and stand by to engage…”

Up in the cockpit, Major Kelvin Carter took a firm grip on the Megafortress’s sidestick controller. This was not going to be an easy run. A million things were zipping through his head: G-limits on the composite fibersteel structures, angle-of-attack limits, airspeed warnings, pitch-angle versus airspeed…

“Fighter!” Atkins suddenly screamed out. “Twelve o’clock… Jesus, very close, X-band pulse Doppler… calling it a Chinese JS-7 fighter. Man, he’s right on top of us….!”

“Lock him up and engage,” Carter cried out. He doublechecked the rows of consent switches on his left panel. “Stand by for descent, crew.”

Scott reacted first, hitting the “Transmit” button on his attack radar and letting the radar lock onto the fighters ahead. “Two targets, twelve o’clock, closure rate eleven hundred… additional targets, climbing and going away, looks like they’re disengaging… I’ve got a lock on the two heading for us…”

Atkins reacted next, activating his forward jammers to shut down the X-band fire-control radar. He readied other jammers to get the Skyranger radar when it came up as well…

Karbayjal activated his weapons computers and watched as each AIM-120 Scorpion missile completed its split-second built-in checks. “BIT checks completed, data transfer… missiles away.” Two bright streaks of light flashed past the cockpit as two radar-guided missiles sped into the darkness.

Just then Kellerman noticed several low-flying objects on her ISAR side-locking radar display, overtaking them from the left. They formed a slowly dispersing trail of subsonic missiles, all traveling north westbound. “Tomahawks away, Tomahawks away!” she cried out.

“Missiles tracking… active seekers on…. bad track on one Scorpion, looks like a tracking fault,” Karbayjal called out. Carter could see the missile plume from the right pylon wobble a bit, seconds before exploding. “Lost track on one missile.”

“Descending, crew,” Carter called out. “Nancy, watch my redlines. Here we go…” Carter pulled the Megafortress’s eight throttles to 70-percent power, waited for fifty knots of airspeed to bleed off, raised the airbrakes, then tipped the Megafortress into a steep 70-degree right bank, keeping forward pressure on the control stick but keeping the long, pointed SST-style nose on the horizon. With no more lift being developed by the huge wings, the four-hundred-thousand-pound bomber descended like Lucifer cast into Hell.

The radar target on his Cyrano-IV fire-control radar had suddenly started descending, so fast the radar could hardly keep up with it — it looked like it was crashing, and no one had shot a missile yet…

Just then his radar threat-receiver flashed a “Missile Launch” indication. “Liang flight, break!” he shouted on the radio. In a pre-determined sequence, the J-7 fighter climbed and turned right, and the JS-7 fighter, because it was more powerful and could climb faster to re-attack, descended and turned left. The JS-7 fighter also carried radar-jamming and chaff and flare pods, and the pilot made sure all were activated as he brought his weapons on-line and prepared to attack. “Fayling, Fayling, Liang-Two flight under missile attack!” He dumped chaff and flare bundles, rolled right, went to military power, and raised the nose to re-acquire the bomber… or whatever it was.

Just as he did, he saw a flash of light above and a bit behind him, then a growing trail of fire, and he knew his wingman was hit. “Fayling, Liang-507 is hit. 507, 507 can you hear me? You are on fire. Repeat you are on fire. Eject! Eject! Eject!” No response. The trail of fire began to grow as the J-7 fighter spiraled to the sea and disappeared.

The radar blips first appeared as helicopters and were classified as such by the destroyer’s Sea Eagle three-dimensional search radar, but it was quickly obvious that the air target was climbing and accelerating much too quickly for a rotary-wing machine. The radar operator aboard the destroyer Kaifeng immediately rang his superior officer in the ship’s Combat Information Center.

“Sir, rapidly moving air target launched from a vessel in the Sterett surface-action group, bearing one-four-eight, speed… speed approaching four hundred knots and accelerating, altitude decreasing to below one hundred meters, range five-zero nautical miles.” There was no aircraft carrier out there, so it could only be one thing — “Suspected Tomahawk cruise missiles in flight…”

The officer in CIC reacted immediately: he hit the alarm button and rang the line direct to the bridge: “Bridge, CIC, missile alert, missile alert, we have suspected American cruise missiles being launched from the Sterett surface action group.”

“Bridge copies,” came the reply. “Give us a count and stand by to engage.”

“CIC copies.”

“Sir! Aircraft warning, attack warning, Liang-Two fighter group reports they are under fighter attack…”

“Fighter attack!” the commander shouted. “What fighters? You said there was only one bomber up there!”

“Liang-Two reports a missile attack, sir. He reports his wingman has been hit by a missile. Sir, the B-52 bomber aircraft rapidly decelerating, range closing to sixty nautical miles, airspeed six-one-zero and accelerating, altitude now seven thousand meters… six thousand meters… five thousand… sir, heavy jamming on my scope… attempting frequency jumping… heavy jamming persisting on all search frequencies. I cannot hop away to clear frequency!”

“Sir, destroyer Kaifeng reports incoming Tomahawk cruise missiles from the southeast and has issued an air-defense warning for all vessels. He also reports a suspected B-52 bomber in a rapid descent heading northwest, and heavy radar jamming on all frequencies. There was also a report about a fighter attack, number and type unknown.” Captain Jhijun Lin of the People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer Jinan nodded resolutely. “Sound general quarters, alert the task force, begin intermittent radar search pattern. We can expect our own air threats any—”

“Sir! Frigate Yingtan reports radar contact, aircraft, bearing two-zero-five, range forty-seven nautical miles, altitude… altitude three hundred meters, sir, speed four hundred seventy knots. No IFF codes observed. They report possible multiple inbounds on this bearing.”

“Understood,” Captain Jhijun acknowledged. As the combat-readiness alarm sounded throughout the ship, the manual track operator on the bridge of the EF4-class destroyer Jinan drew in the position of the radar contact on a large grease board. “I want a positive identification immediately.”

It was finally beginning, Captain Jhijun told himself. Although the intruder aircraft were detected very late — sea-skimming targets should be detectable at twenty miles by the frigate Yingtan's Sea Eagle radar, but targets at three hundred meters should be seen easily at fifty miles — he wished it were starting a bit more dramatically.

After learning what the American Air Battle Force had in their arsenal on the island of Guam, he would have expected an attack by B-1 or FB-111 bombers, flying supersonic at sea-skimming altitudes. From these radar contact’s flight profiles, these appeared to be nothing more than B-52 bombers lumbering in. And they were coming in from the south, which was totally expected as well — the two layers of destroyers, frigates, and patrol boats in the Philippine Sea east of Mindanao were designed to herd the American bombers in the only “safe” flight path they could take — fly in from the south right into the mouth of Davao Gulf.

“Sir, missile warning. Yingtan's escorts report missiles inbound, no count, all sea-skimmers. Patrol boats maneuvering to intercept. Good radar track on all inbounds, intercept confidence is high. Identity now confirmed by flight profile as B-52 bombers.”

So it was confirmed — not B-1s, only B-52 bombers. An easy kill.

The B-52s were flying right into a trap. Four frigates, one destroyer, and sixteen antiaircraft escort patrol boats were waiting for anyone stupid enough to allow themselves to be steered around by surface threats. Two of the frigates, Yingtan stationed on the southern perimeter and Xiamen on the northern side, were armed with short-range Hong Qian-61 surface-to-air missiles — deadly within their limited range — but his destroyer Jinan, in the center of the two-hundred-kilometer-long gauntlet, had the HQ-91 surface-to-air missile system, a licensed copy of the French Masurca medium-range SAM system. The HQ-91 was deadly out to forty-five kilometers even to low-flying supersonic aircraft — this B-52 would be an easy kill. Jinan had already seen action — it was that ship that had successfully guided the fighters in on the arrogant American Navy fighters over the Celebes Sea not too long ago. The little patrol boats were deadly as well — their guns could knock down any antiship missile in the American inventory and throw up a cloud of lead in front of any aircraft stupid enough to stray within a few kilometers of them.

But even the B-52s could carry a big punch. “Radio to all attack-group ships and to Task Force Master, we are under attack, request air support against incoming B-52 bombers,” Jhijun said.

Obviously Harpoon antiship missiles, he thought. They were lucky — they did not start their attack until they had a radar fix on Yingtan. That meant the Americans had no other radar aircraft in the area spotting targets for the B-52s. Jhijun checked the plot board. The B-52s will be coming within range of Jinan’s radars in a few minutes — if they survived that long — and the longer-range HQ-91 missiles would not miss. But Jhijun fully expected the B-52s to turn tail and run after all their Harpoon missiles were expended.

“Patrol boat 682 engaging antiship missiles… patrol boat 688 engaging missiles… Yingtan now reporting six incoming aircraft, all from the south, range to closest aircraft twenty nautical miles. Same flight profile, reported as B-52 bombers on low-level antiship attack.” The reports began coming in as one by one the Harpoon missiles were destroyed. “First B-52 turning west, appears to be disengaging.”

“Lost contact with patrol boat 642, sir,” the combat information center officer on Jinan reported. “Patrol boat 688 reports two vessels afire, suspect the other as patrol boat 651. Frigate Yingtan reports minor damage from antiship missile, but is still under way and combat capable.” With six B-52s on the loose, each with the capacity to carry twelve Harpoon missiles, they had to expect some attrition. “Second B-52 disengaging…”

So the B-52s were going to be content with launching a few Harpoon missiles and fleeing. The fighters would be able to mop them up then, Jhijun thought — they still had to contend with the Harpoon missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles, though…

This was incredible, the Chinese pilot of the JS-7 fighter thought — one moment he was leading an eight-ship attack group on a routine night patrol, the next moment he was alone and under attack by an unseen, unidentified foe.

“Fayling, Fayling,” the pilot radioed to the destroyer Kaifeng, which was controlling the intercept in this sector, “where is the target? I need a vector.”

“Liang flight, target is in a rapid descent at your eight o’clock position, thirty kilometers, altitude four thousand meters,” the radar controller reported — apparently he was too excited to remember that the other J-7 fighter had been destroyed. “Turn left heading two-niner-five and descend to three thousand meters to intercept.”

Four thousand meters? Less than sixty seconds ago he was at ten thousand meters! The JS-7 pilot threw his fighter into a steep left turn and pushed the nose down, using his airbrakes judiciously to avoid ripping his PL-7 and PL-2 missiles from their pylons.

“Liang, your target is at your eleven to twelve o’clock, twenty-seven kilometers.”

He was getting heavy jamming, but his French-made radar was sophisticated enough to frequency-hop and avoid most of it. “Intermittent contact,” the JS-7 pilot reported. The lock-on was good enough for a radar range and firing solution, so he quickly selected a PL-7 radar-guided missile. “Liang shooting radar one…” He waited a few seconds, then fired his second one. “Shooting radar two…”

Atkins was so sure the fighter back there was going to take a shot that he found himself staring at the threat-indicator light. As soon as it illuminated, he shouted, “Missile launch! Level off!” He found himself crushed into his seat by G-forces as Carter pulled the B-52 out of its high-banked dive, the fuselage and wings creaking so loudly from the stress that it seemed they would shatter like a crystal champagne glass. “Break left!” Atkins shouted on interphone as he ejected chaff out the right ejector racks. Carter heeled the EB-52 Megafortress hard left, so hard that Atkins’ helmet banged against his left instrument panel — but he kept his finger on the chaff button long enough to create a good-sized cloud. Carter shoved the Megafortress’s nose down below the horizon to regain his airspeed, and the negative-Gs he created caused dirt, loose checklists and papers, and all sorts of unrecognizable garbage to float around the cabin as if they were suddenly weightless in orbit. Atkins felt his stomach go up with the floating junk, and he ripped off his oxygen mask to keep from filling it up with vomit.

“You OK, E-dub?” Karbayjal said. Atkins turned and saw his gunner with a worried expression on his face and one hand on his shoulder. The plane was in a gut-wrenching turn, they were under attack by a Chinese fighter — but Karbayjal was worried about him.

“Sure… sure…” Atkins moaned.

“Good,” Karbayjal said. He settled himself back into his seat as calmly and as easily as could be, as if being tossed around and squished by four times Earth’s gravity were a normal occurrence for him. “You’re doing good, E-dub,” Karbayjal added. “Keep it up and let’s get that sucker. Set up your jammers and take care of the uplink.”

Atkins struggled to refocus his eyes on his threat display. His automatic jamming system picked out the best frequency range and applied it to the correct antennae for the threat — in this case, an X3-band uplink signal driven to the tail antennae — and it would pump out chaff as well, but it would not tell the pilot when or in what direction to turn to avoid the missile. Tracked on the tail radar, the Chinese missile appeared to be wavering from the chaff to the EB-52, not entirely fooled. This close-in, the missile might lock onto the Megafortress if they made another turn. “Pilot, roll out!” Atkins called out. “Guns, stand by with Stingers!” Karbayjal smiled at Atkins — he was finally taking charge of this intercept. “Roger, E-dub.” Karbayjal already had a good lock on the incoming Chinese missiles and was waiting for them to close in. It was a risky move — hoping that the Megafortress’s low radar cross-section would defeat the missiles more than maneuvering would. They needed to build up a new speed reserve as well, since even the Megafortress bled off a lot of airspeed in tight turns.

But the jammers weren’t completely shutting down the Chinese fighter’s uplink — the missiles were still tracking. “Missiles still coming!” Atkins shouted on the interphone.

“I’m ready with Stingers,” Karbayjal told him, “but you gotta do it. My Stingers are strictly last resort…”

Atkins took another calculated risk — as he began pumping out chaff once more from the left ejectors, he overrode the automatic jammers and reduced the transmitter power in half, letting a strong fighter fire control lock on the bleed-through, then shouted, “Pilot, break right!”

The missiles continued to bore in…

Now there were three radar targets out there, the Chinese JS-7 pilot cursed. The first was obviously a chaff cloud — it had begun to dissipate very quickly, and his PL-7 missiles weren’t fooled. His radar seemed to get a firm lock-on just then on the real target, but it turned out it was a firm lock on another chaff cloud. The target was scooting right at nearly a thousand kilometers an hour, while the big, bright, original target was dead ahead — at zero kilometers per hour. Obviously a chaff cloud — and his missiles were both going for it. A clean miss.

“Fayling, Liang, where is Sichuan-Ten flight? I have no radar missiles left.”

“Liang, Sichuan-Ten flight has been separated into two flights of two, high patrol diverting north to intercept air targets under control by destroyer Zunyi. Your helpers will be designated Sichuan-31 flight of two, now at ten thousand meters, range two-one-five bullseye.”

“What about the rest of my Liang-Two flight?”

“Liang-Two homebound are still at twelve thousand meters, northwest-bound.”

“Are you crazy?” the JS-7 pilot shouted. “Turn those bastards around! Liang-Two flight of six, reverse course, descend to three thousand meters, prepare to engage!”

There was a scratchy reply on the radio — they heard him, although they probably wished they did not. If they turned around, there was no chance they’d land back at Zamboanga — but ditching in the Celebes Sea or landing at Cotabato was better than allowing this B-52 or whatever it was to head in toward the fleet unopposed.

He had one more chance before he had to return to base — throttles to max afterburner, close in fast, two PL-2 heatseeking missile shots, a gun pass with his 23-millimeter cannon, then abort. The JS-7 pilot pushed his throttle to max afterburner, watched the range quickly decrease to less than fifteen kilometers, got a seeker lock-on from his two remaining PL-2 missiles, then launched them both at once…

“Bandit at six o’clock, crew, descending behind us,” Karbayjal called out, carefully watching the Chinese fighter on his tail radar. The Chinese fighter was sending out jamming signals, but at this range even the Megafortress’s smaller tail radar burned through it easily. “Bandit’s accelerating… Jesus, stand by for missile attack… E-dub, stand by for flares on the right…”

The infrared tail warning receiver’s “Missile Warning” light in all crew stations, which detected the heat of a fighter in the rear quadrant and locked onto it, was immediately replaced by a high-pitched tone in everyone’s headset and a “Missile Launch” warning light. “IR missile attack!” Atkins shouted. “Break left!” Atkins immediately released four bundles of flares simultaneously from the right ejector.

But Karbayjal had seen the missile launch and was ready. Careful not to aim the Stinger airmine rockets at the flares, he waited until the missiles tracked, then ejected the flares and re-acquired the Megafortress’s hot engine exhausts, then opened fire with a stream of missiles. He launched six Stingers, then watched for any sign of pursuit. When he saw at least one Chinese missile survive, he shouted on interphone, “Reverse! Climb if possible!”

When Karbayjal made his call, Atkins had switched ejector racks, selecting the left ejector, and pumped out four more flares. Simultaneously, Carter immediately threw the Megafortress into a screaming right bank and held it until the stall-warning horn came on. “Can’t climb, guns!” Carter shouted.

“Disregard,” the gunner said as the last missile disappeared from his radarscope. “Fighter’s coming in, four miles… three miles… Stingers firing…” The Megafortress crew could hear the heavy Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! and a rumble throughout the bomber as Karbayjal fired four more missiles at the fighter closing in…

It had to be a fighter, the JS-7 pilot thought, since only a fighter could possibly move that fast. The flares that the target was ejecting seemed as bright as the sun in the complete darkness of the Celebes Sea. His PL-2 missiles obviously thought so, because they tracked and destroyed the flares with ease. He was now weaponless except for his twin-barreled 23-millimeter cannon.

But the stream of flares pointed to the target’s location, even if it wasn’t apparent on radar, so the pilot kept his throttle at min afterburner and closed in to cannon range…

Suddenly four bright bursts of light erupted right in front of his fighter, stretching from his left wingtip all the way across the nose. His JS-7 fighter began to shudder, as if shivering with fear, and the shudder continued right into a full-blown stall.

“Fayling, Fayling, Liang-Two, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, I’m hit, I’m hit…” He saw the “Engine Overspeed” and “Hydraulic Press” lights illuminate and pulled his ejection handle seconds before his controls locked and his fighter began a death spiral to the sea.

“Sir! Destroyer Zunyi reports he is under attack by antiship missiles from the east,” another report suddenly came in. “Zunyi is engaging. Sichuan-Ten flight of two Q-5 fighters are engaging suspected B-52 bombers at low altitude.”

“Where’s Zunyi?” Jhijun shouted. The answer came a few moments later — only one hundred nautical miles east of Jinan. Zunyi was an older Luda-class destroyer, part of the Philippine Sea cordon; it carried no surface-to-air missile system because it was designed to engage surface ships and submarines, not aircraft. “Get a feed from Zunyi’s CIC and integrate their plots on our—”

“Sir! Incoming missiles! Bearing two-six-five, high altitude, range twenty nautical miles, speed subsonic, multiple inbounds, intercept course!”

“What?” Jhijun resisted the urge to swivel around in his seat and look at the west — it was pitch black outside, with a light overcast sky, and he knew he wouldn’t see a thing. “How the hell could missiles get that close? Radar, get your heads out of your asses or I will have you on deck when those missiles hit! Report on fire-control status — immediately!”

“Fire control reports fully operational, good track on all inbounds, intercept confidence is high.” Jhijun wished he could be more confident himself — first contact at twenty miles was far, far too close.

“Targets maneuvering slightly,” the CIC officer reported. “Range to air targets, mark, fifteen nautical miles, bearing two-six-five, speed five hundred…”

The targets weren’t maneuvering… offset range was decreasing… bearing was constant… “Antiradar missiles!” Jhijun suddenly shouted. He knew all about the Americans’ radar-homing missiles, especially the loitering cruise missiles — this was probably a flight of them coming in now. But how in hell did those missiles get so close before being detected…?

Pushing the big Megafortress bomber to descend at over twelve thousand feet per minute, it took less than three minutes to descend to two hundred feet — yet with Chinese warships all around them, it felt like an eternity.

“Golf-band search radar at eleven o’clock…” Atkins shouted on interphone; “India-band gun fire control radar now at one to two o’clock position… Christ, Golf-band radar changing to Charlie-band missile director… another India-band fire control radar at two-thirty… dammit, are we in range of that destroyer yet? We’re going to get nailed…! I’ve got a possible fighter GCI signal from that destroyer now, he might be vectoring in more fighters.”

“Ready in range with the first TACIT RAINBOW missile,” Kellerman called out after checking the information on the side-looking radar display once again and updating her map of all the ships in the area. “Right turn thirty degrees to escape, next target will be off the nose at twenty miles.”

Atkins rechecked the weapon indications one more time — missile engine, guidance, autopilot, data link, warhead continuity all reporting ready. “Doors coming open… missile one away… missile two away…”

As the Megafortress banked away to the right, the AGM-136A TACIT RAINBOW missiles sped off to the left and descended to less than one hundred feet above the sea, then continued their left turn until they were aiming directly at the Chinese destroyer. At the same time, Atkins programmed another missile on the next target, what ISAR reported as a Huangfeng-class guided-missile patrol boat transmitting with an India-band gun fire control radar. “Missile three reporting ready.”

“Left turn ten degrees to escape,” Kellerman called out. “I’ll take us within ten miles of that patrol boat unless a missile radar comes up.” In which case, Kellerman thought, Atkins better hold it together long enough to warn the crew. She knew it was a big mistake to send that scrawny little BB-stacker on this mission — Atkins might have an IQ larger than the national debt and could modify a wristwatch to jam half of Cleveland, and he seemed to do OK with Karbayjal holding his hand, but he simply wasn’t cut out for combat. “Pilots copy,” Carter acknowledged.

“Missile three counting down… missile three away… doors closed, clear left turn.”

“Sir, destroyer Kaifeng reports their patrol boats are engaging inbound cruise missiles. Admiral Feng is recommending frigate Yingtan move east to help cover the southeast approaches.”

“Negative,” Captain Jhijun shot back. “My vessels are under attack by antiradar missiles — they are right on top of us. Yingtan will remain where it is until—”

And then he realized that if antiradar missiles were appearing out of nowhere — it had to be a stealth bomber attack. The stealth bomber itself would not show on radar right away, but the antiradar missiles would show once they were launched — the missiles would have a smaller radar cross-section than the bombers that launched them… “Radio to all task force vessels, suspect stealth bomber attack, number unknown,” Captain Jhijun cried. “CIC, directed search for carrier aircraft by visual and infrared scanners. Find that damned bomber! Find it!”

“Sir, Kaifeng reports B-52 bomber is launching subsonic missiles… no successful hit on any Tomahawk missiles because of heavy radar jamming. B-52 bomber closing to within thirty miles of Kaifeng…”

“Sir, destroyer Kaifeng reports one hit by a Tomahawk cruise missile.”

No one spoke on the combat bridge. They couldn’t believe it. What was going on? “Kaifeng radioing for assistance. Task force group commander dispatching frigate Yingtan to assist… Kaifeng reports additional hits by antiradar missiles from the B-52, sir! Destroyer Zunyi now reports under attack by sea-skimming antiship missiles… patrol boat 6114 hit by Harpoon antiship missile, extensive damage… lost contact with patrol boat… Zunyi reports contact with B-52 bombers east of their position, number unknown…”

Damn them! With Yingtan moving out of position and Kaifeng damaged, Jinan was now the southernmost warship guarding Davao Gulf. Ships as large as destroyers needed a frigate for heavy close-in air support, and Jhijun was losing his! Well, he was not going to suffer the same fate as Kaifeng. “Emitters in standby!” the commander of the destroyer Jinan shouted. “Turn the radars off! Use all available personnel with infrared and electro-optical spotters, but find those bombers!”

The nightmare was back.

Only two days since first stirring up the hornet’s nest with their reconnaissance overflight, McLanahan and Cobb were back at it again in their B-2 Black Knight stealth bomber — only this time they not only had to examine and count the hornets coming out of the hive, they had to swat at them. To make things worse, there appeared to be more hornets than ever out here, and they seemed mad as hell and ready to inflict some serious stings.

“Radar down on that destroyer… fire-control radars going down on all area vessels,” Patrick McLanahan reported to Henry Cobb. “Fourteen miles before impact — they figured it out pretty fast. Most operators won’t figure out their radars are under attack until the first few hit.” He expanded the God’s-eye view on the Super Multi Function Display before him, inundating his screen with NIRTSat satellite data received only a few minutes earlier. “I’ve got a few fire-control radars still up from those patrol boats, but most don’t have anything but surface-search radars.” Cobb clicked his mike in reply, still seated in his usual frozen position — hands on stick and throttles, eyes straight ahead, unmoving.

How the hell could Cobb stay so calm? McLanahan wondered to himself. He sees everything that goes on, he studies the Super Multi Function Display, he sees the threat warnings, yet he sits as calmly as ever, staring straight ahead. He looks the same on training flights as he does in combat.

“TACIT RAINBOW missiles are entering their holding pattern until the radar comes up,” McLanahan added. “Go to five-twenty on the airspeed and let’s get out of here before the radars come back up.” Cobb clicked again and pushed power up to full military thrust — the faster the B-2 could get past these ships, the better.

McLanahan’s B-2 Black Knight had a few stings itself this time around — no more reconnaissance pods, now that the NIRTSats appeared to be working again. The B-2 carried four AGM-136A TACIT RAINBOW antiradar cruise missiles and four AGM-88C HARM antiradar missiles in clip-in racks in its left bomb bay, plus a Common Strategic Rotary Launcher with six AGM-84E SLAM TV-guided missiles in the right bomb bay. The TACIT RAINBOW antiradar missiles homed in on radar transmissions, and they had turbojet engines, wings, and autopilots that allowed them to stay aloft and, if an enemy radar was turned off, orbit a suspected target area to wait for the radar to be reactivated. The four TACIT RAINBOW missiles that McLanahan had launched from thirty miles away would remain in their orbits for another ten minutes within a few miles of the last-known position of the radars — this would give all the strike aircraft the chance to get past the Chinese warships and move into the target area.

Several minutes had passed, and no hits reported by any ships since Kaifeng. If the carrier aircraft were the same speed or a bit faster than the antiradar missiles, the carrier aircraft would be very close by now. They had sailors with night-vision goggles and infrared scanners looking for the missiles, but unless they heard it or got lucky there was almost no chance of their finding a tiny loitering cruise missile up there without radar. A few of the larger patrol boats had low-light TV cameras and infrared fire-control sensors on their 57- and 37-millimeter guns, but their field of view was very small, and getting a lock on a fast-moving target was difficult.

The intercom clicked on: “Bridge, CIC, request permission to activate search radar for two sweeps.”

There was a slight pause; then: “Acknowledged.” To the radar operator, he said, “Two sweeps. Shut down immediately if there’s a target within five miles. Call out bearings to contacts for gun control.”

“Acknowledged. Radar coming on in three, two, one… now.”

One sweep, twelve seconds, and they knew the awful truth: “Bridge, CIC, multiple small targets within five miles, all bearings. Additional air targets, two large targets in trail formation, bearing two-seven-eight, range to closest target ten nautical miles. Radar down.”

The commander of the frigate Yingtan was on the all-stations call intercom immediately. “CIC, all thirty-seven gun stations, all thirty-seven gun stations, fire defensive pattern, multiple inbound missiles, all quadrants. Attempt visual acquisition. Release radar decoys. Shut down all radars and verify.”

Almost immediately the frigate’s four twin 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns began firing, sweeping the sky with shells in predetermined patterns that would cover all but the ship’s centerline area — fortunately the patrol boats were dispersed at least six kilometers away to avoid being hit by the frigate’s barrage.

“Helm, forty degrees starboard. CIC, ship turning starboard, shoot portside chaff rockets.”

From the sky, the barrage of gunfire might have looked like a fireworks-show finale, with winks of muzzle flashes and tracers shooting out in all directions. The frigate meanwhile began a series of sharp turns and accelerations designed to get as far away as possible from the last spot where the radar was turned on — they knew that was where the loitering missile was headed. Yingtan also had mortars that fired radar-decoying chaff rockets into the air, launching them on the side opposite the ship’s turn — they would act as decoys if the missiles carried active radar seekers.

Yingtan's gunners were rewarded with several spectacular flashes as the guns found targets, and missiles could be seen splashing down in their wake — a few dangerously close, less than a dozen meters away — but none hit. Two missiles went after the tiny radar-emitting decoy buoys dropped overboard by the frigate, and the bridge crew was treated to a good-sized explosion just a hundred meters aft as the missile impacted. In just a few seconds, all of the antiradar missiles were defeated by the frigate Yingtan.

But all that gunfire only saved them from the small antiradar missiles — the aircraft that launched all those missiles were getting away. “CIC, concentrate one hundred-millimeter guns at the last position of that bomber. Maybe we will get lucky. Prepare to engage with HQ-61 missiles. Comm, radio to all patrol boats and to Fleet Master, suspected heavy stealth bomber aircraft inbound to Davao Gulf, number unknown.”

The sudden flurry of gunfire into the night sky was spectacular and frightening at the same time. It looked like a dome of sparklers had formed over the frigate in the distance, like some unearthly glittering spaceship half-submerged in the ocean — except they both knew that those pretty sparklers meant death to any aircraft that strayed too close. Cobb instinctively banked farther west to avoid the area where most of the gunfire was being concentrated, even though McLanahan estimated they were at least ten miles abeam the closest ship. “Jesus Christ,” McLanahan muttered. “Look at that…”

Cobb said nothing.

“And we’re only seeing about one every twelve tracer rounds…”

“It’s not the guns I’m worried about,” Cobb said. “I’m waiting for the SAMs from that frigate.”

“He hit us with a radar sweep powerful enough to paint us,” McLanahan said. “He must know we’re out here.” McLanahan used the tracer rounds to find the frigate with his forward-looking infrared scanner, and the imaging heatseeking telescope locked on easily to the huge vessel. “I got a lock on the big mother ship. That must be the frigate. Laser rangefinder on… laser firing…” Immediately the laser rangefinder computed the precise distance to the target, completed the firing solution for the B-2’s complement of weapons. McLanahan touched the right-bomb-bay icon on the bottom of his Super Multi Function Display, and the weapons computer picked a SLAM TV-guided missile, automatically reducing the SMFD screen in half and using the right side of the big screen to display SLAM seeker video transmission. “The shit’s going to hit the fan as soon as this puppy goes,” McLanahan reminded Cobb, then he moved the Bombing System Switch from “Manual” to “Auto.”

“Missile Counting down… missile one away…”

The right bomb-bay doors slid open, and the single CSRL launcher ejected a SLAM guided missile into the slipstream. The missile fell about fifty feet as its gyroscope stabilization system steadied the fifteen-hundred-pound missile; then, when the air data probes detected the proper airflow and deceleration parameters indicating a clean release from the Black Knight bomber, the powerful turbojet engine kicked in. Following the initial heading from the B-2’s master computer, it descended to less than one hundred feet in the blink of an eye and steered immediately on course for the frigate, taking it on an “over-the-shoulder” trajectory as the B-2 sped away. Seven seconds later, the launcher had rotated and ejected a second missile.

The radar operator on Yingtan had just reactivated the Sea Eagle air-search radar at that precise moment — and what he saw caused stars to shoot through his head. “Two aircraft, bearing two-eight-one, altitude two hundred meters, speed… incoming missiles, incoming missiles, bearing two-eight-one, range fifteen miles, speed six hundred twenty knots, altitude twenty meters!”

And then he made a fateful mistake — he shut down his radar a second time, thinking they were under attack by antiradar missiles again.

The CIC officer in charge realized the Sea Eagle radar was down again, but hesitated a few seconds before ordering it reactivated so the antiaircraft guns could train on the supersonic targets. There were other supersonic antiradar missiles in the American arsenal, such as the HARM missile — this could be one of them. “Deploy decoys. Bridge, CIC, incoming missiles, evasive action, radar down.” He waited a few seconds for the antiradar-missile decoys to be ejected, then ordered the Sea Eagle radar reactivated and the antiaircraft guns brought on-line.

But at almost Mach one, it took only sixty seconds for the first SLAM missile to reach its target. With less than thirty seconds left in the first missile’s flight, they had just enough time to acquire the missile and let the Sea Eagle search radar slave the I-band “Rice Lamp” fire-control radars on the incoming missiles. The 37-millimeter guns on the Yingtan were just as accurate as on the TACIT RAINBOW missiles, but only the two starboard mounts were committed this time…

The left half of the Super Multi Function Display was displaying video transmitted from the imaging infrared camera on the first SLAM missile, and even Henry Cobb, who normally sat with eyes caged straight ahead on his instrument panel, couldn’t help but take a few glances at the picture as the missile bore into its target. The image was incredible — the sea, seen as shimmering green streaks along the bottom of the picture, whizzed past like some sort of early sci-fi warp drive; and, in the center, the hot dot slowly enlarged and took the shape of a huge warship. The missile was right on course.

Suddenly, several flashes of light could be seen popping from the warship. “They got a lock on the SLAM,” McLanahan said. On the right side of the SMFD, he touched the spinning circular cursor on the 3-D image of the destroyer, spoke “Change target,” then slid his finger to the left. The SLAM missile veered left in response. Just as the video image of the destroyer was about to disappear off the screen, McLanahan slid the cursor to the right, and the missile followed. A few seconds later, McLanahan replaced the cursor on the destroyer. “Thirty seconds to impact,” he told Cobb. “C’mon, baby, you can do it…”

But his efforts were useless. As soon as the missile settled back on course to the destroyer, another large flash erupted, and the video went dark. “Dammit! Lost the first SLAM.” The words SLAM 1 NO CONTACT flashed three times on the left half of the SMFD, then the video from the second missile filled the screen.

“You’re not getting this one,” Patrick said. Using the touch-screen, he pre-programmed a zigzag course for the second SLAM. “Hit that, you peckerheads…”

The ship’s defensive guns successfully hit the first SLAM seconds before it hit them, but the second missile was impossible to hit — it was all over the sky, skimming just a few meters above the water, and the guns could not keep up with it. The missile finally plowed into the starboard gunwale just below the number six 37-millimeter gun turret.

The penetrating warhead cap, propelled by the missile’s powerful rocket motor, drove the missile through the number-twelve lifeboat on its davits and barely managed to pierce the heavy armor of the number-six gun turret before detonating the five-hundred-pound high-explosive. The blast ripped a gaping hole in the side of the frigate, killing the gun turret’s ten-man crew and instantly knocking the gun out of commission.

“Good hit!” Patrick McLanahan cried out. “One impact… only minor secondaries, good hit but no kill.” The Super Multi Function Display automatically switched back to full integrated “God’s-eye” view, and Patrick scanned the area. “Search radars down… cancel that, search radars back up. Everybody’s transmitting… I’ve got air-search radars at five o’clock and a new one at two o’clock. India-band missile radar’s still up at five o’clock. Damn… we didn’t knock out that frigate yet. So he can still launch missiles…”

Just then a “Missile Warning” light began to blink on both the Super Multi Function Display and the pilot’s center CRT monitor.

Patrick said, “Now I’ve got another Charlie-band missile director radar at one to two o’clock — that must be from the center destroyer.” He was about to touch the electronic countermeasures icon on the bottom of the SMFD, but the computer had already brought the ECM status panel forward on the screen — and what he saw caused his throat to go instantly dry. “Charlie-band missile director… computer’s calling it a DRBC-51 radar directing an HQ-91 SAM system…”

“A -91?” Cobb asked. “Shit, we’re well inside that mother’s range!”

“I know, I know,” McLanahan moaned. He had spent too long screwing with the SLAM missiles and lost track of all the other warships around them. “All trackbreakers active, missile warning system and HAVE GLANCE jammers ready, chaff and flares ready, HARM missile programming against that radar… shit, shit! Charlie-band tracker changing to Charlie-three command…

The “Missile Warning” indication changed to a “Missile Lock” warning. “Missile radar locked on!” McLanahan shouted. “Trackbreakers on… descend and accelerate if possible…”

They were already as low as they could safely go at night — the huge B-2 was less than one hundred feet above the Celebes Sea, with Cobb hand-flying the Black Knight, since the terrain-following computer would not fly the bomber overwater below two hundred feet. “C’mon, you guys, where the hell are you…?”

McLanahan was rewarded a second later with precise range and bearing information from his B-2 to the destroyer displayed on his SMFD. He knew he was not using radars or lasers to get that data — that meant that his wingman, the second B-2 stealth bomber in his attack formation, was ranging on the destroyer and data-sharing the information with him. The question was, who was going to get there first?

“Locked onto first air target,” the operator of Jinan's aft HQ-91 missile fire control radar reported. “Slight jamming on lower bands, switching to frequency-agile mode… Temporarily clear of jamming, ready with missile detector, sir.”

“Understood,” the chief of the Jinan's Combat Information Center replied. “Aft launcher, report.”

In the large aft missile magazine, a large eighteen-missile rotating drum dropped an HQ-91 onto a rail and fed it forward to an open station, where four missileers snapped large triangular fins on the nose and tail sections of the missile body. Two other technicians made a fast check of the finning process, and the missile was sent forward, erected, and rammed upwards onto the launcher rails. A second magazine crew had done the same with a second missile for the twin-rail launcher. As the missiles clicked into place on the launcher, a continuity check was automatically performed and an electronic report received from each missile — if the “report” was missing or erroneous, the launcher would immediately swivel over and down and spit the bad missile down an armored safety chute for examination or disposal.

Thirty seconds after the alert was sounded, the aft launcher was loaded and ready, with two more missiles belowdecks finned and ready. “Aft launcher reports ready, sir,” the aft launch operator reported.

“Deck clear, stand by to launch on three, two, one, launch …” The HQ-91 missiles operator checked his readouts, gripped the launch handle, squeezed the safety grip, pulled the trigger, and hit the launch button with his thumb. “Missile one away… missile two…!”

“Incoming missiles/” one of the Sea Eagle radar operators suddenly shouted. “High-speed, bearing two-four-one degrees…” Two AGM-84E SLAM missiles from the second, B-2 Black Knight in McLanahan’s attack formation had detected the HQ-91 missile fire-control radar and homed in on it just after missile launch.

But like the TACIT RAINBOW missiles, the SLAMS were big, subsonic targets, and easy for the destroyer to lock on radar. The vessel’s guns began firing, and with full radar tracking and fire control, they could not miss — both SLAMS were destroyed well before they reached Jinan.

But that left them vulnerable to two HARM missiles fired from McLanahan’s B-2. Like TACIT RAINBOW, the High-Speed Anti-Radar Missiles homed in on enemy radar transmission, but instead of cruising to their targets over long distances and being very inviting targets for enemy gunfire, HARM flew at speeds over Mach three and were often untouched or even undetectable. The longer Jinan kept radars on to track the incoming SLAM missiles, the easier it was for the HARMS to find their targets. The missiles homed in precisely on the fore and aft radar dishes of the “Fog Lamp” fire-control radars, hit, and exploded.

Although the HARMs only hit the emitters on the tall fore-and-aft antenna masts on the destroyer Jinan, and the two HARMs’ warheads were a scant fifty pounds, the results in the Combat Information Center belowdecks were as disruptive as a nuclear bomb blast. All the cabin and console lights in CIC flicked off immediately, replaced by emergency lights for the cabin only — most of the weapons control systems were dead or in rest. “Hold your positions!” the CIC officer shouted to his console and weapons technicians. “Put your sets in reset and stand by!” The CIC officer picked up the emergency battery-powered telephone. “Bridge, CIC, weapons systems and sensors in full reset. I say again, weapon systems in full reset. Over.”

“Bridge copies,” a reply came. “Missile impact on both main and aft mast.”

The CIC officer felt his jaw drop. Both masts — that meant both HQ-91 missile directors were down. The Sea Eagle search radar, which was still operational, could be used for fire control, but it was highly inaccurate. They could still direct attacks by the other patrol boats, however, but in just a split second a four-thousand-ton warship was rendered virtually impotent…

… But not entirely impotent. When the lights came back on a few moments later, most of the CIC’s equipment was still in working order. “There’s a second bomber out there somewhere, and I want it,” he shouted at his Combat Information Center crew. “Get a report from up on deck, make sure all our weapons are clear to fire — the forward 100 and the aft HQ-91 launcher should both be clear. I want infrared and low-light sensor manned, and I want Sea Eagle slaved to the one-hundred-millimeter cannon and HQ-91. Bridge, CIC, I show the aft HQ-91 system still operational. Clear me to engage the second stealth bomber.”

“C-3 band uplink shut down… search radar only,” McLanahan reported. “I think I got the missile director. Damn, I wish I could say thank you to those guys in the other B-2. I think they saved our bacon with those SLAM launches.” His eyes were glued to the SMFD, checking the rear hemisphere tail warning radar for any sign of tracking Masurca missiles. But after two minutes, nothing appeared. Patrick took a deep breath, as if it were the first time all day he’d been able to breathe, and Cobb rustled uneasily in his seat as the threat from the destroyer passed — for Cobb, that was akin to a wild shout of relief.

McLanahan said, “Still got two India-band control radars at two o’clock. Give me thirty degrees left, let’s give these guys a wide berth.” He opened the left bomb bay and readied two more HARM missiles of his own to engage the patrol boats. “Search radar only, six o’clock… that destroyer must still have its air-search radar on…” Patrick considered turning back to get within range of one more HARM missile launch at the destroyer’s big search radar, or perhaps even a SLAM missile launch at the destroyer itself, but the patrol boat’s gun-control radars ahead were a bigger threat now. With the destroyer’s big threat, the HQ-91 surface-to-air missile, gone, the B-52s could take care of the destroyer now…

“Tracking air target at bearing three-four-two, range eleven miles and increasing, altitude less than eighty meters…” The radar operator quickly checked the track history of that target; it had none. It had literally appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the Chinese fleet, and it was about to disappear once again…

So this is what a stealth bomber looked like on radar!

“Commit aft HQ-91 missiles,” the CIC officer aboard Jinan ordered.

“Yes, sir… aft HQ-91 missiles showing faulted, track error.”

“Bypass it. Slave to the Sea Eagle system for command guidance.”

“Copy… fault log cleared, HQ-91 slaved to air-search radar only, no target illuminations, beam-riding mode only… launcher crew reports ready.”

“Four-missile salvo… shoot.”

It was the definition of a long shot all the way — a faint radar return from the suspected stealth bomber, no solid lock-on, heavy jamming, no target illumination for the HQ-91 to follow, no lead-computing mathematics or sophisticated intercept trigonometry, no proximity detonation — the missiles were going to either miss or hit the target square-on.

The second B-2 had the unfortunate luck to make a slight turn to line up on a Chinese patrol boat that had locked onto it with a fire-control radar. The first HQ-91 streaked by just to the left of the bomber, but the second of the four-missile salvo hit the Black Knight on the left wing, exploding and turning the entire left side of the high-tech bomber into a huge yellow fireball in seconds.

The bomber hit the warm waters of the Celebes Sea with the force of a car crusher, killing the crew instantly. The boomerang-shaped aircraft cartwheeled edge-on across the water for several thousand yards before plunging into the waters and disappearing from sight forever.

“Target hit! Good hit on number-two aircraft!” A cheer went up in Jinan's Combat Information Center…

….but it was very short-lived. “Warning! Incoming missiles, multiple contacts, bearing… opposite side, one-four-three, range thirty miles, altitude… altitude less than fifty meters, speed six hundred knots!”

It had to be the Tomahawk missiles, the ones that had survived Kaifeng's counterattack. “Radio to all vessels, missile warning, direct defensive fire on…”

“B-52 bombers launching missiles, bearing two-zero-five, range fifty-one nautical miles… encountering heavy jamming now, all frequencies…”

Missiles coming from two sides now… one, maybe more B-2s roaming around… a B-52 that everyone has lost track of… things were not going well all of a sudden. At less than thirty miles’ range, the Tomahawk missiles were his first priority. Captain Jhijun screamed so loud into the intercom that it probably didn’t need an amplifier: “CIC, bridge, I need an intercept estimate. Can you get the Tomahawk missiles?”

“Jamming is heavy, but I think we can manually maintain a lock. Intercept confidence is good. But the number of inbounds is unknown…”

“Engage as many as you can,” Jhijun said. “Our close-in weapons should get the rest.” Along with its 130-millimeter, and 25-millimeter antiaircraft guns, the destroyer Jinan carried two American-made Mk 15 Phalanx cannons, one on each side, which were automatic radar-guided Gatling guns designed to destroy incoming missiles at close range. Ironic that they would be used to engage American missiles…

“Sir! Three B-52 bombers that were reported turning west and disengaging — they are now turning northbound and appear to be re-engaging. They are at forty-three nautical miles, at extreme HQ-91 range.”

Damn them! Jhijun cursed to himself. There were just too many of them. Well, the bombers were out of range — at least he still had a chance to get the cruise missiles before they started attacking the landing ships. “Message to all units: at least three, perhaps as many as six B-52s and at least one B-2 inbound from the south of Davao Gulf. Destroyer Jinan is unable to engage because of Tomahawk cruise missiles coming in from the southeast. Request fighter and surface support.”

He received a reply moments later: “Sir, destroyer Hong Lung will provide support. Admiral Yin sends his compliments and advises you that the Tomahawk missiles are your priority… your personal priority.”

Captain Jhijun swallowed hard when he heard the name Hong Lung, but when he got the message from Yin himself, his skin turned to ice. Every cruise missile he allowed to pass him, he knew, would mean a year in prison or a full reduction in grade. His career — more precisely, his life — rested on his performance now.

Aboard the flag bridge of the flagship of the South Philippines Task Force, three large grease boards were kept constantly updated on the deployment of warships in this operation. It was beginning to resemble a child’s crayon-drawn rendering of a beehive — Mindanao — with swarms of angry bees surrounding it. And the bees were getting closer and closer to the hive every minute…

Admiral Yin Po L’un could easily see the American tactic now: strike at the Chinese fleet from simultaneous, multiple axes of attack. Along with the reported B-2s and B-52s coming in from the south and the Tomahawk cruise missiles from the southeast, he had also received word of more B-52s from the east and B-1s from the northeast, followed by more B-52s and faster bombers, possibly F-111s, accompanying them. Jamming was heavy in all areas, so obviously a few of the aircraft were not strikers but electronic-countermeasure planes.

Captain Sun Ji Guoming, Yin’s chief of staff, said, “A rough estimate so far is twenty-six B-52 bombers, six B-1 bombers, four B-2 bombers — one reportedly shot down already by Jinan — possibly two EF-111 electronic-countermeasure planes, and perhaps four to six F-111 fighter-bombers involved in this raid. If this is so, the First Air Battle Wing has committed at least three-fourths and possibly as much as four-fifths of its force on this one escapade.” Sun smiled knowingly. “We can crush the American Air Force in one night’s work.”

“Is that so, Captain?” Yin asked in a low voice. “You say we have shot down only one plane so far, yet they have sunk one destroyer and one frigate, damaged two other frigates, and sunk or damaged nearly two dozen patrol boats. In less than thirty minutes they can be over Davao Gulf itself. I see no evidence of anyone being crushed so far.”

“They have suffered a great loss well before striking the target area or even coming within range of concentrated firepower,” Sun explained. “They will suffer tremendous losses when they come within range of the destroyers Yinchuan and Dalian near Davao itself. The American forces are undisciplined — they are launching antiradar and other guided weapons at every small patrol boat they encounter, without bothering to save their weapons for the frigates, destroyers, or landing-craft carriers. It was sheer luck that they sunk Huangshi and Kaifeng, and Yingtan is still operational…”

“You failed to adequately take into account the possibility of a Tomahawk cruise missile attack,” Admiral Yin said angrily. “They were able to overwhelm our outer defenses too easily. And why was I never advised of the presence of B-2 stealth bombers on Guam…?”

“Sir, the fleet intelligence center reported that the Ranger's battle group was still in Manado and that Indonesia had not given permission for offensive operations,” Sun explained. “If those cruisers launched their missiles from Indonesian waters, that is an illegal act…”

Yin glared at Sun, not satisfied with that explanation at all.

“Admiral, Hong Lung is engaging B-52 bombers at extreme range,” the communications officer reported. They could feel the distant rumble of the destroyer’s two big combination diesel-turbine engines spooling up to maximum speed, and the ship made a hard turn to starboard briefly before settling down. “Antiship missiles launched… jamming ineffective at this range, good radar contact, intercept confidence is high on all tracks.”

Yin looked away from Captain Sun, finding it hard to fault Sun too much — had he not suggested that Hong Lung travel east to assist in the invasion defense, all these aged American bombers might well be attacking his Marines by now. “Report on the invasion force,” Yin ordered. “Are they ready to land?”

“All vessels in position,” Captain Sun reported. “The bombardment was to commence in two hours, and the invasion was to begin in three…”

“It can no longer wait,” Yin said. “Order the landing craft to head ashore immediately.”

“But sir, we have not had time to prepare the beachhead for our forces,” Sun argued. “There could be anything waiting for them. We should proceed with the bombardment first and shell the beachhead for at least an hour before—”

“We may not have an hour before those bombers and cruise missiles are on top of them,” Yin said. “Issue the orders and get those Marines on the beach.”

“There is no need for haste, sir,” Sun tried one last time. “We should wait to see if any of the American bombers go overhead — perhaps the American bombers will even bomb the beach for us. In any case, our forces should not be on the beach when the bombers come in…”

“Neither should they be in the landing craft on Davao Gulf,” Yin said, his voice louder and sharper this time. Sun knew enough to hold his tongue then. The uncomfortable silence in the flag staff was broken by the combat-alert horn as the destroyer began prosecuting its attack on the B-52s swarming around them…

The six B-52 G-model Stratofortress bombers in the southern strike group were threading the needle here in the worst possible sense — trapped between two Chinese destroyers, with no place to hide except for an electronic curtain of jammers. Their only hope: throttles to military power, altitude pegged at one hundred feet, and hope to make landfall at Balut Island or Sarangani Island, twenty miles ahead, before the crush of Chinese antiair missiles found them. Although they were not receiving any missile fire-control signals from the eastern destroyer, it had still somehow shot down the B-2 with a missile — they were going to give both destroyers as much space as possible.

“Trick Zero-Two, this is One,” the lead B-52 pilot called out on the tactical frequency. “We’ve got a radar fix on those ships to the west. I’ve got four Harpoons left. We’re going for it.” As soon as the navigators plotted the position of the ships, they commanded a climb to three hundred feet and launched their last four AGM-84 Harpoon missiles at the ships.

The first two Harpoons were the original air-launched model, which flew directly toward the ships at five hundred and fifty miles per hour; the second two missiles were the advanced AGM-84E SLAM missile, which was far more flexible in selecting an evasive course and attacking from multiple directions and altitudes.

While the first two Harpoons sped directly for Hong Lung, the second two split north and south of the destroyer, so in effect the Hong Lung was attacked from three sides simultaneously.

The engagement worked — the southerly missile, being steered by the first B-52’s radar navigator, impacted just above the waterline on the starboard side of the escort frigate Change De, putting it out of action immediately, and one minesweeper/patrol boat riding point for the Hong Lung was hit by a Harpoon missile. The other Harpoon and SLAM missiles were destroyed by gunfire from Hong Lung and its surviving escorts.

But the counterattack by Hong Lung was devastating — the sky filled with antiair missiles as soon as the B-52 attacked. Releasing all four of its remaining Harpoon missiles on the Hong Lung battle group created a big, bright “arrow” to point the way for the Chinese fire-control operators, and Hong Lung released four HQ-91 air-to-air missiles at the B-52 within a few seconds, followed by a volley of four more.

“Time to get the hell out of here,” the pilot of the first B-52 shouted — for his own benefit more than for his copilot or the rest of the crew. “Get rid of those mines and let’s split!”.

The last of the conventional B-52’s weapons were four Mk 60 CAPTOR torpedoes on clip racks in the forward part of the bomb bay. CAPTOR, which stood for Encapsulated Torpedo, was a large canister containing an Mk 46 torpedo and complex sensor gear. As the B-52 began a tight right turn away from the western destroyer, it began sowing the CAPTOR mines in the eastern Celebes Sea. After activation, the canisters would lie on the seabed or hang suspended in the water until a warship passed by. When the sound, pressure, and magnetic parameters matched its pre-programmed settings, the mine would track the target and launch the torpedo. The torpedo had a range of six miles, and one CAPTOR by itself could sink all but the largest class of Chinese surface ships or submarines.

In two minutes, all four CAPTOR mines were released, and the airspeed of the B-52 increased dramatically. Now weaponless, it dropped a cloud of radar-decoying chaff and continued its right turn to a safe southerly heading. But at its high speed the tightest turn the bomber could make was still twenty-five miles — directly in the path of two of the stricken destroyer Jinan's patrol-boat escorts.

Guided by Jinan's one remaining air-search radar and using infrared sights, the patrol boats opened fire on the bomber with 57-millimeter, 37-millimeter, and 25-millimeter gunfire, rattling every inch of the big jet with shells. The B-52’s cockpit windows shattered, decapitating the two pilots and sending the stricken aircraft crashing into the sea.

The crash of the B-52 not more than three kilometers away was the most incredible sight any of the seventy-man crew of the Haijui-class patrol boat Yingkou had ever seen. The mushroom cloud of fire had to be a kilometer high, and flames were so big and so hot that the captain could swear he felt the heat from inside the bridge. The fireball skipped across the water, rolling and rushing along like a huge orange-and-red tidal wave. It was utterly spectacular. After a few minutes of awe, the bridge crew broke out into wild cheers as the flames began to die away — and then the crew ran for cover as bits of flying metal and thick clouds of smoke rolled across the water.

“Radar contact, second and third B-52 bombers,” came the report from his fire-control officer. “I have a good track on both planes — they should be turning this way just like the first. Five minutes before the next one passes close enough.”

This was going to be incredible, the captain thought — he might easily kill a second, and perhaps even a third B-52 with his 57-millimeter gun tonight. He would certainly get his own frigate after tonight… “Move farther west,” he ordered his helmsman. “I want to be as close as possible to these last two bombers.” The helmsman went to flank speed in order to get a few meters closer to the bomber’s track — every hundred meters closer was another dozen rounds on target.

“Second bomber turning east, range decreasing… he’s coming this way, sir… I’m getting jamming on my fire-control radar… forward 57 switching to electro-optical sights with data link from Jinan… target reacquired, forward 57- and port 30-millimeter report ready.”

This was perfect, really perfect. The other patrol boat escorting the destroyer Jinan had no data link with the destroyer’s air-search radar, so all he could do was follow Yingkou's tracers. He would never be credited with a kill…

“Thirty seconds… twenty seconds… all gun mounts report ready… fifteen seconds… all guns stand…”

He never finished the sentence. The first CAPTOR torpedo mine had armed immediately upon hitting the water and, despite the incredible sounds of destruction from the B-52 crash, had locked onto the engine sounds of the Haijui-class patrol boat as soon as he gunned his engine, and ejected its deadly torpedo. The torpedo switched on its active sonar, acquired and locked onto the patrol boat, accelerated to nearly fifty miles per hour, and hit the patrol boat near the engine compartment one foot below the waterline. A shaped charge rammed a titanium nosecap through the patrol boat’s hull, and the torpedo actually swam three feet inside the port engine room before its eight-hundred-pound warhead exploded. With most of its stem blown apart, YingJcou slipped under the surface in less than two minutes — about as long as it took the last of the burning debris of Trick Zero-One to hit the water.

The other two B-52s in the first south attack group avenged their leader’s death with a flurry of Harpoon missile launches, and within minutes three more of Jinan's patrol boats had been destroyed. Jinan itself, overwhelmed by Harpoon missiles from the south as well as the flight of Tomahawk cruise missiles from the southeast, was hit by both a Tomahawk and a Harpoon and was put out of action.

It was a surprise for Major Kelvin Carter to see the COLA (Computer Generated Lowest Altitude) computer command a climb after so many hours at one relatively stable altitude, but as the Megafortress approached the tall, rocky peaks of the Nenusa Archipelago islands, the EB-52 wanted to climb six hundred feet to clear the tallest peak. Carter edged his Megafortress slightly south of the tiny radar dots, and, after the computer realized it would safely clear all the terrain, the Megafortress sank back to one hundred feet above the eastern Celebes Sea.

Alicia Kellerman was busily plotting the positions of the other planes in the strike team as she heard position reports come over the radio. “All right!” she said. “All six BUFFS in the number-two east group and Diamond One-Two made it through. They’re two minutes ahead of us.”

“What about the others?” Carter asked.

“The south group got hit real bad,” Kellerman summarized. “One of the B-2s and a B-52 from Castle got shot down…”

“Our B-2? Cobb and McLanahan?”

“Cobb and McLanahan made it through OK. It was a Whiteman bird. One other 509th Black Knight from the north group aborted when they lost an engine; all the other planes from the north group made it.

“The other five B-52s from the south group look like they took out that destroyer to their east and a few patrol boats, so they might make it through. There’s another destroyer battle group coming in from the west — that might be a problem when the strike package egresses to the south. No other reports: everyone else appears to be heading in on schedule. Kane on the EB-52 escorting the east number-two strike group got two Chinese fighters.”

“Search radar at eleven o’clock,” Atkins reported. “Golf-band search… Sea Eagle 3-D air-search radar, Luda-class destroyer. GCI signals, possibly more fighters coming in from the northwest.”

“That destroyer’s at forty miles, and he’s got five escorts with him,” Kellerman added, checking her updated ISAR radar display. “We’ll be going in about sixty seconds ahead of the south B-52s. We’re within TACIT RAINBOW range, EW. Line ’em up and let’s get those suckers.”

It was the largest assembly of Chinese warships since the Korean Conflict, all concentrated within ten miles of the city of Davao — and they were ready to begin their assault.

The assault group was split into two groups, each led by a People’s Liberation Army Navy destroyer. North of Samar International Airport in Bangoy Bay was the destroyer Dalian, with six patrol boats as escorts, in overall command of five ex-United States LST-1-class tank-landing ships, each with two hundred and fifty People’s Liberation Army Marines, ten light tanks, and twenty armored personnel carriers; and four Yukan-class landing ships, each with over four hundred Marines and one thousand tons of cargo and equipment. Each amphibious assault ship had several smaller landing craft that would each drop thirty Marine engineers ashore to clear wires or traps and soften up beach defenses; then the landing ships themselves would drive to shore, beach themselves, and disgorge their fighting men in massive waves. Helicopters from the Yukan-class ships would then begin to drop Marines and artillery pieces nearby, and the whole company would fan out across the countryside, secure the coastal inlands north of the airport, then drive south.

The main attack force was four miles south of Davao, in Davao Gulf itself. Led by the destroyer Yinchuan, its amphibious assault force had ten LST-1-class tank-landing ships and eight Yukan-class landing ships, plus numerous smaller landing craft, minesweepers, and support ships. This group had the responsibility of securing the highlands west of Davao, encircling the city itself, and then linking up with the northern group to help secure the airport.

By 0135 hours, two hours ahead of schedule, the two Luda-class destroyers had moved to within eight miles of the landing area and opened up with their 130-millimeter cannons, peppering the beach and treelines near the intended landing zones with one round every second per vessel. The rounds were of all different types — most were standard shells weighing fifty pounds and carrying eight pounds of high-explosives, but some were shells that carried infrared sensors that homed in on heat sources such as vehicles or machine gun nests, incendiary warheads that spattered napalm to set buildings or heavy brush afire, or bomblets that spread out over a wide area to increase the destruction of each shell. Helicopters with infrared spotting scopes were used to spot targets for some of the guns, but mostly the Chinese were content to bombard the area without regard to specific targets. The destroyer Yinchuan turned a few of its rounds on the area surrounding Samar International Airport, hoping to scatter some of the defenders that were certainly waiting for the Chinese to come ashore.

After twenty minutes of continuous bombardment, the Chinese assault ships began launching wave after wave of small landing craft with Marine engineers and security guards to clear a way for the assault ships to beach themselves. The gunfire from the destroyers became much more selective, targeting and hitting a few large-caliber shore-gun emplacements to provide covering fire for the landing craft. While raking the shore with 37- and 25-millimeter gunfire, the landing craft dropped some frogmen overboard to search for water traps or mines, while the others went ashore to begin hunting for minefields and to suppress heavy gun emplacements on shore. Except for a few widely scattered mines, they encountered almost no resistance. It took the first waves of landing craft less than ten minutes to reach the beach.

After twenty-five minutes of bombardment, each 130-millimeter gun on the destroyers had expended one-third of the rated life for its barrels, so the heavy shelling ceased and the search began for attacks against the landing craft. They found a few snipers and encountered light resistance from hit-and-run grenade attacks, but the Chinese Marines sustained only a few casualties.

“Sir, report from Rear Admiral Yanlai,” Captain Sun Ji Guoming, the chief of staff for Admiral Yin Po L’un’s flag staff, said. “The amphibious assault has gone better than he expected. The first landing craft are ashore with few casualties; the second wave will land in a few minutes. No heavy resistance is being encountered from Samar’s forces.”

A tremendous weight seemed to be lifted from Admiral Yin’s shoulders. Ever since Captain Sun and a few of his other advisers had recommended against Marine landing until the American Air Battle Force was dealt with, he had been worried that his decision to proceed with the assault was a bad one — now it seemed to be remarkably prescient. “Does Admiral Yanlai have any suggestions?”

“No, sir,” Sun replied. “He is proceeding with the planned operation.”

“The plan supposed Samar’s usual stiff guerrilla resistance to the landing forces,” Yin said. “Samar has obviously fled. It is time to step up the attack — with the American force nearby, it is essential. Order Admiral Yanlai to land the LSTs and troop-landing ships after the second wave of Marines is ashore.”

The flag staff turned toward Yin in complete shock, and Captain Sun could not help but blink at his commanding officer in surprise. “But… sir, in only two landing-craft waves, we have less than three hundred troops ashore, and most of those are lightly armed engineers and Marines. They don’t have the equipment or strength to conduct a thorough search and destroy operation. In daylight hours they can hardly proceed faster than a half-mile inland — at night they may be on the beach for hours, easily until daylight. They have not even begun to probe the area for resistance. It would be madn— I beg your pardon, sir, in my opinion it would be unwise to send in the large landing ships until we can be sure the area is free of resistance.”

Captain Sun sustained Yin’s furious glare with uneasy fear. He had come very close to total insubordination by calling Yin’s order “madness,” and only Sun’s long-standing relationship with Yin, as well as the fact that they were in the middle of a war, prevented him from being dismissed right then and there.

“As you were, Captain,” Yin growled. “Our plans and normal operating procedures are based on the level of resistance and the greatest threat facing our forces. The resistance so far is low, and the threat from American bombers is very high. Those ships are vulnerable. The more men we can get off those ships and safely on land, the better. Order the landing ships ashore immediately.”

By using a Mode Two interrogator, which broadcast a short, coded signal to other American aircraft in the area commanding the other aircraft’s beacons to emit a short identification signal in reply, Patrick McLanahan could discover where other aircraft in the strike force were located and display it on the God’s-eye view on his Super Multi Function Display — in turn, this would be transmitted to the EB-52C escorts in the other strike packages so they could update their situational displays. The data would also be transmitted via NIRTSat communications satellites to the Joint Task Force commander on Guam and to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon.

The Mode Two told a horrifying story — they had already lost one B-52 and one B-2, and they were still hundreds of miles from the Chinese amphibious assault force. McLanahan found his throat dry and his forehead hot and moist, and he found he could not control the slight trembling in his fingers — the trembling of real fear. He felt alone up here, and he felt as if every enemy vessel on that SMFD could see him and was waiting to kill him.

After spending weeks with these men at the Strategic Warfare Center — swapping stories, techniques, and complaints; mission planning and debriefing until late at night at the 0-Club or at the Black Hills Saloon until being tossed out; and learning how to fight as a unit instead of as lone penetrators — it was as if a bit of his own soul had disappeared with each missing icon on that screen. They were dead, quickly and suddenly — and the toughest part of the mission was still ahead. The faces of the crew dogs that manned the missing bombers floated unbidden before his eyes, and burning drips of sweat that rolled into his eyes couldn’t blur those horrible images.

Patrick had seen combat, had seen men close to him die, but this was harder than he ever imagined. All those faces, all those names — this morning they were all together, and now they were never coming back. Just like that…

“What do you got, Patrick?”

McLanahan shook himself out of reverie and focused his eyes past the ghostly faces he saw in the SMFD and concentrated again on the situation. The faces did not haunt him — they seemed to help him, seemed to encourage him to continue…

“Patrick…?”

Patrick looked over at Cobb and nodded. “I’m all right, Henry…” Cobb had glanced at his partner briefly, waiting to see if he would get back into the fight, before resuming his usual stone-still stance. The faces had moved away from the SMFD — they felt as if they were looking over his shoulder now, marveling at the technology McLanahan commanded and waiting for him to continue the fight — and that made him feel much better.

“We are twenty miles from the coastline near Kiaponga,” Patrick said. “The B-52s behind us are joining up with Carter’s EB-52. There’s a destroyer battle group in the mouth of the Davao Gulf, and I think Carter and his B-52s from the south group are going after it. The number-two east strike group will follow — they’re all intact with all six B-52s.”

“Where are the Tomahawks?” Cobb asked.

McLanahan touched an icon on his SMFD, and several blinking objects and a short data list appeared on the God’s-eye view. The Tomahawk cruise missiles could be interrogated just like a manned aircraft. “About ten miles ahead of the B-52s and not far behind us. We’ll go feet-dry, turn west, and let the Tomahawks go past us as they head inland; when they get ahead of us, we’ll head north and proceed to our targets.” McLanahan studied the display for a moment, then ceased his Mode-2 interrogations — even though the Mode-2 signals were encoded and transmitted in very short bursts, the enemy could still track an aircraft from them. “Looks like about half the Tomahawks are still with us.”

“Good,” Cobb said. “I’d just as soon let those puppies beat the bushes for us.”

The grease-board plotting technician drew a line from a frigate icon near the mouth of Davao Gulf to near the tiny village of Kiaponga. Out of all the other dots, circles, icons, and lines on the board, that one line commanded Admiral Yin’s attention. “What is that?” he asked.

“Sir, frigate Xiamen reports a weak UHF signal along this bearing,” the situation officer replied. “Several microburst transmissions. Computer projection calling it a possible aircraft, airspeed eight hundred kilometers per hour, heading northwest.”

Yin seemed to be transfixed by this fine. “Any primary radar target? Altitude readout?”

“No, sir.”

“Do they have an analysis of the signal itself?”

“Not yet, sir.”

Captain Sun was completely perplexed — a destroyer and a frigate were coming under attack, but Yin was wondering about a microburst radio transmission. “Sir, Jinan is under attack by antiship missiles again — he cannot hold out much longer. We must assist him. I recommend ordering him to withdraw to the west so we can provide surface-to-air missile coverage for him. And we should head farther to the northeast to provide similar coverage for Xiamen — he is tracking numerous Tomahawk cruise missiles heading in his direction as well as the B-52 bombers…”

“I want to know what that signal was, Captain.”

“Very well, sir,” Sun replied. “And as for Jinan and Xiamen… ?”

“Steer Hong Lung northeast to cover Davao Gulf as much as possible, but Jinan will hold its position,” Yin said with a hint of exasperation in his voice. “They have almost as much firepower as we do, and they have more escorts. I will not allow my ship commanders to start running all over the Celebes Sea at the first sign of trouble. I also want a report on our fighter coverage — I have not seen one fighter on that board since the first group of J-7s and Q-5s were engaged.”

A few moments later a new manual plotting technician took over on the vertical-plot greaseboard, and he began filling in icons for a group of fighters just west of Mount Apo. “Sir, fighter groups fourteen, with six total Jianjiji-7 fighters, and composite fighter-attack group two, with three Qiangjiji-5 fighters and three A-5K fighter-bombers, are thirty-seven kilometers west of Mount Apo,” Captain Sun reported. “They will be on station over Davao Gulf in three minutes.”

Yin slammed a fist down on the table before him and hissed, “That is not good enough! We’re supposed to have a hundred fighters available to us on this operation, and there are only twelve? I had better see two more groups airborne immediately. I want all available J-7 and Q-5 fighters airborne immediately to attack the inbound bombers…

“It will be done immediately, sir… but I must remind you that it leaves no Q-5 fighters available for close air support for our Marines,” Sun said. “The Q-5 and the A-5 are the only planes we have that can aerial refuel. Also, few of these aircraft are equipped for night combat…”

“We will have no Marines to provide close air support for if we do not stop these bombers!” Yin shouted. “Launch all available fighters now! And I want two fighters dispatched to search along the projected trackline of that microburst transmission. I want nothing to get past our defenses and strike our Marines… nothing!”

The updated NIRTSat data feed came in just as Cobb and McLanahan’s B-2 crossed the coastline south of Kiaponga. Cobb had reactivated the terrain-comparison COLA computer, and they were snaking just two hundred feet above the lush coastal hills and valleys of the Sarangani Peninsula of southern Mindanao. On his Super Multi Function Display, McLanahan could see the updated positions of three Tomahawk cruise missiles that were to go in ahead of his B-2 Black Knight bomber; the computer used the missile’s last reported heading and speed, along with a knowledge of the missile’s pre-programmed flight plan, to estimate the missile’s position. “We’ll be ready for a turn in about sixty seconds,” McLanahan told Cobb. The aircraft commander clicked his mike in response.

The terrain sloped up steeply from the eastern cliffs facing the Celebes Sea in the Gian River Valley; the valley was at least six miles wide and did not rise as steeply on the west side. “Stay on the west slope of the coastal hills, on the ‘military crest,’” McLanahan said. “It’s not the best place to be, but it’s better than getting trapped down in the valley. The hills should shield us from the warships off the coast as well.” Another double click in response as Cobb banked the B-2 gently right and began flying north-northeast along the western side of the coastal hills, not flying too high but not diving too deeply into the valley.

McLanahan expanded his SMFD out to sixty miles’ range. At the top of the north-up display was their primary target, the radar site on Mount Apo. A yellow-colored dome surrounded the point, representing the range of the Chinese radar site operating there — that was their target. The edge of the yellow dome did not quite touch the B-2 icon — not because they were out of the radar’s range, but because the energy levels being recorded from the radar were less than those required to get a radar return off the stealth bomber. From that radar site the Chinese could vector in fighters against every American bomber in the strike package.

McLanahan immediately designated the top of the mountain as the target for two SLAM missiles, programming in evasive turnpoints and data-link activation points and checking the Global Position System satellite signal for good navigational data feed to the missiles. He had to program in a terminal “pop-up” maneuver for the missiles in order to hit the radar domes from above rather than from the side.

The one deficiency with the SLAM missile system over land was that the aircraft that was to steer the missile onto its target needed to have a clear line-of-sight radio signal between the two — that meant climbing away from the radar-clutter sanctuary of the terrain, which could expose the launch aircraft to enemy radar. The navigation-missile control computer interface would advise Cobb and McLanahan when it was time to climb, based on the bomber’s altitude and the signal strength — usually it commanded a climb in time to establish a clear signal sixty seconds before missile impact. Fortunately the B-2’s low radar cross-section made it less vulnerable to enemy radar than other SLAM-capable launch aircraft. “Missile programmed, Henry, ready for launch…”

Just as he said those words, two red-colored triangles appeared at the top of the display, with yellow arcs extending from the apex of the triangles out toward the B-2’s icon at the bottom of the scope — again, the arcs did not quite touch the icon, probably because of the B-2’s stealth characteristics. “Fighters at ten o’clock, forty miles,” McLanahan said. “Two… now showing six, at least six, heading this way… I don’t think they see us yet…..”

“Fighter group fourteen, your targets are at thirty nautical miles, twelve o’clock, airspeed four-fifty, altitude less than one hundred meters,” the radar controller on Mount Apo reported. “Suspected cruise missiles heading northwest. Recommend right break and spacing for single intercept. Composite group two, your bandits are at eleven o’clock, twenty-seven miles. Groups fourteen and two, your flight leaders are directed to depart your formations for special patrol, designated Group Delta. Delta, come right to heading one-six-eight, take one-thousand-meters altitude and switch to controller frequency gold. Acknowledge.”

Two fighters broke out of the pack of fighter-bombers and headed southeast: a JS-7 fighter and an A-5K fighter-bomber. The A-5K was the upgraded version of the Q-5 good-weather attack plane, with sophisticated Aeritalia-made avionics that gave it an all-weather bombing capability, including a low-light TV camera and laser rangefinder.

“Group Delta, unidentified bogey possible at low altitude, estimated position at your twelve o’clock position, forty nautical miles. Report identification and pursue. Over.”

The two enemy aircraft triangles did not appear right away, and when they did appear their radar arcs immediately swept across the B-2 icon. “Two fighters separated from the rest of the pack,” McLanahan shouted. “Twelve o’clock. X-band search radars. They might have spotted us.”

The B-2 had just left the protective cover of the coastal hills of the Sarangani Peninsula and was now racing across the Buayan River valley, a flat, fertile area about forty miles southwest of Davao. The lone peak of Mount Apo was the only significant terrain around for fifty miles — it was the worst moment to be caught by fighters. To the east, ten miles southwest of Davao, the icons of several warships were just visible.

“We’ve got a little rolling terrain about twenty miles to the west, and nothing but Davao Gulf and another destroyer off to the east,” McLanahan said. “Otherwise it’s flat, flat, flat. The fighters are at our twelve o’clock… getting a range estimate now of twenty-two miles. They’ll be in missile range soon.”

“We go west then,” Cobb said. He banked his B-2 hard to the left, scurrying across the wide valley for the relative safety of a hilly ridge.

“Fifteen minutes until we reach that ridge… about two minutes,” McLanahan reported. “Bandits one o’clock, fifteen minutes…” At that moment one of the yellow arcs representing the enemy’s radar swept across the B-2 icon, and the yellow instantly turned to red as the radar locked on. “Shit, shit, shit, they got us…”

The heads-up display on the Chinese JS-7 first locked onto the air target briefly, and the attack radar quickly computed the target’s altitude, heading, airspeed, and closure rate — but it was the A-5K’s low-light TV sensor that first caught a glimpse of the enemy. The sensor’s contrast-tracking function immediately locked onto the warm object and began to track it…

And, as the target made a slight turn to the west, there was no mistaking its identity — the pilot of the A-5K saw the distinctive boomerang profile of an American B-2 bomber. “A stealth bomber! Stealth bomber!” the A-5 pilot shouted excitedly on the command radio. “Very low, heading west…” He was so excited that he forgot to give a proper report…

… And he also forgot he was in formation with another airplane. The two Chinese planes almost collided as the A-5 pilot turned westward to try to keep the fast-flying bomber within his low-light TV’s field of view. "Kong Yun One-Seven, hold your position!” the JS-7 pilot shouted. “Formation coming right to intercept. Control, this is Delta, we have an American B-2 stealth bomber on radar, turning to intercept at this time…”

But as they did, extremely heavy jamming from the B-2 continually broke radar-lock — the massive energy even put the Cyrano-IV radar in “Reset” twice. "Kong Yun One-Seven,” the JS-7 pilot asked of the A-5K pilot, “do you still have him on your TV sensor?”

“Affirmative, Jian, Zero-Niner.”

“I’m receiving heavy jamming and I can’t maintain a radar lock. Close us within PL-2 missile range. You have the lead.”

“I have the lead.” The JS-7 pilot could feel the tension grow in his arms and shoulders as he made the dangerous transition from following his radar cues and searching out the windscreen for terrain to picking up the A-5K’s dim formation-lights. He used a few notches of airbrakes to slide back and ease into a comfortable position on the A-5’s right wing, but he immediately edged away from the fighter-bomber in a momentary panic when he thought he was getting sucked in too close. It took several moments of adjusting before he could inch back in to proper wingman position.

At night, only a few meters away from another fighter loaded with weapons, traveling over sixteen kilometers per minute close to the ground, chasing down a heavily armed and dangerous intruder — it was some of the most dangerous flying around.

The two crew members of the B-2 Black Knight stealth bomber only seventeen miles ahead of the Chinese pilots might have disagreed.

Cobb had the power up to full military thrust, trying desperately to make it to the cover of the hills to the west. “Fighter’s crossing behind us,” McLanahan told him. “They found us… fighter radar’s down now. They might be engaging visually or by IR.” He set the B-2’s MAWS system from “Passive” to “Active.” MAWS, or Missile Approach Warning System, used small passive infrared sensors to search for nearby aircraft that might be a threat. Once a threat was located, it would lock onto it and continue to track it. If MAWS detected a second flash of light from that same target — indicating the ignition of a missile’s rocket motor — it would activate the bomber’s ALQ-199A Doppler radar missile tracking system to track the missiles and begin active countermeasures.

“I’m launching the SLAM missiles — at least we’ll take out the radar before these bozos get us.” McLanahan touched the weapon icons at the bottom of the Super Multi Function Display, overrode the mission timing schedule of the computer that deconflicted weapon releases for the entire strike package, then commanded the two Standoff Land Attack Missiles to launch. Cobb had to allow the bomber to climb an excruciatingly high one hundred extra feet before the missiles would start their countdown: “Altitude hold off… missile one counting down… doors open… missile one giway… launcher rotating… missile two away… doors closed… altitude hold back on, descend back to one hundred feet TFR.”

Although they still had two SLAMs and two HARM antiradar missiles remaining, their primary mission was completed — as the old bomber pilot’s saying goes, once the bombs are gone, you’re not flying for Uncle Sam anymore; you’re flying for yourself.

Cobb and McLanahan started flying for their lives…

“Missiles! Bomber launching missiles!” the A-5K pilot screamed. On his TV sensor he could clearly see the two missiles slowly speed away from the bomber’s belly… and the sight filled him with an almost overwhelming red-hot rage. He selected a PL-2 heat-seeking missile and hit the “Launch” button when the bomber was directly in front of him. He realized after launching the missile that he was still too far out and did not give the missile enough time to lock on, but at this range, he could not miss…

“We’re not going to find anyplace to hide in these hills here,” McLanahan said, checking the computer-generated terrain depiction on the Super Multi Function Display. Without one squeak of radar energy being transmitted, the computer drew all the terrain, rivers, valleys, and cities on the SMFD, updating their position with every turn — but right now it was not giving them any good news. Unless they flew their B-2 below one hundred feet, those hills would not provide enough cover to shake off their pursuers. “We should—”

He was interrupted with a flashing “Missile Launch” indication and the computer-generated words, “Infrared Missile Launch… Break… Infrared Missile Launch.… Break" in the interphone. “Break right!” McLanahan shouted. At the same time, he checked to make sure that the electronic-countermeasures computer had launched decoy flares and had activated their HAVE GLANCE infrared jammers, a device that would use laser beams guided by the ALQ-199 missile warning radar to blind and distort the enemy missile’s seeker heads and make it difficult for a heat-seeking missile to lock onto the B-2’s engine exhausts.

It was the first time Patrick had ever observed a missile launch on the Super Multi Function Display, and it was weirdly fascinating — like watching an arrow speeding to its target in slow motion, except this arrow was speeding at them! The MAWS sensors had tracked the fighters to the rear quadrant, and when the heat-seeking sensors detected the missile launch, it automatically activated the ALQ-199 tracking radars and laser jammers. The fighters were depicted as red triangles with squares around them, highlighting them as the major threat against the B-2, and when the missiles were picked up by the ALQ-199 they appeared as blinking red circles. The SMFD redrew the scene, zooming in on the B-2 icon, the terrain immediately surrounding the bomber, and the pursuing fighters.

The dots initially swerved left to follow the decoy flares as they ejected from the left ejector racks, but they immediately realigned themselves on the B-2. A tiny data block showed time since launch and estimated time to impact — the “time-to-die meter.” It had initially started at twelve seconds, but as the Chinese PL-2 missile accelerated to its top speed of Mach three, the time to impact wound down to five seconds and counted down swiftly.

But the missile had to make a hard left turn to follow the decoy flare, and when it reacquired the bomber’s hot exhausts it began a hard right turn. The missile was “stressed,” losing energy and skidding all over the sky — it was ready to be aced.

“Break left!” McLanahan shouted, and he ejected two flares from the right ejectors.

At the same time, the HAVE GLANCE laser jammer, which had begun tracking the missile via the ALQ-199 warning radar, had locked onto the PL-2 and began bombarding it with high-energy laser light. As the missile swung back to the left to reacquire the bomber, the laser beam shined directly on the seeker head, instantly burning out its sensitive gallium-arsenide “eye” and rendering the missile useless.

But McLanahan couldn’t celebrate yet — the Chinese fighter had launched a second missile, this time from even closer range — McLanahan noticed a 00:04:39 in the time-to-die meter almost immediately. There was no time to turn, no time for a break maneuver. “Climb!” McLanahan shouted, and he began pumping out flares as fast as he could.

The tactic worked. The second missile, the A-5K’s last heat-seeker, lost the hot engine exhausts for a split second. Although the missile started a climb in pursuit, the lock-on was lost, and the PL-2’s twenty-eight-pound warhead automatically detonated — but only thirty feet away from the B-2’s left engine nacelle.

The explosion sawed off twenty feet of the left inboard elevon, the flaplike control surface on the wing’s trailing edge, completely separating it from the bomber. It sliced into hydraulic lines, cut open the left trailing edge fuel tank, and blew out two of the left main gear tires, which ripped open the left fuel tank completely. Raw fuel began streaming out of the bomber; the self-sealing foam fuel tanks kept the fuel from spreading to the engine compartment, but within seconds the left trailing edge fuel tank was empty and the number-one primary hydraulic system was dead.

Inside the cockpit, the explosion, the shock, the concussion, and the vibration were as severe as if they had hit the ground. The airspeed dropped one hundred knots as the huge bomber uncontrollably heaved and rocked across the sky — the Black Knight seemed to spin violently to the left, toward the dead number-one engine. The controls shook violently, then turned mushy and completely unresponsive, then seemed to freeze. The left wing dipped lower and lower, and there seemed nothing Cobb could do to stop it.

“We’re hit!” Cobb screamed. He hauled on the sidestick controller with all the strength of his right arm. “Get on the controls!” he shouted to McLanahan. “Get the left wing up!”

McLanahan unstowed his sidestick controller, which was normally stowed underneath the right instrument panel glare shield. He moved the grip but nothing happened. “It’s not active!”

The interphone died as the number-one generator popped off-line. Cobb ripped off his oxygen mask and screamed, “Then get out, Patrick! Get out!” Despite the emergency, Cobb still wasn’t going to yell “Eject!” — that would elicit an immediate response from any well-trained crew dog.

“Get the wing up, Henry!” McLanahan yelled. Cobb took his left hand off the throttles and pushed on his control stick. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the left wing seemed to rise — and McLanahan decided right then and there that he wasn’t going to eject. The bomber could be milliseconds from hitting the ground, there could be a fire spreading through the bomb bays — but unless Cobb ordered him to eject he was going to stay. There was enough of a hint of aircraft control left to convince him they still had a chance…

Several loud bangs rattled the three-hundred-thousand-pound bomber as if a giant hand were throwing them against a mountainside, picking them up, then hurling them again.

McLanahan turned away from his pilot and scanned the engine and flight instruments. “Airspeed one-eighty… RPMs on number-one engine fifty percent, TIT and EGT on redline… number-one engine compressor stall, shut down number one. Number-one throttle.” McLanahan put his left hand on the center console throttle quadrant, guarding the three good engines to make sure Cobb didn’t shut off a good engine. The leftmost throttle snapped back to idle, then to “Cutoff.” A compressor stall was a common but potentially dangerous engine malfunction in which the airflow through the engine is disrupted and the engine stops producing thrust — but fuel continues to flow through the engine and ignite in terrific shuddering explosions, one after the other, causing a huge fire inside the combustion chamber.

“Off!” Cobb yelled back.

“Turbine inlet temperature and exhaust temps,” McLanahan said. Hie checked the right-side multi-function display, but it had gone dead when the number-one engine generator popped off-line, so he went to the rows of tiny standby gauges. “RPMs on number-one forty percent, TIT and EGT still redline. All the others are OK. Gotta shut number one down.” Since the MFDs had shut off, they couldn’t tell if the computer had already initiated the shutdown procedures, so they assumed it had not. “Fuel cutoff T-handle, number-one engine, pull.”

“You get it!” Cobb yelled — he dared not take a hand off the control stick. McLanahan released the inertial reel lock on his shoulder harness and reached across the forward instrument panel to a row of yellow-and-black-striped handles labeled “Emergency Fuel Cutoff Pull.” He laid his left hand on the first handle, stopped, double-checked that he had the right one — again, to avoid shutting down a good engine and killing them for sure — then pulled the handle.

“Number one T-handle, pull. Fire lights.” McLanahan checked the row of engine fire lights near each T-handle — all four were out. He hit the “Press to Test” button to doublecheck that the bulbs were still good — they were. “Fire lights out. Engine instruments.” The pilot’s right multi-function display was black, so McLanahan ran his fingers across the standby engine instrument gauges at the bottom center of the forward instrument panel. “TIT and EGT high but coming down… EGT below redline. I think we got it. Number-one primary hydraulic system is out. Electric system is reset — turn the number-one generator off when you can.”

“I can’t.”

McLanahan was going to continue reciting the rest of the emergency checklist, but all of the critical “bold print” items were done — the rest of the items were double-checks. The Black Knight bomber appeared to be wings-level, and finally Cobb was able to take his left hand off the control stick. He spent a few moments shutting off equipment that ran off the number-one engine, then slowly resumed his usual stony position — one hand on the throttle, one hand on the sidestick controller, eyes caged straight ahead, although this time with a few more noticeable glances around the cockpit.

It was hard to believe, but it had taken only ten seconds from the missile explosion to wings-level — to McLanahan, it seemed like a slow-motion eternity. He had once again experienced Death creeping toward him, and it was even more horrifying the second time. The feeling of utter helplessness was so overwhelming that it often threatened to shut crews down. Only their long hours of drill, training, and simulator sessions pulled them through it in time.

“Bring us right if you can,” McLanahan said. He put his SMFD in reset, then reactivated it and found to his surprise that the navigation system was still running. “Mount Apo is at our two o’clock position, eight miles. It’s our last hope. Heading zero-three-five.”

The single bright flash of light was followed by a long tongue of flame that lasted for several seconds, and part of that flame seemed to shoot out forwards as well as backwards. “Good hit! Good hit!” the A-5K pilot cried out. “Strike…!”

But in his exuberance, the pilot again forgot he was in formation. When the trail of fire began to arc to the right he immediately banked right in response, directly into the path of the JS-7 fighter.

With the excitement of the missile launch, the blood pounding in his head, and the adrenaline rushing through his brain, the JS-7 pilot immediately broke right and climbed away. “Jian Zero-Nine, lost wingman,” he cried over the command radio. Suddenly realizing that he didn’t know where he was — except that he was at three hundred meters altitude, flying near a 3,200-meter-high mountain — he immediately began a climb to his area minimum safe altitude, which in this sector was 3,300 meters. “Zero-Nine climbing to min safe altitude.”

“Get back here!” the pilot of the A-5K shouted furiously on the radio. “I have no more heat-seekers. You have to engage!”

“Zero-Nine is lost-wingman, no contact with the terrain,” the JS-7 shouted. “I do not have a TV camera to watch for terrain. I will re-acquire. Stand by…”

“EGT is back below redline,” McLanahan said. “Try a restart.” Cobb pushed the fuel cutoff T-handle back in to reopen the fuel lines, selected the “Engine Status” menu on his left MFD, selected “Restart,” and advanced the number-one throttle when directed by the computer.

It was a mistake. As soon as the engine began spooling up, the bright-red “Fire” light came on. The computer immediately began shutdown procedures, and this time Cobb manually activated the fuel cutoff T-handle himself and hit the number-one engine’s fire extinguisher system to make sure the fire was out. The “Fire” light extinguished immediately, and all other systems remained normal.

“Must be hydraulic fuel leaking into the engine or a serious fuel leak,” Cobb said. “Looks like we finish this mission on three engines.” He put the B-2’s infrared scanner image on his right MFD and resumed his usual position, staring straight ahead, unmoving. “Where are those fighters?”

“One still on our tail; he’s dropped back to eight miles, and he hasn’t taken another shot yet,” McLanahan said. “The other guy broke off to our five o’clock position and went high — he might be setting up for a high gun pass or a home-on-jam missile shot if they got a missile that’ll do it. All trackbreakers are still active.” He quickly switched to the data-link channel for the SLAM missiles, but the screen on the left side of his SMFD was blank. “Shit, looks like we lost contact with the missiles when the power dropped out. I’ll try to reacquire it…

“What do we do when we reach Mount Apo?”

“Fly around it… and pray,” McLanahan said. “It’s our only hope of losing these jokers.” McLanahan expanded his SMFD display back to its normal God’s-eye display — and then he saw them. “Henry!” he called over to Cobb. “Turn right to one-two-zero and climb to nine thousand seven hundred feet. Fly right over the peak of Mount Apo.”

“Nine thousand feet!” Cobb said. “We’ll be exposed! Half the Chinese fleet will be able to see us!”

“But we’ll have some help if we make it on time,” McLanahan said. “Do it.” Cobb pulled back on the control stick and maintained as steep a climb as the stricken bomber could manage. The Black Knight barely held two hundred and fifty knots as Cobb put the nose right on the infrared image of the radar dome atop Mount Apo and headed straight for it…

The B-2 momentarily disappeared from the narrow field-of-view image on the low-light TV screen, and the pilot of the Chinese A-5K fighter-bomber hurriedly expanded his screen and searched frantically for the intruder. He was surprised to see it climbing, not descending — in fact, it had passed two thousand meters already and was still climbing. He was also heading right for the radar site on Mount Apo. What was he trying to do? Kamikaze himself onto the radar site? Launch another missile? Eject? Nothing made sense. But one thing was certain — high and slow, it was an easy kill now. He pushed up his throttles to min afterburner — he was getting low on fuel, but that certainly didn’t matter now — and began to close to cannon range.

At about ten kilometers’ range, he activated his laser rangefinder. Immediately his fire-control computer began computing lead angles and aimpoints for his two 23-millimeter cannons in each wing root; unfortunately he had only one hundred rounds in each gun, so he had time for only two one-second bursts. But that would be all that was needed here. The B-2 was trailing black smoke from its leftmost engine, and the crew was obviously trying to trade airspeed for altitude in preparation for ejection or self-destruction. They were not going to get the chance.

The huge B-2 made a sudden right turn at a very steep angle — possibly a last-ditch effort to evade destruction. The A-5 pilot simply pulled his nose around tighter, leading the bomber’s turn, and put his aiming reticle back on the target. The TV camera clearly showed the Mount Apo radar site not twenty meters below the B-2 — he had turned a fraction of a second before plowing into the radar dome. The pilot was indeed skillful, but that was not going to save him. He closed to within one kilometer, squeezed his gun trigger, and let the first one-second burst rake the B-2s ungainly fuselage…

And at that moment it seemed as if the entire universe erupted into flames. Two Tomahawk cruise missiles had actually flown over the two aircraft and had hit the captured Mount Apo radar site, just a few hundred feet away from the Chinese fighter. The explosion tossed the Chinese fighter-bomber nearly a half-mile sideways in the air, blinding the pilot and sending him crashing into the lush green valley below.

The explosion on the Mount Apo radar site rattled the B-2, but compared to the pounding they had taken when the Chinese PL-2 missile hit, it was minor. Cobb lowered the big bomber’s nose once again, trying to build up his waning airspeed and regain full control…

And at that instant a horrifying sight filled his forward-looking infrared scanner scene on his right MFD — the sight of a large Chinese vessel, only miles ahead of them. They had turned east too far, and now they were exposed to the entire southern Chinese invasion fleet. “Holy shit, we gotta get out of here!” Cobb shouted.

“As long as we’re here, let’s start the party,” McLanahan said dryly. As Cobb continued his tight right descending turn, McLanahan quickly programmed his last two SLAM missiles on the fleet ahead of them, ran through the release checklist, and launched the missiles at the Chinese warships.

“Missile one away… launcher rotating…” At that moment, warning lights illuminated on the forward instrument panel. “Damn, we just lost the primary hydraulic system — but I think the launcher still moved to launch position… missile two away. Closing bomb doors electrically.”

Cobb was busily running through emergency-procedure menu items on his MFDs. “I switched to the auxiliary hydraulic system,” he told McLanahan. “Autopilot’s off, flight-control computers switched to secondary mode. No more automatic terrain following or jinking for us — a full-scale flight-control deflection will kill our entire hydraulic system. We’ve got fuel leaks on the left wing as well, and I think we’re losing cabin pressurization. He shot us up pretty bad.” But at least they were still flying, Cobb thought, and they were still fighting…

…and they were still under attack. “Bandit at our four o’clock position, range ten miles, turning right and coming around behind us,” McLanahan shouted. “Descend as low as you can…”

“I’m going, I’m going… hell, if we descend too much we won’t be able to climb back up.” Cobb was straining on the control stick, since the auxiliary hydraulic system provided only 70 percent of the primary system’s power, and the flight-control system was no longer assisting. “I’m having trouble controlling, Patrick. If that bozo attacks, we’ve had it. I can’t maneuver… I can barely hold it as it is. Tighten your shoulder straps again. Get ready to jump out if he attacks…”

“He’s got to find us first, Henry,” Patrick said as he pulled his shoulder straps as tight as he could stand it. “Range seven miles… turning on our six… keep descending, Henry. We’re still jamming… maybe he won’t be able to see us… five miles and closing…”

The Black Knight bomber began to rumble, and the nose began to oscillate as Cobb fought to hold it steady. “Get ready to go, Patrick. It’s still flying, but I don’t know how…”

“Just hang in there, Henry—” But McLanahan watched the SMFD as the fighter icon closed mercilessly — the Chinese fighter was coming in for the kill, and there was nothing they could do to stop it…

The JS-7 pilot was more experienced in air-to-air engagements than his former leader — A-5 pilots did more ground-attack training than dogfighting — and he knew, judging by the B-2’s slow airspeed and erratic flight path, that he was in danger of crashing at any moment anyway. The A-5 pilot — he did not even know the man’s name — rushed his shots, not closing in enough for the inherently poor PL-2 missiles to get a solid lock-on. A boresight missile launch was the best way to go — the PL-2 missile was especially prone to decoys, so if the seeker head was bypassed it was more deadly. He switched the attack system to “Boresight” and kept his power high, closing the distance rapidly. A boresight launch made the missile nothing more than a big, powerful bullet — far more deadly than his 23-millimeter cannon, but with the same effective range. It had to be led on target just like a gun, but that was easy in this case, since the B-2 wasn’t maneuvering and seemed virtually incapable of doing so.

He had no laser rangefinder, no TV camera, and no usable radar to judge distance, but when he could see the ghostly shape of the American B-2 highlighted against the faint glow of the sky, he knew he was close enough…

His radar warning receiver suddenly screamed to life. There were no warning beeps, no search radar, no hint of the approach of any fighter — just an enemy fighter symbol superimposed on the center circle of his threat scope, meaning that it was already within lethal range. He was distracted away from the B-2 for only a split second after deciding he was going to attack instead of taking evasive action, but that split second was all that was needed — the B-2 made a gentle 30-degree bank turn to the west, and it took several seconds of frantic searching to reacquire it again in the darkness of the forests of Mindanao below. The boresight launch was spoiled.

With a fighter somewhere on him, there was no time to line up another boresight launch. The JS-7 immediately switched to seeker guidance and received a lock-on indication with a few seconds…

… but he never got to fire the missile. Two AIM-130 Scorpion missiles from Major Kelvin Carter’s Megafortress bomber ripped into the Chinese fighter, slicing it into three pieces and flinging it across the Padada River valley below.

“Keep it coming to the right, Horse,” Major Kelvin Carter told Cobb and McLanahan. “We’ll take it over central Mindanao and try to escape to the northeast. Is this Horse One-Six?”

“Affirm, Diamond One-Three,” Cobb replied on the scrambled tactical frequency, recognizing Carter’s voice. “Thanks for clearing our tail.”

“No problem. We got you on the FLIR, and you’re trailing smoke from your number one. What’s your situation?”

“Lost number one, lost our primary hydraulics, lost part of our left flight controls, losing fuel out the left wing,” Cobb replied. “We’re going to need a tanker in about thirty minutes.”

“If you’re still hooked up to the network, they’ll be alerted and someone will be waiting for you,” Carter reminded him. The Dreamland aircraft that could receive and transmit NIRTSat data were constantly being monitored by the Air Battle Force officers back on Guam — the computers would automatically upload a status report to a NIRTSat as it passed overhead every fifteen minutes, and the satellite would relay the aircraft reports to General Stone on Guam. “We’ll stay with you — we’re out of air-to-surface stuff anyway.”

“What’s the status of the strike package?” McLanahan asked.

“We lost two BUFFs and one Black Knight going in, not counting you guys,” Carter said, “and that was before we dropped one damned weapon on the assault force invading Davao. The real fight should be starting… right about now.”