Sky Masters

13

President Lloyd Emerson Taylor sat with hands folded under his chin, staring at a spot atop his desk. He was still wearing his brown leather Air Force-issue flight jacket over casual slacks and a red flannel shirt, the same things he had put on the day before. He had taken Marine Corps One to Camp David yesterday at six P.M., arriving just before sunset. After his arrival, he wordlessly kissed his wife, Jean, good-bye, then proceeded directly to the Emergency Conference Room, seated himself at that desk and, almost literally, had not moved since. Members of the National Security Council and key members of Congress had been filing in and out of the Emergency Conference Room all day — he all but ignored them.

Military communications technicians were manning phones and headsets nearby, but the President had only two phones on his desk: one direct to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, where General Curtis and Secretary of Defense Preston had been since the President had signed the executive order authorizing the mission against the Chinese; the other was direct to the White House Communications Center, where calls from overseas could be immediately transferred to him. There was also a series of reports transmitted to him via secure teletype from General Curtis — including some casualty reports. Those he dreaded most of all.

The news crushed him, especially the word that a B-2 had been lost. He resisted the urge to wad up the teletype paper instead laying it flat on top of the growing stack of urgent reports from Curtis, then returned to his stoic position at the desk. But the more he thought about the reports that had just come in, the more he realized it was the loss of the B-2 that bothered him the most. Yes, it was horrible that they’d lost six B-52 crew members, and the F-14 Tomcat aviators, and the sailors from the USS Ranger. But he’d always thought of the B-2 as… almost invincible. For the kind of money and research that had gone into those planes, they should have been. And yet, as he more than anyone knew, nothing was ever certain in life.

Nothing.

Paul Cesare had been keeping the President’s coffee mug filled and hot all this time, even though the President had only taken two or three sips in nearly twenty-four hours; now, he replaced the thick, white Navy galley mug of coffee with a mug of chicken soup. “Eat something, Mr. President,” Cesare said. “Get up and stretch…”

Taylor considered it, but the ringing of the White House phone glued him to the desk. Cesare picked it up, listened, then handed it right to the President. “Sir, it’s the Chinese Foreign Minister on the line from Beijing.”

Taylor would have loved to tell Zhou to piss off backwards, or tell him that, yes, we won’t bomb your ships anymore — hell, he wasn’t sure what he would tell Zhou. Instead, he motioned to Secretary of State Danahall to take the phone. They had already discussed in great detail exactly what was going to be said — now was the moment to start the drama…

The President turned to a separate no-voice phone to listen in while Danahall cleared his throat and said, “Secretary Danahall speaking.”

“Mr. Secretary, this is Zhou Ti Yanbing,” the Chinese Foreign Minister announced himself. “I thank you for taking my call, sir.”

“Do you have a message for us?”

“Yes, Mr. Secretary,” Zhou said. “Premier Cheung wishes to officially protest the unwarranted and brutal attack on the People’s Republic of China’s fleet in the southern Philippines. Premier Cheung demands to know if a state of war has been declared and whether Article Four of the Brussels Conference is hereby implemented.” Article Four dealt with the formal declaration of hostilities between nations, setting in motion all the legal and diplomatic formalities of war.

Taylor couldn’t believe it. He listened with a growing sense of fury and frustration. God, how he’d love to tell Zhou and Cheung to go to hell. Better yet, to bomb them back into the Stone Age. With that one nuclear explosion they had set off the most maddening and aggravating chain of events in his administration. And now the fuckers were demanding that the United States follow the letter of the law. The audacity…

He shook his head and took a deep breath. Even going on twenty-four hours without sleep, he knew, as much as he’d rather not, that rules had to be obeyed, protocol observed, words exchanged. He nodded for Secretary Danahall to continue…

Danahall took a deep breath and said calmly, “Please advise Premier Cheung that the government of the United States desires no direct communication with the government of the People’s Republic of China except to receive an offer of an immediate cease-fire and guaranteed promise to halt all military operations in the Philippines. Any official notification this government has with your government will be through the United Nations.”

“I understand the formal notification procedures, Mr. Secretary, and we will of course abide by them as well,” Zhou said in his polished, fluent English-Oriental accent. “My government has already delivered an official letter of protest to the Secretary General, and I trust Ambassador O’Day will contact you in short order. But any nation that embraces peace, freedom, and human rights would surely desire to begin negotiations to end all hostilities as soon as possible. You do not wish to fight a war, do you, Mr. Secretary? Will you simply make demands of us without opening any sort of dialogue?”

“We have no message or statements for your government, Mr. Foreign Secretary,” Danahall said resolutely, “except that we expect your guaranteed promise to withdraw all military forces from the Philippines immediately. Do you have a message for my government?”

There was a slight pause; then: “Mr. Secretary, please convey…”

And then the line went dead.

“You will not capitulate to the Americans!” Chinese High General Chin Po Zihong said as he grabbed the phone from the Foreign Minister’s hand. Several other members of Premier Cheung Yat Sing’s Cabinet shot to their feet in absolute shock. Premier Cheung himself remained impassive, his hands folded on his desk, watching the spectacle with a stone-cold, expressionless visage.

“How dare you disrupt a call to a foreign ministry like that!” Zhou shouted. “Explain yourself, Comrade General. You are violating a direct order from the Comrade Premier himself…”

“I am in charge of this military operation, Comrade Zhou,” General Chin said. “Any communications that involve it must go through myself. I have full authority—”

“You are out of line, General,” Zhou said angrily. “You were insane to begin this foolish military incursion, you were insane to place that criminal Admiral Yin in charge of an invasion force on Mindanao, and you are a fool to refuse to open a dialogue with the Americans.”

He turned and motioned to a stack of reports piled on a granite conference table nearby. “You have read these reports. Four destroyers have been sunk out there! Four destroyers! That is half of the destroyers assigned to Admiral Yin, and one-fourth of all the destroyers in the entire People’s Liberation Army Navy fleet! At first report, ten frigates and nearly thirty patrol boats were sunk or put out of commission as well. There is no report of casualties yet, but they must number in the thousands! This operation must be terminated immediately!”

“Impossible!” Chin shouted. “Out of the question. We are hours away from final victory, Zhou Ti Yanbing. The invasion has already begun, and the early indications are that there is no resistance…”

“No resistance? Four destroyers on the bottom of the Celebes Sea, and you say no resistance? You cannot hope to ever claim a victory in this debacle!”

“I was referring to rebel resistance in Davao,” General Chin said. “We expected heavy losses from the very beginning…”

“You told this government that we could expect twenty to thirty percent losses maximum throughout the duration of this conflict,” Zhou argued. “You did not say we would sustain thirty percent losses in three hours…!”

“The objective of the operation was to seize Samar International Airport and secure the island of Mindanao,” General Chin said. “This government authorized that operation — you authorized it as well, Comrade Zhou, with your affirmative vote. That objective is still within my reach. Loss figures have not been verified, and all my reports indicate that the objective can still be achieved in less than six hours. So far only the American Air Battle Force has been involved in this operation. They have sustained heavy losses as well, and even if they complete their raids we can still achieve total victory. Once Samar International Airport falls, not one single American aircraft will be able to approach within five hundred kilometers of the Philippines again…”

“It appears obvious to me, General, that even if you do take Samar International Airport, you have gained nothing,” Zhou said. “The losses we are experiencing are staggering. We must withdraw immediately or we will not have an army to land on Davao Airport when you finally take it — or should I add, if you take it.” Zhou turned to Premier Cheung, who had not said a word during the entire argument. “Comrade, I request, with all due respect, that General Chin’s operation be terminated and that we return—”

"You cannot do this,” General Chin shouted. “You cannot abandon a military operation simply because of unverified reports of heavy losses in the first few hours of a battle.” To Premier Cheung, he said, “Comrade Premier, we know the Americans cannot mount a follow-on attack with the Air Battle Force — Admiral Yin estimates they are using two-thirds of their strength on this raid alone and are sustaining heavy losses. This is nothing more than a warning — the Americans want us to know that they are serious about the status of the Philippines.

“But if we back out now, we have no claim to make for Palawan, Mindanao, or the Spratly Islands whatsoever. If we take Davao and secure Mindanao, we can negotiate for favorable terms. The Americans might even be forced to disengage if their losses are heavy enough and if both world and popular opinion turns against them, and then we begin our consolidation of the Philippines under Chinese stewardship.” He lowered his voice, stared the Premier straight in the eyes, and said, “I can guarantee you a victory, Comrade Premier. If I am stopped, I can guarantee you only embarrassment and defeat.”

After several long moments, the aged Cheung rose, assisted by two bodyguards. In a low, creaking voice, he said, “You can guarantee nothing, General Chin, but death and destruction. However, for your sake, I hope you can inflict more on the enemy than he does on us. I will require updates every thirty minutes.”

“Yes, Comrade Premier,” Chin said, bowing. “Be assured, we will see victory today.”

Cheung ignored Chin’s boasting. To his Foreign Minister, Cheung said, “Comrade Zhou, I will speak with you for a moment.” Chin was not invited in on the brief discussion. Cheung said a few words to Zhou, who bowed deeply and hurried off. Chin was left alone with his thoughts.

The Americans were doing incredible damage to his fleet in the south Philippines, Chin thought grimly. There was a very real possibility that he could lose this conflict — if the American bombers managed to sweep across to the landing ships, every last one of the Marines landing near Davao could be wiped out. He would be completely disgraced. He could not allow a defeat in Davao…

Zhou criticized him for putting Admiral Yin Po L’un in charge of the invasion, but suddenly a fearsome thought occurred to General Chin that Admiral Yin might provide a way out of this mess. The question was: was Admiral Yin really insane enough to do it?

He stepped quickly out of the Premier’s office suites and directly to the palace communications center to put through an urgent call to Admiral Yin on the destroyer Hong Lung. The answer to his question: yes, Yin was that crazy.

“General, we got the satellite picture back!” Jon Masters said.

Generals Stone, Elliott, Harbaugh, and the rest of the Joint Task Force staff crowded around the reactivated high-definition computer screen. It showed the entire Davao Gulf area in extraordinary detail, with IFF data blocks on every American aircraft, and computer-generated data blocks on the Chinese vessels.

“Great, Jon, just great,” Stone said. The staff studied the board for several moments. “We’re going to have to divide the screen up between the staff and prepare a summary of the Chinese ships that are still out there. We’ll have to make a decision about the second wave pretty soon.” After checking that the individual consoles were working out properly, Stone assigned each staff member a section of the Davao, Celebes Sea, and Philippine Sea areas to search for Chinese ships.

“Looks like the southern packages are coming off the target, the eastern packages are over the target, and the northern packages are two minutes out,” Calvin Jarrell summarized. “The southern group got hit pretty hard… the eastern group looks almost intact… God, the northern planes are taking a beating from that one ship right there near the airport.”

“It’ll take awhile to see which ships have been hit or not,” Masters said, “but several are showing zero velocity — we can probably assume those were struck. Luckily we’ve still got memorized satellite data, so we can retrace a ship’s movements along with our aircraft and determine whether or not someone hit it.”

Elliott called Stone over to his console after only a few minutes. “I think you better see this, Rat Killer,” he said. There were two large vessels and three smaller escort vessels in a small group, farther west than the main battle group. “Obviously reinforcements,” Elliott said. “But the ISAR radar report that Cobb and McLanahan got for us said something about this group…”

As Stone watched, Elliott zoomed in on the group of five vessels, zoomed in on the largest one in the group, then switched to an ISAR view of the ship. Using ISAR, or inverse synthetic aperture radar, mode, the motion of the ship itself as well as the motion of the satellite created a very high-definition three-dimensional view of the vessel, which when run through a computer’s stored catalog of ships could yield the identity of the ship itself…

And when they found out, Stone muttered a curse to himself. "Hong Lung,” he said. “They’re sailing Hong Lung itself back into battle…”

“General Stone,” one of the battle staff communications officers said. “Sir… the base operator received an urgent phone call — from the embassy in Manila.” The officers turned to face the communications officer — they could tell from the man’s voice that something was happening.

“What is it?”

“Sir… the embassy got a call from an officer who identified himself as a member of the Fleet Admiral’s Staff of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy South Philippines Task Force. He advises us that Admiral Yin Po L’un, the Fleet Admiral, has ordered that the city of Davao be attacked and destroyed with nuclear weapons if the American bombers do not withdraw immediately.”

“What?” Everyone in the command post was on their feet.

“That was the ship… the guy… that launched the antiship nuclear missile… wasn’t it?” Masters asked Stone. No one replied, but the answer was clear.

“It’s a bluff,” Cal Jarrel said resolutely.

“The message origin was verified, sir,” the communications officer reported. “Came directly from the Premier’s offices themselves through military channels. The State Department is notifying the White House now.”

“Back up that call with one of our own,” Stone ordered. “Get the President on the line for me immediately.”

“Can he do it?” Elliott asked. “Can his missiles attack ground targets?”

“Easily, and with pretty good precision,” Stone replied. “The Fei Lung-9 has a range of almost two hundred kilometers — that’s over a hundred nautical miles. It was originally a mobile land-based missile, modified for shipboard use.”

“You can’t take this seriously,” Jarrel protested. “We were expecting something like this. The next call that comes in will say that the Chinese will launch a sea-launched ballistic missile on Guam or Hong Kong or Okinawa if we don’t withdraw.” But faces were still grave — they were taking the threat very seriously. Jarrel said, “There’s nothing we can do anyway — the planes are over their targets now. In three minutes the B-1s will go over the target.”

“We can withdraw them,” Harbaugh said.

“That’s crazy, Tom…”

“Look at the board, Cal,” Harbaugh said. “Your boys have done enough damage already. What’s the big deal if we abort the northern strike group?”

“The big deal is, the Chinese Marines will make it on the beach,” Jarrel argued. “We would have used all the other bombers for nothing… we will have lost all those other crews for nothing.”

“We can’t take the chance that he’ll do it,” Harbaugh said.

“He’ll wipe out a bunch of his own guys, won’t he?” Masters asked.

“If they’re already wiped out by the Air Battle Force, he might not care.” <

“Order a strike by the Tomahawk cruise missiles again,” Elliott said. “What’s the range from the Wisconsin group to the Hong Lung?” But the measurement was quickly made and verified — it was over six hundred miles. The Tomahawk cruise missile crews would need at least thirty minutes to program a new strike, and then the missiles would take at least an hour to fly that distance.

“We can order one of the bombers to attack the Hong Lung,” Harbaugh said. “They can withhold a couple weapons, head south, and attack. We can use a couple of the B-1s in the northern strike group — they only have mines and fuel-air explosives left by now, but that should do the job.” He pointed at the high-definition monitor. “Hong Lung will need to move farther north, right to the mouth of Davao Gulf, before firing. That means we have about twenty minutes to get someone in position…”

“There isn’t time to send retargeting data to the B-1s, Tom,” Jarrel said. “We’ve got two orders we can give the bombers now — attack or withhold. If we order two planes to withhold, they abort right in the middle of all that air defense.. They have to traverse a hundred and twenty miles of stiff defenses, find the right ship, and attack. It’s crazy. I say send the B-1s in and finish the job. This is an obvious bluff, and we’re falling for it…

“But if it’s not a bluff…

“I have a suggestion, sir,” Masters said. “I think I have a way we can strike that Chinese destroyer in time.”

And Jon Masters began to outline his plan to his audience…

The frigate Xiamen had been hit by no less than six Harpoon missiles and was burning as fiercely as a volcano in the mouth of Davao Gulf — its patrol boat escorts could not get within five kilometers of it because of burning fuel oil on the water, the intense heat, and the occasional explosions in her weapon magazines. Three of Xiamen's six patrol boat escorts had been hit by Harpoon missiles, which left Davao Gulf wide open for the strike package to enter. Two B-52s took heavy-caliber gunfire hits from patrol boats and were forced to jettison their ordnance armed before penetrating into the target area, and one was shot down as it withdrew from the area; all of the crewmen safely ejected and were taken prisoner.

The destroyer Yinchuan, which had few antiair weapons in its arsenal, was the next to fall. Ten B-52s from the three southern strike packages descended on it and her escorts, filling the air with forty Harpoon missiles designated just for one vessel. Most of the missiles struck other vessels or were intercepted by Yinchuan's escorts, but ten Harpoon missiles found the heavy destroyer. It sank in less than twenty minutes.

The destroyer Dalian, which was equipped with the Hong Qian-91 surface-to-air missile system, and its antiair-equipped escorts wreaked havoc on the six B-52s that were fragged to attack it. Two B-52s sustained heavy damage and were forced to withdraw; one crashed over land to the east of Bangoy Bay, while the other was attacked by fighters and destroyed as it tried to escape the target area. But Dalian had expended most of its weapons defending the amphibious assault force against Tomahawk cruise missiles, and it soon found that it could not defend itself against an onslaught of twelve Harpoon antiship missiles launched against it. Battered and listing to starboard, the destroyer’s captain finally decided to beach his vessel near Matiao rather than have it sink in Bangoy Bay.

The vertical-plot greaseboard in the flag bridge of the destroyer Hong Lung was physically painful to look at. Destroyed vessels were in red, damaged and out-of-commission vessels were in black, damaged but operational vessels were in green-and-black stripes, and fully operational vessels were in green — and there were damned few of those. Fortunately, most of the green vessels were amphibious assault ships — the attackers still had not reached the Marines on the beach.

“Flag, bridge, we have visual sighting on destroyer Xiamen, "the skipper of the Hong Lung radioed to Admiral Yin. “He is signaling a request for assistance. Shall we come alongside?”

Captain Sun looked at Yin, who silently shook his head. Sun considered asking the Admiral to reconsider, thought better of it, then radioed, “Bridge from flag. Tactical recovery only, longboats and stage-three damage-control parties. Maintain course and speed to establish patrol position. Flag out.” Sun shut off. the intercom before the captain could argue as well.

“Dalian reports he is safely aground, sir,” a radioman reported. “Captain Yeng reports he can repair his fire-control system, estimated time to completion, thirty minutes.” Another silent nod from Yin.

“Tell Captain Yeng to continue antiair coverage with electro-optical and visual means until his radar fire-control system is repaired,” Sun said. “Add that the Admiral commends him for saving his vessel and for his confirmed kills, but that he is still the primary antiair warship for the invasion force.” Captain Sun stepped over to the vertical plot, studied it for a moment, then said, “We should have the transports evade north into Bangoy Bay — it will hide them better from any bombers that are still in the area. When the all-clear sounds, they can travel at flank speed south with their escorts to recover.”

“What escorts?” Yin muttered. “What escorts are left?”

“You see, sir, we have at least six patrol boats… and the Hong Lung group will be in position to cover their withdrawal, of course. Once past us, our air coverage will protect them until they dock at Zamboanga to load reinforcements.”

“Six… patrol… boats..Yin said in a low, wavering voice. “Six… I began this operation with eight destroyers, twenty frigates, and nearly sixty patrol boats. There are no capital ships left that can escort the amphibious assault ships back to port? None?”

“Sir, most of our frigates and patrol boats are still operational and still on patrol in the Philippine Sea,” Sun said. “We have recalled a few of them, along with the destroyer Zhangzhou, to bolster our inner defenses.” Sun stepped toward Yin, straightened his back, and said, “Sir, you deployed your forces like a true master tactician. You fought a superb battle against the best the Americans could throw at us. Your objective, the Marine invasion and the occupation of Davao and Samar International Airport, is almost complete. You have won, sir. You have—”

“Sir! Enemy aircraft inbound from the northeast and east of Davao,” the radioman reported. The vertical plot technician began drawing in the aircraft reported inbound, and the number seemed to grow to alarming size every second.

The northeast aircraft were farther behind the eastern group, but were moving in rapidly. “What kind of aircraft are they?” Sun ordered. “The Admiral needs type of aircraft. Get it!”

“Aircraft in eastern group reported as B-52 aircraft only,” the radioman replied after several inquiries. “No identification yet on northeast aircraft.” But judging by the speed at which the vertical plot technician was updating their position, Sun could easily guess — B-52 bombers, followed by B-1 and F-111 bombers. The three southern groups were just the first wave — the second package, not as large as the first but even more powerful, were going after the Marines themselves.

“Issue an air-defense alert to all vessels and all forces; enemy bombers inbound from the east and northeast,” Sun ordered. “Have all forces take cover on the beach. Disperse landing craft and assault vessels as much as possible.”

Admiral Yin looked as if he had been deflated with a knife. He could only stare at the vertical plot, muttering something to himself that Sun could not hear. “Sir? Do you have further orders?” Sun asked. The Chinese Fleet Admiral could only mutter something unintelligible, stare at a slip of paper he had been given by the communications section, and stare at the board in absolute horror.

“Attention! Attention! Air-defense warning! Gunners man your batteries and stand by.”

Colonel of Marines Yang Yi Shuxin glanced nervously at the loudspeakers on the “island” superstructure above him, then at the turrets where the ship’s numerous 37-millimeter antiaircraft guns were mounted, but he quickly turned his attention back to the men on his landing craft. No one said a word, but Yang raised his voice easily above the amplified voice and said, “Be silent, all of you. The gunners have their job and you have yours. Stand by.”

Yang was leading a troop of forty heavily armed Chinese Marines in the invasion of Davao. They were aboard the air-cushion landing craft Dagu, a monstrous sixty-ton vessel that skimmed above the surface of the water on a cushion of air created by six gas-turbine-powered propellers on the bottom of the craft; two turboprop propellers above pushed the craft to over seventy kilometers per hour over land or sea. Dagu carried two small armored personnel carriers, each with 30-millimeter machine guns on board; the landing craft itself was armed with two 14.5-millimeter guns manned by four very young-looking soldiers. Unlike other landing craft, Dagu would take her Marines right up onto dry ground instead of into chest-deep water.

The amphibious landing ship they were on carried two such air-cushion landing craft, plus four conventional landing craft, along with twenty armored troop-carriers on the tank deck and thirty “deuce-and-a-half ’ utility trucks on the main deck, plus a total of four hundred Marines. Other amphibious assault tank-landing ships carried air-cushion landing craft, but they always called on Colonel Yang to lead any assault. Yang’s men would be the first Chinese soldiers to occupy Samar International Airport and lay siege to the city of Davao itself.

Other smaller Yuchai or Yunnan-class landing craft had gone ahead to try to draw fire, spot targets for the destroyer’s guns, or dismantle beach defenses. Dagu would lead the main Marine assault on the beach itself. After Yang’s Marines and APCs captured the beach, they would bring the amphibious assault ship into shallow water, deploy the pontoon bridge sections carried on the hull sides, and start rolling the trucks off the forward ramp. Once on the road, the trucks would rush forward and take Samar Airport — and victory.

The LST’s two big twin 76.2-millimeter guns began pounding away on the beach as the amphibious assault ship made a slight turn to bring both guns to bear. “Ready!” Yang shouted, and his men gave an animal-like growl in response. Dagu's helmsman started the engines, and the air-cushion vehicle’s four-meter-tall armor-covered skirt quickly inflated. A horn blared on the aft deck, the stern ramp lowered, and Dagu's helmsman gunned the twin turbojet propellers. The air-cushion craft leaped out into the darkness, hit the water, and sped toward the beach.

What Yang saw when they cleared the amphibious assault ship looked like something out of a child’s nightmare.

Ships were on fire everywhere. At least two other tank- and troop-landing ships were burning fiercely, with smoke billowing out of two more. Antiaircraft guns were sweeping the skies in seemingly random patterns. The water that Yang could see was littered with bodies, capsized landing craft, and debris. As he watched, another explosion ripped across the water, the shock wave strong enough to stagger him.

He had to remind himself that he could not show fear in front of his men, most of whom he knew were watching him. One of the toughest things for a Marine to do was step off a fast, safe landing craft and hit the beach, and for most of them only the sight of a brave leader would make them do it.

They had been dropped into the water over two kilometers offshore, but the air-cushion vehicle ate up the distance quickly — less than thirty seconds to go, and they would be on dry land. The helmsman was taking a zigzag course into shore — he was probably only dodging other destroyed landing craft or pools of burning fuel, but Yang always told his troops that they did that to confound the enemy gunners. Dagu's gunners opened fire several times on the beach, but Yang heard no mortars, bazookas, or heavy gunfire coming from there.

“No resistance from the beach!” he yelled to his men. The Marines around him growled happily in reply. “Drive and conquer! Split into threes, divide, and run for cover! Watch for engineers ahead of you.” Minesweeping engineers who had gone ahead of them had fluorescent orange tapes on their arms and backs to distinguish them from…

A huge explosion erupted behind them, lighting up the horizon so brightly that Yang could easily see the treeline. “Eyes front!” Yang shouted as his men ducked, then began to try to turn around in the close confines to see what had been hit. “Get ready!” Yang did not look either, although judging by the secondary explosions, their amphibious assault ship had been hit. He could faintly hear the roar of heavy jet planes overhead, and Dagu’s gunners even swung their puny machine guns futilely in the sky after the engine sounds. That did nothing but highlight their positions. “Guns front! Reload! Cover the landing!” Yang shouted. The gunners and their loaders were too scared to listen — they were either watching the destruction of their mother ship or scanning the dark skies above for enemy bombers. “APCs, start engines!” The heavy diesel engines on the armored personnel carriers roared to life, and gunners in the top turrets chambered rounds.

Seconds later, the air-cushion landing craft hit the shore, the turbojet engines surged to full power, the craft raced up onto the beach, and the forward part of the air-cushion skirt began to deflate for offloading. The gunners finally began to rake the treeline with gunfire. “Ready!” Yang shouted, and the adrenaline-pumped men growled once again. The forward lip of the air-cushion vehicle hit the ground and the ramp swung down. Yang leaped up onto the ramp, ran down it onto the beach, then waved at his men, pointing toward the treeline not thirty meters away. “Marines! Go! Go! G—”

His last word was drowned out by a massive cloud of fire and a head-pounding explosion — Yang felt as if all the air had been sucked out of his lungs and replaced by sheets of pure fire. Several Marines scampering down the ramp were blown off their feet and onto the beach as a shock wave larger than any Yang could ever recall rolled over them. His night vision was completely wiped out by a blinding burst of light, and his eardrums felt as if they had burst — no, his whole head felt as if it had burst…

Four F-111G fighter-bombers screamed into the area nearly at supersonic speed, right into the midst of the lines of landing craft trying to land their forces on the beaches south of Davao. They did not carry Harpoon missiles or bombs. Instead, each carried four 2,000-pound BLU-96 HADES FAE, or fuel-air explosives, canisters. Each HADES canister contained three hundred gallons of explosive fuel-oil, and the canisters were toss-released about a thousand feet over a group of eight landing craft. About eight hundred feet above the water, the canisters popped open, and the fuel oil began to disperse in large white clouds of vapor. Seconds later, when the vapor cloud was about five hundred feet above the landing craft and had expanded to one hundred feet in diameter, tiny sodium detonators in the vapor clouds fired off.

The resulting explosion was greater than the force of a twenty-thousand-pound high-explosive bomb, creating a mushroom cloud of fire that stretched across the water for nearly half a mile and a shock wave that churned the water into a boiling froth for two miles in all directions, deafening or knocking soldiers unconscious and setting the landing craft underneath the explosions immediately afire. Two of the HADES canisters sailed over the beach, amidst several platoons of Chinese Marine engineers, and the incredible force of the explosion was just as devastating on land.

The closest HADES canister went off three miles away, but to Yang and his Marines it felt as if they were in the middle of an erupting volcano. Yang found himself dazed but unhurt, flat on his stomach, his rifle thrown several meters away. He low-crawled to his rifle, picked it up, then rose cautiously to his knees. “Marines! Forward! APCs! Move out!” Thankfully, the first APC began to lumber off the air-cushion landing craft; the second showed no signs of moving. “Get those APCs off the landing craft! Move it! Move it!” Slowly, his men got to their feet, stumbling toward the APCs to take cover behind them as they got their senses back.

As Yang urged his men to get off the landing craft, he was able to scan out toward the straits toward his amphibious landing ship — and what he saw horrified him. The entire interior of the ship seemed to be on fire. Pieces of the pontoon bridges were hanging off the sides, all afire, and in the glare of the fires he could see men flinging themselves overboard into the burning-oil-covered gulf. A spectacular explosion sent a column of flames a hundred meters into the night sky as the fires finally found the twenty-five million decaliters of diesel fuel still in the LST’s storage tanks.

A few of his men stopped to look at the dying ship, and Yang grabbed them and shoved them forward. “Move it! Secure that treeline! Search that house! Move it…!”

The gunners aboard Dagu began firing into the sky again, and Yang could hear the sounds of fast and heavy jets getting closer. “Get off the landing craft!” he yelled. “Run toward the trees! Run!”

But it was too late.

Two minutes after the F-111s delivered their canisters of fire, the next strike package began its ingress from the northeast: four B-52s that had survived the battle with the destroyer Dalian continued their attacks with Harpoon missiles and CAPTOR mines; their escort EB-52C Megafortress had been shot down by a JS-7 fighter over Mindanao as it tried to turn away from the target area. The four B-52s claimed kills on two amphibious assault ships and seeded the straits with over a dozen CAPTOR mines that began to seek out and destroy the surviving vessels that tried to escape across the straits to Samal Island.

Then, sixty seconds after the last B-52 came off the target, the last and the heaviest-armed warplanes in the entire battle began their assault; six B-1B bombers swooped in from the north at treetop level. They were never detected until it was far, far too late.

Colonel Yang could see the bright globes of red and orange walk down the beach toward him, stitching a path of destruction fifty meters wide and hundreds of meters long. There was no place to run — the bomblets from the aerial-mine canisters covered the entire beach. He could only raise his rifle and fire at the hissing sound as the sleek American bomber, highlighted for a brief moment against the glare of the burning tank-landing ship, streaked overhead. Yang turned his back to the approaching chemical meat-grinder of bomblets and continued to fire at the bomber until he was cut down by the devastating explosions and clouds of shrapnel.

Never had Major Pete Fletcher, the B-1B’s OSO (Offensive Systems Officer), taken such an incredible array of weapons into battle before — in fact, never had he even heard of so many different kinds of weapons carried into battle. His B-1B Excalibur bomber, Blade Two-Five, had carried eight SLAM missiles on the external hardpoints — those had already been expended on the larger Chinese vessels in the Philippine Sea that survived the B-52s’ initial onslaught; eight Mk 65 QUICKSTRIKE mines in the aft bomb bay, which were shallow-water high-explosive antiship mines that were to be dropped in Dadaotan Straits and Bangoy Harbor itself; twenty-four GATOR mines in the middle bomb bay, which were to be released on the beach — each bomb would disperse hundreds of small softball-sized mines along a wide area that could destroy small vehicles or kill large numbers of troops who tried to move through the area after the raid; and finally they carried eight BLU-96 HADES FAE canisters in the forward bomb bay, which were designated against the landing craft and Marines ashore north of Samar International Airport.

All of the remaining weapons were to be dropped within a distance of only twenty miles, on three separate two-mile-long tracks — and while flying at treetop level at nearly six miles per minute, it left almost no time to think about procedures. He had taken a fix in between fighter attacks while going coast-in, and the navigation system was tight and ready to go. If he had time, Fletcher would try to take another radar fix going into the target area, but he doubted that would happen. The bombing computer would have to take care of everything.

“Coming up on initial point… ready, ready, now,” Fletcher called out. “Heading is good. Thirty seconds to release. Multiple GATOR release on heading one-eight-one, then right turn to heading two-one-six for a multiple QUICKSTRIKE mine release, then right turn to heading two-six-eight for a multiple HADES release. Stand by… fifteen seconds.”

The fires that were already burning in Dadaotan Straits and Bangoy Harbor were spectacular — there had to be at least a dozen large troopships burning, with spots of fires dotting the entire bay. “My God, it looks like the end of the fucking world,” the copilot muttered on interphone.

“Five seconds… stand by to turn…”

But the huge fires that made it so easy for the B-1 crew to see the target area also made it easy for the Chinese troops to see the incoming bomber. A row of tracers from a few of the surviving amphibious assault ships arced into the sky, the undulating lines of shells sweeping the sky in seemingly random patterns — and suddenly several of those lines swept across the nose of the B-1 bomber.

The impact of the 57-millimeter shells from one of the tank-landing ships felt like hammer blows from Thor himself. The cabin pressure immediately dumped, replaced a millisecond later with a thunderous roar of the windblast hammering in through the cockpit windows. Airspeed seemed to drop to zero, and the crew experienced a feeling of weightlessness as the B-1 started to drift and fall across the sky.

Fletcher reacted instantly. While struggling to keep himself upright in his seat as much as possible, he selected all remaining stores stations, opened the bomb doors, and hit the “Emergency Armed Release” button once again. “All weapons away! Weapons away!” he shouted. “Right turn to escape, Doug!” He called to the pilot, Captain Doug Wendt. “Right turn! Head west!”

All of the mines and BLU-96 canisters made a normal release — except one. One of the racks in the forward bomb bay was hit by gunfire, the rack jammed, then released, and the canister was flung against the aft bomb-bay bulkhead and detonated. Fire and debris from the bomb and the damaged bomb bay flew into the right engine intakes, shelling the starboard engines and causing another terrific explosion.

There was a sound like a raging waterfall filling the entire crew compartment, and smoke began to fill the cabin. The B-1 seemed to be hanging upside down, twisting left and right and fishtailing around the sky. “Doug? Answer up!” No reply. “George?” Again no reply. Without thinking of what he was doing, Fletcher pulled the parachute release mechanism on his ejection seat, which unclipped him from his seat but kept his parachute on his back. He dropped to the deck and began crawling on his hands and feet toward the clipboard.

“Pete!” Lieutenant Colonel Terry Rowenki, the DSO (Defensive Systems Operator), yelled behind him. “What the hell are you doing? Get back here!”

Fletcher ignored him. Flat on his stomach, he made his way through the howling windblast to the cockpit. Through the glare of flares outside, he could see that all of the windshields were blown in, and both Wendt and Lleck were slumped over in their seats, unconscious. The autopilot was not on, but the B-1 was light and trimmed enough to maintain wings-level even without hands on the control stick.

“Terry! Get out! Eject!” Fletcher screamed, but he could not be heard over the windblast. Crawling forward another few feet, he pulled himself up onto the center console, keeping as far below the murderous wind coming through the shattered windows as he could, reached across, and lifted the right-side ejection handle on Doug Wendt’s seat. The large red “Eject” light snapped on in every section of the cabin — it came on automatically whenever the pilot’s ejection handles were raised. Fighting the force of the wind hammering on his entire body, he reached up and hit the ejection trigger with his left hand.

The inertial reel thankfully yanked Doug Wendt’s body upright in his seat a fraction of a second before the overhead escape hatch blew off and the seat roared off into space. But the ejection seat’s rocket motor flared right in Fletcher’s face, and he screamed again as his vision was replaced by angry stars of pure pain. He was on the verge of unconsciousness, and only another explosion from somewhere inside the bomber brought him back to his senses. Struggling through the pain to regain his vision, he finally gave up trying to open his eyes, groped around for Lleck’s ejection handle, found it, and pulled. This time the white-hot fire from the motor seared his chest and stomach, and he slumped to the deck.

“Pete! Pete, dammit, wake up!”

Someone was calling his name… someone… Fletcher raised his head.

“Pete! This way! Crawl this way! Hurry!”

It was Terry Rowenki — the idiot hadn’t ejected yet. Fletcher’s head hit the deck with a dull thud. That was his problem, he thought blissfully as he drifted off toward unconsciousness — the man had a perfectly good ejection seat, now was the time to use it.

But sleep wouldn’t come. He soon felt someone pulling his legs. “Pete, dammit, crawl this way… you motherfucker, wake up, dammit, wake up…”

To humor him, Fletcher pushed against the center cockpit console toward the systems compartment. The odd pitch angles of the deck seemed to help him — the Excalibur’s nose was high in the air, as if they were in a steep climb — and Rowenki’s grasp was extraordinarily strong. He heard another loud sound, more windblast sounds the farther back he moved — until he realized that it was the big entry hatch. Rowenki had jettisoned the hatch and the entry ladder and was trying to pull Fletcher out!

Somehow Rowenki managed to get Fletcher pulled to the hatch and over onto his stomach, head toward the open hatch. “What the fuck did you think you were doing up there?” Rowenki yelled as he continued to wrestle with Fletcher’s ragdoll-like body. “Being a damned hero? You get me killed up here, Fletcher, and I’ll fucking haunt you for a hundred years.”

Attaching the emergency rescue rope to the D-ring on Fletcher’s parachute harness, Rowenki used his feet and shoved Fletcher headfirst out the entry hatch. The escape rope yanked taut, spinning Fletcher’s body around but pulling the ripcord D-ring and opening the parachute. One of Fletcher’s legs got tangled in the parachute risers, but it whipped free and the chute safely opened. Rowenki was right behind him, leaping out of the hatch as if he were going to do a cannonball from a high-diving board. He broke his left foot when it hit the aft edge of the hatch, but the pain only served to remind him to pull the D-ring as he sailed toward the lush tropical forests below.

The stricken B-1 continued to sail in a nose-high climbing right turn for several minutes, almost executing a full 180-degree turn, until it finally ran out of airspeed, stalled, and crashed to earth near the town of Cadeco. The last aircraft of the first raid of the Air Battle Force had completed its journey.

“Sir, report from a J-7 fighter over Samar International Airport,” the radioman announced.

Admiral Yin was on his feet. “Speak!” he shouted, loud enough to startle just about everyone in the room. “Is the airport taken?”

The radioman listened for a several moments, his face looking more ashen and disbelieving every second. He glanced at Yin, then at Sun, then back toward his equipment. “Well? Speak!”

“Sir… sir, the pilot reports numerous vessels afire in Dadaotan Straits and Bangoy Harbor,” the radioman said. “No contact from any ground units on any tactical channel. Several explosions… secondary explosions… indications of some troop movement on the ground, but none that will answer on any frequency.”

Admiral Yin was absolutely thunderstruck. “No… contact… no contact from any of my Marines?”

“Sir, it does not mean anything,” Captain Sun Ji Guoming said. “The Marines most assuredly went into deep cover when the American air strike came in. They must be safe.” But his words did nothing to assuage Yin’s feelings of utter despair and hopelessness. Eight thousand Marines… six thousand sailors… no contact with any of them…

“Status of the American bombers,” Captain Sun ordered. Action was the best therapy now — they had an invasion force to run. Just because contact was lost did not mean that the battle was lost. “Have they withdrawn?”

“Yes, sir,” the radioman reported. “All aircraft have disengaged. One B-1 destroyed during the last raid.”

“Very good,” Sun said. “Excellent. Sir, did you hear that report?”

Finally, an incredible sense of relief seemed to wash over every man on the Hong Lung's flag bridge, and especially over Admiral Yin Po L’un. They knew that the American Air Battle Force had sent most of their aircraft on this one raid, and that they had sustained rather heavy losses. There would not be another air raid for several days, if at all — still plenty of time to take Samar Airport and win this battle.

“Order that J-7 pilot to investigate at Samar International Airport,” Yin ordered. “See if any of our troops have managed to take the airfield. It is impossible for only a handful of bombers to completely stop thousands of Marines.”

Several minutes passed. Then: “Sir, message from Jian Four-Four. He has made contact with a Marine company commander, who wishes to relay a status report to you.”

“Excellent! I knew our forces were still on the move! Open the channel.”

After a few anxious moments, they heard, “Hong Lung, this is Tiger. Hong Lung, this is Tiger. How do you read?”

“It is Colonel Liyujiang,” Captain Sun said excitedly. “I recognize his voice. He is the commander of the northern assault force.”

Yin himself picked up the microphone. “We read you, Tiger. What is your location? What is your status?”

The voice seemed weary, but the man spoke in a clear voice. “Tiger reports from inside the northeast gate of Samar International Airport,” Liyujiang said.

“Inside the airport! We have made it!” one of the flag staffmembers shouted. “The Marines are going to capture the airport!”

“Status as follows…” There was a short pause, as if Liyujiang had to refer to a chart.

Then, to Yin’s horror, he heard a voice in English. “This is Colonel Renaldo Carigata, Admiral Yin, acting deputy commander, Commonwealth of Mindanao Defense Force. Colonel Liyujiang will not be giving any reports for quite some time, so allow me to proceed. Status as follows: General Samar’s forces still hold the airport and the city. My snipers are going out to greet what is left of your invasion force right now. Allah akbar. Good day, Admiral Yin.” And the line went dead.

Yin stepped back from the radioman, horrified. The members of his flag staff looked on in absolute shock. Captain Sun led the crushed Fleet Admiral back to his seat.

“Don’t worry, Admiral,” Captain Sun said. “Wait for the complete status report. Do not lose faith in your men. The air raids are over now — we can reassemble our forces and finish this battle. We can—”

“Sir!” the intercom from the Hong Lung's Combat Information Center blared out. “Missile warning! Patrol boat reports possible inbound Tomahawk cruise missiles from the southeast. Multiple inbounds, heading northwest… sir! Possible sighting of aircraft from patrol boat 403, two hundred and twenty kilometers east of our position… sir, first estimate of missiles inbound from the southeast number twenty… sir, do you copy…?”

Yin was numb. He had lost. The Americans had not only decimated his spearhead forces, but had quickly assembled another attack force and were pressing the engagement.

There was only one thing to do.

Slowly, the look of shock still frozen on his face, Yin withdrew a silver key on a chain about his neck. Every member of his flag staff shot to their feet in horror… it was the execution key for the Fei Lung-9 nuclear missiles. But despite their horror no one tried to stop Yin — they realized that it was his only option. Good or bad, Yin would ultimately win this battle and do what he set out to accomplish — destroy the city of Davao, crush the rebel opposition, and occupy Mindanao.

Yin inserted the key into the execution order box and pressed a button inside the recessed chamber. The alarm began to ring through the ship. No one on the flag staff moved. Crewmen scurried about, handing out protective gear and running to their Fei Lung-9 battle stations. Yin picked up the telephone.

“Battle Cry. Battle Cry,” the Admiral said. His face was ghostly, muffled, almost strangled — he could have had his protective facemask on, but he did not.

“Initial code verified,” the voice of the Fei Lung-9 weapon systems officer on the other end of the line asked. “Targets, sir?”

Yin paused, his eyes trying to fix on something in the darkness beyond the slanted windows of the flag bridge. He then said, “Davao.”

“Understood, sir. Execution automatic. Awaiting authentication code.” Yin seemed to be frozen. “Comrade Admiral? Authentication code?”

“Red… Moon…”

“Understood, sir. Authentication verified. Full connectivity checked… received. Execution in three minutes… mark. System automatic engaged, extreme range of system but coming within range, attack profile confidence is good. Countdown hold in two minutes. Combat out.”

The two-minutes-to-automatic-countdown hold passed very, very quickly. The phone to Yin’s panel rang and he raised it to his lips. “Final countdown hold, sir. Target now within range. Orders?”

“Orders… Dragon Sword. Dragon Sword,” Yin replied.

“Understood, sir. Final code verified.” The sixty-second-launch warning to all decks blared.…

And then there was another sound, except it was not a horn — it was a high-pitched scream, rising in intensity to almost painful proportions. Just as the scream became almost physically unbearable, the destroyer was rocked by a spectacular explosion that dimmed the lights throughout the ship and sent most of the flag staff sprawling.

Jon Masters had commanded the second NIRTSat reconnaissance satellite to deorbit while it was still thirty thousand miles away. The satellite had retracted its charge-coupled device scanners and sensitive radar antennae within its protective housing, then powerful thrusters began to slow the satellite at a precise moment. As the satellite slowed from its orbital speed of seventeen thousand miles per hour, it began to descend through the atmosphere. The thrusters kept the satellite’s protective tiles facing its direction of travel as it re-entered the atmosphere, burning off bits of the ablative armor as it careened through space like an asteroid.

But unlike an asteroid, the NIRTSat was still under control from a console on Guam. Once the satellite had safely decelerated, Masters ordered the on-board sensors activated. The satellite was right on course, right on the same track it had been following since its launch — right over the Celebes Sea near Davao Gulf. Masters had simply locked the synthetic aperture radar and infrared scanner on the fleet of five ships; then, as it got closer and closer, he positively identified the large destroyer and steered it directly onto the aft deck of the Hong Lung.

The satellite was of course not carrying a warhead, but falling at over five times the speed of sound, the destructive power of the titanium-armored four-hundred-pound satellite was akin to a large torpedo. The force of the impact drove the Hong Lung's stem down several meters; then the satellite crashed through the engine compartment belowdecks and literally pushed one of the diesel-turbine engines down ten feet through the keel. The engine compartment began to flood, and the ship had already begun to heavily list to one side and by the stern before enough watertight doors could be closed to contain the damage…

… and, most importantly, the impact and the momentary power interruption had automatically canceled the Fei Lung-9 launch.

Yin’s last attempt at revenge and victory had been stopped.

Captain Sun stepped over to Admiral Yin, bowed, and said, “Comrade Admiral, the flooding is nearly out of control. The frigate Jiujiang is alongside. Will you transfer your flag, sir?”

There was no reply.

Admiral Yin was staring blankly ahead, his thoughts a confused jumble of his past, the present — and the dismal future. Returning to China and facing the general staff would be devastating, utterly devastating. His honor would be ripped apart in full view of the entire world. His court-martial and execution would be public and brutal. He would be totally, utterly humiliated.

Yin turned to Captain Sun, and he saw that the man’s demeanor, far from being the attentive chief of staff, now appeared to be more like a second at a duel, making sure that Yin realized and fulfilled his obligation.

His obligation… to lead his forces into victory, or die.

Sun understood the humiliation that awaited the Admiral upon his return, and he silently reminded him that he need not subject himself to it.

Captain Sun and the Admiral’s flag staff watched with awe and, yes, a bit of admiration and respect, as Admiral Yin Po L’un stepped toward the small personal shrine installed in one corner of the Admiral’s flag bridge, knelt before it, withdrew his Type 54 7.62-millimeter sidearm from his holster, placed the muzzle to his right temple, and calmly blew his brains out across his flag bridge.