“You got them targeted?” the Jefferson TAO asked. “Oh, never mind. Symbology just coming up on the LINK,” she finished, as the NTDS symbol for a missile raced away from the Vincennes on course to intercept the Chinese cruise missiles. “Looks like a good firing solution. Just what do you think the range on those bastards is?”
“About two hundred miles shorter than China planned,” Vincennes replied. “Look, I hate to be rude, but don’t you have something else to do besides talk to me right now? I mean, it’s okay with me — my missiles are off the rails, and it’s just a matter of wait and see. But according to the LINK, you’ve got a hell of an air battle going on to your west.”
“Oh, that,” the TAO replied offhandedly. “Our part’s already over. The first Tomcats are back on deck as we speak.”
“So who’s in that fur ball off the coast?”
“Let’s just say that the Vietnamese government made some permanent choices about the future of their country,” she replied. “And it looks like China’s a little annoyed about it. We’re standing by in case they need a hand. But from what I can tell, they’re doing pretty damned well on their own.”
“Well, will you look at that?” the SH-60F pilot yelled over the ICS. Angel 101 was on SAR, hovering a discreet distance from the air battle to be immediately available for rescues. “Damned fighters, letting one sneak off like that!”
It wasn’t too often that the less glamorous elements of the carrier air wing got a good look at a bad guy. Especially a hurt one.
“Doing 270 knots,” his copilot said. “I make his closest point of approach less than one mile. And he’s headed for the carrier.”
“Let Homeplate know they got a kamikaze inbound. Give me a course to close him.”
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“You betcha!” the pilot said. “Those damned Penguin missiles have been hanging on our wings for too long. Let’s see if these suckers work as advertised.”
The carrier was only eight miles away, but it already loomed huge, blocking out most of the horizon. He felt his gut tighten and tried not to think about the next few minutes. It was his duty — his destiny, perhaps. If it meant that he must die, then so be it. The possibility of doing permanent damage to the carrier was too good to pass up.
Less than five minutes to live. He shut out the sounds of his backseater screaming. The man had figured out his plan a few minutes ago, and had been wailing ever since. Mein Low had taken the precaution of switching the ejection seat controls to front seat only. It would have been better for the backseater’s karma if he’d been able to face it bravely, but then the wheel of the universe moved in mysterious ways.
“Roger, Homeplate, you heard right. Tallyho on bogey. Taking with Penguin.” The pilot toggled the safety cover aside, took careful aim, and then let fly the Penguin missile tucked onto the underbelly of his helo.
“Fox-hell, Homeplate, what do I call these?” Fox one was a Phoenix, Fox two a Sparrow, and Fox three a Sidewinder. “This a Fox four?”
He watched the antiship missile close on the crippled Flanker. The first missed, but the second scored a solid hit on the windscreen. The remaining tattered fragments of Plexiglas shimmered in the air, along with remnants of the cockpit. Including, he assumed, the pilot.
“Ain’t Fox four,” he heard the carrier TAO reply, amid a few cheers in the background.
“Well, how do I report it?”
“Let’s just call it a first, and leave it at that. You’re credited with one kill, Angel One.”
“Dang!” The pilot high-fived his copilot. “That plane captain’s gonna love me! Bet he never thought he’d get to paint a kill on his helo!”
On the ground, the Chinese officer left in charge screamed in rage. “Cowards!” he swore, yanking his pistol from his belt. He reached for the first senior Vietnamese officer he could find, intending to execute him immediately.
As he brought his pistol up, he felt something punch him in the middle of his back. It was more than a punch, he thought, surprised at the sudden detachment that seemed to have descended on his mind. No ordinary blow could have thrown him across the room, bashing him into a GCI console. He noted that he was sprawled on the ground, partially underneath one console, and the fact did not seem surprising.
His brain, operating on what residual blood remained circulating in it through sheer momentum, finally made the connection between the hard blow, sudden mind-numbing pain, and the warm, gaping hole immediately below his rib cage. As his vision began to turn black at the edges, he tried to turn his head to see who had shot him. An impossible task, since every Vietnamese officer and soldier in the room had his weapon drawn and aimed at a Chinese soldier.
His last thought, as consciousness faded completely to reenter the great cycle of being, was that Mein Low and his F-10 had failed their final live-fire operational test.
Thirty minutes later, the remnants of the Vietnamese Flanker squadron landed at the airfield. While four of their aircraft were missing, not a single Chinese fighter clouded the skies above them.
Bien taxied to a stop near his hangar, went through the shutdown checklist, and finally climbed wearily out of the cockpit. When he’d first outlined the plan to Ngyugen, he hadn’t seriously believed that it could work. Foremost among his concerns was that the Americans would use the opportunity to follow the Chinese squadron back to the coast and annihilate the Vietnamese squadron.
Perhaps the politicians have some use after all, he mused, watching the ground crew take possession of his aircraft. And there may be some possibility that we can use this engagement to extract additional compromises from the Americans. After all, I doubt that the Chinese will be willing to continue providing us with technology and training.
As he trudged across the tarmac, he wondered what it might be like to fly the American Tomcat. After today, it looked like his odds of finding out might just have improved.
CHAPTER 28
Tombstone gazed at the officers assembled in the room. Cheers echoed up and down the passageway outside the normally quiet conference room as aircrews swaggered out of CVIC, debriefed and ready to expand upon their exploits in the air. Even the restrained and professional faces of the senior officers seated around the table wore looks of quiet jubilation.
First, the most important part,” Tombstone said. “We lost two aircraft, one Hornet and one Tomcat. SAR recovered all three aviators, and there were no serious injuries. A remarkable performance. I’ll be talking to each squadron later on, but you all pass my congratulations on immediately.”
And it’s the first combat action I’ve ever had to sit out, he thought, surveying the squadron COs sitting around the table. Not a one of them even thought to question that, just like it never occurred to me when I was flying — that someday I could do more on the ground than in the air. Again, the image of his uncle’s face came to him. The old bastard could have told him what a bitter-sweet feeling it would be.