Joe Weber, R. J. Pineiro
Ashes of Victory
Also by Joe Weber
DEFCON One
Shadow Flight
Rules of Engagement
Targets of Opportunity
Honorable Enemies
Primary Target
Assured Response
Dancing with the Dragon
Also by R. J. Pineiro
Siege of Lightning
Ultimatum
Retribution
Exposure
Breakthrough
01-01-00
Y2K
Shutdown
Conspiracy.com
Firewall
Cyberterror
Havoc
SpyWare
The Eagle and the Cross
The Fall
Without Mercy*
Without Fear*
*with Colonel David Hunt
EPIGRAPH
We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the cost of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth.
PROLOGUE
Bastards. You bastards!
Lieutenant Deng Xiangsui of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force tightened his grip on the control column of his MiG-17F “Fresco” as he glared in disbelief at the distant aerial battle marring the clear skies beyond his cockpit’s windscreen.
The shoreline of mainland China rushed by ten thousand feet beneath the swept-wing interceptor, replaced by coastal waters as the newly minted pilot advanced the throttle fully forward with his left hand.
How can this be happening to—?
The kick of the new VK-1F engine’s afterburner slammed him into his seat as he gasped beneath his oxygen mask. Deng had practiced going into burner in a simulator but never in an actual MiG. Fuel simply cost too much.
Now, though, that expensive fuel flowed freely, injected into the exhaust nozzle by the revolutionary engine and doubling his rate of climb, rocketing the Fresco through eighteen thousand feet in thirty seconds.
Struggling to stay ahead of the nimble jet, Deng reduced throttle and eased the control column forward and to the right while pushing right rudder to roll. The MiG entered an inverted dive.
Gathering airspeed, he dropped over one of the several F-86 Sabres from Taiwan’s air force that were decimating the MiGs with a new type of air-to-air missile.
For years, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China had engaged in intermittent battle over the Taiwan Strait as China sought to prevent Taiwanese expansion to the island of Kinmen and the nearby Matsu archipelago. The United States had stepped in to assist the Taiwanese with weapons and personnel.
Chinese coastal radar stations had detected the ROC aircraft patrolling the waters near the international line and had dispatched a squadron of the PLAAF’s finest out of nearby Fuzhou Air Base to tail the Taiwanese fighters. But the Sabres had surprised the MiGs by suddenly engaging their weapons, killing nearly all of them in under five minutes. That had prompted a second wave of PLAAF fighters to enter the fray, only to find themselves facing the same fate. Deng, along with the rest of the rookies, formed the third and last wave until reinforcements could arrive from Zhangzhou and Wenzhou.
Deng frowned, recalling the parting words of his commander: “Hold the line at all cost. Protect the homeland.”
Unlike the rest of the pilots in his class, mostly sons of Beijing party officials, Deng was the son of a local fisherman who’d nurtured his son’s gift for math, science, and aviation. His father was a devout Taoist who had been shamed when his daughter — Deng’s older sister — ran away to Hong Kong and fell into a life of depravity. But he had risen above the dishonor and provided Deng with an education, encouraging him to study hard and push himself, even when facing overwhelming odds.
Every time you walk away from the trials of life because of the fear of failure, a part of you dies.
Although not a religious man like his father, Deng was nevertheless inspired by his wisdom and resilience, and he went on to become the pride of his fishing village south of Fuzhou, overshadowing the disgrace brought to his family by his sister.
And I’ll be damned if I allow any of these bastards near home.
Although the Mikoyan-Gurevich fighter had been designed as a “high-subsonic” jet, Deng’s Soviet instructors had shown him how to dash to just beyond the speed of sound during dives.
He used the technique to his advantage now, dropping from above like a hawk with the sun blazing behind him, making himself harder to spot. Working the throttle, control column, and rudder pedals, he closed in on an F-86 engaging one of the last surviving MiGs from the second wave. It belonged to Lieutenant Liko Jiechi, an upperclassman at the academy and one of his best friends.
Liko’s voice came over the radio, “I can’t shake him!”
Deng pressed on, listening to Liko on the squadron frequency as the older and more experienced pilot performed a series of turn reversals and flight path overshoots, known as flat scissors, trying to stay out of phase with the attacking Sabre.
“I’m on it, Liko!”
“Deng? Get him off of me!”
“Almost there!” he replied, working the angle, centering the F-86’s cockpit in the ASP-4N optical gunsight for just a few seconds, matching its weaving flight pattern. Activating the SRC-3 radar, he squeezed the trigger on the control column.
The MiG rumbled as a K-5 air-to-air missile fired from beneath his port wing and immediately tracked the radar beam that Deng struggled to keep focused on the Sabre.
Dashing to Mach 3, the Soviet-made missile closed the gap in two seconds. Its thirteen-kilogram high-explosive warhead detonated just forward of the F-86, shattering the canopy as the blast engulfed the cockpit, but not before a flash of light appeared beneath the Sabre’s starboard wing.
Missile!
As the Taiwanese jet fell from the skies in a blaze of flames and smoke, the missile — already locked on Liko’s MiG — gained as Liko engaged in evasive maneuvers in full burner. He rolled, then dove, briefly going supersonic, before pulling up and cutting left.
It’s tracking his hot exhaust, Deng thought, recalling his Soviet trainers a few months earlier warning the class about the “shoot-and-forget” heat-seeking technology of a new air-to-air weapon developed by the Americans.
He also remembered its strange name.
Sidewinder.
And that all meant Liko’s MiG was doomed. The MiG-17F lacked heat-seeking countermeasures.
“Eject, Liko! Get out of there!”
“Negative,” he replied. “I can shake it.”
Liko executed a series of barrel rolls, shifting the MiG laterally from its projected flight path onto a new path in an attempt to confuse the missile, but the Sidewinder remained locked on his exhaust while closing in at a staggering rate.
“Get out! Now, Liko!”