The Chinese jets were now forty-seven miles out and closing fast. “Call visual when you see them.”
“Copy that.”
“Let’s come up on the power.”
“Coming up on the power,” Amanda radioed back, as she eased the throttles forward to military power, sucking up fuel her bird didn’t have.
In the Carrier Air Traffic Control Center (CATCC), the air boss in PRIFLY, the control tower on an aircraft carrier, contacted the CAG, Capt. James Buchelle, who was on the bridge conferring with Capt. Peter Keegan, Vinson’s skipper. Within moments, the Alert Five aircraft were catapulted into the gloomy weather.
A minute later, Mullet Malloy rocketed behind Dover Kowalski in full burner, shooting past the speed of sound and settling at Mach 1.5, making a straight line to the rapidly deteriorating situation seventy miles away.
Ricardo keyed his radio. “Dragon Two, Master Arm on.”
“Copy, Master Arm on,” Amanda replied in a clipped voice. “They caught us with our pants down, Ricky.”
Barlow chimed in from the Hawkeye. “Twelve o’clock, out of twenty-eight,” he announced in a taut voice. “You should have a visual any second.”
Ricardo acknowledged the update with a double click on his mic button.
“Burners,” Lian ordered as they closed in on the American jets at twice the speed of sound. “Zhao, let’s pretend we’re at the air show,” she added. Major Ren had been among the aerobatic team members she had brought along to Fuzhou to help her train a new generation of fighter pilots in aerial dogfight techniques.
“I’m with you, Colonel,” he replied.
Pushing the throttles to the forward stops, Lian felt the burner kick as her speed shot up to Mach 2.6.
Let’s see how they handle a tight pass at full speed.
Ricardo blinked when two Russian-made Sukhoi Su-35S “Flanker-Es” emerged from the broken clouds and blasted straight between the Super Hornets.
“Tally!” Ricardo exclaimed as the Chinese jets flashed by in full burner, their twin sonic booms rattling his cockpit. “Whoa, close call!”
The sleek Su-35S variant flown by the PLA’s Air Force approached the capability of the US Air Force F-22 Raptor and could outperform many Western-designed fighter aircraft in close-in aerial combat.
And the list included the Super Hornet.
Cutting power and extending her air brakes, Lian slowed down enough to cut hard right, groaning under her oxygen mask as the g-forces piled up on her narrow shoulders. But the maneuver paid off as she placed her Su-35S directly behind one of the American fighters.
Ricardo snapped his head around. “They’re pulling into you!” he radioed to Amanda as he reefed his fighter into an aggressive move to position himself behind the Su-35S.
“Drag them into a tight port turn,” Ricardo added, sucking oxygen. “Make them pay for it!”
“Copy,” Amanda replied, breathing hard.
“What type of aircraft?” Barlow interjected.
Ricardo’s tight G suit applied immense pressure to his legs and abdomen to force blood to his head. “Flanker-Es,” he said.
“That’s their A team,” Barlow surmised. “They have their top guns up. Are they armed?”
Ricardo stared at the twin Sukhois’ underwing ordnance as they cut hard left behind Amanda’s jet. “That’s affirm. Four air-to-air missiles each.”
“Dragon, we have two more bandits approaching from your five o’clock climbing almost vertically!” Barlow reported.
“Where’s the Alert Five?” Ricardo grunted as he strained from the heavy g-forces and checking for the radar returns from the two new bandits.
“We’re twenty-five out in burner,” Cmdr. Kowalski broke in. “Hang in there, Dragons. We’ll even this out in a sec.”
“We’re in deep shit, Skipper,” Ricardo cautioned in a stressed voice. “We don’t have the fuel for this!”
“And one of them has a lock on me!” Amanda radioed.
“Break hard right!” Ricardo ordered in a tight voice.
Lian grinned under her mask. She had easily locked on to the American with the all-aspect IR seeker head of one of her Vympel R-73 air-to-air missiles.
This is too easy, she thought as her thrust-vectoring nozzles kept her nose precisely pointed at the twin tails of the American jet making a valiant but useless effort to shake her.
Glancing to her right, she spotted Ren holding formation as tight as during their air show days.
Groaning, Amanda snapped her Super Hornet into a punishing eight-G turn, her vision collapsing into a narrow tunnel as her G suit squeezed her, trying to help keep her from blacking out. But the Chinese fighters matched her move.
“Dammit! I’m still locked,” she shouted, and then reversed her turn, twisting and turning the F/A-18E in and out of the clouds, but could not shake the bandits.
“And I’m low on fuel!” she complained after another minute of useless evasive maneuvers. “Gotta get out of this fur ball!”
Lian was impressed with the American’s aerobatics, but she still matched every dive and climb, maintaining her missile lock.
A warning icon suddenly flashed in her glass cockpit, indicating that the Super Hornet now trailing her and Ren had a lock on her Su-35S.
“The American, Colonel! He has a lock on you!” Ren warned, his voice pitched with excitement.
“Let’s see if he has the balls,” she said, glancing at the húndàn—or bastard — locked on her and adding, “Bring it on.”
“Dragon One has a shot,” Ricardo reported as he eased his jet behind the pair of Sukhois. “Liberty Bell, do I have permission to fire?”
“Negative! Negative!” Kowalski commanded instead of Barlow. “Fire only if fired upon.”
“I’m sucking air!” Amanda shouted. “If I don’t disengage, I’m going to have to drop my new shiny bird in the drink.”
“Negative, Dragon flight, hit the tanker! Now!” Kowalski ordered.
“But I’m still locked, Skipper,” Amanda replied.
A moment later, Ricardo responded, “Don’t make any aggressive moves, Deedle, and we’ll rendezvous with the tanker.”
“Roger that,” she replied, and stopped trying to evade the Sukhois. Instead, she slowed down to conserve fuel and entered a shallow climb to meet up with the tanker, noticing the Chinese calmly remaining behind her.
“Bastards are just trying to piss us off,” she reported.
“Just another day in paradise,” Ricardo said, staying behind the bandits in what was now a surreal formation. Her Super Hornet in front, two Flanker-Es in a tight combat spread behind her, and her flight leader bringing in the rear.
What a bore, Lian thought, slowing the Sukhoi to remain a thousand feet behind the Super Hornet.
“What do we do now?” Ren asked.
“Now we let our colleagues play with the American radar turboprop,” she replied.
Barlow had his eyes on the radar screen of the E-2D and didn’t like what he saw. “Dragons, the two additional bandits are coming in from my five o’clock now, makin’ some high Mach.”