Jiujiu, I hope you’re right, she thought as she leveled off at eighteen thousand feet with her wingman glued to her starboard wingtip. I hope you’re right.
Amanda could feel a sudden surge of adrenaline and her pulse quickened. She felt hyperalert, and a pregame anxiety rose in her chest. She inhaled and exhaled a couple of times to relax herself. “Ricky, we have enough fuel for a short engagement, but we’re going to have to rely on the Alert Fives to bail us out.”
“Master Arm on,” Ricardo said with determination in his voice.
“Master Arm on,” Amanda replied, before adding, “These idiots are going to screw around until someone gets hurt.”
“Yup,” Ricardo replied.
“Deedle, I hold the second group twelve miles behind the first two.”
“That’s what I see,” Amanda replied.
“When the lead pair is at seven miles, let’s start a tight merge and see what they do.”
“Roger that,” Amanda replied, biting her lower lip under her mask before asking, “Do you think they’ll engage, go a few rounds with us?”
“Who the hell knows,” Ricardo admitted. “Bastards are totally unpredictable.”
“Man, I miss the Russians,” Amanda said.
“Yeah, at least those guys understood the risks. These characters are batshit crazy.”
Click-click.
Head onto the Su-35S jets, Amanda watched the rapid closure rate.
At seven miles, Ricardo keyed his radio. “Let’s merge,” he declared in a commanding voice. “Now!”
“Two!”
Both Super Hornets snapped into tight ninety-degree turns toward each other. To Amanda’s surprise, the two Flanker-E pilots eased their noses down and passed under the tightly clustered navy jets.
“They’re headed straight for the carrier!” Amanda said, swinging her head as they blurred by.
“Deedle, blowers now!” Ricardo ordered.
She slammed her throttles into afterburner, following her lead, pulling almost nine g’s, her jaws tight as she endured the mounting pressure.
“Copy,” Amanda groaned as the F/A-18Es crossed nose-to-nose at a combined closure rate of more than 1,200 miles per hour, forty feet apart, their four engines burning fuel at a tremendous rate.
“Dragons, you have the two additional Flankers now on your six with a full head of steam,” Barlow reported from the E-2D.
Amanda verified that the second set of Flankers had indeed closed the gap to less than seven miles.
“Get the Alert Five Rhinos on them,” Ricardo said. “We have a full plate at the moment!”
Mullet Malloy shot skyward after Dover Kowalski. On his radar, he could see the pair of Chinese Su-35S jets closing in on Vinson with the BARCAP F/A-18Es on their tails, and several miles behind them two more Flankers-Es closing in on them.
He grew more concerned about how this all would play out as he settled behind his flight leader’s right wingtip. Kowalski requested a private word on their current frequency with Vinson’s skipper and his own superior, Capt. James Buchelle, commander of Carrier Air Wing 2. As Kowalski’s wingman, Malloy had to remain on frequency and thus became privy to the conversation.
“Dover?” came the gruff voice of Capt. Peter Keegan. “I’m here with Jimmy. What do you need?”
“Gentlemen, we can’t let these guys near mother,” Kowalski started. “The Russians used to overfly us all the time, and we didn’t have any problems. But these aren’t the Russians. We can’t take the chance of having mother going up in smoke. Just one well-placed bomb and it’s game over.”
Static silence filled the air.
“Besides,” Kowalski pressed. “If we let them get away with this rope-a-dope shit, they’ll keep pushing the envelope until we don’t have any options.”
“How much time do we have?” asked Buchelle.
“About three minutes, sir,” Kowalski shot back.
“What’s your consensus?” Keegan asked, with obvious stress in his voice.
“Have the BARCAP splash the Flankers,” Kowalski said. “Now. Take them down.”
“Stand by,” Buchelle replied.
Malloy took a deep breath as he waited for the standard chain of command discussion. Keegan and Buchelle were now conferring with Rear Admiral Jack Swift, the commander of the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group, the highest-rank officer aboard. Within thirty seconds, their decision was passed onto the duty officer in CATCC, who immediately relayed the command to the Advanced Hawkeye’s combat information center officer.
“Dragon One, Liberty Bell,” Amanda heard Barlow say. “You have authority to splash the bandits! Repeat you have permission to shoot down the bandits!”
Amanda’s breath caught in her throat as Ricardo keyed his radio: “Copy, Liberty, taking them down.
“Deedle, you take the leader,” Ricardo instructed in a firm, steady voice. “I’ll take his wingman.”
“Roger that,” Amanda replied.
“Take the shot!” Ricardo ordered.
Amanda heard the missile lock on the AIM-120 AMRAAM mounted on her port-side rail and, squeezing the trigger on her control column, she said, “Fox three,” in a voice far calmer than how she felt.
A moment later, she watched the plume of the twelve-foot-long missile tracking its target, just as Ricardo fired one of his AMRAAMs.
Do your job, she thought as the supersonic missiles locked on to their individual targets, who suddenly realized they had been fired upon and began sharp right turns and dives while dispensing chaff. But given their proximity, the AMRAAMs’ active radar ignored the countermeasures and easily guided the missiles straight to their prey. A second apart, both Flanker-Es exploded in mushrooming black clouds, just as their pilots tried to eject, but the rapidly expanding fireballs engulfed their respective ejections seats. No chutes appeared.
“Missile! Missile! The Americans have fired missiles on us! Countermeasures released… ineffective. Ejecting! Now!”
Lian tightened her grip on the control column as Ren and his wingman vanished in twin fireballs.
You bastards!
Tears welling in her eyes, the PLAAF colonel pushed her dual throttles into burner while ordering her wingman back to base.
“But, Colonel,” her wingman began. “I’m not supposed to leave your—”
“Now! It’s an order! I’m doing this alone!”
“Liberty Bell,” Ricardo radioed as burning debris fell from the sky. “Splashed two Flanker-Es, two Flanker-Es down!”
“Copy, two bandits down,” Barlow confirmed. “Stand by for the two bandits at your six.”
“Roger that,” Ricardo said, feeling the adrenaline rush. “Dragon Two, in place starboard turn, now!”
“Two!” Amanda exclaimed as she began to experience task overload. She was just getting over shooting down the Sukhoi, and now she had two more on her tail.
Keep it together and stay focused, she thought.
“Where are those Alert Five Rhinos?” Ricardo asked.