There was nothing Turk could do to help the first Chinese fighter; his plane was already fried so badly, the pilot barely ejected before it blew to bits.
But in the seeds of that victory lay the enemy UAVs’ demise. They flew over the destroyed J-15’s path, banking south as a group while computing which target to hit next and how. Their course took them nearly perpendicular to Turk, and far below. He tipped his nose forward, turned slightly, and even before the rail gun was ready to fire he had locked up the lead UAV.
The Sabre rocked as three slugs sped from its nose. The UAV was a small target, but that just meant there wasn’t much left for the third bullet to hit. The first shattered the main section of the aircraft, destroying the “brain” as well as blowing a hole through the main fuel tank; the second slug blew through the engine. All the third could find was a large piece of shattered wing engulfed in flames.
Gently pressuring the stick at the right side of his seat, Turk put the Tigershark on the tail of the UAV at the end of the pack. The aircraft was starting a turn to the north; Turk rode with it, staying just to the outside as he waited for the small plane to swing back in reaction to his presence. It did so, then twisted sharply, spinning its wings and heading toward the waves.
It looked for all the world as if the plane had malfunctioned into a weird spin and was out of the game. But it was just a trick — one Turk had seen on the range many times. He followed, waiting for the UAV’s wings to flatten out. As soon as they stopped rotating, he fired a burst that caught it back to front, splitting it in two.
While Turk was busy following the UAV through its phony spin, the Chinese J-15s made the mistake of trying to tangle with the other two. As Turk looked skyward, he realized that the Chinese had managed to catch one of the UAVs in a sandwich between them.
“Break off, break off,” Turk warned. “Let me get them.”
There was no response from the Chinese fighters, and no indication that they had even heard him. The lead Chinese fighter accelerated upward, trying to swing the trailing UAV into a scissors maneuver where his wingman could fire heat seekers from behind. He was doing a reasonable job of jinking out of the UAV’s sights, but he hadn’t accounted for the other UAV, which suddenly attacked him from the side.
The J-15’s wingman fired a pair of heat-seeking missiles, but they went off course, apparently fooled by decoy flares the lead Chinese plane launched as he tried to escape. He turned hard west, only to have his right wing fly off — sheered clean by the UAV’s laser weapon.
The second flight of Chinese aircraft to the west turned in their direction, riding to the aid of their comrades. Inexplicably, two of the aircraft fired medium-range missiles — crazily, Turk thought, since they couldn’t possibly have locked on the targets.
If the missiles were intended to get the UAVs’ attention and break their attack, it didn’t work. The pair climbed east, preparing to circle back. By now it was clear the UAVs were following an order to attack the Chinese planes; they were closer to Turk’s Tigershark but ignored it, even though his active radar was now telling them where he was.
“All Chinese aircraft, break east,” radioed Turk, trying to get them to move toward him and make it easier to get the UAVs. When they didn’t respond, he gave them a heading and told them he would cut between them and the two surviving UAVs. But both J-15s near him continued south, toward the ships, as if they were intending to attack.
“The UAVs are your enemy,” he told them. “Not the people on the ships.”
They either didn’t hear or didn’t care, instead activating their attack radars to try to launch missiles on the large cargo carrier.
Cowboy saw the two Chinese J-15s lining up for shots on the big ship.
“I have Bandit Two,” he told Greenstreet.
“Roger that, Basher Two. Firing Fox Three.”
The F-35s launched their AMRAAMs toward the Chinese planes. At roughly the same moment, the air-to-surface missiles the J-20s were carrying dropped from their wings, heading for the cargo vessel. It was a sitting duck.
Suddenly, something exploded a mile and a half from the ship, directly in the path of the missiles. One of the missiles, which had started to arc for a final attack, abruptly dove and exploded. The other veered sharply, then wobbled back toward its course.
Turk had managed to get his aircraft between the missiles and the ship, and deked one of them into exploding with a shower of chaff. But the other was still moving toward the vessel.
Turk saw the second missile move into his pipper and squeezed the trigger without a solid lock. He got off three shots, but only the first was on target, and even that barely hit, blowing a hole through the rear propulsion area of the missile. The warhead had enough momentum to continue into the cargo ship, striking it near the bow.
Time moved in slow motion. His maneuvers had taken him below 5,000 feet; his forward airspeed had dropped below 250 knots. Both the UAVs and the Chinese fighters were somewhere above and behind him.
In other words, he was dead meat.
“Come on,” he told the Tigershark, leaning on the throttle and ignoring the warnings that he was being targeted. “Go! Go! Go!”
Cowboy’s thumb was just about to press the cannon trigger to nail the J-15 on Turk’s tail when he realized that one of the UAVs was going to beat him to it. The Chinese pilot had been so intent on getting Turk that he’d ignored the slippery UAV behind him.
A nudge left, and Cowboy had the UAV in his crosshairs.
He fired a half second after the UAV’s laser burned a hole in the J-15’s tail.
The resulting cartwheel of explosions warmed Cowboy’s heart.
“Yee-haw!” he shouted over the radio. “Scratch one UAV!”
“Let’s stay focused,” scolded Greenstreet. “There’s a lot of work to do.”
23
Braxton led Wen-lo out of the command room and back into the bunker’s hallway.
“We have only a few minutes,” he said. “Once the UAVs reach the ships, we need to be back to control them.”
Wen-lo said nothing. The two guards who’d been standing in the hall stepped into line behind them, their automatic weapons clutched against their chests.
Braxton felt his heartbeat rising. Adrenaline was surging through his body so badly that his eardrums felt as if they were going to explode.
Was that possible? He certainly felt something. It was almost a high.
He’d felt this way when the deal to purchase his company was about to go through.
And years before that, working late with Jennifer Gleason. He’d tried to tell her that night how he felt about her, but he was too tongue-tied, too shy, and the moment and opportunity passed.
He’d always thought there’d be another chance. But things had changed too rapidly after that.
A lesson.
He walked to the end of the corridor, but instead of going to the main entrance, turned and opened a door at the side. There was another door just inside the tiny corridor.
“Where are you taking us?” demanded Wen-lo, grabbing his shoulder to stop him before he could open the second.
“To the launching area. Your men should be waiting.”
“No, I’ve changed my mind,” said Wen-lo. “You’re coming back to the boat.”
“You’re reneging on our deal?” Braxton felt his face flush.
“What deal?” asked Wen-lo, drawing his pistol.
“Just relax,” said Braxton. He raised his hands slowly, then glanced at Wen-lo’s goons, who’d raised the barrels of their guns. “You need my help. I’m very valuable.”