It was a good plan of action, but the odds were turning against them.
As soon as the Megafortress climbed to establish the new clearance plane settings, a large S symbol appeared on Luger’s threat display, which immediately went from blue to yellow and then briefly to red. Luger activated the Megafortress’s trackbreakers, designed to “walk” a targettracking or height-finder radar away from a solid lock with the bomber, but not before the radar got a good two- or three-second track on the bomber. “Search radar, eleven o’clock, momentary height-finder lock- on — ah, shit, that’s why, they got a repeater radar off at one o’clock, up on a mountain peak,” Luger shouted. “I think they got us. Trackbreakers are active. They’ll keep the height-finder shut down, but we can expect company. ”
“Looks like we might have to attack a target of opportunity here,” McLanahan said. He quickly expanded his God’s-eye picture on his supercockpit display, then touched the icon for the Anqing fighter base. Anqing North was a small but active airfield that sat almost directly on a marshy tributary of the Chang Jiang River and right at the base of a 2,500-foot peak. The base had two medium-length runways, forming a T, and was laid out in typical fashion: the main base was located on the west, the housing area to the south, and the flight operations area to the northeast. McLanahan zoomed into the flight operations area of the base, which automatically called up recent NIRTSat photoradar satellite reconnaissance data from the EB-52’s downloaded satellite data memory banks.
Although the raw reconnaissance images did not identify each particular building, Patrick McLanahan knew enough about the layout of a military air base to identify what he needed to know: the mass aircraft parking area, where over fifty J-6, J-7, and J-8 fighters were parked and fueled in preparation for a mission, was concentrated in one spot, in front of a very large building in the north-central portion of the flight operations sector of the base; and the big building housed the fighter wing headquarters, flying squadron headquarters, and the wing command post and communication center. McLanahan immediately programmed one Striker missile for the center of the mass parking ramp, and one missile for the center of the headquarters building.
“Stand by for pylon Striker launch, crew,” he called out. He hit the voice-command switch: “Launch one pylon Striker missile on new target zulu.”
WARNING, STRIKER LAUNCH COMMIT ORDER.
“Commit Striker launch,” McLanahan repeated.
WARNING, STRIKER missile launch, the attack computer responded, and the Striker missile in the left-wing weapons pod ignited its first-stage rocket motor and blasted skyward. It unfolded its large fins seconds after launch, reaching 10,000 feet in just a few seconds. It glided efficiently for about fifteen miles, dropping down to about 6,000 feet, before firing its second-stage rocket motor and climbing back up to 15,000 feet, when it began its powered ballistic dive onto its target. “Second Striker pylon missile launch coming up, crew,” McLanahan said. “Pilot, give me a slight climb up to six thousand feet so we can get a good datalink signal.”
The first Striker missiles terminal guidance sensor activated just eleven seconds prior to impact, and McLanahan switched to low-light TV mode. It showed the lights of the city of Anqing to the south and the smaller blotches of light a few miles north. As the missile closed in, McLanahan could start to make out the air base itself — the missile was guiding in perfectly. He could then see sparkles of light around the base — antiaircraft artillery fire. The missile continued its deadly plunge. McLanahan s fingers nestled on the steering-control trackball, but he never had to touch it — because the Striker missile plowed directly on target, right in the middle of the parking ramp. He could barely make out the outlines of a half-dozen blunt-nosed jets and a fuel truck just seconds before the 2,000 pound high-explosive missile hit. McLanahan switched to the second Striker missile just as its terminal guidance sensor activated. Good, the second missile appeared to be going right on target.
“Baudits, close in, nine o'clock!” Luger shouted. At the same instant, a loud, fast-pitched deedledeedledeedle tone and a verbal “MISSILE LAUNCH! ” warning sounded in their headsets. “Break left!” A Chinese Sukhoi-27 fighter leading a flight of two J-8 fighters had used the information from Anqing’s brief search radar lock on the EB-52 Megafortress to guide themselves within range of its Infrared Search and Track sensor, so it could close within missile range without using its attack radar— only the Megafortress’s passive infrared threat warning system had seen them coming. The Chinese fighters launched their heat-seeking missiles at optimum range, less than four miles away.
Brad Elliott yanked the Megafortresss control stick hard left until the bomber rolled right into a full ninety-degree bank, then he pulled until he heard fibersteel screeching in protest. Luger was pumping decoys and flares out the right-side ejectors. Elliott ignored the stall warning horn, ignored Nancy Cheshire’s screams that they were going to stall, ignored the initial buffet, the point at which disturbed airflow over the wings starts pounding on the trailing edges of the wings.
The Megafortress could lose 300 knots of airspeed and be for all intents out of control — but Elliott knew, from over ten years’ experience in this creation of his, exactly what the point of no return was. It was the departure break, the point at which the turbulent airflow over the wing that was causing all the pounding and shaking suddenly starts to break free of the wing completely, and lift rapidly bleeds off. The Megafortress’s crew were crushed down into their ejection seats as Elliott pulled to tighten the turn, but seconds later they felt light in their seats as the bomber started to drop out from under them. The Megafortress would stop flying in less than two seconds — time to roll wings level. At that point, the Megafortress was turning at four Gs, sixty degrees per second, as fast as or even faster than the Chinese fighters could ever turn. The Megafortress flew out of the lethal cone of five PL-2 missiles…
… but not away from the sixth deadly missile. One of the six Pen Lung-2 missiles was fooled by the hot, noisy decoy gliders, missed by several dozen yards, and exploded as its fuzing timer battery ran out — but the fast-turning EB-52 flew right into the exploding missile’s lethal radius. Its shaped-charge high-explosive warhead blew a continuous rod of steel into the left rear side of the cockpit, decompressing the cabin and hitting Dave Luger with small pieces of shrapnel and fibersteel.
The cabin was already partially depressurized, but the sudden breach of the cabin seemed to have sucked the air out of every one of the crew members. But Dave Luger still found enough air in his lungs to scream aloud. “Shit!” he swore, holding his head with his left hand. A piece of shrapnel had ripped through the bulkhead and ricocheted off his instrument console before cutting painfully into his left thigh and left fore-arm and pinging off his helmet near his left temple. Luger looked down in surprise at the dark bloody gashes that had appeared as suddenly as a stroke of lightning. He felt no pain — yet. It was almost humorous for him to think that he had just been injured — again — flying a Megafortress mission. “Cripes, Muck,” he said to McLanahan, as his partner turned to him in horror. “I think I just got nailed again.”