Bai and his mates, now passing 3,000 feet, with their mouths dry with fear, leveled off and entered a bank of puffy cumulus clouds hovering over the Sulu Sea. Just under supersonic, the terrified pilots looked over their shoulders to see if the Americans were giving chase. Bai thought of the sleek, white streaks led by bright dots of flame against the blue sky, and the ugly, black plumes of fighters in their death throes. He saw two of the People’s fighters break up as they fell, and did not realize one of the others was an American. One lonely chute soon faded from view, and Bai hoped it was one of his heroic fellows. But there was no time to worry or mourn or even mark the position he went down; the four J-11s stayed below the bottoms of the cumulous to avoid visual detection from above and to serve as pathfinders for the bombers ten minutes behind.
Weed and the six remaining Super Hornets did mark the spot where John-Boy floated down to the sea, and recovering him was a priority. On the surface below them were eight white disturbances, each with a jagged black-brown smoke trail that marked the downed fighters’ final flight paths. After surmising that the threat was neutralized, Weed broke out the combat SAR checklist and assumed on-scene command.
Disjointed and tense communications increased the level of confusion for everyone, and Weed fought to compartmentalize his new task as the remaining strikers continued toward Heaven’s Shield and Stingray Reef. The E-2 controllers were trying to grasp what had happened by piecing together the fighters’ clipped and excited voice comms — and report back to Hancock—when the JSF alerted everyone that leakers had snuck past Weed’s divisions. Another large formation was approaching, with a third to the north, all headed southeast.
Weed, listening with purpose, now understood the picture around him. Fuck! he thought, knowing he, and Hanna, needed help.
CHAPTER 55
The four J-11s roared in toward a thin ridge of Jolo Island, part of a chain that separated the Sulu from Celebes Sea. Bai was in the middle of a wall formation with his wingman to his right and lead to his left. Each Flanker carried two YJ-91 “Eagle Strike” cruise missiles. The hope was that a KJ-500’s radar would provide them targeting info in order to launch their cruise missiles into the Celebes at the top of the ridge, and then pitch back to the Sulu Sea and escape west between Palawan and Malaysia. The island’s topography allowed them to get as close as they could before American surface radars would detect them.
With Jolo in his HUD, Bai was impatient. What is our target vector? he thought. Ahead were fishing vessels and off to the south was a large passenger ferry. The Chinese fighters now sped over the waves at 580 knots and 100 feet — as low as Bai dared — and it was all he could do to stay out of the water. If the radio call came in, he would elevate a bit to punch in the assigned courses for his missiles. With the green island — and the Celebes beyond it — looming larger in his windscreen, he reflected that his flight of four was as far to the east as the People’s Naval Air Force fighters had ever been.
With a minute till they would crest Jolo’s low rise, the flight lead came up on the radio. “Attack technique number two! Number two!”
Bai grunted, figuring as much. With no targeting info from the KJ-500—Was it even nearby? — Bai and the others had to launch their missiles on bearing lines, a “spread” of eight missiles to cover the Celebes in the hope of hitting a carrier or American surface ship. Bai’s assignment was 140–150, and once he and the others launched, the fire-and-forget computer guidance would fly the missiles on their assigned headings for 50 miles before opening and sorting the surface contacts in front of them by radar, EO, and IR signatures. Down low they could not assist the bombers, and, with their mates shot down, they had no support. Bai’s Flankers were on their own.
But they were not unseen. High to the northeast, Lookout 603 orbited. The E-2D had the four J-11s the whole time and vectored two Panther FA-18s to intercept. The Marines took the commit and accelerated, and, just as the Flankers eased their noses up over Jolo Island to fire, the Americans squeezed off four AMRAAMs on the linked contacts far below.
Bai noted the radar warning tone in his headset at his 11 o’clock. Not waiting, he centered the first missile, shot it, and then jinked right to shoot the next. Both came off with a lurch, and Bai didn’t wait around. His mates continued in as briefed—you idiots! — and Bai called warnings of the impending American missiles. He pulled into his wingman who got his missiles off in rapid succession, and Bai had him reverse right — over a heavily populated island settlement — and west. Over his shoulder he saw plumes from both of his missiles, and his mates continuing on course. You are going to die!
Bai’s lead and wingman lived long enough to get their four YJ-91s off. Now all eight cruise missiles were sweeping the Celebes for contacts on their assigned bearing lines, and behind them the bombers would do the same by firing missiles with ship-killing warheads. But two of the four AMRAAMs would find their marks; the two missiles fired by Captain “Scoop” Croenne guided on the lead J-11s who delayed, hitting each as they pulled hard in a last-ditch — and hopeless — attempt to escape. Both Flankers broke up under the high airspeed and g-force, and though the lead pilot got out, his chute was a streamer. Scoop’s simultaneous kills were unprecedented.
Scoop’s lead had employed on Bai’s flight, and Bai’s timely turn ensured the missiles could not catch him. The Marines had a tally on him though, and, with sonic booms rattling windows on Jolo, gave chase.
Bai’s warning receiver told him he was targeted again, and he communicated his status to his wingman in defensive spread as they again rocketed over the wave tops. Bai picked up the first Hornet, at his six-thirty, then the second. They were trying to run down his wingman, and Bai assessed the range as suitable for a radar missile. Why don’t they shoot, he thought, and, with his aircraft still accelerating to 1.3 Mach, he knew why. The Americans cannot catch us!
One Hornet fired a missile, and Bai watched it track his wingman. The missile seemed to slow and stabilize between the aircraft and Bai radioed, “Disregard! Continue!” His wingman did as ordered and also released flares. It was not gaining on his wingman as the missile motor stopped firing, and Bai knew they could outrun the slow FA-18s. Ahead was the passenger ferry, and Bai aimed his Flanker just ahead of the bow and eased down to 30 feet. Watching the geometry build, he flew in front of the ship at 730 knots and flashed his wing into it once he crossed the bow. If the Americans had fired at him, their missile could have guided on the gleaming white hull of the ferry.
The Hornets fell farther behind the two Flankers, two survivors of the twelve that had taken off from Blood Moon to destroy the American carrier. Bai did not know if his or any of the People’s missiles would find their mark. That was not his job. Trailing waves of PLA(AF) bombers and fighters had reached attack positions; the sacrifice of Bai’s mates provided them an opening.
The eight cruise missiles sped along their assigned tracks, not yet “awake,” but the Hawkeye controllers were tracking them.