Bai was wingman again, this time flying with a senior Shao Xiao he did not respect. Eight J-11s would launch out of Blood Moon and stay low, joining up in a running rendezvous at 500 feet as they transited east over open water. At 100 miles, they would charge southeast to begin their attack, with a KJ-500 early warning aircraft nearby in routine patrol to guide them in the end game. Four of the Flankers would target the ship with cruise missiles, and the other four — Bai’s division — would finish it off with heavy bombs set to explode deep inside the large hull. They would be in sight of the Malay coast and hoped a Hornet would appear so they could shoot it down.
Bai’s flight leader delayed on the taxiway behind the second section of missile shooters. “Hurry up!” Bai grumbled as he watched the first four jets recede to the east. When his leader finally took the runway, another minute and five miles had passed. When he did not initiate their take off roll when the clear take-off light signal from the control tower lamp was visible, Bai wanted to taxi ahead and take the lead himself. The leader looked over his shoulder at the impatient Bai who in a sharp gesture pointed at the tower, which prompted his flight lead to action. They came up on the power, the Shao Xiao looked at Bai—Yes, I’m ready! — and dropped his hand.
In unison both pilots pushed the throttles to afterburner, and the two jets jumped forward. They gained speed but slowly, weighed down with two big 900-kilogram bombs carried under their wings. Bai, in and out of burner to maintain position as they moved as one over the concrete, was incensed at his lead’s too-low takeoff power setting. At this rate they were going to use the whole 3,000 meters to get airborne! Neither one had ever carried such a load, and Bai resolved to push the throttles to the stops with 1,000 meters left.
As his decision point approached, Bai felt lift under his wings and saw the lead’s nose-wheel strut extend and leave the runway. Bai maintained position on his lead as they lifted off the sandy outpost of Blood Moon with heavy wings. They sucked up their gear and flaps and made an easy turn to the east.
Once clear of the island, Bai took a cruise position as the Shao leveled them at 500 feet. The lead division was nowhere in sight, and soon they were at 580 knots in an attempt to catch up, devouring their fuel the whole time. Over his shoulder, Bai picked up the last two jets at two miles, trailing dark exhausts as they struggled to keep up. As the two J-11s rocketed over serene blue water dotted by aqua-colored shoals and beige atolls, they continued to search for the lead division. Above, puffy clouds glided on the tropical breeze… a good day to kill.
After three minutes of watching his clueless flight lead search for their mates, Bai picked them up at their nine o’clock, about five miles. They were passing ahead of the lead division! Bai eased next to his lead, and, when he got his attention, pointed north. His impulsive leader saw the formation, and, with no warning, yanked his jet left to join, almost hitting Bai in the process. That sent what was left of Bai’s patience into orbit.
Settling into trail and keeping a wary eye on his lead, Bai checked his switches. After the antiship missile shooters disabled the giant ship, Bai and the other strikers would come in low level and drop their 900-kg bombs on the burning hulk, sending it and its Japanese-made merchandise to the bottom. Next time it would be an American Navy ship, and this “practice strike” would be a good training opportunity for all, especially his clumsy flight lead whom Bai hoped would just fly himself into the sea.
At the briefed coordinates, they checked southeast, and the lead formation accelerated ahead. The KJ-500 controllers radioed a heading to intercept — the fighters kept their radars silent to avoid detection.
After several minutes, the missile shooters, which were mere dots in the distance, disappeared as Bai and the others held their airspeed and heading. Two minutes later, Bai saw a faint light, then another with a thin, white plume. Antiship missiles were in the air and streaking toward an empty horizon.
More faint lights appeared, and the lead made a radio call. As Bai and the others energized their radars, Bai searched for airborne contacts. His pie-wedge scope remained clear.
After another minute, Bai made out the low silhouette of a large ship heading southwest. They were coming in on the ship’s starboard beam, just as they had planned, and the ship was where it had been predicted to be in the brief almost four hours earlier.
A light appeared on it, and the silhouette appeared to grow an appendage from the back half — smoke. The first cruise missile had found its mark.
Another light appeared, and then another, generating more smoke as the ship continued ahead. Drawing close, Bai saw the containership had a blue hull, with heavy, black smoke pouring from the superstructure.
The antiship missiles were fired on a visual line of bearing. Unseen by Bai and his formation, OSL Courage was among other surface traffic in the vicinity. At the close launch range, the missile’s radar locked OSL Courage at once, and the IR sensor in the missile’s nose evaluated the ship for its on-board computer. The computer rejected the adjacent gas carriers, bulk merchants, and fishermen for the giant containership. However, it delayed assigning positive target ID because the hundreds of stacked containers piled high on deck gave the signature outline an irregular shape not familiar to the computer memory bank. Seconds later the hull length and outline were matched, as was the superstructure location. With these two variables in priority, the computer rejected the deck edge anomaly and verified that this target indeed was OSL Courage. The missiles armed themselves and accelerated ahead, jinking hard left and up in an effort to throw off defenses OSL Courage did not have. The missiles then reversed back and crashed into the vessel’s thin hull at Mach 2.
Three of the four missiles found their mark, gouging deep troughs into the ship, and their sledge hammer force threw many of the containers into the sea. Watchstanders were thrown off their feet by the force, and two were killed in the engineering spaces by jets of scalding water from a burst pipe. The 14-man crew knew by instinct that abandoning ship was their only option, and all scrambled for the weather decks and the lone lifeboat.
When Bai and the others came upon OSL Courage, the containership was dead in the water and smoking, especially from the stern. His lead accelerated them ahead as the two trailers took separation. The ship was listing to port, showing the turn of her bilge to Bai and the others coming from the northwest. Ignoring his lead, Bai got down on the water, just above the waves, and pushed the throttles up. As the blue ship loomed closer, Bai saw that other vessels in the vicinity were not coming to help, but steaming away as fast as they could. Bai checked his switches as he bored in on the wounded containership, and, at two miles, he saw the orange lifeboat at the base of the superstructure amidships. He crossed under the Shao Xiao, who was at 500 feet above him, and targeted the hull under the lifeboat. At his near supersonic speed, the computer-generated weapon solution on his HUD was flying across the waves, and Bai made his plan. Seconds before he got to the ship, he would ramp up, allowing the solution to project well in front of him. Bai would hurl his bombs at the enemy vessel and fly over the burning hulk just before his bombs entered the hull.