If the Y-8 sensed it was under pursuit, it did not seem to be alarmed and continued steady on a heading of west, hundreds of miles from Luzon.
Cutting the corner, Wilson and the others came up on the enemy’s right quarter. When his AIM-9 locked on one of the aircraft’s right engines, Wilson had a screaming missile tone in his headset. They see me, Wilson thought when the aircraft then nosed down into a canyon of cloud. He continued as the range counted down, working behind his quarry so he’d be clear of clouds for the shot.
Wilson checked into Mullet and held his course, letting aspect build. The Y-8 continued into the canyon, then reversed back. The Chinese aircraft was flying into a clearing as it passed 7,000 feet in a shallow dive. Now.
“Fox Two!” Wilson called as his missile came off with the familiar bottle-rocket whoosh. Its tight corkscrew flight path homed in on the right outboard engine and exploded. The resultant fire produced a trail of heavy, black smoke from the exhaust, and the Y-8 entered a steeper dive. As Wilson pulled off left, it was still under control.
“Mullet, take it!” Wilson radioed, pulling hard left to clear himself from Mullet’s field of view.
Within seconds, Mullet’s AMRAAM came off with a huge, white smoke trail and accelerated into the vertical tail of the stricken Y-8. The aircraft began a slow roll that picked up speed, and it was soon inverted and nosing down fast. With a flash, one wing came off, then the other, and the Y-8 fuselage became a plunging, flaming spike as the wings fluttered down to the blue Pacific. The crew had no chance to escape.
“Nice job, Mullet! Lookout, Snipers have splashed all three bandits, RTB,” Wilson called. As Lookout gave him vectors for home, he saw Mullet continue ahead in a shallow dive. When Mullet did not follow, Wilson called him on the aux radio.
“Mullet. Mullet! You up?”
Mullet’s Rhino continued ahead, and soon entered an easy left bank. Passing 90 degrees, Wilson saw the canopy come off—no! — followed by the ejection seat that blasted Mullet out of his jet.
Mullet!
Wilson took charge, once again hitting MARK on his navigation display.
“Olive, hold high, max conserve… break, break… Lookout, Sniper one-two just ejected at present posit. Good chute, about a mile from where the bandit went in. He’s floating through about angels four now. Sniper one-one is on-scene commander. Get a tanker out here.”
Wilson and his remaining wingmen were all low-state and hundreds of miles from Hancock, which meant the rescue helicopter was hours away. Maybe there was a nearby combatant with a helo that could pick Mullet up. At least the weather was clear.
What happened to Mullet?
Wilson slowed below 250 as he overbanked toward Mullet, who was now descending under a green and orange parachute canopy. He saw Mullet hanging in the straps, and, at a football field’s distance, they waved at each other as Wilson zoomed past. Good.
“Flip, Olive, we’ve got a skunk three miles southeast!”
As Wilson pulled off, he looked to the southeast and saw it, a fishing trawler in the shadow of a buildup. Scanning further south, he saw a containership on the horizon, and to the west, a tanker. Both were over ten miles distant.
“Stay clear of that skunk! Lookout, we’ve got a skunk to our southeast, a trawler, pointing south… moving at two or three knots. Need an ID, and we’ll do our best with what we have.” With an edge to his voice to convey urgency, Wilson added, “We need fuel, and we need a helo. ASAP!”
“Roger, Snipers,” the controller responded, and the E-2 scrambled to coordinate assets available.
Wilson and the others held high and watched Mullet splash into the sea. They suspected his jet had been disabled by a microwave weapon. Mullet got out, but the microwaves could have fried his survival radio. Olive imaged the trawler with her FLIR and linked it back to the E-2. All of them watched their fuel cushion dwindle with each passing minute. Wilson grew concerned that Mullet was not responding on SAR common.
The trawler changed course to the west — toward Mullet.
Wilson had everyone hold north of the vessel and Mullet’s SAR datum. He slewed his radar cursors over the trawler and locked it. His FLIR whipped to the contact: a nondescript fishing trawler, at first glance nothing unusual.
The boat was moving at seven knots, and Mullet’s parachute canopy was still afloat on the calm sea. It would be on him in less than thirty minutes, and Mullet was not talking to anyone yet.
“Olive, see if you can get him on SAR common,” Wilson transmitted, then added, “Broncos, this is Sniper lead. Where are you?”
“Two minutes out, sir.”
“Any of you guys tanker configured?”
“Negative.”
Wilson slapped at the canopy in frustration. He needed fuel and there was none available. He was below his fuel ladder, and so were the others. The Broncos could take over on-scene command, but the trawler could be a threat. On the other hand, it could be friendly.
Just days ago, Olive’s JO, Flamer, had been downed by a microwave weapon from a fishing boat, and it almost claimed Olive. Then, Weed had guessed wrong and sunk two innocent boats after defending himself from an actual enemy.
Wilson wrestled with indecision knowing the situation required action. Had this trawler hit Mullet with some dammed “ray gun,” or had he sustained damage from the Flanker? Why had Mullet gotten out anyway? He had ejected with no warning. Wilson had no answers as the trawler chugged toward Mullet.
Yes, he thought and selected his laser-guided bomb on Station 2 and armed up.
“Olive, Flip, I’m going to drop in front of this guy. Watch me, but lock him on your FLIR.”
“Roger,” Olive replied.
Using Kentucky windage, Wilson assessed the speed of the trawler and his bomb time of fall. He was going to lay it in front of the boat, which was still heading for Mullet. How the boat reacted was all he would have to go on for a decision that had to be made in two minutes.
He locked the boat, selected WIDE field and view and slewed ahead of it, then slewed some more. His aimpoint was halfway between the boat and Mullet’s chute, still floating. Wilson would drop the bomb live, leaving no doubt.
Satisfied with the geometry, Wilson bumped up his airspeed and came in, waiting for the slightest aircraft glitch or sensation of heat to indicate a microwave weapon was on him.
He guessed he was high enough and far enough away from the boat, but didn’t know. The last five seconds took forever as he crossed the extended course of the trawler, and, as soon as the weapon came off, he overbanked and pulled hard away. “Lead’s off,” he transmitted.
Wilson looked down and saw the bomb fall toward the sea, wings extended. He would not control it — nothing to aim at — and rolled out toward Olive’s section.
As he flew away, his FLIR seeker head maintained its position on an empty patch of ocean, and monitoring the countdown timer, he overbanked again and looked over his shoulder.
The bomb detonated on the empty surface, leaving a centric white ring on the water as gray smoke rose above it. Wilson watched the trawler and saw it change course, but only a few degrees. For the next several seconds, he saw small splashes around the rising smoke as fragments of the bomb fell back and slapped the surface. The trawler continued on. That’s not a friendly.
Enough for Wilson, he made a call.