The captain had been holding the mike in his hand, his thumb hoisted over the key. He pressed down hard, and snapped, “Punch out! punch out!” shouting as he did so, knowing that the few microseconds the computer had taken to process data meant that he was already too late.
“Eject! eject!” the RIO shouted, his hand closing over the ejection handle. He’d seen the smoke and fire as the missiles were launched, even from almost a mile away.
But there was a reason the guy in front was a pilot, and that became quickly evident. His reflexes were faster, his motor skills honed to a lightning edge. He reached for the handle, jerked down, and pressed his back into the ejection seat. The canopy blasted off. Then the pilot, followed four seconds later by his RIO, punched out of the aircraft.
They shot out at a 45 degree angle from the doomed airframe, each one to a different side, the flames under their ejection seat from the rocket igniters the smaller cousins of their afterburner fire. The Tomcat spun in the air. It seemed to try to catch itself and continue on upward. But then, as they fell back down through 29,000 feet toward the ocean, three missiles caught the aircraft almost simultaneously.
The air above them exploded into an ugly orange mass, black smoke whirling implacably across the sky. The pilot shouted his protest, anger and frustration but also fear in his voice.
When they were well clear, the ejection seats separated from them, and their parachutes deployed. As the billowing fabric above them caught in the air, the pilot was jerked upward with a strong force. Not actually upward, but such a sudden decrease in his rate of descent that it felt as though he were being lifted up through the air.
The pilot saw his RIO’s chute, although he couldn’t tell if the man dangling underneath it was injured. And the Tomcats safely at altitude, they’d see the chutes — they’d let the carrier know.
For an aviator, the air around him was filthy. It seemed that every two hundred feet held another MiG. Most of the aircraft swerved away to avoid them, relying instinctively on international principles of military law, leaving them to descend in the clear blue sky alone.
But one didn’t. It circled around him, the jet wash blasting him sideways under the chute. For a moment, the pilot thought that the jet wash would spill the air out of his chute, sending him plummeting down to the sea like a rock. He touched his auxiliary chute, praying that whoever packed it had been damned good.
But whether or not they were, he would never have a chance to find out. The aircraft turned and came back once again, and for just a flash, the Tomcat pilot could see the pilot in the cockpit turning to look at them. Although the man’s face was masked, he felt like they made eye contact. Then the MiG rolled out overhead, came back down, and the American pilot saw a line of tracers spit out from its nose gun. His chute twisted him around to face the other way, but he twisted, shouting and screaming at the heavens, to get back in position. When he made it back, he could see that the RIO’s parachute wasn’t far below him. The man was already falling so fast that in a few moments he would be almost invisible.
And what of his RIO? The pilot started to curse. Had the bullets killed the RIO, or had the MiG pilot intentionally shredded the chute and left the RIO to the living hell of plummeting the remaining 20,000 feet, knowing that any second he would hit the ocean, watching it come up to meet him, the waves growing larger and larger, until he smashed into it like a watermelon dropped from 50 stories onto concrete?
The pilot prayed that his RIO was dead. Dead, or still conscious enough to rip off his oxygen mask and let the lack of oxygen render him unconscious.
The pilot was just swearing vengeance when the MiG came back for him.
The Taiwanese officer was standing against the back bulkhead, a look of horror on his face. “What the hell happened out there?” the admiral demanded of the terrified officer. “What did you say to him?”
“I… I explained your decisions and your position,” the major started, visions of his eventual execution flashing into his mind. He would die for this, of that he was certain.
“Did you tell him to go active?” Coyote demanded. “And did you tell him to break off prosecution of that submarine?”
“I… I…” the major stopped, aware that his silence gave his answer.
Lab Rat stepped forward, his face a grim mask. “Yes. He did.” Coyote had never seen the intelligence officer so coldly furious. “My linguistic team monitored his transmissions.” He held out a sheet of paper. “Here is the transcript.”
“We got them! We got them!” the SAR helo pilot shouted, his voice exultant. “Both of them are breathing and conscious, although I think a pilot might have a broken leg. It looks bad, anyway. We’re headed to the carrier, Cricket. We’ll be back once we drop these guys off.”
“Do not be too long,” the captain said grimly. “Indeed, I hope to finish this game before you can even return.” The captain switched to his own language and said, “Break, Grasshopper One — initial datum three miles west of your current location. Commence search pattern. I will run the path perpendicular, tail wet.”
The helo pilot’s voice came back, distinctive in the whop-whop effect from the vibrations the small helicopter had on his voice. He evidently acknowledged the transmission, and a translator confirmed that, murmuring in the American officer’s ear so as not to disturb the captain.
The captain then directed the second SH-60 to a point just north of that, and she spit out a pattern of sonobuoys as well.
“Captain, sonar,” the translator said. “Initial contact, subsurface contact, classified as possible Chinese diesel submarine.” There was no change in the captain’s expression as he said, “Localize and destroy. Immediately.”
The pilot stared down at the surface of the ocean. Somewhere below him, at approximately 300 feet, was the Chinese diesel submarine. “Cricket, this is Grasshopper One. I’m in firing position. I await your instructions.” He clicked the mike off, then turned to the copilot. “The three of us are all in firing position. It’s up to the captain.”
The copilot sighed. “Our submarine, but he will probably give that kill to the Americans. Perhaps it will make up for what he tried earlier.”
“Perhaps he will. Be ready.” The pilot glanced over and saw the copilot’s finger was poised above his weapons switch.
A booming American voice came through on tactical, effectively ending the discussion. “Captain of Marshall P’eng, this is Admiral Grant. I would be pleased, sir, if your helicopter would eliminate that submarine from this world.”
The pilot glanced over at the copilot, a rare smile stretching across his face. Almost immediately, they heard their captain’s response. “Acknowledged, Admiral. It will be our pleasure.” The captain’s voice switched to their own language, and said, “Do it now. Both weapons — let there be no need for a second engagement.”
“Yes, Captain. Immediately.” Even as the pilot spoke, the copilot was toggling off both torpedoes.