Hail held his arms up in the air and crossed his index fingers on both of his hands.
“Fire the railgun,” He told Dallas.
There was a deep concussive bang, followed by an abrupt change in the ship’s attitude as it leaned hard to port.
Kara felt like she was falling and grabbed for the first stationary thing near her, which was Hail’s neck. She half fell and swung around to the back side of Hail’s captain’s chair.
“You’re choking me,” Hail gurgled, as the ship rocked back over to its starboard side.
Kara got her feet back under her and stood, releasing Marshall Hail’s neck.
Hail placed a hand on his Adam’s Apple and gave it a soothing rub.
“Sorry,” Kara said. “Why didn’t you tell me that was going to happen?”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Hail croaked.
On the big screen, the plot of the projectile showed it moving toward the trio of jets that were headed in the direction of the Nucleus. But Hail knew that this animation would not provide them any significant information. It would simply show them if their bullet had made it within a mile of the group. The rest would be up to the guidance programming code that had been written by his smart guys in the IT lab.
There was nothing for any of them to do but watch and wait.
Dallas Stone’s voice came back over the speakers.
“Prince’s radar has detected a rocket fired from one of the J-20s.”
Hoping for the best and planning for the worst, Hail gave Stone the order.
“Recharge the railgun and get another guided projectile on the rack.”
Over the Sea of Japan ― on the F-35C Lightning II Jet Aircraft
Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan was crazy. Crazy with fear.
He had successfully blown up the North Korean military complex and had beaten the North Korean jets to the sea, but now they were right on his ass. He had tried to maneuver his jet out of harm’s way, but for every turn and dive he made, the J-20s had mimicked his action. At one point he had placed his F-35 into a sustained six G turn and tried to get around behind his pursuers. But their planes appeared to be just as nimble as his F-35. Around and around they went, until Nolan thought he was going to pass out from the G forces. He then straightened it out, pointed his jet toward Japan and poured on every ounce of speed he could get out of his aircraft.
The North Korean jets were still on his six and he was expecting to hear a sound that no pilot wanted to hear.
And then there it was.
An alarm went off that indicated at least one of the jets behind him had a radar lock and was ready to fire something nasty at him. A rocket, a gun, a missile; it really didn’t matter. At their current range and speed, any and all of them were fatal.
Crazy Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan had less than a second to decide if he would live or die. On one hand, if he let the North Koreans shoot him down, then he was certain that he would die a hero. He would have given his life for his country. His brother would have been proud of him. And this would be an end to those lonely endless nights, followed by dismal mornings as he mourned the loss of his beloved brother.
For some odd reason, right out of the blue, he decided he wanted to live. There was no conscious thought involved with the action. He simply reached under his seat and pulled the ejection handle. The clear canopy flipped open and disappeared a second before the rocket under his seat lifted him and his chair out of the aircraft. The wind hit him like a brick wall.
Less than thirty yards away from his aircraft, Foster Nolan observed a projectile cut the left wing off of his F-35. His multi-million-dollar aircraft rolled to the left and disintegrated. Nolan’s large secondary chute deployed and everything became very still as pieces of his jet dropped toward the sea below.
With his parachute now fully inflated, Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan was now nothing more than an observer. He looked up into the sky at the J-20s.
Out of nowhere, a shell, or missile, or projectile of some type, silently passed through one of the J-20s that had shot him down. For a split second Nolan could make out a clean hole that had been punched directly through the jet’s thin skin. For a fraction of an instant, he could actually see the bright moon through the opening. Of course you can’t cut a hole through a jet at 1200 miles per hour and not expect problems. And Nolan guessed that the pilot of the jet may not have even known he had a problem. That was until the hole disrupted the airflow enough to pitch the nose up a tiny bit. But at 1200 miles per hour, a tiny bit is quite a lot. And that’s all it took. The air pressure on the jet’s compromised frame cracked the J-20 in half like a breadstick. It was quick. Snap. The front end of the J-20 then fell away toward the sea and the backend broke up and exploded as the trailing jet fuel erupted in all the colors of the rainbow.
Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan didn’t have much time to consider his future before he hit the cool water below. His best guess was he would be floating on his tiny raft for a few hours in the Sea of Japan until first light, when either the Chinese or the North Koreans located him. It didn’t even cross his mind that there would be a rescue mission. As far as his country was concerned, he wasn’t even there.
Sea of Japan ― on the cargo ship Hail Nucleus
The crew of the Nucleus watched the dot, their railgun projectile, reach the other three dots in less than fifteen seconds.
Then they all watched the dot with the notation F-35, disappear from the screen.
Renner commented, “That doesn’t look good.”
Kara looked at Hail and Hail looked stunned, like the worse scenario had taken place. He had killed the American pilot.
She started to say something soothing like, “It’s OK. You did the best you could…”
Then Renner interrupted and said, “Look, one of the J-20s just vanished.”
Hail took in a deep calming breath and let is out slowly.
“What do you think went on there?” He asked Dallas over the speakers in the ship’s security center.
Stone’s voice came back over the speakers.
“My best guess would be almost a simultaneous exchange. One of the J-20s killed the F-35 and a second later our railgun projectile took out one of the J-20s.”
Hail watched the only dot left on the screen make a slow turn and correct its course back toward the east coast of North Korea.
Dallas said, “Prince is picking up a saltwater emergency beacon. Looks like the American pilot ejected and is now floating in the water about fifty miles off our starboard.”
Hail turned toward Kara and asked, “Do you think there’s any chance that your guys are going to pick this guy up?”
Kara shook her head. “Not in a million years.”
“I thought not,” Hail agreed.
He swiveled his chair toward his group of young pilots that were standing close to him on his left, still watching the show.
He said to two of his junior pilots, “Oliver and Paige. I need you to jump into a chopper and go get this guy. Make it fast. Just drop him a line, pull him in and get back on board before the sky is crawling with unfriendlies. By the time the sun comes up, I want us to look like nothing more than an innocent cargo ship. So get going.”
The pilots confirmed Hail’s request and ran quickly out of the mission center and toward the ship’s hanger deck.
Kara asked, “Is it common for the Nucleus to be in these waters?”