“What about the rest of my Liang-Two flight?”
“Liang-Two homebound are still at twelve thousand meters, northwest-bound.”
“Are you crazy?” the JS-7 pilot shouted. “Turn those bastards around! Liang-Two flight of six, reverse course, descend to three thousand meters, prepare to engage!”
There was a scratchy reply on the radio — they heard him, although they probably wished they did not. If they turned around, there was no chance they’d land back at Zamboanga — but ditching in the Celebes Sea or landing at Cotabato was better than allowing this B-52 or whatever it was to head in toward the fleet unopposed.
He had one more chance before he had to return to base — throttles to max afterburner, close in fast, two PL-2 heatseeking missile shots, a gun pass with his 23-millimeter cannon, then abort. The JS-7 pilot pushed his throttle to max afterburner, watched the range quickly decrease to less than fifteen kilometers, got a seeker lock-on from his two remaining PL-2 missiles, then launched them both at once…
“Bandit at six o’clock, crew, descending behind us,” Karbayjal called out, carefully watching the Chinese fighter on his tail radar. The Chinese fighter was sending out jamming signals, but at this range even the Megafortress’s smaller tail radar burned through it easily. “Bandit’s accelerating… Jesus, stand by for missile attack… E-dub, stand by for flares on the right…”
The infrared tail warning receiver’s “Missile Warning” light in all crew stations, which detected the heat of a fighter in the rear quadrant and locked onto it, was immediately replaced by a high-pitched tone in everyone’s headset and a “Missile Launch” warning light. “IR missile attack!” Atkins shouted. “Break left!” Atkins immediately released four bundles of flares simultaneously from the right ejector.
But Karbayjal had seen the missile launch and was ready. Careful not to aim the Stinger airmine rockets at the flares, he waited until the missiles tracked, then ejected the flares and re-acquired the Megafortress’s hot engine exhausts, then opened fire with a stream of missiles. He launched six Stingers, then watched for any sign of pursuit. When he saw at least one Chinese missile survive, he shouted on interphone, “Reverse! Climb if possible!”
When Karbayjal made his call, Atkins had switched ejector racks, selecting the left ejector, and pumped out four more flares. Simultaneously, Carter immediately threw the Megafortress into a screaming right bank and held it until the stall-warning horn came on. “Can’t climb, guns!” Carter shouted.
“Disregard,” the gunner said as the last missile disappeared from his radarscope. “Fighter’s coming in, four miles… three miles… Stingers firing…” The Megafortress crew could hear the heavy Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! and a rumble throughout the bomber as Karbayjal fired four more missiles at the fighter closing in…
It had to be a fighter, the JS-7 pilot thought, since only a fighter could possibly move that fast. The flares that the target was ejecting seemed as bright as the sun in the complete darkness of the Celebes Sea. His PL-2 missiles obviously thought so, because they tracked and destroyed the flares with ease. He was now weaponless except for his twin-barreled 23-millimeter cannon.
But the stream of flares pointed to the target’s location, even if it wasn’t apparent on radar, so the pilot kept his throttle at min afterburner and closed in to cannon range…
Suddenly four bright bursts of light erupted right in front of his fighter, stretching from his left wingtip all the way across the nose. His JS-7 fighter began to shudder, as if shivering with fear, and the shudder continued right into a full-blown stall.
“Fayling, Fayling, Liang-Two, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, I’m hit, I’m hit…” He saw the “Engine Overspeed” and “Hydraulic Press” lights illuminate and pulled his ejection handle seconds before his controls locked and his fighter began a death spiral to the sea.
“Sir! Destroyer Zunyi reports he is under attack by antiship missiles from the east,” another report suddenly came in. “Zunyi is engaging. Sichuan-Ten flight of two Q-5 fighters are engaging suspected B-52 bombers at low altitude.”
“Where’s Zunyi?” Jhijun shouted. The answer came a few moments later — only one hundred nautical miles east of Jinan. Zunyi was an older Luda-class destroyer, part of the Philippine Sea cordon; it carried no surface-to-air missile system because it was designed to engage surface ships and submarines, not aircraft. “Get a feed from Zunyi’s CIC and integrate their plots on our—”
“Sir! Incoming missiles! Bearing two-six-five, high altitude, range twenty nautical miles, speed subsonic, multiple inbounds, intercept course!”
“What?” Jhijun resisted the urge to swivel around in his seat and look at the west — it was pitch black outside, with a light overcast sky, and he knew he wouldn’t see a thing. “How the hell could missiles get that close? Radar, get your heads out of your asses or I will have you on deck when those missiles hit! Report on fire-control status — immediately!”
“Fire control reports fully operational, good track on all inbounds, intercept confidence is high.” Jhijun wished he could be more confident himself — first contact at twenty miles was far, far too close.
“Targets maneuvering slightly,” the CIC officer reported. “Range to air targets, mark, fifteen nautical miles, bearing two-six-five, speed five hundred…”
The targets weren’t maneuvering… offset range was decreasing… bearing was constant… “Antiradar missiles!” Jhijun suddenly shouted. He knew all about the Americans’ radar-homing missiles, especially the loitering cruise missiles — this was probably a flight of them coming in now. But how in hell did those missiles get so close before being detected…?
Pushing the big Megafortress bomber to descend at over twelve thousand feet per minute, it took less than three minutes to descend to two hundred feet — yet with Chinese warships all around them, it felt like an eternity.
“Golf-band search radar at eleven o’clock…” Atkins shouted on interphone; “India-band gun fire control radar now at one to two o’clock position… Christ, Golf-band radar changing to Charlie-band missile director… another India-band fire control radar at two-thirty… dammit, are we in range of that destroyer yet? We’re going to get nailed…! I’ve got a possible fighter GCI signal from that destroyer now, he might be vectoring in more fighters.”
“Ready in range with the first TACIT RAINBOW missile,” Kellerman called out after checking the information on the side-looking radar display once again and updating her map of all the ships in the area. “Right turn thirty degrees to escape, next target will be off the nose at twenty miles.”
Atkins rechecked the weapon indications one more time — missile engine, guidance, autopilot, data link, warhead continuity all reporting ready. “Doors coming open… missile one away… missile two away…”
As the Megafortress banked away to the right, the AGM-136A TACIT RAINBOW missiles sped off to the left and descended to less than one hundred feet above the sea, then continued their left turn until they were aiming directly at the Chinese destroyer. At the same time, Atkins programmed another missile on the next target, what ISAR reported as a Huangfeng-class guided-missile patrol boat transmitting with an India-band gun fire control radar. “Missile three reporting ready.”
“Left turn ten degrees to escape,” Kellerman called out. “I’ll take us within ten miles of that patrol boat unless a missile radar comes up.” In which case, Kellerman thought, Atkins better hold it together long enough to warn the crew. She knew it was a big mistake to send that scrawny little BB-stacker on this mission — Atkins might have an IQ larger than the national debt and could modify a wristwatch to jam half of Cleveland, and he seemed to do OK with Karbayjal holding his hand, but he simply wasn’t cut out for combat. “Pilots copy,” Carter acknowledged.