Cobb was busily running through emergency-procedure menu items on his MFDs. “I switched to the auxiliary hydraulic system,” he told McLanahan. “Autopilot’s off, flight-control computers switched to secondary mode. No more automatic terrain following or jinking for us — a full-scale flight-control deflection will kill our entire hydraulic system. We’ve got fuel leaks on the left wing as well, and I think we’re losing cabin pressurization. He shot us up pretty bad.” But at least they were still flying, Cobb thought, and they were still fighting…
…and they were still under attack. “Bandit at our four o’clock position, range ten miles, turning right and coming around behind us,” McLanahan shouted. “Descend as low as you can…”
“I’m going, I’m going… hell, if we descend too much we won’t be able to climb back up.” Cobb was straining on the control stick, since the auxiliary hydraulic system provided only 70 percent of the primary system’s power, and the flight-control system was no longer assisting. “I’m having trouble controlling, Patrick. If that bozo attacks, we’ve had it. I can’t maneuver… I can barely hold it as it is. Tighten your shoulder straps again. Get ready to jump out if he attacks…”
“He’s got to find us first, Henry,” Patrick said as he pulled his shoulder straps as tight as he could stand it. “Range seven miles… turning on our six… keep descending, Henry. We’re still jamming… maybe he won’t be able to see us… five miles and closing…”
The Black Knight bomber began to rumble, and the nose began to oscillate as Cobb fought to hold it steady. “Get ready to go, Patrick. It’s still flying, but I don’t know how…”
“Just hang in there, Henry—” But McLanahan watched the SMFD as the fighter icon closed mercilessly — the Chinese fighter was coming in for the kill, and there was nothing they could do to stop it…
The JS-7 pilot was more experienced in air-to-air engagements than his former leader — A-5 pilots did more ground-attack training than dogfighting — and he knew, judging by the B-2’s slow airspeed and erratic flight path, that he was in danger of crashing at any moment anyway. The A-5 pilot — he did not even know the man’s name — rushed his shots, not closing in enough for the inherently poor PL-2 missiles to get a solid lock-on. A boresight missile launch was the best way to go — the PL-2 missile was especially prone to decoys, so if the seeker head was bypassed it was more deadly. He switched the attack system to “Boresight” and kept his power high, closing the distance rapidly. A boresight launch made the missile nothing more than a big, powerful bullet — far more deadly than his 23-millimeter cannon, but with the same effective range. It had to be led on target just like a gun, but that was easy in this case, since the B-2 wasn’t maneuvering and seemed virtually incapable of doing so.
He had no laser rangefinder, no TV camera, and no usable radar to judge distance, but when he could see the ghostly shape of the American B-2 highlighted against the faint glow of the sky, he knew he was close enough…
His radar warning receiver suddenly screamed to life. There were no warning beeps, no search radar, no hint of the approach of any fighter — just an enemy fighter symbol superimposed on the center circle of his threat scope, meaning that it was already within lethal range. He was distracted away from the B-2 for only a split second after deciding he was going to attack instead of taking evasive action, but that split second was all that was needed — the B-2 made a gentle 30-degree bank turn to the west, and it took several seconds of frantic searching to reacquire it again in the darkness of the forests of Mindanao below. The boresight launch was spoiled.
With a fighter somewhere on him, there was no time to line up another boresight launch. The JS-7 immediately switched to seeker guidance and received a lock-on indication with a few seconds…
… but he never got to fire the missile. Two AIM-130 Scorpion missiles from Major Kelvin Carter’s Megafortress bomber ripped into the Chinese fighter, slicing it into three pieces and flinging it across the Padada River valley below.
“Keep it coming to the right, Horse,” Major Kelvin Carter told Cobb and McLanahan. “We’ll take it over central Mindanao and try to escape to the northeast. Is this Horse One-Six?”
“Affirm, Diamond One-Three,” Cobb replied on the scrambled tactical frequency, recognizing Carter’s voice. “Thanks for clearing our tail.”
“No problem. We got you on the FLIR, and you’re trailing smoke from your number one. What’s your situation?”
“Lost number one, lost our primary hydraulics, lost part of our left flight controls, losing fuel out the left wing,” Cobb replied. “We’re going to need a tanker in about thirty minutes.”
“If you’re still hooked up to the network, they’ll be alerted and someone will be waiting for you,” Carter reminded him. The Dreamland aircraft that could receive and transmit NIRTSat data were constantly being monitored by the Air Battle Force officers back on Guam — the computers would automatically upload a status report to a NIRTSat as it passed overhead every fifteen minutes, and the satellite would relay the aircraft reports to General Stone on Guam. “We’ll stay with you — we’re out of air-to-surface stuff anyway.”
“What’s the status of the strike package?” McLanahan asked.
“We lost two BUFFs and one Black Knight going in, not counting you guys,” Carter said, “and that was before we dropped one damned weapon on the assault force invading Davao. The real fight should be starting… right about now.”
13
President Lloyd Emerson Taylor sat with hands folded under his chin, staring at a spot atop his desk. He was still wearing his brown leather Air Force-issue flight jacket over casual slacks and a red flannel shirt, the same things he had put on the day before. He had taken Marine Corps One to Camp David yesterday at six P.M., arriving just before sunset. After his arrival, he wordlessly kissed his wife, Jean, good-bye, then proceeded directly to the Emergency Conference Room, seated himself at that desk and, almost literally, had not moved since. Members of the National Security Council and key members of Congress had been filing in and out of the Emergency Conference Room all day — he all but ignored them.
Military communications technicians were manning phones and headsets nearby, but the President had only two phones on his desk: one direct to the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, where General Curtis and Secretary of Defense Preston had been since the President had signed the executive order authorizing the mission against the Chinese; the other was direct to the White House Communications Center, where calls from overseas could be immediately transferred to him. There was also a series of reports transmitted to him via secure teletype from General Curtis — including some casualty reports. Those he dreaded most of all.
The news crushed him, especially the word that a B-2 had been lost. He resisted the urge to wad up the teletype paper instead laying it flat on top of the growing stack of urgent reports from Curtis, then returned to his stoic position at the desk. But the more he thought about the reports that had just come in, the more he realized it was the loss of the B-2 that bothered him the most. Yes, it was horrible that they’d lost six B-52 crew members, and the F-14 Tomcat aviators, and the sailors from the USS Ranger. But he’d always thought of the B-2 as… almost invincible. For the kind of money and research that had gone into those planes, they should have been. And yet, as he more than anyone knew, nothing was ever certain in life.