Stephen Coonts - Combat

Two and a half miles below, riding at anchor off Island Chaffee, was a dark-hulled freighter with light-colored deck and upper surfaces. But Delight’s attention was focused on the two Skyhawks slanting toward him from his right front. He resolved to keep his bombs as long as possible, hoping that Psycho could drop, rejoin, and even the odds.

The lead bandit tripped off a short burst of 20mm rounds, accurate in elevation but wide to the right. Delight two-blocked the throttle, resisting the temptation to squeeze off a burst in reply, and wrapped the little Douglas into a shuddering, high-G turn as the aggressor pulled off high and left.

Delight felt an emotional shiver when his opponent zoom-climbed for the perch. It was an unwelcome message: This guy wants an energy fight; I can’t match him with my current airspeed. He glimpsed the Chinese wingman rolling over and diving after Papa Two. Well, I can’t go vertical with my guy; I’ll go down.

Delight retarded the throttle and rolled over. Through the top of his canopy he caught a view of Thaler’s TA-4J diving toward the ship. As Delight pulled his nose through, aligning his illuminated sight with the target, he saw one, then two lights streak upward, corkscrewing awkwardly. “Yeah!” he exulted. It’s gotta be the Princess all right!

The SA-7s shot almost vertically from the stern. One wobbled, perhaps uncertain which heat source to home on, and belatedly tried to correct back toward Papa Two. By then, Thaler was down the chute, tracking for the five seconds he needed. Both bombs came off the hardpoints, stabilized, and accelerated toward the ship.

The second man-portable SAM passed twenty feet beneath Psycho Thaler’s aircraft before detonating.

Delight saw the white smoke of detonation, noted Papa Two wobble in its dive and begin a shallow pullout. A human noise chirped in Delight’s earphones — something unintelligible. The Chinese A-4- “Gomer Two”—had veered away from the two SAMs, giving Thaler some maneuvering room. However, Gomer One — the intelligent bastard somewhere above and behind Delight — was positioned to kill one or both Americans.

Delight knew he was poorly placed to get hits. His roll-in after avoiding the Chinese leader was too far astern for a high-angle attack, and his sight was calibrated for air-to-air. He quickly reset 112 mils with Stations Two and Four selected. Recognizing he was shallow in his dive, he held half a diameter high, hit the red “pickle,” felt the Mark 83s leave the racks, then punched the flare button four times. Beneath Station Five, outboard on his starboard wing, four magnesium flares arced downward, silent sirens competing for the attention of the next SA-7s.

Two blows rocked the A-4, then another. Without needing to look, Delight knew that Gomer One was in range and gunning. The Marine kicked right rudder, slewed to starboard, and pulled the stick into his lap. His left hand shoved up the power and began accelerating through 430 knots.

Now long-forgotten, Thaler’s two half-ton bombs smashed into Penang Princess just aft of amidships. One punched through the deck, exploding two compartments down. The other hit slightly to port, dishing in three-eighths-inch steel plates and destroying a speedboat lashed alongside. The splintered Chris Craft, minus four feet of its bow, flooded and sank as far as its lines permitted.

Delight’s bombs struck thirty feet aft of the stern. One was a dud, victim of fuze failure. The other strewed water and steel splinters in a wide radius, adding to the confusion aboard the Malaysian vessel.

Zack pulled off target, coming nose level at three thousand feet, and looked left. Gomer Two was turning in behind Thaler, whose TA-4J was streaming something white — smoke or fuel. Briefly Delight wondered what Mr. Wei must be thinking in the rear cockpit. Then the former Marine was coordinating his controls, feeling some slack in the rudder, cutting the corner on Gomer Two and rotating his sight drum back to thirty. He knew that Gomer One was still back there, but Papa Two needed help.

“Papa One, this is Three. We’re rolling in hot.”

Thank you, God! Delight forced himself to keep the hostile TA-4 padlocked as Island Freeman careened into view. With Ozzie and Liz now attacking, Gomer One probably would let Delight go, trying to disrupt the greatest threat to the Princess .

Probably.

Delight keyed his mike. “Psycho, come right and drag ’im for me.”

There was no reply, but Papa Two reversed from left to right, turning northerly toward Island White and the Belmont Pier. Gomer Two fired and missed astern, big 20mm slugs churning the water into tall geysers as the fight descended through one thousand feet. He underdeflected! Delight exulted.

The Chinese pilot, either unaware of his peril or boldly ignoring it, followed the turn. Delight, twelve hundred feet back and three hundred feet higher, knew the Gomer would pull deflection on Thaler and Wei after another thirty degrees of turn. But as the hostile Skyhawk crossed his nose and the deflection angle narrowed to nearly zero, Delight nudged back his stick, set the pipper one mil over the canopy, and pressed the trigger.

Beneath his feet, Delight felt the twin Colts pounding out three-quarter-inch-diameter shells at a combined rate of thirty-two per second. He kept the trigger depressed for two seconds, expending one-third of his ammunition.

Gomer Two absorbed fifteen rounds across the top of the fuselage and wings. Delight saw shattered canopy glass glinting briefly in the sun, followed by gouges of aluminum, streams of fuel, and just plain junk whipping in the slipstream. The little jet rolled right, dropped its nose, and went straight in.

Zachary Delight pulled up, savoring the dirty brown-white geyser marking his kill, and screamed an atavistic shout of warrior joy that pealed off Valhalla’s golden dome.

At least that was how he felt at that exact moment.

A microsecond later he was back in control of himself. He rolled hard right, turning into Gomer One, who had vanished. Leaving the throttle against the stop, he began climbing back toward the likely roll-in point. Delight could do nothing more for Thaler, but still felt an obligation. “Eric, Zack. You better plant that thing.”

“Roger, Zack. Ah … I’m losin’ fuel, but I think I can make the boat.”

“Good luck, pard.”

Climbing back to the east, Delight rolled his port wingtip down for a better view. He was just in time to see two more bombs explode amidships of Penang Princess.

Three seconds later, missile tracks arced out of the haze, passing well above him on a reciprocal course. Then his friend and coauthor was back on the radio. “Papa Flight, be advised. We have Flankers inbound from the east and Hornets from the west.”

“Four, you bomb the ship. I’ll block for you.”

With that, Ozzie Ostrewski rolled over and slanted down from thirteen thousand feet. He already had spotted the hostile TA-4 trying to cut off the bomber’s roll-in point. Confident that Vespa would hit the target, he intended to tie up the Chinese long enough to afford her a clear shot.

Scooter Vespa flipped MASTER ARM, confirmed her sight setting, and nosed over. She forced herself to concentrate on the fundamentals rather than all that had gone wrong. We were going to make a coordinated attack on a moving target miles from here, without enemy interceptors. She came back on the throttle, recalling Zack Delight’s combat motto: No plan survives contact.

The ship was listing slightly to port, with smoke partly obscuring the stern. From a twelve-thousand foot roll-in, Vespa stabilized her TA-4 at 450 knots. She remembered to tell Hu in the rear seat, “Keep the camera going.” She received a grunt of acknowledgment.