Stephen Coonts - Combat

On the flight deck, everything was normal, if a maelstrom of noise, metal, and hot exhaust can ever be called normal. Rows of strike aircraft sat armed and ready, while fighters and radar-warning aircraft took off and landed at regular intervals, protecting the task force.

The pilots’ orders were clear. Push right up to the Chinese coast. Shoot down any aircraft in Chinese markings you find, sink any ship flying the Chinese flag. But don’t cross the coast. Not until we’re ready.

Below in plot, they were still trying to get ready, hours after targets had been assigned and authorization received. Squadron commanders waited impatiently while the planners struggled and argued.

The target list was ambitious, with primary, secondary, and tertiary targets assigned to each aircraft. Defense-suppression missions were supposed to arrive moments, just seconds before the strikers made their runs. Enemy defenses were supposed to be located by reconnaissance UAVs that would data-link the position back to command aircraft. Those planes would in turn task in-flight aircraft to attack those targets.

But every step in that process involved a position — a GPS position. The heavily automated precision-targeting systems had to be adapted to other, less precise navigation systems. Those systems had errors, much more error then the planners were used to. In many cases, the errors were too great for the precisely timed tactics of the manuals.

The strikes would launch, late, and the planners could not guarantee that all the strikers would come back.

Ray heard the klaxon in his office. He ran outside, expecting to see fire engines racing by. His first thought, of the hydrogen and oxygen tanks at the pad, was so frightening that his mind raced, searching for some other emergency. A toxic spill? Did someone fall? Terrible things to hope for, but better than a fire in the fuel area.

He rounded the corner of his office building, which gave him a clear line of sight to the launch compound. It was over a mile away, but seemed normal. Then he heard machine-gun fire. He ran faster.

An open-topped Humvee loaded with armed Marines roared past and he waved frantically, and yelled, still running. He heard someone recognize him. “It’s McConnell, hold up,” and it skidded to a stop.

They made room for him in front and he jumped in, the driver flooring the accelerator. Someone behind yelled into his ear over the noise of the diesel engine.

“It’s a full alert. Radar’s detected a slow-moving aircraft headed for the base. He’s already inside the prohibited zone, and he won’t answer on the radio.”

The street ended, and the open area surrounding the launchpad replaced the buildings on either side.

McConnell heard the machine gun again, and located the firer from the sound. It was another Humvee with a pintle-mounted machine gun. They were stopped, and the gunner was pointing his weapon up. Ray followed the line of tracers, and saw a small speck. It looked like a light plane still a few miles away.

“He can’t hit anything at that range,” Ray shouted.

“He’s trying to warn him off,” the driver shouted back. Ray noticed the driver was an officer, a Marine lieutenant. The Marine picked up the vehicle’s radio microphone. “This is Hall. I can see him. It’s a light plane, a Cessna or something like it. He’s at low altitude, and he’s headed straight for the pad complex.”

“What’s he going to do?” asked McConnell.

Lieutenant Hall shrugged. “You tell me. It could be a suicide crash, or loaded with commandos. Or he could drop leaflets that say ‘Save the Whales.’”

Hall continued at breakneck speed, arriving at the hangar after the longest sixty seconds of Ray’s life. As the vehicle braked, Marines jumped to the ground and ran to take up positions covering the hangar and its precious resident.

Ray could see other squads racing into position, and more weapons opened up on the approaching plane. It was closer, and he could hear the plane’s small engine snarl as the pilot opened up the throttle. Its speed increased slightly, and he lowered the nose. Was he going to crash the hangar?

Tracers surrounded the plane. Ray knew intellectually how hard it was to hit even a slow aircraft with a machine gun, but right then he was infuriated with the gunners who couldn’t hit something that large, that slow, flying in a straight line.

It was even closer, and he could see it was a high-winged civilian plane, a four-seater. He’d flown them himself. It was nose-on, headed straight for him. The drone of the engine increased quickly, both in pitch and volume.

Although he couldn’t see any weapons, he suddenly felt the urge to run for cover, but they hadn’t planned for an air raid. The hangar was poor protection. Besides, wasn’t that what they were aiming for?

Something fluttered away from the side of the aircraft, and for a moment Ray thought the machine gunners had actually hit. Then he recognized the shape as one of the side doors. A parachute jump? But they were too low, no more than five hundred feet.

They were almost at the hangar, and the Marines nearby had raised their weapons, tracking the plane but not firing without an order.

“Hold fire!” Hall shouted, then repeated the order into the radio. He turned to Ray. “If we hit it now, it could crash into the hangar.”

“Assuming that isn’t their plan,” Ray muttered.

McConnell watched its path, wishing it would vanish. It didn’t, but at the last moment it did veer a little to the left, and in a few seconds Ray was sure it was not headed for hangar. He couldn’t feel relief.

The plane was headed for the launchpad, about a hundred yards away. He saw a man-sized object leave the plane and drop toward the ground. It had fins on one end and a point on the other. It looked like nothing so much as a giant dart.

Ray stood and watched the object fall, looking even more dartlike as it fell nose-first. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the Marines, with better reflexes, were all hugging the ground.

It struck almost exactly in the center of the pad, exploding with a roar. The concussion was enough to stagger him a hundred yards away, and misshapen fragments cartwheeled out from the ugly brown smoke cloud.

Ray was still standing, dazed and unsure of what to do next, when a pair of Marine SuperHornets zoomed overhead in pursuit of the intruder. His eye followed the jets as they quickly caught up with the Cessna, still in sight, but headed away at low altitude.

One of the Hornets broke off to the right, then cut left across prop plane’s path. McConnell heard a sound like an angry chain saw, and a stream of tracers leapt from its nose in front of the trespasser. The other jet was circling left, and had lowered its flaps and landing gear in an attempt to stay behind the Cessna.

Lieutenant Hall’s radio beeped, and he listened for a minute before turning to Ray. “They’ve ordered him to land, and he’s cooperating.” Glancing at the lethal Hornets circling the “slow mover,” he said, “I sure would.”

Remembering the bomb, Ray ran over to the still-smoking pad. Acrid fumes choked him, but he ignored them, then almost stumbled on the debris littering the once-smooth surface. Slowing down, he picked his way over metal fragments and chunks of concrete.

His heart sank when he saw the crater though the clearing smoke. Easily three meters across, it was at least that deep. Torn steel rods jutted out from the sides at crazy angles.

Admiral Schultz came up though the smoke, standing beside Ray and gazing at the crater. Ray saw Schultz look him up and down, then ask, “You look fine. Is everyone OK?”