Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“Shit, ” Tamalko swore. Fucking Chinese. To Komos he said, “This had better not be some kind of joke, Sergeant. Did you receive any kind of verification? Was the message authenticated?” “No, sir, ” the controller replied. “Contact has not been reestablished.” Tamalko swore to himself. This could be some kind of drill or exercise-it was similar to the kind of stuff the Americans liked to pull, when the Americans used to be here. But since the Americans had been kicked out of the Philippines, things had been very, very quiet… Too quiet, as matter of fact. The Communist guerrillas, who were numerous and strong on Palawan and the other outlying provinces, had stepped up their recruitment drives and had certainly become much more active, but incidents of violence were not as commonhe hadn’t had one of his officers shot or beaten up downtown in weeks. Before the Americans departed, it seemed to happen every weekend. As much as almost everyone in the military hated having a Communist like Daniel Teguina as First Vice President, it was obvious that his election had a stabilizing effect. Tamalko would probably have shot the bastard if he met up with him in a dark alley, but if, because Teguina was in office, the peasants liked him and quit shooting up the villages, so much the better. So what was this shit with a Chinese invasion? It had to be bogus, an exercise cooked up by some know-nothing staffer in Manila. He had been involved with many such scenarios with the American Navy and with other military units in ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations, whose member nations frequently ran joint exercises with the newly independent Philippine military. But bogus or not, Tamalko knew he had to act decisively. He had to do everything he could to make sure that his cushy job here at Puerto Princesa, one of the most beautiful seacoast towns in all the world, was protected. Puerto Princesa was a diamond surrounded by jungle and mountains, far enough from Manila to retain a very relaxed atmosphere. He was in charge of a small squadron of F-4E fighter-bombers and F-5R day fighters purchased from the United States, and he also maintained the base for other miscellaneous military and civilian air operations. There was no job on Earth better than his, and he guarded it jealously. The girl was halfheartedly trying to arouse Tamalko with a rather distracted pumping action, obviously hoping he would leave soon so she could get some sleep. He pushed her head into his crotch, watched her begin her work, which she did as if completely bored, then turned back to his phone: “Sergeant, start a squadron recall immediately. Tell Captain Libona in Maintenance to get two F-4s fueled and ready to fly in twenty minutes; I will take one, and I’ll take the first sober crew that shows up with me. The girl between his legs nipped at him, and the sudden pain sent a bolt of dazzling blue energy radiating from his penis through the rest of his body. “I want a full combat generation begun immediately-no simulated weapons or procedures-until I give the word, ” Tamalko continued. “Major Esperanza will command the battle staff until I return. Inform the flight leaders that I will have Security arrest any crew members they find that do not respond to the recall. “After you start the recall, call headquarters at Cavite and advise them that we are generating combat sorties in response to an all-units emergency message, and give them the details. Then call Zamboanga Naval Yard and get a confirmation on this Captain Banio. That is all.” Tamalko let the receiver drop back into its hook. Well, a squadron recall was the most active thing he could have ordered, he thought. He had no alert fighters, no aircraft configured for combat on a day-to-day basis. Launching two fighters, even if unarmed, would be a positive action as well. As long as the first follow-on fighters were armed, fueled, and manned within the next sixty minutes, he would have done everything possible to respond to this “exercise.” Finally relaxed, knowing that he had done the right thing, Tamalko turned his attention to the young girl’s oral ministrations, and he was quite pleased to find that his nearly fifty-year-old body still responded quickly to the task at hand. CHINESE REVOLUTIONARY NAVY DESTROYER H0NG LUNG THIRTY MINUTES LATER “Talon Eight-One reports one vessel afire, the PS-class patrol craft, ” came the report from Admiral Yin’s combat section. “One vessel believed to be an LF-class fire-support landing craft has moved alongside to assist. The PF-class frigates have split up north and south of the stricken vessel and appear to be in position to provide fire support.” Admiral Yin pushed himself away from his seat on the bridge of the destroyer Hong Lung and cursed everyone he could think of, especially the manufacturers of the once-vaunted Fei Lung long-range antiship missile. The sonofabitches responsible for the missiles should be shot. The Shuihongz5 attack plane had fired both its C101 antiship missiles and had hit the patrol boat with one, but four Fei Lung-7 missiles launched from Hong Lung had either missed or been destroyed. In Yin’s long experience with the missile, this was by far its most miserable performance, and coming at the worst possible time. His destroyer had only two Fei Lung-7s remaining. With those two missiles he would have to defend himself against two of the Philippines’ largest warships. He cursed angrily at the gods while pacing the bridge, feeling more boxed in by the moment, seeing his glorious career destroyed by the tiny, insignificant Philippine nation. That would not happen. Could not happen. It would be a dishonor to himself, to his commanding officer, to his Premier, to all Chinese. He calculated his options. The Hong Lung did carry two more long-range missiles, the Fei Lung-9 supersonic missiles. Unlike the Fei Lung-7s, the 9s were designed for extreme long-range naval attack, as far as one hundred and eighty kilometers, and the missile could travel as fast as Mach 2.5 during the high-altitude portion of its deadly flight. The Fei Lung-9 was an unlicensed copy of the French-German ANS missile, which had been intended as a high-performance replacement for the Exocet missile (of which the C801 was a copy-the Chinese were never shy about stealing other weapon designs). Fei Lung-9 was similar in size to Fei Lung-7 and was launched by four solid rocket boosters and sustained by a boron-hydride ramjet engine . And they had nuclear warheads. Each Fei Lung-9 carried a single twenty-kiloton-yield RK-55 thermonuclear warhead, a copy of the Soviet RK-55 warhead carried on sub-launched cruise missiles and nuclear-tipped torpedoes. All deployed Chinese flagships carried nuclear weapons, and Admiral Yin’s Spratly Island flotilla was no different-even though the RK-55 warhead was the smallest and “dirtiest” warhead in China’s arsenal. Roughly equal in yield to the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima in World War II, it could easily sink the largest aircraft carriers or devastate a port city. Admiral Yin had never considered the use of these missiles, and still did not consider it-as distasteful as it was to him, he would withdraw from the fight and run for the safety of the Spratly Islands or the Paracels before employing them. The nuclear warhead could be removed, however, and a conventional 513-kilogram shaped-charge warhead installed. The Fei Lung-9 was a superior weapon, much more accurate, much faster, and was much more difficult to shoot down. But Yin did not order the RK-55 warheads removed from the Fei Lung-9 missiles. He still had two Fei Lung-7 missiles and the firepower of the rest of his task force to use, and besides it was somewhat dangerous for the crew to download a missile from its launch canister and change high-explosive warheads at night during a combat situation-never mind that two of those warheads would be nuclear. “Status of Talon Eight-One, ” Yin ordered. “Combat-ready, sir, ” Captain Lubu replied after relaying the request to Combat. “Armed with six NTL-90 torpedoes. Data link is still active in all modes. Loiter time… estimated at one more hour for min fuel return to the Paracels, one point five hours for an emergency landing on Spratly Island. They’re still transmitting targeting data and awaiting orders to reattack. ” Yin nodded. The Murene NTL-90 dual-purpose torpedoes, capable against both surface vessels and submarines down to depths as great as five hundred meters, were substantial weapons of their own. Their maximum range was slightly greater than the eight kilometers-which was greater than the range of the guns on Philippine warships, although it was much less accurate against surface targets and, for greatest accuracy, the Shuihong-5 patrol aircraft would have to move in to four or five kilometers to drop the torpedo. Yin hesitated sending the Shuihong-5 back in within gun range, because if the patrol aircraft was struck down, he would have no choice but to move his precious Hong Lung in closer to the enemy to target his remaining antiship missiles, but he knew he had little choice. “Order Talon Eight-One to attack with torpedoes, ” Yin told Captain Lubu. “Order them to specifically target the northern frigate. I want targeting information for the southern frigate and a second Fei Lung-7 salvo launched against it immediately.”