Dale Brown - Sky Masters

“Seven’s taking the lead.” Penrose began searching to his right, hoping he could see his wingman, but he made it easy for him: Bullet Seven had his left engine in min afterburner, both to help Penrose find him and start closing in on the Chinese fighters faster. “Cowboy, got a tally on you, kill your burner, ” Penrose said. The burner flicked off. They continued their right turn to put themselves right on the four Chinese fighters’ tails. Lion Tamer’s APR-45 radar threat scope suddenly came to life. It showed first a friendly search radar directly aheadBullet Seven-and, seconds later, several bat-wing symbols appeared off to the right as the Chinese fighters, after detecting the Tomcat’s radars, activated their own search radars to find their ambushers. All four bat-wings were superimposed, with a diamond around the closest one. As Penrose searched out his canopy bubble to see if he could see any of the enemy fighters, he saw a tiny puff of fire in the distance-Bullet Seven’s Sparrow missile had exploded. One of the bat-wings promptly disappeared. “Bullet flight, splash one bandit, ” the AWACS controller reported. “Dead bandit descending rapidly, turning right, decelerating. Two bandits breaking left, same altitude, nine miles. One bandit looks like he’s descending, heading straight ahead… lone bandit is thirty miles from Flashlight, appears to be closing on him.”

“Six, go after the solo. I’ll take these two.”

“Negative. I’m bent. I’m staying with you. “I can take these two. Use your IR and the AWACS. Get the solo.” “Dammit, Cowboy, if those two are bugging out, let ‘em. Don’t get sucked into a one-vee-two. Let’s go get the solo together.”

“We got these two locked up, no sweat. Take the solo. I’ll be back in a flash.” He punctuated his sentence by banking hard left in pursuit. Penrose and Watson were suddenly right between two enemy cells. “You gotta protect the recon plane, Razor, ” Watson told him. “Fuck the recon plane. My wingman might be in trouble…”

“So what happens when that bandit smokes that RC-135? There’s eighteen guys on that thing.” He was right-he had no choice. “Shit. We’re going after the solo. Basket, Bullet Six, vector to the solo inbound.”

“Bullet Six, bandit at your twelve to one o’clock, eleven miles, five thousand below you, airspeed six hundred thirty.” Penrose shoved his throttles to full military power, anxious to get within missile-firing range but not enough to risk using afterburners and getting himself in a low-fuel situation-he fully intended to go back and see to Cowboy after dealing with the lone bandit. “Lion Tamer, what’s with the radar? Can’t you get it going?” “Keeps resetting. I’m recycling it . This is going from bad to worse, Penrose thought. On interplane, he asked, “Cowboy, how goes it?”

“We got one in the kill zone, ” Penrose and Watson heard on the interplane frequency. “Looks like the other guy’s bugging out-he’s out of it. Thirty seconds and I’m back with you. “Don’t get cocky, ” Penrose said. “Shoot and clear. Basket, dammit, keep an eye out for Seven’s trailer.” “Basket copies. Second bandit on Bullet Seven is two o’clock, eleven miles, accelerating, descending. Bullet Six, your bandit is twelve o’clock, ten miles. Your bandit is twenty-five miles from Flashlight and closing. Watson manually slewed the IRSTS along the bearing given by the AWACS controller and finally found the Chinese fighter, a tiny green dot on his screen. He hit the “Lock” button, and a big square superimposed itself on the dot; a second later as the IRSTS refined its aiming and stabilized its gyro platform, the square compressed to slightly larger than the dot, and a stream of tracking figures appeared on the screen. Watson slaved one AIM-9R Sidewinder missile to the IRSTS boresight, and Penrose heard a low, menacing growl as the missile’s seeker head locked on. “Got the Chink on IR, Razor, ” Watson said. “Select a Sidewinder and nail this bugger. “Bullet Seven, second bandit climbing through your altitude, two o’clock, twelve miles . . “Bullet Six, fox two . . .” Penrose shot one Sidewinder, decided against selecting his last one-Cowboy might need the extra missile. The tiny missile raced ahead, obliterating the IR sensor in the sudden glare, but the missile tracked straight and true this time and they were rewarded by a huge ball of fire far ahead of them. “Bullet Six, splash two.” “Good shooting, Razor, ” Penrose heard Bowman reply in between deep grunts-Bowman was performing his anti-G force grunts called M-maneuvers. He was obviously right in the middle of a hard-turning battle, but the cocky sonofabitch still found time to chatter on the radios. “Bullet Seven, fox one. . . die, sucker, die!”

“Bullet Seven, warning, second bandit four o’clock, high, eight miles, descending behind you… “Cowboy, dammit, get out of there!” Penrose shouted. “Cowboy, extend, extend!”

“Bullet Seven, starboard turn to evade . . . Bullet Seven, extend… Bullet Seven heading zero-nine-zero, thirty degrees starboard to extend… Bullet Seven, check altitude… Bullet Seven, if you are in a spin, release your controls . . . Bullet Seven, if you are in a spin, release your controls and lower your landing gear. . . Bullet Seven, Bullet Seven, altitude warning . . . Bullet Seven only, Bullet Seven only, eject, eject, eject. . .” No use. Penrose never got another transmission from Bowman. “Basket, this is Six, vector to Bullet Seven’s last position.” Penrose could hear the panic, the gut-wrenching anxiety, in the controller’s voice. “Er . . . Bullet Six, lone bandit at your nine o’clock, forty miles, he’s northwest-bound at six hundred knots, altitude ten thousand and descending. Appears to be withdrawing. No other bandits detected. Say your bingo.”

“I said, I want a vector to Seven’s last known position, dam”No ELT, no transmissions. . . Six, say your fuel.” Penrose finally curbed his anger long enough to check his fuel-he was well past bingo, and with a damaged carrier and his tankers more than a hundred miles away, he was in emergency fuel conditions now. “Basket, Six requests you vector a KA-6 over here, because I’m not moving from this spot until I make sure there’s no ELT or distress calls. You better call Sterett or Ffe or somebody over here to investigate, because I’m staying right here until we find Cowboy.”

“Bullet Six… Six, all group vessels involved at this time.” The controller sounded as if he were trying to think of some detached, official-sounding terminology to tell Penrose that no one was likely to come and search for wreckage or survivors. Penrose suddenly remembered the Ranger and knew they weren t going to send any big ships anywhere near this area for a long time-the Chinese held it too tightly. “Shamu rendezvousing with Basket and Flashlight for recovery. Orders from home plate, return and prepare for divert recovery. Acknowledge.” The battle was over. The Chinese lost four plus damaged a carrier, the Americans lost two. Penrose felt as if he had been beaten up by an entire street gang. Who won this one? Who the hell won this one? NATIONAL MILITARY COMMAND CENTER THE PENTAGON, WASHINGTON, D.C. %30 SEPTEMBER 1994, 1319 HOURS LOCAL (1 OCTOBER, 0219 GUAM TIME) The National Military Command Center, located three stories beneath the inner ring of the Pentagon, was a large, sophisticated command post where members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, their senior staff officers, and members of the National Command Authority and National Security Council could monitor crisis developments anywhere in the world, receive real-time satellite imagery, and speak directly with anyone from foreign leaders to theater commanders to individual crew members via secure, high-tech worldwide communications gear. The place was much like the Strategic Air Command’s underground command center, with uliratight electronic and physical security, several huge wall-size, fullcolor monitors, banks of telephones, a secure code room, and a huge support staff-except this was where national military strategy and command decisions were made and disseminated, not received and executed. A gallery above the main floor allowed high-ranking visitors to view the proceedings; a few persons were up there now. Most of the J-Staff and several other members of the Joint Chiefs were already present in the NMCC when General Wilbur Curtis trotted in and took his place in the front row center seat. Beside him, sitting in the seat reserved for the highestranking civilian present-usually Frank Kellogg, the President’s National Security Advisor, or even Thomas Preston, the Secretary of Defense himself-was Paul Cesare, the President’s Chief of Staff. Curtis gave him a brief nod but ignored him as he clicked on the microphone at his seat. He didn’t care for Cesare. Never had. Shortly after Curtis had been dismissed from the last Situation Room ineeting on this crisis, he’d phoned Cesare, trying to get in to see the President alone, to privately make the case for more fighters to accompany the carriers as well as deploying the Air Battle Force. He’d gotten nothing from Cesare but a chilly “The issue is closed.” He was Machiavellian and ruthless. He’d play either side of the fence as long as it was the side the President was on, and mow down anyone who got in his way. Curtis more than disliked him, he couldn’t stand him. “Curtis here. Situation report, please.” Navy Captain Rebecca Rodgers’ voice came over the NMCC’s loudspeaker: “Good afternoon, sir, Captain Rodgers here. This briefing is classified Top Secret, no foreign nationals, sensitive intelligence sources and methods involved. The command center is secure, with the gallery sound-isolated. Briefing contents describe a priority-two incident.” She paused for a moment in case Curtis wanted to configure the NMCC any differently. He did not, and she went on. Damn, Curtis thought, here it comes. “About fifteen minutes ago the aircraft carrier Ranger, her escorts, several Navy fighters, and an Air Force reconnaissance plane were attacked by Chinese land-based fighters and bombers south of the Philippines.” There was considerable murmuring among the assembled. Several of the Joint Chiefs shifted in their seats, bracing themselves for more. Paul Cesare sat there shaking his head, not believing what he’d just heard. Well, Wilbur Curtis thought, the shit’s hitting the fan a lot faster than anyone expected. And with the President’s Chief of Staff sitting right here, the news was going to travel faster than Curtis could respond. He needed to have a list of options prepared for the National Command Authority literally before the President knew about the crisis. Without a plan of action, the entire JCS might seem like a bunch of bumbling idiots. If things got out of control now, Curtis would be lucky to remain JCS chairman for the rest of the day. “Wait one, Captain.” Curtis turned to Cesare. “Mr. Cesare, what exactly are you doing here?” Curtis expected an argument out of the President’s big aide-Cesare certainly had the security clearance and the need to know” for everything that went on in the NMCCbut to his surprise, Cesare was acting rather stunned, and not just from the news he had just heard. ……. I was notified that a group of senators was going to meet with the Secretary of Defense at one o’clock, ” he replied. “Something to do with the Philippine crises and the Chinese… our military options, something like that. These senators want to keep the President from committing any troops at all to Southeast Asia-they’re afraid we might be starting another Vietnam conflict, or World War Three. They’re pressing Secretary Preston-which means the President-into withdrawing all forces from the Philippines. Preston’s trying to walk a balancing act, but he thought the meeting here was at least a little further away from… the public eye and the press. . . than on the Hill or at Defense.” Curtis couldn’t believe it. Once again the White House was pulling the Pentagon into a political mudfight. It was typical. God, how he hated politics. He turned to Cesare. “That’s all well and fine, Mr. Cesare, but that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.” ……. well, gathering information. So that, um, the President can make an informed response when the senators press him.” Admiral Cunningham, the Chief of Naval Operations, discreetly cleared his throat behind him. Curtis could feel the gaze of his JCS colleagues and staffers on him, silently urging him to deal with the emergency at hand-Cesare would have to wait. “I’ll provide you with whatever you need later, Mr. Cesare, but for this situation, your place is up in the gallery.”