Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 06 (34 page)

           
“Passing five thousand!”
Cheshire
shouted.

 
          
As
the bank decreased below forty degrees, Elliott smoothly began reapplying
power, and the airspeed increased faster. Now, with the wings almost level, the
nose down below the horizon, and airspeed increasing, he slowly began feeding
in back pressure to decrease the rate of descent. At first there was no
response—their airspeed had decreased below flying speed,
way
below—so he held the stick forward and fed in a bit more power.

 
          
“Four
thousand feet! ”

 
          
Another
try—this time, Elliott felt pressure on the stick as he pulled, and he kept the
back pressure in until he felt it mush again, then released. The nose was ten
degrees below the horizon now, and the stall buffeting was all but gone. A bit
more back pressure . . . no, too much, forward again, nose moving down,
airspeed increasing, good ... a bit more back, wings level, good, no mushing, a
bit more back pressure, pitch up to eight degrees, six degrees . . .

 
          
“Three
thousand feet!”

 
          
Elliott
slowly began moving the throttles forward. Power spooling up to one hundred
percent, another try for more altitude... good, nose coming up to four degrees,
almost level, airspeed still rising, descent rate decreasing ... “Two
thousand... one thousand .. .Jesus, Brad, you got it?”

 
          
There!
Nose on the horizon, airspeed right at takeoff speed, wings level—they were
flying again! Elliott looked up from his airspeed indicator and saw how close
they got to the ocean . .. shit, the waves looked close enough to be spraying
salt water on them! The radar altimeter read 200 feet, just barely out of the
cushion of air known as ground effect. They were flying! “I got it, crew, I got
it,” Elliott said triumphantly. Airspeed was above 200 knots, so he lifted the
nose above the horizon, and the radar altimeter started up ... 250, 300, well
out of ground effect now and we’re still flying and airspeed’s still incr—

 
          
The
23-millimeter shells from the Chinese Sukhoi-33’s gun attack stitched a single
line of inch-wide holes along the upper fuselage of the Megafortress beginning
just aft of the trailing edge of the right wing, straight up and across the
crew compartment. The steel shells punctured the avionics “canoe” on the
fuselage just before tearing into the aft and center body fuel tanks, causing a
terrific explosion. The shells continued through the crew compartment, piercing
Emil Vikram’s ejection seat and shredding his head, body, instrument panel, and
left-side fuselage area, missing McLanahan and Elliott by only inches. A scream
erupted from McLanahan’s lips as he watched his partner get blown to pieces
right before his eyes. Vikram’s chest looked as ragged and raw as an old
scarecrow—thankfully, the pieces of his helmet hid his decimated head. Blood
spattered against the forward crew compartment and left-side cockpit windows
just before the left windows disintegrated. The crew cabin explosively
decompressed, creating a sudden solid fog in the cockpit, then a virtual
hurricane of thundering wind and violent sound. Brad Elliott was thrown to the
right as his head and upper torso took the entire brunt of the hurricane-force
winds ripping through the blasted left cockpit windows.

 
          
Through
her screams of terror and shock, copilot Major Nancy Cheshire’s training took
over. She was battered by the hurricane-force slipstream and shocked by the
explosions ripping through her plane, but she managed to focus on her one and
only priority: flying the airplane. Everything else had to wait. Still two
hundred feet above the South China Sea, the EB-52 Megafortress was still flying
and still accelerating, so she held on to those two facts with every ounce of
her skill, experience, and strength. The wings were still attached, three of
the plane’s four engines were still running and still producing smash, and they
hadn’t hit the rock-solid ocean yet—and it was her job to keep it that way.

 
          
“Guard
your throttles!” she heard a voice thunder. Just as she laid her hands on the
throttle quadrant, Patrick McLanahan reached across the center console and
began unbuckling Elliott’s lap belt and parachute harness straps. “You okay,
Nancy?” McLanahan shouted over the wind- blast.

 
          
“Yes!”
she shouted back. She didn’t dare take her eyes off her instruments, but out of
the corner of her eyes she saw McLanahan detach Elliott from his ejection seat,
drag him out of the pilot’s seat, lay him down on the deck between the pilot’s
seats and instrument console, hook up his oxygen mask and interphone cord, turn
his regulator to oxygen 100%, and begin checking his wounds.

 
          
“How
is he, Patrick?”
Cheshire
asked.

 
          
“He
looks okay,” McLanahan replied. “A few cuts on the left side of his face and
shoulders.” He quickly wrapped bandages from a first-aid kit around the
worst-looking wounds. Thankfully McLanahan had thought to detach the man from
his seat rather than simply undo his shoulder straps, because now Elliott had a
parachute on and at least had a fighting chance to eject or do a manual bailout
if they got hit. “How are you doing up there?”

 
          
“I
feel like I’m suddenly flying an ambulance plane rather than a bomber. ”

 
          
“Can
the wisecracks, co,” McLanahan snapped—but he was happy that Nancy Cheshire was
still cracking wise. If she was too quiet or too serious, it was an indication
they were in
serious
trouble!
Satisfied that Elliott was breathing on his own and secured the best he could
be, he crawled back into his seat and called up the aircraft systems status
page on his supercockpit display. “Number four’s shut down, no further fire
indications,” he announced, acting as copilot while his only other surviving
crew member flew the plane. “Successful fuel system transfer, successful
hydraulic and electrical shunts. Auto transferring fuel from the fuselage and
mains to the wings, because I think we’re leaking fuel.”

 
          
“We’re
on the deck at mil power and four hundred knots, and I think that’s all we’re
going to get out of her,”
Cheshire
added. “We’ve lost the left-side windscreen and all of the left-side
controls and indicators. At least it’s warm out there.”

 
          
“Defense
is tits-up,” McLanahan reported after doing a status check on the defensive
suite. “All weapons went into emergency safety shutdown with the engine fire.
I’m going to reset everything. Radar should be up in ninety seconds. If we
still have weapons, they’ll be up in two minutes. Nav systems successfully
reset and reloaded. All weapons went into emergency safety shutdown.”

 
          
“What
about those fighters out there, Muck?”
Cheshire
asked.

 
          
“If
we can see him and track him on the attack radar, there’s a chance,” McLanahan
said as he started to check his own equipment. But a few seconds later: “I’ve
got no-go lights on all internal and external weapons, Nance—they might’ve been
hit by a bullet or damaged by the fire. Looks like we got squat. Left turn
heading zero-four-five, co. We’re heading right for
Taiwan
. If we got any help out there, that’s where
they’ll be. I’ll do another restart, but I think my stuff is dead.”

 
          
“Any
contact with the Taiwanese air force?”
Cheshire
asked on interphone.

 
          
McLanahan
tried all the radios. “Negative,” he responded. “The electromagnetic pulse from
the nuclear explosions shut down all the radios. Nothing’s getting through.”

 
          
“We
won’t make it,”
Cheshire
said. “That Chinese fighter is probably lining up on us right now.
Without weapons or countermeasures, he can slice us up at his leisure.”

 
          
“I’ll
jettison the wing weapons pods so we can get max performance,” McLanahan said.
Moments after punching off both wing pylons: “Hey, I’ve got a green light on
the bomb-bay Striker missiles! The wing weapons pods must’ve been damaged from
the explosion on the number four engine—jettisoning the bad missiles cleared
the continuity faults on all the other missiles. But there’s still no way we’re
going to hit a fighter with a three-thousand-pound Striker missile ...” But
that didn’t stop him from repowering the Striker missile rotary launcher and
getting the eight remaining missiles on-line.

 
          
“Radar’s
up!” McLanahan shouted over the screaming windblast coming through the
Megafortress’s shattered left windows. “Bandit
six o’clock
, five miles!”

 
          
“Nail
him! ”
Cheshire
shouted on interphone. “Launch the
Strikers! ”

 
          
“Got
him!” McLanahan shouted. He touched the fighter symbol on his supercockpit
display, which designated the target, then hit the control stud on his
trackball pad and spoke, “Launch commit Striker.”

 
          
CAUTION,
NO AIR-TO-AIR weapons available, the attack computer responded.

 
          
“Override
that caution,” McLanahan ordered the computer. “Launch commit Striker.”

 
          
WARNING,
WEAPON SELECTION OVERRIDE, WARNING, WEAPON PERFORMANCE HAZARDOUS, RECOMMEND
LAUNCH ABORT . . . RECOMMEND LAUNCH ABORT . . .

 
          
Just
then, they felt the Megafortress’s tail slide to one side, followed by a heavy
buffeting. “Jesus, I think we’re hit! ”
Cheshire
shouted.

 
          
“Launch,”
McLanahan ordered.

 
          
WARNING,
LAUNCH COMMIT STRIKER, BOMB DOORS OPENING.

 
          
“Wings
level!” McLanahan shouted. “Gimme a slight climb.”
Cheshire
raised the nose and leveled the wings. As
she did so, she felt the rumble of the aft set of bomb-bay doors swinging up
into the bomb bay, and a Striker missile was ejected into the slipstream. The
missile dropped two hundred feet, wobbily stabilized itself, then ignited its
first- stage rocket motor. Just as the bomb doors slid closed, another
electrical spike drove through the EB-52’s electrical system, sending the good
systems back into reset.

           
The Chinese Sukhoi-33 pilot had just
released the trigger on his fighter’s cannon after a three-second burst from
the left rear quadrant at about a half-kilometer distance when he saw the big
2,900-pound missile ignite its rocket motor. The missile shot straight ahead,
climbed almost straight up, then looped backward and down right toward him! He
got off a quick one-second burst at the bomber before dropping decoy chaff and
flares and breaking hard right away from the missile and plugging in full
afterburner power.

 
          
Guided
by the Striker’s onboard radar, the Striker missile heeled sharply, ignoring
the tiny clouds of chaff dropped by the fighter. With incredible precision, the
Striker missile lined up on the Sukhoi-33’s tail and cruised in. The Chinese
pilot made a last-ditch dodge to the left, but even the high-performance jet
was no match for the speed of the big Striker missile at full thrust. The
explosion completely vaporized the fighter—nothing recognizable was left to hit
the water.

 
          
“I’m
blind again,” McLanahan shouted on interphone. He started to roll the trackball
across the screen to highlight the target—again, nothing. “I think I lost my
system,
Nancy
,” he said. “I’ll try a reset. Let’s hope
this last asshole runs out of gas or—”

 
          
Suddenly,
Cheshire
screamed,
“Fighters!
Twelve o’clock
! Right in front of us! Launching missiles!
My God!”
She could clearly see the twin
trails of air-to-air missiles leaving the wing hardpoints of the plane in front
of them, streaking directly toward them—it was as if the missiles were aiming
directly for
her!
It was like
watching a demonstration video of an air-to-air-missile launch. Nancy Cheshire
closed her eyes and waited for the impact, waited for the explosion, waited for
death . . .