Empire Rising (15 page)

As the missile closed rapidly on Vandal's Hornet, this time from behind, Vandal dispensed more chaff, then pushed his stick forward, rocketing down toward the ocean. Instead of passing through the chaff and continuing straight ahead, this time the missile turned downward, following Vandal toward the ocean's surface. As the missile quickly closed the distance, Vandal kicked on the afterburners. He had only a few seconds to decide on his next course of action. The chaff wasn't going to destroy the missile following him. So he had to destroy it another way.

As his Hornet screamed toward the water, Vandal decided to wait until the last possible moment, then pull out of the dive. The maneuver would be a challenge; he couldn't pull more than nine g's without losing consciousness, while the missile could pull far more. As a result, the missile would gain on his aircraft during the turn, unless it was distracted.

Warning signs flashed inside his cockpit as Vandal headed straight toward the ocean's surface at maximum speed. He eased off on the throttles and pulled back on the stick, pulling his Hornet out of the dive, simultaneously dispensing chaff. It was an eight-g turn, and he tightened every muscle in his body, trying to keep the blood from draining from his head and losing consciousness. The legs of his G suit filled with air, helping to keep blood in the upper half of his body. Vandal grunted through the turn, leveling his Hornet off at five hundred feet. Barely a second later, the missile passed through the chaff and continued straight down, detonating as it slammed into the ocean's surface.

Vandal's relief was short-lived. His APG-79 alarmed again. Another
Hongqi
missile was descending in altitude and had already locked on to him. Somehow the Chinese were guiding these missiles to their targets. Perhaps long-range command and control radars had been moved onto Taiwan. Vandal decided to stay close to the deck and try the last trick in reverse. By the time the missile passed through the chaff and figured things out, he'd be long gone.

Another ten seconds and the missile was dangerously close. Vandal kicked in the afterburners, increasing speed. He waited until the last possible moment, then dispensed chaff again and pulled back on his stick, turning his Hornet skyward. As planned, the
Hongqi
passed through the chaff and continued straight ahead. Vandal watched on his display as the missile turned around, searching for him, but Vandal was already five thousand feet above it.

Vandal continued higher, leveling off at ten thousand feet, attempting to get his bearings on the remaining missiles and
Nimitz
's first cycle of aircraft. A blue-white flame streaked by on his right. Phoenix had twisted her Hornet around and kicked in her afterburners. One
Hongqi
missile had just missed her but another was in hot pursuit. As he contemplated whether there was a way to help her, an alarm activated again in his cockpit. Two more missiles were headed toward him.

Vandal steadied up in the direction of the first missile, dispensing another round of chaff as he broke right. The thin aluminum-coated decoys worked again, and the missile lost track of Vandal's Hornet as it passed through the chaff. But it wasn't long before the missile turned around. Even worse, the second
Hongqi
was in front, headed directly for him. Compounding the problem, he had only one burst of chaff left.

As he analyzed his predicament—one missile behind him and another in front—he realized the two missiles were racing directly toward each other. He did a quick mental calculation, guesstimating that if he slowed about a hundred knots, both missiles would arrive at his Hornet at the same time—in about ten seconds. He eased off the throttles.

Just before the two
Hongqi
missiles closed on Vandal's Hornet, he dispensed his last round of chaff, then kicked in his afterburners and pushed down on the stick, vacating the area as quickly as possible. The two
Hongqi
missiles, decoyed by the chaff, continued straight ahead, locking on to each other and detonating above Vandal as he raced toward the ocean's surface.

Vandal pulled up as the illumination above him faded to darkness, leveling his Hornet off at seven thousand feet. He let out a deep breath, checking his instrumentation. There were no additional missiles locked on to him.

He spoke into his headset. “Viper One, how are you doing?”

Michalski's voice came across the radio. “I've got a
Hongqi
on my six. I'm out of chaff and out of ideas. I can't shake it!” Vandal glanced at his display. Phoenix was five miles to the north at ten thousand feet, headed his way.

Vandal got an idea. He banked his F/A-18 hard left into a 360-degree turn, climbing in altitude toward Michalski. Vandal adjusted the diameter of the circle so that he came out of the turn headed perpendicular to his wingman's flight path. Michalski was one of the best pilots in the squadron, and Vandal wasn't surprised she'd been able to keep the
Hongqi
missile at bay even without chaff, juking her Hornet at the last possible second as the missile approached, taking advantage of the missile's excessive speed.

The surface-to-air
Hongqi
were very large missiles compared to the air-to-air missiles aircraft carried, packed with fuel for the long transit from the coast. Their large size made them less maneuverable, which thankfully gave Michalski and the other pilots a fighting chance. But what the
Hongqi
lacked in agility had been replaced with persistence. Its guidance and control processing was advanced indeed. It was only a matter of time before Michalski maneuvered too soon or too late, and the missile would remain locked on and home to detonation.

Michalski had kicked in her afterburners again after her latest maneuver, and her Hornet was streaking toward Vandal, the missile in hot pursuit. Vandal thumbed the trackball on his flight stick, switching to his six-barrel Vulcan 20mm cannon as he spoke into his headset.

“Viper One, do you trust me?”

“Hardly!” Phoenix replied. “With a call sign of Vandal?”

Michalski had a point, but there was no time to debate its merits. “I need you to fly straight,” Vandal replied. “No juking until I say so, okay?”

“Okay,” Michalski repeated as her Hornet screamed by a half-mile in front of Vandal.

Vandal focused. He had timed it as best as possible—the geometry was perfect. The
Hongqi
missile was a mile behind Phoenix and closing fast, and the missile would cut across Vandal's flight path in about five seconds. It was going to come down to hand-eye coordination, and he was better than most. Maybe all those days skipping high school, hanging out at Fat Eddy's Billiards playing video games, would pay off after all.

The odds of hitting a missile with a gun were low, but it was worth a shot. Unfortunately, the
Hongqi
would get dangerously close to Phoenix. If he missed the missile and told her too late to juke out of the way …

Vandal caught the red engine exhaust of the missile in his peripheral vision. He fired his Vulcan gun, watching the path of the red tracers race out ahead of him, judging whether they would intersect the path of the missile streaking across the night sky. He would not get another shot. At the last instant, he adjusted his angle down a fraction of a degree, and the
Hongqi
missile slammed into the stream of 20mm bullets, breaking into fragments in an orange-red puff. A second later, Vandal passed above the missile debris, then banked left and kicked in his afterburners.

“Splash one
Hongqi
missile,” he said as he pulled up alongside Phoenix.

“Thanks Vandal. I thought I was a goner.” The faint glow from Michalski's cockpit instrumentation illuminated her profile, and he could see her turn her head toward him. He couldn't see her face behind her visor, but he knew she was smiling.

Now that the immediate danger for him and his wingman had passed, Vandal turned his attention to the rest of
Nimitz
's first cycle of aircraft. A glance down at his display returned startling information: Vandal and Phoenix were the only two aircraft remaining. Another review of his instrumentation told Vandal they could not continue their mission. They'd consumed too much fuel during their evasive maneuvers. They'd have to head back to
Nimitz
. Vandal was about to inform Phoenix when her voice broke across his headset.

“Incoming bogies, bearing two-seven-three.”

Vandal checked his display as his APG-79 alarmed. Six incoming bogies. A few seconds later, the APG-79 identified them as
Hongqi
.

They were out of chaff and low on fuel. Their only option was to run and hide. “Down to the deck! Head back to
Nimitz
.”

Vandal pushed his stick forward, pitching the nose of his Hornet down. Phoenix followed, and both Hornets raced toward the ocean's surface. Vandal banked left and Phoenix right, the two jets turning back toward
Nimitz
, leveling off at five hundred feet. Vandal checked his APG-79. The
Hongqi
were closing and dropping in altitude.

As the
Hongqi
continued to close, Vandal had two choices—wait until the last second and then climb, or veer to the left or right. Without chaff, neither option offered a reasonable chance of success.

He checked his fuel gauge again. With the evasive maneuvers they were about to make, they weren't going to have enough fuel to make it back to
Nimitz
. They were too heavy—they had too much ordnance. Ordnance that was a liability as they headed home. It was useless against incoming missiles, and it weighed them down as they maneuvered their Hornets.

“Viper One. Drop all ordnance. We need to get lighter.”

Phoenix acknowledged, and seconds later the two Hornets dropped their payload of bombs into the Pacific Ocean.

Vandal wiggled his flight stick back and forth. His Hornet felt lighter, nimbler. And just in time. The six
Hongqi
had closed on them, and it was time to maneuver. But then he decided against the two previous options. Instead of pulling up or veering to the side, he decided to descend even lower.

“I'm dropping down as low as possible. Let's see if we can lose the missiles in the ocean clutter.”

Pushing his stick forward, Vandal eased his Hornet toward the ocean, dropping down to an altitude of fifty feet, dangerously close to the top of the waves breaking on the ocean's surface. On a calm day, flying this low was dangerous enough. But the higher the sea state, the more unpredictable the wave height. The weather had steadily deteriorated through the night, and average wave height was now between thirty and forty feet. One fifty-foot wave and it'd all be over.

Phoenix matched his maneuver, pulling up alongside him on his nine o'clock position. But the
Hongqi
missiles also matched their maneuver, descending to fifty feet, continuing to close. It looked like Vandal's last-ditch effort had also failed, when one of the missiles trailing them disappeared from the display. Vandal's best guess was that it had been taken out by a random fifty-foot wave. That meant fifty feet was too low to be flying. He called into his headset.

“Viper One. A wave just took out one of our bogies. We're too low. Come up to seven-five feet.”

As Phoenix joined him at seventy-five feet, Vandal realized he had run out of ideas, and time. In a few seconds, the leading
Hongqi
missiles would reach them. He was confident he and Phoenix could evade the first missile. But without chaff, he and Michalski had the skill and equipment to evade—at best—one missile at a time. Two missiles would be far too difficult.

Michalski's voice cut across his headset. “Viper Two. Got any more bright ideas?”

“I got nothing,” Vandal replied.

“Then I think it's time we part ways,” Michalski said. “I'll see you back at the farm.”

“Roger that, Viper One.”

Michalski's Hornet banked left and then Vandal banked right, both jets continuing to skim along the ocean's surface. Vandal checked his APG. Three missiles had peeled off toward Michalski, while two followed him. A few seconds later, Michalski's jet rocketed skyward, her afterburners burning blue-white, with three red pinpricks following beneath her. She wanted maneuvering room, something she didn't have near the ocean's surface. But Vandal didn't see any hope in that course of action; there was no way she could outmaneuver three missiles. Hell, there was no way he could outmaneuver
two
missiles.

As the two
Hongqi
trailing him closed the remaining distance, Vandal realized he needed to make a decision—head skyward like Michalski or come up with some other plan. If only he had another burst of chaff, he could try the same trick on these two missiles as the last two. As he grasped for a plan, he finally decided to try the same ploy as before, only this time without chaff. It'd be risky, with nothing to distract the two incoming missiles from his Hornet. But if he could maneuver his aircraft out of the way fast enough, resulting in the two missiles locking on each other, it just might work.

Vandal increased altitude to one thousand feet to give himself some maneuvering room, monitoring the first incoming
Hongqi
on the APG-79. Just before the
Hongqi
closed to within range of its proximity fuse, Vandal juked hard left and kicked in his afterburners. The first missile sped by without detonating. Vandal juked hard left again, completing a 180-degree turn. He was now heading directly toward the second missile. As expected, the first missile turned around, and was now following him in hot pursuit.

He ran the mental calculations again, slowing his Hornet slightly so both missiles would reach his Hornet simultaneously. Only this time, there would be no chaff to confuse them while he attempted to evade. He would have to wait even longer, until the missiles were very close, so neither missile detected his evasive maneuver until it was too late, hoping neither missile passed close enough to his Hornet to detonate—but hopefully close enough to destroy each other.