Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (35 page)

Fifteen Flying Leopard fighter-bombers flew in from Hainan
Island, belonging to the South Sea Fleet, 9
^th
People’s Liberation
Army Navy Air Force.
 
The Flying Leopards
began a low-level attack run on the American ships.
 
They yanked up and fired Eagle Strike
supersonic anti-ship missiles that winged off in a deadly flock.
 
Climbing, the Chinese fighter-bombers
continued to charge the American formation.
 
Lake Champlain
’s Aegis combat
system scrutinized the horizon and detected the threat.

Sea Sparrows and Standards burst from their launch cans and
vertical cells on
Lake Champlain
,
Mahan
,
Ronald Reagan
, and
Winston S.
Churchill
.
 
They whooshed into the
sky, their blastoff enveloping the task force in a bank of propellant
smoke.
 
The Standard Missiles were still
climbing out when the Sparrows intercepted several Eagle Strikes that skimmed in
over the water.
 
More of the Sea Sparrows
then reached the Flying Leopards that were coming in high.
 
Able to penetrate the American defenses with sheer
numbers, the Chinese anti-ship cruise missiles threatened
Ronald Reagan
herself.

Power from the supercarrier’s twin reactors was diverted to
laser turrets arrayed beneath the ship’s flight deck.
 
They fired and held their beams on the lead
Eagle Strike.
 
The Chinese missile heated
and exploded.
 
Ronald Reagan
’s laser turret swung over to the next target.

Lake Champlain
kicked
in a Rolling Airframe Missile that burst from a stern-mounted turret and skipped
off.
 
The task force’s Gatling guns came
alive.
 
Their ripping sound added to the
chorus of sea battle.
 
Eagle Strikes were
cooked by laser, shredded by Phalanxes, or knocked down by RAMs.
 
Some of them exploded so close that they
sprayed the American ships with debris.
 
Part of an Eagle Strike’s ramjet crashed onto the deck of
Mahan
.
 
Otherwise, Task Force 24 was undamaged.

Lieutenant Pelletier broke her Lightning II from the
tanker’s drogue hose.
 
Ronald Reagan
’s air controllers
immediately put her on a vector to intercept the incoming bandits.
 
They advised her that eight Super Hornets had
just launched, as well, and that an EA-6 electronic attack aircraft was already
on the prowl.
 
Pelletier’s Lightning II
turned hard and rushed at the bandits.

Seven People’s Liberation Army Air Force Flankers joined the
fray, dashing for the American supercarrier with loads of Krypton supersonic
anti-ship missiles.
 
The Chinese pilots
locked their missiles on the largest surface target and fired.
 
Ramjets sprinted the Kryptons to over Mach 4
as the launch aircraft turned back to the mainland.

Lake Champlain
’s
Aegis combat system selected
Mahan
’s
surface-to-air missiles for a defensive broadside.
 
The Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles ascended
from
Mahan
’s missile deck.
 
Already damaged by a mine,
Thach
maneuvered to shelter on
Ronald Reagan
’s starboard side.
 
Lake
Champlain
reported that Standard Missiles had brought down several Chinese
ballistic missiles that threatened the group.
 
Rear Admiral Kaylo enjoyed a fleeting moment of relief.
 
Then a new missile report came in.
 
More ballistic and cruise missiles had
departed the Chinese mainland.
 
Kaylo
looked to the sparkling sea and worried his defenses were being overwhelmed,
and contemplated retreat for a fleeting moment.
 
Then he pushed this dark and disheartening thought from his mind, got
back to work, and had
Essex
put up
two fighter-bombers to round out the task force’s combat air patrol.

Kicking up spray from Essex’s wet deck, an olive-drab
Lightning II stealth jump jet rolled several feet and then leapt into the sky.
 
Its engine nozzle, lift fan, and roll jet
balanced the machine until adequate forward speed had been achieved.
 
Once there was enough forward speed for the
wings to generate adequate lift to keep the heavily loaded machine in the air,
the engine nozzle rotated to horizontal and the lift fan door closed.
 
A second stealth jump jet followed.
 
It rose vertically on a cushion of black
fumes, retracted its landing gear, nosed down, jetted off, and the two Marine
Corps Lightning IIs met up and went supersonic.
 
Ronald Reagan
launched two
Super Hornets.
 
The American combat
aircraft united and climbed to their patrol sector.

Task Force 24’s fast boats—the littoral combat ship
Fort Worth
and the guided-missile
frigate
Gridley
—put themselves in
front of the inbound Kryptons.
 
The
warships put up clouds of chaff and a wall of metal from their Gatling guns.
 
Gridley
kicked in an ESSM as well, firing it at near point blank range.
 
An explosion low to the water confirmed a hit.
 
Fort
Worth
’s close-in weapon system sprayed more big bullets and sent
fratricidal rounds into
Gridley
’s
rear deck, impacting and ricocheting around her helicopter hangar, shredding
the walls, stowed equipment, and personnel working on a Seahawk engine.
 
A Krypton homed in on
Fort Worth,
and she took the supersonic ship killer amidships.
 
Fort
Worth
rocked with the energy of the hit.
 
The Krypton penetrated her superstructure and went off inside, blowing
her top off.
 
With her bridge gone and
the rudder locked over, the burning American littoral combat ship began to circle.

Sneaking past the task group’s outer defensive line, one
Krypton screamed in at 2,000 miles-per-hour.
 
Lake Champlain
fired a Rolling
Airframe Missile, and
Mahan
, her
Phalanx.
 
Ronald Reagan
powered up her close-in lasers.
 
Before the RAM and Gatling gun bullets hit,
before the lasers had time to cook it, the last Chinese anti-ship cruise
missile slammed into
Ronald Reagan
’s
side just above the waterline, and took a deep supersonic stab at the American
titan.
 
It sliced through the supercarrier’s
outer hull and penetrated her secondary skin.
 
The Krypton’s mid-body warhead triggered a half ton of high explosive.
 
Pipes burst, wires were ripped, fires kindled,
and sailors died.

Several Flying Leopards continued their drive on the
American ships.
 
Frictional heat from the
Chinese fighter-bombers forward quarters displayed on Pelletier’s cockpit
screen and those of the two Marine Corps Lightning IIs on her wing.
 
Three minutes later, burning wreckage tumbled
from the sky.
 
One Flying Leopard’s hot
engine slammed into the water near
Michael
Monsoor
.

Michael Monsoor
kicked
up sea-spray and punched through choppy seas.
 
She slipped to within 90 miles of
Liaoning
as the nuclear attack submarine
Connecticut
crept in even closer.
 
Vertical launch
cells along the American stealth destroyer’s periphery yawned open.
 
Tomahawk anti-ship cruise missiles rose and
flashed off into the black night.
 
Then
Michael Monsoor
’s deck guns emerged,
elevated, and fired 12 shots in rapid succession before tucking back into their
vaults.
 
Michael Monsoor
’s engines surged and she sped from her firing
position.

“Intermittent surface radar contact,”
Liaoning
’s surface warfare officer announced.
 
He had spotted
Michael Monsoor
for a moment, although the blip on his screen had disappeared
again.

“Air-search radar has several projectiles coming in.
 
Profile looks like cruise missiles,” the air
warfare officer cried out.

Michael Monsoor
powered up her sea-search radar, got a quick fix on the Chinese vessels, fired
off six more railgun shots, and shut it down again.
 
She rapidly changed course and then sped
off.
 
As
Michael Monsoor
misbehaved topside,
Connecticut
glided quick and quiet through the dark waters.

“Shoot,” was the order from
Connecticut
’s captain.
 
Eight
Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles slid from the submarine’s torpedo tubes.
 
Connecticut
crash-dived and accelerated away as the Harpoons broached and climbed out on
boost motors.
 
With Harpoons and
Tomahawks on their way, the Chinese carrier battle group readied to take them
down and slammed the water with sonar, trying to sniff out the enemy submarine
that had to be close by.
 
With her two
big destroyers blocking the axis of attack,
Liaoning
prepared to lash out.

Liaoning
’s
deckhands opened the missile canisters forward of the carrier’s island.
 
Inside the waterproof cylinders were the
pointed intakes of fighter plane-sized missiles.
 
Machinery started and gears turned, and two
Granit surface-to-surface missiles were coaxed from inside their enclosures.
 
They displayed shiny silver bodies with menacing
skull and crossbones painted upon them.
 
These long bodies tapered at the tail and ended with folding stub winglets
and a stunted fin.
 
Sailors in fire suits
and gas masks attached hoses to the missiles and began filling their tanks with
liquid propellant.
 
When fueling was
complete, the Granits’ turbofans started up.

Black smoke covered
Liaoning
’s
flight deck as the missiles burned off a film of factory oil.
 
A technician checked readouts and began
programming the missile guidance packages with the American supercarrier’s
approximate position.
 
Onboard flight
computers completed preflight checklists and brought engines to full
power.
 
The Granits’ launch rails were
cranked-up and angled skyward, and personnel cleared the area.

With a howl, rocket assist packs lifted the Granits into the
sky, where they dropped free and skipped into the sea.
 
The huge Chinese cruise missiles leveled off,
dipped to wave top, and flew toward the horizon.
 
When done with this latest launch,
Liaoning
added her surface-to-air
missiles to those already put up by
Maanshan
,
Qingdao
, and
Zigong
, and Chestnut-shaped turrets around
Liaoning
’s deck fired their Gatling guns and small Grisom
surface-to-air missiles.

Several intruding American anti-ship cruise missiles were
taken.
 
Finally, getting dangerously
close, the last Harpoons were knocked down, and a Tomahawk also succumbed to
the hail.
 
Two Tomahawks fought through, however.
 
The stealthy American cruise missiles
popped-up, climbed for a moment, and then nosed over to dive into
Liaoning
’s flight deck.

From
Liaoning
’s
towering island, the Chinese admiral saw the American cruise missiles arcing in
and instinctively crouched against the blast.
 
There followed the sickly tearing of metal followed by a rumble from
deep within his ship.
 
He touched one of
the bulkheads and felt
Liaoning
shimmy.
 
The admiral stood and bellowed
to his stunned officers: “Start damage control sirens and automated
firefighting systems.”

Ronald Reagan
was still
turned into the wind.
 
A brisk sea-spray
drenched her flight deck and her hulk rose, fell, and rolled in the chop.
 
Most of her air wing was in the air.
 
Her decks were bare, save for yellow aircraft
towing and weapon hauling equipment.
 
A
bright reflection emanated from close to the sea.
 
One of
Ronald
Reagan
’s deckhands pointed it out.

The big, shiny Chinese Granits approached low, skimming just
over the white-capped waves.
 
Lake Champlain
’s radar spotted the
Chinese cruise missiles, but the sea’s state interfered with targeting.
 
Aegis sent several missiles anyway.
 
When they missed,
Mahan
’s forward Phalanx opened up and shredded one supersonic
missile in a hail of tungsten bullets.
 
A
sickly greenish-brown cloud formed where the Chinese missile had been.
 
It expanded and drifted like an unholy
fog.
 
Lake
Champlain
fired two Rolling Airframe Missiles and
Winston S. Churchill
’s Gatling gun spit fire.
 
The Granit approached and crossed the
American supercarrier’s stern.

The Chinese missile dispersed an aerosol.
 
The Granit overflew the flight deck and left
a mist in its wake.
 
Once over water
again, the missile was slammed from three sides by bullets and missiles, and exploded
in a huge fireball off
Ronald Reagan
’s
port side.
 
Rear Admiral Kaylo watched
from the supercarrier’s flag bridge, believing his ship had survived a near
miss.
 
Then, when several sailors on deck
began to convulse and grab at their throats, Kaylo went to the plate glass and
pressed against it.
 
Men flopped on the
ground, gasping for air like fish out of water.
 
Something was terribly wrong.
 
Kaylo called the bridge to order countermeasures.