Black Star Rising

by Robert Gandt

  Wu felt a flash of patriotic pride as he thought of the great honor that had been given to him. As captain of the Yuanzheng 67, he would deliver a shock to the impudent Vietnamese.

  Technically, of course, the Ha Long was not a Vietnamese vessel. Though it sailed under the flag of Vietnam, the freighter was owned by a commercial shipping company based in Galveston, Texas. Her crew was mostly American.

  Another wave of excitement swept over Wu. Killing Vietnamese was one thing. Killing Americans was another. What were the consequences?

  It didn’t matter, he decided. Such matters were not the concern of a submarine captain. He had his orders.

  The Yuanzheng 67 was a Russian-built Project 636 Super Kilo class submarine, delivered to the PLA navy only a year ago. China now had eight such submarines, but only the Yuanzheng 67 and its sibling boat, the Yuanzheng 64, had combat-ready crews and operational MVU-110EM computerized fire control systems.

  Like all the Kilo class, the Yuanzheng 67 was a diesel/electric boat, inferior in many respects to the big nuclear-powered boats of Russia and the United States. But the Kilo had one shining virtue that made it one of the deadliest submarines in the world. At a speed of less than five knots, it was virtually undetectable. The Kilo Class was the stealth craft of the sea.

  At the combat information console, the operator called out the data. “Primary target bears zero-four-two, range 3,100 meters, tracking 110, speed eight.”

  Wu acknowledged. He could feel his pulse rate accelerate. He turned to the planesman. “Ascend to periscope depth.”

  The planesman gave him a startled look. He hesitated, then said, “Aye, sir.”

  There was no need to use the periscope, but Captain Wu didn’t care. This was too important a moment not to witness it with his own eyes. Anyway, there was no anti-submarine threat in the vicinity. He wanted to do this the traditional way.

  It took nearly two minutes to reach the correct depth. The Yuanzheng 67 was barely making forward headway, slipping through the water at less than three knots. Wu wanted to be certain that no passive sonar in the area would be able to detect them.

  “Up scope,” Wu ordered.

  “Up scope.”

  It was possible, he realized, that a lookout on the Ha Long would spot the telltale object protruding above the waves. But not likely. What was more likely was that their radar would pick up the faint metallic return of the tip of the periscope.

  Wu was not concerned. Even if they correctly perceived the danger, it was too late for the Ha Long.

  He peered through the periscope, adjusting it to clear the waves, then rotating it through 360 degrees to observe the peripheral area.

  All clear. He fixed the scope on the target.

  “Ready tubes one and two.”

  “Tubes one and two ready, Captain.”

  Wu took his time, fascinated by the sight of the plodding, broad-sided shape of the freighter. He could see the rust on her sides, the red Vietnamese flag, the freshly painted lettering on her bow: Ha Long.

  “Fire one! Fire two!”

  “Firing one and two.”

  A shudder passed through the hull of the Yuanzheng 67. There were two deep thuds, one after the other, as the YU-4 torpedoes left the tubes.

  Wu waited. He knew it was a violation of tactical doctrine to remain where he was, periscope extended. He was supposed to retract the scope, order a moderate speed descent to below the thermal level, then transition to a minimum detectability mode.

  Not yet. He and the Yuanzheng 67 had just made history. Everything that happened in his life after this was anticlimactic.

  It took less than two minutes. The YU-4s, adapted from the Russian SAET-60 torpedo, were passive guidance weapons. They moved at forty knots.

  The first took the Ha Long in her forward quarter. A second later, the next torpedo struck her amidships. Each blast sent a roiling cascade of flame and smoke upward from beneath the water line.

  Wu was riveted to the periscope. In his wildest fantasies he had not imagined such a sight. It was glorious! The freighter was exploding like a New Year’s firecracker, rolling onto her starboard side, spouting showers of fire and debris.

  It was over in minutes. The Ha Long’s hull folded in the middle. In a final gush of smoke and steam, the freighter slipped beneath the surface. The last section to go was the bow with the white-lettered Ha Long still visible.

  “Should we descend, Captain?” asked the planesman.

  Wu stared at the sailor as if seeing him for the first time. He blinked, then returned his attention to the control room.

  “Lower periscope,” Wu ordered. “Descend to a hundred meters, moderate rate.”

  “Aye, sir,” said the planesman, looking relieved. “One hundred meters, descending moderate rate.”

  Wu still felt giddy from the rush of adrenaline. He had never killed before, and he found himself savoring the experience. He understood why warriors loved war. It was the visceral satisfaction you received from seeing at close range the death throes of your enemy.

  Best of all, thought Captain Wu, he had accomplished the task without being detected.

  <>

  USS Daytona Beach, South China Sea

  “That sonofabitch,” said Commander Al Sprague. “He’s enjoying himself.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the sonar operator, seated at his console. “Looks like he’s starting a slow descent now.”

  “About time. The bloodthirsty bastard could have fired just by sonar, but he didn’t. He hung around to watch his victim go down.”

  “I show the Ha Long breaking up. Looks like she’s in three pieces now, still going down.”

  Sprague nodded, trying to suppress his anger. He would love nothing so much as to put a Mk 48 into the hull of the murdering Chinese Kilo.

  Al Sprague was the commanding officer of USS Daytona Beach, SSN-776, a seven-thousand-ton, 360-foot long nuclear-powered 688(i) fast attack submarine. At his disposal was enough firepower—Mk 48 torpedoes, Tomahawk missiles, Harpoon ship killers—to not only blow the Kilo to hell, but to devastate half the Chinese navy.

  But Sprague’s orders were explicit: Intercept, tag, and shadow PLA navy Kilo class, Yuanzheng 67. DO NOT—the emphatic wording was added by COMSUBPAC, the two star in Hawaii who commanded all the Pacific Fleet submarines—DO NOT interfere with subject Kilo’s engagement of foreign national flagged vessels. Do not engage any PLA units unless threat is imminent.

  And that was the part that was now causing Sprague the most discomfort. The little bastards had just murdered upwards of a hundred people and now they were leaving the scene of the crime.

  Sprague’s orders had omitted any mention of actions he was to take—or not take—on behalf of the survivors. Only that he was to keep the Kilo tagged, and now the Kilo was getting out of Dodge.

  Shit. Now what?

  Less than a minute later, the Sonar Officer, Lieutenant Jessup, answered Sprague’s question. “Contacts inbound, Skipper. Two of them, bearing one-one-zero, eleven miles.”

  “What does the computer show?” Sprague asked.

  “Shallow draft. Patrol boats, by the screw noise. Looks like they’re coming out of Mischief Reef.”

  “Vietnamese,” said Sprague. “They’ll pick up survivors.” If there are any. The Ha Long had blown up like a hand grenade.

  Well, thought Sprague, at least he wouldn’t spend the next ten years having nightmares about the victims he left floating in the South China Sea. He could stay with the Kilo, stay passive, keep SUBPAC updated on the Kilo’s position. And maybe, if there really was a God, sooner or later he’d get the chance to shoot Yuanzheng 67.

  “Sierra One tracking 350, sir. Depth 140, speed five knots.”

  Sprague nodded. Sierra One was the sonar designator they assigned to the Kilo when they first picked it up off Cam Ranh Bay.

  “Come left 320. Ahead four knots. I want to stay ten thousand yards off track and keep him tagged from a safe distance.”

  “Wha
t if he catches on that we’re tailing him?” asked Jessup.

  “That’s when the fun begins. He might do something stupid.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like take a shot at us.”

  “What then?”

  Sprague drew a finger across his throat. “Then we sink the sonofabitch.”

  <>

  Groom Lake Research Facility, Nevada

  Maxwell stared at the sprawling complex. The Groom Lake complex—called Dreamland by those who worked there—was the most closely-guarded research facility in the United States. The 27,000 foot runway didn’t appear on navigation charts or airport directories. Since the early 1950s, almost every ultra-secret U.S. military aircraft—the U-2, F-117, B-2— had been developed and tested at Groom lake.

  Maxwell was still simmering over the canceled evening with Svetlana Turin. Boyce had not offered any explanation. Only that they were paying a little visit to Dreamland. The flight from Fallon down to Groom Lake had been in near silence. Maxwell occupied the back seat of the F/A-18F, letting Boyce do all the flying while he made all the radio transmissions. When you flew with Boyce, you always got the back seat.

  They were met at the ladder of their F/A-18 by armed security guards and escorted to the screening section. Groom Lake had the most sophisticated security equipment outside the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. There were retinal identification devices, ultrasound scanners, metal detectors so sensitive they could read the iron content in a subject’s blood.

  From the screening section they were led to Hangar 501, a warehouse-sized building on the north edge of the long concrete ramp. Maxwell remembered the building. He had been assigned here on a secret stealth jet project during his test pilot days.

  After another ID check at the door, they entered the hangar. The cavernous building was nearly empty except for the object in the middle of the floor.

  Maxwell stared at the apparition. The strange-shaped hulk—it didn’t resemble an airplane at first glance—squatted in the middle of the huge hangar like a hulking predator, all angles and facets and blurred features.

  “Look familiar?” said Boyce.

  Maxwell nodded. “The Black Star. But it’s changed.”

  “Of course, it’s changed. How long’s it been? Six years?”

  “Closer to eight.”

  “Stealth research is an ongoing project here. These guys have been busy.”

  Slowly Maxwell walked around the diamond-shaped aircraft. From the front, it looked like a wedge. A wedge with sharp edges. Despite the harsh fluorescent glare from the overhead lights, there was no reflection from the lead-gray surface.

  It had grown in size since he flew the prototype. The wings were longer, giving it more lifting surface. The jet looked like a reversed kite, with an extended triangular frontal area, and a shallower, delta-shaped aft section.

  He noticed that it had landing flaps, which the prototype lacked. The engine inlets were longer and thinner, little more than slits. Same with the exhausts. Almost no infra-red signature.

  Boyce followed him around. “It has upgraded engines,” he said. “Almost twice the thrust of the prototype.”

  Which it needed, remembered Maxwell. The prototype lacked the thrust to go vertical in a one-vee-one—one fighter versus another.

  He knelt on one knee to inspect the underside of the jet. The belly was slick. No inlets, rivets, or any other protuberances. Zero radar return.

  The Black Star’s most unique feature was that it had no tail. Its directional stability came from computer-commanded spoiler surfaces in the aft section of each wing. Without the fly-by-wire flight control computer, the stealth jet was aerodynamically unstable. It would tumble through the sky like a tossed brick.

  “Note the longer and broader control panels,” said Boyce. “The flight control computer has a different logic, with more authority. They say the thing has an improved turn rate and a higher G limit.”

  Which it also needed, thought Maxwell. As a fighter, the Black Star prototype was a dog. He remembered that in a classic hard turning, G-pulling fight, it bled energy at a horrifying rate. But dogfighting agility wasn’t a design priority in a stealth fighter.

  Maxwell was still a lieutenant then. He was one of three test pilots on the Black Star prototype. Because of the intense security that veiled the program, each pilot was responsible for a specific area of testing. They didn’t compare notes, and none was familiar with the others’ test results.

  Maxwell’s assignment was to test the Black Star’s combat maneuvering envelope. Operating mostly at night, he flew the jet through maximum rate turns, high and low speed buffet, accelerated stalls and departures from stable flight, sustained high angle-of-attack maneuvering.

  There was much he didn’t know about the Black Star. He had already figured out that it was a potent night air-to-surface attack aircraft, and despite its subsonic performance limits, its radar-elusive design would make it a dangerous air-to-air killer.

  He still hadn’t learned what made the Black Star the most potent fighter in the world.

  On a pre-dawn test flight he was returning to Groom Lake. He was at 1,500 feet, flying down the length of the runway, about to turn downwind and land. In the pale light he glimpsed the shape of the second test aircraft taking off. Never before had he actually seen another Black Star in flight.

  He rolled into a turn, keeping his eye locked on the departing jet. As far as he knew, all the Black Star test flights had been conducted in the hours of darkness. It was nearly daylight. Why were they exposing the nation’s most closely-guarded secret to viewers on the nearby mountain ridges?

  And then it happened. The Black Star disappeared.

  Maxwell blinked. He thought he had lost it in the gloom of the desert landscape. It would reappear any second. But it didn’t. The Black Star had vanished. Gradually the truth dawned on him. He knew why the Black Star was more deadly than any other radar-elusive stealth jet in the world.

  It was invisible.

  Maxwell abruptly looked up from the hulking jet in the floodlit hangar. An inner alert was sounding in his brain. Boyce hadn’t dragged him down here to show the latest development in stealth technology.

  He looked at Boyce. The admiral was gnawing on an unlit Cohiba, wearing the expression he always wore when he was holding back tantalizing information.

  “Okay, Admiral. What’s it all about?”

  “I thought you’d have figured it out by now.”

  “Give me a clue.”

  “Look at the Black Star again. Tell me what’s really different about it.”

  Maxwell looked again. He had already observed the bigger control surfaces, the stretched wings, the landing flaps. The flaps would allow it to land at a reduced speed.

  So what? Every modern jet had flaps. Why would a slower approach speed be a—

  He saw Boyce give a signal with his arm. He heard a whirring, the sound of a hydraulic motor. From the aft lower fuselage a seamless panel slid open. A long, striped object lowered to the deck. It looked like a stinger, with a flange on the end.

  Maxwell knew what he was seeing. A tailhook.

  He understood why he was at Groom Lake. And he could guess where he was going.

  “What ship?”

  “You’ll find out in the briefing,” said Boyce. He glanced at his watch. “Come on. We’re running late.”

  They headed for the security door. Maxwell looked back over his shoulder at the hulking gray aircraft. “Has anyone actually landed one of those on a carrier?”

  “Yeah. You.”

  “That wasn’t a Black Star. It was a Chinese knock off. And it didn’t have flaps or a tailhook.”

  “They did all the carrier suitability tests here at Groom Lake. The Black Star met all the requirements. Hell, with the flaps the thing has an approach speed of about 137 knots, no more than a Super Hornet. They tell me it’s ready to deploy aboard ship.”

  Maxwell nodded. He noted that Boyce hadn’t actua
lly answered the question, which meant that the Black Star had not been landed aboard a carrier. The suitability tests were on a simulated deck and field-mounted arresting gear and catapults. It had all been done at night here in Nevada, away from prying eyes and cameras.

  “Uh, deploy to where, Admiral?”

  Boyce seemed not to hear. They were walking across the sprawling tarmac ramp. The harsh Nevada sun was hovering over the crest of Freedom Ridge, to the west of Groom Lake. Long shadows fell from the rows of slab-sided buildings along the ramp.

  Maxwell’s mind was processing this latest news. Ready to deploy aboard ship. The U.S. Navy was down to eleven attack carriers, with only seven currently deployed. That could mean the Middle East, the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea. Maybe West Africa. Or some other garden spot he hadn’t yet heard about. Boyce was being Boyce again, delivering information one snippet at a time.

  Maxwell glanced at his watch. The image of Svetlana Turin’s dazzling blue eyes appeared in his mind. They could get back to Fallon before dark. She might even still be at the club.

  Their escort was a bristle-headed Air Force captain who wore a holstered Beretta and a sour expression. He led them to a two-storied building with covered windows. The sign over the door read Statistical Analysis Lab.

  “What statistics are we going to analyze?” said Maxwell.

  “Signs here don’t mean anything. You’ll see.”

  Another ID check and a retina scan, then they were allowed past the security enclosure, into a long passageway. The Air Force captain escort stayed with them, still showing not a trace of expression. They ascended a flight of stairs, then went down another passageway. At the end was a security door and another scanning machine.

  The door swung open. Maxwell blinked in the bright artificial light. The room had no windows. A row of display screens lined one wall, and a long table filled the center of the compartment. On one bulkhead was a large screen on which a map was projected. A pattern of symbols and arrows were arranged on the map.

  Maxwell went to the screen. He stared for a moment at the symbols and arrows and the geographic region. The symbols on the screen were of warships. They were arranged around a flat-topped image with the tag: CVN-76.