Black Star Rising

by Robert Gandt

  Maxwell had followed Boyce out the clam shell doors of the COD. A thirty knot wind swept over the deck, carrying with it wisps of steam from the bow catapults. On either side of the island were parked F/A-18 Super Hornets, wings folded, looking like tethered birds of prey.

  He was still wearing the protective Mickey Mouse headset and float coat—survival helmet and inflatable vest—that all COD passengers had to use. Outside the door, fifty feet away, the COD’s port engine was still turning.

  In the compartment just inside the door to the island, Rear Admiral Jack Hightree, the Reagan Strike Group Commander, was grinning and pumping Boyce’s hand, welcoming him back to the Reagan. Until a few months ago, before being promoted to rear admiral, Boyce had been the commander of the Reagan’s air wing.

  Half a dozen staff officers and enlisted personnel stood around them, awed by the presence of two flag officers. Maxwell saw Dana Boudroux coming through the door. She was peeling off her float coat and headset.

  She glanced around, then sniffed the air. “This place smells like a locker room.”

  “It is a locker room,” said Maxwell. “One of the world’s largest.”

  “Why are you just standing around here? Didn’t we come here to work?”

  “Are you always this snotty, or is it just me?”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet, Commander Maxwell.”

  “It’s Brick.”

  “Whatever. Is someone going to tell me where I’ll be living?”

  “You’ll have to be escorted until you’ve learned your away around the ship. I’m sure someone has been—”

  “I know about ships. All I need to know is where my stateroom is located.”

  A baby-faced young woman in dungarees stepped forward. “Petty Officer Miller, Ma’am. I’m here to show you to your quarters. Don’t worry about your bags. Someone will take them to your room.”

  Dana flashed a glacial smile at Maxwell, then turned to follow the young woman. The petty officer led the way through the first knee-knocker—the hard steel enclosure positioned at every bulkhead along the ship’s passageways.

  “Owww, damn!” Dana was clutching her shin with both hands.

  “Oh, sorry, Ma’am,” said the petty officer. “I forgot to warn you about the knee-knockers. Happens to everyone the first time.”

  Maxwell caught Dana glowering down the passageway at him. He tried to turn away before she saw him laughing, but he was too late.

  <>

  The ready room hadn’t changed. Over the door was the same old sign: Home of the World Famous VFA-36 Roadrunners.

  The leather-upholstered, airline-style lounging seats, all facing forward, were the same. By long standing tradition, the aisle seat on the front row was the Skipper’s seat. His old seat.

  For a while Maxwell stood in the front of the room peering around, letting the memories wash over him. This was where he’d checked in as the new squadron operations officer after leaving NASA. Within a few months he’d replaced the executive officer, who was lost in an accident. Not long after that, Maxwell took command of the Roadrunners when the skipper, Killer DeLancey, was shot down in Iraq.

  For two years the VFA-36 Roadrunners had been his life, his responsibility. In this ready room he’d briefed over a hundred missions, mourned pilots lost in combat, celebrated the squadron’s victories in peace and war.

  On the port bulkhead was the Greenie Board with the grease-penciled carrier landing grades of each Roadrunner. Maxwell noted that the current Top Hook in the squadron was Lieutenant B. J. Johnson. Bullet Alexander was in a respectable third place on the grade ranking.

  “What’s this?” said Maxwell. “The squadron skipper isn’t number one?”

  “It’s called leadership,” said Alexander, standing beside him. He was wearing his battered leather jacket. “Have to let the junior officers share a little of the glory, you know.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot.”

  He remembered when Alexander checked into the squadron as the new executive officer. His logbook contained not quite three hundred carrier landings, a paltry number for a senior squadron officer. Alexander had spent tours of duty as an instructor in the Hornet training squadron, then as a member of the Blue Angels, the Navy’s aerial demonstration team. They were shore duty jobs, and they’d caused him to miss most of the combat operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

  Like Maxwell before him, Alexander had faced the prejudice against officers who hadn’t worked their way up through all the junior and middle-grade squadron jobs before getting their own command.

  Alexander surprised everyone, including Maxwell. He learned quickly. Going one-vee-one against all comers, established himself as the undisputed king of the hill in air-to-air combat. And though it took him a little longer, he’d worked his way from the bottom of the Greenie Board.

  They walked down the aisle between the rows of seats. Maxwell stopped to shake hands with some of the pilots who had once served under him.

  “Hey, Brick,” said Lieutenant Commander Flash Gordon, jumping up from one of the computer terminals. “We thought you had a cushy job back at Fallon.”

  “They sent me out to check on you. We heard Bullet has been too soft on you guys.”

  Gordon rolled his eyeballs. “That’ll be the day.”

  Lieutenant B. J. Johnson was sitting in the last row, pecking on a laptop computer. She glanced up, saw Maxwell, and thrust the computer aside. Her cheeks reddened.

  “Skipper Maxwell,” said B.J. She thrust her hand out. “You coming back to fly with us?”

  He shook her hand and gave her a smile. B. J. Johnson was the only female pilot in the squadron. During her first year in the Roadrunners, she had carried a not-so-secret crush on her commanding officer.

  “If Bullet wants to give me his seat,” said Maxwell, “I’ll take it.”

  “Not a chance,” said Alexander. “It took me too damn long to get this job. No way I’m giving it back.”

  Alexander steered Maxwell on down the aisle to the back of the ready room. The fluorescent glow from the overhead lights glistened off Alexander’s shiny brown scalp. He glanced around, making sure they were out of earshot of the flight suited pilots watching them.

  “They’re still bummed out over losing Hozer Miller,” said Alexander. “No one is buying that ‘operational accident’ bullshit, and neither am I. Hornets don’t just blow up without a good reason.”

  “You were there,” said Maxwell. “What do you think?”

  “A missile. No question. But where did it come from? Why didn’t we get a radar warning?”

  “What, then?”

  “You tell me.” Alexander was giving him a hard look. “How about something Chinese, something invisible? Same thing that’s been whacking the Vietnamese airplanes and gunboats. How about it, Brick? Am I close?”

  Maxwell didn’t answer. Alexander had a good idea of what happened to Hozer Miller. And Maxwell could tell that he had a good idea of why Maxwell and the STOU team were aboard the Reagan.

  He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get down to Intel. When I have the answer, I’ll let you know.”

  <>

  “Red, don’t even think of lighting that thing here.”

  Boyce had the lid of his Zippo open, ready to ignite a Cohiba. “You never bitched about cigars when I was the Air Wing Commander.”

  “You’re not the Air Wing Commander anymore,” said Rear Admiral Jack Hightree. “You’re just another freeloading admiral and a guest on this boat. No cigars on my bridge.”

  Boyce sighed and snapped the lighter closed. Hightree was still a pompous pain in the ass. Boyce gave the Cohiba a loving look, then stuffed it back in his leather flight jacket.

  Boyce and Hightree had been friends for twenty years, though Hightree had always been senior by at least one pay grade. As the Reagan Strike Group Commander, Hightree wore two stars versus Boyce’s one. In Boyce’s opinion, Hightree was a competent but overly conservative commander. Hi
s ascent through the ranks had been accomplished in a risk-averse manner, and he made it no secret that he was earning a third star the same way.

  They were in the flag intel compartment. At the front table with Hightree was his intelligence officer, Commander Harvey Wentz. Seated at a second table were Maxwell and the rest of the Dragon Flight team, all in flight suits.

  An illuminated screen glimmered on the bulkhead. On it appeared a photograph of a gray, diamond-shaped jet.

  “Hey,” said Sharp O’Toole. “That looks like our Black Star, sort of. Close, but not exactly.”

  Harvey Wentz flashed an indulgent smile. Wentz never bothered to conceal his distaste for aviators. In his view, they were single-purpose gladiators who became dangerous if given too much information. Wentz made it his business to parcel out only what they absolutely needed to know, nothing more.

  “You’re looking at the Dong-jin, ladies and gentlemen. The Chinese stealth jet based on technology stolen from the United States. This is the prototype, the only version on which we have current information. We consider it probable that the aircraft has been upgraded in the past two years, just as our own Black Star has been improved.

  “The intelligence consensus is that the PRC has inserted the Dong-jin—probably several—into the conflict with Vietnam. Evidence suggests that all the aerial losses sustained by the Vietnamese—a transport aircraft and two Fishbed fighters—as well as numerous surface craft were caused by Dong-jins.”

  “What about the F/A-18 off the Reagan?” asked Crud Carruthers. “Was that a Dong-jin shoot down?”

  Wentz hesitated, glancing at Boyce. Boyce gave him a nod, and Wentz continued. “From the small amount of debris recovered from the downed F/A-18, we determined that the F/A-18 was probably hit by a PL-8 heat seeker missile, an item the Chinese adapted from the Israeli Python-3. Since there were no Chinese fighters in the area at the time, we’re assuming it was fired by a Dong-jin.”

  “Why shoot a U.S. jet?” asked Gypsy Palmer. “Are the Chinese trying to start a war with us?”

  Again Wentz hesitated. Before he could answer, Boyce rose to his feet. “One side of our intelligence community is of the opinion that the ChiComs are sending us a little message. They want us to stay out of this little dispute they’re having with Vietnam. Another side thinks that the PLA commanders have just gotten reckless. They’re sure enough of their strength that they’re betting that the U.S. will back down.”

  “Well, Admiral?” asked Sharp O’Toole. “Will we?”

  Boyce fixed O’Toole with a piercing look. It had always been Boyce’s style to encourage his junior officers to be open with him, even disagree—up to a limit. As usual, O’Toole had exceeded the limit.

  “Button your lip, Major O’Toole, and you’ll find out.”

  Boyce nodded to Wentz, who picked up a stack of red-bordered file folders. He began distributing them to the team members. Each folder bore a TOP SECRET stencil.

  “This is the fact file on the Dong-jin,” said Boyce. “Read the standard caveat on the cover, including the item about not removing it from this compartment. Bear in mind that the currency of the data is questionable. During the war with Taiwan, the Chinese lost all their existing Dong-jins. But their technology and research facilities were left mostly intact, so it was only a matter of time before they resurrected the program. Since then, we have to assume they’ve made advances in stealth technology just as we have.”

  Hightree watched the exchange, his lean, patrician face showing no reaction. As the Carrier Strike Group Commander, he had overall responsibility for operations from his ships. But he and Boyce knew this was a unique situation. Though Boyce was junior in rank, his authority came from a higher link in the chain of command.

  “If the ChiComs have, in fact, sent us a message by shooting down one of our Super Hornets, then our Commander-in-Chief intends to send them a little reply. But instead of an eye for an eye, it’s gonna be two eyes. Or in this case, two jets, or two ships, or two of anything they whack that belongs to us.”

  The illuminated screen behind Boyce went blank for a second, then another image flashed onto the screen. It was a still shot of a stubby-winged, bulbous-nosed jet aircraft. The long fuselage was slick, unmarred by the bulge of a crew cockpit.

  Boyce gave it a moment, enjoying the curious stares of the audience. “For those of you unfamiliar with our latest UCAV technology, let me introduce the Chameleon.”

  UCAV was the military’s acronym for Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle. The Chameleon—the UAV-17—was a single-engine, unmanned reconnaissance aircraft equipped with a configurable radar and IR signature. Using its own electronic emulation equipment, the Chameleon could present itself on enemy radars and infra-red sensors as a high altitude bomber, fast-moving fighter, or a surveillance aircraft.

  “All you need to know about this little bird is that we have them aboard the Reagan. One will be launched tomorrow, configured to display the electronic signature of a F/A-18G Growler.”

  The team members stared at the image on the screen. The Chameleon looked nothing like a Growler, which was a variant of the Super Hornet developed to replace the aging EA-6B Prowler. The mission of the Growler, like the Prowler before it, was to suppress enemy radar and communications.

  Boyce went on. “The Chameleon—posing as a Growler—will make a feint at Hainan’s airspace. We want them to think a strike might be imminent. Our Rules of Engagement preclude an actual overflight of Chinese territory, but the ChiComs won’t know that. We expect them to send up fighters, probably SU-27 Flankers.”

  “What about our CAP fighters?” asked O’Toole.

  “They’ll be on station, presenting plenty of radar presence, but they won’t go in to cover the Chameleon.”

  “Then the decoy’s gonna be dead meat,” said O’Toole. “How else are you going to cover—”

  He saw the answer in Boyce’s face.

  “Very good,” said Boyce, smiling at his audience. “Now you know why you’re here.”

  Chapter 11 — Cat Shot

  USS Ronald Reagan

  South China Sea

  1015 Saturday, 28 April

  Maxwell peered around the Reagan’s flight deck. It was nearly deserted. So were the viewing decks in the island and most of the compartments that overlooked the carrier’s massive flight deck. Gone from the open deck was the swarm of plane captains, fuelers, aircraft handlers, and ordnance crews.

  Only essential personnel—catapult crew, asbestos-suited firefighters and rescue men, the captain, helmsman, and officer-of-the-deck on the captain’s bridge, the air boss and his staff in Primary Flight Control, Admiral Hightree and Boyce on the flag bridge—were permitted to observe the strange craft on the Reagan’s flight deck today. Each had been required to sign a non-disclosure statement.

  Maxwell and O’Toole had ridden the number one elevator from the hangar deck up to the flight deck with their shroud-covered Black Star. Crud Carruthers and Gypsy Palmer accompanied their own shrouded jet upward on the number two elevator aft of the island structure. Not until the jets were towed forward and spotted on the bow catapults were the shrouds removed, revealing the shape of the stealth jets.

  Maxwell saw the Chameleon positioned on the number three waist catapult. The unmanned jet’s single turbofan engine was already whining. It was ready to be catapulted.

  “Look at that thing,” said O’Toole. “Are the Chinese stupid enough to believe that’s a Growler?”

  “Maybe not,” said Maxwell, “but we’re betting they’ll come up and take a look.”

  “I’m betting they’ll laugh their asses off.”

  “Are all marines as optimistic as you, O’Toole?”

  “Marines expect every operation to turn to shit. That’s why we’re never surprised when it does.”

  Since their final briefing an hour before in the intel compartment, O’Toole had been jabbering nonstop. His vocal cords seemed to be hardwired to his adrenal gland.

  Maxwell duck
ed under the nose of the Black Star and gave the exterior of the jet a final preflight inspection. Following him was Senior Chief Petty Officer Rodman, one of the Black Star technicians who had accompanied the Dragon Flight team from Groom Lake.

  “Talky one, that Major O’Toole,” said Rodman.

  “He’s a little pumped right now.”

  “Guess I would be too if I was flying in this thing.”

  Maxwell had known Rodman since his early test pilot days. The senior chief was a veteran of over thirty years’ service, most of it in black ops programs like the Black Star and its predecessor, the F-117 Nighthawk.

  Maxwell continued around the jet, peering into the wheel wells, checking the underbelly for fluid leaks or signs of skin damage. At the jet’s rear fuselage, he ran his hand over the wing’s trailing edge as if it were a living thing. It was a habit of his, like a rider stroking his horse.

  The Black Star was still an unknown quantity to him. Even with the qualification flights and the field carrier landing practice, he had less than a hundred hours flying time in the jet. But he had already figured out that the Black Star was not a fighter pilot’s dream machine. Compared to fighters like the F/A-18 Super Hornet, it was a dog.

  “Five minutes, Commander,” said Rodman.

  Maxwell nodded. Rodman was prompting him to wrap up the preflight and man the cockpit. A window of sixteen minutes had been allotted for the mission package—the two Black Stars and the Chameleon—to be exposed on the open deck. Outside this time frame the jets were vulnerable to observation by Russian and Chinese reconnaissance satellites that were scheduled to pass overhead. And though the sea around the Reagan Strike Group was constantly screened for alien submarines, a sighting by a Chinese vessel couldn’t be prevented.

  He climbed the boarding ladder and settled himself into the front seat. O’Toole was already strapped into the back. He was busy setting up his station, running the systems checks.