Carrier c-1

by Keith Douglass

  1620 hours

  Hornet 301

  "Okay, Javelins," Deputy CAG French said. "Let's declare war on Greenpeace!"

  French touched the weapons release switch and felt his Hornet leap into the sky as ten thousand pounds of ordnance dropped away, "bombing whales" as aviators referred to it, which explained the jibe at Greenpeace. The international conservation group had crossed swords and lawyers with the U.S. Navy more than once over issues like Trident missile tests and nuclear weapons aboard ships, and dropping bombs into open ocean was jokingly viewed by Naval aviators as retaliation.

  "Damn the whales!" Lieutenant Gary Grabiak misquoted. "Full speed ahead!"

  Jettisoning the Hornets' stores was wasteful necessity. The F/A-18s, faster, smaller, and more maneuverable than the Tomcats flying cover, had been loaded down with two-thousand-pound Mark 84 bombs, Maverick missiles, and Rockeye ordnance clusters which made ACM impossible. By dropping all of their air-to-ground weapons into the sea, however, they could now engage in the dogfight that was developing above and behind them. Each Hornet carried only two Sidewinders in wingtip pylons, but those, together with their M61 20-mm cannon, would be more than enough to even the odds against the outnumbered American aircraft. The A-6 Intruders, relatively helpless in a dogfight, would continue flying low and slow on a straight line back toward the Jefferson with the F/A-18s of VFA-173 as escort.

  One by one, the Hornets of VFA-161 reported their ordnance cleared.

  "Right, Javelins," Marty said. "Time to turn and burn!"

  The nimble, twin-tailed single-seater vaulted skyward under his touch, afterburner flaring.

  1621 hours

  Tomcat 205

  Tombstone was concentrating so hard on the MiG symbol crawling just ahead of the targeting pipper on his HUD that he almost didn't see the second MiG, barreling in at him head to head. In a flash, a dot hovering at the edge of visibility to his left suddenly swelled into the delta-winged angles of a North Korean MiG.

  "Yow!" Snowball yelled into the intercom as Tombstone broke hard to the right. The two aircraft passed each other a scant hundred feet apart with a combined speed of better than Mach 2. Though the encounter lasted but a fraction of a second, Tombstone had the feeling that time was dragging out in a surreal slow motion. He had time to observe every detail of the other plane as it passed, wing down and cockpit dipped toward him, the twisting patterns of the green and brown camouflage paint scheme, the red star on a red-and-blue-bordered white disk on wings and tail. Tombstone could see the other pilot, head twisted around to look back at him. For that frozen instant, two pilots stared at each other across a narrow gulf, the shock of recognition, of unreality almost palpable.

  "Tally-ho!" Tombstone yelled. "I'm on him!"

  He'd lost his chance at the first MiG, so now he went for the second, holding the Tomcat in its hard-right twist, dropping his right wing sharply until he was in a hard six-G inverted turn. Snowball's breath rasped at him over the intercom in short, hard puffs. He lost sight of the enemy MiG for a moment, then reacquired it as he came out of the turn. The North Korean plane was a tiny speck over a mile away, turning hard from right to left across Tombstone's nose.

  He let the F-14 drop, hauling the stick back to the left as he slipped into a split-S to bring him around and onto the MiG's tail. He concentrated on his heads-up display, watching the pipper close with the HUD's target symbol. The enemy MiG was trying to duck inside Tombstone's turn. The guy had almost made it too, but he'd put just a bit too much space between Tombstone's aircraft and his own before he made his move.

  "Bad move, pal." Tombstone thumbed the firing switch and a Sidewinder streaked from under his port wing. "Fox two! Fox two!"

  "Aw, for cryin' out loud, Tombstone! You didn't have a lock…!"

  Tombstone realized the mistake the instant his finger closed on the firing switch. Too eager, he'd triggered the Sidewinder just an instant before its sensors had locked on the target. The heat seeker streaked into the cold air now, passing well behind the MiG and into emptiness.

  1621 hours

  Tomcat 232

  For Batman, it seemed to take forever for the burning contrail of his Sidewinder to crawl the distance between his Tomcat and the targeted MiG. When the enemy pilot cut in his afterburners, though, Batman knew he had him.

  Twisting as he climbed, the MiG pilot was attempting to break contact with the missile with an immelmann, flipping onto his back and then righting with a half roll. The missile followed with grim and inhumanly precise determination.

  The Korean pilot must have known that death was stalking him. At the last possible moment, a dazzling pinpoint of light dropped away from the fleeing MiG, trailing behind on a streamer of smoke and falling. The Sidewinder, racing up from below, wavered for an instant as though trying to make up its tiny electronic mind. But the MiG's afterburners decided the matter. The Sidewinder ignored the flare and slid smoothly up the MiG's tailpipe.

  There was a flash, and then flames were boiling from the rear half of the stricken Korean jet. The tail vanished in a fireball of exploding fuel. The remnants of the aircraft were transformed into a tumbling mass of flaming wreckage, arcing out of the sky on the end of a billowing pillar of black smoke. There was no parachute, no sign that the pilot had been able to eject.

  "Splash one MiG!" Batman yelled, the excitement welling up from inside as sharp, as intense as a sexual release. "Splash one MiG!"

  Malibu screeched a rebel yell on the tactical frequency. "Way to go, compadre! You hear that, everybody? Chalk one for Two-three-two! Batman got his kill!"

  Batman spun his Tomcat into a tight roll, a victory roll, and watched sun, sea, and sky whip around him.

  1622 hours

  Tomcat 205

  The MiG was breaking left, slipping clear of Tombstone's targeting pipper and circling inside the F-14's turning radius. Tombstone still couldn't believe he'd missed.

  "Tombstone!" Snowball called. "What's the matter? Tombstone!"

  "Nothing!" He pulled the F-14 left. The MiG was trying to get on his six, and Tombstone went into a tight turn to counter the move.

  "Shotgun Leader, this is Homeplate," CAG's voice called over the radio. "Be advised that the Javelins have dropped their stores and are joining the party."

  "Roger that," Tombstone replied. Where was that MiG? Damn, that guy could turn! "Listen up, Shotguns," he said. "We've got friendlies inbound. Don't get trigger happy and mistake them for MiGs."

  "Shotgun Lead, this is Two-five-one."

  Tomcat 251 was Lieutenant Gary "Dragon" Ashly's aircraft. Snake had been his wingman. "Go ahead, Two-five-one."

  "Leader, I have Snake and Zombie spotted. Request permission to drop to the deck and cover them."

  Tombstone checked with Snowball before replying. The radar picture was confused, and made more so by the Americans' own jamming efforts, but it appeared that the Tomcats were holding the Kosong squadron and could continue to do so until the Hornets arrived.

  And the Hornets and Tomcats together would be able to take the Wonsan squadron once they arrived. "Roger, Two-five-one." It was what he'd wanted to do himself as soon as Hoffner had been shot down. His own guilt over Coyote was still riding him. "You're CAP for Snake and Zombie until SAR gets here."

  "Much obliged, Tombstone. Two-five-one is going on the deck."

  Tombstone checked his clock. It would be another twenty minutes before the SAR helo arrived, and 251 could refuel off a Texaco if he started to run dry…

  If he could keep from screwing up again, Tombstone thought, they might just pull out of this thing in one piece.

  1622 hours

  MiG number 444, Star Leader

  Major Pak Dae-Lee scowled through his visor at the smeared, green-on-black hash on his radar screen. The MiG's radar, what the Americans called Jay Bird, was rugged and reliable but not particularly powerful. There were American electronic warfare aircraft in the area, the EA-6B aircraft called Prowlers, which could lay down a blank
et of electronic interference that was almost impossible to see through unless you were right on top of the target.

  Getting right on top of the target was precisely what Pak planned to do.

  Major Pak represented the elite of his country's air force. Two years at Dushanbe and Moscow as a student, two years more with a training cadre instructing Libyan pilot trainees, and thousands of hours flying with his own countrymen had made him the very best of his country's air warriors.

  He had proven that two days earlier, when his flight had jumped the American Tomcats off Wonsan. It was his missile which had opened the dogfight, his missile which had downed a Yankee interceptor. The memory of that victory drove him forward now, as Star Attack Group rocketed across the Yonghung Man in pursuit of the American planes.

  As much as anything else, Pak craved recognition. He pictured the smug self-assurance, the patronizing smiles, the condescending attitudes of his Soviet instructors during his tour at Dushanbe. The unspoken, often the spoken, assumption of his Russian instructors had been that "foreign slant-eyes" like Pak were adequate as pilots… but nothing more.

  Adequate! How many Soviet pilots could lay claim to flaming an American F-14? He looked to left and right, noting that the other aircraft of the attack group were still with him. Airspeed was close to six hundred knots now, their altitude eighteen thousand feet. Somewhere ahead, very close now, were the American aircraft, pinned against the sky by Moon Attack Group out of Kosong to the south.

  This part of the plan had been his. The MiG-21 was inherently inferior to the Yankee F-14s, which could out-climb, out-run, out-last, and carry more ordnance than the smaller Soviet-designed, 1950s-era aircraft. The only way the MiGs could win was to gain an overwhelming numerical superiority, preferably by isolating part of the American strike force. And this Pak had proceeded to do once it was clear that the Americans were not going to penetrate North Korean air space. It had been his suggestion to launch the Kosong strike force to engage the enemy's tactical air patrol, drawing them off so that his force could hit either the bombers or the American fighters, whichever gave the Koreans the best odds. Outbound from Wonsan, he'd decided that the F-14s made the best target. From what little he could see through the Yankee jamming, the F-14s were already outnumbered in their dogfight against the Kosong MiGs.

  And he could grab one other advantage as well. "Star Group, this is Leader. Prepare to execute Plan Dagger." He listened for a moment to acknowledgments from three of the other aircraft. Then, "Execute!"

  Pak pushed the stick forward, and his MiG-21 nosed over, picking up speed as it headed for the Sea of Japan. His wingman and eight other aircraft, half of the entire group and the best pilots in his command, followed.

  It was always dangerous dividing one's forces in the face of the enemy, and splitting into two sections risked defeat in detail. But the situation demanded daring. The Americans knew the Wonsan MiGs were coming, but their exact numbers would still be uncertain. It was just possible that ten of the Wonsan MiGs could be lost by approaching at wave-top height, hidden from the American radar planes in the scatter from the ocean surface. Perhaps this way, Pak thought, his force could retain a small edge of surprise. Then they would isolate some of the American aircraft…

  CHAPTER 15

  1623 hours

  Tomcat 232

  Batman's RIO opened the intercom. "Here they come. I read twelve bogies inbound at angels eighteen, eight miles, speed six hundred plus."

  Still too far for Sidewinders, but that would change soon enough. "Let's drop our Sparrow. Get a lock, Malibu."

  "I'm working on it… Target lock, bearing two-eight-five. You got tone."

  "I hear it." He brought the aircraft five degrees right. Malibu's targeting radar covered a wide swath ahead, but he wanted to keep it simple and point his Tomcat dead on at the enemy target. His finger touched the firing switch and the heavy Sparrow jolted free of the F-14. "Fox one!"

  1623 hours

  Tomcat 251

  Lieutenant Gary Ashly pulled up one hundred feet above the gray chop of the ocean, his Tomcat's wings extended straight out from the fuselage. The air was so heavy with water at this altitude that thick curls of vapor bled from his wings and tail as he circled at low speed, searching for the downed men. His RIO, Snoops Whitridge, saw the dye marker first, a yellow stain on the water half a mile to starboard.

  "Shotgun Leader, Tomcat Two-five-one. We have a dye marker in sight."

  "Roger that, Two-five-one," Snowball Newcombe's voice replied. "Homeplate says SAR is on the way."

  "Copy, Leader." Dragon opened the intercom channel. "Snoop? Let's see if we can raise anything on the SAR channel."

  "I'm on it, Dragon. This is… shit! Kick it, Dragon! Kick it!"

  The Tomcat's afterburners roared in instinctive response to the RIO's shout. "Talk to me, Snoop!"

  "Bandits at two-eight-five on the deck. They're on the deck!" There was a flash as one of the MiGs launched… then another. "Launch, Dragon! I have visual on a launch!"

  Sluggishly, the Tomcat's nose came up…

  1624 hours

  MiG number 444, Star Leader

  Major Pak could not have asked for a better shot if he'd planned it out in advance. Skimming in across the sea practically at wave-top height, he'd not gotten a clear radar return from the American F-14 until he was a mile and a half away. He'd been lucky on two counts. The Yankees still seemed unaware of his group's presence, and it was pure chance which put the lone American Tomcat directly in his path.

  From a mile away, Pak could easily see the F-14's large body, could clearly see the wings in their full-forward, low-speed configuration as it banked in a turn from right to left in front of Pak's MiG.

  Pak had thoroughly studied American aircraft and tactics during his training assignments in the Soviet Union. Tomcats, he knew, had the attitude of their wings controlled by the aircraft's computer. While this could be overridden by the pilot, usually it was the computer which determined when the wings would be extended, a decision based almost entirely on the aircraft's speed and attitude.

  While it was an efficient way of gaining extra lift in low-speed, low-energy maneuvers, this high-tech application carried with it a significant drawback. He could glance at a Tomcat's wings and take a good guess at the size and placement of the aircraft's maneuvering envelope ― that invisible cone of air in front of the plane determined by speed, lift, and handling characteristics where the aircraft would be within the next few seconds. The American aircraft was in a hard, left-hand turn at less than three hundred knots, its pilot holding it just short of a stall in a mushy, nose-up loiter.

  Pak squeezed the firing trigger and an Atoll missile slid off the wing in a rush of smoke and flame. A fraction of a second later, Pak's wingman triggered a second missile. Ahead, the American fighter rolled, aware now of its sudden peril.

  Too late. Pak's missile arrowed into the Tomcat squarely between the two upright tail-fins. A flash sent chunks of metal spinning as flame ballooned from ruptured fuel lines. Then the entire aircraft was a mass of flame as the fuel tanks blew; the second Atoll vanished into the firestorm and exploded, completing the destruction, scattering tiny fragments of debris across a mile-long footprint of ocean. Seconds later, Pak's fighters howled through the boiling trail of smoke which marked their second kill of the day.

  "Victory to the Fatherland!" Pak yelled over the radio. The raw adrenaline throb of combat fury throbbed in his veins. "Now… with me, comrades!" Afterburners shrieking, the North Korean aircraft angled up to join the dogfight overhead.

  1624 hours

  Tomcat 232

  "That's two!" Batman exulted as orange flame blossomed in the distance and Malibu abruptly lost the tracking lock on the AWG-9. In the next second, though, the savage joy was wiped away as a pair of MiGs dropped onto his tail, forcing him to cut left, then right, weaving madly.

  "They're right on our six, Batman," Malibu yelled. The Tomcat's airframe shuddered and roared wi
th its twistings. "Time to get out of Dodge."

  "We're outa there!" He cut in the Tomcat's afterburners and pulled up sharply, rocketing straight up in a twisting Immelmann. The MiGs fell behind but kept following, trying for a lock. "This is Tomcat Two-three-two," Batman called over the radio. "I've got two on my tail! Two on my tail!"

  "No sweat, Two-three-two," a voice replied. "The cavalry just arrived."

  Batman saw the Hornet flash past half a mile to starboard, a Sidewinder already coming off the rail.

  Batman cut his burners and dropped the Tomcat onto its back. He could see the MiGs half a mile below, splitting left and right as the Hornet's missile rocketed toward them, tracking the right-hand MiG. Moments later there was a flash and one of the Korean jet's wings crumpled in flame and scattering fragments. Batman saw a smaller flare of light as the MiG's cockpit blew free and its pilot ejected.

  "Chalk up one for the Javelins," Batman announced. "I see a chute. Good chute."

  "We have more blue bandits closing, Batman," his RIO said. "I'm reading ten bogies coming at us from down on the deck."

  "What're they doing, launching them at us from submarines?"

  He let the Tomcat's inverted fall accelerate. Another explosion in the distance, and the excited shout of "Splash one MiG!" marked another kill. The Hornets were arriving in force now. The MiGs, already scattered by the dog-fighting, were being caught alone or in pairs. The battle was about to become a slaughter.

  But the fresh wave of MiGs could change everything. "Give me a vector, Malibu!" he yelled. Blood lust sang in his ears as he accelerated.

  1625 hours

  MiG number 444, Star Leader

  Major Pak knew the fight was hopeless even as his MiGs closed with the Americans. The dogfight had already scattered across ten miles of sky, a fight which the Americans with their better radars and better weapons were certain to win. His squadron might be able to overwhelm one more F-14 with numbers, maybe even two… but it was definitely time for the MiGs to retire. Aircraft and trained pilots alike were valuable resources in the PDRK, and to squander either without good cause ― or a clear advantage ― was criminal.