Fatal Terrain

by Dale Brown

  a verbal "MISSELE LAUNCH!" warning sounded in their

  headsets. "Break left!" A Chinese Sukhoi-27 fighter leading

  a flight of two J-8 fighters had used the information from Anq-

  ing's brief search radar lock on the EB-52 Megafortress to

  guide themselves within range of its Infrared Search and Track

  sensor, so it could close within missile range without using its

  attack radar-only the Megafortress's passive infrared threat

  warning system had seen them coming. The Chinese fighters

  launched their heat-seeking missiles at optimum range, less

  than four miles away.

  Brad Elliott yanked the Megafortress's control stick hard left

  until the bomber rolled right into a full ninety-degree bank,

  then he pulled until he heard fibersteel screeching in protest.

  Luger was pumping decoys and flares out the right-side ejec-

  FATAL TERRAIN 415

  tors. Elliott ignored the stall warning horn, ignored Nancy

  Cheshire's screams that they were going to stall, ignored the

  initial buffet, the point at which disturbed airflow over the

  wings starts pounding on the trailing edges of the wings.

  'Me Megafortress could lose 300 knots of airspeed and be

  for all intents out of control-but Elliott knew, from over ten

  years' experience in this creation of his, exactly what the point

  of no return was. It was the departure break, the point at which

  the turbulent airflow over the wing that was causing all the

  pounding and shaking suddenly starts to break free of the wing

  completely, and lift rapidly bleeds off. The Megafortress's

  crew were crushed down into their ejection seats as Elliott

  pulled to tighten the turn, but seconds later they felt light in

  their seats as the bomber started to drop out from under them.

  'Me Megafortress would stop flying in less than two seconds-

  time to roll wings level. At that point, the Megafortress was

  turning at four Gs, sixty degrees per second, as fast as or even

  faster than the Chinese fighters could ever turn. The Megafor-

  tms flew out of the lethal cone of five PL-2 missiles ...

  ... but not away from the sixth deadly missile. One of the

  six Pen Lung-2 missiles was fooled by the hot, noisy decoy

  gliders, missed by several dozen yards, and exploded as its

  fuzing timer battery ran out-but the fast-turning EB-52 flew

  right into the exploding missile's lethal radius. Its shaped-

  charge high-explosive warhead blew a continuous rod of steel

  into the left rear side of the cockpit, decompressing the cabin

  and hitting Dave Luger with small pieces of shrapnel and fi-

  bersteel.

  The cabin was already partially depressurized, but the sud-

  den breach of the cabin seemed to have sucked the air out of

  every one of the crew members. But Dave Luger still found

  enough air in his lungs to scream aloud. "Shit!" he swore

  .holding his head with his left hand. A piece of shrapnel had

  ripped through the bulkhead and ricocheted off his instrument

  console before cutting painfully into his left thigh and left

  forearm and pinging off his helmet near his left temple. Luger

  looked down in surprise at the dark bloody gashes that had

  appeared as suddenly 'as a stroke of lightning. He felt no

  pain-yet. It was almost humorous for him to think that he

  had just been injured-again-flying a Megafortress mission.

  "Cripes, Muck," he said to McLanahan, as his partner turned

  to him in horror. "I think I just got nailed again."

  416 DALE BROWN

  McLanahan was out of his seat in a second, leaving the

  second Striker missile on its own. The second Striker, with no

  guidance inputs, relied solely on its own GPS satellite updates

  and its onboard nav computers and flew itself to its prepro-

  grammed target coordinates, hitting sixty-eight feet north of

  the center of the Anqing fighter base's headquarters building.

  The 2,000-pound high-explosive missile leveled half of the

  three-story concrete building in a blinding flash of fire and a

  powerful earth-shattering blast.

  "This is bull, Muck," Luger was saying. "How come I

  always get injured on one of these things? When is it going

  to be your turn? I always . But then he looked down and

  saw that three long, angry red rips like huge tiger's claws arced

  across McLanahan's left shoulder and side across his back.

  , ,Jeez, Muck, you got hit too, dammit." A surge of energy

  coursed through Luger, and he helped his longtime friend and

  partner back into his own seat and helped him strap back in.

  McLanahan was already looking woozy, and Luger helped him

  reattach his oxygen mask, secured up to his face, and made

  sure he was on 100-percent oxygen.

  "Stay with me, Patrick," Luger said, cross-cockpit. Mc-

  Lanahan nodded wearily, as Luger strapped himself back in

  and made sure his oxygen was on and 100 percent too.

  "Where are the fighters, guys?" Nancy Cheshire shouted

  on interphone. The Megafortress was still mushy, right at the

  edge of the stall. Elliott and Cheshire could do nothing but

  keep the wings level, the nose below the horizon, and wait for

  the airspeed to come back-they hoped that would happen

  before they ran out of altitude. Cheshire shouted, "How are

  we on the cumulogranite, Muck7- No immediately reply.

  "You guys okay back there?"

  "We're both hit, dammit," Luger responded.

  "What?" Both Elliott and Cheshire snapped their heads

  around to look. "You guys okay?"

  "Clear of terrain ahead, head westbound only-very high

  terrain north, south, and east," McLanahan shouted by way of

  response, his voice strained. "You're cleared down to three

  thousand feet in this area if you need it. When you can, give

  me a heading of three-four-zero. We're okay."

  "Turns are a no-no right now," Cheshire said. "They don't

  sound very good. I'll go check them over. You got it, Gen-

  eral

  FATAL TERRAIN 417

  "I got the plane, Nance," Elliott acknowledged. They trans-

  ferred controls with a positive shake of the control stick.

  Cheshire stepped out of her seat and crawled under the aft

  instrument console to check on both navigators.

  "You're both bleeding like stuck pigs," Cheshire said as

  she examined their wounds. She looked across and saw small,

  jagged shrapnel holes in the fuselage. "Pilot, better check the

  instruments-we might have taken some damage."

  "I got my hands full as it is, co," Elliott said.

  "Dave took a crack in his head and a couple in the leg and

  arm," Cheshire reported on interphone. "Muck got a bunch

  in the back, left side, and left shoulder. You guys are going,

  to have some cool scars to show your grandkids. Your seat-

  attachment shoulder harness is cut, Patrick-if we get in trou-

  ble, and if you get the time, think about using one of the

  downward-ejecting seats. "

  "Thanks, Nance," McLanahan said. "I'll keep it in mind.

  But as long as we're sucking dirt here, I'll stay in this seat."

  "Okay." Cheshire found the first-aid kit and s
lapped as

  many large bandages and compresses on the biggest gashes as

  she could. "You GIBs will live," she said to the "Guys In

  Back." McLanahan's wounds looked the worst, but the blow

  to Luger's head worried her the most-he would have to be

  checked carefiffly for signs of a concussion or other head

  trauma. "Just please advise us before you pass out, okay,

  Dave?"

  "Anything for you, Nancy," Luger replied. Cheshire gave

  Luger a wink and went quickly back to her seat and strapped

  in tightly.

  "Where are those fighters?" Elliott asked.

  "I'm going to do a radar sweep," Luger said, fighting off

  a wave of dizziness and nausea every time he moved his head.

  4"Radar coming on." He activated the oninidirectional radar

  for a few seconds, then turned it back to STANDBY. "Fighters

  are turning right to pursue, at five o'clock high, eight miles."

  "We're coming to the river floodplain area," McLanahan

  said. "Set for COLA altitude again. We've got four minutes

  until we get into any high terrain again."

  "The search radar is down," Luger announced, "so they'll

  have a tougher time finding us. We'll-" Just then, the threat

  warning receiver bleeped again: "Fighters at six o'clock, corn-

  418 DALE BROWN

  ing inside six miles, I think they got a lock on us! Give me a

  hard turn to the right."

  "Can't turn yet!" Cheshire shouted. "We're still not above

  three hundred knots!"

  :'I need a right turn fast!"

  'Where are they?"

  11 Radar coming on. . ." Luger activated the attack radar,

  and immediately the warning tones sounded again: "Bandits,

  six o'clock, five miles!" he shouted. He instinctively activated

  the Stinger tail airmine cannon ... before realizing with shock,

  "Shit! No tail cannon rounds! Activating Scorpion missiles!"

  But before he could command a AIM-120 launch, the crew

  heard, "MISSILE LAUNCH, MISSILE LAUNCH!"

  "Break right!" Luger shouted.

  "We can't!" Cheshire shouted back. "We got no airspeed!

  No airspeed!"

  Luger ejected flares and decoy gliders again-but it was too

  late. The missiles were in the air, headed right for them ...

  . . . no, not for them! Seconds before they launched from

  four miles behind the EB-52 Megafortress, the two Chinese J-

  8 fighters were hit by Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, fired by

  two Taiwanese F-16 fighters. The F-16s had broken off from

  the returning bombing pack to escort the EB-52 Megafortress

  on its separate strike route. The F- l6s could receive datalink

  information from the EB-52's radar, so it knew where to look

  for the Chinese fighters; then, using their Falcon Eye infrared

  sensors, similar to the Sukhoi-27's Infrared Search and Track

  sensor, the F- l6s were able to sneak up on the Chinese fighters

  without being detected themselves.

  The Chinese Sukhoi-27 was still alive, however, and now

  he was fighting mad. He broke off the attack on the Megafor-

  tress, wheeled, immediately pounced on the two F-16s, and

  fired two PL-2 missiles into one of the F-16s. The second F-

  16 was alone, trapped right in the crosshairs of the faster and

  equally nimble Su-27 ...

  No, not quite alone. "Attack radar on ... commit Sco rpion

  launch on air target X ray," Luger ordered, and he fired two

  over-the-shoulder AIM-120 missiles at the Su-27. Moments

  before the Su-27 closed in for the kill, he was blasted apart

  by a double hit of Scorpion radar-guided missiles. "Splash

  one-27," he announced.

  "Thank you, Headbanger," the Megafortress crew heard

  FATAL TER RAI N 419

  over the emergency UHF channel in heavily accented English.

  "Good luck, good hunting."

  "The F-16 is heading home," Luger said, as he studied his

  threat display. "But he's three hundred miles off his flight

  plan. I don't know if he'll have the fuel to make it all the way

  back to Kai-Shan."

  "Yes, he will," McLanahan said. He quickly composed a

  satellite transceiver message on his terminal. "I'll send in Jon

  Masters's tanker aircraft. They can do a low-level pickup

  emergency refueling over the coast."

  "Jon's tanker ever do an emergency refueling before?" El-

  liott asked.

  "Hell no," McLanahan said. "I don't think Jon's tanker

  has ever refueled any other plane except a Megafortress and

  a couple others, and I know for sure that none of the Taiwa-

  nese pilots have refueled from Jon's DC-10. But now's a

  damned good time to learn. We don't need the fuel right

  now-the Taiwanese F-16 does."

  In less than four minutes, the Megafortress sped across the

  wide, flat Chang Jiang River valley and across to the protective

  sanctuary of the Ta-Pieh Mountain range, just as another wave

  of fighters arrived from the neighboring Changsha fighter base

  to search for the mysterious attacker. The Megafortress con-

  tinued northwest bound through the mountains for a few

  minutes, then cut northeast until they were at the extreme

  northeast end of the Ta-Pieh Mountains. From there, they

  launched their next attack: two Wolverine antiair defense

  cruise missiles against the surface-to-air missiles and antiair-

  craft artillery units defending the bomber base at Wuhan, fol-

  lowed by two Striker missiles.

  As the Striker missiles sped inbound, McLanahan suddenly

  whooped for joy: "Hey, crew, I think we hit the jackpot!" He

  could clearly see two separate parking areas at the huge

  bomber base at Wuhan-both filled with heavy bombers. One

  area was reserved for at least forty H-6 bombers, lined up

  almost wingtip to wingtip; the other parking area had four H-7

  bombers, former Russian Tupolev-26 supersonic heavy bomb-

  ers. "I'm going to program the last two Striker missiles for

  the base, too-might as well nail the targets as we get 'em.

  The navy base at Shanghai will have to wait for our next attack

  opportunity." McLanahan steered the two Striker missiles al-

  ready in flight at the H-7 supersonic bombers, planting one

  420 DALE BROWN

  Striker in between two bombers so the tremendous blast

  knocked out both bombers at once, then launched the two re-

  maining Strikers at the H-6 parking ramp. All four H-7 bomb-

  ers went up in huge clouds of fire, and the Strikers destroyed

  eight more H-6 bombers and damaged several more.

  As a parting gesture, McLanahan quickly programmed the

  last two Wolverine missiles to orbit over Wuhan bomber base

  and attack any targets of opportunity with the anti-vehicle

  skeets-any H-6 bomber that tried to start engines and taxi

  clear of the devastated parking ramp for the next forty minutes

  would be treated to a personalized demonstration of the power

  of an anti-vehicle skeet shooting molten copper slugs into it

  from out of the darkness. Another thirteen H-6 bombers, plus

  a number of fuel, security,'and maintenance vehicles, were

  damaged or destroyed by the skeets, launched from the Wol-

 
verine cruise missiles.

  As the Chinese air defense fighters from Nanjing and Wuhu

  air bases converged first on Anqing, then Wuhan , to try to find

  and destroy the unidentified attacker, the crew of the Mega-

  fortress turned southeast through sparsely settled Zhejiang

  province, going feet-wet directly between the two Chinese na-

  val bases at Wenzhou and Dinghai. Chinese air defense sites

  were in an uproar over the invasion on the garrisons at Xia-

  men, which meant that all available naval air fighter units had

  been sent on patrol to the south to try to stop any more Tai-

  wanese invaders. Like a ghost riding the rising coastal fog, the

  Megafortress quietly slipped out of Chinese airspace and dis-

  appeared over the East China Sea.

  PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE,

  NEAR COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO

  TUESDAY, 24 JUNE, 1327 HOURS LOCAL

  (1527 HOURS ET)

  The first detection was from the U. Space Command's Pa-

  cific Satellite Early Warning System, or SEWS, a large heat-

  sensing satellite that detected the bright flash of fire from the

  first 65,000-pound Dong Feng-4 ballistic missile lifting off

  from its fixed launching pad in east-central China. Since the

  FATAL T ER RAI N 421

  launch detection was immediately correlated with a known

  DF-4 launch site, an automatic ICBM launch warning was is-

  sued by Space Command to all American, Canadian, and

  NATO military units throughout the world through the North

  American Aerospace Defense Command at Cheyenne Moun-

  tain. The entire Space Command complex, known as Team

  21-the Space Operations missile detection wings, the

  worldwide communications network, and the crisis manage-

  ment team of the Cheyenne Mountain Strategic Defense Com-

  bat Operations Center-were on full alert when the next seven

  DF-4 missiles were detected moments later.

  The commander of U. Space Command was called out of

  a lunch meeting with some of his visiting wing commanders,

  and he was quickly escorted to the Air Force Missile Warning

  and Space Operations Command Center. General Joseph G.

  Wyle was the new commander of "the Mountain." A father