Target: Point Zero

by Maloney, Mack;

  He twisted around in his cockpit, gravely disoriented, searching for the mysterious airplane he’d seen just for a fraction of a second. But all that was left in evidence of it now was a thick white contrail that rose straight up, as if it were pointing towards Heaven.

  Confused, close to going into shock, Crunch summoned up every last ounce of strength in his depleted body with all his might, he pulled the Phantom’s control column to the right—and somehow, the Rhino had enough left in her to respond. Sputtering, smoking and bleeding, the plane nevertheless began heading towards that almost dreamlike piece of terra firma off in the distance. Was it an island? Or the coast of Vietnam? There was no way for him to tell. It was still a long way away.

  Would he actually make it? He didn’t know this either.

  But he sure as hell was going to try…

  Twenty-eight

  Lolita Island

  IT WAS THIRTEEN HUNDRED hours when Kurjan first spotted the C-23 Sherpas belonging to the Island Rats, Inc.

  They were coming out of the east; at least thirty of them, lined up in a long, single file flight pattern and heading right for him.

  It was very warm inside Kurjan’s hiding place, so much so he was down to his skivvies and his gun belt. The activity around Lolita had not stopped one bit. Another Cult battleship had appeared and anchored about a half mile out; more Cult troops had flowed out of it and come ashore. Most of these soldiers, along with the first contingent to arrive, were now in the process of securing the huge arrow and cross they’d made with the bright orange materials. In some cases, these men were hammering portions of the huge marker into the concrete slab with the aid of sledgehammers and spikes. Others were going up and down the three-mile-long landing strip, painting what looked to be a centerline, dividing the huge slab in two.

  Still others were setting up mobile communications stations and sections of temporary scaffolding. One of the radio units was just one hundred fifty feet away from Kurjan’s position. It was so close, he was worried that the sat-com messages he’d been sending back to Da Nang nonstop since the first Cult soldiers arrived were somehow being glitzed. If that was true, then he might be the only guy on the good side to be invited to this party.

  The Sherpas came roaring off the water, their noisy engines rising to a crescendo as all thirty of them went into a long orbit about three thousand feet above the island. Kurjan was familiar with the Island Rats, familiar with their take-no-prisoners method of operation. He, too, was surprised to see them way the hell out here in the South China Sea, especially when their usual field of operations was hundreds of miles to the east.

  Must be some big job for these guys to be here, he thought, as they continued circling the island.

  But their unexpected appearance only served to confuse the issue even further. True, the Island Rats were paratroopers. But if given the option, they would always take the choice of landing their airplanes and disembarking rather than jumping out of them. Why then weren’t they setting down on the huge, brightly lined runway? Furthermore, the Rats were experts at depositing large numbers of troops on the tiniest, unmarked locations. Why then had the Cult soldiers laid out the huge cross and the miles-long orange arrow? After all, Lolita Island was a five-mile-square slab of cement in the middle of the sea. A battalion of blind men would be hard pressed to miss it.

  This told Kurjan one thing that might have seemed obvious to an outside observer: the large arrow and cross were not for the Island Rats.

  They had been laid out for someone—or something—else.

  The Sherpas had been circling for about five minutes when another development took place.

  Off on the eastern horizon now, Kurjan could see a mass of airplanes that was so large, they looked like a swarm of killer bees. The man they called Lazarus directed his high-powered peepscope in their direction. He was astounded. There were at least five dozen fighter aircraft heading for Lolita Island.

  Kurjan clicked his scope up to full-power, and was just able to make out the first line of these airplanes. They were Tornados—high tech attack planes that he knew were not in the inventory of any force friendly to the United Americans, not in this quantity anyway. Behind them were lines of Jaguars and other fighter-attack craft. Kurjan felt his heart sink into the sweaty sand all around him.

  This massive air fleet was undoubtedly in league with the Cult and the Island Rats. But something was telling him that the huge landing strip laid out on Lolita Island was not for their use either.

  The roar of the Sherpas got louder. Kurjan adjusted himself so that he was now staring straight up through his peephole. Not unexpectedly, the first trio of C-23s was flying over the center of the island, their back doors open and disgorging paratroopers. At the same time, the first wave of fighter jets had arrived high overhead. They began taking up wide orbits around the slab of an island. Paratroopers, a vast number of air cover jets, huge arrows and crosses—still Kurjan just couldn’t make heads or tails of any of it.

  Three more Sherpas went over—they, too, let loose with twenty paratroopers apiece. Kurjan watched them slowly drift down, most of them landing with a painful scrape and thud on the rough, cement airstrip. As soon as they were down, each Island Rat gathered up his chute, stored it away and then almost casually walked to preassigned positions around the enormous airstrip, totally ignoring the Cult soldiers, as they did them.

  Three more Sherpas turned towards the island and began emptying out the back. These paratroopers were landing at the far end of the island, down near the beginning of the big arrow. Three more Sherpas appeared to let go their human cargos over the center of the slab. Kurjan had to admit the Rats were good. They were landing with pinpoint accuracy and slowly but surely forming a mighty protective ring around the island. All this time, the massive sixty-plus air armada continued to circle high above the tiny, cement—clogged atoll.

  The sixth set of Sherpas began turning off the beach, roaring right over Kurjan’s head and dropping troops not five hundred yards from his position. He heard a completely different noise—one that cut through the clumsy racket of the Sherpas and the high tech squeal of the five dozen jets overhead. This sound, faint but growing louder, had more of a whooshing quality to it.

  Damn, Kurjan thought, it almost sounds like a…

  A second later, he saw it. It was a missile—a Phoenix antiaircraft missile, known for its distinctive hollowing cry usually heard before its arrival. The thing was streaking in from the northwest, diving out of the sky with a shriek now reaching banshee-status. In a heartbeat, it impacted on the third-in-line Sherpa, simply obliterating the two-engine cargo carrier and incinerating everyone inside.

  Kurjan was stunned, as was everyone on the island. The missile had come out of nowhere, literally.

  Now, even as the bare pieces of wreckage came floating down, Kurjan heard another whooshing sound. An instant later, a second Phoenix appeared, it, too, coming out of the northwest. It caught the tail of the first Sherpa, the one that had already jumped its troops, spinning the airplane around helplessly in the sky before it went up in a ball of flame.

  Everyone on the ground was scattering now as two more missiles came in. One went right over Kurjan’s head and kept on going; the second one hit something way up at the other end of the airstrip. Suddenly a Jaguar fighter simply fell out of the sky, its fuselage engulfed in flames from the wings back. It hit just to the left of the huge orange cross, its pilot burning to death, still strapped into his cockpit.

  Now more and more missiles came screeching in. Overhead the Sherpas began to scatter; way up high, the aerial carousel of fighters began breaking up, too. But for three of them, it was too late. Two more Jags and a Hawk came plummeting out of the clouds, all three crashing into the massive coral reefs which ringed Lolita on three sides.

  Suddenly everything was madness. Kurjan looked up to see the jet fighters and Sherpa transports flinging themselves this way and that, trying to find some flying room and get the hell out o
f the way of the incoming Phoenix missiles. But for three more of them, this was a useless effort. A trio of missiles arrived and took down another Sherpa, another Jag and, surprisingly, a Tornado. All three crashed into the sea about a mile offshore.

  Kurjan had his peepscope drilled out on the northwest horizon now. There was only entity in this part of the world that possessed Phoenix missiles and the knowledge to shoot them so accurately: the United American Expeditionary Forces. So was it true? Had his messages gotten through to them?

  He strained his eyes and prayed for some kind of vision to feed the greenish tinge of his scope. A few seconds later, that vision appeared. Way out on the horizon, flying incredibly low, he saw the six C-5 gunships of the UAAF bearing down on Lolita Island.

  The cavalry was on its way.

  The lead C-5 approaching Lolita Island had a very unlikely pilot behind its controls.

  Ben Wa was a fighter jock; he’d flown the massive Galaxy barely a half dozen times before, and all those during transit or shakedown missions.

  But now here he was, pressed into service, driving one of the gigantic airplanes right into the teeth of combat over the unlikely battlefield of Lolita Island.

  That the climax to all the events over the last few days would come here, to this isolated speck of land in the middle of the South China Sea, was not all that surprising. It was the speed at which things had come to a head that was rather mind-boggling to Wa. One moment, he’d been deciphering the flight plan of the captured An-124 Condor; the next he was flying back to Da Nang with this encryption; the next he was hearing the warning call from Crunch and the crew of Black Eyes about oncoming mercenary forces, the next he was lifting off from the UA base, riding the wheel of the C-5 known as Now, arguably the most powerful of all the Galaxy gunships, and serving as the UA’s flight leader.

  It was on his orders that the two missile ships on his flanks first located and then targeted the paratroop planes circling above Lolita Island. These airplanes launched a spread of Phoenix missiles from thirty-three miles out—indications were that all but one had hit a target. But Wa could see both on his forward-looking radar screen and with his own eyes, that there were dozens of airplanes orbiting Lolita, some scattered up high above the island; others skirting the sea all around it, hoping that altitude alone would protect them from the near-infallible Phoenix missiles.

  That all these airplanes, and the men within them, were now enemies of the United American cause was simply a matter of economics. The Cult was involved in the bizarre activities on Lolita, and anyone in their employ became an enemy of the United Americans. Wa could not help but feel some pity for the mercs who had thrown in with the ruthless Cult. That was the trouble with being a pay-check soldier—it really didn’t make any difference which side you were on.

  “Hope you all got paid in advance,” he muttered.

  The vanguard of his C-5 force was now about twenty-two miles out from Lolita. The standard formation had changed slightly since they’d left Da Nang. The gunships and missile planes were up front, the troopers, nav planes and refuelers were hanging back. Everyone was flying way down on the deck—Wa’s C-5 was barely seven hundred fifty feet off the top of the waves. The missile ships were actually fifty feet below and behind him.

  At twenty miles out, one of the other shooters launched another spread of Phoenix missiles. Six of them left the underwing on the missile ship on Wa’s left, each one trailing a trademark cloud of orange-white smoke in its wake. Not thirty seconds later, Wa could see six nearly simultaneous puffs of flame explode over the barren, oddly flat Lolita Island. Six more kills, all of them right on the money.

  But this meant there were still some fifty-odd enemy airplanes to deal with.

  At nineteen miles out, the air weapons warning buzzer went off in Wa’s cockpit—being unfamiliar with the C-5’s layout, it took him a few moments to figure out what was happening. But then it became very clear: some of the fighters that had been circling Lolita had finally wised up. They’d broken away from their suicidal orbital pattern and were now heading right for the oncoming force of C-5s. Warplanes like Tornados, Jaguars and Q-5s would normally make short work of the relatively slow, leviathan Galaxys—and the sight of thirty of them heading towards Lolita must have made for an inviting sight, a “target-rich environment” in military speak.

  But of course, that was the whole idea.

  Flying two and a half miles above the lead C-5s, JT Toomey was also squirming in his seat.

  He, too, had been quickly rushed into service just moments after landing in Da Nang from the code-cracking trip to Tommy Island. While Wa had run to one of the C-5s as soon as the alert was sounded, Toomey had headed for the part of Da Nang field that housed the UAAF’s fighter squadrons. But unlike the Galaxy units, which were always in need of a pilot or two, just about all the fighters were claimed by the time JT arrived on the scene. As a result, he found himself strapping into the last of the UA’s current auxiliaries, the ancient triangle-winged curiosity known as the F-106 Delta Dart.

  To say the ’106 was old was like saying the South China Sea was a pond. This model, dredged from an air museum somewhere in South America, was more elderly than Toomey’s father. It was big, heavy, lopsided to a factor of five degrees and ran damn hot at altitude. But it was a jet fighter nevertheless, with a full cannon load in its nose and two racks of unguided missiles under its wings. Toomey had gone into battle with much less.

  Flying in chevrons of three each all around him were the UA’s most potent air unit—the famous F-20 Tiger-sharks of the Football City Air Force. As far as firepower, maneuverability, endurance and just pure speed, it would be hard to beat an F-20. Trouble was, there were only twelve of them, and the hodge-podge of secondary UA warplanes only numbered a dozen and a half more.

  According to JT’s rudimentary air defense radar, there were more than fifty enemy airplanes coming right at the combined United American force, putting the UA at a clear two-to-one disadvantage as far as the fighters went. Troublesome if not impossible odds.

  But there was little Toomey or anyone else could do about that now. They were just a minute or two away from a battle royale. He reached down and began clicking on his weapons systems even as the first line of Tornados began diving onto the advancing C-5s.

  Toomey took in two long breaths of oxygen and then on his signal dove out of the sun along with five of the Tigersharks.

  “This will be very interesting,” he murmured to himself.

  The first wave of Tornados hit the C-5s just as the F-20s appeared out of the sun.

  Ben Wa was too busy grappling with the controls of the big Galaxy gunship to breathe a sigh of relief when the Tigersharks showed up—suckering in the enemy warplanes was one thing; actually avoiding them until the F-20s could spring their surprise was another.

  The plan was for the C-5 gunships to break through the furball enveloping the F-20s and the opposing fighters and get in close to Lolita. But the scene in front of them almost defied description. The sky was literally filled with jet fighters, twisting, turning, diving, climbing. Anyone who had a cannon was firing it—there were so many tracers crisscrossing in front of Wa’s eyes, their hypnotic effect disoriented him for a few moments. He shook away this illusion and jammed his airplane’s throttles ahead to full max power.

  A Tornado flashed right past his nose, its cannon sending streams of fire towards the gunship off to Wa’s right. A Q-5 appeared just below him, its pilot pulling out of a murderous power dive, his sights set on the same Galaxy. Wa immediately screamed into his intercom, and not two seconds later, the twenty-one massive GE GAU-8/A thirty-mm cannons in his gunship’s hold came alive in full mechanical computer-controlled power. They simply vaporized both enemy airplanes, sending out an incredible eleven-thousand cannon rounds in a two-second burst.

  Now Wa and his line of gunships pressed on, through the sky raining smoking airplanes, wreckage and, in some cases, horribly falling bodies. It took all of thirty
seconds to finally clear the incredible dogfight—the longest half minute of Wa’s life. But when it was over, he was still in one piece and so were the other six gunships.

  Lolita was just five miles away from them now—the slab of an island was cloaked in smoke and flames; no less than eighteen aircraft lay burning on its hard surface or in the shallow waters offshore. There were many troops in evidence on the island, too; Cult soldiers, Rat mercs scrambling around, looking for cover in a place that had virtually none. Wa did a quick sweep of the land mass with his weapons detection system looking for any substantial AA threat—there was none. One of the other gunships did the same for the pair of Cult battleships anchored offshore. They did have Sea Dart antiaircraft systems onboard, but none of them had gone red—at least, not yet.

  Three miles out now, and Wa gave the call back to his gun crews to get ready. Of the twenty-one guns sticking out of the left side of the massive gunship, each one was capable of spitting out four thousand rounds a minute; the computer-controlled firing system for all this took as much power as two of the Galaxy’s engines. The ammunition belts alone for the twenty-one guns were literally miles long. A five-second burst could cover an area equal to three football fields with at least one cannon round exploding every six inches.

  Two miles out and Wa got the call from the back that all systems were green. Through the left side of his headphones he heard one of the other gunship commanders call out that the Sea Dart AA missiles on the two Cult battleships were warming up to yellow, the next step away from going red and being able to fire. Ben couldn’t worry about the naval AA threat at the moment. He had other things to do.

  One mile out now. He could see the troops on Lolita diving wildly for defensive positions—they’d spotted the oncoming six pack of gunships and Wa could almost feel the terror gripping the enemy troops. They knew of the huge United American C-5 gunships; they knew what utter destruction they could deliver. And here they were, on a five square mile concrete island with no place to run, no place to hide.