by James Rosone
“Just get me out of here, Rob. I don’t want to die in this truck.”
Crawling back into the upside-down cab, Fortney tried to unfasten Ramirez’s seat belt. Like his, it was stuck. He reached for his knife and was able to cut the strap away. Now he needed to pull the man’s leg free.
While the two of them were struggling to get Ramirez’s leg unstuck, the cab filled up with more smoke. They were running out of time; the fire was spreading and consuming more of the vehicle.
The more they fought to get his leg free, the hotter the cab was getting. Flames were now slipping inside.
“Come on, damn it! We have to get you out of here before this thing blows!” Fortney shouted, practically in tears from frustration and pain.
“Pry right there one more time, real hard. I think I can slip my leg out,” Ramirez said as he positioned a metal bar to help him get some extra leverage.
Fortney applied as much pressure as he could, all the while knowing it was causing his friend an immense amount of pain.
“I’m out! I’m out. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Ramirez exclaimed through tears of joy and pain as the fire continued to creep closer.
The two of them crawled out the passenger side with flames reaching after them. Neither of them could walk, not with the injuries to their legs, so they both used their arms to pull themselves away from the vehicle. They got maybe twenty feet away when the vehicle exploded in flames and smoke.
Rolling over onto his back, Ramirez looked at Fortney, tears of joy running down his face. He cried for a moment before he sat up and looked to apply a pressure dressing on Fortney’s leg, which was still oozing blood. “You saved my life, Fortney. Let’s get your leg bandaged up so you don’t bleed to death on me.”
Fortney smiled as he realized they were safe. Just as he was about to say something about how tight Ramirez had tied the dressing, the right side of his friend’s face exploded. Blood and brain matter splattered across Fortney’s face and the front of his uniform as Ramirez’s body collapsed on the ground over top of him.
Turning to his right to see what the hell had just happened, Fortney saw two figures moving through their ranks, firing some sort of assault rifle at the dazed and wounded National Guardsmen.
Reaching into his blouse pocket, Fortney pulled out his Smith & Wesson revolver, a snub-nosed .38 Special he carried with him everywhere. He aimed and fired, hitting one of the attackers in the back of the shoulder, just below the neck. The attacker grunted, his body collapsing to the ground with a thud.
The second attacker heard the pop of the pistol and turned around to see who had fired at them. Fortney and this person locked eyes for the briefest of moments before Fortney pulled the trigger a second time. The 50-grain Liberty Civil Defense hollow-point round hit the man squarely in the face, dropping him right where he stood.
With his pistol hand still extended, Fortney turned to look around and see if he could spot any additional attackers. He didn’t. Moments later, several soldiers from his unit ran towards him. They spotted the two attackers he’d just shot and removed their weapons from them. More soldiers ran towards the wounded guys and began to administer aid to them.
Their company CO walked towards Fortney. “Damn fine shooting, Sergeant Fortney. You just saved a lot of lives with that thing.”
Still in a daze, Fortney muttered, “I tried to save him…” He lowered the Smith & Wesson and looked at Staff Sergeant Ramirez’s dead body, tears streaming down his face. “His wife just gave birth to their son less than a month ago. He just FaceTimed her before the fire mission…”
Kneeling next to him, the captain saw the blood soaking through the bandage on his leg and called out for a medic. With tears forming in his own eyes, he put a hand on Fortney’s shoulder. “You did good, Sergeant. Sometimes you just can’t save them all. Hang in there, we’re going to get you back to an aid station and get your leg patched up. You did good today. You saved a lot of people’s lives.”
Fortney wiped a couple of tears away as he nodded in agreement. He hadn’t known Ramirez long, but in these last few days, he felt like they had become brothers, family. Now he was gone. Someone was going to have to pay for this. When his leg healed up, he’d avenge his friend and even the score.
*******
20th Fighter Wing
Homestead, Florida
Colonel Tim “Joker” Hatfield looked at the group of pilots sitting before him. One in nine seats in the auditorium was empty. The vacant seats represented those who’d been shot down since the start of the war.
Hatfield nodded for his aide to pull up the presentation slides. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, folks,” he began. “This last week has been one of the hardest weeks of our lives. You have fought gallantly; we’ve lost a lot of friends these last few days, which hasn’t made it any easier. I think you all need to see the big picture, know what’s been going on and what we’re up against. I’ve asked the A2 shop to give us an overview of the war and what’s transpired. I think it’s important you know why some assets are no longer available and why these losses we’ve sustained have been worth it. With that, I’m going to hand the briefing over to Major Bottoms.”
Colonel Hatfield then motioned for the major who’d been standing along the side of the room to come forward.
Major Bottoms cleared his throat. “Just prior to the war starting, the country experienced a series of cyberattacks. The nation’s cell phone system was taken offline and the power distribution to many of our military bases was interrupted. Even now, half the country’s cell network is still down.”
Images of the damage to Joint Base Anacostia-Boiling, Fort Meade, Langley Air Force Base, and the sprawling Naval Station Norfolk appeared on the screen behind him.
“The Chinese Navy had taken an unknown number of freighters and turned them into merchant raiders. One freighter off the East Coast fired nearly three hundred CJ-10 land-attack cruise missiles at more than a dozen military targets across the entire eastern seaboard of the US—it was hunted down and sunk twenty-two hours after it carried out its attack. However, when we looked at the targets more closely, it was determined this first strike had a couple of very specific purposes.
“This is Groton, Connecticut.” The major used a laser pointer to point to a new image that had come up of Naval Submarine Base New London. “The naval station is home to Submarine Squadron 4. They have nine Los Angeles– and Virginia-class submarines home ported there. At the time of the attack, four were docked. All four were hit by cruise missiles and sunk next to the piers. The shipyard was thoroughly destroyed and the facility heavily damaged.”
A new set of images showing Naval Station Norfolk appeared. “They also hit pier three at Norfolk, which had three additional submarines tied up there. All three were sunk. The carrier Stennis was in port for a complex overhaul and maintenance. The carrier sustained eight cruise missile hits. It’s still burning a week later. They also managed to hit and sink two Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers and three Arleigh Burke destroyers. The shipyards took a lot of damage in the ensuing attack as well.”
Images of the Naval Station Oceana appeared next. “As you can see from these images, the naval air station took a beating. Two entire squadrons of F/A-18 Super Hornets were destroyed on the ground; many more were damaged.”
Major Bottoms paused for a moment before adding, “I’m not going to show you images from each of the bases the Chinese hit during that first day. They hit us pretty hard, and they hit us strategically. I showed you the subs and the naval images because the Chinese specifically went after our naval ability to protect the East and West Coasts. They hurt our ability to respond pretty bad. This is why we don’t have the cruise missile inventory to hit all these SAM sites. This is why a larger burden of the air war has fallen on our shoulders and we haven’t gotten as much help as we normally would have from the Navy. Of all the branches of service, they took it the hardest. As a branch, we got off lucky. They did hit our a
ir bases pretty hard, but our air wings had already relocated to other facilities. They largely hit empty parking ramps and hangars.”
A lieutenant colonel interrupted to ask, “Sorry if I’m speaking out of turn, Major, but what is NATO doing about all of this?”
“I’m not here to answer a lot of questions, but I will leave you with this: the Germans and the US have both invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty. NATO is responding. Two naval task forces are being formed up in Europe—one in the Mediterranean, which will be led by the Germans and Italians, and another in the Atlantic, which will be headed by the British and French. I cannot say when those forces will sortie to our aid, but they’re being formed up to do so.”
Colonel Hatfield returned to the stage before anyone else could ask more questions. “OK, folks, everyone has a better idea of what’s going on. Now, down to our new mission. We’re no longer going to be supporting the Marines down south or looking to keep providing SEAD missions down there. We’re being shifted to focus on Havana and the entire area west of it. I’ll still be flying with the 79th. We’re going to focus on providing CAS to the Rangers, the 101st and 82nd Airborne on the ground. The 55th and 77th will continue to suppress enemy SAMs across the area. I don’t need to remind you all how dangerous those damn ChiComs’ SAMs are.”
Hatfield paused for a second as he surveyed the faces of his men and women. He was beyond proud of them and how well they had fought up to this point. Smiling, he shouted, “Victory by valor! Dismissed.”
The room jumped to attention and waited as he left the stage before falling out themselves. The pilots started heading to the flight line; it was time to go to work.
*******
20,000 Feet over Cuba
“Peanut, we just got a CAS tasking,” Hatfield told his wingman. “I’m sending you the coordinates now. We have troops in contact near the Playa Baracoa Airport. They’re reporting enemy armor advancing on the Ranger contingent holding the airport.”
“That’s a good copy, Joker. You know I love a good TIC mission. Let’s go stir some stuff up.”
The two Vipers banked their planes to the right as they looked to bleed off some altitude. They wanted to get lower to the ground to try and spot this enemy force with the good ole Mark I eyeball.
As they dropped below the fifteen-thousand-foot mark, their radar, homing, and warning system or RHAW started going nuts. Several ground radars were trying to lock onto them. Before the radars got a solid lock, they broke off their attack run and gained some altitude until they were outside of their range.
“Damn, that place is hot, Joker. We’re going to need to find another way to get at those guys,” Peanut said as they climbed back above twenty thousand feet.
“I’m going to try and get a couple of Weasels to give us an assist,” Joker replied.
Switching over to a different channel, Hatfield got ahold of the mission commander for the 57th Fighter Squadron. They detailed off a pair of Vipers equipped with some HARMs to deal with the SAM threat.
About five minutes later, the two Viper pilots dove down on the column. They spotted the armored vehicles heading towards the airport the Rangers had seized control of a few hours back. They also spotted a pair of PGZ-09s and a single PGZ-95 waiting for them.
These were the latest Chinese self-propelled anti-aircraft gun trucks, equipped with 25mm and 35mm autocannons and missiles—deadly little buggers that had to be dealt with if they wanted to take that enemy column out.
The first Viper pilot dove down on the column. The gun trucks had him locked up in seconds, sending strings of 25mm and 35mm tracer rounds at him as the pilot jinked from one side to another. While the first pilot had the gun trucks’ attention, his partner had locked all three trucks up and pickled off his HARM missiles at them. The antiradiation missiles would zero right in on the radar units on the AA guns and plaster them.
Observing the attack run from on high, Colonel Hatfield saw strings of red tracer fire crisscrossing the sky as they tried to blot two of his pilots from existence. Four missiles then shot out from the vehicles and raced up and after the F-16Vs as they popped some flares and angled away from the gun trucks, careful not to use their afterburners and give the missiles something bright and hot to chase after instead of the flares.
The fighters got away and the three AA vehicles blew apart in spectacular fashion, with chunks of them flung through the air.
“OK, Peanut, it looks like we’re clear. I’m going to head in first. I’ll go for the lead tanks with my Mavericks. As I pass over top of the enemy formation, I’ll release my CBU-87s across them. See what I miss and clean up after me if you will,” Joker explained as he banked his aircraft to the left and began to line up for his attack run. Deep down, he loved these kinds of missions. Something about swooping out of the skies to plaster some tanks and enemy armor just felt exhilarating.
“That’s a good copy, Joker. I’ll stay at angels 10 and watch.”
Descending through some clouds, Joker saw the enemy column. They were roughly sixteen miles out as he slowed his airspeed immensely. He spotted three columns of black smoke rising into the air—the remnants of the AA vehicles the 57th Fighter Squadron had just smoked. He also saw the enemy vehicles splitting off and scattering, trying to make it harder to take them out.
Joker flipped his AN/AAQ-28 LITENING targeting pod on, which brought up his ground-attack screen. The display showed the enemy formation of vehicles a little more than a dozen miles in front of him. Turning the first AGM-65 Maverick on, he lined up the targeting reticle on the video feed of the first tank and locked the image into the targeting computer of the Maverick. He then pickled off the first missile. He repeated the process three more times until his complement of antitank missiles was gone.
As he fired the last missile, Joker saw he was practically on top of the enemy forces. Rather than haphazardly drop his two cluster bomb units, he gave his engines some more juice and pulled up as he angled to the right.
“Peanut, I’m going to come around for another attack run with the CBUs. Why don’t you go ahead and make your run while I get back in position?”
“That’s a good copy, Joker. Good shooting, by the way—four enemy tanks down.”
Joker smiled at that—four less tanks to shoot at their soldiers, four less tanks to kill his fellow Americans.
As he turned his F-16 around and sought to get back in position for another attack run, Joker watched his wingman line up for his own attack. He fired off his first Maverick missile. A second fired moments later.
Then his RHAW activated again, warning him that something was trying to lock him up. Joker frantically searched to find the new threat.
“Valor Actual, this is Big Sky. We are tracking two possible J-20s rapidly closing in on your position. They keep coming in and out of our radar. Suggest you take evasive maneuvers and go active with your radar to find them.”
What the hell? was all Joker could think as he realized they were in grave danger right now.
Pulling his aircraft into a tight turn while gaining additional altitude, Joker saw a missile contrail from a few miles away. It was heading down in the direction of Peanut.
Joker angled his aircraft toward where he had seen that missile fired from and flipped his targeting computer from ground-attack mode to air-attack mode. His AN/APG-68 fire control radar made a single sweep, spotting not one J-20 but two. They were no more than twenty-two kilometers from his position and closing fast.
One of the J-20s fired a second missile at his wingman before they turned to head right for him.
Joker sent an urgent warning to his wingman as he cycled through his remaining ordnance until he had selected his AIM-9 Sidewinder. The newer Block II variants were much faster and a hell of a lot harder to shake once they’d locked onto you.
Damn, it looks like one of these guys wants to play chicken, Joker thought as one of the J-20s flew off to the right while the other guy continued to head straight towards him. Hatfield kn
ew he couldn’t get a solid lock on the guy with his missile in a straight head-on position like this, so he switched over to his guns.
They were rapidly closing the distance between each other.
“Joker, this is Peanut. I can’t shake his missile. It’s almost on me. I’m ejecting. Peace out, brother!” It was the last thing Joker heard before his targeting reticle turned green, letting him know he was in range to fire.
Joker swiftly depressed the firing button, releasing a short burst, then he fired a second and third burst from his guns. In the blink of an eye, the J-20 racing towards him at blinding speeds erupted in flames. Debris and fire raced towards him at more than a thousand miles per hour.
Joker wasn’t sure he was going to be able to dodge the debris, but as he banked hard to the right, it whipped past him in the blink of an eye.
Did I just shoot down a fifth-generation Chinese stealth fighter with my guns? he asked himself in shock. No freaking way.
Suddenly, Hatfield remembered his wingman had bailed. He felt like a horrible person for having momentarily forgotten about him. He started scanning the area for a parachute or any telltale sign of him.
There you are…
Angling his aircraft towards the airfield the Rangers had captured, Joker saw his wingman drifting down to the ground, near friendly lines.
Alarm bells started blaring in his cockpit. His RWR was telling him he was being locked up again.
Damn! Where is that other J-20?
Before Joker could react, a pair of missiles were racing toward him. He didn’t even have time to try and get a missile off in response. Hitting his afterburner, he tried to build up speed as he dove for the deck, hoping to lose the missiles in the ground clutter, or at least make it harder for them to find him.
He’d gone from twenty-two thousand feet to maybe six thousand feet when his alarm started screaming for him to eject. Joker banked hard to the left as he fired off some flares and chaff; he saw one of the missiles explode in the chaff cloud. It briefly rocked his aircraft. Then the rear half of his plane blew apart.
