spat out six thousand rounds per minute, stitching the Flanker’s side.
The other aircraft’s canopy exploded in shards, and the metal framework
peeled back from the rest of the airframe. He caught a glimpse of the other
pilot, crumpled and bloody in the cockpit, before leaking fuel met hot metal.
Mein Low jerked his fighter into a tight turn just as the Flanker exploded
into a bloody red-orange fireball.
Only one more test. Five miles from the training field, a Grumble
surface-to-air missile waited, the final obstacle to full funding of the F-10
program–his program–and his promotion to Wing Commander. Defeat it, and
Mein Low would vault up the ladder of power and prestige in the Chinese army.
The radar threat indicator screamed a warning microseconds before the
missile symbol blipped onto the heads-up display in the cockpit. Mein Low
shoved the throttle on the F-10 forward, dumping raw fuel into the jet’s
engine. In seconds, the aircraft muscled its way through the shock waves that
battered the aircraft at Mach .9 and accelerated past Mach 1.
Against a Mach 3 missile, the fighter’s supersonic speed was almost
irrelevant. Still, the point of the operational exercise was to prove the
capabilities of the next-generation Chinese fighter operating at the edge of
its envelope.
Let them tell the Flanker pilot, now spread across five miles of desert
with his aircraft, that it was just an operational test!
The missile closed to five miles.
Mein Low twitched his finger, activating the countermeasures toggle on
the stick. Four gentle thumps shook the aircraft as a combination of flares,
chaff, and electromagnetic decoys shot out of the belly slots. The pilot
stabbed the preload button on his G-suit. As soon as he felt the pressure on
his extremities increase, he threw the sleek jet into a hard breaking turn,
tensing every muscle in his torso to augment the effects of the constrictive
flight suit and force increased blood flow to his brain.
Cold sweat soaked his flight suit as he fought against unconsciousness.
He would enter the next cycle of life knowing whether or not he’d succeeded,
not blindly exiting this life without ever knowing the results!
Time slowed to a crawl. He had all eternity to watch the deadly white
missile grow larger, the tiny oscillations in its flight stilled as the Front
Dome radar tracker and illuminator seeker head zeroed in on the jet, so close
now he imagined he could see the invisible pulses of energy radiating out from
its nose.
Suddenly, the missile twitched. Its nose dropped a few inches as it
shifted its aim.
It worked! Cold joy filled Mein Low, and time resumed its normal speed.
A white flash of death streaked past him and impacted the cluster of decoys
behind and below the F-10.
Turbulence from the blast almost accomplished what the missile had failed
to do, knocking the jet nose down and tail high. The F-10’s air speed
plummeted into the stall region in seconds, and Mein Low’s vision narrowed to
a tiny pinpoint of light.
The barely conscious pilot fought the jet back into stable flight,
regaining control five thousand feet above the barren plains. With stall
warning buzzers and threat indicator alarms still ringing in his ears, he
automatically turned the jet toward the airfield.
Fifteen minutes later, he was on the deck. A wave of cheering
technicians, scientists, and engineers swamped the fighter the second it
stopped its roll-out. The crowd pulled Mein Low from the cockpit and carried
him on their shoulders to the hangar. By the time his feet finally hit the
tarmac, his hands had stopped shaking.
Still dazed, he raised his right hand to the crowd. The assembled mass
fell silent.
“Today,” he said, surprised his voice remained steady, “we regain control
of our skies. Your hard work and dedication have given your country the next
generation in fighter aircraft. With it, I pledge to you restoration of our
historic rights over the South China Sea. Each victory in the air is not
ours–it is yours!”
He raised his hand again, and let the roar of the crowd wash over him.
CHAPTER 1
Saturday, 22 June
0810 local (Zulu -7)