five-sided office building and back in the cockpit. He glanced down at the
Chinese camp perched on top of Mischief Reef and wondered if Tombstone really
had any idea of what he was in for on his next tour to DC.
Well, at least Batman’s politician days were on hold for a while.
“See anything unusual?” Tomboy asked, breaking his train of thought.
“Nope. You?”
“Not a thing. As long as we’re out here, though, maybe we can take
another swing around it. After that incident last week, it wouldn’t hurt.”
“You got it. Let’s do a little more op testing on this Tomcat on the way
back, though.” Batman stood the Tomcat on its tail, reveling in the feel of
gravity cementing him back into the ejection seat. God, how he’d missed that!
He punched in the afterburners and let the full-throated roar wash over him.
At ten thousand feet, he rolled the Tomcat out into level flight,
completing the Immelmann. The Mischief Reef camp was now almost two miles
below them. He eased back on the throttle and put the Tomcat into a gentle
descent, bleeding off altitude and speed at the same time. Experimentally, he
flicked off the auto-angle control and swept the wings forward. He felt the
increase in drag and speed and let the aircraft slow almost to stall speed
before reengaging the auto-control.
“Looks like everything works as advertised,” he advised Tomboy.
“Roger.” Had his RIO not been so much junior, Batman might have been
tempted to hear the slightly grumpy note in her voice. He smiled.
Backseaters never appreciated aerobatics.
1247 local (Zulu -7)
Mischief Reef
Shih Tan glared at the aircraft circling so far away in the sky. Out of
range of the Stinger missiles, no doubt. Despite the destruction of the
neighboring rock camp, his superiors had taken no steps to upgrade the
offensive capabilities of the island. The missile emplacements that were
barely masked by bamboo screens and the Stingers were their only protection.
He’d heard the blast from Island 203 and rushed outside in time to see
the rain of litter and rock fall back into the ocean. One sentry said he’d
seen the American aircraft dip low over the island and release a bomb, but two
other lookouts couldn’t confirm the report. Still, there was no doubt in
anyone’s mind where the bomb had come from. The American aircraft had been
the only possible source of it.
The lack of defenses on his tiny island bothered him. While it was well
within China’s span of control, and should have been sacrosanct in the South
China Sea, there was no telling what drove the Americans to do anything.
Attacking an undefended, tactically unimportant island was just the latest in
a series of American actions that made little sense to the rest of the world.
That China should have to tolerate that sort of aggression in her own seas
bothered him more than he could say.
Had Shih Tan been in charge, he would have armed the tiny islands to the
teeth and ringed them with every capability in the Chinese navy. Not that
there were really so many ships, but it was critical to maintaining China’s
face in the region to put a stop to the American intervention.
A slight breeze rose up, ruffling the damp hair on the back of his neck.
He heard the distant whine of insects, but dismissed it. In the next second,
his head snapped up, and he gazed frantically around.
Insects? This far out at sea? It wasn’t- The vast bamboo structure
behind him erupted in a fiery explosion. He barely had time to process the
information in his brain before the shock wave reached him, blasting him off
his feet and into the warm waters of the South China Sea just seconds in front
of the fireball.
Shih Tan hit the water hard and plummeted fifteen feet beneath it. He
retained just enough consciousness to try to struggle to the surface. He
heard a muted series of thuds as debris hit the water around him, flames
instantly extinguished and steam churning the water. As he stroked for the
surface, he saw a film of flames spreading out above him, broken only by