her hard, clipped Maine accent, catching every additional consonant without
emphasizing the missing ones.
“Nope. Just logging the flight pay up here.” The pilot grinned at the
copilot. It was sheerly one of the joys of being an aviator. Getting to fly,
and getting paid extra to do it.
“Looks like you spoke too soon,” Fingers said. “Looky who’s coming out
to play! Four unidentified bogeys off the commercial routes. Inbound, angels
fifteen, 420 knots. I call it Chinese fighters.”
“You copy, Homeplate?” Rabbit said over tactical. “I’m going to start
feeling a little lonely up here real soon.” It was one thing, he thought, to
fly missions alone off the coast of southern California. An entirely
different level of pucker factor to do it in the South China Sea. The quietly
reassuring if occasionally obnoxious presence of a few Tomcats or Hornets
would have sounded mighty fine right then.
“Roger, copy,” the OS said. “Hang tight, Snoopy. We’re going to send
some playmates up with you. Spook One and Two are launching as we speak.”
Fingers shook her head. Spook was the call sign assigned to the two new
JAST birds. She’d gotten a good look at them on the deck, both at the
impressive avionics and at the stealth coating. Still, when you got right
down to it, neither one had been fully op tested under real-time conditions.
What looked like a workable system at Pax River didn’t necessarily work as
advertised after multiple catapult launches, slamming tailhook recoveries, and
the gentle ministrations of flight deck technicians. Had she been given a
choice, she’d have opted for one of the regular Hornets or Tomcats–preferably
the long-endurance Tomcat.
She clicked her mike in acknowledgment and listened to the tactical
chatter from the back of his aircraft over the ICS.
Within minutes, the OSs on the carrier were complaining about the radar
picture.
“I know they’re off the deck. We’re picking up IFF responses to
interrogation. But I’m not getting skin–just mode four squawk. What the
hell are these birds, anyway?” the OS on the Vincennes asked the air tracker
on the carrier over the private LINK coordination circuit.
“Both Spooks are inbound your position,” the OS on the carrier advised.
“Don’t worry–I can’t see them either. Aegis is picking up skin off them, and
we’re tracking them over LINK. Let me know when they get close enough to
paint.”
“Hell of a way to run a war,” the copilot muttered. “Bad enough when we
can’t see the bad guys, but now the good guys are invisible too!”
“Be advised the Spooks will be taking high station on you,” the OS said,
a note of puzzlement in his voice.
“High station? What the heck for? Can’t we get someone down here close
and personal?” the pilot demanded. “What dope-smoking idiot came up with that
one?”
“I think that would be me,” a too-familiar voice said. “Any problem with
that, son?”
The pilot swallowed hard. “No, sir, Admiral. High station sounds just
fine.”
2220 local (Zulu -7)
Spook Two
“Good contact on the inbound bogeys,” Tomboy said tersely.
“Man, those guys have got to be sweating it,” Batman answered. “What’s
the range?”
“Three hundred miles and closing. We going in to take a look at them?”
“I’m going to try. Let me know what you’re getting off them when we get
closer. I don’t want them to know we’re there. With any luck at all, they’d
have to get a visual on us to know we’re here, if intell is right about their
radars.”
Spook Two was nose-on to the intruders, presenting its least detectable
aspect. Batman made a minute adjustment in his course, pointing the JAST
bird’s oddly configured nose at the Chinese fighters. No point in giving them
any better a target than they deserved. While Batman still had a number of
tricks up his JAST sleeve, he wanted to keep them in reserve.
“Nothing spectacular, Batman. Low-grade air search radar. Not much
chance of them seeing us,” the backseater said after a moment. “Don’t think
we can make it into visual range without being detected, though.”
“I kinda figured that,” Batman said. “Sure would like to get a look at