“Raid Seven is turning, course now zero-nine-seven.”
“That puts them on the -16s … and they’re illuminating . . . ,” the lieutenant observed, with the first hint of worry in his voice. “Raid Seven is lighting up the F-16’s, radars in tracking mode.”
The Republic of China F-16s then turned also. They’d been getting a lot of work. The newer, American-made fighters and their elite pilots comprised only about a third of their fighter force, and were drawing the duty of covering and responding to the flight exercises of their mainland cousins. Leaving Raid Six to return, they necessarily got more interested in the trailing flight, still heading east. The closure rate was still a thousand miles per hour, and both sides had their missile-targeting radars up and running, aimed at each other. That was internationally recognized as an unfriendly act, and one to be avoided for the simple reason that it was the aerial equivalent of aiming a rifle at someone’s head.
“Uh-oh,” the petty officer on the ESM board said. “Sir, Raid Seven, their radars just shifted to tracking mode.” Instead of just searching for targets, the airborne systems
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were now operating in the manner used to guide air-to-air missiles. What had been merely unfriendly a few seconds ago now became overtly hostile.
The F-16s broke into two pairs–elements–and began maneuvering freely. The outbound PRC fighters did the same. The original flight of four, Raid Six, was now across the line, heading west on what appeared to be a direct line to their airfield.
“Oh, I think I know what’s going on here, sir, look how–”
A very small pip appeared on the screen, leaving one of the ROC F-16s–
“Oh, shit,” a sailor said. “We have a missile in the air–”
“Make that two,” his chief said.
Aloft, a pair of American-made AIM-120 missiles were now taking separate paths to separate targets.
“They thought it was an attack. Oh, Christ,” the captain said, turning to his communications. “Get me CiNC-PAC right now!'”
It didn’t take long. One of the mainland fighters turned into a puff on the screen. Warned, the other jinked hard and dodged its missile at the last second.
Then it turned back. The southern PRC fighter element maneuvered also, and Raid Six turned radically to the north, its illumination radars now on. Ten seconds later, six more missiles were airborne and tracking targets.
“We got a battle on our hands!” the chief of the watch said. The captain lifted the phone:
“Bridge, combat, general quarters, general quarters!” Then he grabbed the TBS microphone, getting the captains of his two companion ships, both ten miles away, east and west of his cruiser as the alarm gong started sounding on USS Port Royal.
“I have it,” The Sullivans reported. That destroyer was outboard.
“Me, too,” Chandler chimed in. That one was closer to the island nation, but getting the radar picture from the Aegis ships via data link.
“That’s a kill!” Another ChiCom fighter took its hit
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and headed down to the still-dark surface. Five seconds later, an F-16 died. More crewmen arrived in CIC, taking their battle stations.
“Captain, Raid Six was just trying to simulate–”
“Yeah, I see that now, but we have a train wreck on our hands.”
And then, predictably, a missile went wild. These were so small as to be hard for the Aegis radar to track, but a technician boosted power, throwing six million watts of RF energy into the “exercise” area, and the picture became more clear.
“Oh, shit!” a chief said, pointing to the main tactical display. “Captain, look there!”
It was instantly obvious. Someone had loosed what was probably an infra-red-seeking missile, and the hottest target in town was an Air China Airbus 310, with two huge General Electric CF6 turbofans–the same basic engines as those which powered all three of the American warships–which looked like the sun to its single red eye.
“Chief Albertson, get him on guard!” the skipper shouted.
“Air China Six-Six-Six, this is a U.S. Navy warship, you have a missile inbound on you from the northwest, I say again, maneuver immediately, you have a missile tracking you from the northwest!”
“What, what?” But the plane started moving, turning left and descending. Not that it mattered.
The plotted velocity vector of the missile never wavered from the target. There was a hope that it would burn out and fall short, but the missile was going at mach 3, and the Air China flight was already slowed down, commencing its approach to its home field. When the pilot put his nose down, he just made things easier for the missile.
“It’s a big airplane,” the captain said.
“Only two engines, sir,” the weapons officer pointed out.
“That’s a hit,” a radarman said.
“Get her down, pal, get her down. Oh, fuck,” the captain breathed, wanting to turn away. On the display, the 310’s blip tripled in size and flashed the emergency code.
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“He’s calling Mayday, sir,” a radioman said. “Air China flight triple-six is calling Mayday . . . engine and wing damage . . . possible fire aboard.”
“Only about fifty miles out,” a chief said. “He’s vectoring for a direct approach into Taipei.”
“Captain, all stations report manned and ready. Condition One is set throughout the ship,” the 1C man of the watch told the skipper.
“Very well.” His eyes were locked on the center of the three radar displays. The fighter engagement, he saw, had ended as quickly as it had started, with three fighters splashed, another possibly damaged, and both sides withdrawing to lick their wounds and figure out what the hell had happened. On the Taiwanese side, another flight of fighters was up and forming just off their coast.
“Captain!” It was the ESM console. “Looks like every radar on every ship just lit off. Sources all over the place, classifyinglhem now.”
But that didn’t matter, the captain knew. What mattered now was that Airbus 310 was slowing and descending, according to his display.
“CiNCPAC Operations, sir.” The radio chief pointed.
“This is Port Royal,” the captain said, lifting the phone-type receiver for the satellite radio link. “We just had a little air battle here–and a missile went wild and it appears that it hit an airliner inbound from Hong Kong to Taipei. The aircraft is still in the air, but looks to be in trouble. We have two ChiCom MiGs and one ROC F-16 splashed, maybe one more -16 damaged.”
“Who started it?” the watch officer asked.
“We think the ROC pilots fired the first missile. It could have been a screwup.” He explained on for a few seconds. “I’ll upload our radar take as quick as I can.”
“Very well. Thank you, Captain. I’ll pass that along to the boss. Please keep us informed.”
“Will do.” The skipper killed the radio link and turned to the 1C man of the watch. “Let’s get a tape of the battle set up for uplinking to Pearl.”
“Aye, sir.”
Air China 666 was still heading toward the coast, but
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the radar track showed the aircraft snaking and yawing around its straight-line course into Taipei. The ELINT team on Chandler was now listening in on the radio circuits. English is the language of international aviation, and the pilot in command of the wounded airliner was speaking quickly and clearly, calling ahead for emergency procedures, while he and his co-pilot struggled with their wounded airliner. Only they, really, knew the magnitude of the problem. Everyone else was just a spectator, rooting and praying that he’d keep it together for another fifteen minutes.
THIS ONE WENT up the line fast. The communications nexus was Admiral David Seaton’s office on the hilltop overlooking Pearl Harbor. The senior communications watch officer changed buttons on his phone to call the theater commander-in-chief, who immediately told him to shoot a CRixic-level flash message to Washington. Seaton next ordered an alert message to the seven American warships in the area–mainly the submarines– to perk their ears up. After that, a message went off to the Americans who were “observing” the exercise in various Republic of China military command posts–these would take time to get delivered. There was still no American embassy in Taipei, and therefore no attaches or CIA personnel to hustle down to the airport to see if the airliner made it in safely or not. At that point, there was nothing to do but wait, in anticipation of the questions that would start arriving from Washington, and which as yet he was in no real position to answer.
“YES?” RYAN SAID, lifting the phone.
“Dr. Goodley for you, sir.”
“Okay, put him on.” Pause. “Ben, what is it?”
“Trouble off Taiwan, Mr. President; could be a bad one.” The National Security Advisor explained on, telling what he knew. It didn’t take long.
It was, on the whole, an impressive exercise in communications. The Airbus was still in the air, and the Pres-