Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (36 page)

Ronald Reagan
’s wash-down
system pumped seawater through thousands of deck sprayers.
 
Vents in the supercarrier’s air handlers were
isolated from the outside and the public announcement system ordered everyone
to get below decks.
 
Those caught outside
began to super-convulse as a nerve agent caused violent muscle
contractions.
 
Their contortions snapped bones
and ripped tissue.
 
When the VX was done
tearing bodies apart, flaccid paralysis set in and shut down respiration.
 
With his face pressed to the flag bridge’s
thick green glass, the American rear admiral watched his kids die a painful
death.
 
He pounded the window with his
fist and swore.
 
Lake Champlain
sailed through the periphery of the toxic cloud the
Granits had created over
Ronald Reagan
.

Ferlatto ordered
Lake
Champlain
’s wash-down system activated, and her sailors to event positions,
sealed stations that protected against biological, chemical, and radiological
attack.
 
Ferlatto turned the cruiser
radically to avoid contamination and blew the horn to warn of his unannounced maneuver.
 
Although
Ronald
Reagan
remained undamaged, the Chinese nerve agent had delivered a mission
kill.

High above the scrambling American ships, a Hawkeye airborne
early warning aircraft spotted and announced a new raid.

Fresh Super Hornets climbed from lower-level combat air
patrol position to replace Pelletier, and then new orders came in.
 
Although her bird was getting low on fuel,
Ronald Reagan
’s controllers sent
Pelletier at the inbound bandits, and informed her that the raiders profile
indicated Flankers.
 
“Busy night,”
Pelletier mumbled through an exhale.
 
She
touched the cockpit display.
 
The weapon
load-out came up and showed that just two Sidewinders remained.
 
The
cupboards are bare
, she thought.

Pelletier dropped her thrust back to minimize the Lightning
II’s heat signature and fuel burn, and began a slow climb to gain
altitude.
 
A solid tone indicated that the
bandits were now within the engagement envelope of the Sidewinders and that
they radiated enough heat to offer her heat seekers a target.
 
In Pelletier’s helmet, the two enemy aircraft
were highlighted and ‘30,000 feet’ and ‘Mach 1.8’ were listed beside the red
diamonds that framed them.
 
Pelletier
stepped her Lighting II up in altitude again, climbing to 45,000 feet.
 
Despite the whine from the Sidewinders, she
hesitated to take unreliable frontal shots with the last of her weapons.
 
Instead, she planned to use stealth to sneak
around on her enemy’s six.
 
Then I’ll fire my snakes right up their ass
,
she thought.

A cockpit alarm interrupted Pelletier’s sly stalk.
 
She instinctively fired off decoys, and then
pointed the aircraft’s nose down and over.
 
Pelletier called out to the Hawkeye and
Ronald Reagan
, and pleaded for information on any other known
bandits.
 
Air controllers confirmed just the
two known plots and reassured her that back up was three minutes out.
 
That is when streaks of tracer fire zinged past
the Lightning II’s canopy.
 
Pelletier
jerked the airplane away hard and punished herself with extreme G-force.
 
More flashes of tracer fire.
 
She screamed with frightful surprise, powered
up the radar, and looked back over her shoulder.
 
Shrouded and illuminated by shimmering
plasma, Lieutenant Pelletier’s ‘black knight’ slid into view.

“That’s no Flanker,” she declared aloud, noting the enemy’s
canard delta layout, canted vertical stabilizers, stealthy body shaping, and
frameless canopy.
 
Looking at her
rear-facing radar, Pelletier saw only sporadic reflections from her new
challenger.
 
As the big jet pulled up
high, she caught a glimpse of the big red star on its dark grey airframe.
 
Pelletier recognized the supposedly
experimental Chinese stealth air superiority fighter and muttered reiteration
of an intelligence brief: “J-20 Black Eagle: Not yet in service.”
 
She gave an ironic laugh.
 
The missile warning sounded again.

Pelletier pushed the boundaries of consciousness as she dove
and turned.
 
The grey grew bright again,
and she had the presence of mind to recognize the alarm and release decoys.
 
Then she grunted into the radio: “Stingtown
One, totally defensive.”
 
Pelletier zagged
instead of zigged, and heard and felt thumps as rounds ripped into her machine.
 
“Fuck,” she exclaimed.
 
The airplane jerked.
 
With a sharp crack, her wing’s aluminum beam
failed, and the Lightning II lurched.
 
Composite
wing skin tore and peeled away.
 
Finally,
the wing folded, bending at a right angle.

Pelletier’s helmet slammed against the canopy.

A vision flashed: Her father looked sad.
 
Hobbes the cat meowed and gave a nictitating
blink.

The wing ripped from the fuselage and knocked off part of
the airplane’s tail.
 
The Lightning II
went into a violent flat spin.
 
Pelletier’s
head was pinned to the canopy.
 
The world
outside swirled.
 
Pelletier struggled to
stay conscious.
 
A wave of nausea swamped
her, and her vision tunneled.
 
As Pelletier
was about to pass out, there was a burst of white light.

Cynthia saw herself at a big dining room table wearing a birthday
cap.
 
An aroma from a cake baking in the
oven, and wax candles slowly melting away teased her nostrils.
 
Her boyfriend from high school was there, and
in this vision, made a handsome husband.
 
They had a beautiful daughter as well.
 
The little girl drew a deep breath, and with puffed cheeks and a wish,
blew out candles on a frosted cake.
 
Pelletier’s father bounced in his chair and clapped loudly.

He froze suddenly, looked at Cindy, and screamed, “Wake up,
Cindy.”
 
Pelletier came to and pawed for
the Lightning II’s ejection handle.
 
G-forces had pinned her arms in her lap.
 
Chimes; red flashing lights; and, a whooping warning assaulted her
senses.
 
The mortally wounded Lightning
II bucked.
 
Pelletier’s head was thrown
backwards.
 
With a sickening pop, her
helmet split.
 
She tasted blood.

Just one more jarring yaw and a deep rumble…

And then, a bright light, warmth, and peace.

An explosion bloomed over the Pacific.
 
From it, fingers of smoke and debris reached down
to the water’s surface.

“Stingtown One?”
Ronald
Reagan
’s controllers called out and repeated.
 
No response.

◊◊◊◊

A black tailless flying wing pierced Pacific skies.
 
Named
Spirit
of Louisiana
, it was the 21
^st
and final Spirit strategic stealth
bomber built by the United States.
 
After
a long flight from Missouri and heavy with two Massive Ordinance Penetrators;
30,000-pound bunker-busters, it was open for business.
 
Quick bursts from the Spirit’s look-down
radar built a three-dimensional picture of the Chinese naval formation.
 
The American airmen selected the biggest ship
and locked its coordinates into the targeting system.
 
The stealth bomber’s bay doors folded open
and, one after the other, two giant MOPs dropped free.

Latticed tail fins extended, stabilizing and guiding the
huge bombs as they nosed down.
 
The bombs
pierced a wisp of cloud.
 
Below them and
coming up fast was
Liaoning
’s
flightdeck.
 
One Chinese sailor heard a
rush of air and looked up to see the two bunker busters.
 
The first bomb hit.
 
It ripped through the flightdeck and
disappeared into the ship’s bowels.
 
Hah,
the sailor chuckled.
 
It’s a dud
.
 
Liaoning
shook and the hole in the flightdeck erupted like a volcano.
 
The sailor and hundreds of his comrades did
not live long enough to see the second MOP impact and rip into the Chinese
aircraft carrier.

Ordinance and fragments of ship hit the sea around
Lake Champlain
.
 
Black and white smoke trails crisscrossed the
blue sky.
 
Ferlatto adjusted his helmet
and flinched as the Gatling guns once again spewed flame.
 
He saw a huge flash in the distance, and
after a few seconds, a pressure wave arrived, slamming into his ship.
 
Low, prolonged thunder rolled in, and a
massive cloud of black smoke rose at the horizon…

Meanwhile,
Connecticut
’s
passive sonar array registered two very large consecutive explosions. Her
captain brought the submarine shallow to peek above the surface.
 
“We’re at 60 feet, sir.
 
Neutral bubble,”
Connecticut
’s XO reported.

“Very well.
 
Steady as
she goes and periscope up,” the captain ordered.
 
The periscope climbed from its well, piercing
the waves.
 
He leaned in for a look.

A
column of smoke
rose from
Liaoning
.
 
Now she listed to port and blazes vented from
gaping, jagged holes in her flight deck.
 
Several patrol boats slowed to pull sailors, blown overboard, from the
water.
 
Liaoning
heeled further to port as she felt the effects of
unbalanced flooding.
 
Connecticut
’s captain considered putting
a spread of torpedoes into the hapless warship when the sonarman interrupted.
 
A destroyer had turned
Connecticut
’s way.

“Take her deep, chief,” he reluctantly ordered.

The guided-missile destroyer
Qingdao
hammered the water with her bow sonar, but lost
Connecticut
as she slipped beneath a
substantial thermocline.
 
Then,
Harbin
and
Qingdao
turned for
Lake
Champlain
at full speed.
 
They fired
anti-ship missiles and opened up with their deck guns.
 
Two torpedo boats—
Huchuan
-class semi-hydrofoils—joined the charge, spitting two
torpedoes each along the axis of attack.

“Okay, I would say they are pretty mad,” Ferlatto
half-joked.
 
“Present minimal
aspect.
 
Ready the Mark 45.
 
I want those fast boats dead.
 
Put two Harpoons on each of those
destroyers.”
 
Lake Champlain
turned at the charging ships, her deck gun turned
and elevated.
 
The 5-inch gun recoiled
and spit smoking brass casings onto the foredeck.
 
Geysers of water erupted around the Chinese
torpedo boats until rounds found them, ripping into their decks, and sinking
them.

A sailor on
Lake
Champlain
’s bridge lowered his binoculars, turned to the captain, and reported,
“Torpedo tracks.
 
Closing fast.”

“Sir, cruise missiles inbound,” another man announced, just
as
Lake Champlain
’s vertical launch
system loosed four Harpoons.
 
“Likely CSS-N-8
Saccades.
 
Subsonic profile.
 
ACS is engaging.”

Several Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles departed
Lake Champlain
to intercept the
approaching Chinese Eagle Strike anti-ship missiles.

“Where are those torps?” Ferlatto asked.

“Zero-one-five.
 
Three
thousand feet off.
 
Bearing one-zero-three
degrees.
 
They’re doing about fifty
knots.”

“Okay, hard over to starboard, increase speed to flank.
 
Let’s see if they turn with us or are
straight shooters.”

Lake Champlain
turned and sped up.
 
The Chinese
torpedoes followed.

“Goddamn it.”

“Sir, ESSMs have missed.
 
Sea-whizz.”

Lake Champlain
’s
Phalanx close-in weapons systems found and locked on the enemy
sea-skimmers.
 
A zipping sound vibrated
the bridge as the robotic Gatling guns opened up.
 
A large explosion shook the ship.
 
Bullets from one Phalanx met a missile and
detonated its fuel and warhead.

“Mother fu--” Another explosion, but this one shook
Lake Champlain
violently and knocked sailors
to the cold, hard bridge deck.
 
Thick
black smoke began to infiltrate the bridge via the air circulation system.
 
Alarms sounded and warning lights
flashed.
 
Lake Champlain
had been hit.
 
Speed dropped off rapidly, and the hull rose and fell as the wake wave
caught up.