Target Utopia (24 page)

Over the South China Sea

C
OWBOY PULLED THE
F-35 into a turn, aiming to get behind the UAVs as they passed. The two aircraft were doing over eight hundred knots, so fast that there was no way in the world they could slow down enough to maneuver and target him before blowing past.

Except they did.

A laser range finder locked on the tailpipe of the F-35. Cowboy got an IR warning; realizing he was in trouble, he threw the aircraft into a dive a second or two before the UAV's energy weapon fired.

The weapon's beam touched the side of his tail, but the shot was too brief to do serious damage.
The UAVs continued past, moving too fast for him to try his own shot. He tightened his turn and aimed south, hoping to position himself better to ward off their next attack.

“Cowboy, they're not running away,” said Turk. “They're going to go south and then sweep around you to hit the Ospreys.”

“How do I stop them?”

“They'll prioritize on the biggest threat,” said Turk over the radio. “At this point they'll only pay attention to you if they think you're going to attack them.”

“Turk, what are you saying?”

“Go right after them. Target them with your radar, open your bay and make them think you're going to attack them. Fire a Sidewinder if you have to—you want them to think you're a real threat. Otherwise, they're going to just keep on after the Marine Ospreys.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they didn't just shoot you down. They got you out of the way, then went on. They don't think you're important.”

“What do I do once I have their attention?”

“Tangle with them long enough for the Sabres to get there. They'll take care of them. Go! If one of them gets close to the Ospreys, everybody aboard is dead.”

“Colonel, you hear that?”

“Copy.”

Cowboy slammed his throttle. He didn't mind making himself a target; he just didn't want to be an easy target. What he wanted was a solution to
kill the damn things, not to let someone else kill them.

But one thing at a time. Charging after the UAVs, he switched his targeting radar on, even though he had no radar missiles aboard. If it had any effect on the UAVs, he couldn't tell; they were still moving west.

Maybe, thought Cowboy, they're going back to where they came from.

No such luck. The two aircraft began to bank back south, swinging in a wide arc. They were meaning to cut off the Ospreys, aiming at where the rotorcraft would be in a few minutes. Just as Turk had predicted.

“Tell the Ospreys to change course and come north,” said Turk, once more breaking in over the radio. “Tell them to go back to the reef.”

“They're twelve minutes from the mainland,” said Greenstreet.

“They'll never make it. If they turn back, the UAVs will think they have time to shoot you down and then go for them. They're obviously programmed to stop the Ospreys from getting to Malaysia. I can tell by the course.”

“Cowboy and I can hold them up long enough for the Ospreys to get away,” said Greenstreet.

“Negative,” insisted Turk. “Not gonna happen. They'll split and one will go after the Ospreys. I've flown against these things dozens of time, Colonel. Trust me.”

“Turk knows what he's talking about, Colonel,” said Cowboy over the squadron frequency. “He's been right so far on everything they've done.”

Greenstreet ordered the Ospreys to change direction. As they complied, the UAVs turned as well—and kept going, heading straight for Cowboy, whom they now considered an immediate threat.

Cowboy angled his fighter toward the enemy aircraft, heading for their noses. The UAVs had gradually slowed, and were now doing about four hundred knots. He slowed his own speed; the trick now was to get them to come north with him when he turned.

The UAVs held their course, undoubtedly expecting him to fire his missiles before closing. This would be the most logical move, giving his weapons their best chance of hitting the targets while still minimizing his exposure. Instead, Cowboy jammed hard to the right, falling into a twisting turn that left the UAVs on his back, closing from ten miles out.

A human pilot would have strongly suspected a trick—the move had made Cowboy's F-35 infinitely more vulnerable. But if the UAVs were wondering why he had just served himself up on a silver platter, they gave no sign of it, instead held their course.

“Basher Two, Ospreys are two minutes from the reef,” said Colonel Greenstreet.

“Roger.”

“They're going to put down there. I'll target the UAVs as soon as they land.”

“Get closer and wait for me to turn hard north,” said Cowboy. “The closer you are, the better the odds of taking them.”

“Are you sure you can last that long?”

“Piece of cake.”

Cowboy flexed his fingers around the stick, waiting as the two UAVs closed in on him. They'd managed to climb, which would make it even more difficult for him to get away. He'd push left and accelerate. At least one of them would do the same, and extra altitude might take away some of the advantage he hoped to get from surprise.

“Just as they lock, pull back and climb,” suggested Turk.

“Are you kidding?” answered Cowboy. “They're above me. That's suicidal.”

“No, they won't expect it. They'll have angled down to make their shots and you'll slip right out of their targeting cone. As long as they're five thousand feet above you when you pull back, you're good. You'll have just enough time to break their lock as they pass you.”

“What about six thousand?”

“Not gonna work. Keep it as close to five thousand as you can—you can't give them too much time to react. Or too much room. Five thousand's just about the sweet spot.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Pick one, get on his tail, and fire your Sidewinders. The Sabres will be about three minutes away.”

It sure sounded easy, thought Cowboy. But actually doing it was going to be very difficult. “You sure this is going to work?”

“No. But it's what I would do if I were in your plane.”

That was less than the ringing endorsement Cowboy had hoped for.

He nudged down slightly, keeping his plane a little more than 5,000 feet below the closer of the two UAVs. They'd slowed a bit more, which was a temptation—maybe if he hit the afterburner he could shoot away without getting nailed. But even if that worked, he'd leave Greenstreet open to attack.

The UAVs closed to four miles, then three and a half. The RWR was bleeping, pleading with Cowboy: he was about to become dead meat.

“I agree,” muttered Cowboy.

And then they were on him, trying to slice him into yesterday's hash. Cowboy yanked back on the stick, then got an inspiration. Why stop now? Rather than simply climbing, he urged the F-35 into a full loop, continuing around until he saw the black speck of one of the UAVs in front of him.

The Sidewinders sniffed the air, trying to find the UAV's heat signature.

“It's right there, right there,” said Cowboy, yelling at the missile. He turned left to keep the UAV in his sights, then poured on the throttle to hold onto his target.

The missile finally growled, indicating it had locked on its target. Cowboy fired, then pulled hard right, worried about the other bandit.

He was right to worry. The enemy aircraft had come in behind him. Its weapon caught the top of the cockpit before he managed to turn inside and drop out of the UAV's sights. As he shoved
the F-35 back to the north, he heard and felt a loud bang above him: the canopy literally ripped in half, the thick acrylic shattered by the combination of the laser and the high g turn. Cowboy floated for a fraction of a second, as if his brain and body had separated. Then everything roared around him, as though he'd flown into the center of a tornado.

Turk was saying something over the radio, but Cowboy couldn't hear.

Where was the UAV?

Behind him. The gravity and wind nearly overcame him. The plane bucked, the stick jerking from his grip. Cowboy was blind; he pushed into a dive, desperate to get away.

The canopy gave way completely, shattering and flying behind the plane. Cowboy was pushed back in the seat, his hands still on the controls but unable to move because of the force of the wind. The aircraft had slowed and descended precipitously, but it was still a wild beast, some 5,000 feet above sea level, wings tipped.

I'm dead, he thought.

A pair of black shadows passed in front of him. There was a flash in the sky, a jagged red and yellow hand rising behind him.

The Sabres had arrived.

Over the South China Sea

T
URK WATCHED THE
Sabres follow the UAV that had been on Cowboy's tail as it tried to accelerate away. Cowboy's missile had damaged the other aircraft, but it was still flying, heading westward, most likely back toward its base.

They'd take down the one they had first, then go for the other. The enemy had never seen them coming.

With the Marines now in reasonably good shape, Turk turned his full attention back to the minesweeper, which had continued toward the island. He sent Sabre One on a low pass directly over the ship, running from bow to stern, and got a good close-up showing the sailors manning battle stations. The 85mm gun swung in the direction of the beached merchant vessel.

“Colonel Freah, I'm guessing they're getting ready to fire,” Turk told Danny. “Like really soon. Minutes, if not seconds. They're nearly in range.”

“Radio the warning.”

“Yes, sir.” They had prepared a brief message in English and Mandarin, declaring that the merchant ship had been boarded by U.S. forces in accordance with a UN resolution against helping the Malaysian rebels and telling the Chinese not to interfere. Turk had the computer broadcast it on all channels used by the Chinese navy.

There was no response. Not that he really expected one.

“Colonel, no response. They're in range.”

“Do what you gotta do,” replied Freah. “But only if they fire.”

In other words—don't shoot until they do. In many if not most situations, U.S. pilots would be allowed to fire on a ship or aircraft that turned its weapons radars on and locked on them. But the recent contentious history of U.S.-Chinese interactions in the South China Sea, where weapons radars were routinely used for provocation by both sides, had led to the more stringent requirement. There was an additional consideration in this case, as the capabilities of the Tigershark's weapon were still secret, and simply using the weapon provided the enemy with information.

The Chinese were also notoriously poor shots. Still . . .

Turk started to object. “Colonel, if I wait until they fire, there's always the possibility—”

“Those are your orders.”

“Yes, sir.”

“T
HERE'S A HELL
of a lot of gear here,” yelled Guzman from below. He'd gone through the hull into another opening and a small compartment beyond. “Looks like the frickin' bat cave. And there's another hatchway down at the end.”

“I'm coming down,” said Danny. “Stand by.”

Leaving Grisif near the blown-out hatchway, Danny maneuvered himself down to the ladder and
then across the thick screen that ran between the hull and the compartment bulkhead. Water flowed at his feet, trickling down from the compartment above. Danny's wrist light was of little use inside the darkened chamber. He switched the helmet to night vision, which cast everything an eerie gray. He had to turn sideways to get through the opening in the hull, squeezing his body down into a squat.

The compartment was actually a cylinder attached to the outside of the ship via a narrow tunnel. It opened into what looked like a large round hallway lined with computer equipment. Running nearly thirty feet, the cylinder was fourteen feet in diameter, with LED lighting along the top and a metal screen deck at the bottom. There were pumps below, sucking in the water as it leaked down and expelling it somewhere outside in the seabed. They were losing the battle, water slowly inching up toward the deck.

Power came from a device that converted wave energy into electricity, storing it in a large pack of batteries that filled the rest of the area below the decking. Computer servers and other electronic equipment were stacked along the walls; there were two processing stations with multiple screens and keyboards. One of the computers seemed to be on standby, with a small LED lit, but the rest were off and the screens blank.

“Quite a setup, huh?” said Guzman.

“It is. We gotta get this stuff out of here,” added Danny.

“It's bolted to the metal frames.”

As Danny leaned down to examine it, there was
a loud crack from above. The ship lifted two feet in the air, then settled hard, knocking both of them to the deck.

“Damn,” muttered Guzman.

“Yeah,” said Danny, hitting the radio Send button. “Team check in.”

There was no answer. The short-range communications relied on being near another unit, and with all the metal and water between them, Grisif was now out of range.

“Colonel, look at that.” Guzman pointed back toward the entrance to the cylinder connecting them to the rest of the ship. A sheet of water streamed down from a fresh crack at the top. “We gotta get out of here.”

But before they could move, the cylinder abruptly jerked downward, pushing them toward the hatchway where they'd come in. The pair fell into the water as it rolled, flopping against the side of the ship as the hatch came loose from its mooring. The tunnel-like connection between the ship and the compartment broke apart. A section rolled under the container and the ship. Crushed and twisted, it blocked their way out.

T
HE MINESWEEPER'S SHOT
on the merchant ship hit the reef on the starboard side of the vessel, throwing a geyser of water and coral into the air. It was short, and the Chinese crew didn't get a chance to correct.

“Fire,” said Turk. “Disable target.”

Current shot through the rail at the center of the
Tigershark, propelling what looked like an aerodynamic railroad spike out of the plane, through the air, and into the center of the shroud covering the 85mm deck gun on the Chinese minesweeper.

Two more shots sped from the Tigershark before Turk told the computer to stop; he was out to disable the gun, not sink the ship. His restraint was not appreciated on the ship, however, especially among the gun crew nor the men in the compartment directly below. Traveling in excess of Mach 6, the rail gun's spikes shattered the Chinese gun and the mechanism that fed it. The spewing shrapnel ignited the explosive in a loaded shell, which not only exploded but started a secondary fire in the gun housing. This quickly spread to the deck immediately below the gun.

Meanwhile, two of the three projectiles continued through the ship after striking the gun. Penetrating the hull, they left relatively small but critical holes, and the ship started listing to its starboard side.

Damage control was complicated by the fire on the deck below the gun and confusion among the crew and the captain; it was not immediately clear where the attack had come from, as neither the Tigershark nor its escorts could be picked up on radar. The minesweeper therefore continued toward the reef—a serious mistake.

The fire showed as a hot glow on Turk's targeting screen, with a damage percentage of one hundred percent in the legend next to it, indicating that the gun was now considered out of action even by the overly cautious computer. But the
ship had other guns, and the fact that it was still moving convinced Turk that it remained a danger.

“Target propulsion system on target one,” he told the computer.

“Computed,”
replied the computer. It lit three separate target areas that it proposed to strike, two in the engine room and a third a little farther back, on the propeller shaft.

“Eliminate propulsion system,” said Turk, choosing to let the computer pull the trigger while he flew the aircraft. The course was computed for him on the screen: dead on his present heading for five seconds, then a slight nudge right; the rail gun was fixed in the Tigershark's fuselage, and could only be aimed as the airplane was aimed.

The gun fired nine times in quick succession, not quite at its full capacity. The shots were true; the minesweeper immediately lost power, its engine and driveshaft obliterated. Its momentum continued to drive it south, but it was off-course, and its list to starboard quickly deepened.

The targeting computer was pleased; it listed the minesweeper's fighting ability at zero percent, and declared that it had only a thirty-three percent chance of surviving.

“Minesweeper is no longer a factor,” Turk radioed Danny.

D
ANNY NEVER GOT
the message, as he was still out of range of the other units. He wouldn't have responded in any event, since he had a lot of other things to worry about.

Water, primarily.

A hole in the tunnel allowed air to escape as the seawater rushed in. Danny took one look at the mangled metal and realized they weren't leaving that way anytime soon. He led Guzman to the far side of the compartment, where there was a hatchway that looked like it must connect to the outside. The surface was only a few yards above, at most; all they had to do was open the hatch and get out.

The problem was the hatch: it wouldn't open. At first Danny thought it was because the pressure of the seawater was too great. But Guzman showed him that the hatch swung inward and the wheel itself was locked, just as the one leading there had been.

“Can we blow it off?” Danny asked.

“The explosives are topside.”

Danny worked his way back toward the door to the ship, hoping the radio reception would improve. But there was no answer from anyone above.

What a place to die, he thought. How ironic—in the Air Force pretty much all my life, and I'm going to die at sea.

The water gurgled around him. It was just about to his knees.

The pumps were still working, though they weren't able to keep up with the inflow.

Sooner or later the water would rise high enough to cover wherever the air was escaping, and stop the inflow, he thought. If they could get help, they could retreat to the air pocket and wait for someone to blow the door.

“You think there's a radio in these controls?”
he asked Guzman, going over to the panel. “Help me look.”

They looked over the controls and started punching buttons. But there was no obvious effect. The water, meanwhile, continued to rise. Air was leaking from somewhere other than the tunnel, Danny realized—more than likely the ventilation system.

There was a crackle and a beep in his helmet.

“Colonel Freah, where are you?” asked Boston, his voice loud and clear in the helmet.

“We're trapped inside a compartment at the base of the ship,” said Danny.

“We think it broke off from the ship,” said Boston. “I'm above the compartment where the doorway was.”

“What about Grisif?” Danny asked, worried about the Whiplasher he'd left behind. “She was watching our backs in there.”

“We just pulled her out of the wreck. The hull collapsed. There's a ton of rusted steel between us and you.”

The line went dead then. Danny moved back toward the doorway at the ship's end, but got nothing.

“They're working on it,” he told Guzman, still trying to find a radio.

“They better work fast,” said Guzman.

“Colonel? You there?” Boston came back on the line.

“We're here.”

“We're going to try and cut through some of the metal. There's two decks between you.”

“The tunnel to the boat's mangled,” said Danny.
“That's not going to work. You're going to have to come from the outside. There's a hatch like the one on the inside. You can blow it.”

“With you guys inside?”

“There's no other way.”

“Shit. All right,” said Boston. “We have diving gear on the Ospreys. They're holding ten minutes south. Can you hold out?”

“We don't have much choice,” said Danny. He glanced at the water, which was now up above their chests. There was no way they were going to get anyone into a wet suit and into the water quickly enough to get them out. But that was their only hope.

Unless . . .

“Stand by,” Danny told Boston. “I need to talk to Turk.”

T
URK COULDN'T QUITE
believe what Danny wanted him to do.

“I see the container on the infrared scan,” he said, “but just barely. It's up against the hull.”

“Barely's all you need,” said Danny.

“Slicing off the end of the canister is going to take at least two passes,” said Turk. “And the gun has to cycle through between them. We're looking at five minutes for the whole process, and that's optimistic.”

“Then get moving,” said Danny.

“There's gotta be another way. Something safer—”

“Believe me, if there was, we'd be doing it.”

“Listen, Colonel—”

“That's an order.”

“Coming to course,” said Turk mechanically. “Stand by.”

He needed to climb another 5,000 feet to increase his length of time on target long enough to make the shot. The plan was basically to use the rail gun as a can opener, poking holes in the end of the compartment where they were trapped. Turk would have to drive over sixty rounds through the top of the end cap, destroying it.

It was beyond a long shot. Even explaining to the computer what he wanted to do was difficult; Turk ended up having to forgo the audio AI interface and hand designate a linear target across the top of the cylinder.

Four passes, declared the computer. Ten minutes.

Danny had estimated they had only five minutes of air.

They'd have even less once he started shooting.

“Recompute for two passes,” Turk told the computer.

“Not possible within safety limits,”
it responded.

“Screw safety limits.”

“Unknown command.”

“Compute two passes.”

“Two passes computed.”

The computer divided the shooting sequence neatly in half. This meant that the rail gun's temperature would run into the red zone twice.

Turk decided he would change the sequence, taking a few less shots the first time but making
sure he had enough left for the second run. It might not be better statistically, but he believed it would let him get more bullets onto the target even if the gun overheated so badly that it failed.