With a grunt, he snapped his eyes open and focused on completing the simple task. It was one he had learned as a toddler, and he wasn’t about to let food poisoning or a stupid virus stop him from completing it. But before he finished lacing up his first boot, his vision went black, and he fell forward from the chair and hit his head on the edge of the metal desk.

35

Dusty One

Air Branch Mi-17 Hip

Southeast of Fenjiezhou Island

Charlie’s face was etched in emotionless determination. It was hot, and the turbulent air so close to the water was making him work harder than normal to keep the older helicopter flying toward their destination — almost another one hundred miles over the horizon. But despite this, his grip on the cyclic and collective remained loose and relaxed. Only his jaw clenched firmly.

“Dusty One, Scar Nine Nine, a Super Hornet has launched from the Reagan.”

“Copy. We have another problem.” He released the push-to-talk and spoke over the intercom to Roger in the left seat. “How we looking?”

“Definitely won’t have enough to make it to the carrier,” he replied.

“Shit!” Charlie took a calming breath, then pressed the button to transmit again. “We took damage and are leaking fuel. Can’t make it all the way back to mom.”

“Copy. Proceed to FARP Alpha.”

Charlie gestured for Roger to load the waypoint into the navigation system and replied, “Dusty One.”

With the new destination loaded, he banked the helicopter to put the isolated atoll on the nose. Passu Keah was significantly closer than the Reagan and made their fuel-time-distance calculations infinitely easier. Though there was still plenty to keep him tense, he relaxed his jaw slightly.

“Can we make it?” he asked Roger.

“Oh yeah. And then some.”

He exhaled and turned his focus on the other bit of good news. The prospect of having Chinese fighters intercept them and blow them out of the sky before reaching safety didn’t make the flight any easier on him. But with an American fighter racing to meet them, he knew he would at least have some top cover. He glanced over at Roger, who was looking at a computer showing their location in relation to the man-made islands the Chinese had constructed to claim territorial rights. “What’s it look like out there?”

Overlaid on top of the situation display he was monitoring were several contacts that were broadcast over datalink from the various intelligence-gathering platforms supporting the operation. He already knew a Navy P-8A Poseidon was orbiting north of their position off the coast of Hainan Island and that an MQ-4C Triton drone was patrolling south of the Paracel Islands, and both were uplinking surface and air contacts to the network.

“No change to the surface-to-air picture. We are well outside their engagement zone and shouldn’t be detected on this track.” He tapped on a few icons with the stylus attached to the Toughbook computer.

“Surface traffic is normal, and there is no activity at any of the known naval bases between here and there.” He selected another overlay on the laptop. “The only air threats are the fighters launching from Lingshui.”

“How far?” Charlie asked.

“They just got airborne. One hundred miles.”

But they’ll eat that up quickly. Charlie grunted.

“Wait,” Roger added. “I’m seeing the Super Hornet from the Reagan now.”

Charlie wanted to glance across the cockpit at the dim screen but didn’t dare take his eyes off the horizon through his NODs. He had several thousand hours flying at night, all below one thousand feet above the ground, but there was something unique about flying over the water at night.

In his previous life, he’d had the advantage of using terrain-following radar, but the former Soviet helicopter lacked that luxury. Nor did it have an LPIA — Low Probability of Intercept Altimeter — that would allow them to use the radar altimeter without fear of being detected by Chinese sensors. Instead, he was forced to rely on his barometric altimeter, and without any distinguishing ground features, it would be easy to dip the nose and fly right into the water. Especially on a night like this. He wasn’t taking that chance.

“How far away are they?”

“Just one so far. One hundred twenty miles.”

It was too close for his comfort, but hopefully the jet jockey knew what he was doing.

Mace 201

Navy FA-18E Super Hornet

All the hours of boredom strapped to the ejection seat dissolved from his memory the second his jet broke free from the flight deck. Colt was precisely where he belonged — at the controls of a Navy jet, taking the fight to the enemy. He retracted his landing gear and immediately turned to point his nose due west at Hainan Island.

Unlike normal cyclic operations, an alert aircraft wasn’t restricted to flying straight ahead for ten miles before turning or climbing and descending within the CCA. He pushed his throttles into afterburner and pulled back on the stick to begin a climb for one of the most important things he would need in an engagement: altitude.