Almost immediately, his radar warning receiver lit up as the J-11B’s radar locked onto his aircraft. It was obvious his second AMRAAM either didn’t detonate or had gone astray somewhere en route to the Chinese fighter. Without giving it a second thought, he rolled his Super Hornet one hundred and twenty degrees to the left and executed a nose-low slicing turn away from the threat.

“Two zero one, out left.”

Rucas’s voice was giddy again. “Two zero four targeting single group.”

Colt pushed his throttles forward into afterburner and felt the jet accelerating as his nose sliced through the horizon and he placed the threat at his six o’clock. Instinctively, he performed an anti-G straining maneuver, squeezing his thighs and glutes while taking short and punctuated breaths and flexing his core muscles. Combined with the inflating bladders of the anti-G suit, the straining maneuver helped keep his blood from pooling in his lower extremities and kept him awake.

“Two zero four, Tiger, single group hostile.”

“Two zero four, Fox Three, single group.”

As Colt rolled out with the J-11B at his six o’clock and his nose pointed forty-five degrees nose low, he glanced up and saw Rucas’s missile racing toward the Chinese fighter over his head and breathed a sigh of relief.

38

Colt cracked the throttles back and eased the nose of his fighter up toward the horizon. A quick glance down at the datalink display showed the icon representing Rucas turning away from the advancing Chinese fighter.

“Two zero four, out right, cheap shot, single group.”

Colt took the cue that Rucas was turning away after his missile went active, and he slapped his control stick into his left leg, then pulled it back into his lap and traded airspeed for angles as he pitched back into the engagement. “Two zero one, in left.”

He had already designated the datalink track file representing the Chinese fighter, but with his nose pointed back to the northwest, his radar again swept the sky until it returned a hit. He selected his third and final AMRAAM and prepared to squeeze the trigger when the icon began flashing.

Colt relaxed his trigger finger and took a calming breath.

“Two zero one, Tiger, single group faded.”

At last, the missile detonated and caused the icon to disappear from his screen. Colt was again left with nothing but darkness in front of him. For the first time since the alert had been called away, he had a moment of calm to process what had just happened.

“Did we just do what I think we just did?” Rucas asked over their tactical frequency.

Colt shook his head in disbelief. “Yeah, I think we did.”

“Two zero one, Tiger, picture clean,” the Hawkeye controller said. “Stand by for tasking.”

Stand by for tasking?

“There’s nobody left to shoot,” Rucas said.

“There’s always somebody left to shoot,” Colt said, though he silently agreed with him. They were flying over the contested Paracel Islands and were certain to draw the attention of the People’s Republic of China, but at that moment, they were alone. He switched back to the air intercept control frequency. “Tiger, say status of friendlies.”

“Stand by.”

Colt knew the Chinese fighters had launched to intercept a friendly helicopter and that he had been ordered to stop that from happening. But that didn’t mean whomever the SEALs had with them on the helicopter was out of the woods yet. They still needed to get back to the ship.

“Two zero one, Tiger, stand by for coordinates.”

Colt slipped the four-colored pen from the elastic loop on the side of his kneeboard and prepared to write down the latitude and longitude. But for what, he wasn’t sure. “Ready to copy.”

“Proceed directly to sixteen degrees, three minutes north, one eleven degrees, forty-six minutes east and establish CAP.”

Colt scribbled the coordinates on his kneeboard card, then glanced down at his fuel quantity and furrowed his brow at the instructions. “Tiger, state intentions.”

There was a pause before the controller’s voice returned. “We’re still trying to get all the details, but apparently a friendly helicopter is at that location. You are to escort them to Clark Air Base.”

His confusion only intensified after he entered the coordinates into his flight computer and saw that the location was in the middle of the South China Sea. Manning a Combat Air Patrol for an indefinite period would strain his endurance with the fuel he had remaining, but then to follow that up with escorting them six hundred miles away? “I’m not going to have the gas to escort them there and make it back to the ship.”

“You’re to land there and await further instructions.”

“Say again?”

“Colt, it’s Cutty,” the brusque voice of his DCAG said. “There’s been an outbreak of some kind, and the skipper is putting the entire ship in quarantine.”

Quarantine?

“Roger that, sir.”

Clark Air Base, Philippines