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Connor pulled out a chair to sit down at an empty computer station as he nervously chewed on his fingernails. He stared at the screen depicting their area of operations with the Philippines on the far right, Vietnam on the far left, and Hainan Island in the upper left corner. The icon representing Dusty One — the air branch helicopter carrying Lisa Mourning and her SEAL rescuers — was only a third of the way across the blue waters of the South China Sea.

How are they going to make it?

“Two J-15 Flankers airborne from Lingshui,” somebody said to his right. “They’re being vectored to Dusty One’s location.”

His eyes flicked across the screen as the datalink populated with two new icons representing the Chinese fighters. Two hundred miles of open ocean separated them from the slow-moving helicopter, but he knew the supersonic fighters would eat that distance up in no time.

They’re not going to make it.

“What’s the status of Search and Rescue?” the watch commander asked.

A young man on the opposite side of the room answered. “Both Ospreys are airborne and en route to Scarborough Shoal.”

“ETA?”

Connor looked at the monitor and saw two additional icons flowing northeast away from the USS America. They weren’t moving nearly as fast as the Chinese J-15 Flankers or FA-18 Super Hornets from the Reagan, but they seemed much quicker than the air branch helicopter.

“Sixty minutes,” the sailor replied.

Connor didn’t need to be a math whiz to see that the Marine MV-22 Ospreys would reach the shoal well before Dusty One. But if the Hip had enough gas to limp to the shoal, they could immediately transfer their passengers and crew over to the faster tilt-rotor aircraft and make a run for Clark Air Base. It all came down to time and fuel. They had too much time and not enough fuel.

Almost as if reading his thoughts, the watch commander queried the air branch helicopter. “Dusty One, Scar Nine Nine, say state?”

“Enough.”

His eyes shifted from the slow-moving helicopter to the icons representing the Super Hornets as they closed the distance with the Chinese fighters.

Come on, boys, he thought.

Mace 201

Navy FA-18E Super Hornet

Colt pressed his throttles forward and spurred the Super Hornet closer to the speed of sound. But with two external fuel tanks, he knew he wouldn’t break through the barrier without going into afterburner and harnessing every bit of thrust produced by his two General Electric turbofan engines. And dumping fuel directly into the hot exhaust section wasn’t the smartest thing to do when he was already skosh on gas.

“Tiger, single group, one hundred miles, hot, bogey, outlaw.”

The Chinese Flankers were still beyond radar range, but thanks to the Multifunctional Information Distribution System, known as MIDS, the Hawkeye controller transmitted their location to the Super Hornets via datalink. Even without his onboard sensors providing targeting information, Colt had everything he needed to run the intercept.

“Let’s set up a grinder,” he said to Rucas. “Two zero four, pump.”

“Two zero four.”

Colt watched his datalink display as his wingman turned to flow cold, increasing the separation between their two aircraft. He would let it grow to fifteen or twenty miles before he turned cold and directed Rucas to reverse direction and flow hot. The tactic, known as a grinder, ensured that at least one fighter was always pointed into the threat sector while keeping them stationary over a fixed spot on the ground. With the helicopter flowing east, they were all that stood between the Chinese fighters and the hapless Mi-17. This was the proverbial last stand.

An electric waterfall sound echoed through his helmet, and his stomach dropped.

“Two zero one, nails zero three zero.”

“Two zero one, Tiger, clean zero three zero.”

Colt stole a glance at his Situational Awareness display and saw the number 9 at the end of a dashed line. He cursed when he realized their luck had run out. “Looks like it’s an HQ-9,” he said, remembering that Bubba had highlighted the Chinese version of the Patriot Surface-to-Air Missile battery’s location on Woody Island.

“Two zero four is naked,” Rucas said, letting Colt know he hadn’t been detected.

Colt looked at their separation.

Not enough, he thought. But he needed to do something before the missile battery locked onto his aircraft with a fire control radar. “Two zero one, out left.”

On cue, his wingman replied, “Two zero four, in left.”

Colt slapped at his stick and overbanked his jet before pulling it into his lap to begin a nose-low slicing turn away from the approaching Chinese fighters. He pushed his throttles into afterburner, then punched a red-painted button the size of a silver dollar on the canopy rail, ejecting bundles of chaff to disrupt the radar’s attempt to lock onto him. He rolled out pointed southeast with his nose thirty degrees below the horizon, before pulling his throttles out of afterburner.