Piranha

Months later, Da

Was it the woman and her son? The photo was too poor for him to tell. They could have been anyone in that war, any of a thousand victims, mother and child, sister and brother, i

Aboard Iowa, over the South China Sea

1600

As she poked into a solid wall of rain just over the ocean, Dog slid Iowa back down through the clouds, holding her steady through a series of buffeting winds. Piranha was ready to dance, but they couldn’t find her a partner; the Navy ASW planes with their sonar buoys had been delayed. Delaford said the Indian sub captain might try to take advantage of the weather to snorkel and recharge batteries. So, with nothing else to, they were trying to find him on the surface. The laborious process of ru

“I felt that yawn over here, Colonel,” said the copilot. “I thought we were heading into a hurricane.”

“Very fu

“Aye, aye, Cap’n.”

“We’re not in the Navy yet,” Dog told him.

“No, but we’re low enough to be a ship,” said the copilot. It was only a slight exaggeration—they were at a thousand feet, using every sensor they had, including their eyes.

“Shark Ears,” the Navy Orion with the sonar buoys, checked in. They were still a good forty minutes away.

“Maybe we should set up a refuel,” suggested Rosen. “Extend our patrol and come back and work with them for a while, assuming they don’t totally scrub because of the weather. It’s pretty rough down there, and it’s going to get worse.”

“Good idea,” said Dog.

The tanker was flying a track well to the north east. With the help of Iowa’s sophisticated flight computer system, Rosen quickly plotted a course to rendezvous about thirty minutes away. Eager to get away from the water and the severe weather below, Dog leaned back on the stick and the airplane bolted upright. The air was fairly clear away from the leading edge of the storm, their view unimpeded.

“We may have a contact on the surface,” said Rosen. “Ten miles, two degrees east of our nose, just about in our face.”

Dog immediately began to level off and nudge toward the contact. Delaford, monitoring the feeds on his equipment downstairs, couldn’t find anything. Dog swung Iowa around, holding the Megafortress on her wing, and cruised over the coordinates at about a thousand feet.

“If there was something there, it’s gone now,” said Delaford finally. “I don’t think we should launch Piranha until we have something more definite.”

“I concur,” said Rosen.

“All right. Let’s give Shark Ears this point as a reference,” said Dog. “In the meantime, let’s go tank.”

As they started to climb once again, the two Chinese fighters flying over the nearest aircraft carriers changed their course.

“Looks like we’ve finally aroused some curiosity,” said Rosen. “Their new course will put them in visual range in eight minutes.”

There was no pressing need to refuel, so Dog decided not to lead the fighters out to the tanker. He told Rosen to cancel the rendezvous for now, and resumed what was essentially a holding pattern just over the worst of the storm. Big fists of gray clouds ran north west by south east for as long as the eye could see; a light haze sat to the northeast of the front, a dark blanket to the southwest where the storm was coming from.

The Chinese planes weren’t moving particularly fast, an indication they weren’t intending hostile action, though there were no guarantees. Rosen tried hailing them at twenty miles, but to no one’s surprise, the Chinese pilots did not respond. A second two-ship of Sukhois was also heading out, a few minutes behind the first. Their carriers were just a little ahead of the storm, and it occurred to Dog the Sukhois wouldn’t be able to spend all that much time with them if they didn’t want to land in the teeth of the heavy weather.

The enhanced optical feed from the Megafortress’s chin camera caught the lead Sukhoi at ten miles. The computer ID’d the missiles under its wings as R-73s, known to NATO as Archers. They were heat-seekers with excellent off-boresight capability, at least, in theory, better than all but the latest-model Sidewinders at sniffing out heat sources. They could be launched from any angle, including head-on.

Which was pretty much were they were now.

“Six miles and closing,” said Rosen. “Man, it pees me off they won’t answer our hails. I’ve been practicing my Chinese and everything.”

“Just keep tracking,” Dog told him.

The two lead Chinese fighters broke to Iowa’s right about a mile ahead of them, turning in a wide circle. Not coincidentally, the move put them in an excellent position to close and then fire their heat-seekers, though they made no obvious move to do so.

“Computer thinks the second group of Sukhois is packing Exocets,” said Rosen, referring to the second flight of Sukhois. “Optical IDs are not perfect.”

“Could be they’re hoping we have a line on the Indian sub,” said Dog. He kept Iowa steady as the second group of planes abruptly tipped their wings and shot downward toward the water. The nearest civilian ship was about two miles behind them; the Chinese fighters showed no interest in the tanker.