Strike Zone

Chen reached for the control. One of the characters on the fifteen-button panel read “Abort.”

He thought of his dream, but it provided no answers.

:10

If his grandfather had wanted to destroy Shanghai, he would have said so clearly, as he had made clear Beijing was his desired target.

:03

Chen Lo Fa

Aboard Raven

0338

ZEN HAD THEFlighthawk closing on the right wing of the 767, his targeting screen blinking yellow. He could see shadows through the windows of the plane, people moving around.

God, he thought, I’m going to kill dozens if not a hundred.

God.

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What if there isn’t a bomb in that plane?

Zen had killed a fair share of people in combat, but this felt very, very different. He had no proof that there was a bomb in the airplane; Stoner had told him he thought Chen had enough material for two weapons, but that didn’t mean one was aboard the plane in front of him, or even that they had been made.

The windows seemed to grow, though this was an optical illusion. Zen pushed his nose down, the pipper just turning red.

He had his orders, lawful orders. They had come from the President himself.

What justification was that if he killed i

The pipper blinked. Zen pressed the trigger.

Three seconds later, his stream of bullets ignited one of the wing tanks of the 767.

“BOTH SCORPION AMRAAMSmissed,” said Delaney. “I’m having trouble picking him up—the Chinese are jamming us, or trying to.”

“Hang with it,” said Dog. He checked the sitrep; they were about thirty seconds from crossing into Chinese airspace; in fact, Hawk Four already had.

“Now that they know we’re here, they’re going to use our radar to home in on us,” said Delaney. “If we turn it off, they’ll have a much harder time finding us.”

“Can we follow the UAV without the radar?” asked Dog.

“No. There’s no signal coming from the ghost clone for us to follow,” said Delaney.

“Then we’re going to have to leave the radar on.”

“Fan Song radar dead ahead,” said Deci Gordon. “We’re going to fly right over it. They’ll see us.”

“Jam it when it does,” said Dog.

“Flight identified as Island Flight A101 is on fire and descending toward the ocean,” reported Zen. His voice was as cold as the computer’s synthesized tones.

“Can you get Hawk Four on the UAV?” asked Dog.

“Those F-8s are coming for us,” warned Delaney.

“Zen, you’re going to have to shoot down the UAV,” repeated Dog.

“Roger that.”

Dreamland

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1240

JENNIFER STARED ATthe large screen at the front of the room. The Megafortress and its two Flighthawks were crossing into Chinese Mainland territory.

They were already being targeted by ground radars, surface-to-air missiles, interceptors—even a Megafortress couldn’t survive the onslaught.

God, she thought, let him live. Let him live.

She did love him. Even if he had failed her, she did love him.

“Jen, this is Dog,” he said to her.

“I love you,” she said, thinking it was a dream.

“The programming you uploaded earlier. Can we use it?”

It wasn’t a dream—he was talking to her. Je

But there was no time to be embarrassed.

“You have to be within twenty miles. No, wait.” Her mind wasn’t clear. She shook her head, reached to pull her hair back behind her ear.

Nothing.

“The mother ship, you destroyed it. The UAV will be on its own. It’ll default—we may not be able to take it over.”

“How close do we have to be?”

“Twenty miles,” said Je

“Understood. Thanks,” said Dog. “And I love you too.”

Aboard Raven

0342

ZEN HAD TWOtasks—protect the Megafortress from the F-8s, and overtake the ghost clone.

Fortunately, he had two planes.

He let the computer take Hawk Four in pursuit of the UAV, using the information piped down to the computer from Raven’s sensors. In the meantime, he put Hawk Three on the noses of the two communist interceptors. They were swinging east to set up a rear-quarter attack, obviously pla

advantage completely. Once they were in the general area of the Megafortress, the F-8s could use Raven’s radar as a beacon to show them where the plane was.

“Missiles!” said Delaney as the Chinese planes began to close in. A pair of radar homers had been kicked off from the lead F-8 at about thirty miles—probably too far to hit them, but they couldn’t take a chance.

The Megafortress’s ECM blared, not only killing the guidance systems in the missiles but giving the Shenyang pilots fits as well. Zen started an intercept that would allow him to slap the lead bandit with a ca

The lead F-8 came on faster than he expected, its Liyang turbojet obviously feeling its oats. Zen got a shot, but just barely. The computer helped him put the bullets out in front of the Mainlander—in effect, the Chinese pilot ran into them. He got a hit, but it wasn’t enough to stop the plane.

It was too late to worry about it. He tucked his wing, the targeting screen going yellow as the second F-8 flew into range.

“LEADF-8 CLOSING. He’s setting for heat-seekers,” warned Delaney.

“Stinger,” said Dog calmly, referring to the airmine unit in the Megafortress’s tail. A replacement for the tail ca

“Coming at us. Missile.”

Dog hit his flares and jinked left, then right. Meanwhile, Delaney worked the Stinger. The combination of the F-8’s speed and Raven’s evasive maneuvers kept the Mainlander from serious harm; on the other hand, his missile missed and his evasive actions took him temporarily out of the game.

“We have two AMRAAMs,” said Delaney.

“Save ’em in case we need them to get the clone.”

“Shit,” said the copilot. “We’ve lost the UAV from the radar.”

ZEN’S TARGETING CUEframed the cockpit of the F-8. He saw the outline of his opponent and thought of the people in the civilian jet he had just been ordered to shoot down.

He pressed his trigger, but he’d already blown the shot.

Zen kicked himself mentally, then checked the sitrep to line up for another shot.

He didn’t have to—the Taiwanese Mirages were now in range of the F-8s. There was a whole lot of chatter in the air—two missiles were launched, then a third and a fourth. The Mainlanders decided the Page 233

prudent thing to do was select afterburner and live for another day. They rode north, pursued by the ROC missiles.

AGROUND MISSILEbattery—a Chinese HQ-9, roughly the equivalent of the long-range Russian SA-10 on which it was based—came on-line as Raven crossed over Chinese territory south of Shanghai.