himself. He has got to stop this attack.”
“I… I do not know what to do,” Sung said.
“Listen to me, Colonel,” Samson said. “You must stop Minister Kim or General An from launching any more missiles against China. I have special aircraft in the vicinity, heavy stealth bombers that are armed with highly effective weapons that can destroy the MCRC. Their mission is to destroy any ballistic missiles launched by either Korea or China, but they can attack heavily defended ground targets as well. They successfully attacked the Chinese armored brigades and caused them to turn back.
“I have authorization to attack the Master Control and Reporting Center with any weapon in my control to try to stop any more missile launches. If I don’t get a response, Colonel, I will have no choice but to attack. You must try to stop Minister Kim any way you can. Do you understand?”
But the line had gone dead — Samson didn’t know how long he had been talking to no one.
What could he do? He had some of the world’s most potent weapons at his fingertips, but he was powerless. He could not do…
He couldn’t do anything… but the Megafor-tresses could.
Terrill Samson called up a digital map of Osan Air Base in Korea and studied it. It had been well over four years since he’d visited Osan, but he didn’t think it had changed that much.
It was in a remote corner of the base, far from the runway, far from Seventh Air Force headquarters. There were no other structures nearby except for a plain two-story military-drab building, surrounded by a tall barbed-wire fence. Zooming in, he could see a lone tree about fifty yards in front of the building.
That was it. He had heard of the famous lone cherry tree, the rumors that it was the most heavily targeted tree in the world. They said the North Koreans had targeted ten thousand bombs, rockets, and missiles on that cherry tree — because a hundred feet below it, under layers of soil, rock, steel, and Kevlar armor and suspended on shock absorbers, was the Osan Master Control and Reporting Center, the military heart of Korea. Terrill Samson rolled a set of electronic cross hairs on that cherry tree and ordered the computer to mensurate its exact geographical coordinates and elevation.
Now there was going to be one more weapon targeted against that little tree.
Fortresses One and Three, you’ve got bandits at five o’clock, fifty miles, angels… shit, angels forty-five, speed seven hundred knots and closing fast. ‘Flash Dance’ radar… damn, it’s a pair of MiG-31s,” Dave Luger shouted. “Notch left, Fortress One. We’ll try to break that Foxhound’s pulse-Doppler radar lock…”
But before the two Megafortress bombers could even begin to make any defensive maneuvers, they got a verbal “Rocket launch detection” warning through their intercom systems. “I’m picking up ballistic missile launches — from Korea!” John Long shouted. “Korea is launching missiles!”
“Rebecca… those fighters… I’m staying with you in case they—”
“Go after those missiles, Rinc! Nail those bitches!” Rebecca shouted. She knew she could not use afterburners for fear of igniting a fire in her engine compartments, and because she could not sweep her wings past thirty-four degrees, she would not have enough speed to make steep pursuit climbs. “I’m heading out to the
The two undamaged Megafortress bombers advanced their throttles to full afterburner and maneuvered to intercept the missiles. With fuel more than half burned off and all but a few Wolverine missiles expended, the Megafortresses climbed skyward like angels from hell.
“Good maneuver, Annie,” Dave Luger said. “Little more right… little higher…”
“You’ve got about fifteen seconds, David!” Annie Dewey shouted. She had the Megafortress climbing at ten thousand feet per minute, aiming the nose at an expanse of stars she guessed the Korean missiles would fly toward. “Airspeed’s down to four hundred… three-fifty…”
“Missile one away… launcher rotating… missile two away… missile three away!” Annie swept the wings forward as she slowed, trying to decrease her stall speed as much as possible until she saw the third Lancelot missile race ahead on a column of fire. She immediately shoved the nose down and swept the wings back to regain speed — just two more seconds and they would have had to fight off a full stall.
Rinc and John were able to punch out four Lancelot missiles — one while a missile was still below them, and three in the tail-chase aspect. But Rinc wasn’t thinking about the success or failure of this attack — all he could think about was leaving Rebecca with two MiG-31 Foxhounds closing in on her…
“We missed two missiles!” Patrick McLanahan shouted over the virtual cockpit circuit. “We missed two! Takedown, Takedown, you copy?”
“We copy loud and clear, Fortress,” the crew of the U.S. Navy NK-135 “Cobra Spear” aircraft radioed back. The NK-135 was an airborne laser flying laboratory run by the U.S. Navy’s Air Weapons Research Center at China Lake, California. “Takedown has the strays in sight, and we’re getting the lassos ready. Stand by.”
“Takedown” was the code name of the original Lancelot antiballistic missile program begun by the U.S. Navy. The first missile-targeting lasers were mounted on a modified Boeing 707 airliner, the NK-135, for testing. In addition, the original Lancelot missiles — not modified Air Force AGM-69A short-range attack missiles, but modified Navy AIM-54 Phoenix air-to-air missiles — were mounted on P-3 Orion patrol aircraft. The program was never completed, but the aircraft and weapons were still in the inventory — and now they were going to be put to good use.
As the Korean ballistic missiles rose through the atmosphere, the NK-135 Cobra Spear aircraft locked onto them with their laser radar. Since the Navy’s LADAR was mounted on an airliner instead of a strategic bomber, it had much more power and much longer range than the LADAR mounted on the EB-1 Megafortresses. As soon as the ballistic missiles were detected, the tracking information was passed to the P-3 Orion, and it released four ABM-54 missiles from wing hard-points.
The first operational launch of the Navy’s ABM-54 antiballistic missile missile was a success — two Nodong-1 missiles targeted for Beijing were intercepted and destroyed.
As soon as the last Lancelot missile blasted clear, Rinc lowered the Megafortress’s nose and turned toward the incoming Chinese MiG-31 Foxhounds.
“Arm up the Scorpions, Long Dong,” he shouted. “We’ve got to get to them before they attack!”
But before the two Megafortress bombers could even begin to make defensive maneuvers, the MiGs had opened fire with long-range R-33 radar-guided missiles. “Missile launch! Amos missiles in the air! They fired from about forty miles away… Two more missiles in the air! They targeted both you guys. Fortress Three, break right!”
“Rebecca!” Rinc shouted on interplane.
“Get the hell out of here, Rodeo!” Rebecca shouted. “I’m maneuvering as best I can! Get going!” Rinc had no choice but to execute a steep turning dive for the ground.
The one not-so-cool thing about the Megafortress’s laser radar system was that it showed everything in stark, cold detail — including their time to die. The LADAR tracked the big R-33 Amos missiles with ease, even projected their flight path and time to intercept — which, at their speed, was in about seventy seconds. No matter how tight they turned, how fast they flew, or how low they went, the R-33 stayed right with them — their projected flight path line always intersected the middle of the screen.
“Kill those sons of bitches, Long Dong!” Rinc shouted. Long quickly armed up the AIM-120 Scorpion AMRAAM missiles, and as soon as the R-33 missiles got within twenty miles, he fired two against each missile, then two at each MiG-31 when they got within range seconds later…
… but even though the R-33 missiles were big targets, they maneuvered quickly and were too fast for the AIMs, which were designed for aircraft less than half their speed. All of the Scorpions fired against the R-33s missed. Their last chance was the Scorpion missiles fired against the Foxhounds themselves — if they hit, or if the MiG-31s were forced to turn away and break radar lock with the bombers, the R-33 missiles would simply fly their last assigned heading and turn on their onboard radars. If they saw a target, they would kill it — if not, they would self-destruct. It was their only…
Suddenly, a tremendous globe of brilliant silvery light appeared in the sky above Rinc and John, then disappeared — it went away so fast that they thought they imagined it. Rinc made another hard jink to the left and
