pumped out more active decoys to try to lure the R-33 missiles away — and this time it worked. The R-33s continued on their last course and exploded harmlessly several miles away.
“Rebecca! Are you all right?” Rinc shouted.
“We’re okay!” Rebecca replied. “The R-33s missed! They stopped guiding on us! What happened?”
“Hey, you know, these Lancelot missiles make fine air-to-air missiles too,” Dave Luger radioed from Fortress Two. “And that last one just happened to have a plasma-yield warhead on it. Wonder where you go when you get hit by a plasma-yield explosion?”
“To plasma hell, I hope,” Rinc said. “Hey, Fortress Zero, can we escort Fortress One out of here now? We’ll all be running on fumes pretty soon.”
“Not quite yet,” General Terrill Samson’s voice broke in. “This is Genesis. Check your targeting displays. I’ve got one more target for you guys to attack… and may God have mercy on my soul for doing this.”
“None… of… them?” Minister of National Defense Kim gasped. “
“None of them even began reentry toward their targets,” Colonel Sung, the senior controller in the Master Control and Reporting Center at Osan, said. “They all either reported malfunctions… or the telemetry simply ceased.”
“How is this possible?” Kim shouted. “How can this happen?” He was almost crazed with blinding anger — but he forced himself to be calm. “I want a second salvo readied immediately!” he shouted. “This time I want it doubled! I want every target on the original list targeted with two warheads! No… no, better make it three.”
“Three? Three nuclear warheads on every target?”
“If they are malfunctioning or sabotaged, we need at least three to ensure the targets are destroyed once and for all!” he cried out. “Now get to work! Put three… no, four,
“Sir!” a technician shouted. “Enemy aircraft inbound! Patriot and Hawk batteries are responding!”
Kim dashed over to a radar screen, one of the old-fashioned twenty-four-inch cathode-ray tube displays — the old vacuum-tube radar displays were less vulnerable to EMP effects, so some were still in use in the MCRC. Several blips appeared on the screen with data blocks beside them indicating speed and altitude. “Fast-moving target inbound from the southwest at very low altitude, range seventy miles. They are not maneuvering… they are coming straight in.”
“Then it will be that much easier to destroy them,” Kim said. “Commit every available unit on—”
“Sir! More targets inbound from the southeast! Very low altitude, six hundred knots, range sixty miles.”
“It’s a massive Chinese attack,” Kim shouted. “Get those ballistic missiles launched now, General! Get them—”
“Sir! More inbound targets, slow-moving, low altitude… I have another target, high altitude, sixty miles to the east, four hundred knots.”
“A command or surveillance aircraft,” General An said. “Possibly directing the attack.”
“No — they are American attack aircraft, Minister!” Colonel Sung shouted.
“What are you talking about, Colonel?”
“I received a phone call from Lieutenant General Terrill Samson,” Sung said. “He is the commander of the United States Air Force’s secret air weapons center. I know of him. He told me that he had stealth bombers in the area armed with special weapons that were capable of destroying both ballistic missiles and the MCRC. He warned me that his aircraft will attack if they do not get a response from us.”
“What in blazes were you doing on a telephone in the middle of a battle?” Kim Kun-mo shouted. “I can have you shot for that!”
“You’ve been fooled, Colonel,” General An said. “That call could have come from anyone. The Chinese certainly can look up an American general’s name and base of assignment and make up a tale like that.”
“I know that, sir,” Sung said. “But he also told me that his bombers attacked the Chinese armored forces and caused them to retreat.”
“
“It must be verified,” Sung said, “but I think we should wait on our second missile attack until it can be verified.”
“Nonsense!” Kim shouted. “We are not stopping any attack to verify anything, especially not based on information you received on an unauthorized, unsecure telephone call!”
“Sir, he also told me that his bombers carry weapons that can destroy ballistic missiles in flight, and that his orders were to use them against missiles fired from either Korea or China…”
“Ridiculous! I’ve never heard of anything like that before!”
“He also said that—”
“Colonel, you are relieved of command,” Minister of National Defense Kim said. “Get out of my command center. General An, designate a new senior controller, and proceed with the launch immediately! Security, escort this gullible, incompetent officer out of here!”
“Sir, he said that his bombers have weapons that can destroy the MCRC,” Sung shouted as two security guards stepped over to him and reached for his arms. “If we do not establish contact with his aircraft, we will be destroyed!”
“Get him out of here!”
The two guards grabbed Sung’s arms, but he twisted away, grabbed a rifle that was slung from one of the guards’ shoulders, turned, and aimed it at Kim. “I won’t let you kill us all, you maniac!” he shouted, and pulled the trigger.
General An raced forward to tackle Kim just as a line of bullets stitched across his back and left side. Sung swung the gun around and aimed it at the launch control console, but he was gunned down by another security guard before he could open fire.
“Fortress Two is defensive Patriot!” Annie Dewey shouted. They were penetrating from the southwest of Osan, the most heavily defended sector. She suddenly found herself bracketed by two Patriot missile batteries that had opened fire simultaneously.
“Fortress Two, Fortress Two, be advised, I show a fault on your defensive system,” Patrick McLanahan radioed. “Decoy launchers, towed decoys, all jammers are faulted. Get out of there!”
“We’ve got two Patriots opened up on us!” David Luger shouted. “We’re trying to get away!”
“Annie, break right, let me have a shot at them!” Rinc shouted on interplane frequency.
Rinc Seaver and John Long had released all of their Wolverine cruise missiles from maximum range, but they had not hit their targets yet. Seaver started a fast climb. “What are you doing?” John Long asked.
“Just get a fix on those Patriots, Long Dong!” he shouted.
Long zoomed the supercockpit display out, and sure enough the laser radar was tracking the inbound Patriot missiles. “Bring it all the way around to the north, Annie,” Rinc said. As they watched Annie make her turn, the incoming missiles started a right turn of their own. The missiles flew a ballistic flight path and aimed not for the aircraft itself, but for a “basket” of airspace where they predicted the aircraft to be when they arrived.
“What in hell are you doing, Seaver?” Long repeated.
“I’m going to shoot down those Patriots and get them off Annie’s tail,” Rinc said. “Get a couple Scorpions ready!” The supercockpit display showed Annie’s predicted flight path as well as the Patriot missiles’ predicted path. As the Patriots turned, Rinc pointed his Megafortress’s nose at the intersection of the two flight paths, waited until they were within AIM-120 Scorpion missile range, then shouted, “
Annie turned hard left. At that exact moment, the Patriot missiles had activated their own onboard terminal guidance radar and began tracking. All four Patriots made a direct hit — right on the Scorpion missiles.
“Got ’em!” John shouted. “Nice going! Now let’s get this attack under way and get the hell out of here!”
“Fortress One, missiles away,” Rebecca said, and Paul Scott launched their last two remaining Lancelot missiles — not at any ballistic missiles, but at the set of coordinates for the Osan Master Control and Reporting Center that he had received from General Samson at HAWC.
“Fortress Two, missiles away,” Dave Luger radioed.
