Aboard Saber One, the sudden turn had almost thrown Ahab out of his seat. He cursed at Captain Chen. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Saber Two tried to ram us,” Chen said. “It almost took our tail off.”
“What?”
Chen pointed at the targeting radar. A bright orange line revealed Saber Two’s sudden change in course and its near fatal pass just behind their tail.
“Why would they do that?”
“I have no idea.”
“Where is it now?”
“Trying to get in behind us.”
Ahab fumed at the disruption to his plan. He looked through the small windows in the cockpit’s ceiling. From the angle they wereflying he could see the Starlifter trailing them. It turned as they turned. Pushing hard as they pushed. These acts could not be a malfunction.
“The Chinese must have an agent embedded in your group,” Ahab snapped. “Traitors in your midst.”
“I don’t think so,” Chen replied. “I’ve known these men for years.”
“Then what explains this madness?”
As Chen brought the aircraft around, Saber Two followed. It was stalking them. Ahab turned to the laser technician. “Shoot it down.”
The technician didn’t hesitate. He locked onto the Starlifter and engaged the laser. The generators squealed. The green lights lit up. But when he pressed the fire button nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” Ahab demanded.
“They’ve dropped below our tail. The computer won’t allow us to fire.”
Ahab looked out the skylight windows again, but the Starlifter was no longer in sight. It had widened its turn and gone below them. If they fired at it now, they’d slice off their own tail.
“Prove to me your worth,” Ahab said to Chen. “Shake them loose.”
Chen whipped the big plane around in the other direction, but just as the Starlifter came into view, it vanished again. It would be no easy task.
The two planes wheeled and turned, switching positions twice, then three times. Joe was sweating as he attempted to stay out of the firing line. His path wasn’t as simple as it sounded. When Saber One turned to the right, he had to take the Starlifter to the left for amoment and then back to the right. It was the only way to stay behind and below, and out of the laser’s deadly field of fire.
With each turn he lost some speed. With each loss of speed, it became more difficult to stay in the right spot.
“We’re drifting back,” he said. “Another couple of turns and he’ll have us.”
“We need to stay in the fight,” Kurt said. “As long as he’s tangling with us, he can’t focus on our fighters or the premier’s plane.”
“I’m on it,” Joe said.
He brought the Starlifter around for another pass, but Saber One had other ideas. It straightened up and turned due west. Heading toward China.
Joe had to dive to stay out of trouble, but the added speed helped him turn the corner and line up once more behind Ahab’s deadly gunship.
A blur in the sky signaled more laser fire. It flashed repeatedly, but the beam wasn’t aimed at Kurt and Joe this time. It fired diagonally across the Strait, pulse after pulse burning the air in the general direction of Taiwan.
A new line of explosions lit up the morning sky. The first batch were smaller flares. Like matches lit and thrown in the air, they burned out quickly. Kurt lost count of how many as Saber One eliminated a volley of air-to-air missiles. When the missiles were dealt with, it turned its wrath on the aircraft that had launched them.
Several larger explosions bloomed, each one marking the destruction of an F-16 or F-35 that had pressed close enough to get off a shot.
Just as promised, Saber One was clearing the sky of any threat. Based on Kurt’s rough estimate it would have a chance at the premier’s aircraft over Shanghai any moment.
