Riding the Red Horse Read Free Page B

have no better choice than accepting Chinese hegemony on the best terms they can dicker for. And that's the
best
case. In the most likely ones, the Japs don't roll over and
that
leads to a Sino-Japanese war down the road.”
    “That's above my pay grade, technically, but I get it. You need me to go in, hard and fast and on the record.”
    “The Commander-in-Chief so orders,” Campitelli said with grave formality. “Full commitment,
now
. We're out of time. The OPORD text is attached. You can guess most of it. No nukes, all necessary force short of attacking the Chinese mainland, et cetera.”
    “Yes, sir,” Hatton said grimly, and saluted. “I'll have fast movers on top of that fleet in ninety minutes.”
    “Best of luck, Augie,” Campitelli said, returning the salute. “Out.”
     
    1240 hours:
     
    From an F-35's cruising height at 20,000 feet the ocean looks like wrinkled blue tinfoil. There's no sign of life anywhere but your squadron-mates, and since their planes are designed to be low-observable, even that can be very scarce. On long missions, the feeling of isolation induced by radio discipline can become so oppressive that action comes as a relief.
     
    “Blazer to Boss: Red Squadron reporting visual contact. Tin can, eleven o'clock far. Clear radar. We are proceeding.”
    “Scythe: confirming tin can eleven o'clock far. Clear radar.”
    “Moondog: second tin can, two-thirty far.”
    “Boss to wing, you are weapons free. I say again, weapons free. Try to save yourselves for the big girls.”
    “Red squadron, roger.”
    “Blue squadron, roger.”
    “Blazer: tin can, visual contact. And another. Boss, we can see four of them from here. No sign of transports yet. No bandits.”
    “Are they rolling out the welcome mat, or what?”
    “Transport, twelve o'clock! No lock yet.”
    “Hey. What are those flashes from the tin cans?”
    “Blazer: cool off. We're stealthed, and radar's clear. They've got nothing in the air that can hit us at angels twenty.”

    Blazer's plane disintegrated less than three seconds later.

    “
HOLY SHIT!
”
    “What the fuck was that?”

    Two Blue Squadron planes blew up almost simultaneously.
    “Got lock on a transport, missile away!” a Red Squadron pilot yelled triumphantly. Then his plane blew up too.

    Later, much later, it would be learned that the radar stealthing on the destroyed F-35s had not failed them. Airplanes are harder to hide in optical and IR frequencies than from radar; they were acquired by wide-field optical sensors on the escorts, then ranged and tracked by lidar from stealth drones orbiting above the Chinese fleet. The nature of the weapons that had killed them became apparent much sooner than that, however.
    There was near-panic in the
Ford
's CAC. Commander Weller chewed on a knuckle.
What could be invisibly smashing their planes out of the sky?
No radar traces...then she saw a console light flash in the corner of her eye, and understood.
    “Admiral Hatton! Sir!” She was so frantic she very nearly tugged at his sleeve. “Tell the wing to bug out! They're shooting them down with megawatt lasers!”
    “Shit…" the admiral muttered, thunderstruck. “Air Boss! Tell them to break off. Scatter! Sauve qui peut!”
     
    Four more planes were smoked on the way out.
     
    1410 hours:
     
    Admiral Hatton relaxed, infinitesimally, as the first bird of the ravaged wing caught its arrestor wire. Another wing had been scrambled to Combat Air Patrol and was orbiting the strike group's perimeter. No enemy was in sight.
    On the CAC's main screen, the PLA Navy's invasion fleet crept inexorably toward Taiwan. Admiral Hatton beckoned Commander Weller.
    “To the main conference room,” he said. “Whistle up Captain Fletcher on your comm. And ping Admiral Campitelli with a teleconference request, flash urgent.”
    “STAND BY” was glowing on the conference room's main display when they arrived. Admiral Campitelli appeared on screen just as the three officers