Sky Masters полностью

“Mode two, three, and four squawk is set, Cowboy,” Tamalko reported, informing the ship that his radar identification system was set and operating. The ship’s radar should be able to identify his coded signals and give him steering commands, if it was indeed Cowboy he was talking to. Part of an exercise would be to check if Tamalko would fly off following directions from an unverified radio voice, and Tamalko was going to play this one by the book — as much as possible. “Give me a vector, Cowboy.”

“Can’t… Combat section evacuated… ship on fire, Bear flight. Please, help us…!”

And then Tamalko saw it, off the nose at about forty miles into the inky night sky — two blobs of light in the ocean, shimmering dots of red and yellow fire. The dot off his nose was dimmer than the northern one, which looked like a huge magnesium flare, as bright as watching an arc-welding flame. Just then he saw several bursts of light issue from some other nearby spots in the dark ocean farther to the south, with tracers speeding out farther to the west. “Cowboy, I see fires and tracers. Who is shooting?”

“Bear flight, this is Cowboy,” a different voice came on the radio. “Bear flight, this is Lieutenant Sapao, engineering officer aboard the frigate Rajah Humabon. We are under attack by Chinese naval warships. We have been hit by missile fire. Patrol boat Nueva Viscaya also hit by missile fire…” The slightly calmer report was interrupted by shouts and cries, and the newcomer Sapao issued a few orders of his own before returning to the radio: “Chinese warships estimated thirty miles west of Ulugan bay, estimated ten vessels including one destroyer. Also Chinese attack aircraft in vicinity, a naval-warfare craft launching antiship missiles and torpedoes. Frigate Rajah Lakandula is operating south of our position, and patrol boat Camarines Sur is assisting the Nueva Viscaya. Can you assist, Bear flight?”

As Tamalko got closer, he could see more and more details — there were indeed two ships burning in the Palawan Passage just outside Ulugan Bay. Sheets of gunfire continued to erupt from the southernmost ship, which was darting back and forth, firing in all directions. “Cowboy, can you give us the position of the aircraft?”

“Negative, negative, Bear flight,” Sapao’s tortured voice responded. The transmission began to break up. “Portable radio running out of power… negative, our combat systems are out and we are beginning evacuation procedures. If Rajah Lakandula comes up on frequency, he can assist—” The transmission went dead.

Tamalko started to feel uneasy. The possibility that this wasn’t an exercise hadn’t been fully realized until now. Naturally, he assumed…

Of course, it could still be an exercise, he reasoned, although a very elaborate one. He knew he shouldn’t commit any aircraft unless he received some sort of authentication, and yet…

… what he was seeing, hearing, looked very real indeed.

Horrific, in fact.

“Bear flight, coming left,” Tamalko radioed on interplane frequency. “Take spacing, line abreast. Wide area search. Find the damned aircraft.”

Moments later, Borillo had moved alongside Tamalko, spaced far enough apart to search a greater section of the sky but not far enough to lose visual contact. Tamalko’s weapons system officer began a procedural radar sweep of the skies. “Search plus one to plus ten degrees,” he told his inexperienced WSO just in case, like Borillo, he was getting too caught up in the action to think straight. “Fuentes will search zero to minus ten degrees.”

The search took only a few moments: “Lead, radar contact, one o’clock, twenty miles, altitude one thousand feet, airspeed three hundred knots,” Fuentes reported. “Looks like it’s heading south toward the frigate.”

“Can you find it?” Tamalko called out to his backseater.

“Not yet, sir…”

“Two, take the lead,” Tamalko radioed to Borillo. “Center up and let’s go see who it is. I’m in fighting wing position. Go!” Cautiously, Borillo moved forward until he was ahead of Tamalko’s plane. Tamalko swung out a few more yards to let Borillo pull ahead, then eased behind and above him so he could see all around his new leader. “You’ve got the lead, Two,” he radioed to Borillo.

“I’ve got the lead,” Borillo replied hesitantly. “Bear flight coming right.”

“Don’t tell me, Two, just do it. I’m on your wing,” Tamalko said. He followed Borillo easily as the young pilot made a ridiculously slow 15-degree bank turn to the right — apparently he was overly concerned with how his squadron commander was doing. They began a slow descent to six hundred feet, which allowed the radar beam to angle up at the target and away from the radar clutter caused by shallow waters of the Palawan Passage.