EPThttp://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=391081
Colonel Wu Taifu set down his head-mounted display and reached for a steaming mug of straight black coffee. Through an opened window in base headquarters, the morning sun glittered off a row of parked fighters, as if the runway and apron were a display case of jewelry made for giants. He closed his eyes and took a sip, letting the strong, clean, aroma--mixed with hints of jet fuel--clear his head.
There had been three times in his life when he wanted to quit the air force. The first had been eight years ago, when he was shuttling aid down storm-wrecked Jamaican runways in the aftermath of Hurricane Claudette, with Hurricane Erika still bearing down on the island. It was there that he'd picked up a taste for the excellent local coffee beans and met his wife, then a relief worker. They'd helped calm his nerves, but each time he had to thread the big military transport through sixty-kilometer-an-hour crosswinds on tarmac littered with fallen palm trees, he'd promised himself that he would quit when he accomplished the mission.
He didn't.
The second time had come five years later, when he'd overseen the closure of an air base. He played honest and inadvertently scuttled a land deal that would have made his superior officer rich. Someone then messed with his controls on a routine training flight, and when they pulled him out of the wreckage, he was miraculously alive, but got the message. He'd come within a final few signatures on the resignation forms when his daughter had asked if he could take her into the sky for her birthday.
Since they couldn't get rid of him, they kicked him upstairs. He went to command school, watched the land deal get done, and came back a regiment leader. Now, as his eyes opened on his spartan office, he thought about quitting once again.
His command and control monitor centered on two flashing red and white crosses, marking the locations where the planes had been downed thirty minutes ago. From the screen's upper right corner, six white triangles and two dotted blue triangles inched closer at an estimated speed of seven hundred kilometers an hour. A Chinese destroyer had picked up six JASDF fighters on its radar shortly after they left Naha Air Base, and a real-time satellite feed recorded a pair of F-22s scrambled out of Kadena on a direct flight path towards the disputed islets. The information, once cleared by the MI analyst, had passed through the new C4ISR network in a matter of seconds, without any need for additional human intervention.
Eight fighters. Eight fighters total. He'd have to wait until they were gone before mounting a rescue operation, Taifu thought. He shifted in a cushioned office chair borrowed from his wife's office for his bad back and jotted some brief notes down on his military-issue tablet. Then he donned his display headset and dialed the division commander again.
The official photo of a crinkled, salt-and-pepper man in Air Force blues filled his visor. "General Liang, this is Colonel Wu calling from Feidong Air Base regarding the collision and shoot-down accidents this morning. I just spoke with the flight leader again, Captain Kang."
"Hold on. Before you go further, let me get the Military Region commander on the line. I just emailed him." His portrait blurred out, and then split in two. The right half was still the same, but the left half was now the grainy webcam view of an ancient-looking man with hair dyed jet-black, cramped beside an infant's carseat. Behind him, tinted glass shaded the crowded mosaic of a morning commute.
The division commander cleared his throat and spoke, softly. "General Fan, this is Colonel Wu Taifu, commanding officer of the regiment involved in this morning's... incidents. He just spoke again with the pilot involved. It seems we have a problem: our pilot ditched in disputed waters."
The old man grimaced. "Got it." He then tapped some keys on his laptop. "I have to brief the Central Military Commission as soon as I get into the office. Colonel, did the flight leader give you a detailed breakdown of events?"
Taifu nodded. "General Fan, please find attached Captain Kang's debriefing." He tapped his tablet and sent over the notes to General Fan's inbox. "At 0640, Captain Kang and his second element, Captain Guo Ling, departed from Feidong Air Base for a demonstration of sovereignty over the disputed islands. At 0750, they reached the islands. At 0752, a pair of Japanese F-35s showed up. At 0812, Captain Kang was engaged in aggressive maneuvering versus a JASDF F-35 when the Japanese plane caught his jet exhaust and suffered an engine flameout, which caused the Japanese plane to crash. The second Japanese plane did not see the flameout due to intervening cloud cover, and assumed Captain Kang had shot down the first plane. Then it intentionally destroyed our flight's second element at 0813, and engaged Captain Kang with missiles and cannon fire, damaging our fighter in the process. Captain Kang returned fire and destroyed the second Japanese plane at 0815, but his plane was so badly damaged that he had to ditch as well. The ejection knocked him unconscious. When he awoke at 0821, he contacted me with a quick after-action report, and added that he didn't see any parachutes or emergency beacons from the other three downed aircraft."
The old man flashed a wry grin. "Glad to know our pilot did his job." Then his expression turned serious. "Did you"--the old man paused and grimaced--"did you give him an ETA on any rescue attempts?"
Taifu shook his head. "No."
"Good. He won't like it, but it's the right answer. We can't promise anything at this point." The old man's expression softened. "How long will he last in the ocean? Is there any way we can talk to him?"
Taifu nodded. "His ejection seat should have a shortwave radio built into it, but the batteries won't last more than five hours. If that's damaged, his helmet's emergency transponder can double as a receiver for manual Morse. He should have a 95% chance of surviving for at least 60 hours, if he didn't lose his emergency water and food supplies in the ejection. However, he has retinal bleeding in his left eye, most likely from the violent maneuvering. Without quick medical care, he may lose his sight, permanently."
The old man grimaced again. "I don't think we can get to his eye in time. I'd advise him to swim for the island, just in case." He asked another question, in an innocent tone. "General Liang, how badly does a flameout affect a modern fighter plane?"
Taifu bit his lip. He knew where this question would lead, and so did the air division commander, who mumbled out a response. "N-not that much, General Fan. Most modern fighters can recover from a flameout in a second or two, at most."
"So how could it lead to a crash?"
The division commander was silent for a moment, then replied, "Because our flight leader and his Japanese counterpart were flying at very low altitudes."
The old man's eyes hardened. "How low?"
"I'm not sure, General Fan. Perhaps Colonel Wu knows."
Taifu instinctively glared at General Liang's unmoving avatar. "General Fan, Captain Kang said the aircraft were maneuvering at under a hundred meters. Until the black boxes are recovered, though, we won't be able to get an exact altitude figure."
The old man frowned and shook his head vigorously. "General Liang, didn't you order our guys to stay above five hundred meters while maneuvering near the contested islands?"
"Y-yes."
"So why was he flying under a hundred meters?"
"I cleared them to, last week."
The old man's fist pounded his thigh. "Dammit, we worked those rules out to keep something like this from happening. Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn't cashiere you this instant?"
"Sir, the netizens were complaining that the videos on the internet weren't 'exciting enough.'" Taifu recognized the classic tone of a schoolboy before the headmaster.
General Fan facepalmed, hard. "For heaven's sake, Xiao Liang, our pilots are not Hollywood stuntmen! One man lost an eye, and three others--three lives--are gone today because of your idiocy." The General turned sideways, looked out the window, and let his expression settle before continuing. Behind him, the expressway had become the twisting confines of an underground parking lot. "Okay. Get a few non-escalatory recovery options on my desk. I'll send our attachés in Tokyo and Washington our version of the events, and ask them what the other side thinks. General Liang, I'm sending you the contact info for the Military Region's press officer and political commissar--you, Colonel Wu, and those two are going to draw up the response. Send me your initial set of plans at 1100. Dismissed." General Fan's image froze, then cut out.
General Liang spoke up. "Colonel Wu, let's meet in the lobby in five minutes." Then he cut out as well.
Colonel Wu Taifu sat back in his chair and dialed his wife to tell her he would be coming home late.
Read Part 3 here:
http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?topic_id=391932
can't wait for part 3
