Project Black Rock

Part 14: The enemy shows his teeth

Jung-ho Sun watched the walls of the extinct volcano slowly drop by him as Mastercar rose toward the mouth of the caldera. He reached the summit of the mountain and broke out into the clear night air. He hovered over the entrance to the hidden base and reported his condition.

"Mastercar to control, this is pilot. All systems appear nominal, no problems with the cargo mounted underneath." Sun radioed.

Sang-Hoon Jan monitored the telemetry feed on his console. He felt relieved that all was going to plan.

"Pilot this is control. Proceed to suborbital as per test plan." Jan radioed back.

Jung-ho broke out of hover mode and started climbing. He executed a spiral path that kept him over Korean waters as he gained altitude and speed. Mastercar was now at 60,000 feet and still climbing. Sun watched the gauges and saw that the engine temperature began to rise as the atmosphere thinned out. As he crossed the 70,000 foot altitude mark he switched the oxidizer feed on, and opened the valves to the tanks of rocket fuel. There was a sharp increase in gee forces as Mastercar's six engines switched to rocket mode. Mastercar quickly passed the 150,000 foot altitude and reached the fringes of the Mesosphere.

Misawa Air Base

The long range space radar started painting a small blip over the sea of Japan moving in a trajectory that indicated its origin was somewhere in the mountains of North Korea. A group of F16's equipped with long range AA missiles scrambled for take off. The jets went to after burners and achieved maximum altitude and swept the area ahead of them with their targeting radars. Although they painted a boggy at maximum distance they didn't get a targeting lock.

Joint Commander McMurdock chewed on his pencil while looking at the computer screen.
"Ask the group leader how long they can remain on station." McMurdock quired the radio operator in the operations room.

"They have an hour's worth of fuel remaining if they remain at maximum altitude, Sir."

The Joint Commander studied the radar screen. So far, the boggy didn't show a threatening posture, but that could change in a heartbeat. What kind of aircraft were they painting anyway? It was at almost twice the service ceiling of the F16s, yet it wasn't a missile. This was clearly a new kind of threat.

Reno got up from underneath the control console in the laboratory hangar on the roof of the building.
"Well, that takes care of that." He smiled. "You should be patched into the feed from Misawa now. I've set up a monitoring link to the base radar feed using a parallel network patch link."

"You've hacked into the AFB?" Mike asked.

"Ask Dr. Deacon." Reno laughed, "he provided the VPN parameters."

"Henry?" Mike asked.

"I looked over the General's shoulder while he was making use of our computers a week ago." Dr. Deacon said. "I had a feeling that we might have to fend for ourselves eventually."

Professor Ochanomizu patted Reno on the shoulder. "Misawa AFB is a joint operation between the U.S. and the Japanese governments. We acknowledge that the USAF is providing defensive support for Japan, but the base is on our sovereign soil. I think we have a right to know what's going on."

Reno entered some commands into the computer and brought up a monitor link into the base's radar. They could see the boggy that had come out of Korea and the F16's keeping station. It was a waiting game.

"It looks like the Korean's have made the first move." Mike said. "Given the altitude and speed of the target they are tracking it can only be Mastercar."

Jung-ho Sun could see the F16's on his targeting computer. He switched on the long range Clearview camera and could make out the six aircraft below him. The enemy fighters were operating on the very top of their service ceiling, their engines were probably near overheating from oxygen starvation, and their wings on the edge of a stall in the thin atmosphere. Mastercar, on the other hand, with its rocket powered engines was in its own element thousands of feet above them.

Sun fingered the arming switch for the flash-bang projectile mounted in the racks slung under the aircraft. The full powered EMP missiles that his country had built would use a small nuclear device to generate a focused EMP pulse that could destroy the infrastructure of the enemy by burning out the electrical distribution grid for hundreds of miles, and frying all solid state electronics. The flash-bang units he carried used conventional explosives, and electromagnetic coils to generate a much smaller EMP effect. These were close range devices, launched at the enemy fighters they would knock out the F16's fly by wire electronics, navigation, and weapons system, leaving their pilots practically helpless. He figured he should wait just a bit longer before firing the missile. Let the F16's get a little closer to empty tanks with little time to react.

The burst appeared on the radar screen as an area of confusion where the F16's had once been. There was no radio reply from the six aircraft that had been sent out to investigate the appearance of the North Korean aircraft on the radar.

"What's going on out there?" Joint Commander McMurdock asked when he heard the outcry from the radar operators. "We don't know," the radio operator replied. "I'm getting no answers to my inquiries. It's like they were suddenly wiped out of the sky."

"There they are!" the radar operator said. "About 20 miles off course and descending rapidly, maybe out of control. Still no radio contact. Nothing."

Reno had the feed from the Misawa AFB control complex appearing on the computer monitors.
"The flight of F16's has been attacked by something." He said. "All six aircraft are falling out of the sky. It's like they were hit by a small explosion or something."

"EMP pulse." Henry said. "My instruments on the roof have picked it the echo of it. The Koreans mush have used a flash-bang generator. Not the most potent source of EMP, but if one of those went off a few hundred feet from you, your electronics could be fried."

"The F16 is mostly a fly by wire aircraft" Mike said. "If their electrical systems were overloaded by a large EMP pulse, it could make the aircraft uncontrollable. Those pilots must be having a hell of a time right now. I hope they are able to activate their ejection seats if necessary."

"Maybe we should do something to help." Astro said. "How soon can you get up there in Supercar?"

"Not quickly enough." Mike said. "But you're right, we need to try."

Mike quickly jumped into the cockpit and began to start up Supercar's engines.
"I'm throwing the checklist out the window on this one." Mike said. "Get the roof doors open!"

Henry ran to the control console and activated the motors to crank open the hangar roof doors. Before the panels of the roof had completely moved into the fully open position, Mike already had Supercar in vertical boost and was slowly climbing off of the hangar floor. Astro blasted past him, and was halfway to space by the time Supercar had cracked though the sound barrier.

"Hawkeye" Peter McFarlin was still fighting the controls of his F16. The glass cockpit panel had gone dark seconds after the missile had exploded a few hundred feet off his starboard side. All he could get on his radios now was static, he had lost contact with Misawa and the other five F16's of his group. It was a good thing that he had had his helmet glare shield in the down position or he would have been blinded by the brilliant blast of light from the explosion off to his side.

As his aircraft spiraled down and picked up speed, the rotation began to cause him some vertigo, which he fought against. He knew his fellow pilots were in the same boat as he was, trying to regain control of their aircraft. Finally in desperation, he yanked the main breakers off line, shutting down the entire electrical power bus of his aircraft. He counted to ten and then put the circuit breakers back into the on position. Slowly, the aircraft re-booted its main systems, the backup flight computers came on line and the panel partially lit up. He now had basic instruments, but no radios, navigation or weapons control systems, but at least he had a simple IFR panel, and his fly by wire controls were back. Hawkeye pulled out of the spin and leveled out. Three of the other F16 pilots thought of the same tactic and managed to get their aircraft under control, the remaining two aircraft were still in a death spiral toward the water below.

Astro arrived on the scene at 10,000 feet. He reported back to the control room at the Ministry of Science via radio.
"It looks like four of the six jet fighters have managed to recover though I can't raise them on radio." Astro said. "I'm going after the other two."

The pilot of one of the out of control F16's managed to get his canopy open and fire off his ejection seat. The remaining pilot was still fighting the controls of his plane, or couldn't eject the canopy. Astro zoomed over to the doomed aircraft and grabbed onto it, just behind the trailing edge of the port side wing. Using his own jet power, he broke the jet's spiral and leveled out at about 4000 feet above the ocean surface.

"I've picked up the pilot that ejected." Mike radioed. "He's in the right hand seat now, and we're going after Mastercar."

Astro looked down and saw Supercar rising from the surface of the water where it had been hovering inches above the waves.

"Roger Mike." Astro said. "I'm going to escort the F16 I've rescued back to Misawa."

The operators in the control tower at Misawa AFB were a little shocked to see the F16 buzz the tower building with Astro hanging onto the port side of the aircraft. With all of his systems down, the pilot couldn't lower his landing gear, so Astro had to slow the aircraft down to below stall speed and land it vertically. He set the aircraft down onto the runway and motioned for the pilot to move away from the side where he was standing.

"I'll open your canopy with a little carefully applied brute force!" Astro yelled. He then punched his fist through the bullet proof material, grabbed onto the latching mechanism, and yanked. The stubborn lock gave way and the canopy opened. As the pilot got out of the aircraft, Astro took off and headed back up to see how Mike was doing.

"Cowboy" Jack McArthur felt the lines of his parachute tighten as the canopy inflated. The surface of the Sea of Japan was coming up fast to meet him, and he dreaded the possibility of having to fight off some hungry sharks. Suddenly, the sound of turbine engines whining down filled his ears and the shadow of a strange looking aircraft blocked the sun. He turned his head to find the UFO was hovering besides him, slowly descending at the same rate as he was. The pilot of the strange craft, opened his canopy and dove beneath him. Having never even gotten his feet wet, McArthur suddenly found himself in the right hand seat of the aircraft, and he cut his parachute free.

"Welcome aboard Supercar!" Mike told the fighter pilot. "My name is Mike Mercury."

"Jack McArthur," the F16 pilot said, "call sign is Cowboy."

"OK Cowboy," Mike said, "How about we go after that boggy that shot you guys down?"

"Right on!" McArthur cried as Supercar rose from the surface of the sea and started a maximum performance climb.

Jung-ho Sun watched on the Clearview cameras as the enemy jets spiraled down toward the Sea of Japan. He saw four of them manage to regain control to limp back to their home base, while the remaining two aircraft headed for the drink. His radar then painted two incoming objects. The outline of one of them had to be Supercar, the other one was too small to recognize.

"Mission accomplished!" Sun radioed back to his base. "We've given the Americans a taste of our new powers, and the pilots of the fighters that dared to come after me will return to report how they were defeated."

Mike activated Supercar's stealth mode, and transferred the jet engines into rocket mode.
"Now let's see how accurate the rocket fuel formula information we got from Master Spy was." Mike said. "Are you ready for a real ride there, Cowboy?"

Mike put the spurs to Supercar and the aircraft quickly left the stratosphere below it as the sky turned an inky black. "Nothing on radar." Mike said, "he must have stealth mode activated. I'll try the Clearview infrared camera."

The Clearview camera scanned the sky, and finally caught sight of Mastercar in the distance.

"He's back over North Korean airspace now." Astro's voice came over the radio.

"I can see that." Mike replied. "So what do we do, go after him, or wait another day to catch him on our side?"

"How about you follow him from a distance and see where he hides out?" Cowboy suggested. "We need to know where the Korean's secret base is."

"Will do." Mike answered.

Mike quickly turned his head to the left at the sound of something tapping on the port side of the canopy. It was Astro flying along side of him.

"Cowboy, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine." Mike said. "That is Astro along our port side now."

The F16 jockey turned his head and smiled. "Glad to finally meet you Astro Boy!" he laughed. "We've painted Tetsuwan Atom on our radars plenty of times over the last few years." Cowboy explained to Mike. "We knew of his existence but we've never seen him in the flesh."

"I can see Mastercar descending now." Astro said. "My telescopic vision has picked up an opening in an extinct volcano. I bet that's where they are hiding the secret laboratory base for Mastercar."

"Makes sense." Mike agreed. "Got the GPS coordinates?"

"Hai!" Astro replied.

"OK then, let's head back home." Mike said.

"I'll suggest to my C.O. that we train a spy satellite on that mountain." Cowboy said.

"Good idea." Mike replied. "That will give us an advanced warning the next time they try anything."