PART 1
They laughed when they heard my call sign.
Cargo 72.
To them, I was just another transport pilot in a slow, fat C-130 carrying equipment across the Pacific.
Then ten enemy stealth fighters locked missiles on me.
And twelve minutes later, the pilots who survived were calling me the ghost in the cargo plane.
The first missile warning screamed so loud inside my cockpit that my loadmaster dropped his coffee and started praying into the intercom.
I didn’t blame him.
Prayer made sense.
We were in a C-130J Hercules.
Not an F-35.
Not a Raptor.
Not something sleek and sharp and built to hunt.
We were a flying warehouse with wings.
Three pallets of medical supplies.
Two crates of communications gear.
One replacement generator strapped down in the cargo bay like a refrigerator with government paperwork.
No missiles.
No guns.
No escort.
Just me, Captain Addison Murphy, thirty-two thousand feet over the South China Sea, watching ten enemy stealth fighters spread across my radar like wolves realizing the deer had no fence.
“Ma’am,” Staff Sergeant Luis Rodriguez said from the back, his voice tight, “please tell me that alarm means we forgot a seat belt.”
“Missile lock,” I said.
He went quiet for half a second.
Then, “I liked the seat belt answer better.”
So did I.
The left side of the sky flashed.
A cannon burst tore through our number one engine before I could finish switching radio channels.
The aircraft lurched hard enough to slam my shoulder against the harness.
Warning lights lit up like a Vegas casino.
May you like
Smoke streaked past the left wing.
Cargo 72 had just become a very expensive target.
