by Dale Brown
Nadia tapped one of her MFDs, scanning the area through one of the Ranger’s passive sensors. Her heart leaped when she saw the single human-sized thermal image crouched in good cover near the edge of the woods. “I see Brad!” she exclaimed. “He is alone. There are no other unidentified contacts around the LZ.”
Quickly, she toggled a single pulse from their air-to-ground radar. A tone sounded in her headset as the Ranger’s radar swept the valley ahead of them. The information it collected appeared as an image on her display. “No hidden obstructions,” she reported. “And the ground looks firm.”
“Right, then,” Vasey said decisively. “We are go for landing.” He entered a new command into his computer and throttled back. “We’d best let our passengers know.”
Nadia tapped a key. “We are coming in to the LZ, Major Schofield. Stand by.”
“Standing by,” the Canadian’s voice replied from the aft troop compartment. “My lads and I are ready to move out the moment you drop the ramp.”
Beside her, Vasey scrolled a cursor across his HUD, selecting his planned touchdown point. Another quick series of movements lowered their landing gear and disengaged the Ranger’s terrain-following system. He chopped the throttles back even farther. Control surfaces opened, providing more lift.
As its airspeed decreased, the XCV-62 descended toward the broad clearing ahead. The three Iron Wolf drones that had flown with them from Attu Island climbed slightly and banked away. Following the orders programmed in earlier by Nadia through their communications links, the two Coyotes and the Howler would circle low overhead while they were on the ground.
Alerted by the roar of several turbofan engines, Brad McLanahan looked up through overhanging branches in time to spot a distinctive batwinged aircraft slide across the sky, briefly silhouetted against the pale moon. For a moment, overcome with sheer relief, he blinked back sudden tears. You are not going to start bawling like a baby, McLanahan, he told himself fiercely. Not in front of Nadia. Or anyone else for that matter.
With his jaw clenched against an expected surge of discomfort from his injured right shoulder and leg, he forced himself back to his feet. And then the pain hit, more like a solid wall of white-hot flame than a passing wave. For a long moment, his whole world narrowed down to a single sensation.
“Jesus,” Brad hissed through gritted teeth. He breathed out deeply in an effort to expel the sudden agony that otherwise threatened to overwhelm him. Slowly, the excruciating pain from his shoulder and leg eased up, becoming merely the usual sharp, throbbing aches that never really left him, even when he dozed.
At last, he lifted his head and saw the XCV-62 Ranger touch down on the clear ground beyond the woods. The aircraft bounced once and then slowed fast as its pilot reversed thrust. Trailing a cloud of torn grass and dust, it slowed to a stop no more than a couple of hundred yards from his position.
Without waiting any longer, Brad hobbled down the gentle slope and out into the open.
The Ranger’s rear ramp whined down. Before it even settled into the tall grass, four men rushed out of the troop compartment and leaped to the ground. One went prone, sighting through the nightscope attached to a magazine-fed Remington sniper rifle. The other three Scion commandos sprinted toward him. They wore night-vision goggles, body armor, and carried HK416 carbines.
In the dim moonlight, Brad recognized the leader as soon as he came within a few yards. “Geez, Ian, you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Ian Schofield pushed his night-vision goggles up his forehead and gave him a fast once-over. He shook his head with a quick, fleeting grin. “Whereas I’d have to call you more a sore sight to my eyes, Brad. No disrespect, but you look like hell.”
“Yeah, well,” Brad said, making an effort to match the other man’s wry smile, “I kinda took a bad spill getting out of my spacecraft. The first few hundred miles went fine. But the last hundred thousand feet down were a little rough.”
Schofield nodded sympathetically. He turned his head to his subordinates. “In the circumstances, gentlemen, I think we should offer Captain McLanahan a lift.”
“You got it, Major,” one of the two agreed. He slung his carbine over one shoulder, knelt down, and unfolded a collapsible field stretcher. He looked up at Brad. “Ready when you are, sir.”
“I know being carried aboard isn’t exactly dignified, Brad,” Schofield murmured. “But we’re in a bit of a hurry. The Russians aren’t known for extending a friendly welcome to trespassers.”
“Screw dignity,” Brad said gratefully, easing himself down onto the stretcher. He closed his eyes, fighting against another wave of pain from his shoulder when they strapped him in. “The quicker we’re out of here, the happier I’ll be.”
Within moments, the litter team was on its way back to the Ranger, moving at a rapid trot. The aircraft’s engines were already spooling back up, preparing to take off the moment they were aboard with the ramp sealed.
Thirty-Six
National Defense Control Center, Moscow
That Same Time
“Still no radar contact with the second American strike group. All systems are operational. All launchers remain ready to fire.”
Colonel General Leonov listened to the steady flow of reports from the 1529th Guards Air Defense Missile Regiment’s headquarters with a growing sense of unease. He checked the digital clock on one of his screens and frowned. Where were those U.S. Navy strike fighters? Based on their observed track and speed over Hokkaido, the new attack group should have been picked up by Titov’s 91N6E acquisition and battle management radar several minutes ago. The first raid, apparently composed entirely of decoy drones, had been conducted with flawless precision and timing. So why this unexplained delay now? What the hell were the Americans playing at? Every minute they loitered below the radar horizon over the Sea of Japan only burned more fuel and gave his defenses that much more time to recover from their earlier confusion.
He furrowed his brow, weighing different options. The 23rd Fighter Aviation Regiment had twelve of its Su-35S Super Flankers flying a fuel-conserving racetrack holding pattern west of Khabarovsk. Perhaps he should send them southeast to scout for the missing U.S. Navy planes, like beaters scaring up game in a hunt?
Just as quickly, Leonov dismissed the idea. If the Americans had more tricks up their sleeves, such a move might play into their hands. After all, to have any hope at all of striking the Vostochny launch complex, the enemy would need to wear down all of his outer defenses first . . . including his fighter regiments. So it was possible this was an effort to lure his best fighters into a trap of their own, somewhere outside the protection of Russia’s S-400 SAM units.
No, he decided, it was better to hold tight and wait for the Americans to come to them. In any battle fought deep inside Russian airspace, his forces held all the advantages. Impatiently, he checked the clock again. Unfortunately, even knowing that time and distance were in his favor did not make this waiting any easier to bear.
At an adjacent workstation, Tikhomirov was on a secure phone, speaking softly and urgently with someone at Dzemgi Air Base. He looked perplexed. At last, he nodded. “Very well, Major. Keep me posted if you get any more details.” Then he hung up.
Leonov swiveled toward his deputy. “Trouble?”
“An anomaly, certainly,” Tikhomirov said carefully. “That was Uvarov, the 23rd’s executive officer. He wanted to relay a strange report from one of the regiment’s junior officers, a Lieutenant Khryukin.”
Leonov raised an eyebrow. The other man wasn’t an idiot. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t waste time with irrelevancies in the middle of a battle. There had to be more to this story than the babbling of some eccentric young lieutenant. “Go on.”
“Khryukin was sent north from Komsomolsk to investigate reports of a UFO landing near a little village in the middle of nowhere.” Tikhomirov opened a digital map at his station. “Here, at the Oldjikan State Nature Reserve.”
Leonov estimated that was more than f
our hundred kilometers north of Knyaze-Volkonskoye. “So? What did he find on his ET hunt? A few scraps of weather balloon?”
Tikhomirov shook his head. “No . . . and that is what is odd. According to the lieutenant, the locals dug up what appears to be some kind of advanced space suit, along with what might be a disposable one-man reentry capsule.” He looked apologetic. “It sounds like nonsense to me, of course, but Uvarov claims Khryukin is sure of his facts.”
Leonov felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. His mouth fell open in shock. Suddenly the real reasons behind the events of the past couple of hours came into clear focus.
“Sir?” Tikhomirov sounded concerned. “Are you all right?”
“No, I am not all right!” Leonov snapped. He spun back to his own keyboard and brought up the recorded track of the crippled S-19 Midnight spaceplane as it fell out of orbit. It crossed high over the Oldjikan nature reserve. “Mother of God,” he muttered. Scowling, he swiveled back to face his deputy. “Those American bastards have tricked us, Semyon! There is no real attack against the Vostochny Cosmodrome. Instead, everything we’ve seen so far is simply an element in an elaborate search-and-rescue mission.”
Tikhomirov stared at him. “A rescue operation? For whom?”
Angrily, Leonov jabbed a finger at the map. “For one of their astronauts! One of the crewmen aboard the Sky Masters spaceplane we destroyed must have survived reentry!”
His deputy swallowed hard. “Then the decoy drone attack on Colonel Titov’s regiment was—”
“Part of a much larger deception,” Leonov finished grimly. He felt cold, imagining Gennadiy Gryzlov’s likely reaction to this screwup. “We saw exactly what the Americans wanted us to see . . . and reacted precisely as they hoped we would.”
His eyes narrowed in thought as he calculated distances and probable flight times. The start of this rescue operation must have been timed to coincide with that first detection of U.S. Navy aircraft over Hokkaido. From that moment on, Russia’s air defenses and surveillance radars had been focused on what they thought was the developing threat against Vostochny and its outer defenses. There was no possibility that the Americans were using helicopters for their rescue operation. The Oldjikan wilderness area was more than a thousand kilometers inside Russia’s defense perimeter—well outside the combat radius of any U.S. helicopter, or even their MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.
Leonov nodded to himself. There was really only one aircraft suited to this kind of mission, the stealthy short-takeoff-and-landing airlifter Poland’s Iron Wolf mercenaries had used before against the Motherland. Little was known about its flight characteristics . . . except that it did not appear to be capable of achieving supersonic speeds. Which meant there was still a chance for his forces to intercept and destroy the American rescue plane before it escaped from Russia’s airspace.
Reaching a decision, he looked up into Tikhomirov’s troubled face. Clearly, the other man also understood the stakes involved. Allowing the Americans to retrieve a downed astronaut out from under their very noses would not win any accolades from their country’s impulsive and often unforgiving leader. “Contact Colonel Federov! I want his Super Flankers headed back north at full speed!”
North of Khabarovsk, over Russia
Minutes Later
With his force of twelve twin-tailed Su-35S Super Flankers spread in fighting pairs across a sixty-kilometer-wide front, Colonel Ivan Federov clicked his radio. “Sentry Flights, this is Sentry Lead. Let’s not be subtle about this. Activate your radars and go to full military power! We’ll climb to three thousand meters. There are no other friendly aircraft ahead of us. Repeat, no friendlies. You are cleared to engage any bogeys without positive IKS with every available missile.”
IKS, or identifikatsionnyy kod samolet, was the Russian equivalent of the IFF, or identification friend or foe, system used by Western air forces. It was a transponder code used by aircraft to verify themselves as friendly to fighter interceptors and radar sites.
Federov called to his wingman. “Sentry Two, are you ready to go hunting?”
“Two,” the other pilot confirmed.
“Then follow me.” Federov advanced the throttles and pulled back on his stick. Accelerating fast, his Flanker soared higher into the night sky. Its dark and light blue “Shark” camouflage scheme rendered the fighter almost invisible to the naked eye. As it leveled off at three thousand meters, he thumbed a button on his stick to power up the Su-35’s IRBIS-E hybrid phased-array radar. Instantly, one of the cockpit’s two big multifunction displays lit up . . . showing a lot of empty sky ahead of them.
No great surprise there, he thought. They were still well south of the Oldjikan area. And against a stealthy target, the radar would be lucky to sniff out anything much farther than twenty or thirty kilometers away. In fact, his Flanker’s passive infrared search-and-track system was more likely to spot the enemy stealth aircraft’s heat signature first. Still, there was a value to coming in fast and loud, with all radars booming. Learning suddenly that a massive force of Su-35s was coming after them at high speed should scare the crap out of that American flight crew.
And frightened men were more likely to make mistakes, Federov knew. One of the keys to victory in any air-to-air fight was getting inside your opponent’s decision cycle. If you could push another pilot into reacting to your moves . . . or better yet, to what he feared you might do . . . instead of carrying out his own plan, you were well on your way to scoring a kill.
Wolf Six-Two
That Same Time
Nestled between the two MQ-55 Coyotes, the XCV-62 Ranger streaked southeast over the pitch-black Russian countryside. The radar- and jammer-equipped Howler drone followed right behind. All four aircraft were flying so low that they almost brushed the treetops that flashed past below them in a blur.
“S-band search radar and multiple I-band radars at two o’clock. Estimated range is seventy miles,” the Ranger’s computer said calmly. “Detection probability at this altitude is nil.”
“Those are the ‘Big Bird’ and ‘Clam Shell’ radars operating with the S-300PM regiment stationed near Komsomolsk,” Nadia Rozek said, after checking the signal characteristics shown on her threat display. “We are not at risk on this course.”
“Understood.” Peter Vasey’s voice was calm. Only the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead revealed the intense concentration required to avoid slamming them into the ground at more than four hundred knots.
Momentarily free to focus on her personal concerns, Nadia clicked the intercom, opening a channel to the troop compartment. “Major Schofield, how is Captain McLanahan?”
To her surprise, Brad answered for himself. “Captain McLanahan is just fine.”
But Nadia could hear the pain and tension in his voice. “You do not sound . . . fine,” she said cautiously.
“Okay, so my shoulder and leg hurt like hell . . . and we’re probably going to have to dodge about a billion SAMs to get out of this mess alive,” Brad acknowledged. Curiously enough, she could almost “hear” the crooked smile on his face. “But trust me, Nadia Rozek, I am fine. Because we’re together now . . . and that’s good enough for me.”
“Oh,” she said quietly. Her cheeks flamed red. “Well, I love y . . .”
“Warning, warning, multiple airborne X-band search radars detected from two o’clock to three o’clock,” the computer interrupted. “New radar contacts evaluated as IRBIS-E Su-35S Super Flanker systems. Range ninety miles and closing. Detection probability very low, but rising.”
“Bother,” Vasey said softly. He risked a quick glance in Nadia’s direction. “It seems the Russians have finally tumbled to our little game. Should we engage those fighter radars with SPEAR?” Like almost all Sky Masters–designed aircraft, the Ranger carried the ALQ-293 Self-Protection Electronically Agile Reaction system. When active, SPEAR transmitted precisely tailored signals intended to hoax enemy radars. By changing the timing of the pulses sent back to a hostile radar,
it could fool an enemy set into “seeing” the XCV-62 somewhere else in the sky . . . or even render it essentially invisible.
Nadia shook her head. “Not yet.” She paged through her threat displays. “I count ten-plus Su-35s flying northeast toward us at more than six hundred knots. SPEAR cannot successfully deceive so many radars.”
“Then it’s time to let our little friends off the leash?”
“It is,” Nadia confirmed. Unless things changed, their tactical situation was going to go from bad to worse . . . and quickly. On their own, they could not outrun or outmaneuver the large force of Russian warplanes hunting them. Nor could they fight them, since the XCV-62 was completely unarmed. And there was no chance they could slip past that oncoming aerial wall of Su-35s unnoticed. Based on their current course and speed, at least six of those enemy fighters had a very high probability of picking up the Ranger either on radar or with their thermal detection systems. Turning back to the northeast to reduce the rate at which the Russians were closing on them would delay the inevitable . . . but not for long.
That left her with one viable option.
Quickly, she opened data links to the two Coyotes and the Howler electronic warfare drone. Her fingers flew across a virtual keyboard, programming new navigation waypoints and other instructions into their autonomous flight control systems. Lights blinked green, confirming that each unmanned aircraft had received her orders. “Stand by to execute breakaway maneuver,” she told Vasey.
All three drones climbed a couple of hundred feet and flew on toward the southeast.
“Execute.”
Below the three Iron Wolf drones now, Vasey inched his throttles back. Gradually, the XCV-62’s airspeed dropped by fifty knots. The aircraft shuddered slightly, buffeted by turbulence as the trailing EQ-55 Howler passed low overhead. Gently, he nudged the stick slightly left, banking into a gentle turn toward the northeast. Then, rolling back out of the turn, he throttled back up to four hundred and fifty knots. They entered a valley that ran generally in the same direction and flew on, with rugged hills rising more than a thousand feet above them off the port side.
