by Dale Brown
* * *
Suddenly the datalink from Petropavlovsk that was providing steering cues to the air-defense fighters was cut off. That happened frequently, especially if the enemy was jamming the radar. The antijam circuits would take over and change frequencies, and soon the datalink would be active again. The MiG-29’s fire-control system kept the target’s heading and speed in memory, providing an estimated position on the heads-up display, so if necessary the MiG pilot could simply—
“Zima flight, Zima flight!” the radio suddenly blared, startling the pilot. “The base is under attack! The airfield has been bombed, and the surveillance radar has been destroyed! Take over the—” And just then the transmission was cut off by loud squealing and popping on the UHF radio frequency.
The MiG pilot couldn’t help but think of his alternate landing bases: Magadan, their primary alternate, was over a thousand kilometers away, and Kavaznya, their emergency landing base, was not that much closer. They were already close to bingo fuel, and they hadn’t even launched any missiles yet! Almost time to activate his own radar and attack. He hoped his wingman was watching his fuel gauges. What in hell hit them? Was it a cruise missile?
The pilot’s attention was focused on his abort base and not on his threat-warning receiver, so he hesitated just a second or two too long when the MISSILE LAUNCH warning flashed on his instrument panel and on his heads-up display. By the time he thought to react, it was too late — the AIM-120 Scorpion missile hit him squarely in the center of his jet, turning it instantly into a fireball and sending it crashing into the Bering Sea.
* * *
Splash one,” Daren Mace announced. “Stand by…second missile away.”
But the wingman wasn’t as distracted. He had just activated his radar and locked up the target at seventy kilometers when his warning receiver blared. He punched off two R-77s — seconds before another Scorpion missile slammed into him from the left rear quarter. He was able to put his hands on his ejection-seat handles but didn’t have time to pull them before the fireball engulfed his plane as well.
* * *
Missiles away! Missiles away! Shit, he launched!” Colonel Daren Mace shouted. He could hardly believe that the wingman could fire his own missiles so fast — usually wingmen were just set up to guard the leader, and rarely did they have the situational awareness to prosecute an attack so quickly after losing their leader. The Russians must have changed tactics, Daren decided — all fighters must be ordered to blaze away with every missile they had from maximum range as soon as they got a target locked up. “Two AA-12s. Time to impact…crap, thirty-five seconds.”
The Vampire’s laser-radar arrays were tracking the AA-12s perfectly. They had just a few seconds to try to knock those missiles out of the sky — the MC-17 was sending jamming signals, but the AA-12s were still speeding dead on course, perhaps homing on the jamming. “Daren, get them!” Rebecca shouted.
“Attack AA-12s,” Daren ordered the attack computer. But even as he didso, he knew that it was going to be a very, very close call. The AA-12s had accelerated to Mach 3. The AIM-120s had similar range and speed, but it was going to be a head-to-head intercept — that was the lowest-percentage shot there was. If even one AA-12 missed by less than a few dozen yards, the MC-17 was going down.
Before the attack computer could acknowledge Daren’s order, he spoke, “Countermeasures to standby. Chaff, left and right. Chaff, left and right. Wings level, Rebecca. Electronic cloaking to standby.”
“Daren, what are you doing?” Rebecca shouted. Part of the EB-1C’s stealth enhancements was an electronic system nicknamed the “cloaking device” that absorbed a great deal of electromagnetic energy aimed at the bomber. At longer ranges it could make the bomber virtually invisible. “You can’t shut off the cloaking — it’ll quadruple our radar cross-section! What in hell do you think you’re…?”
But then she looked again at the supercockpit display, and she understood perfectly. Just for good measure, she pulled the throttles on her EB-1C Vampire bomber to idle — to make it easier for the AA-12 missiles to acquire and track them. The tactic worked. Seconds later both Russian AA-12 missiles diverted off course, locked on to the unguarded Vampire bomber, and slammed into it.
Rebecca and Daren were ready — they could see the missiles coming on the supercockpit display, and as soon as they felt the impact, they ejected. They were well clear of the stricken bomber long before it exploded into a huge fiery mass of metal and fuel and plunged straight down into the icy Bering Sea.
10
Over Yakutsk, Russian Federation
Minutes later
Patrick, you copy?”
Patrick simply sat back in his seat, suddenly unable to move or speak. His aircraft commander, Summer O’Dea, looked at her mission commander with a mixture of sorrow and apprehension. She had never seen the Air Battle Force commander frozen in shock like this before. “General? Target inbound, sir — looks like a helicopter gunship or surveillance aircraft.” Still no response. “Sir, answer me.”
“Roger,” Patrick said somberly. He was airborne in the EB-52 Megafortress again, orbiting over Yakutsk and scanning for any threats or armed response. He had already launched one AGM-177 “Wolverine” autonomous-attack cruise missile, which had scattered over fifty bomblets in the path of a column of trucks and armored personnel carriers to keep them from approaching the base; the helicopter was the first aerial responder that morning. He touched the icon on the supercockpit display. “Attack target,” he ordered, his voice little more than a ghostly echo. Neither of them noticed the computer’s response, an AIM-120 missile firing from the left wing’s weapon fairing, or the computer’s report that the target had been struck. “Dave…?”
“We launched the Pave Dasher from Shemya — it should be on station in about forty minutes,” Luger said. “The MC-130P should be airborne in about thirty minutes to refuel the Dasher.” They had received an MC-130P “Combat Shadow” aerial-refueling tanker from the Alaska Air National Guard at Kulis Air National Guard Base at Anchorage to refuel the turboprop and helicopter aircraft. “We’ll find them, Muck.”
It was difficult — no, almost impossible — to get his mind back in the game, but he knew he had to do it before his sorrow and shock spread to the others under his command. “Status of the MC-17s, Dave?”
“Safe, over the Sea of Okhotsk with the other two Vampires tagging along. ETE ninety minutes. Rebecca and Daren were flying cover for the transports when they got hit — looks like they used their own plane as a shield.”
“We’re going to need to divide up Rebecca’s targets with the other planes.”
“In the works, Muck,” Luger said. “Shouldn’t be a problem. We’re receiving fresh updates on the SS-24s’ and -25s’ locations. They’re dispersing more of them out of their garrisons, but they still have at least half of the -25s in garages, and we can hit them anytime. The SS-24s are all on the move. I wish I knew if they were decoys or not.”
“We can’t afford to ignore them,” Patrick said. He knew they would not be — Dave Luger was on top of it. But they wouldn’t be ready to strike for several more hours, and a whole lot of things could easily change by then.
Ryazan’ Alternate Military Command Center,
Russian Federation
A short time later
Nikolai Stepashin came into the conference room almost at a dead run, a message form in his hand. The president was looking over reports from all over the world, shaking his head — none of it was good. “How in hell did the press get the news about the attack on Shemya so fast, and in so much detail?” Gryzlov asked when he heard Stepashin enter the room. “The Americans must have reporters embedded right on board their airborne military command post.” He looked up and noticed the panicked expression on the chief of the general staff’s face. “McLanahan…?” Gryzlov asked, jumping to his feet.
“Unknown as yet, sir,” Stepashin said. “It appears our air base at Petropavlovsk came under antiradar-mis
sile attack again.”
“What losses on our side?”
“Two MiG-29s from Petropavlovsk.” Gryzlov grimaced in surprise and disappointment. The MiG-29s were among the world’s best fighters, but they were taking heavy losses tonight. “The airfield itself is temporarily shut down — some bomblets were scattered on the runways and taxiways.”
“Have we done anything to the enemy yet, Stepashin?”
“One fighter reported downing a large aircraft, type unknown, about sixty kilometers east of Petropavlovsk,” Stepashin responded. “No more attacks occurred after it was taken out, even though Petropavlovsk’s radar was down and there were no fighters on patrol for several minutes.”
“That’s good — that is very good,” Gryzlov said. “Whatever was hit must have been very costly to them. If McLanahan used unmanned attack aircraft to attack Petropavlovsk, perhaps the aircraft we downed was their control mothership; or, even better, perhaps it was a manned Megafortress or Vampire. Destroying one of those planes is akin to shooting down an entire flight of our best fighter-bombers. Americans have no stomach for protracted battle. If they can’t win in one night’s worth of bombing, or if they lose more than a few troops, they’ll go home.
“It hurt them, Nikolai, I know it did,” the Russian president remarked, wearing a rare smile. “McLanahan’s forces must be stretched to the limit. Every aircraft we shoot down means he has fewer and fewer resources to draw upon. If we can remove one of his tankers, he’ll have to think twice before flying his bombers out to the far east.”
He studied the wall chart of Siberia again. “He’s a little bit behind schedule,” Gryzlov said. “I would’ve expected attacks on Magadan or Vladivostok by now. I want ops-normal reports from every one of our Far East Military District bases every hour. Keep your men ready, General. In a very short time, McLanahan is going to attack. He knows now that he can be hurt. Let’s just see what he is made out of.”
Yakutsk Air Base, Russia
A short time later
Less than two hours after passing the Kamchatka Peninsula, sadly leaving their escort Vampire bomber behind, the two MC-17 cargo planes were safely inside hangars at Yakutsk, and the EB-52s and EB-1Cs were being loaded. The MC-17s brought in enough weaponry to completely load four EB-52s and two EB-1Cs, plus refuel the two deployed AL-52s. Patrick’s armada at Yakutsk already included two manned EB-1Cs loaded and on defensive patrol, along with two unmanned EB-1Cs dedicated to refueling and rearming StealthHawk unmanned attack aircraft. In addition, Patrick had two EB-52 Megafortresses and one AL-52 Dragon battleship on patrol, plus two KC-10 Extender aerial-refueling tankers, with one continuously airborne to support the patrol planes.
At the end of the day, Patrick and “Shade” O’Dea landed their EB-52 for rearming and refueling, and so Patrick could attend the mass briefing. He assembled the men and women together in the base-operations building’s conference room. The crews were beyond dog tired — they were zombies, guzzling hours-old coffee and trying to keep their drooping eyelids from closing completely. Patrick was stunned to realize how small his force was.
But he was even more surprised to see these hardworking professionals come to attention when he stepped into the room. Through the nearly seventy-two hours of almost continuous flying, mission planning, and preflighting, they still cared enough to practice military etiquette.
“As you were, ladies and gentlemen,” Patrick said. The crews, already on their feet in an effort to stay awake, shuffled to more relaxed positions, stifling yawns and draining coffee cups. “First of all, I have no news on General Furness and Colonel Mace. The Pave Dasher and an MC-130 are out looking for them. I have asked Colonel Cheshire to task one Megafortress crew to head out there to provide air cover for the rescue effort.
“Here’s the situation as we know it: Despite promising the president of the United States that they would disarm, the Russians attempted to attack Eareckson Air Base with nuclear weapons and have now deployed their mobile ICBMs and appear to be ready to launch them. Our mission tonight is to find and destroy numerous Russian intercontinental-ballistic-missile sites — a total of six SS-18 launch-control centers and seventy-two silos, plus one hundred and eighty road-mobile SS-25 units. If we are successful, we’ll eliminate almost half of the Russians’ land-based intercontinental-ballistic-missile fleet, which, after the attack on the U.S., will bring us to rough parity and may avert another nuclear exchange.
“The Russians have a very sophisticated and dense antiaircraft network, and it is fully functional and on the highest state of alert. We have the advantage of stealth and precision firepower, but the Russians are fielding twenty fighters and at least fifty surface-to-air missiles for every one of our bombers. The National Command Authority made the decision not to use nuclear weapons of any kind, not even enhanced radiation, microyield, or electromagnetic-pulse weapons, for fear of precipitating an all-out nuclear exchange. This means we have to go after the ICBMs without any defensive laydowns whatsoever. It’s a lousy hand we’ve been dealt. Normally, I would have done whatever I felt necessary to get the job done, even if it meant using special weapons, but I feel we can do the job without them. If I’m wrong”—he paused, looking each man and woman in the room straight in the eye—“I’ll burn in hell along with Gryzlov and all the other nutcases who started this war.
“Here’s the lineup for tonight: Bobcat Two-three has the longest drive — two SS-18 launch-control centers at Aleysk with Wolverine thermium-nitrate penetrator cruise missiles, plus Wolverine cruise missiles dropping thermium-nitrate bomblets on all twenty-four of their silos. We’ve modified the Wolverine missiles with delayed-action fuzes so the missiles will penetrate at least a hundred feet underground before the warheads detonate, which gives us a good chance of taking out the underground launch-control centers. We don’t know if the bomblets will be strong enough to do any damage on the silo doors, but it’s the best we have. All we need to do is try to dislodge the doors from their tracks or jam them closed, and we’ve done our jobs. Bobcat Two-four will do the same on the SS-18 wing at Uzhur, which has four LCCs and forty-eight silos.
“Bobcat One-two and One-three will locate and attack the SS-25 units at Novosibirsk and Barnaul, with StealthHawks and Longhorns. Right now we’re targeting the garrison locations where a number of SS-25 launch units have been dispersed to. We’re hoping to tag as much as fifty percent of their road units in their garages. You also have locations of known field-dispersal and launch points that we’ve seen the Russians use in the past, so your job will be to keep an eye on those locations in case any units show up. Bobcat One-four will attack the SS-25 wings at Irkutsk. Bobcat Two-five will attack the SS-25 wing at Kansk, and Bobcat Two-six will attack the SS-25 wing at Drovyanaya.
“Colonel O’Dea and I, in Bobcat One-one, along with Bobcat Two-seven, have a special task,” Patrick went on. “Our job is to seek out and destroy four SS-24 rail-mobile ICBM squadrons that our intelligence tells us have been dispersed north of Krasnoyarsk on the national rail lines. Each SS-24 squadron carries three missiles, each of those with a ten-thousand-mile range — long enough to decimate every American city and military base on planet Earth. They were supposed to be taken out of service years ago, but they’re still out there, so we must assume that if they violated that provision of the START II Treaty, they violated more, and thus they still have their full complement of ten independently targetable warheads. Bobcats One-five and Two-eight will stay behind to guard Yakutsk until the MC-17s depart and to provide backup for all other sorties, and Bobcat One-eight will provide air cover for search-and-rescue forces out in the Bering Sea.
“The AL-52 Dragon aircraft, Bobcat Three-one and Three-two, will take up patrol orbits over two locations. They’ll be in a position to cover our ingress and egress on our strikes, and in case the Russians fire any missiles, they’ll be able to intercept them.
“After your assigned attacks, withhold any weapons you have left for follow-on attacks or any other pop-
up targets you might encounter or that are datalinked to you,” Patrick said. “Follow your egress routings to the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean, and rendezvous with your assigned tankers. The planned recovery base is Battle Mountain, but we may be sending you directly to dispersal bases if Battle Mountain has come under attack. Questions or comments?” Patrick fielded a few, and then they received a weather briefing and current threat analysis.
Finally, when the last briefer finished, Patrick moved to the front of the room again. “Ladies and gentlemen, if we’re successful tonight, we can seriously degrade between one-third and one-half of Russia’s ICBM force,” he said. “We call this base ‘Camp Vengeance.’ Taking this base marks the beginning of the American counteroffensive against Russia. If we’re successful, we might even the score and avert any more nuclear exchanges. That’s not a certainty by any means, but at the very least it’ll be exactly what this base was named for: vengeance.”
Patrick paused for a moment, then said, “I want to let you all know, before we get airborne again, that it’s been a privilege to serve with you. You have all proved that you truly are the best of the best. You’ve gotten this far with skill, determination, professionalism, and audacity. Now we need to put every ounce of that skill to the test. I know you can do it. We will prevail, and with God’s help we’ll all be on our way home very soon. Good luck, good hunting. I’ll see you all airborne in about one hour.”
Ryazan’ Alternate Military Command Center
That same time
Anatoliy Gryzlov was on the phone to a member of the Duma when he looked up and saw something he very rarely saw — General Nikolai Stepashin chewing out some young officer, screaming at the top of his lungs at him — and then actually striking him in the face! Oh, shit, he thought, this looks very serious.
