Bering Strait

by F X Holden

  Butyrskaya smiled, “That has been anticipated. Immediately before special forces land, we will declare a submarine emergency in international waters off the coast of St. Lawrence,” she said. “One of our boats will send a mayday and declare a nuclear containment breach. Arctic Fleet assets in the area will be directed to respond and will start moving at speed to the area and provide ship-based anti-air cover. All international shipping and aircraft will be asked to divert to allow our rescue efforts unhindered freedom of action. The US might send reconnaissance aircraft, but the cover story should be enough to prevent a full-scale air defense response until we are in control.”

  “And if they don’t buy this cover story?” Bondarev persisted. “I have the resources to rotate a CAP of one squadron over Saint Lawrence for that period, but if we sustain any losses, I assume I will be able to call for reserves from 2nd Command?”

  Butyrskaya looked at Lukin, and opened her mouth to speak but Lukin spoke first. “We will not be mobilizing any more units than absolutely necessary, so as not to forewarn US intelligence. This operation will be run entirely with the resources of 3rd Command. Central Military District will not be drawn in.”

  “We should preposition reserves,” Bondarev continued. “We cannot…”

  “Reserves will not be needed,” Lukin said, in a tone clearly intended to end the discussion. “Does anyone else want to raise strategic concerns?”

  “Rules of engagement,” Kokorin said. “The smokescreen about the submarine might enable us to get assets in place, but it won’t hold if the US gets satellite or air recon confirmation that we are moving troops onto St. Lawrence.” He looked at Bondarev, “If my aircraft are tasked with transport and low-level air defense suppression, I want to know Bondarev’s fighters will be able to protect us without having their hands tied.”

  “We will not tolerate US interference in our peacekeeping operation,” Lukin said. “You will be free to fire on any land, sea or air threat in the operations area.” At last, something Bondarev liked. His leaders might be throwing him into an uncertain battle on a flimsy pretext, but at least they were not restricting his freedom of action.

  Lukin waited for other questions and when there were none he picked up his tablet, and nodded to his staff, “Gentlemen, I will not keep you any longer. You have a vital peacekeeping mission to plan and the clock is ticking.”

  As the others stood, Arsharvin made his way to Bondarev’s side. “My office, as soon as you are done with your staff meetings,” he said.

  Bondarev grabbed his arm as he was about to walk away, “This isn’t about the Ozempic Tsar, is it? It isn’t even about that stupid island.”

  Arsharvin looked up at the ceiling to where small dome cameras sat capturing every audible word and gesture. “My office,” he whispered. “And bring a bottle of your best stuff. What I have to tell you is worth it.”

  NO REST FOR THE WICKED

  When Rodriguez’s shooter declared the electromagnetic catapult operational, word spread through The Rock like Severin had put a post on Twitter. There were currently thirty-seven other people serving underground in the base and it seemed all thirty-seven of them had some reason to be working in the docks or on the deck somewhere where they had a good view of the Chute. She couldn’t blame them - it was the Rock’s first operational launch in weeks. Until now, they had only had simulations, and then three test flights, before the Cat was taken offline. Tonight they would be putting one drone in the air and seeing how fast they could do it. The eventual goal was one machine every three minutes, or a full ‘hex’ of six machines, inside 20 minutes. She sighed. If they were to be certified combat capable, that’s what it would take, but it would strain both her people, and the cantankerous Cat.

  She looked around the launch bay. When she was down on the ‘flight deck’ or in her command trailer up behind the dock for a launch, she wore a yellow Air Boss shirt over her green flight suit with its simple squadron commander gold oak leaf on the shoulder. The deck was awash with multicolored shirts.

  Half of her 12 man crew was finalizing pre-flight checks on the drone; the other half was operating the Cat and its feeder system. It was supposed to be an almost fully automated system, but something always glitched. Unlike on a carrier, the Fantoms under Little Diomede were originally designed for ‘cartridge launch’ - made to be launched off the back of a truck like an old ICBM, fitted into launch canisters and fired into flight by a rocket-propelled launch arm like a bullet out of a gun. Here under the Rock, they’d modded the canister system and put the canisters on a conveyor belt so that a whole hex could be loaded onto the Cat and launched one after the other in quick succession. Supposedly, once they were pre-flighted and loaded into the canisters, it only took one plane handler to lock the drone into the catapult shuttle and a single shooter to operate the launch system. As the base development moved into Phase III, even those two roles would be automated. That was the theory anyway.

  “You miss being up in pri-fly Boss?” a voice said from behind her. “The grand ballet of colored shirts, the smell of jet fuel and Red Bull …” She recognized the voice of Commander Justin Halifax and turned. He was the senior officer on Little Diomede, CO of the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station or NCTAMS and therefore her senior officer. He commanded the communications station and dock operations but he wasn’t an aviator, so he left day to day flight operations largely to her.

  He had an office and quarters in the radar installation which was the Navy’s cover on Little Diomede, and only took the elevator down to the cavern every few days to check on progress or investigate the frequent hiccups. Nonetheless the lure of a launch had pulled even him down from topside. He stood looking skeptically up at the roof as though it was about to drop on his head. Rodriguez’s private theory was that he was claustrophobic, but that was OK, because that meant with nearly half of all personnel under the Rock under her command, she had a pretty free hand down here.

  “Miss my shooter’s position more to be honest Sir,” she said with a smile, “Less ballet, more rock and roll.”

  Halifax looked around the cavern, “Everything still on track for launch?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got the Cat pulling like it should now. We’re good to go.”

  “Good,” he nodded. “We have to start ramping up the test flights, Lieutenant Commander. We’re two weeks behind,” he pointed out. “And I’m not planning to be the one telling Naval Air Forces Command in Coronado we can’t hit Phase II transition.”

  “No sir.” Rodriguez looked over to the trailer parked at the top of the submarine dock, where she knew Bunny O’Hare would be sat at her bank of screens, going through her own pre-flight routine. “But we’re still short a pilot sir and the one I have is an Australian born DARPA test pilot. I’m supposed to have moved Navy aviators into that trailer by now.”

  Halifax looked annoyed at being reminded, “I know. We’re not exactly top priority down here, with all the shit going down in Korea. I heard they deployed two more squadrons of Fantoms there this week.”

  “Any word on my request for blast doors to seal off the pond sir?” Rodriguez said. “We might be under 500 feet of rock, but that won’t help if Ivan drops a nuke right outside. Right now, even a minor cyclone could push so much water and ice into the pond we’d be out of commission.”

  He sighed, “I tried again. It’s still no. They’re not investing in any more infrastructure before proof of concept.”

  From down by the flight deck she saw men in green jackets who had been crouched around the locking bar on the drone stand up, and her yellow jacketed catapult officer spun around and gave her a thumbs up.

  “Roger Cat 1. Moving to the Island,” Rodriguez said into her mike. The Island was the nickname they gave to the drone command trailer, which here served a similar function to primary flight control inside the command island on a carrier. “If you’ll excuse me Sir?” Halifax had told her he wanted to be topside
for the launch, standing over the lip of the chute to see how visible the drone was exiting the cave at night. Baffles should mask the exhaust from the naked eye, and Navy had an infrared satellite parked overhead for this test flight, trying to pick up a signature, but he had wanted to see for himself.

  “Actually I’m coming with you, I need to talk to O’Hare,” he said. He hunched his shoulders, ducked his head and followed after her.

  Rodriguez frowned, but led the way across the dock to the trailer and thumbed the lock on the door to let her and the CO in. The trailer was parked broadside to the flight deck, and had been modified from a standard drone control center, being lengthened by about ten feet with the addition of a stool, extra comms gear and windows to allow Rodriguez to look out on the catapult and recovery dock. Otherwise it was a standard drone trailer, with a bank of screens and controls for two pilots. The second chair was empty, as Rodriguez had pointed out.

  “CO on deck,” Rodriguez said as she pulled open the door.

  “As you were,” Halifax said before O’Hare could react. She was busy punching data into touch screens in front of her.

  “On track for launch 0230 hours ladies and gents,” Bunny said without taking her eyes off her screens. “Fantom is singing like a bird.” She pointed to data from the drone, streaming across a screen. Rodriguez had no idea what it meant, but Bunny sounded satisfied.

  “Good, I have a change of target for you. Requires a new mission profile,” Halifax said. He had a tablet under his arm and held it up then tapped away at it, “Sending to you now.”

  He finished sending and handed the tablet to Rodriguez. Now she understood why Halifax had sounded a little mysterious. The original Operations Order was for a full-scale launch and recovery test. The flight plan had called for Bunny’s Fantom to exit the Rock and head east over the Alaskan coast to the Yukon Delta, test its cameras with some night vision shots of a fishing camp near Dall Lake and get safely home again, hugging the terrain and wave tops to try to stay off the radar. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had been tasked to try to identify and track the flight to see if The Rock could be identified on radar or satellite as the point of origin. But now she could see they were being given a different sort of test, perhaps to see how Rodriguez and her team performed under pressure. Change the target at the last minute, change the mission profile, stand back and watch the chaos unfold. Well, if Halifax wanted to see her fail, he’d be disappointed, she’d make damn sure of that.

  Bunny opened a dark screen and pulled up the data Halifax had sent her. Now she turned around, a puzzled look on her face. “The target is USAF Eielson Air Base?” she said.

  “Correct Lieutenant,” Halifax smiled. “Someone in the Pentagon thought it would be a good test of Air Force air defense systems to see how close you can get one of your drones to Eielson field before they threaten to shoot it down. You have mode 7 crypto IFF on your machines, correct?”

  “Yes sir,” Bunny replied, still sounding dubious. The Identify Friend or Foe system was something that by default she would engage, to ensure she wouldn’t be shot down by mistake.

  “Then monitor air force comms and keep the IFF off until we pick up an imminent shoot down order,” Halifax said. “The exercise will conclude either when you have simulated a missile launch on Eielson, or when you are forced to light up your IFF.”

  Bunny bent to her screens and started punching in the new data.

  “If we even get close, this will not do wonders for Navy - Air Force relations sir,” Rodriguez said, smiling and handing back his tablet.

  Halifax looked across at her, tucking the tablet under his arm, “Stop grinning Air Boss. The new mission profile calls for an F-47 in ground-attack configuration, not recon.” He glanced down at his watch. “Your people have 23 minutes to pull that Fantom off the deck and either dial up a new bird in ground-attack config or reload it with air-ground ordnance.”

  SCOTTISH VODKA

  It was 0220 by the time Bondarev was finished with his staff meetings and felt comfortable that preparations were in hand. The first task had been convincing his officers that this was not just an exercise … they were about to conduct the first sanctioned Russian attack on US territory in history. The fact Saint Lawrence Island was only 60 miles from the Russian Chukchi Peninsula was irrelevant. Bondarev and his men knew it might as well be Washington DC, the way the USA would react to Russian troops on US soil.

  Bondarev was third generation Russian Federation military. He didn’t question the orders of his political masters, not in front of his subordinates anyway. But if he was to be part of starting a world war, he wanted to know why, and he knew it wasn’t because some shipping magnate had lost one of his shiny new toys.

  Arsharvin’s office was actually two rooms joined by a door. Bondarev walked in on a scene that looked like the one he had just left; tired men poring over maps and screens. It also looked like he had walked in on an argument, but they jumped to attention when they saw him.

  “At ease,” Bondarev sighed and pointed at the door to the inner office. “The boss in there?” He didn’t wait for an answer, but walked over and tapped on the door with the neck of the Scotch bottle he was carrying.

  “Come in!” Arsharvin boomed, and Bondarev pushed the door open to find his friend leaning back in his chair, boots up on his desk, staring at the ceiling with a telephone to his ear. He grimaced at Bondarev and pointed at a chair, then a tray with empty glasses, holding up a finger to show his call was nearly finished.

  Bondarev unscrewed the cap of the bottle and poured a generous measure into each glass as Arsharvin put his phone down. He got up, closed the door and then took the bottle Bondarev was holding, nodding appreciatively, “Macallan 25?”

  “Might as well enjoy it while we can still get it,” Bondarev said.

  “It will be worth twice as much on the black market a week from now,” Arsharvin pointed out to him. “After the US slaps on sanctions.”

  “Yeah, but what good is a full bottle of whiskey to a dead man?” Bondarev said, slumping into a chair. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Arsharvin parked his backside on his desk. He was tall, still annoyingly fit, with broad shoulders and a square jaw; he even had a dueling scar on his left cheek below his eye from his days as an elite fencer. “I won’t lie,” he said. “You could be on the front line of World War Three in a week’s time and we could all be dead in two.”

  “Cheers then,” Bondarev said dryly, throwing down his scotch and letting the taste dwell in his mouth before he poured another. “What the hell Tomas?” Bondarev asked. “The polar shipping route is so important we’re willing to risk nuclear annihilation for it?”

  Arsharvin leaned in, so that he couldn’t be heard in the office outside, “This isn’t just about Saint Lawrence Island Yevgeny.”

  “I knew it.”

  “We are going to annex the Bering land bridge.”

  “The what?” Bondarev frowned.

  “Western Alaska. The whole of the Alaskan peninsula from Koyuk and Buckland, west to Nome. Two hundred square kilometers with Saint Lawrence Island in the south, giving us control of the entire Bering Strait.”

  “Why in the name of …”

  “It’s the new Panama Canal, Yevgeny!” Arsharvin said. “Do you know how many ships took the polar route through the Bering Strait ten years ago? Five hundred. This year so far, that number is five thousand.”

  “And so? We are already building up Anadyr, Lavrentiya. We have the biggest ports in the whole North Pacific. What more do we win by militarizing the seaway?”

  Arsharvin drew two lines in whiskey on the table, then a single line across the middle like he was cutting a throat. “If we controlled the entire Strait and charged a toll at the same rate as they do down in Panama, the tolls alone would be worth a billion dollars a year.”

  “That is pennies,” Bondarev scoffed. “It would cost us that much to keep it free of ice, blockade and police it.” />
  “Pennies now,” Arsharvin tapped his nose, “With five thousand ships moving through. But when it is fifteen thousand, twenty thousand ships? Would you scoff at three billion dollars? Five billion? Control the Strait and you control the polar route. It’s not just the money, it's trading leverage, geopolitical leverage…”

  “World war…” Bondarev added. “Nuclear Armageddon.”

  “Anadyr is already three times the size of Nome, Lavrentiya twice the size, not just in population, but economically. The population of Nome is falling! We are investing in the North Pacific; the US is sleeping. Did you know they no longer have a single icebreaker of their own? The US Coast Guard rents Russian or Canadian ships to keep its sea lanes open! They have ignored development in Alaska for half a century, they have ignored Alaska’s defenses, there has never been a better time for us to move!” Arsharvin grinned and raised his glass in a toast, “To the new Russian Panama.”

  Bondarev finished off the last drops in his glass and then reached forward tiredly. He poured a final shot for himself and his friend. “I salute your patriotism, but I don’t share your conviction. America will not just sit still and let us create a new Panama Canal controlled by Russia. And our leaders in Moscow are not fools, they know this. You must have your orders but you are not telling me the whole story Comrade Arsharvin.”

  Back at his quarters an hour later Bondarev lay in his bed, still wide awake. Were they insane? No matter how weak the backbone of the Americans when it came to intervening in other people’s wars, they would nuke Moscow to glowing green slag before they would let Russia walk into Alaska. The thought convinced Bondarev this was about more than polar trade routes. Seizing Nome was the act of a desperate State that had decided it had nothing to lose.