Bering Strait

by F X Holden

  He looked with professional interest at the wrecked ATV and wondered briefly exactly where he had hit it. He had aimed for the bulbous engine housing behind the man’s legs, and one of his two shots had apparently connected. He looked it over from the side he was standing on, and saw nothing. Then he walked around the ATV and saw with satisfaction the big black hole his bullet had made, leaking some sort of engine fluid. He pulled the machine back upright - no easy task, it felt like it weighed a ton - and did what his commanding officer had ordered him to do, checking the compartment under the seat for maps or papers.

  It wasn’t a wasted effort. Inside there were some American cigarettes, a large hunting knife with a razor sharp edge on one side and a serrated saw on the other and a broken fishing reel. The knife had a delicately carved whalebone handle. He hefted it, feeling the balance. A fine souvenir from his first ever ‘kill’ - even if it was only a glorified motorbike he had shot. There was no map in the compartment, nor did he expect there to be. The locals had all grown up on this wind-blasted rock in the middle of the Bering Sea and there were no roads between the only two villages anyway, so why would they need a map?

  Shots! Zubkhov threw himself flat, scrambling to keep the wrecked bike between him and the sound of the gunfire. He kept his head down, trying to identify the weapon. It was Russian, a light anti-air gun. Sticking his head up, he saw one of the hastily erected gun emplacements by the runway open fire again at a target barely visible above. It looked like a light four-rotor commercial freight drone; not much more than a teardrop-shaped bulb the size of a car with wings. The second burst from the anti-air gun hit it as it was descending toward the runway and it tumbled from the sky to smash into the sea about a hundred meters offshore. There was some sardonic cheering from the gun crew but Zubkhov shook his head as he stood up. The first anti-air kill of the war was a glorified shopping trolley. Hooyah.

  Something flapping off to his right by the overturned sled caught his eye. He hadn’t noticed it before. It looked like a jacket, torn to shreds. The man must have been wearing it when he was thrown from his bike, and cast it off before he jumped into the sea. It occurred to Zubkhov there might be something in the pockets; another ‘souvenir’ perhaps, or maybe even some US dollars? He walked over and picked it up, searching it for pockets. There were two deep external pockets which contained only a box of matches and an old piece of candy, stuck to the lining of the pocket. There was an inside pocket that held about twenty dollars and a piece of paper with what looked like a shipping consignment, but other than that was empty. Disappointing.

  That was when he noticed the patch on the arm of the jacket. He held it up to his face so he could see it better. A polar bear, holding a globe in its claws. Around it were the words, 712th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. It looked military. Zubkhov felt his heart jump. No wonder the man had fled. He was US military! Their briefing had been clear on this, there was no military presence expected at Gambell, and only a token force manning the early warning station at Savoonga.

  Well, the bloody briefing had been wrong! There was at least one US serviceman on the loose in Gambell.

  Zubkhov looked around for Captain Demchenko, eyes searching among the dozens of men swarming over crates and boxes on the runway as dust and gravel were blown around by the rotors of the transports. His eyes landed on his CO, and he started running.

  He knew it. He should have shot the bastard!

  OPENING VOLLEY

  “ANR, I see rotary winged aircraft on the ground at Savoonga. AI indicates they are Russian Mi-26s, are you getting the feed?” Bunny’s voice didn’t bely her shock. Russian troop transports at a US air defense facility?

  Nuclear submarine incident be damned.

  “We copy your feed, NCTAMS-A4. We are showing clear airspace to your south, pull back twenty miles south of your current position, stay out of sight and await new tasking.”

  Bunny made a new waypoint, dragged it across the tactical map with her mouse then watched as her four machines began moving south from Savoonga, using terrain following laser to hop over hills and into depressions to stay off Russian radar. They hadn’t picked up any targeting radar over Savoonga, so if Russian aircraft or ground-based radar was operating there, they didn’t get a return off the small profiles of Bunny’s Fantoms.

  “Russian ground forces? What the hell?!” Rodriguez said, saying out loud what O’Hare and Halifax were both thinking.

  “I can’t think of any maritime rescue scenario that would require Russian troops to put down inside the perimeter of a US military installation,” Halifax said. “But it explains why ANR can’t raise Savoonga on comms.”

  “Sirs and Ma'ams, I’m no expert on geopolitics,” the Australian aviator commented. “But I do have two heavily armed Fantoms at the end of my kite string. You might want to ask for a review of the rules of engagement.”

  While the intel from Bunny’s report was being processed back at Elmendorf-Richardson AFB, alerting NORAD about the presence of uninvited Russian troops on US soil for the first time in history, Major-General Yevgeny Bondarev was playing Cat and mouse with the US Air Force in the Bering Strait between Saint Lawrence and the Alaskan coast.

  His own rules of engagement were anything but standard. He was free to do what he felt necessary to ensure the undisturbed operation of Russian ground forces in the theatre, including pre-emptive attacks on American Air Force targets, if he deemed them a threat. Right now, he could imagine USAF officers were frantically checking with their superiors in the Pentagon to validate Bondarev’s claim that their two Presidents had agreed to a temporary US no-fly zone over Saint Lawrence. Bondarev himself had no idea whether the Russian President had even made a call to his US counterpart, but assumed that if the cover story was to be credible, he would need to have done so.

  The only warning that Bondarev was likely to get if the US high command didn’t buy their cover story, was the high piercing chime of a missile launch warning in his ears before his combat AI seized control of the aircraft and sent it into a screaming spiral earthward. Bondarev didn’t plan to be caught at a complete disadvantage though.

  “Eagle Flight, please assume a position above and behind our American escort.” On his tactical display he saw his newly arriving reinforcements peel up and slowly slide to starboard, wedging the US aircraft between two formations of Russian fighters. It was a classic ‘Mexican standoff’ and would require the US commander to react. How he reacted would tell Bondarev if he was dealing with an American with an aggressive or defensive mindset. An aggressive commander would decide he still had a perfect firing solution on the bulk of the Russian fighter force, even though he was threatened from the rear. A defensive mindset would mean the American was more worried about his own planes and pilots than about challenging the Russian fighters, and he would break away to try to re-establish a tactical advantage, probably by withdrawing to long-range missile distance.

  A few tense minutes passed, then Bondarev heard a voice drawl over the Guard channel, “Ivan, your trailing element is so far up my tailpipe that I have to assume you Russians are all a bunch of ho-mo-sexual ass bandits. Please confirm.” Checking his tactical display, Bondarev saw no sign of the US flight breaking position. He smiled.

  Very well. An aggressive commander. Let us see who blinks first.

  “Raptor control, please scramble a further nine Mig-41s from Lavrentiya and vector to my position.”

  Alicia marveled at how cool Bunny remained. She had her wedge of four drones hidden in ground clutter in a shallow valley south of Savoonga. She had a combat AI system that was filtering all the inputs, making sure she didn’t drown in data and only had her attention directed to critical information, but Rodriguez knew her own head would have exploded trying to keep track of it all, at the same time as sending orders to her machines and being ready to execute any one of a hundred tactical options if needed.

  “NCTAMS-A4, this is ANR,” a cool voice broke in over the radio. “We are
showing nine more Russian fast movers inbound to Saint Lawrence, bearing 268 degrees, altitude 40,000 feet. Designating enemy flight Beta. We have six F-22s inbound from Eielson to join aircraft already on station over Saint Lawrence… NCTAMS-A4 we need you to…” There was a pause. On one of Bunny’s screens Rodriguez saw the icons for the new Russian fighters appear, speeding toward Saint Lawrence from the Russian mainland. To the East, she saw six icons marking the US reinforcements. There was a massive furball building, and all it would take would be one slip of the trigger finger to turn things deadly serious.

  Rodriguez felt the situation unraveling, and heard a new tone of urgency in Bunny’s voice as she broke in on the air controller, “What do you want me to do ANR. Head east to help our fighters there, mix it up with the Russian beta flight or stay where I am?!”

  “NCTAMS you are to stay in the weeds but prepare to engage enemy flight beta approaching from the west,” the voice said. “Lock them up and await orders. You are not authorized to engage. Repeat, you are not authorized to engage. ANR out.”

  “Acknowledged ANR, lock up enemy B flight, do not engage. NCTAMS out.” Bunny said and pulled up her targeting interface. “Thanks for making up your freaking mind,” she muttered, sending orders to her primary Fantom to turn 180 degrees, going from tracking east to tracking west in the blink of an eye. Unfortunately, the radical maneuver meant there was a risk she had popped up on the radar of a Russian air defense system if it was monitoring the combat area but she needed to get in position to lock and engage the approaching Russian reinforcements. The Russian reserve flight was soon in Cuda range and she drew target boxes around them based on the data feed from NORAD’s long-range radar.

  There was no need to activate her own tracking radar and give herself away, yet.

  Rodriguez turned to Halifax. “Sir, do you want us to launch more Fantoms? We have two more in the queue.”

  “Easy Boss,” Halifax murmured. “They’ll call for more cavalry if they think they need it.”

  Rodriguez had launched the first two Fantoms with mixed air-to-air/air-to-ground ordnance. That gave Bunny eight of the multi-role intermediate to short ranged Cudas, and nine targets to fire them at. All four of her birds were armed with laser targeted guns too. Her fingers tapped at her keyboard and touch screens, selecting targets and dedicating a single missile to each in case she was ordered to engage. The new Cuda had seen limited use over Turkey, but Bunny had read reports showing that at intermediate range it had a less than 75% kill ratio against the Su-57. Her plan was to disrupt the Russian reserves approaching from the west, and that meant distracting as many of the Russian pilots as she could in the first wave of her attack, hoping for a kill or two, and maybe the others would bug out.

  First wave? If she was forced to fire off her full inventory of Cudas, she didn’t have a second wave!

  Bondarev’s situation had gone from dominance to a knife edge balance in a matter of minutes. His nine Su-57s had been facing off against six USAF F-35s, but six older National Guard F-22s were also now on the way. Another nine Mig-41s from his 5th Air Regiment had been scrambled, but the approaching Americans would be within missile range first. In fact, they already were. And their missiles could home on the targets given to them by the fighters on his tail.

  It was time to test his adversary’s mettle. He turned his flight west, closing the gap toward his own approaching fighters, moving toward the east coast of Saint Lawrence Island. As expected, the Americans followed. He opened a Guard channel, “American flight leader, you are entering the safety perimeter for Russian rescue operations, agreed with your superiors. You must turn back, or you could be considered hostile.”

  “Negative Colonel ‘Smirnov’. Hostile is what I call a Russian fighter over US airspace,” came the reply.

  “Nonetheless, we are conducting a high-risk rescue operation in the seas off Saint Lawrence and we cannot allow any interference. If you do not respect the rules of engagement agreed by our superiors, you will be fired upon.”

  The USAF pilots were either foolish, or suicidal. They must know they were being targeted by Russian passive infrared systems on the aircraft both in front of them and behind them. Not to mention the long-range radar on Bondarev’s A-50 Airborne Control aircraft, which was able to burn through their stealth countermeasures using the data from Bondarev’s flight to enhance the weak returns from its own radar. A tense minute went past. Bondarev tightened the webbing of his G-frame over his chest, expecting at any moment to hear the missile launch warning that could be the last thing he ever heard.

  He realized he was holding his breath, and let it out all at once when he saw a flicker on his tactical heads-up display, span his head around, and saw the glint off the canopies of the American fighters as they peeled away, moving back toward the Alaskan coast.

  “Don’t worry Ivan,” said the voice of the American flight leader, in the clear. “We’re not going far. Try coming a bit further east, we’ll be ready to welcome you.”

  “With respect, this is bullshit,” Bunny said, watching the icons for the Russian and American fighters diverge. “Russian fighters over US territory and we’re bugging out?”

  “What are our options here?” Rodriguez whispered to Halifax. She was the only other pilot in the room. Theoretically, she could help fly the drones in an emergency, but she wasn’t certified on these platforms and was from an older generation of pilots: strictly one girl, one machine. What Bunny was doing now, she couldn’t dream of matching.

  “You heard,” Halifax said. “We are not to engage.”

  The Russian B flight had moved into a racetrack orbit over Gambell township on the east of the island, just behind the main Russian fighter force. “I could blow a big-arse hole in their B-team right now, ma’am,” Bunny said. “I have a wedge of Fantoms right underneath them.” Rodriguez saw the icons for the second flight of Russian fighters sweep over the top of Bunny’s Fantoms without even realizing they were there.

  “I think the Russians might react poorly to that Lieutenant,” Rodriguez said. “If our President did spit-swear a deal with theirs.” A thought occurred to her. “But make a run over Gambell will you? I’d like to know why the Russians have parked a flight of Migs right on top of a small Yup’ik fishing village.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Bunny said happily. “I’ll throw the feed up here.” Without taking her eyes off her virtual-reality visor, she pointed up to the two 2D screens showing the feed from the drones screaming toward Gambell. They showed two different views of the town, as Bunny had programmed two of the Fantoms to come in from the south, at wave-top level, while the others approached from the north and would be popping up to 5,000 feet to get a good look at the village and surrounds. She gave them a rendezvous south of the Island, over the Bering Strait and out of harm’s way.

  Rodriguez didn’t know where to look. On one 2D tactical screen the HUDs of the Fantoms were still showing the target boxes for the two Russian air groups, one in the east, one in the west. On the screen Bunny had just pointed at, the view was split into four, showing the nose camera feed from the four drones approaching Gambell in near real-time. They showed various versions of rushing water with a smudge of land on the horizon. Suddenly the ground vanished and then there was nothing but grey sky as the Fantoms popped up at the start of their recon run.

  “F1 and F2 coming up on Gambell,” Bunny said, and Rodriguez glued her eyes to the screen showing the feed from the four recon drones as the land slowly came into focus and the small village grew larger as they rapidly closed. Suddenly one of the four squares flashed with static and went black.

  “Damn,” Bunny said. She started tapping her keys, but the screen stayed black. She jabbed her touchscreen and dragged a finger across it. “Breaking off!”

  “What?” Rodriguez asked. “Did we lose the feed?”

  “No,” Bunny replied, her voice ice cold and angry. “We just lost a damn Fantom!”

  Perri Tungyan shivered uncontrollably. He need
ed to get warm, but that would have to wait. He was watching an invasion unfold right in front of him. He’d scurried up the hill to the old gas station and kicked in the door. It wasn’t locked, just stuck. He’d been up there with other kids a few years back, looking for anything that could be salvaged and sold, but the place had been stripped clean. There was a shop and cashier area with broken windows looking out and down on the town, and Perri crouched behind the cashier desk with his wet blanket around him, his body heat warming the seal fur just enough to stop him going into shock.

  The clutter of buildings that was the village of Gambell hid from view what was happening down there, but he could clearly see the military transports and soldiers down at the airstrip unloading crates and vehicles from them. As each chopper was emptied, it would take off and head West, and a new helicopter would fly in and take its place.

  He almost missed the Verba ground to air missile leap into the air and zoom toward the horizon.

  From the corner of his eye, at the far end of the runway across the bay, he picked up a flash and then a blossom of white smoke. A finger of light, almost like a laser, flashed across the sky and disappeared in a second, leaving a trail of wispy vapor in the air behind it, showing where the missile was headed. Looking at where it had come from, Perri saw soldiers standing around some kind of tripod by a small trailer, struggling to lift another missile out of a crate and fit it to the rails of a launcher mounted on the tripod and connected to a small antenna.