ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  While both men were laid out on the wet ground, Misha led the others in tearing through their combat load-out, barking at them to load up on ammo for their personal weapons and the squad machine gun. They didn’t need food or water, as they wouldn’t be out long – also, because Spetsnaz were expected to operate for long stretches without either. Plus they were in a damned river valley. Water they could find.

  He also had them take a few RPGs – the good ones, the RPG-32s. These were only a few years old, and were awesome at destroying everything from modern main battle tanks and APCs to bunkers and troops in defilade or in the open. It didn’t hurt that they had four types of warheads, including – unfortunately for troops in the open – a thermobaric one with enhanced fragmentation effect. They set the very air on fire.

  At the last second, Misha also unloaded a pair of 9K38 Igla surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). These were also totally modern – with a Friend or Foe ID system to prevent firing on friendly aircraft, automatic lead and elevation to simplify shooting and reduce minimum firing range, and a guidance system that was effective against fast and maneuverable targets. They also had improved lethality on target from delayed-impact fuzing, terminal maneuver to hit the fuselage rather than the jet nozzle, and an additional charge to set off the motherfucking remaining rocket fuel on impact. It also had improved resistance to countermeasures, both decoy flares and jamming emitters. It actually had two detectors – one for the target and another for decoy flares, the built-in logic determining which was which. For all these reasons, it had a hit probability of 0.8–0.9, compared to something like 0.4 for the American Stinger.

  Igla was “needle” in Russian, but Misha knew the NATO reporting name was “Grinch” – and he much preferred that. He used a lot of English in general. He yelled now for the Runt, who already looked overloaded humping ammo for their squad machine gunner. “Runt! Hump my Grinches, biznatcha!” The unusually normal-sized young man hastened to comply. Though with the difficulty he now had even standing up, it wasn’t clear how he was going to keep up with the marching column.

  But not really Misha’s problem.

  Finally he grabbed his RTO to make some calls. With the first, he learned that the American helo was on a direct intercept course with them, and only a few minutes out. They will be like the dog who catches the car, he thought, surveying his remaining team of ten hard pipe-hitters. Let them intercept.

  Nonetheless, he also contacted Team Two on the coast, sent them new grid coordinates – and instructed them to come pick their asses up in the vehicles. Misha only cared to do so much humping through the boonies on foot. But now, with the Americans crowding them from behind, and their ride a ways out, they needed to get moving.

  He threw Patient Zero over his own shoulder.

  And he stalked off into the forest without a word – real leaders didn’t have to tell anyone to follow. But at the last second he spotted the pilot and the other injured man laid out in the mud. He stopped the man beside him, removed all his grenades, and dropped them among the two wounded men.

  “You gimps are on rear ambush. Slow and degrade them.”

  Correction – he dropped all but one, a thermite grenade. This he armed and tossed into the open side cargo door of the helo, amid the ammo and gear they’d been forced to abandon.

  “Cover up,” he said to the wounded men on the ground. Then he looked up at Vasily and whistled for him to get his ass down. And then he stalked off.

  Without a backward glance.

  * * *

  Handon watched the bush spread out below them. They were now only a few minutes from where the Orca had crash-landed. He was about to issue final instructions to the team when Juice rose and grabbed him.

  “Hey, top, the replacement F-35 has come on station. You want talk-through?”

  “Has this guy got our encryption key?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Why?”

  “Never met the dude. He wasn’t in our briefings. And I couldn’t tell the Air Boss how to run his comms.”

  Handon keyed his radio anyway. “Firecrotch, this is Cadaver Actual.”

  “Go ahead, Cadaver.” Morris had that cool-pilot manner of speech, but his voice was a little reedy.

  Handon couldn’t resist. “How’d you get that call sign?”

  “Oh, sure, like I’m telling you. Let’s just say it involved a girl of questionable moral probity, warming lube, and hair trimmers.”

  “Okay, Firecrotch, be advised. We have reason to believe our comms may be compromised. I don’t want you putting out anything on this net you don’t want in wide broadcast. Got that?”

  Slight pause. This would no doubt be disconcerting. “Roger that, and wilco, Cadaver.”

  “Okay, Firecrotch, what I need from you is to keep eyes on the Russian team on the ground. Hailey gave you an airspace handover brief?”

  “Affirmative. She said she put their helo on its ass.”

  “Yeah. Now I need to know everything the passengers and crew are doing – and if they move, I need to know where.”

  “Way ahead of you, Cadaver. I’m already visual with the crash site and it looks deserted at this time.”

  Handon grimaced. He didn’t like this dude taking a bunch of initiative. He needed to control the pieces on the board. “Firecrotch, be advised – the Russians are known to have Starstreak SAMs. They used one to take out a drone from the Kennedy. And I really need you to not get shot down right now.”

  “Copy that, Cadaver. CIC already advised. And I’m right there with you. But no problem. Starstreaks are laser-guided – and I’m so low and fast, they’ll never get a laser on me, never mind keep it there. I’m honestly more worried about that Black Shark – as a threat to you guys in your Seahawk.”

  “Copy that. And we’re counting on you to keep it off us. But your urgent tasking is to find that enemy force on the ground.”

  “Roger that, Cadaver. The bush down there is pretty heavy – but it opens up in places. And if they’re continuing north, they’ll have to emerge at the river eventually. I’m going to get down and do some close passes and see if I can fix them for you. Stand by.”

  Handon tried to breathe. It wouldn’t matter if the Russians knew they were tracking them.

  They had to know that anyway.

  * * *

  That Black Shark was in fact out there – way down on the deck, following the outside edge of this riverine forest, using ground clutter to stay off radar. The forest blurred by on the right, the flat muddy floor of Somalia stretching out to the horizon to the left. And they had just been informed by their Akula that there was another F-35 back in their airspace.

  So the hunters were still the hunted.

  Though Nina didn’t see it that way.

  Bazarov, Nina’s co-pilot, didn’t understand what her plan was. Then again, he didn’t have to understand it. He certainly didn’t have to like it. He just had to do it. Theirs wasn’t the kind of outfit that rewarded independent thinking – never mind the kind of thoughts Bazarov was having lately.

  Like the ones he’d had back in the Stronghold.

  Bazarov had never before seen anyone fire two 122mm rockets – into a single enemy soldier. But Nina had done just that. When the wall came down behind the vaporized guy, he thought maybe that was what she was going for. Maybe that was all the explanation he needed. He wasn’t going to get more.

  His job was to monitor the sensor suites and radios and maintain situational awareness of the battlespace. Then, as now, Nina was both flying the aircraft and controlling the weapons systems. But when she’d started fire-hosing men on the ground with the autocannon – guys who were no more than a minute away from being devoured by the dead anyway – Bazarov couldn’t stop himself from saying something.

  “Why, tovarisch? Why are you doing this? We’ve already got what we came for – it’s miles away from here.”

  “Why? Because I don’t like fucking Islamists. They’re a threat – and much better dead.
”

  Bazarov shook his head remembering this. He still didn’t understand why they had to kill everyone who wasn’t Russian. Surely, they are living people just like us, he thought. We should be natural allies.

  Now, with the report of the new F-35 coming toward them, Bazarov truly believed they should clear out and put some distance between them and it. They couldn’t begin to match up against that fighter. But he’d learned his lesson about second-guessing the commander of this aircraft, so he held his tongue.

  Nothing ever scared Nina.

  And that scared the hell out of Bazarov.

  * * *

  “Got ’em,” Firecrotch reported on the CAS net. “They’re moving overland through heavy bush, but I spotted them on infrared.”

  “Copy that,” Handon said “Can you transmit their coords?”

  “Lased them, and sending grid reference now via data link.”

  Handon watched Muralles, the co-pilot/ATO, monitoring a small data terminal, until he nodded up at him. They had it.

  “Listen, Cadaver, I’m going to try to rodeo these guys for you a little. Or at least slow ’em down. A little strafing in front of their path should box them in.”

  Handon didn’t love this plan. But before he could protest, or remind Firecrotch the Russians might now know he was coming, he heard:

  “Don’t worry, I won’t hit anyone – alive or dead. Tipping in now…”

  * * *

  “Boss,” Misha’s RTO said. “Intercepted transmission. That F-35 is inbound on us now. Gun run.”

  Misha hadn’t stopped humping through the bush when they heard something jet-powered blasting overhead – and none of the others were stopping if he didn’t. But now he turned on a dime, stalked back through the column to the Runt and relieved him of one of the Grinches. He powered it up and popped out the sights, just as the forest ahead started exploding with cannon fire.

  Gah, Misha thought. This guy couldn’t hit my gigantic nutsack if it were mounted on a pedestal…

  While the rest of the team dispersed into cover, Misha didn’t flinch. He stood erect, missile on shoulder, tracking through the forest canopy something that couldn’t yet be seen. And then it blasted by overhead, too fast to track with the eye.

  But not too fast to track with infrared homing. Misha snap-fired the missile with hair-trigger reflexes – and the Grinch nearly instantly locked onto the F-35’s hot exhaust trail, Misha panning the launcher to follow the plane’s path. The missile blasted out of the tube. It climbed above the trees. And then it took off behind the fighter.

  At nearly 1,300mph.

  * * *

  “Ah, shit,” Handon said. Still leaning into the cockpit, he and the pilots could see the whole thing happen right in front of them.

  The F-35 had ascended a couple of hundred feet above tree level, come around, and then descended on a southwest to northeast attack line, its nose-mounted autocannon firing a sparking line of tracers down into the bush, which rippled with foliage and wood being kicked up by small explosions.

  But just as the fighter pulled up again, there was a whoosh of smoke from the trees, and a tiny dart zipped up from the canopy and fell in behind it. A dozen bright decoy flares blasted out of the bottom of the F-35 and arced off on smoke trails to either side, looking like some aerial fireworks display. From these, Reich and Muralles knew Morris’s missile warning receiver would be going apeshit, warning him of radar lock. But it would only do so for one second.

  Because that was how long the SAM took to catch him.

  The Grinch ignored the flares completely and instead flew right up the jet’s exhaust trail, jigging alongside the fuselage at the last second. And before their eyes the sleek aircraft exploded into twisting and flaming debris – wings, vertical stabilizer, and pieces of fuselage all continuing forward with the plane’s momentum, but slowly drifting apart and falling to Earth. Handon thought he could even see most of a human shape in the middle of it all.

  Firecrotch never had a chance.

  Handon looked to the pilots. “That wasn’t laser-guided.”

  “Nope,” Reich said. “Heat-seeking, guaranteed.”

  Behind him, Ali watched the smoke trail of the rocket, slowly dissipating in the wind. "Well at least we know where the Russians are now.” The source of the smoke trail was obvious.

  Muralles looked over his shoulder, and gave her an open-mouthed look. That was their brother aviator who had just died right in front of them. How could she be so cold?

  “Sorry,” Ali said, shrugging. This was war. People died. She didn’t know the dude. And it was evidently his own stupidity, not to mention hubris, that got him killed.

  But then the Seahawk’s own missile warning receiver went off. Now someone had a lock on them.

  Maybe hubris is going around, Ali thought.

  * * *

  Reich put his cyclic all the way left and into the floor, taking them evasive. But even as the G-forces pulled at Handon, hands were yanking him out of the narrow opening to the cockpit.

  And Ali jammed herself in his place.

  “This one’s not a SAM,” she said, pointing out the cockpit glass at a dark moving shape, in the distance but closing fast.

  “Shit,” said Muralles. It was the Black Shark. And it was back – and closing with them fast. With the Seahawk’s top cover in pieces down on the ground, the Russian bird of prey was again free to hunt and destroy. Now it owned the skies. And it had wasted absolutely no time in coming after them.

  Reich instinctively angled them away from it, the whole cabin tilting violently around them – but quickly found Ali’s hand wrapped around his on the cyclic, stopping his intended movement, and reversing it.

  “No,” she said. “Close! You’ve got to close with it.”

  And that’s exactly what they did, the helo rocking the other way and accelerating at the last possible second – as a streaking shape roared by their nose in a wash of fire and smoke. Reich’s mouth opened as he realized it was one of the Black Shark’s Vikhr anti-armor missiles. And Ali had just pushed them inside its effective range. If she hadn’t, they’d all be hot magma right now.

  But then the Black Shark’s autocannon started triggering off, and the Seahawk was at the perfect range for that – point blank. Ali shrugged as if she had seen this coming.

  Hey, we’re alive. She’d had to pick their poison.

  Reich banked and jigged, but explosions and the tearing of metal sounded down the back left side of the airframe, culminating at the tail. A klaxon and red warning light went off on the pilots’ control panel. Ali could see exactly what it indicated: they’d just lost tail rotor function.

  Touché, she thought, mordantly. Turnabout.

  As the torque started to build up in the overhead rotors, Reich battled the controls – and gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead as he tried to put their bird on the deck before it did it for them. And there was nothing down below them but heavy bush.

  Ali shrugged again and returned to the rear to let them get on with it. And to get herself and the others flat on the deck. The last thing any of them needed was crushed vertebrae. The airframe began to groan and shriek as they went in.

  This was going to hurt.

  Ass-Rams

  JFK, Gallery Deck, Stern Officer’s Head

  Hailey splashed water in her face then looked up at herself in the mirror. Normally pixieish and youthful with a few freckles and chin-length brown hair, she suddenly looked a little haggard, even to herself. It had been a hell of a couple of weeks – and it had just culminated with one hell of a mission. Now she had ninety minutes to get herself together before she had to go up again.

  Or so she thought.

  Because the door to the head banged open, and behind it stood the air wing leading petty officer (LPO). He was unlikely to be here to take a shit. LPOs, as far as Hailey was aware, did not defecate. Except on junior officers who pissed them off. Hailey stared at him over her own shoulder.

 
“Wells,” he said. “Get your ass up top – now.”

  She turned to face him, water still dripping from her chin. “What? What happened?”

  “Morris got shot down.”

  Hailey’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. She was instantly back in the same bad dream as before – when the CAG and Tom-o had been shot down by SAMs from the Russian battlecruiser. And once again there was no one for them to send back out there – no one but her.

  “Did he punch out?”

  “Move your ass! We need to cycle you – now. On me!”

  Hailey wiped her face with her sleeve and followed – at a run.

  * * *

  Buried down in CIC, LT Campbell spoke into her headset while staring up at the three large video displays at the front of the room. “Cadaver, be advised,” she said. “That missile launch profiles as an SA-18 Grinch. It’s a MANPAD – newest and best, with imaging infrared homing.”

  “So much for stealth fighters,” Handon said across the net.

  Campbell could practically hear the Air Boss, monitoring this channel from PriFly, gritting his teeth. She said it so he wouldn’t have to: “Cadaver, we stopped configuring our birds for serious stealth some time ago.”

  “Maybe you should have fucking well started again after you lost your two top pilots to Russian SAMs.”

  Campbell bit her tongue. And then she didn’t. “The Admiral Nakhimov is at the bottom of the ocean. We weren’t focused on fighting the last war—”

  “Because you thought it was won. But it’s not. It’s still very much on. Keep us posted. Cadaver out.”

  * * *

  Handon replaced the hand mic on the Seahawk radio. This was the last use they were going to get out of it. Not to mention their last use of the helicopter itself – and the pilots. He put his right hand on Reich’s slumped shoulder, and his left on Muralles’s. Both men were dead. He’d verified this as soon as everyone in back recovered from the crash landing.

  As far Handon could tell, the two pilots had put the nose of the bird in first, to safeguard the lives of the men in back. They had managed to get them down into something like a clearing. But, mainly, they had eaten the crash themselves, face-first, so that the others might live – and carry on the mission. They had judged that the task, and the lives of the operators charged with it, were more important than their own.