Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  "One! Two! Three! GO!"

  The sled sped off, crashing down the steps. The transition onto the landing was perfect; the old wing section slid across the floor without losing much speed, then it tipped off the edge to swoop down, hitting the bar with a crash that set all the bottles behind it rattling and chiming. Yates slid about halfway down the bar and the spectators held their breath. Would he make it off the end of the bar and land on the floor, still on his sled? If he did, it would be free drinks for life. It was also a feat nobody had ever achieved. Alas for Captain Yates, though probably fortunately for his liver, it was a feat still unachieved. The sled came to a halt about two thirds of the way down the bar.

  Behind the polished mahogany, the barmaid stepped forward to pour the first drink. "Ohh Captain, you are so strong and skillful. Your wife must be very proud."

  Yates took the drink and lifted it in toast to the Regimental crest over the bar, a gesture that won a quick burst of applause. "I fear I am not yet married." The barmaid's eyes lit up in suddenly awakened hope. "But soon, my fiancée and I will indeed be joined in holy wedlock. Look, here is her picture." He pulled his wallet and showed the head-and-shoulders shot around to the appropriate collection of lascivious, suggestive and sometimes downright obscene remarks. The barmaid went through the motions of complimenting the American Captain but her heart really wasn't in it. After all, she had been sadly disappointed.

  O'Seven wasn't very happy either. Even from several feet away he'd recognized the caramel skin and black corn-row woven hair. So that was how Yates had stolen his electronics crew chief. Briefly O'Seven contemplated strangling the young Captain but decided it would come under the heading of ‘Conduct prejudicial to good order and discipline.' Then, he had a much better idea. "Paul, will you please get every Natasha on this base and throw them at Captain Yates, singly and in batches, until he succumbs to their charms. I want my crew chief back."

  Lazaruski laughed, then stopped dead. An eerie quiet had fallen on the Mess for standing in the door was a Very Senior Officer. Very Senior Indeed, for even by Russian standards the gold braid was profuse. The General walked across the room towards the bar, then grabbed Yates in bear hug, swinging him around. "A good ride on the sled my American friend, and a perfect landing. Although I am not a member of this mess, may I be allowed to buy our friend from over the Atlantic his drink?"

  There was a roaring cheer of approval. Lazaruski took the opportunity to speak quietly with O'Seven. "That is General Oleg Penkovsky, Commander of the Moscow Air Defense Region. It is against his fighters and missiles that you have been flying for the last two weeks. He is also a personal confidant of President Cherniakhovskii and one of the possible successors when the President decides to retire, as he will in the next few years. Many hope that General Penkovsky will indeed be the chosen heir. He is a forthright man, one of great patriotism and courage yet also one who is not afraid to speak out and take action when he believes something is wrong. The sort of leader Russia needs."

  Lazaruski grimaced slightly. "Of course, forty years ago he would have been shot out of hand for such behavior." The comment surprised him slightly, he'd grown increasingly cautious about indicating to the people around him just how old he was. But then, good friends and good vodka would make men's guard drop and that too had resulted in them being shot out of hand back in the old days. "Come, I will introduce you."

  Lazaruski waited until the General had finished exchanging jocularity's with the pilots around the bar, then cleared his throat.

  "Tovarish General? May I introduce Major O'Seven of the B-70 Sigrun"

  Penkovsky turned around, his eyes lighting up at the sound of Lazaruski's voice. "It is my old friend Paul Lazaruski. It is good to see you still fly in the Rodina's defense. And Major O'Seven, your Sigrun has taught us much over the last two weeks. You have given our designers a great deal to think upon. Have you flown often at Red Sun?"

  "A couple of times in Honey Pot, my old B-60, and for the last three years in Sigrun. Now that we have our defensive systems fully operational, we are giving the Nevada defenses a very hard time. DAMS allows us to take out SAMs and that throws everything onto the fighters. It's the old problem Sir. By the time a fighter gets up high enough and fast enough to intercept us, it has only a few minutes to do the necessary actions. Time just runs out on it. Even our F-112s are having problems and they have nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles."

  "And you think our fighters should have such weapons too?" "Frankly, Sir, yes."

  "There is much opposition to that, for very good reasons. Perhaps it needs to be discussed further. Gentlemen, I know you are fighter pilots but I have news of the air force for you. Today, we have ordered that the Sukhoi T-4MS experimental bomber will be placed in full production as the Sukhoi Su-28. In 1974, the first operational squadron will be going to Nevada to join the Red Sun Exercise there."

  More cheering erupted it in the room, some a little muted from fighter pilots who would have preferred to hear of a new fighter type. Penkovsky's voice dropped out of public address mode and he clapped O'Seven on the shoulder, making the American stagger slightly. "And, Major O'Seven I hope our new bomber makes your missile crews cry as much as your Sigrun has made ours weep in despair."

  Main Conference Room, National Security Council Building, Washington D. C.

  "Good morning, President Nixon. Welcome to the National Security Council. Here's your copy of the briefing book. If you could just sign in the usual place?"

  "Miss Naamah. In future I wish to arrive at the Friday Follies 30 minutes in advance of the start of the meeting so I can read the briefing book first. Please arrange that in future."

  "Certainly, Mister President."

  "No arguments or reasons why I shouldn't do that?"

  "No Sir, I think it's a very good idea. President Johnson liked to listen to the briefing first and then read the book at his leisure so he could present a list of written questions. Your way is the way it will be from now on. But, Sir, it's just Naamah, not Miss Naamah. I really haven't missed very much in my life."

  Nixon sniggered while Naamah carefully hid her grin. She was beginning to get the measure of this man now; he had a coarse, schoolboy's sense of humor, one that centered around sexual innuendo and foul language. He'd already sworn in front of her a couple of times, something that LBJ had never done. Johnson had an expert's command of foul and profane language which he had sometimes used to great effect but which he'd never employed it in front of women and he had not smiled on those who did. In contrast, Naamah suspected Nixon actually got a thrill out of shocking the women around him. She was also looking forward to telling The Seer that this President would have read the book before getting the briefing; she rather suspected he preferred not to have his audience fully informed on the subject under discussion.

  "Mister President. Welcome to your first solo Friday Folly." The Seer had slipped in and was standing by the podium in a corner of the room. Nixon glanced at the wall behind him. A large map of the South China Sea. Well, that could be expected. He took the padded, high-backed seat traditionally reserved for the President and leaned forward slightly. "I am afraid, Sir, that you start your Presidency in a world that is very far from being at peace and there are a number of situations that demand our attention. The first is here, in the South China Sea."

  "I saw some of that on television. The Indians got a bloody nose didn't they?"

  "They did, only they broke a couple of Chipanese kneecaps in the process. Our satellite shots and a couple of SR-71 overflights have shown it must have been a desperate fight. We know the Indian losses, a destroyer and two frigates, with the rest of their ships badly chewed up. We've seen the film on television. From what we've been able to see, they took down a decent honor guard though. One cruiser sunk, another smashed up, probably beyond repair, a third hurt. Five destroyers down, two crippled. From what we can make of it, the Indians didn't do subtlety. They simply went for the Chipanese head-on and slugged it out
- then kept slugging until the Chipanese broke off.

  "Admiral Stanley is impressed and a bit perturbed. If the Indian Navy really intends to fight like that, he reckons we need to double up on the short-range armament of our ships and give the new designs splinter protection to their electronics and machinery."

  "Do we need to budget that, Seer?"

  The Seer thought for a second and shook his head. "We don't fight that way; in fact we try not to fight at all. If we were ever in the same position, we'd just drop nukes on them. They can be as brave as they like underneath the fireballs. Anyway, we use carriers for sea control not surface ships. One thing though, this shoot out is a godsend for us. It's the first real naval battle since Wild Bill Halsey took the German fleet out in 1945 and the first surface gunfight, ohh since the River Plate in 1939. We're learning a lot just by watching. Not least of which is the war-emergency modes for the radars both sides use."

  "Suppose the enemy, whoever they are, manage to slide in close? Too close to use nukes. I don't know how, come in at night, pretend to be a merchant ship or hide in radar shadows or something. What would one of those Indian ships do if it got within gun range of a carrier?"

  "With those rapid fire guns? They'd create holy hell on board. Rake the hangar with those and the ship would be an inferno. Like the old Shiloh." The Seer watched Nixon gave a satisfied nod and reminded himself not to underestimate this man. Oafish he may be, but his first question had put a finger on a very valid point.

  "However. Sir, I don't think that upping close defense firepower on the ships will be useful, if they're that close, its already too late. The Indians proved they'll keep coming until somebody physically beats them under the water. It is a threat we should consider but I think the answer lies in improving surveillance so they can't get that close and pushing the outer defense ring a bit further away. Still, that's a matter for the Navy tacticians. From a strategic point of view, we have to recognize that the Indian Navy is now a regional player, worthy of note. That affects how we deploy to some extent. We're going to have to take the Indian Ocean a little more seriously from now on.

  "The big question is, what do the Chipanese do now? Their original plan was obvious. Soften the island up with bombing; send the surface group in to wipe out the shipping and defenses, then follow up with a landing. Not a subtle plan but all the better for that. Only it's gone now. They've moved ships from Hong Kong to strengthen what's left of the South China Sea Squadron, but those reinforcements don't even begin to cover their losses. The obvious move is for them to bring down a pair, or more, of their carriers but their Navy is stretched desperately thin.

  "Also, they've played this one really carefully so far, I don't see why they should stop doing that. You know, the Indians are doing us a tremendous favor here although they don't know it. We're learning more about the Chipanese Navy and how it thinks than we've done for years. I'd almost be tempted to pay them to carry on the fight just to see what'II happen next."

  "We didn't bribe them to start this did we?" Nixon's voice was suspicious.

  "‘No, Sir, we did not. I wish we'd thought of doing just that a few years back, though. Anyway, the South China Sea isn't a dangerous situation in that it's controlled, confined and restricted. As such it's none of our concern. We should watch it, of course; I've already said how much we've learned from it, but we can let that situation develop."

  "It's dangerous for the people in it. Doesn't that count for something?"

  "‘For them, obviously yes. But that's their problem; the situation does not threaten to spread or affect our interests. So, for us, it ends there."

  The Seer paused and drew breath for a second. Then he changed the map, to one of French Algeria. "On the other hand, this situation is spreading, is very dangerous and does directly threaten us. It is, therefore, our business.

  "The French have experienced five outbreaks of smallpox in French Algeria. Four are villages located here, here, here and here." At each point, the Seer's pointer tapped a red circle on the map. "The fifth is the French Air Force airfield west of Bone, here." Another tap. "As you can see the four villages hit are in the same locality and very close. In fact, they form what the French Army General Bigeard calls a "Communale." That's a group of communities that have banded together for mutual support in economic and defensive matters.

  "We don't know if they were all infected or whether one was, and infected the others. That's something that doesn't matter now. What does matter is that all four are being decimated by this disease. The airfield at Bone is quite separate from that communal, but the link is there. About two weeks ago, a fighter from Bone attacked a Slime that crossed the border near those villages. It appears that, somehow, the Slime infected the fighter as well as the village or villages."

  "How do we know this isn't just a natural outbreak? For all our efforts, smallpox isn't wiped out in the wild yet."

  "I'll come to that shortly. In passing, I'm not so sure that wiping feral smallpox out is a good idea, but again, we'll have to think on that one. Anyway, the French reported the outbreaks to the Center for Disease Control and we shipped them a planeload of vaccine in an attempt to contain the outbreaks. Ever since then, they've been shipping us all the data they can get and have sent us tissue, blood, all sorts of samples."

  "I thought the French hated us."

  "They do, sir. They always have, especially after the Champes Elysées. In passing, that seemed like a very good idea at the time but with a quarter century to look back, I'm not sure it was. Goes to show how useless hindsight really is. Anyway, the French don't want to be indebted to us, so they've gone over the odds in paying off for those vaccines. That's how we know this is a deliberate biowarfare attack. Sir, I've asked an expert from AMRIID to join this briefing to explain what appears to have happened."

  The Seer pressed a button on his intercom and spoke quietly. A few seconds later Lillith opened the door and showed in a mild, inoffensive looking man whose nervous rubbing of his hands suggested he was inordinately concerned with preserving the health of his fingers. He stepped up to the podium, rubbing an eyebrow reflectively.

  "Mr. President, National Security Advisor, Ladies, My name is Doctor Stens, I am the director of biological weapons research at Fort Detrick."

  "I wasn't aware we had a biological weapons program."

  "We don't, Sir. Our efforts in that area are purely defensive. We identify new biowarfare agents and develop treatments against them. In this case, we were immensely aided by the samples and reports from the French. They have an Air Force doctor over at the Bone Air Force Base, Doctor Arnold Pellatiere, who's been calling in every day to describe his symptoms and the course of the disease.

  "He's refused treatment for himself so that he can give us the most accurate picture of how this disease progresses and what the various stages of its development are. He says he can keep going for another couple of days or so before the smallpox reaches a point where he won't be able to make further reports. He's reporting horrendous mortality.

  "Sir, smallpox normally exhibits as a disease that has relatively low mortality. Those who die of it are the unfortunate souls who develop one of the more extreme forms: Confluent Smallpox where the pustules merge together or Hemorrhagic Smallpox where the disease progresses inwards and attacks the vital organs. The chance of either developing is very small and they are an either/or proposition. Get one, you don't get the other.

  "Only here, all of that is gone. All the patients progress from normal smallpox to the confluent form and then to hemorrhagic form. And, as far as we can see, they all die eventually. This is nothing that's been seen in nature before and something that is most unlikely to occur naturally, a disease so virulent burns itself out quickly and evolves to a less lethal form. This has to be a deliberately-engineered virus."

  "How does one ‘engineer' a disease?" Nixon's voice was scornful but the scorn was the product of fear, not disbelief.

  "There are quite a few ways of doing
that. The simplest way in this case is to infect a large number of people with smallpox, allow the disease to progress unchecked and harvest the virus from those who develop the confluent form. Culture that virus, infect a new group of victims and repeat the process.

  "Continue until development of the confluent form is the norm, not the exception. In other words, just as we selectively breed cattle for better meat or milk yields, they selectively breed smallpox virus for its tendency to develop into the confluent stage. Run a parallel program for hemorrhagic smallpox and eventually they would have two strains of smallpox, one of which went confluent as a matter of course, the other hemorrhagic.

  "Then, this is the clever bit. They take cultures of both and mix them together. Viruses have a strange habit, mix them together and they start to exchange bits of their DNA. So mix our two strains together and they'll do the same. Keep infecting victims and soon, very soon, one will develop both confluent and hemorrhagic symptoms. Isolate that strain, breed from it and there you are. All done."

  The room was silent, shocked by the implications of what they had just been told. Eventually, The Seer broke the appalled quiet. "How long would that take? Years? Decades?"

  Stens thought for second. "Minimum of four years, more likely six to ten. Depends how ruthless they are; the more test subjects they have, the quicker they can move."

  Nixon's voice was equally hushed. "Six years. How infectious is this disease? How is it spread?"

  Stens thought again. "In its natural form, smallpox isn't very infectious. The great epidemics were more a response to poor and overcrowded housing and terrible sanitation than anything else. But, this disease isn't smallpox, it's something new. My colleague in Bone calls it blackpox and that's as good a name as any.

  "Remember how I said viruses exchange DNA? It applies to all viruses. Mix the blackpox virus with, for example, influenza and eventually there will be an influenza virus that exhibits the symptoms and mortality of blackpox. Yet it will be as infectious as influenza. Even so, the very high lethality and infectiousness won't last. There's a thing called progression.