by Dale Brown
“Relax, Frenchy, relax,” Boomer said. He was fixated on just one readout — the exterior skin temperature. “It must be a targeting or rangefinder laser — hull temperature hasn’t moved.” He checked the rear cockpit monitor and saw Moulain frantically scanning her own readouts, looking for confirmation. “Just keep your protective visor down. We’ll be over their horizon in a minute or two.”
The Meteor re-entry vehicle fired its small retro-rocket to slow itself down, then assumed a nose-high attitude as it started to descend through the atmosphere. As it slowed to below Mach ten, the mission-adaptive systems on board activated, and the craft began to do a series of S-turns to slow itself down even more. As the atmosphere got denser the mission-adaptive flight controls became more and more active, and the Meteor was able to fully maneuver.
“Meteor passing through one hundred thousand feet, range two hundred,” Moulain reported. “Still in the green. Threat warning receiver has identified the target illuminator as an SA-12 ‘High Screen’ sector scanner…passing through seventy-five thousand, range one-fifty…coming within SA-12 lethal range…now.” The SA-12 “Giant” surface-to-air missile system was one of the most advanced anti-aircraft systems in the world. Purchased from Russia and widely publicized, the SA-12 was designed to protect Iran’s most valuable nuclear weapons production facilities from stealth bomber and cruise missile launches as well as from attack aircraft.
Another threat warning tone sounded, this time with the text warning “MISSILE LAUNCH. SA-12 in the air,” she reported. “SPAW missiles powering up, and data transfer in progress…thirty seconds to separation…second SA-12 is up…another SA-12 in the air…SPAW missile data transfer complete, missiles ready to go…now we have an SA-10 target acquisition radar up…coming up on separation point…now.”
The Meteor vehicle split apart and ejected its three weapons. The AGM-170D SPAW missiles stabilized themselves in the slipstream, took their initial GPS satellite position and velocity updates, did a fast self-check, then fired its first-stage solid-motor rocket engine. In less than twenty seconds the SPAW missiles had accelerated to Mach three and streaked across the sky toward their assigned targets. A few seconds later, the first two SA-12 missiles plowed into the empty Meteor vehicle, blowing it to bits.
When the SPAW missiles’ motor casings were empty, small air intakes on the SPAW missiles’ bodies extended. The interior shape of the motor casing compressed the incoming supersonic air. Fuel and a spark were introduced, and the missiles’ scramjet engine flared to life. Seconds later the missiles passed Mach five. The SA-10 anti-aircraft missiles had a max speed of Mach six, but their solid-fuel rocket motors had already burned out so they were simply coasting toward a spot in space where their targeting computers predicted their quarry would be. The more they turned to chase down the SPAW missiles the slower they flew, until seconds before intercept they could no longer maintain altitude and simply fell to Earth.
The SA-12 battery had fired two more missiles at the incoming AGM-170D attack missiles, and the SA-10 battery fired two more as well. The SA-12s destroyed the first incoming SPAW missile. But by this time the SPAWs were just seconds from impact, and their speed had increased in the descent to well over Mach six, and the SA-10s missed the other two incoming attackers. Patrick’s “Need-It-Right-This-Second” micro-satellites orbiting over the target area provided the final precision steering signals to the SPAW missiles, and both of the surviving missiles made direct hits on their assigned Shahab-5 launch silos. The resulting thermium-nitrate explosions, and the massive secondary explosions caused by thousands of gallons of rocket fuel and oxidizer blowing up in their silos, were bright enough to be seen for a hundred miles away.
“Direct hits, guys and gals!” Patrick announced. “Excellent job!”
“But we still have one silo remaining,” Kai Raydon said. “They’ll launch the third one, sir, I know it — now that we’ve attacked their other babies, they know we’re gunning for them.”
“We’ll deal with them then,” Patrick said. “Right now we’ve got Stud One-One ready to release.”
“Meteor on course and on glidepath,” Benneton said, announcing her payload readouts aloud. “Carrier temps normal. Thirty seconds to weapon release.”
Olray and Benneton’s targets were different than Noble’s and Moulain’s: they only carried three AGM-170D SPAW missiles, like Stud One-Three, but they knew there were going to be many more Shahab-2 and -3s in the field than there were Shahab-5 silos, and only three SPAWs wouldn’t take them all out. Someone else was going to do that job. They also knew, like Zarand, that the Strongbox would be defended by Iran’s most sophisticated high-altitude, anti-missile-capable air defense weapons.
But instead of evading the SA-10 and SA-12 surface-to-air missile sites, Stud One-One’s job was to attack and destroy them.
Each SA-10 and SA-12 brigade consisted of six transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) surrounding the pre-surveyed launch points in the area of the Strongbox. Each TEL had four vertically launched missiles, connected to the command post by microwave datalinks backed up by armored fiber-optic cables. The surveillance, target tracking, and missile guidance radars were also similarly linked to the command post vehicles, and each brigade’s command posts were linked to each other so they could share radar data. As with the Shahab-5 launch silos near Zarand, there were two SA-10 brigades and one SA-12 brigade in the Strongbox area, with a total of seventy-two anti-aircraft missiles ready to fire, plus another ninety-six reloads that could be made ready to launch in under thirty minutes.
There was no way one Black Stallion attacker could destroy all one hundred and sixty-eight missiles — that would take an entire squadron of heavy bombers loaded with precision-guided munitions, which didn’t exist any more in the United States Air Force. But there were only three command posts coordinating the surface-to-air missile defenses of the Strongbox…and that was precisely how many AGM-170D SPAW missiles Olray and Benneton had just launched.
“Good missile separation from the Meteor,” Benneton reported. “SA-10 and SA-12 long-range surveillance…switching to target tracking mode…now I’ve got a new tracking radar warning! Do you see this, Genesis?”
“Roger, One-One,” Patrick responded. “It’s been identified as an extremely high-powered Golf-band frequency-agile phased array radar last seen on a Russian anti-ballistic missile ground-based laser.”
“Anti-missile laser!”
“Stud One-Three got the same indications down south, but nothing else happened — the SA-10s and -12s came up and engaged normally,” Patrick reported. “The laser system I’m familiar with used a small electronic diode laser to refine tracking and do atmospheric attenuation readings, and One-Three got hit with it too, but nothing else happened.”
“What does all that mean, Genesis?” Benneton asked worriedly.
“We think it’s just a target tracking radar or a decoy emitter, One-One.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“There’s not a whole lot we can do anyway except perhaps try to accelerate and boost into a higher orbit,” Olray said. “We’re pressing on.”
“SPAWs on course, good acceleration, still reporting good connectivity,” Benneton said. At that moment the warning tone sounded and a “LASER ILLUM” alert came on their multi-function screens. “There’s the laser warning, Genesis.”
“Roger, we see it. Continue.”
“Okay.” She rechecked the flight profile of the SPAW missiles, but couldn’t help glancing nervously at the “LASER ILLUM” alert. “What kind of laser did you say this was, Genesis?”
“Try to ignore it, MC,” Olray said. “We’ll be over their horizon in four minutes.”
“It’ll last just a minute — they might be trying to lock onto the SPAWs,” Patrick said. “Continue.”
“Roger. Good track…looks like Odin is taking precision course guidance.”
“That’s affirm, One-One,” Raydon said. “Last NIRTSat picture was just four minutes
ago. We got ’em zeroed in. Satellite datalink is solid and the SPAWs are ridin’ the rail.”
“Maybe we ought to blast off on outta here, AC, now that Silver Tower has the wheel,” Benneton said. “That laser warning is making me nervous.”
“One-Three didn’t get anything,” Olray reminded her. “Less than three minutes and then we’ll be out of sight. Just try to…”
Except for the screams, that was the last either of them uttered. At that instant the cockpit filled with a brilliant blue-orange light that quickly grew brighter and brighter and hotter and hotter, and seconds later the XR-A9 Black Stallion exploded in a massive fireball, drawing a bright line of fire across the sky clearly visible to anyone on the ground even in daylight.
ABOARD HEADBANGER SEVEN-ZERO,
SEVENTY MILES EAST OF THE STRONGBOX
THAT SAME TIME
The streak of fire was not only visible to persons on the ground, but visible to some in the sky as well. “Look at that!” exclaimed U.S. Air Force Reserve Captain Mark Hours. “Somebody’s on fire. That doesn’t look good.”
“Way too high to affect us…I hope,” the EB-52 Megafortress’s aircraft commander, U.S. Air Force Reserve Major Wyatt Cross, said. He pointed to his supercockpit display aboard the highly modified B-52 battleship. “But we got some good news: the SA-10s and -12s are down. You copy that, guys?”
“We copy,” Brigadier-General Hal Briggs responded. “Definitely good news.” He and one of his Air Battle Force Ground Operations teammates were inside an MQ-35 Condor air-launched special operations transport aircraft nestled in the EB-52’s bomb bay. The Condor was a small stealthy aircraft powered by a turbojet engine designed to glide commandos behind enemy lines and then fly them out again a short distance after their mission was complete. Normally the Condor could carry four fully armed commandos, but the equipment Briggs and his partner, U.S. Army First Lieutenant Charlie Brakeman, carried took up a lot of space. While Briggs rode in the Condor aircraft with his standard black battle dress uniform, Brakeman wore Tin Man battle armor. “Let us go and let’s get to it.”
“Coordinating with the rest of the package now. Stand by.”
Hours was already checking his wide-screen supercockpit display. Two other aircraft were visible on the moving-map presentation of the battle plan. He used his eye-pointing system to select the status of the nearest of the two. “Lead is showing thirty seconds to release, guys. Stand by.”
Brakeman put on his helmet, locked it in place, powered up his battle armor, pulled his chest and lap belts tight, and gave Briggs a thumbs-up. Briggs put on a standard flight helmet, clipped his oxygen mask in place, pulled his straps tight, and returned the thumbs-up. “We’re ready when you are.”
“Here we go, guys,” Cross announced. “Good luck.” Briggs heard a loud rumbling and saw the bomb bay doors retracting inside the walls of the bomb bay. “Doors coming open…ready…ready…release…doors coming closed.”
The Condor aircraft dropped free of the EB-52—because it was daylight, and they rarely flew daytime missions, they actually got to watch the amazing EB-52 roar overhead as they fell free. It was the part Briggs hated most because that sudden weightlessness and the seemingly uncontrollable swaying and pitching as the aircraft stabilized itself in the Megafortress’s violent slipstream was hard on his stomach, but as soon as the Condor’s little wings popped out and the mission-adaptive actuators throughout the craft steadied it, he felt better.
“Doing OK, Brake?” Briggs asked.
“No problem, sir,” Brakeman replied. “You okay, sir?”
“I always get a little queasy at first. I’m okay.”
“Welcome to the theater, Condor,” Brigadier-General David Luger radioed from the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center Battle Management Center at Elliott Air Force Base in Nevada. “This is Genesis Two. We’ve got you about eleven minutes to touchdown. Everyone doing OK?”
“Condor One good to go,” Briggs said. “Condors, sound off.”
“Condor Two, good to go,” Brakeman responded.
“Condor Three, in the green,” responded the first commando from the lead EB-52 battleship, Army National Guard Captain Charlie Turlock. Her partner, U.S. Army Specialist Maria Ricardo, answered a few moments later. “Sorry, Condor Four had to lose some of her breakfast,” Turlock said. “We’re both in the green — Four is just a little more green.”
“Welcome to the club, Four,” Briggs said.
“Here’s the situation, guys: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have ordered deployment, and we suspect a launch, of their ballistic missiles following the insurgent and regular army attacks on their headquarters base in Tehran,” Dave said. “Stud One-Three attacked and destroyed two of three Shahab-5 medium-range missiles in the south. We don’t know what’s going to happen with the third known -5 missile, but we think they’re going to launch it as soon as they can.
“In the north, the situation is more dynamic,” Dave went on. “The bad news first: we lost Stud One-One. We think a Russian ground-based laser got it.”
“Oh, shit,” Briggs murmured. He knew that “Nano” Benneton was aboard that flight and knew she would have died quickly and painlessly. “That has to be one big-ass laser to shoot down a small spaceplane in Earth orbit.”
“Does the name ‘Kavaznya’ ring a bell, One?” Dave asked.
“You’re shitting me?” Hal exclaimed. Hal knew the name well: he was the security officer in charge of the original EB-52 Megafortress project some twenty years earlier that was tasked to destroy the Russians’ first ground-based anti-satellite and anti-missile laser at Kavaznya in eastern Siberia.
“I shit you not, One,” Dave said. “The radar and tracking laser characteristics are the same. We haven’t pinpointed the laser’s location yet.”
“I’ve got dibs on it,” Hal said.
“You got it, One. Stud One-One did launch its weapons before it was hit, and all three SPAW missiles scored direct hits on the SA-10 and SA-12 command vehicles around the Strongbox. We know they have tactical battlefield optronic and infrared sensors, but we don’t think they’ll see you land. So far the landing zone is clear, but they know we’re coming, so be ready for anything.”
“They won’t be ready for us,” Charlie Turlock said.
“We’ve updated your tactical charts on the current Shahab-2 and -3 TEL locations, and we’ll keep you updated every time we get a new NIRTSat pass,” Dave said. “They have significant numbers of security deployed out there. When their SAM command vehicles went up it appears most of their security guards ran off — whether they were redeployed back to the Strongbox, back to the ballistic missile units, or just ran off, we don’t know, but we should assume that security around the Shahabs will be tighter than first briefed. That’s the latest. Any questions?”
“Any chance anyone on Stud One-One ejected?” Hal asked.
“Sorry, One,” Dave said. “No ejection seats.”
“Damn,” Hal muttered. “Find that laser, Genesis Two. I want it.”
“We’ll let you know, One. Six minutes to landing. Landing zone still looks clear, threat warning receivers are clear. Good luck, Condors.”
The landing site was a small concrete landing strip, built during the Strongbox’s construction but largely unused and unmanned since, about five miles from the southwesterly side of the cave complex. Hal was ready to take command of the Condor aircraft, but he knew it flew mostly by autopilot, even for takeoffs and landings. The aircraft flew a wide arc southwest of the Strongbox complex and between two known Shahab launch sites. The Condor’s small turbojet engine was on but still at idle since their gliding descent was steep enough that they had plenty of speed. Hal knew the other Condor was coming in from a different direction but landing in the same direction on the runway. The electronic tactical display on the Condor’s instrument panel showed both aircrafts’ positions — and they were close, landing just a few seconds apart.
As usual, the landing was hard. Hal use
d the rudder pedals to keep the aircraft straight down the runway, easing off to the left side of the landing strip to give as much room as possible for Turlock’s Condor. The mission-adaptive technology on the little aircraft immediately turned the entire fuselage and flight control surfaces into speed brakes, and the aircraft slowed quickly, making both crewmembers strain against their harnesses.
As soon as they stopped, Hal unstrapped and opened the hatch. “Establish security, now,” he ordered, and he jumped out, followed closely by Brakeman. Hal handed Brakeman his electromagnetic rail gun, then began unpacking the rest of their gear from the back of the Condor.
Just then Brakeman heard on his battle armor’s satellite transceiver: “Condor, Condor, vehicle heading your way, north side of the field!”
Brakeman immediately plugged the rail gun into the Tin Man armor power supply, activated it, and immediately used the battle armor’s on-board radar and infrared sensors to sweep the area for threats. He saw the second Condor already rolling out from its landing…
…and at mid-field, still on the shoulder of the runway but just now coming onto the pavement, was a Russian-made ZSU-23/4 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun! “Contact!” he radioed. “Zeus-23-four!” He immediately leveled his rail gun, locked on, and fired, just as the quad 23-millimeter machine guns on the Iranian anti-aircraft vehicle opened fire on the second Condor. The gunfire stopped after less than a second, but Brakeman could hear crashing noises as the second Condor veered off the right side of the runway. Seconds later the ZSU-23/4 exploded in a massive ball of fire, with thousands of rounds of ammunition cooking off inside adding to the devastation.
Brakeman ran over to the second Condor and found Turlock and Ricardo climbing out. Hal Briggs joined them moments later. “You guys okay?” he asked.
“We’re okay, but the cabin filled with smoke,” Turlock said. “I pulled the fire handles, but the smoke is still coming out. Help us get our stuff out before this thing blows up.” In seconds all four of them had emptied the second Condor and retreated back to the first aircraft.
