by Unknown
Aboard the Churchill, the operator reported the target had been destroyed. It was the first time the laser system had been used in actual combat. It was an outstanding success.
Hustvedt sat back in his seat and let out a long whistle. “That’s the end of round one,” he said.
The Chief of Staff chuckled. “Yea, but round two is right over here,” he said as he pointed toward the Russian task force. They were already well into the Black Sea making their way toward the Americans. “Wonder when they’ll launch? Those Shipwrecks can go over 350 miles and if they decided to send a nuke, we might still be in a bad way whether they could see us or not.”
“Looking at the speed they’re going, I would bet they launch right about here,” said Jeffers pointing to a position just 200 miles away. “They would be launching just before daybreak and could run back home without getting close to us. We could still get them with air power, but they are probably counting on us not seeing them. Without the system we have, that might be exactly the case,” he said.
Hustvedt nodded. “Yes, I think Rod is right. It’s the old way of thinking, which is one reason we have been as successful as we have. Remember the briefing? Rod here said it. They don’t like to change. I would have already started to question why we have been so successful. I bet it hasn’t dawned on them that we can see them, but they can’t see us.” He rubbed his eyes and sat back. “No matter what, we need to be ready. How long before our ships have fully unloaded?”
“At least four hours for the transports. Give it two days for the rest of the supplies. The second set of supply ships just cleared the Bosporus. They will arrive tomorrow,” the Chief of Staff said.
“That’s a long time to be sitting here like ducks in a pond,” said Hustvedt. “At least all our ships are dispersed for a layered defense. I’m not too happy about the Iowa and her group out there all by their lonesome. What if we sent the Queen Elizabeth over that way to give her a little air protection?” he asked.
“That would leave a section of the landing unattended. Maybe after we see how things shape up we might send her a little later on,” said the Chief of Staff.
“Play it safe, huh?” said Hustvedt. “Well, it’s a pretty tough little group, I guess we can risk it. It looks like most of the air strike came from almost due north. That should keep them focused on us anyway,” he said. “I want some air strikes on the airfields these guys are coming from. Knock them out and we might not have to worry as much. Do we know where these are?” Hustvedt asked.
“Yes sir,” said Jeffers. “We were able to follow them home and we know where the bases are. We could get off strikes today and tonight.”
Hustvedt turned to his Chief of Staff. “Make it so. With our cloaks, we should be able to get in and out without much of a problem at all.”
“I’ll set it up. We’ll send a satellite burst to the fleet. We will be breaking silence for about half a second, but they know we’re here anyway,” the Chief of Staff said.
Moscow
“But we sent out over 500 planes!” shouted Pusko. “You can’t tell me only sixty eight got back home!”
“I am afraid it is so,” said General Gasemirov. “Every pilot said that suddenly aircraft began exploding all around them. They didn’t see anything on their radars and nothing visually. At least they had the foresight to launch what weapons they had. We don’t know if they got hits, but they were aimed directly toward the area of the landings.”
“This is unacceptable. Your people cannot just launch their missiles and run home. We must know of the Americans have been hit. Send another strike immediately,” Pusko ordered.
“It will have to be tomorrow morning. I must get more aircraft into the area to replace the others. I’ll also detail half the aircraft to carry bombs. That way they will be forced to get in close,” said Gasemirov.
“Do it,” said Pusko. “We have been losing our shirts ever since this thing started. We need to hit them with sheer numbers. That is what we are about to do in Poland. Make it a 1,000 plane raid and make sure there are plenty of fighters going in with them. They are to find the Americans and show them who owns the Black Sea,” said Pusko.
“Yes, sir,” said Gasemirov. He left the room to get things going. There was a nagging worry. If his previous force couldn’t see them coming, how would this new force. More to the point, how did the Americans know they were coming in the first place?
The fliers began showing up all over Moscow and many of the rest of the cities across Russia. “Russians Unite,” was the headline on the crudely printed sheets. “The voice of God is not being heard by those leading our nation. We must unite to make that voice be heard. People of faith, lift up your voices! Resist those who would condemn your children and families to death and agony. Our leaders have even condemned the Holy Church by trying to kidnap our Patriarch. It is time to rise up. Unite for the protection of our children, our homes and our country! Our Patriarch has escaped their clutches. He urges all those of the Church to let your voice be heard. Do what you can to end this aggression and to bring our children home. Rise up!” it said.
The fliers began showing up at train stations and underground systems. They were posted on the streets and placed in mail boxes. No one saw them being distributed. With the bitter cold, everyone was bundled up with thick clothing which could hide anything. One stack of the fliers was even placed at the foot of Lenin’s sarcophagus. Police became frustrated. Every time they stopped someone for possibly distributing the materials, none of the fliers could be found on them, yet they were seemingly everywhere. The police tried to arrest people picking them up and reading them, but there were too many people and too many fliers. The word was getting out.
In a small restaurant overlooking the city ten men met in secret. This was a place reserved for only the very rich. They always had the best food and wines. Even now they had good food, although the men noticed that it was somewhat below their usual standards. After shooing away the staff, the men got down to business.
“This isn’t working,” said a man in an impeccable suit with a red carnation in the lapel. “We were supposed to have been to the English Channel by now. All my plans were predicated on us having completed our mission. Now my factories are being bombed, I have to generate my own electricity and my workers are too cold to work! I am afraid we have been misled by our military abilities,” he said.
“Ever since the Americans got involved, our lines have simply moved back and forth. We gain little ground. What’s worse, they seem to be draining us of everything. Did you hear that the casualties have now passed one million people?” cried out another man. “That’s not counting thousands of tanks, aircraft, and other vehicles. My factories cannot keep up because we now can’t get the materials we need,” he lamented.
“Borodin has led us down this path. He told us there was no way for this to fail. That is why we supported him. That is why we started this venture. Now we are going down a road to disaster. How do we stop it?” asked another.
“We must be careful. You saw what happened to Rosenko. No one has seen him for a month!” said a man standing by a window keeping a lookout on the street outside.
The others nodded. It had been a rude awakening of what could happen to each of them. “We must find a way to get him out of office. If we could, maybe we could stop this,” said the first man.
“Wait. You must be sure of what you want to do, first. It must be things he cannot see or find out. Let us plan these things carefully and still maintain our supportive relations with the man. Then, when the time is right, we can move together,” said the man in a ruffled suit sitting in the corner. The rest nodded in agreement.
Pavel Velinkov finished taking down what he overheard through the vent leading from a small storeroom to the private dining room the other men were in. He had overheard everything, and it disgusted him. All of this was started just to line to pockets of these men. Placing the notebook inside the lining of his jacket, he grabbed a bo
x of supplies and left the room, unnoticed by anyone. Returning to the kitchen, he went back to cleaning off the stainless steel work spaces so they could be ready for the dinner meal. His mood was sour. Yet, he knew he would be able to do something about it.
Recruited by the Americans years before, he had been able to pass along information concerning business and industry he picked up from the patrons. It had meant having a stash of money he could use to make an occasional purchase or to be ready to leave when the time came. He was single. His parents were dead. There was no one to worry about. As a gay man he was not welcome in Russian society anyway. Tonight he would make the drop and ask to be removed. He could now make a better life somewhere else, away from the corruption in his native land.
Berlin
Hammond watched the giant table intently. Everything had gone well over the first twelve hours. The southern force in Poland was almost entirely cut off. His plan was to let them wither around Krakow. The central Polish campaign was moving rapidly back toward the Ukrainian and Russian borders. The Black Sea and Sakhalin Island landings had met little resistance and were moving inland. The first air attacks in the Black Sea had been stopped with no casualties.
The German Chancellor was sitting next to him. “This is almost beyond belief,” the Chancellor said. “I had my doubts such things might work, but I can see now what our technology can really do,” he said. “It appears your country has become very efficient in the art of war.”
“Efficient? If you mean we try to find ways to prevent our troops from being killed, that is certainly true. We are the least of the nations wanting to get into conflict, but it seems we are always the one being forced into one. We are constantly being asked to take care of some problem or another. So we must be ready for anything, and we developed an arsenal that has a lot of tools. Since the war started I made sure we used what tools we had to keep the Russians at bay. Our technology was really the only thing we could do to counter the great numbers of men and machines they had. We are in a war of attrition, and that attrition must be on their part,” Hammond said. He pointed to the three dimensional table in front of them. “This is one of the biggest tools. With this, we can see where the enemy is, where they are going and what they are doing all the time. We can stop them before they are able to make their plans work, move out of their way and then hit them where they are the weakest. With our drones, we can hit them night or day with a weapon they have not been able to counter. I am told they are scared to death of the things. Our Predators and other drones harass them day and night, bombing their facilities and strongholds without jeopardizing the life of a pilot. Our stealth technology allows us to now attack with impunity with the greatest chance of getting pilot and plane home, not to mention ships and tanks. Plus there are other weapons we are but just now employing to keep the pressure up. Because of all this our casualties are very light, but the casualties for our enemy are staggering. We estimate he has lost over a million people under arms. They have lost over half their aircraft and most of their fleet. Their armored vehicles and artillery are similarly reduced. With Arctic Wind, we hope to force the Russians to spread their resources too thinly, making it easier and less costly to win this war,” he said.
“I also appreciate your insisting all these assets be made available to all forces. I know our German troops have benefitted greatly from them,” said the Chancellor.
“I don’t want any of the troops under my command to bear more than their share of the burden. The German forces have stepped up magnificently. The close work with the Poles has been an inspiration. All our Allied forces are feeling how close a team we have all formed. I dare say it will make changes in the post war Europe,” said Hammond.
The Chancellor smiled. “We can only hope. I will be talking with President O’Bannon tomorrow on what that post war Europe may look like, especially for the Russians. I’m not sure we need to do any kind of occupation. After the First World War, that occupation made us feel like outcasts. Luckily the second time around we found out what friends the Americans could be. I think we need to be there to help, but keep a hands-off approach. If things keep going as they are, the Russian people may overthrow the government anyway. If we let them do their jobs, kind of like MacArthur did in Japan after the war, things might just turn out all right. Just keep them from doing what happened to us between the wars,” the Chancellor said with a wink. “Russia could become one of our greatest allies.”
“Maybe,” said Hammond, “but after this, things will change. This technology is making the fighting of a war impractical. People die needlessly by remote control. The technology itself will become the ultimate deterrent. In the future, diplomacy will become the most desired way to accomplish a nation’s goals. I may have put people like myself out of a job,” he said.
The Chancellor nodded. “You may be right, but it will take people like you to remind us of how bad it can get and how much we can lose. If we are lucky, maybe people will decide to never fight a war again.”
“One can only hope,” said Hammond. He pointed toward the Black Sea. “The air strikes have begun.”
Black Sea
Once again the carrier decks emptied as aircraft made their way to a number of air facilities within Ukraine and southern Russia. The goal was to make them unusable in the coming days and weeks. The aircraft rose into the night sky and made their way unhindered by Russian aircraft. Although the Russian radars were operating, no alerts were issued. Most of the coastal airfields had already been hit by the battleships and Farragut destroyers. This left the airfields deep in the frontier. There were a lot of them. Even the abandoned ones from the cold war were hit just to make sure they could not be used as a backup.
It took only six hours. The aircraft swooped in and hit their targets while the people on the ground slept. They awoke feeling the earth tremble and hearing the sounds of bombs exploding in their ears. The men dashed to their stations only to find fuel depots burning, planes shredded and the runways marked with great holes. Missile defense batteries had been strafed by the fighters. The only thing they could do was try and put out the flames.
At the main Black Sea air base near Gvardeyskoye a number of aircraft were making their approach. They were replacements for the aircraft lost the previous day. The American aviators were surprised to see the base lit up and the runway lights on. It made it easier to do their jobs. Using their infrared optics and the link to avoid the incoming aircraft, they simply lined up ahead of the others and dropped their weapons. The Russian pilots panicked as they saw the base disintegrate before their eyes. Several banked away only to strike other planes in their formation. After dropping their weapons, the Americans turned and circled in behind the Russians, still trying to figure out what to do. Heat seeking missiles filled the air, downing thirty aircraft. By the time the Russian air controllers got in control, the Americans were already long gone.
The battleship Wisconsin turned her guns to starboard. She was within five miles of the coastal city of Vinogradar with its large airport. Using only the link and the few navigation points it could see, the navigator had plotted the ship’s exact position. The airport was conveniently identified on the chart they had. Down below, the gun crews had already loaded the general purpose rounds and backed them with the six 110 pound bags of powder. When all was ready, the captain ordered batteries released.
The night sky was lit from the flames of nine 16-inch guns disgorging their lethal cargoes. The shells took only a few seconds to reach their target.
The men and women in the airport control tower saw the flash of the guns and started to call out an alert when the shells began exploding along the tarmac in front of them. Three airliners began to burn as the shrapnel tore through the light aluminum skin and punctured their fuel tanks. The second volley came just over 30 seconds later as more shells struck the runways. In the moonlight between the salvoes the controllers could see gaping holes appearing in four different places down the runway and also along the
snow covered taxiways. The dust and smoke began to fill the still night air as more shells rained down. The bombardment lasted twenty minutes. By the time the ship moved away, there was little left of the once fine airport except burning planes and cratered fields.
The destroyers concentrated their fire on the military airfield in Krymsk. Although only 22 miles away, and within range of the battleship’s guns, the Farraguts would handle this one. In the gun house, a gunner loaded the dart and its case into the electromagnetic rail gun. It was a dart about three inches in diameter made of stainless steel. Once fired, the case would fall away leaving the dart to make the journey to the target. There were no propellants to fire the round. The immense electromagnetic surge would propel the dart out of the gun at above Mach 7. There were four such guns on each ship and there were four ships in a line. On each ship, the guns elevated and fired. It was interesting to the gunners that there was actually a flame as the dart left the gun. The intense plasma generated did that. Only a few seconds later the guns fired again. Like in Vinogradar, the night crews were inside their hangars trying to repair damaged aircraft for a sortie that morning. No alarm was sounded. Suddenly one of the hangars nearly disintegrated as four of the darts struck the roof, went through, then hit the concrete floor. The kinetic energy of being hit by something going Mach 7 shattered the concrete and caused the roof to collapse on top of the men and equipment inside. The second volley struck the hangar next to the first. Controllers sounded the alarm just before one of the darts struck the base of the tower, knocking the entire tower to the ground. Like the battleship, the darts hitting the runway dug gigantic holes leaving the airport unusable. One of the darts struck one of the large cargo planes on the ramp. It went through the aircraft causing it to split apart, vaporizing the fuel in a tank and setting it alight before the ground under it appeared to lift the aircraft up and drop it like a toy.