by Dale Brown
Even after traveling almost a hundred miles through space, the invisible laser beam was focused down to the size of a softball by the time it rested on the fuselage of the lead Russian MiG-23 fighter-bomber. Precisely tracked by the laser-radar arrays, the beam quickly burned through the fighter’s steel surface on the left side just forward of the wing root. Before the laser burned through fuel and hydraulic lines under the skin, the sudden structural failure caused the MiG’s entire left wing to peel away from the fuselage like a banana skin. Before the pilot or any of his wingmen knew what was happening, their leader disappeared in a tremendous ball of fire and hit the icy Bering Sea a fraction of a second later.
The sudden loss of their leader caused the first attack formation to scatter. Executing their preplanned lost-wingman maneuvers, the three wingmen turned away from their original track and started a rapid climb to be sure they got away from the ocean, from their doomed leader, and from the other members of their attack group. They had no choice but to completely clear out of the way, then rejoin using radar or visual cues or execute their strike as single-ship attackers.
The other three four-ship formations saw the first plane explode and go in. Thankful it wasn’t them, they activated their electronic countermeasures equipment, tightened their oxygen masks and seat belts, and prepared to take on whatever enemy antiair weapons were in the vicinity — until the second lead MiG-23 exploded right before their eyes, moments after the first, and again with absolutely no warning whatsoever.
“Bobcat, I’ve got six single-ships and four more attack formations still inbound,” Tarantino reported. “I’ve also got a caution message on my laser. I might have just two or three shots remaining before the magnetron field strength is below safety limits.”
“Copy that, Two-two,” Patrick responded. “I’m engaging now. You can reposition to engage any bandits that leak through.” Patrick activated his laser-radar arrays, designated the third attack formation, and, at a range of about sixty miles, commanded, “Attack aircraft.”
“Attack aircraft command received, stop attack,” the computer responded. Moments later, when Patrick did not countermand his order, the computer announced, “Attack aircraft Anaconda.” The forward bomb-bay doors swung inward, and the first AIM-154 Anaconda long-range hypersonic air-to-air missile dropped free from the bomb bay. The weapon fell for less than a hundred feet, then ignited its first-stage solid rocket motor and shot ahead and skyward. By the time the motor burned out, the missile was traveling at over twice the speed of sound, and a ramjet sustainer engine kicked in, accelerating the missile to more than Mach 5. A second and third missile followed seconds later.
Now flying faster than sixty miles per minute, it did not take long for the first Anaconda missile to reach its quarry. Seven seconds before impact, the missile activated its own terminal-guidance radar — that was the first indication to the MiG-23 crews that they were under attack.
The third attack formation scattered, leaving trails of radar-decoying chaff in their wakes. The first Anaconda missile’s radar was now being hopelessly jammed, and it switched guidance back to the signals from the EB-52 Megafortress’s laser-radar system. The missile abandoned the third formation of MiGs and steered itself toward one of the single-ship aircraft. The missile ran out of fuel and detonated several hundred feet away from its target, but that was enough to create fear and confusion in all of the remaining attackers.
The second and third Anaconda missiles did not miss. They picked off single-ship attackers one by one as they maneuvered to get on their bomb-run tracks. “Splash two,” Patrick announced. “I count three large formations and…hell, at least fifteen or twenty single-ship attackers lining up for bomb runs. I’ve got nine Anacondas remaining.”
Just then he heard, “Time to bug out, sir,” on the command channel.
Patrick studied his supercockpit display — and his eyes widened in surprise as his sensors finally identified the weapon approaching them from behind. “Left turn heading one-five-zero, and do it now, Shade!” he ordered.
O’Dea didn’t hesitate but threw her EB-52 into a hard left turn, cobbing the throttles to full military power and keeping back pressure and bottom rudder in to tighten the turn. She could hear one of their six passengers on the upper deck retching and hoped to hell it was into a barf bag. Shade completed her turn first and only then asked, “What’s going on, General?”
“Lancelot in the air,” Patrick said simply.
“Roger that,” O’Dea said. That was enough for her.
One hundred miles behind Patrick’s formation of modified B-52s was a second formation of three modified B-1B bombers called “Vampires.” Commanded by Brigadier General Rebecca Furness from Battle Mountain Air Reserve Base, the EB-1C Vampires were the next generation in flying battleships, specifically designed to carry a large variety of standoff weapons into combat.
The Vampires’ primary weapon was the ABM-3 Lancelot air-launched anti-ballistic-missile weapon. Designed to be an interim weapon for use against ballistic missiles until the airborne-laser aircraft weapon system was perfected, the ABM-3 was in effect a four-stage air-launched Patriot missile, using the Vampire bomber as its first-stage engine. Steered by the Vampire’s laser-radar array and by its own onboard terminal-guidance radar, the Lancelot missile had a range of nearly two hundred miles and could attack targets even in near-Earth orbit.
But the Lancelot missile itself was only part of the effectiveness of the weapon; its primary deadliness came from its plasma-yield warhead. Unlike a high-explosive or thermonuclear warhead, Lancelot’s warhead created a large cloud of plasma gas that instantly converted any matter within its sphere into plasma, effectively vaporizing it. Even though the size of the superhot plasma sphere was limited when created in Earth’s atmosphere — the warhead was designed to explode in space, where the plasma bubble was thousands of feet in diameter and could even be electronically shaped and steered by computer control — the kill zone in the lower atmosphere was still hundreds of yards wide.
And when it exploded now, in the midst of the fourth formation of MiG-23 attackers, all four fighter-bombers simply, instantly ceased to exist.
“My God,” Patrick breathed. He had seen the effects of the plasma-yield warhead many times — he was the first use one in test launches over the Pacific — but it still never failed to astound him. It was a totally fearsome weapon. The plasma-yield detonation had taken out not just the fourth formation of MiGs but several of the single-ship bombers as well. “I see two formations and eight stragglers,” he said.
“Keep coming south, sir,” Rebecca Furness said, and at that moment Patrick saw another Lancelot missile heading north toward the Russian planes. Her second Lancelot missile malfunctioned and failed to detonate, but a Lancelot fired from one of her wingmen destroyed another complete formation. By then the sixth formation of MiG-23s and all of the surviving single-ship aircraft were heading west, toward Petropavlovsk Naval Air Base on the Kamchatka Peninsula, their intended recovery base.
“Good shooting, Rebecca,” Patrick radioed. “Looks like they’re on the run.”
“Thanks, boss,” Rebecca said. “We’ll stay on patrol while you guys land and reload.”
“I’ll send the Dragon down to have the laser looked at,” Patrick said, “but we’re not going to land. I’m going to air-refuel the rest of the package and press on.”
“But you were ordered to land, boss.”
“And I fully intended to comply — until Gryzlov tried a sneak attack on Eareckson,” Patrick said. “Our mission is back on. I’m going to take the fight to Gryzlov and make him negotiate — with the barrel of a gun pointed right in his face.”
Ryazan’ Alternate Military Command Center,
Russian Federation
That same time
President Anatoliy Gryzlov, seated in the center of a raised row of seats behind Chief of the General Staff Nikolai Stepashin and his senior aides, could immediately see that something had happe
ned. The staff officers with the headsets listening to reports had suddenly stiffened, then looked furtively at Stepashin, then quickly turned away before they were noticed; the technicians working on the grease boards froze, looked at their symbols with angst, then stepped away from the boards as if unsure what to do. “What has happened, General?” he asked.
“I…er, reports are still coming in, sir,” Stepashin stammered.
“Damn it, Stepashin, what happened?” Gryzlov thundered. Heads snapped up at the command, then lowered quickly back to consoles and papers.
“One of our flight leaders of the Shemya attack force reports that he has lost contact with…with all of the other flight leaders,” Stepashin said. “Flight Six is leading his group plus five stragglers back to their poststrike base at Petropavlovsk.”
“One flight plus five…nine aircraft?” Gryzlov exclaimed. “We sent twenty-four planes on that strike mission!” Stepashin could do nothing but nod. “Was Eareckson destroyed?” Stepashin didn’t need to respond to answer the question. “Was Eareckson even hit?” Stepashin shook his head. “Damn it, General, I thought we had intelligence that said there were no aircraft except a few tankers and transport planes at Eareckson — probably an advance force preparing for the arrival of a large number of aircraft, but certainly not a base-defense force. What in hell happened?”
“Our flight leader said they were intercepted by air-defense aircraft firing air-to-air missiles, some with nuclear warheads,” Stepashin said.
Gryzlov was about to continue his tirade but stopped short. “Nuclear weapons? I don’t think so,” he said. He shook his head, thought for a moment, then nodded knowingly. “No, I think what the squadron encountered was McLanahan’s attack force of Megafortresses and Vampires and his other high-tech aircraft. It was just plain bad luck, Nikolai. Either McLanahan’s forces were deploying to Eareckson or President Thorn really did order those planes to return to Eareckson, and McLanahan was obeying his order — rather uncharacteristic of him. They may have even used one of their plasma-yield weapons when they found they were in danger of being overrun — one detonation could have easily destroyed a close formation of MiGs.”
The Russian president shook his head, and Stepashin was surprised to see a smile creep across his face. He lit up a cigarette, the same crocodile smile still on his face, although his voice was now seething with anger. “You know what else, Stepashin? We will never get a phone call from Thomas Thorn. He will never accuse us of breaking the agreement or even acknowledge that anything untoward happened. If he didn’t realize it before — and I’m positive he was sincere when he said he would recall McLanahan’s forces in the interest of peace — he knows it now: The fight is on.”
“What do you want to do, sir?” Stepashin asked.
“McLanahan will come now — no doubt about it,” Gryzlov said. “It could happen at any time. Start a watch from the last report from our MiG bombers, set aside enough time for McLanahan to refuel those forces at Eareckson and rearm the ones that expended weapons, and then compute flight time to Vladivostok, Petropavlovsk, Kavaznya, or Anadyr — that is how long you have to get your air-defense forces in place. Whatever he has in mind, he’ll come, and he will come hard and fast.”
9
Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka Peninsula, Eastern Russia
The next evening
The direct-line phone was one of those hot-line connections that would ring continuously until answered, which meant that the call was from headquarters. The sector commander fairly lunged for the phone, snatching it up as fast as he could; he didn’t even bother to say anything as he did, because he knew that the caller would start the conversation right away.
“Report, Major,” the voice of the regional air defense commander said over the secure line from his office at the Far East Military District Air Defense Headquarters at Petropavlovsk Naval Base on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
“Target S-3 is still heading three-zero-zero true, altitude twelve thousand meters, speed five-seven-nine kilometers per hour, no evasive maneuvers, sir,” the sector commander responded. He had reported the contact moments after it appeared, so he knew that headquarters had been alerted — and no doubt the air-defense commander of Pacific Fleet, based at Vladivostok, would be listening in, too. “No reply to our warning broadcasts.”
“Any jamming signals?”
“None, sir.”
There was a long pause. The regional commander knew exactly what air-defense assets he had and their capabilities — undoubtedly he was going over this engagement in his head right now:
Primary among Petropavlovsk’s defenses was the Antey S-300V1 surface-to-air missile system, the world’s best long-range antiaircraft missile system. An entire S-300 brigade was situated at Petropavlovsk, one of Russia’s largest and most important Pacific naval and air bases, with almost two hundred antiaircraft and anti-ballistic-missile rounds deployed between six launcher sites around the sprawling base complex on the southeast corner of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Normally, the S-300 missiles had a nominal range of only one hundred kilometers, but against slow, high-altitude, nonmaneuvering targets such as this one, they had a maximum effective range of almost double that — the unidentified aircraft was already within the S-300’s lethal range.
It was not the only missile site on the Bering Sea. Another S-300 brigade was stationed at Ust’-Kamcatsk, three hundred kilometers to the north; another at Ossora; and yet another at Kavaznya, the site of Russia’s newest long-range anti-ballistic-missile laser system, still several years from completion but proceeding despite the country’s financial woes. Kavaznya was being rebuilt on the site of an old Soviet research facility that was suddenly and mysteriously destroyed in the late 1980s, before the fall of the USSR. The official explanation was that the original site was destroyed when an earthquake ruptured the containment building of the nuclear plant there, causing a catastrophic explosion.
But local Eskimo and Aleut folklore claimed that the laser facility was destroyed by an American air raid using, of all things, a lone 1960s-era B-52 bomber. No one believed that outlandish story, even though the rumors still persisted after almost two decades.
But it didn’t matter right now, because Moscow had ordered that the fighters, rather than the long-range surface-to-air missiles, handle any intruders. A squadron each of MiG-27 and MiG-29 fighters had been deployed to Petropavlovsk since the initiation of hostilities less than two days ago. Four flights of four fighters were assigned a wedge of airspace about four hundred kilometers long. One fighter was airborne continuously; the others would launch as necessary, usually one more fighter upon radar contact by the first fighter and the last two if multiple targets were detected. Two full flights were held in reserve, but in this deployment no one was considered off duty — all air and ground crews were either on crew rest, ready to be called up, or ready to respond. Other air-defense units were based at Magadan and Anadyr and could be called into service if any intruders made it past the outer defenses.
Petropavlovsk also had a squadron of twelve Tu-142 long-range maritime-reconnaissance planes — upgraded Tu-95 Bear bombers designated for antiship, antisubmarine, long-range sea patrol, and electronic-warfare duties. Six bombers were flying at all times on thousand-kilometer-long patrol legs. The bombers had already attacked two vessels, assumed to be intelligence-gathering ships, that refused to turn away from Petropavlovsk.
Yes, the ships had been in international waters — but this was war. They obeyed orders or suffered the consequences. It was the same with this newcomer, the sector commander thought. He was either a hostile or an idiot if he kept on cruising closer to one of Russia’s most important bases. Whichever was the case, he had to die: If he was hostile, he had to be stopped before he attacked; if he was an idiot, he had to be killed before he was allowed to breed.
The Pacific Fleet was one of the most powerful of the Russian navy’s arms, with almost two hundred surface ships, strategic ballistic-missile submarines, and nuclear and
nonnuclear attack submarines. Whatever targets the fighters could not get, the SAMs and sea-based antiaircraft units would. But the fighters would not miss.
“Am I clear to engage unidentified aircraft, sir?” the sector commander asked. Even though Russia was excluding aircraft and vessels out to three kilometers, this newcomer had already made it in to two-fifty. The range of the American conventional air-launched cruise missile was over eight hundred kilometers, and the nuclear-armed version was well over four thousand kilometers, so if it was a warplane armed with either weapon, it would have already attacked. The Americans’ next most powerful air-launched weapons — the air force’s AGM-142 TV-guided rocket-powered bomb and their navy’s turbojet-powered Short-range Land Attack Missile-Extended Range — both had a maximum range of about two hundred kilometers, so this unidentified aircraft had to be stopped before it got within range of those two weapons.
“Authorized,” the regional commander said. “Get your fighters airborne, and destroy any target immediately, from long range.”
The surveillance radar at Petropavlovsk had a range of well over five hundred kilometers, and the unidentified aircraft had been spotted cruising in at high altitude at just over four hundred kilometers. The MiGs accelerated to Mach 2. They didn’t need their radars yet — they were receiving datalinked signals from Petropavlovsk showing them exactly where the enemy aircraft were, and once they were within missile range, they could attack without ever revealing themselves. Textbook engagement so far.
But Moscow said they would not be alone: The Americans had stealth aircraft up here, and the word from air force headquarters was that some of them could launch air-to-air missiles. The best tactic, Moscow said, was to rush any aircraft that was detected at high speed with as many fighters as possible, engage at maximum range, get away from the area right after missile launch using full countermeasures, then reengage from a completely different axis of attack.