by F X Holden
Not yet, anyway.
Once again, they’d navigated their way around the nesting Auklets. Finding their previous position in the dark hadn’t proven as easy as he thought, but eventually Dave spotted the two upright stones they had hidden behind while scouting out the town, and using them for reference they scrambled up the side of the bluff to give themselves about another twenty feet in vertical distance, without adding too much to the lateral.
“What about the flash from the barrel?” Dave asked. “Won’t it be like a big old strobe light saying hey, up here, come up here and kill us?!”
Perri looked up at the sky. The cloud had come in thick and low, and Dave was right, it was a dark night, with only a faint diffuse glow from the moon making its way through.
“Maybe,” Perri agreed. “If anyone is looking in exactly this direction at exactly the right time. I’m going to put ten rounds into that building as quickly as I can, then we’ll run for it. Nothing blows up, then they’ll arrive tomorrow morning and wonder who the hell used their ammo dump for target practice and maybe we at least put some holes in some of their missiles.” He smiled, teeth white in the dark night, “But if that shed goes up, I don’t think they’ll be looking up here amongst the rocks and birdshit for the reason. They’ll probably think it was a cruise missile or something.”
He sounded completely confident, but Dave wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, right. We are so going to die tonight.”
During the Cold War, lone sorties by strategic bombers or surveillance aircraft from both sides of the Bering Strait had ‘strayed’ into opposition airspace and provoked a response. Sometimes deliberately, to test enemy capabilities and response times, other times innocently, due to navigation failures. As the newly reinvigorated Russian air force had shown in the Middle East that it was more than a match for its old foe, it had also begun to be more brazen in its provocations in the Pacific Far East, more than once resulting in the US threatening to shoot down wayward Russian aircraft, though they never had, and Russia had not chosen to push them that far.
Never though, had one side put so much air power into the Pacific Far East theatre as the US was doing right now.
Bondarev’s eyes flicked from his tactical display to his instruments to the night sky around him in a constant circle. His heads-up display was showing that two other squadrons from his 6983rd Air Brigade were forming up as ordered, above and beside him. But this still gave him only 54 aircraft to nearly double that number of US fighters. The A-100 AI was still designating the bulk of the approaching aircraft as American F-47 drones, flying out front like a silicon shield - no doubt armed with the newest Cuda missiles - with piloted F-35s behind them, probably carrying the long-range engagement weapon which was too large to fit into the drones’ weapons bays.
Against these his 54 Sukhois and Migs were each armed with two long range and four short-range missiles, but only about a third of them were carrying the new KM-77 phased array missile because Operation LOSOS had come in the middle of an upgrade cycle. The KM-77 had a slightly greater range than the Cuda, otherwise they were an even match. Not for the first time, he regretted Lukin’s direct order not to field his Okhotniks. It would have been advantageous to be able to put his own drones out in front of his piloted aircraft to meet the incoming US armada.
In any case, they might be about to see how the vaunted American Fantom performed in air-to-air combat against a real flesh and blood enemy. And they would know in about 30 seconds as the American force reached missile range!
“Gold Control to Gold Leader: enemy aircraft approaching stand-off missile range in five, four…” the A-100 AWACs announced. The first test would be to see whether this was a direct attack. If it was, the US F-35s could launch long-range air-to-ground missiles aimed at targets on Saint Lawrence from within Alaskan airspace, and then turn around and flee under the protection of the cloud of drones surrounding them.
“Silver leader to Gold leader, Silver airborne and én-route,” he heard a voice say over the radio. Having seen the size and apparent intent of the US attacking force, he had scrambled the 36 remaining Sukhois and Mig-41s he had at readiness in Lavrentiya. It had taken them a precious 20 minutes to get airborne and formed up. Too slow. Someone would have to get their butt kicked for that. They wouldn’t be able to climb to altitude in time for the coming engagement.
“Roger Silver leader, vector zero three zero, nap of the earth please. Passive arrays only. Take your targeting from the data net,” Bondarev ordered, telling his reserve flight to stay low and try to hide. He would use them as a surprise attack force, hoping if he kept them down at wave-top level the enemy aircraft wouldn’t know they were there until their missiles started tracking. “Gold leader out.”
“…two…one…mark,” the air controller continued to count down the range to possible standoff munitions launch. Bondarev had his eyes fixed to the threat display, listening for the warning tones indicating enemy air-to-ground missiles were on their way. The KM-77 was also an efficient standoff missile killer and he knew the pilots fielding it would be prepared to switch their targeting from the US aircraft to US missiles if they appeared. But the board stayed clear, there were no tones.
“Gold squadrons, hold station,” Bondarev ordered his pilots. On his heads-up display he saw that while they might not have fired any missiles, the US armada was still boring in, straight at Saint Lawrence. “Flight control, ROE update please?”
“Rules of Engagement unchanged Gold leader,” the controller replied. “You are free to fire if US aircraft cross the no-fly perimeter.”
Bondarev cursed under his breath. Their rules of engagement hadn’t changed since day one of Operation LOSOS. They were hemmed in behind an invisible line in the sky, giving the US fighters a clear tactical advantage because they could choose the time and place of their attack.
“Enemy aircraft approaching US air-to-air missile range in ten, nine, eight…” the controller stated, unnecessarily. His pilots would soon be within range of the US long-range air-to-air missiles. So be it.
The Americans might get the first missiles away, but they would not go unanswered.
“Gold aircraft, lock up targets but hold your fire,” Bondarev told his pilots. “Keep your heads people. Anyone who fires without my express order will be court-martialled.”
“Two..one…mark…”
Once again, the missile threat warnings stayed clear, but the US aircraft pushed forward, hitting the Alaskan coast now. They would be on top of Bondarev and his men within minutes. Could it be they were going to try to overfly Saint Lawrence, just to test Russian resolve? To prove they were masters of their own skies still?
“Gold Control, requesting permission to engage with K-77s before enemy aircraft reach Cuda missile range. Please advise.”
Tactically, the US full frontal attack was insane. Dozens of their aircraft would be swatted from the sky within minutes if Bondarev was the first to engage. Could they be that stupid?
Stupid like an Arctic fox perhaps. Politically, it wasn’t so crazy. Let Russia be the aggressor. Force them onto the diplomatic back foot. Create the rationale for a major assault to retake Saint Lawrence on the basis of Russia invading and then shooting down American aircraft over American soil? Maybe that explained why the bulk of the approaching force were politically expendable drones.
“Gold Leader, we have orders from General Lukin directly,” the voice of the A-100 controller said. “Only if US fighters cross the no-fly perimeter, are you free to engage, repeat, you cannot fire until the perimeter is breached.”
“Gold Control, if we wait that long, we will be within Cuda range,” Bondarev said. “We will have no tactical advantage. That may be exactly what they are trying to achieve.”
The voice that came back was stone cold, and Bondarev recognized it immediately. He should have known General Lukin would be monitoring comms and he flinched as the man broke in on the radio traffic, “Are your orders unclear Gold leader?”
&nb
sp; “No sir, perfectly clear. Gold leader out.” Bondarev hammered the perspex over his head in frustration. It was a typical political compromise. His life and the life of his men put in the balance so that politicians or diplomats could claim a moral high ground, before abandoning it completely. “Gold and Silver flight leaders, keep your targets locked, await my order.”
Bondarev rolled his shoulders in the tight confines of his cockpit, and flexed his fingers. He had a feeling the dying was about to begin.
Perri sighted down onto the town below.
It was damn dark. The glowing display in the scope showed very little wind, but a surprising amount of elevation if he was going to put any rounds through the roof of the car park below. He had to check what the scope was telling him against his own instincts. The copper clad bullets were heavier than the polymer tipped varmint rounds he usually used, but would the bullets really drop that much over this distance? He’d had to input the rifle and ammo type into the scope manually - had he screwed it up?
He cleared the target and put the small glowing red pipper over the dark black rectangle that was the carport roof, and pushed the button near his trigger again. It showed the range as 230 yards, wind at about 3 feet a second from the northwest, but the crosshairs telling him where his bullet would go were way under the roof. He lifted the barrel until the crosshairs were centered on the middle of the roof, and it felt to him like he would be shooting into the sky.
Damn. He’d rushed it. He should have been patient, should have hiked up into the rocks on the bluff, out of earshot of the town, fired a bunch of test rounds with the new ammo and the new scope until he was satisfied he had it zeroed.
Damn damn damn.
“What’s the matter?” Dave asked him. “Shoot already! Let’s get out of here.”
Perri bet on his instincts. He was the best damn shot in Gambell, he knew that. He had a sense, a feeling for wind and elevation, for the movement of his target. He had a way of knowing just when a seal or walrus was going to breach, when a bird was going to dip right or left. And right now what the scope was telling him - the windage felt right, but the elevation didn’t.
He took a breath and held it.
He steadied the crosshairs just above the outer lip of the roof. If he saw his shots hitting the sandbags, he could correct.
OK Perri. Ten shots, as fast you can pull the trigger, or until the damn carport blows up.
And then run like hell.
“Every Russian aircraft in the sky near Saint Lawrence just lit their burners and headed east,” Bunny said, visor down, nestled inside her virtual-reality helmet inside the trailer. “Care to share why Sir?”
“Well, you’re going to see it on the morning news anyway,” Halifax said. “The media name for it is Operation Resolve. The idea is to show the Russians just what will happen tomorrow if they don’t start withdrawing.”
“Whatever it is, it’s giving us clear air over Gambell,” Rodriguez noted. The late-night launch of their two recon Fantoms had been a routine affair, and she’d been locked in the command trailer with Halifax and O’Hare for nearly an hour as Bunny got her one of her drones into position to make a run over the target while the other stayed in reserve. Satellite synthetic aperture radar images had shown a lot of hardware lining the side of the landing strip, and intelligence analysis had identified at least four Verba sites, two bracketing Gambell and two bracketing the facility at Savoonga. The way the Verbas had engaged outside optical range showed they were fully networked, pulling targeting data from airborne control aircraft, satellite and aircraft overhead. There were also older less lethal SAM systems on the Russian navy ships circling the island, but Rodriguez had a feeling their crews would be looking east right now, because whatever ‘Operation Resolve’ was, something big was brewing there. The imaging also showed concentrations of vehicle traffic in a couple of places in the township, one that had been identified as the ‘town hall’ and was speculated to be a military command post, and the other identified as the John Ampangalook Memorial High School. If the 200 plus townsfolk were being held anywhere, it was probably there, but the tell-tale heat bloom that would come from a mass of people packed into the school buildings there was being confused by a number of other heat sources burning in and around the school and the outskirts of town. This was what Bunny had to investigate. It was possible Russian troops were torching houses to drive people out, but more likely they had just lit fuel-oil ‘smudge pots’ to confuse infra-red imaging.
Bunny’s Fantoms were carrying no weapons except guns this time. In the load bay were dedicated reconnaissance pods that sported a suite of low light, infrared and radar imaging capabilities. If she could just get one good run the length of Gambell, they would get a wealth of data. If she could get two, they might have a real chance of identifying where those hostages were being held so that they had a hope of surviving the coming metal storm.
“Starting ingress,” Bunny said. She had a suite of recon flight routines at her fingertips, leaving the AI to run the surveillance systems using a low-level full spectrum target ID algorithm that directed it to both map the entire target area at wide angle, and zoom in to try to identify military equipment and targets based on their physical or electronic signal properties. “No nosy Sukhois around,” she observed, “Thank you Operation Resolve!”
“Gold leader to Gold flight commanders, prepare to… hold! Safe your weapons, repeat, safe your weapons!” Bondarev nearly yelled into his mike.
He had just gotten a report from both his Airborne Control aircraft and the ground-based air defense commander that the enemy armada would be crossing the no-fly perimeter any second. He had been straining his eyes, looking for any tell-tale light or exhaust trail to show on the horizon, while flicking back and forth between his instruments and the threat display showing the mass of icons that was the American aircraft headed straight for him and his fighters. He had six missiles, and a target locked for each of them. He knew his pilots would also have their targets designated, the offensive assault distributed across all of his aircraft so that every US plane had at least two or three missiles allocated to it, arrowing at it from various angles, both high and low.
If that gave him any confidence, then the knowledge that the enemy had nearly a quarter as many missiles again targeting the Russian aircraft took that away. There would be very few aircraft left flying a few minutes from now.
But why hadn’t they engaged at long distance missile range? Why weren’t they trying to jam Russian radar? What were they waiting for?
Bondarev got his answer just before he ordered his fighters to engage. In one smooth movement, as it crossed the Alaskan coast into the waters of the Bering Strait, the US force split into two, half swinging north, and the other half swinging south.
They were no longer approaching Saint Lawrence. And they were still outside the Russian no-fly perimeter.
Bondarev quickly split his own force, suspecting that was exactly what the US planners were trying to force him to do, but he had no other option. Within moments he had 27 aircraft flying parallel to and about twenty miles apart from 50 US fighters headed north, and the other 27 tracking the US southern group, with the 36 aircraft of his Silver battalion staying low in the clutter of the Saint Lawrence landscape.
He told his flight commanders to stay alert. There was still a chance this was just a pincer movement, and the US force would swing toward Saint Lawrence again to slam shut the jaws of the pincer. His eyes flicked frantically from threat to threat on his heads-up display, his fingers hovering over the missile launch buttons on his stick.
But then the US fighters turned away, back toward Alaska. One group set up a lower racetrack circuit along the coast to the south, the other took a high cover position, but also set up a race track position along the north coast. Bondarev let out a huge breath, and ordered his people to do the same to the north and south of Saint Lawrence.
He moved his thumb away from the firing button for his weapons. �
�Gold leader to Gold and Silver commanders, weapons safe, but stay alert. Gold Control, do you see any other enemy air activity? Could this be a decoy for an attack from another quarter?”
“Gold Control to Gold leader, the board is clear,” the air commander replied. “The enemy force did not cross the no-fly perimeter. It looks like they are just rattling their sabers.”
“Roger that, Gold leader out,” Bondarev said. Roger that. If this was saber rattling, he could only imagine what tomorrow would bring, when the US deadline ran out!
“OK, they’re around the corner at the next block now,” Dave said. He’d been following a jeep that was making a regular circuit of the town, waiting for it to get well clear of the ammo dump. There were no foot soldiers near the dump that he could see, and no lights in any of the nearby houses.
Perri ignored the guidance of the digital scope, settled the crosshairs on the furthest edge of the carport roof, took a breath, waited for the small trembling circular motion of his gun barrel to steady itself, and then squeezed the trigger. The report from the Winchester sounded impossibly loud in the still night air, and caromed off the rocks around them. But before it had even registered, Perri worked the bolt and fired again, and again.
Down in the dark, he saw a spark.
“Holy hell!” Bunny exclaimed as the surveillance feed from the Fantom that had just started its run over Gambell flared bright white. In an instant, it looked like she had lost both low-light and infra-red camera coverage, and was suddenly flying blind. She quickly ordered the drone to level out, and saw with relief that it was responding to inputs. She wasn’t showing a missile launch. It hadn’t been hit.