by F X Holden
The go/no-go for Bunny had been whether she could come up with a combination of AI routines that would allow her Fantoms to lock onto the incoming Ilyushin and then hold position underneath it at wave-top height. To do it, she’d re-written and combined the code for an optical targeting algorithm with a nap of the earth formation keeping algorithm meant for use with air to ground radar, but it had been impossible to test, so it would either work, or … the Fantoms would die. Most probably by plunging into the ocean as the Ilyushin began its landing descent.
“Got a visual lock. AI matching course and speed,” Bunny said, eight minutes later. Rodriguez saw the two icons merge - the Ilyushin at 20,000 feet and descending, and the two Fantoms below it at wave-top height, flying in train, nose to tail, making them nearly the same total length as the monster above them but with a much smaller radar cross-section.
The communications between the tower at Lavrentiya and the IL-77 were encrypted, but the L-70 satellite could read the inherent pattern in them, and reported to NORAD-ANR-NCTAMS-A4 that comms appeared normal as Bunny’s Fantoms began gliding toward Lavrentiya directly underneath the track of the transport flight.
Inside the command trailer of Russia’s undisputed ace Nebo-M unit - the only unit now with two confirmed combat kills - Lieutenant Colonel Chaliapin listened to the chatter of Lavrentiya air traffic control and watched on his own display as the 0640 transport flight from Murmansk began its approach. There was no enemy air activity in the Operations Area, and he reflected with some satisfaction that the US appeared to have given up any idea of trying to hit him in retaliation for the destruction of their aircraft two days earlier. Normally he would expect a ‘wild weasel’ air defense suppression attack or a cruise missile strike intended to target his radiation signature, and local air patrols had been increased in anticipation. But personally, he doubted the US had the resources in place for another strike this deep behind the forward line of control. The drone attack of the day before had probably been made with fighters piloted by an autonomous AI and sent on a one way trip from a base 1,000 miles distant, which is why it had been so dumb, and had failed.
He could see no activity around the incoming IL-77, and there were no reported contacts from either Airborne Control or any of the 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command fighter patrols currently blanketing Western Alaska. This particular White Whale was safe.
But he had not become the leading Nebo-M unit in the air force through complacency. If the enemy planned to take this particular flight down, it would be getting in position to hit it now, when it was in its vulnerable landing phase, wheels down, flaps up, flying close to a stall and unable to maneuver.
“Low-frequency sector scan on the IL-77 now, 30 seconds,” he ordered. Any stealth aircraft sneaking in behind the White Whale thinking it was going to make an easy kill was about to get a serious dose of radiation poisoning. He smiled. He freaking loved his job.
“Nebo in narrow beam search mode,” Bunny said suddenly. “They’re looking for us.”
“They can’t be,” Rodriguez said, pointing at the NORAD feed showing the Russian fighter combat air patrol CAPs, following routine patrol routes. “They’d be sending fighters your way if they were.”
“OK, maybe not for us, but they’re suspicious bastards,” Bunny said. “No lock. Yet.”
“Sir, I have… I’m not sure…” the systems officer of the Nebo-M said. “Here, look…”
Chaliapin bent over his system officer’s screen. It showed an icon for the White Whale, and overlaid on it, the icon for a potential unidentified contact. As they watched, the system’s AI wiped the unidentified contact from the screen due to ‘low return, low probability’.
“OK, get ready to override AI,” the Nebo commander said.
“But the UI contact has been wiped,” the man pointed out. “It was a false return.”
“You might trust your life to an AI system,” the Russian commander said. “I don’t. If you get another return like that, override and lock it manually.”
He turned to another officer. “Keep all arrays in circular mode. The bastards could be using the IL77 as a distraction, trying to jump us from a different direction.” To himself he muttered, “It’s what I’d do.”
“Five miles to release point ma’am!” Bunny said. “Goddamn, I never flew a combat mission so damn slow! Any slower, our birds will have to drop flaps and we’ll lose stealth…”
“Easy girl,” Rodriguez said, letting all formality go. “Can you show me the White Whale?”
“Sure,” Bunny said, swiveling her head to look at a virtual screen inside her helmet, tapping a touchscreen and then pointing to one of the overhead 2D viewing monitors. “Topside cameras.” The view on the screen flicked from a forward view, showing water and a smudge of land, to the sky above the Fantoms. The transport swam into focus and looked like it was about to drop right on top of the Fantom.
“Shit…” Rodriguez said, holding herself back from grabbing Bunny’s shoulder. “What’s the separation?!”
Bunny looked down at her virtual-reality instrument panels, “500 feet,” she said. “If they evacuate the in-flight toilets, we’re going to get wet ma’am.”
“Sir!” the systems officer called. “I have another return. Manually locking unidentified object. Entering 30-mile inner ring range. Shall I bring the S-500 missiles up?” He sounded unsure. “Whatever it is, it is congruent with the approaching aircraft. The Ilyushin will be at risk if we fire.”
“No, that’s the last resort. We can order the Whale to abort and go-around for another landing, see if that shakes anything loose.” He picked up a handset, prepared to call Lavrentiya air traffic control.
“It’s on final approach,” his operator said. “A go-around now would bring it nearly overhead anyway.”
Lieutenant Colonel Chaliapin squinted hard at the screen. Overlaid on the IL-77 icon was a ‘UI aircraft’ icon. The two were blinking alternately, indicating the returns were completely aligned. The AI had decided the two returns were both from the same aircraft, not unsurprising given how close the huge transport plane was to water level. They were probably getting a double return – refraction of their radar energy off the aircraft onto the surface of the water and back. It happened.
But almost never.
“Dammit. Bring the missiles up and give me a full burst sector scan of that Ilyushin!” the battalion commander said. “I really don’t like this.”
If he was wrong, he might be about to blow away one of the biggest aircraft in the world, its crew, and 200 tons of war supplies. But it was the kind of call he relished.
“JAG-ems one through six away!” Bunny called, “Cudas one and two away! Bugging the hell out.”
From the weapons bays of her two Fantoms, six JAGM air-to-ground missiles dropped and accelerated toward Lavrentiya, just visible on the horizon. Right behind them, two Cuda missiles fell free, lit their burners, turned 180 degrees to clear the tail of their launching Fantom and then sped over the top of it headed straight for the White Whale wallowing along above them. It didn’t stand a chance. Bunny’s fighters spun on their wingtips, went to full burner and began active jamming to spoof any missiles that might be fired their way.
Chaliapin had done everything a human could do to defend the airspace over Lavrentiya. He had his sector scanning radar pointed directly at the source of the coming attack. He had his missiles online. He had his people on the edge of their seats expecting an attack.
As soon as he heard the systems officer call a warning, he knew all of this wasn’t going to be enough.
“Vampires inbound!!” the man yelled. “UI aircraft maneuvering. AI engaging!!”
Outside the trailer, from three sites around him, missiles leaped off their rails. But prioritized by the combat AI, they weren’t aimed at Bunny’s Fantoms, which were heading as fast as they could out of range of the Russian missiles. The Russian AI had sensed the existential threat and stopped tracking the two stealth fighters to
focus on intercepting the smaller, self-guided JAGMs, speeding downrange at 600 knots. The firing inclination of the S-500 launchers meant that as they were mounted on the elevated hills behind Lavrentiya; their missiles had to begin diving radically almost as soon as they were fired if they were to have any hope of intercepting the JAGMs speeding in at wave-top height.
“Mayday from the Ilyushin, it’s going down!” his operator called. He turned in terror, looking to Chaliapin for hope, but seeing none.
One S-500 missile made a proximity detonation and took out a single JAGM. Two others detonated behind their targets, to no effect.
Five JAGMs made it through.
The first and second hit in the center of the truck park and container yard outside Lavrentiya township. The yard contained mostly food and clothing, and the explosions were less than impressive.
The third and fourth hit targets that had been identified as probable fuel storage sites, and these caused an altogether more impressive conflagration, with a single huge fireball rising a hundred feet into the air. The explosion also rained burning debris over the town, causing spot fires in multiple buildings including a row of containers holding anti-aircraft artillery ammunition. One of them was in the process of being unloaded and the exposed AA shells exploded in a fan-like spread of armor-piercing anger, detonating one by one the other containers alongside them in a ripple that caused the air to quiver and sent out a blast wave that took out the windows of the five-story administration center two miles away. The final shed to detonate was at the end of the Lavrentiya airfield runway, and it sent shrapnel slicing laterally through three of the five temporary hangars housing Okhotniks of Bondarev’s 6983rd Fighter Aviation Regiment which were in the middle of being fueled and armed for the upcoming operation.
The fifth missile wasn’t intended to cause massive destruction. It had been programmed by Bunny O’Hare to identify and home on the communications signature of a Nebo-M command hub, and the subsonic scream of its solid-propellant engine was the last sound that Lieutenant Colonel Alexandr Chaliapin, commander of Russia’s premier anti-aircraft defense battalion, ever heard.
The last thought to go through his mind was, ‘I was right.’
Bunny O’Hare had no time to celebrate.
She had nullified the threat from the Nebo-M, but it had not gone quietly into the night. Even as it fought to intercept the JAGMs closing on Lavrentiya, it was sending targeting data on the two Fantoms to a combat air patrol of two Su-57s circling overhead. Between the data from the Nebo and her own radical maneuvering, the Sukhoi pilots had no trouble locking up Bunny’s Fantoms.
“Missile launch!” Bunny grunted. “Jamming, firing countermeasures.” Rodriguez watched as she handed off countermeasure control of the Fantoms to their autonomous defensive AI, and tightened the grip on her mouse. The virtual-reality helmet around her gave her a near 360-degree view, simulating the view out of a cockpit. The two Sukhois were high on Bunny’s starboard quarter and she ordered her Fantoms around to face them, staying low to the water, trying to force the Russian missiles to overshoot.
They did, missing her lead aircraft.
Checking the other Fantom she saw that the AI had spoofed the other pair of missiles too, either through jamming or by drawing them away with chaff and flares. The fact her machines were still alive told her the pursuing fighters weren’t carrying K-77s, they were probably fielding older R-77s – she still had a chance!
She had two units in the fight. They weren’t armed with anything but cannon, but that would have to be enough.
“I’m sorry baby,” Bunny said, taking her support drone off of defensive subroutines and commanding it to attack the nearest Sukhoi. “We all have to die one day.”
It was the only chance she had. If one of the drones could engage and distract the fighters now dropping down on her rear quarter, the other might just have a chance of escape. In her downtime under the Rock, Bunny had ‘tweaked’ her drones’ offensive AI settings, creating what she called ‘berserker mode’. When initiated, the AI would only execute maneuvers intended to give it a firing solution on an enemy. It would take no evasive action whatsoever, no matter how imminent the threat. And even after all ordnance was expended, unless she canceled the ‘berserker’ command, the drone would try to destroy its target by ramming it. With each drone costing upward of 80 million dollars, it wasn’t surprising the designers of the Fantom’s combat AI had not considered implementing anything like Bunny’s berserker code. But Bunny hadn’t felt bound by budget constraints.
“It would totally suck to lose both drones again,” Rodriguez said, before she could stop herself.
“Understood ma’am,” Bunny said, dragging a waypoint across her touch screen and ordering her lead drone to bug out by scooting under the noses of the approaching enemy fighters. “Will try to avoid total suck scenario.” The two Sukhois were dropping on her like sea eagles hunting salmon. She locked them up with her missile targeting radar, knowing it would set alarms screaming in their cockpits, even though she had no missile to fire. Her ploy was psychological. Their own AI would have told them by now that they were facing two drones. Human pilots hated drones. A drone like the Fantom had only a silicon life to lose, it could pull Gs that no human pilot could, and it knew no fear. US air combat orthodoxy said that if you couldn’t kill a drone with your first missile salvo, you should do everything possible to avoid getting in range of guns and short-range missiles. Bunny was banking that at least one of the Sukhoi pilots would lose his shit at the sight of her Fantom closing on him with a missile warning screaming in his ears.
There was no sign of that yet though. As she tried to extend at least one of her Fantoms away from the oncoming Sukhois and let the other take the fight, a warning alarm filled the trailer and the Russians let fly with their second salvo of short-range off-boresight missiles!
Carl Williams of course knew about the planned nuclear strike before the Ambassador did. HOLMES didn’t spend all of his time gathering intel for the Ambassador; he also had a considerable portion of his bandwidth devoted to keeping Williams up to date with military developments, with orders to break in on whatever Williams was doing (including sleeping) with a flash alert for any event involving actual or potential losses to either side.
Well before Devlin took the call from the Secretary of State a small buzzing alarm from Williams laptop was the signal of just such an alert. Carl had dragged a mattress down to his office, and had taken to showering in the gym, and eating in the Annex’s commissary. He hadn’t see his own apartment for nearly two weeks. Nowhere else had the connectivity he needed to keep his uplink to the NSA HOLMES platform operating at full capacity.
He groaned, reaching an arm up from the mattress on the floor and batting the spacebar on his laptop. “Yes, what?”
“The time is 0100 hours,” HOLMES announced. “I have a military sitrep for you.”
“Go ahead,” Williams said, rubbing his eyes. He could have HOLMES copy it to NSA, and the Ambassador if it was material. He’d probably insist on doing so anyway. HOLMES was still trying to get back into her good books after the Bondarev thing.
“Satellite, electronic and human source reporting from Saint Lawrence indicates that further elements of the Russian 3rd Air and Air Defense Forces Command have moved into Savoonga. The aircraft based there include both piloted and unmanned aircraft. DoD analysts conclude this has been done to extend their flight time over the southeastern area of operations.”
“They’ve got Alaska pretty much to themselves then,” Williams observed.
“I have seen no reports of anything except reconnaissance flights from US mainland bases in the last 24 hours,” HOLMES confirmed. “However, there is a Navy covert air unit which has conducted two successful strikes on Russian mainland facilities in the last three days.”
“What covert air unit?” Williams asked, his ears pricking.
“I only have the code name,” HOLMES replied. “Its designation is NCTAMS-A4.
I am unable to find any other information about this unit. But I can confirm that three days ago it carried out a strike on Russian military targets at Anadyr which caused significant damage including the incapacitation of a drone squadron of the Russian 6983rd Air Defense Brigade. I have just picked up a report from ANR NORAD that about 30 minutes ago, the same unit apparently struck a Russian supply depot at Lavrentiya. Damage assessment has not yet been conducted, and I have no details yet on the fate of the attacking Navy aircraft.”
“Get some, Navy!” Williams said, punching a fist in the air. “I’m guessing those Russian planes at Savoonga are going to be next on their Christmas list.”
“That may be planned but is unlikely to be effected,” HOLMES said. “I believe a US Columbia Class nuclear submarine has been ordered to a position off the coast of the Kuril Islands.”
“Believe? Expand.”
“I have used comms traffic pattern analysis to isolate transmissions to and from Pacific Fleet nuclear submarines and identified two signals I believe indicate a boat is moving toward the Kurils.”
“Columbia class subs carry long-range hypersonic cruise missiles right?” Williams said. He could imagine tempers in Washington getting short - they might want to send a high explosive ultimatum towards one or more Russian military targets.
“Yes. I have indications that other US nuclear submarines have also been ordered to readiness, although their posture appears more defensive than offensive. I have assigned a 78% probability to a tactical nuclear attack using hypersonic cruise missiles on a Russian military target by the nuclear submarine located off the Kurils.” Williams was not sure he heard right.