by F X Holden
Potemkin raised an eyebrow, “By all means.”
“He used to say ‘Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, and what you will be’.”
Potemkin smiled, “Yes, I think I remember him saying that. A quote from Lenin, was it not?”
“No comrade General, it was Douglas MacArthur I believe. If there was nothing else, I must attend to the matter of Little Diomede.”
“Something big is going down,” Perri said. “Hook up the radio will you?” He had taken the scope off his rifle and was peering through a shrapnel hole in the water tank, which was easier than looking through one lens of the binoculars. He and Dave had made themselves a pretty cool nest, spreading out their sleeping bags on the bottom of the tank so they could sit in relative comfort. They’d been through the cantonment and salvaged a couple of wooden boxes that they could fit through the manhole, along with bottled water, canned fruit and vegetables and unspoiled dry food like breakfast cereals they’d recovered from the larder of a destroyed mess hall. They had a big juice bottle for pissing in, so the only time they had to leave the tank was if they needed to crap, and they had even found a few rolls of dry toilet paper for that.
What Perri was seeing was a whole bunch of activity on the airfield. He had been counting aircraft, but it was hard, because they were not only parked out beside the airfield or on the apron, but also under camouflaged canvas shelters behind walls made of barrels and sandbags. He figured there were at least fifty jets and maybe six propeller driven transports, plus three helicopters, distributed around the airfield. The jets had been taking off and landing in pairs, about every thirty minutes to an hour, with the largest a single flight of three which had departed about a half hour earlier. That had also been a little strange, because they had seen a large airliner style aircraft circling overhead, and then the three jets had taken off, fallen into formation with it, and then all of them had headed north.
But now he saw a large number of trucks and aircrew running around, and about ten jets were taxiing out, forming a line on the single runway, clearly getting ready for take-off. He could see the engines had been started on another four or five, and even more were being pulled out of their hangars by towing trucks.
Even from inside the tank, two miles away from the airfield, the building roar of jet engines was palpable.
“Here you go,” Dave said, handing him up the radio handset. “Have you seen anyone we know out there?” They hadn’t seen the hostages from Gambell since they had been taken into the town, and both boys were wondering how they were doing. Their families were over there. And it was hard to shake the image of those mass graves, the small shoes and gloves lying half buried in the dirt.
“No, nothing,” Perri said, then squeezed the button on the handset. “Hey what was that stupid codename Sarge asked us to use instead of our names?”
“White Bear?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Perri clicked the button on the radio handset. “Sarge, are you there, this is White Bear, come in?” He had to repeat the call a couple of times, but that was normal. Sarge always answered eventually.
“Sarge here White Bear, how are you doing?”
“Doing just fine thanks Sarge,” Perri said. He put his eye to the hole in the tank again. “Sarge, I count about fifty or sixty different aircraft on the base here. I can give you a run-down later, but I need to tell you, something big is happening.”
“Tell me exactly what you see, son,” the man said calmly.
“I see about twenty aircraft getting ready to take off, maybe more,” Perri said. “I think they’re mostly combat drones, Hunters, and Sukhoi-57s.”
“When you say, ‘getting ready’, exactly what do you mean?”
As Sarge spoke, the first of the jets roared down the runway and lifted into the air. Perri held his hands up to his ears, then lowered the mike to his mouth again, “Did you hear that? I mean they are all taking off, that was the first one!”
“OK, got that. Anything else? Do you see rotary aircraft, transports anything like that?”
Perri watched as another pair of jets took off. “No, just the fighters. Oh wait, it may be nothing, but about a half hour ago there was a big airliner type of aircraft up high, circling over the island. Three jets took off, met up with it like an escort, you know, and they all headed north.”
Perri heard a noise like paper rustling at the other end. “Can you be more precise? What did the big aircraft look like, exactly what direction on the compass did they go? Not east, or southeast? Definitely north?”
Perri knew why he was asking. East was Alaska. Southeast the US mainland. North was … nothing. Big Diomede, Little Diomede. Open sea. “Yeah, north,” Perri said. “The big plane was way up high, just a little white shape. Maybe it had a glass nose. It seemed to catch the light, you know. And I didn’t check the compass, I just know they went north,” he said. He looked at Dave in case the boy had anything to add, but he just shrugged. Another aircraft roared off the runway outside.
“I’m going to have to log out,” Perri said, the pitch of his voice rising, “I don’t want to be yelling, and it’s getting noisy here. You’ve got about twenty Russian fighters taking off right now!”
“OK White Bear, keep the radio close. Call me in thirty. I’ll have more questions, Sarge out.”
Perri sat down, hands over his ears. The metal of the perforated water tank was like an echo chamber and the noise of the jets came in through the walls and shrapnel holes and bounced around, assaulting them from all sides. There was nothing they could do except grit their teeth and ride it out.
Admiral Solanta had come through for Rodriguez. He sent word that he was committing two anti-air capable submersible fast attack drones (S-FADs) to the defense of Little Diomede. The Manta Class S-FAD was a particularly potent weapons platform. A trimaran design, with the vast majority of its hull and superstructure built of lightweight and radar-translucent carbon-composite materials it had a length of around 130 feet and a long and streamlined center hull. Originally designed to be able to hunt and kill anything from nuclear to the newest near silent air-independent diesel subs it soon became evident the platform was capable of being adapted to field multiple weapon systems including sea-launched ground or air attack missiles. Lurking beneath the waves, with only a cable-buoy mounted Naval Integrated Fire Control Counter-Air data link to air and land radar, and satellite tracking systems, each anti-air S-FAD/A carried 12 cells capable of firing the latest over-the-horizon, networked SM-6 (Enhanced) anti-air missile with active seeker autonomous terminal interception capabilities.
Solanta had gotten four of his stealth submersibles successfully through the Russian naval picket and sent them north in support of the Enterprise Carrier Battle Group. Two had already reached station in the Bering Strait when the Enterprise was forced to turn back, so he had kept them on station and in reserve. It was a platform that had demonstrated an ability in testing to intercept everything from fast moving fighters and bombers to satellites or ballistic missiles. But it had never been used in combat, until now.
Rodriguez' operations order was simple: draw the enemy to Little Diomede and identify targets for the S-FADs. With a projected shoot-kill ratio of 70% against 5th gen Russian fighters, the two S-FADs between them should be able to account for about 16 Russian aircraft. He’d just seen human source intel indicating Russia was sending around 20 aircraft against Little Diomede, leaving Rodriguez and Bunny to mop up the remainder and then put their drones down in Juneau. The Admiral hoped with a bit of luck, they may even be able to avert a direct strike on the base, and if the ploy off the Kurils worked, the shooting match might be over before Russia could gather itself and mount a new attack on the island base.
It was a calculated risk. And his officers on Little Diomede had already proven Lady Luck was their personal friend. But they would need all the help they could get.
Admiral Solanta was a deeply religious man. As
he looked at a map of the Russian control zone, and the tiny dot right in the middle of it that was Little Diomede island, he crossed himself, “May God protect you ladies.”
Perri’s frantic warning from Savoonga had been relayed by Canadian intelligence to NORAD immediately. The FLASH alert from NORAD was received at The Rock simultaneous with a contact alert from the F-47 out in the harbor flashing onto Bunny’s threat warning screen. She scanned both reports.
“We better get down to the deck ma’am!” Bunny said. They had both been lying on makeshift bunks inside the trailer, trying to doze, saving their strength. “ANR has received human intel indicating Russian aircraft are scrambling from Savoonga. Estimated 20+ bogies, and radar confirms they are headed this way. Skippy outside has just detected what looks like a Beriev Airborne Control aircraft, with escort, taking up station about fifty miles south of us. We need to get our electronic-warfare birds up there, jam that sucker and get those S-FADs networked.” She looked over at Rodriguez, “This is it, Boss.”
“Skippy?” Rodriguez asked.
“The Fantom out in the harbor. I gave it a name,” Bunny shrugged. “It’s earned it.”
Rodriguez smiled, “OK Lieutenant, let’s get this production line rolling…”
They had a Fantom locked and loaded on the Cat and had it on standby power, ready for a five-minute power up and launch. The rest of the drones were queued, fueled, armed and programmed – two with Electronic Warfare pods and the rest with air-air missiles. They had disarmed the explosives in the cave, but were acutely aware that a lucky Russian shot through the cavern mouth or down the chute could trigger one of the charges and bring the roof down on them. It would have to be extremely lucky – the chute was only 100 feet wide and putting a missile all the way through it would be like Luke Skywalker’s Hail Mary shot at the Death Star cooling tower. The only way to attack them within the cave would be from water level - a missile fired straight into the mouth of the cave - but all that would do, unless it was a nuke, was to take out the dock and command trailer. Bunny would lose her cockpit, and they would be deaf and blind (perhaps literally) but the flight deck was shielded from a direct hit for exactly that reason, and as long as the Cat kept working, the chute was clear, and at least one of them was alive, they could keep launching.
One last precaution they had taken was to create a ‘castle keep’ - a fortified position deep inside the network of racks and belts serving the catapult feeder system; with light, food and water, arms and ammunition and a low frequency radio linked to the subsea array in the Strait so that they could stay in contact with CNAF. Bunny had wryly observed that they could hold off an army from inside the ‘keep’, so they were more likely to die of thirst and hunger, or boredom.
They sprinted down to the flight deck and pulled on helmets, as much so that they could communicate, as for protection. The first drone was ready to rock and roll, so Bunny waited behind the blast shield while Rodriguez went to the shooter’s chair, just like in her former life aboard carriers. The console showed a lot of different readouts, digital and mechanical, but in the end it came down to just two buttons really: charge and launch. She hit the first, and the Cat started humming. It was already on reserve power, and needed only a few minutes to reach full charge, drawing on only a small percentage of the power that could be generated by the nuclear power plant buried deep under the Rock. As it charged, it triggered the engine startup sequence for the Fantom and the liquid hydrogen Scimitar engines whined into life. A slipstream exhaust fan sucked most of the displaced air down into vents for distribution around the cave, but not all, and dust and small particles started swirling while a small ripple began dancing on the surface of the Pond. Green lights began showing on the shooter’s console, telling her the Cat was fully charged and ready to deliver the required thrust, the drone was locked to the shuttle, its engine was at full power, ready for the afterburner to be lit, and its combat and autopilot systems were up.
They rushed through the launch sequence.
“Preparing to light the tail,” Bunny said into her helmet mike. “Clear?”
“Clear, aye,” confirmed Rodriguez, crouching lower.
“Launching!”
The Cat fired and the afterburner roared, hurling the Fantom along the catapult, flinging it down the chute and out into the open air. They both watched the shrinking silhouette to see that it flew true, turning away and slowly pulling up until it was gone from the small letterbox view they had of it.
“electronic-warfare 1 away,” Bunny said. As she spoke, the catapult shuttle returned to its start position while the automated delivery system lifted a new drone cartridge off the conveyor belt, and dropped it on the catapult rails. Bunny hit a release and the two halves of the cartridge fell away into pits on either side of the catapult and were ejected into the Pond, like bowling pins at the back of an alley. While Rodriguez fixed a hand-held system diagnostics unit to the newly arrived Fantom, in essence ‘booting’ the drone to life, Bunny was rocking it back and forth to lock it into place on the shuttle and fitting the holding rods.
Rodriguez felt the Fantom thud into place and counted off precious seconds as hydraulic rods pushed the wings down.
“Locked!” Bunny said, arms in the air, stepping away.
“Booted!” Rodriguez said a moment later, seeing the go-codes on her handset and pulling the magnetic connecting cable off the access point on the drone’s skin.
Bunny jumped over the blast protector again, as Rodriguez ran for the shooter’s chair. Every minute now was literally life, or death. The Russians scrambling from Saint Lawrence would be forming up, waiting for guidance from their Airborne Control aircraft. If they formed up in the usual Russian formation of two flights of three, the first fighters could be on their way already. Flying time from Saint Lawrence to the Rock was about 20 minutes for an Su-57. They needed to get at least six Fantoms in the air by then. What they were trying to do had never been done before. Launch two electronic-warfare birds then a hex of air-to-air Fantoms inside thirty minutes? With only two people. It was crazy.
As she waited for her shooter’s console to light up green, she looked over at Bunny and saw the woman looking across at her too.
They could be hit at any moment but Bunny was grinning like a fool, “Are we having fun yet ma’am?”
“Spruce leader, this is Spruce Control,” Bondarev heard his airborne controller say. “We are experiencing heavy jamming. Intermittent signal loss on several frequencies. Status over the target is unchanged, no activity.”
Bondarev cursed. The observation from the airborne controller was contradictory. If the enemy had started active jamming, then the situation over the target had changed, obviously. It showed they had detected or anticipated Russian activity, they had spotted or suspected the presence of the Airborne Control plane, and were targeting it with electronic-warfare aircraft. It was unlikely to be ground or satellite-based jamming, therefore there was at least one US stealth aircraft in the Operations Area that the Airborne Control and mainland-based radar had not yet detected. Probably more than one.
He had taken off in the lead formation from Savoonga. Spent ten frustrating minutes forming up. Was still 15 minutes from Little Diomede. His flight of six aircraft would set up a CAP over the island. If there were any enemy aircraft in the air near the island, he would deal with them. And he didn’t need the airborne controller to tell him they weren’t picking up any returns, he could see that on his empty threat warning screen. The only upside was that the jamming confirmed beyond doubt that there was a significant enemy base on the island.
It was an interesting tactical challenge. Recon photos showed a small cave at water level, with an opening not much higher or wider than the profile of one of his Okhotniks. It was conceivable you could fly a drone through it, but it would require skill. And there was no flight path cleared along the water outside the cave. Several fishing boats were wrecked in the shallow harbor lying in front of the cave, so while it was pos
sible a ski-equipped drone could land in the mouth of the cave, taking off would be problematic as there wasn’t enough ‘runway’ to get an aircraft up to take-off speed. Once he had dealt with any threats, he needed to get a low level look at the mouth of the cave himself before he sent his special ops team in.
Following behind him were ground-attack armed Okhotniks, four carrying deep penetrating precision-guided bombs with 1500 lb. warheads that could punch through 10 feet of hardened concrete, or 20 feet of soil. The rest were armed with short range ground attack missiles designed to take out enemy armor. Their warheads were smaller, but their guidance systems more precise. If he was to have a chance of getting a shot inside that cave mouth, it would most likely be with an Okhotnik, flying in at wave-top height and delivering its ordnance at point blank range.
An icon Bondarev had rarely seen on his heads-up display threat display started blinking, as the Airborne Control aircraft broadcast again, “Spruce Control to Spruce leader, we are blind. Total signal failure. Interference on all frequencies, anti-jamming measures ineffective. Sorry Spruce leader, we could give you a vector to the likely source of the jamming, but you are already headed there. We will update if status changes.”
“Spruce leader, understood, out,” Bondarev replied.
He quickly scanned his heads-up display, the skies, his wingmen’s’ positions. The passive and active sensors on his Sukhois should be able to burn through any jamming once he arrived over the target, but that meant long-range missiles were virtually useless, reducing his effective payload from eight to four missiles per aircraft. He was not concerned. The jamming aircraft were likely just unarmed drones. And if there was a significant force of drones in the target area, the airborne control aircraft should have picked them up before it went off the air.