by Ian Maxwell
During the few dicey weeks, Pulikesi unlike his German counterparts had opted to ‘ride it out’ and stayed back in Kiev. He had spent the entire two weeks cooped up in his apartment with Katya, his night-night friend. The Kiev fortnight was hands down better than his Rita fortnight in Mobile, AL. Back then, he had ridden out the storm in the comforting arms of Jack Daniels and Amber… or Mercedes… or was it Desire… Anyways, whats her name, had abandoned him after the first week. His retainer was much smaller back then.
But since then, things had been sweet in Kiev. For starters with Russia out, dick moves were down by 80%. Pissing matches by 90%. However pussy moves had increased by 10%, but whatever. The reduced number of stakeholders, tremendously improved the development process. The bug count had again diminished by 92.8%... guaranteeing yet another quarter’s retainer.
Bangalore loved him… not as much as it loved Ebola Cooomar, but fuck him.
Berlin loved him. The Germans had finally found someone who could shepherd the Ukrainians without getting into Nuremburg.
As for the Ukrainians, they were more than satisfied. Steady paycheck and productive work? They were in 13th heaven.
Cheap vodka, smuggled cigarettes, Afghani kush, hanging out with Ilya and the occasional visit from Katya provided the perfect balance for the fourteen hours Pulikesi spent away from his Kiev-Lubyanka. On the rare occasion when Pulikesi found the social scene unappealing, there was always a Natalia or a Svetlana or the rare Natalia-Svetlana combo.
But the only thing Pulikesi loved more than Natalia and Svetlana and Katya was the Hryvnia. Despite the American-IMF-Berlin-ECB interventions, the Ukrainian currency had remained unsalvageable. And Pulikesi’s retainers were in euros.
Other than the odd sauerkraut snafu, Pulikesi was living it up in Kiev.
Ilya blew a Marlboro as Pulikesi lit.
“So, apparently we forgot to submit the time sheet reports.”
“Haha, you mean you forgot…” guffawed Ilya.
“If you dipshits hadn’t dragged me to that E party, I would have turned it in.”
“Haha. That was some real good times. Plus what are they going to do? Fire us? Good luck trying to get another firm to even sniff the RFP.”
“Ya, but still… someone’s gotta dot the t and cross the i.”
A group of vibrant protesters marched by chanting something about how the Russian President was a feline abuser.
“What’s riled them up today?” asked Pulikesi.
“Something about the Russian President’s cats.”
“Right, now that the new guy has fixed the economy and found shale gas, he wants to go after Russia’s first cats?”
“As trivial as it may seem, at least we aren’t apathetic anymore. Cats, dogs… it doesn’t matter. If I wasn’t working on the Albatross, I would probably be there with them right now…” gushed Ilya.
“Ya, me too… see that redhead…”
“Redhead in the Cat Riot T-Shirt? Way ahead of you my little friend. Have been checking her out for the past two hundred yards.”
“She seems bored, maybe we should catcall her… SWEET EARS…” yelled out Pulikesi.
“Wow…wow… Jesus man, cut it out,” seethed a mortified Ilya.
The redhead flashed a smile and pushed back her hair, thus exposing her left ear.
“See… she likes that.”
Ilya couldn’t believe it. “She liked that??? That creepy catcall…”
“Dude, you are overthinking it.”
“Aww fuck it. Let’s just go fix those darn bugs.”
Chapter 24
Bodo Airbase, Arctic Circle, Norway
In the 3AM Arctic glare, six F-35 jets leapt off the tarmac in unison. After hovering for a few seconds, the cool looking jets shot out into the Nordic sea. The sortie, unlike their regular missions had nothing to do with the Russians. Today, the Norwegians F-35s were headed to the Paris Air Show – to justify their existence to the American Congress.
Being a field trip, they had dispensed their ammo with extra fuel and several pounds of coffee. All they had to do was, take off and head to Paris while tapping away to Ke dollar sign ha’s stimulating message to young pilots.
Murmansk – Arctic Circle, Russia
“Boss, the F-35 Lightnings are in the air,” Korlov announced.
A few hours earlier Primakov and Korlov had caught a redeye to Murmansk. There, their point of interest was the Severomorsk air base, home to a squadron of the supersonic Tu-160s, aka the Bear Bombers. On arrival at Severomorsk they had handed over their cargo to a couple of Tu-160s.
When the Norwegian F-35s took off, Primakov gave the go ahead, “Alright, send out the bombers.”
“Sending out the Bears….”
“And tell them to make as much noise as possible. I want every Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian kid to miss school tomorrow.”
“Haha, that’s so cool. Wish someone had done that for me in school,” reminisced Korlov.
“Ya, ya sure.”
“I mean think about the odds…” added Korlov.
“Odds of the mission?”
“No. What if some Lapland boys actually scheduled a fake threat for tomorrow… to skip exams… midterms… and all their planning would be wasted… I mean you can’t repeat a fake threat for like a semester and… and even if you did…” ploughed on Korlov.
Primakov couldn’t take it anymore, “What the fuck do you care about the academic challenges of a bunch of reindeer blowers? Just, keep your eyes on the mission ok? Make sure everything is in place.”
The Atlantic Ocean
The Norwegian F-35s leisurely hit their allotted altitude of 45,000 ft. To avoid civilian traffic they had to loop around Iceland, before turning south.
Three hundred nautical miles into the Atlantic, the F-35 pilots were thoroughly hypnotized by Ke dollar sign ha’s thumping message. If not for the caramel macchiato piped through their hi-tech helmets, the entire squadron would have abandoned the fjords for sunny Hollywood.
Just as Ke dollar sign ha repeated her feelings for Mick Jagger, the Norwegian pilots heard massive boom. Moments later their incredibly expensive helmets went dark. Frantic jiggling of the touch controls did nothing to revive the unit, forcing the pilots to remove their helmets. At 45,000 feet and 0.6Mach they were allowed to do that.
BOOM!
A second boom.
“Bodo base this is Spread Eagle. Our helmets just blacked out.”
After some static, Bodo base responded, “Spread Eagle. This is Bodo Base. Repeat your message.”
“Bodo base, this is Spread Eagle. Our helmets just blacked out.”
“WTF? Did you spill macchiato into the helmet again? Jesus man grow up.”
“Bodo Base this is Squadron Leader Aas. All our helmets have blacked out.”
“All six at the same time?”
“Affirmative, Bodo base.”
“So you are saying… that all six of you spilt your macchiatos? Hows that even possible. Just the probability…”
“No! No one spilt anything.”
“Aha… so you guys puked… It’s that air sickness thing again isn’t it? Jesus, I thought we fixed it with the Ram’s piss. This is beyond ridiculous… way beyond ridiculous. No wonder we don’t get invited to the annual bombing campaigns…”
Squadron Leader Aas swore. He slowed his breathing and channeled his inner Ke dollar sign ha before resuming the tug of war with Bodo base. “Bodo base. I repeat no one puked or jerked off into the precious helmets. There was a loud boom from the outside and then we all just blanked out.”
“Oh… ok Spread Eagle… so what do you think it was… is someone shooting at you?”
“Nope. Radar is clean. Probably a bug in the onboard computer.”
“No, no… remember, no talking shit about the F-35s.”
“Perhaps an EMP.”
“Whaaat…” began the dude in Bodo base before switching tones, “Spread Eagle. Fuck me.”
“Spread
Eagle, we just picked up 6 Bear bombers, Tu-160s. They are headed for you... already very close… Deploy evasive measures.”
“Bodo Base,” replied the frustrated Squadron Leader Aas, “Dude, nothing other than the fucking million dollar macchiato maker is working… Plus how can the bombers attack us? Do they plan to ram into us? What the freak are they thinking?”
“Well I don’t know. Fly fast or something. For fuck’s sake man… you are flying the most advanced jet of the generation.”
“Bodo base, we are still quite heavy on fuel. We should have got the F-22s… just saying.”
“Enough with the F-22s… the Bears will be there within thirty seconds.”
“Rodger that.”
“Try and hang on for twenty minutes. Brits have scrambled their Typhoons.”
“Spread Eagle out.”
The F-35s after a brief contemplation, engaged their after burners and turned south. One minute after hitting Mach 2, the onboard radar informed the Squadron Leader Aas about an incoming intruder. Unfortunately, the radar couldn’t really say what the hell the intruder was? It was sort of free falling but coming towards the Norwegian jets… like a JDAM… abandoning its database, the onboard computer checked Wikipedia and confirmed that it wasn’t a bomb.
It was a carbon based biped.
“Fuck me,” whispered Aas.
“Fuck fuckity fuck. How do we dodge this bum?” shouted one of the other pilots, a Larsson.
The radar suddenly beeped again, indicating that two more objects – again human beings – were floating towards the F-35s.
“Try dodging.”
“I tried. They have some JDAM shit attached to their asses. How is this even possible?”
The F-35’s super advanced electronic array radar beeped again. There were in total nine kamikazes. The presumably Spetsnaz dudes were within 500ft.
“Too late to turn around. Let’s do a rapid dive to 10,000ft.”
As the pilots began their dive, all sorts of alarms started to blare up inside the F-35 cockpits. The words CPU OVERLAOD began flashing in a very friendly font – Comic Sans MS –rendering every knob and control useless.
As the Norwegian pilots thrashed around their cockpits, the onboard computer was ballsy enough to flash a ‘Would you like to send bug reports to Lockheed, Nevada?’ Incredibly the popup’s NO button was grayed out. Hoping to unfreeze the darned jet, the pilots hit YES.
As the upload began, the six jets levelled out at Mach 0.5 and settled on a straight line.
Moments later, a smiling Spetsnaz dude landed right on top of Aas’ cockpit with a loud thwack. The Spetsnaz agent wore a suit …. Not some pressure suit… but a sweet Reservoir Dogs style suit… bizarre, but definitely not uncool. The Russian was smiling.
Within seconds, other Spetsnaz agents landed on the F-35s. Some got two.
To the Norwegians’ horror, the Spetsnaz dudes pulled out hammers and sickles and got to work on the F-35’s multimillion dollar cockpit.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
“Sweet fuck. What the hell is wrong with these guys…? Bodo base, this is Squadron Leader Aas. We have nine or more Russians trying to break into our cockpits. Bodo base can you hear us…”
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
Hearing silence from Bodo base, Squadron Leader Aas frantically began searching the F-35’s service manuals for something do in case of frozen CPUs and a dangling Russian. The tablet manual returned zilch. Aas gave up after the third loop through the index.
THUNK. CRASH.
One of the Russkies had cracked the plexiglass dome. Long streaks spread across the dome as Aas felt the Russian might.
Just when all seemed lost, the onboard CPU returned. The ‘CPU OVERLOAD’ sign was replaced by a smug smiley face waving a checkered flag. Aas tried the controls again. This time the F-35 responded. Wasting no time, he twerked the controls causing the aircraft to rollover. The bloody Russian was blown away.
The rest of the squadron, made similar moves to rid themselves of the Russians.
By the time the F-35s landed back in Norway, they were the No.3 breaking news all the way from Oslo to Atlanta. No.1 went to some late night guy announcing his retirement, while Crimea took No.2.
‘Heroic N’wegians outflank Russian aggression’ ran the Washington Redgister, ‘Foolish Spetsnaz caught beating off to F-35s’ opened Calamity News Network, ‘F-35s ward off Bear Blitz’ crooned The Nephew. The whole thing about the CPU freezing up was swept under the rug citing national securitah.
This was obviously sweet music to the USAF, DoD and other concerned entities. If that reindeer-petting-zoo of a country could dodge the Russians, imagine what a true-blue-Top-Gun-squadron could do… Kaching! Kaching! Kaching!
Murmansk – Arctic Circle, Russia
Korlov and Primakov thanked the Severomorsk base commander Gruzinsky.
“Thank you Sir… for the Bear bombers,” said Primakov.
“Fuck that shit… so how’d you do it?”
“What?”
“The dead guys... how did they ‘get alive’… how did they hammer the F-35 cockpit?”
“Bacon,” offered Korlov.
“Bacon?”
“Americans love to wrap everything in bacon… so we wrapped some mechanical gear and chips with bacon… 900 pounds of bacon.”
“What a waste… muhahaha,” laughed Gruzinsky.
Chapter 25
Washington, District of Columbia
“This will not stand. This will not stand. This aggression against Norway will not stand...,” Doug Sanders the US rep to NATO declared via GovChat. Jim Borland and Sarah McAllister sat across the 32 inch screen that streamed Sanders all the way from Brussels.
“Doug, there’s no need to go all 91 over this,” said Sarah McAllister the Undersecretary of State.
“91? 91? You should be glad it’s not 76…”
“76?”
“1776 man. What kind of a patriot are you?”
“But 1776 was good, it was good for America…” Jim Borland the CIA dude responsible for clowning Russia replied.
“Whatever, like I was saying, this… this aggression, this act of petulance against an all-weather ally will not stand....”
“Ya we get it Doug. That’s why we are here.”
NATO’s Sanders shook his head before continuing, “But what the hell is wrong with those Russians? We absolutely need to protect the F-35s.”
“Well we have a few theories, Jim you want to take this?” asked Sarah.
“Thanks Sarah. It’s actually quite simple. The Russkies have a raging boner for our F-35s.”
“Raging Russian Boner? Worst pickup line ever.”
“Guys get back in here,” chided Sarah.
“Right, as I was saying, the Russians envy our F-35s. Greatly. Their fifth gen fighter, the Sukhoi PAKFA is in shambles. On the one side you have India, their FGFA developmental buddy flirting with the French Mirages, while their other ‘partner’ China is hell bent on pirating their jet fan technologies… you throw in Ukraine and suddenly you see how bad it is for the Russians.”
“Ok. So what’s the recourse? I need some actionable points…” protested Doug.
“Two parts: Defense and Offense. Defensively, we box the F-35s someplace safe till things cool off, or at least till someone exterminates the bugs. Offensively…”
“No effin way. The Paris Air Show is crucial. We can’t afford to pull out. It will be an absolute disaster,” protested Doug.
“Gotta agree with Doug here, Jim. We can’t abandon Le Bourget. We need those camel boys to buy the F-35. Forget profitability, a Saudi-Emirati order is our only hope for saving Lockheed and its American jobs. Abandoning Le Bourget would be an ArmsRace 101 Fail.”
“Well I thought there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Doug Sanders still streaming via GovChat flared, “This isn’t some Hollywood st
arlet caught injecting bitumen up her ass in an Arby’s restroom. We are talking about trillions of dollars here… and American jobs.”
“Bitumen up the ass? Fuck you guys… send the jets to Paris, Baku or Timbuktu, what do I care… All I am saying is that, they aren’t ready to fly.”
“Maybe not to fly… but… definitely ready to sell.”
“Well then don’t come crying to us when the Serbs or Somalis shoot one down and you have to go rescue Owen Wilson, ok? But seriously they inject bitumen up the ass…”
Sarah McAllister had heard enough. “Owen Wilson or not, I gotta go with Doug. We have to send the F-35s. Plus I don’t think the Russian intellect has degraded to the point where they believe they can hit the Lightnings twice.”
“But we still need to address this Russian aggression…”
Jim Borland shook his head in resignation, “We should send the Raptors instead... now those things can take care of themselves…”
“We aren’t allowed to sell them, even if we were, that assembly line is history… it’s at the Smithsonian.”
“No, no just to send a message… that we are psychos… or superior badasses…”
“Ya, your F-35s get attacked and to prove they are fine, you send F-22s, makes complete sense…”
“In my world it does. At the CIA it makes double absolute sense.”
“We need to prove the F-35s are fine. No Raptors. End of discussion.”
Jim Borland pouted, “Fine.”
“Like you said, Offense. A covert Offensive push. The Russians have been pulling these crazy stunts all year. I think it’s time we did something ourselves.”
“Black ops style?”
“Yep. Joint NATO mischief.”
“Eww NATO? Fuck the Europeans.”
“I wish I could.”