Chernykh braced his lightly wounded shoulder against a wheel and fired, but the bucking of the aircraft through turbulence sent the shot whizzing past Craig’s face. The aircraft lurched sharply, sending Chernykh stumbling towards the open gear door, forcing him to reach for the landing gear. He dropped his gun to grab the lock stay, a cylindrical strut along the top of the wheel gear. The weapon clattered against a wheel, then fell through the open door way. Fear showed on Chernykh’s face as he pulled himself up onto the landing gear, and threw his blood soaked arm over the top of the main strut. The aircraft shuddered again, and he dropped down a little, sliding on his own blood. Frantically, he pulled himself back up as freezing air clawed at his clothes.
Craig had a clear shot, but hesitated.
“Help me!” Chernykh yelled over the screaming wind, clearly helpless.
Craig lowered his gun uncertainly, then stepped into the wheel bay. “Hold on,” he said, pocketing his pistol and approaching the undercarriage. He grabbed a strut with one hand and offered Chernykh the other. “Take my hand!”
The Spetsnaz soldier used his bloodied arm to hold the strut, moving his good arm as if preparing to reach for Craig’s outstretched hand. Suddenly his good arm snapped above his shoulder in a lightning fast motion, a shiny sliver of metal now in his hand. Before he could hurl the knife at Craig’s throat, a shot rang out. Chernykh’s head snapped back. For a moment, the Spetsnaz soldier hung lifelessly from the wheel strut as blood welled from the bullet hole in his forehead, then he dropped the knife and fell like a rag doll through the open undercarriage doorway. The moment he hit the air outside, his body was swept out of sight by the gale force wind below.
Craig looked back at Valentina, kneeling at the open panel with the soldier’s rifle braced against her shoulder. She lowered the gun and climbed into the wheel bay. “Have you learnt nothing?” she demanded. “No matter what you think, they’re never helpless! Never give them a chance, or they will kill you!”
“He was wounded, and he’d dropped his gun,” Craig said helplessly, knowing how foolish it sounded the moment he said it.
“And he was a second from slitting your throat!” She snapped as she pushed past him angrily. “Come on, there might be more of them!”
Valentina edged around the wheel bay, giving the open door a wide berth. She approached an open control panel, labeled in Cyrillic, and threw a switch from manual to automatic. A moment later, the gear door lifted up and locked into place. The wheel bay immediately fell silent while the air pressure and temperature began to rise as the compartment pressurized. She crossed to the far side of the wheel bay, to a small access hatch. When she tried it, she found it wouldn’t budge.
“It’s locked,” she said, deciding there must have been only one saboteur.
Without another word, they returned to the cargo compartment to help the injured soldier back to the flight deck.
* * * *
Nogorev had been in the tail section of the plane assessing the chance of sabotaging the auxiliary power unit when the shooting had begun. He ran forward, cracking open the hatch into the wheel bay in time to see Chernykh fall and glimpse the water below. From the angle of the sunlight on the landing gear door, he realized they were heading south over the sea, making a jump impossible.
He heard voices, so he closed the hatch and used the barrel of his gun to wedge the handle shut. Soon, the handle rattled several times as Valentina tried to force the hatch open. Nogorev waited twenty minutes, after the hatch fell silent, before entering the wheel bay. He assumed the flight deck was now guarded, preventing a second attack on whoever was flying the plane, and he was equally sure that if he touched the wheel bay’s door release again, his hiding place would quickly be swarming with armed men. He was trapped, even if the people controlling the aircraft didn’t know he was aboard.
All he could do was wait for the aircraft to land, so he locked himself in the rear cargo compartment and rested, preparing for his one last opportunity to deal with Craig Balard.
* * * *
The 55,000 tonne heavy aircraft carrying missile cruiser, Admiral Kuznetsov, was on a long range deployment in the Sea of Japan when it received a coded message from naval headquarters in Saint Petersburg. The navy high command had remained neutral throughout the crisis, and there were no naval officers on the Emergency Committee, so the Captain of the Kuznetsov was surprised to receive an order to destroy an Aeroflot aircraft crossing the Sea of Okhotsk. The order had been issued by one of the most senior officers in the Russian Navy, and so appeared valid. The Captain was not to know the order was a forgery, and the officer in question was unlawfully held by the SVR at a secret location on the outskirts of the city.
All air force aircraft in the Far East provinces had been grounded, with specific orders only to fly in defense of their air bases, and to ignore any orders from the Emergency Committee. That left the Kuznetsov’s MiG-29K fighters as the only aircraft able to reach the Aeroflot A320. The aviation cruiser launched two fighters equipped with external fuel tanks and air to air missiles shortly before sunset. They had good intelligence as to the A320’s course, from ground based radars and satellite tracking, but there was still an element of guess work without airborne radars tracking the target. If the A320 was late, or changed course, the fighters would have to return to the Kuznetsov without firing their missiles, leaving little margin for error.
A nervous wait began in the Kuznetsov’s Air Warfare Center as the two fighters raced to the interception point at their most fuel efficient velocity. Behind them, the ship steamed to the north east at flank speed, reducing the distance for the fighter’s return flight. By 8.05 PM, the MiG-29K’s were on station, sweeping the sky with their radars and burning through their precious fuel reserves. The Captain and his Air Operations Commander watched the telemetry apprehensively, even as they wondered why it was so critical to shoot down a civilian airliner.
After just three minutes on station, the speaker crackled in the ship’s Air Warfare Center. “Radar contact, bearing two seven nine!”
* * * *
“They’re turning towards us,” General Sorokin said watching the radar screen. “Two of them.”
Craig leaned forward from the engineer’s seat and peered out into the night sky.
His father pointed off to the east. “I see them!” Two dark shapes illuminated by moonlight streaked toward them.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance of out running them?” Craig asked.
“No,” Sorokin said, then tried radioing the incoming fighters. “This is Air Force General Karol Sorokin. Identify yourself!”
There was no response as the twin engine, twin tail plane fighters dived toward them in a shallow arc that finished a few hundred meters behind the A320.
“They’re going to take us down with guns,” Colonel Balard said.
The General radioed again. “I repeat, this is General Karol Sorokin. This aircraft is operating under the orders of Marshal Vochenko. I order you to identify yourself and your intentions immediately.”
The two fighters leveled off as they nosed towards the tail of the A320, looking for the optimal firing position. General Sorokin banked slightly toward the fighters, trying to keep them in view and the tail of their aircraft out of their gun sights.
“We can’t out fly them,” Colonel Balard observed.
“Maybe not, but I can make them work for their kill!”
“Is there anywhere we can land?” Craig asked.
“Nothing close,” Sorokin said as he leaned toward the side window, glimpsing the two fighters closing on the lumbering passenger jet.
The fighters side slipped in behind the A320, bringing their guns to bear.
“Here we go!” Colonel Balard said, bracing.
General Sorokin pulled back on the stick and pushed it to the right. The nose lifted as the big white jet banked sharply right and tracer streamed beneath the A320’s port wing, narrowly missing its engine. The general pushed the
nose down, diving towards the sea to pick up speed, then leveled off a few hundred meters above the water. The two fighters followed the maneuver effortlessly, sliding in behind the jet for another shot.
“This is General Sorokin,” he yelled into the microphone. “I order you to break off immediately! We’re acting under orders of the commander of the Air Force and the Prime Minister of the Federation. You have no authority to engage us!”
Again, no response.
He hung up the microphone angrily, then pushed the throttle to maximum. The General rocked the stick, dipping and weaving the A320, trying vainly to make the clumsy airbus harder to hit.
Colonel Balard pressed his face to the side window as the two fighters swept up on them again. “Now!”
Sorokin banked the old airbus to the left sharply as a stream of tracer cut through the starboard engine. Flames erupted from the engine as the aircraft shuddered, and pieces of metal peeled away from the housing like tinfoil. Black oily smoke billowed from the engine, forming a snaking trail behind the airbus.
Sorokin cursed silently as he jabbed the engine fire button, cutting fuel to the engine and triggering the fire extinguisher countdown. Flames licked the engine for ten seconds as the fuel burned away, then the fire suppressant discharged. Only one of two extinguisher bottles was still working, but it managed to suffocate the fire, thinning the black smoke streaming in the aircraft’s wake.
“Now we’re in for it!” Colonel Balard said. “We can’t maneuver on one engine!”
“We could barely maneuver on two engines!” Sorokin said, grabbing the microphone one last time. “Mayday, mayday, Aeroflot heavy going down! Our position is . . .” General Sorokin glanced at the navigation system, and broadcast their latitude and longitude.
The fast interceptors edged around the smoke trail, closing on the port wing for a final shot as they toyed with their helpless prey. In the effort to evade the fighters, no one in the flight deck had been watching the radar. Neither had the MiG pilots who, certain of victory, had focused on avoiding pieces of metal flying off the wrecked engine.
The radio speaker crackled with a crisp new voice. “Break off your attack immediately or you will be destroyed!”
For a moment there was stunned silence on the flight deck.
“Who was that?” Craig asked.
Colonel Balard glanced at the radar, now glowing with four new unknown contacts approaching at supersonic velocity. He leaned against the side window, looking for the source of the voice.
General Sorokin nosed the A320 down, sending it lurching to port as a blast of tracer tore into the fuselage. Red warning lights began flashing throughout the flight deck as multiple systems failed. The airbus picked up a little speed in the shallow dive, then the General pulled up as the passenger jet came perilously close to the sea. The change of angle brought the two MiG-29K’s into view, and further back and higher, were four large silver-grey fighters sweeping toward them with afterburners on full.
Two of the Super Hornets fired Sidewinders simultaneously, then the third and fourth fighters each released missiles in turn. The four air-to-air missiles streaked above the sea, as the MiG-29K’s suddenly understood the danger and broke away – too late. Two brilliant fireballs exploded almost together, and burned furiously as they fell out of the sky. The super hornets killed their afterburners and took up position alongside the stricken A320, two fighters off each wing.
General Sorokin watched the MiGs crash into the sea, quickly losing sight of them as they were left behind. They’d tried to kill him, but he nevertheless mourned their loss. He doubted the pilots would have known why they’d been killed, but he silently promised himself to punish those who’d ordered them to attack. When he saw Colonel Balard watching him he said, “I know, there was no choice, but that doesn’t make it any easier.”
The speaker crackled again with the same crisp voice. “Aeroflot airbus, this is the US Navy. What is your condition?”
General Sorokin passed the microphone to Colonel Balard, who said, “We’re low on fuel, one engine is out, and we have multiple system failures.”
“Can you make Memanbetsu?”
General Sorokin shrugged.
“Maybe,” Colonel Balard replied.
The speaker fell silent for a few moments. “We have orders to escort you to Memanbetsu Airport. Set a direct course. They’re expecting you.”
“Will do.” Colonel Balard said. “What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you, sir. Apparently the Prime Minister of Russia wants you alive at any cost. Half the George Washington’s air group is up searching for you.”
“We’re sure glad to see you!” Colonel Balard said.
General Sorokin eased the crippled A320 onto a heading direct to Memanbetsu Airport on the north coast of Hokkaido, Japan. Alongside him, Colonel Balard couldn’t take his eyes off the sleek super hornets now riding shotgun alongside the A320.
“I never thought I’d ever see anything as sweet as them again!”
Chapter 12
August 21, 2283
“Damn!” Zikky said. “That’s where you’ve been hiding!”
“Found him?” Captain Wilkins asked.
“Talk about a needle in a temporal haystack! I’ve got a reference in an ancient Macau data archive. It took translations through four languages to find! No wonder we missed it!”
“At least he survived,” Mariena said. “After that big reset, I thought we’d failed.”
Their tachyon sensors had spiked after Mariena’s temporal shotgun message to Craig three years ago, signaling a far bigger reset than they’d seen before. Perhaps it was because they’d saved the lives of dozens of people, or perhaps they were getting close to breaking the timeline. There was no way to know. The only thing they were sure of was the air crash investigator’s report of the A320’s destruction never existed – in their latest timeline.
Zikky winced as he skimmed a single Japanese media report and several archaic television broadcasts. “He was alive, but not for long.”
Mariena turned to the display Zikky was watching, showing Craig being filmed from a circling air vehicle. She had to look away when Craig was suddenly shot dead, and lay motionless in a pool of his own blood. “Switch that off.”
“You’re still using the original upload, from all seven data exchanges?” Captain Wilkins asked, ignoring the gruesome television broadcast.
“Yes,” Zikky replied. “Each reset definitely changes what’s in the station’s memory core, even though we have no way of knowing how it’s changing us. So no matter what we do, our data is always current in every timeline.”
Wilkins frowned. “I’m still not sure I understand how that’s possible.”
“It’s another paradox,” Mariena said. “That’s what happens when you monkey with time. No matter what we do, the universe always remains rational. The arrow of time always keeps pointing one way – into the future – and we remember just enough of the previous timelines so we can still think straight.”
“Recognizing the station’s memory core is changing,” Zikky added, “means our memories are crossing timelines.”
“Maybe we’re remembering blended timelines,” Mariena said. “Or maybe we’re forgetting some things we did, and remembering other things we never actually did. Whatever’s happening, it’s occurring in a logically coherent way.”
“Logical to you maybe,” Wilkins said.
“Logical to the laws of the universe,” Mariena said.
“I don’t care if it’s logical or not,” Wilkins said, “just so long as it works.”
“Yeah, but what happens when we paint the arrow of time into a corner?” Zikky asked.
Mariena shrugged, “We roll the dice and hope for the best.”
Zikky gave her a dubious look. “That’s very scientific.”
“It’s a great unknown,” Mariena said, “If we tie causality in knots, will the arrow of time find a reset position where it can resume poin
ting in one direction, in a way that keeps the universe rational? Is that even possible?”
“It depends on whether our memories are changing for the little resets,” Zikky said.
“And that’s something we really don’t know,” she said, “because we can never remember, what we forgot.”
Wilkins blinked. Out of necessity, he’d been studying causality for nearly a decade, and it still gave him a headache. “OK, so why did it take us three years since the shotgun message to find Craig Balard?”
“We searched the composite data-set a dozen times and found nothing,” Zikky explained. “So I automated the station’s search techniques, its translation programs and its data integration methodologies, just to speed everything up.”
“You mean the station found him by itself?” Wilkins asked.
“I wrote the code,” Zikky said. “The original data was in Japanese, but the Macau exchange archived it in Portuguese. When we originally integrated the Macau data, we took everything in Cantonese, thinking all other language sources had already been translated. It turns out, some of the really old data was stored in Portuguese only! Old habits die hard, I guess. So this time around, the station decided to convert all the data – even the old Portuguese records – to Cantonese, to ensure it had everything. It then eliminated any duplicates and converted the cleansed data to English.”
“Japanese to Portuguese to Cantonese to English,” Mariena added.
“So we had it all along?” Wilkins asked.
“The Macau dataset was the only Asian source we had, and the one we spent the least time on,” Zikky said. “How were we to know Balard would end up in Japan?”
“Now that we know where he is, we have to figure out what our next step is.” Mariena gave Commander Zikky a knowing look. “Which means more detective work.”
The Kremlin Phoenix Page 23