Ride of the Valkyries

by Stuart Slade

  Of course, the resemblance wasn't deliberate, it was simply that a good plan worked and tended to get reused. The Air Divisions in SAC had long gone, discarded as an unnecessary command layer. And there would be no conventional bombing. Then it had been necessary because targets were in countries occupied by Germany, not by Germany itself. The atomic bombs had been reserved for the German homeland. Today, all the targets were in the homeland; all the targets would be receiving nuclear weapons. Farzaneh wondered if the Americans realized how big a favor they were doing the Caliphate.

  MiG-25 Pchela Gray-447 For Illena Karenina Over Iran Satrapy, The Caliphate

  They were the Gray Wolves, streaking ahead of the formation of bombers behind them. Their task described as "free chase." The orders were simple; hunt down Caliphate fighters and shoot them from the sky and they had the absolute freedom to do whatever was needed. Over the Rodina, fighters operated under strict ground control; steered to their targets by instructions from the ground that would not be disobeyed. Here, though, over hostile territory, the rules were different. It was "free chase," kill the enemy and do whatever it took to achieve that objective. It was a fighter pilot's dream.

  Yet. there were restrictions, even in a free chase. The Russian aircraft were coming down from the north; the Americans were coming in from the west. Their F-108s would be first, doing a free chase all their own. They were followed by the RB-58s who would take on and destroy the ground-based defenses. The B-70s would be behind them, running in towards the targets that lay deep in the heart of the Caliphate. Following behind the B-70s were what the American liaison officer had described as "a thundering herd of B-52s.'" Just as the priest, who had lead the Regiment in prayers before take-off, had described it, they were all ‘doing God's work.' Still, even doing God's work, there was still a risk with two air forces form two countries conducting air operations over the same piece of airspace and at the same time while fighting enemy defenses. The previous night had been a frantic effort to ensure that both Russian and American Air Force's Identification, Friend or Foe systems were synchronized and shared the same codes.

  The MiG-25s had another job as well. The Americans were far from home; if any of their aircraft were damaged, the Russians were to find them, and escort them to an emergency landing at a number of designated airfields close to the border. If the worst happened, if any of the aircraft, Russian or American, went down, there were SEAL teams and their Russian equivalent, Spetznaz groups, ready to go in and rescue the crews. But, all that lay in the future. For now, the watchword was "Free Chase."

  The targets richly deserved their fate. The Russian Air Force was using the American onslaught to settle a few scores of their own, scores that ran deep and wide and justified a terrible vengeance. A few months earlier, a group of Chechen terrorists, ones who were demanding an independent state of Chechnya in Southern Russia had seized a school on the first day of the new academic year. They'd gone through the motions of making demands and opening negotiations but they hadn't been sincere. At the first excuse, they'd opened fire on the children and their parents, killing hundreds. They'd killed the children! Even the thought of that hideously depraved act made Major Ivan Josevich Peterenko's muscles jerk in fury. He honestly couldn't imagine a loathsome or more despicable crime and the violence of his reaction made his Illena lurch in the air.

  "Problems Major?" His wingman was on the radio. The MiG-25 was new and still riddled with teething problems. One of them was a dislike for sudden, violent interruptions to the airflow over the wings. Peterenko breathed deeply in an effort to cool down. There was no need to risk his aircraft; much better to get revenge for the atrocity. Well, facilitate revenge. The act itself would be performed by the Tu-22s flying some tens of kilometers behind. Their nuclear-tipped stand-off missiles would erase the training bases the terrorists had come from; wipe them from the face of the earth. All the Gray Wolves had to do was clear the way in.

  "No Georgi. All is well." Peterenko broke for a second as the "All Seeing Eye" far behind them radioed in the warning. "But we have customers coming up. Four of them, all hostile. High rate of climb, probably Irenes or Brandis. May be Elles. Bearing oh-three-two, range fifty kilometers. Weapons are free."

  Let it be Elles, Peterenko thought. Nobody had shot any of those down yet. Technically, the Elle was a Japanese Army improvement over the J12K-5 Irene. The Army had wanted a bigger, longer-ranged radar which would take up all of the nose so they'd had to move the air intakes back to the wing roots. The problem was that wing root intakes feeding two engines stacked vertically was an airflow nightmare so they'd switched the engines to the more traditional horizontal pair. That had caused structural problems with the wings so they'd had to move those from the mid-fuselage to a low-mounted position. That had meant redesigning the tail, so the Elle ended up bearing no relationship at all to its purported ancestor. All of which proved that if one started off with a lousy design, fiddling with it wasn't going to help much. But the Elle was reputed to be a far superior aircraft to the much-derided Irene.

  "‘I have them on radar. Four contacts, spread right out." Peterenko grunted; even the Caffs learned eventually. Bunching aircraft tightly together might have worked thirty years ago but now it was just an invitation to slaughter by the American's nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles. Everybody spread out these days. This gave the Pchela a problem. The scan cone on its radar was quite narrow since Russian designers preferred high power down a tight beam to gain range and enough power to burn through jamming. The price was a narrow field of view. Still, the Gray Wolves had height and speed over the enemy aircraft. They were still climbing from their airbase. Look-down, Shoot-down the Americans called it.

  "I have target on the extreme right, you take extreme left Georgi. R40Ts locked on, radar homing."

  "Locked and ready to fire." "Take them!"

  Gray-447 fired its pair of radar homing R40T missiles followed a split second later by Gray-441. Below them, the formation of Caliphate fighters suddenly split apart. The four aircraft divided into two loose pairs that curved away from each other, putting space between them and the incoming missiles. Peterenko grunted; obviously the aircraft had radar warning receivers. That was new. Usually the Chimps exported aircraft that were stripped down to the bare essentials. Either they'd had a change of policy or the Caffs had woken up to the fact that what appeared to be more than a "bare essential" was vital for survival. Or perhaps they'd realized that a martyred fighter pilot wasn't really very much use. Whatever.

  The R-40s were following the curves made by the enemy fighters but they were having already difficulty matching the steadily-tightening turns when the enemy fighters barrel-rolled, taking them around the incoming missiles. The R-40s, designed to engage Frank and Geoff heavy bombers, couldn't begin to match the maneuver. Peterenko watched helplessly as all four streaked through the enemy fighter formation without scoring a hit. The two R-40s under his wings were both heatseeking variants and his MiG-25 didn't have a gun. That left him with just the four R-60 missiles on his belly racks; two radar homing, two heat seekers. They'd have to do. He flipped the armament select switch to the R-60 radar homers and heard the immensely satisfying bleeping of the annunciator telling him they were locked on.

  By now he had a visual on the four Caliphate fighters, twin engines, solid nose, low set delta wing. He'd lucked out, they were the new Elles. With only a little luck, he'd be the first to kill one. The lurch as his radar homing R-60s fired was nothing like the kick of the big R-40s. For a moment he thought they were dead drops but the white curling trails in front of him proved otherwise. The R-60 was a new concept of air-to-air missile, designed to replace guns, and featured a very short minimum range, high-G turns and low weight. Quite the reverse of the big R-40 and its American cousin, the AIM-47. It was also new and it too had more than its share of teething problems. This time, though, luck was on Peterenko's side. Both missiles worked perfectly. The Caliphate pilot tried the barrel role again but he was
out of energy and the missiles had the agility to counter the maneuver. He couldn't see whether one or both missiles hit; the explosions merged into a rolling ball as the Elle disintegrated in mid air.

  Time to go up. His Illena could outclimb anything the Caliphate could get its hands on; sheer raw engine power saw to that. Illena's engines may not have too long a life compared with the American jets but they had the edge where power output was concerned. Illena soared skywards, leaving the Elles behind, then rolled at the top of her climb before heading down again. The maneuver, named after the German ace Immelman although most Russian pilots tried to forget that, put the two surviving Caliphate fighters ahead of her, and their twin engine exhausts were an inviting target. The two heat-seeking R-60s were locked on and Peterenko let fly with both. Only one streaked away, the other malfunctioned. The one that had launched guided perfectly and exploded in the Elle's port engine. Peterenko poured on the power again, and swept up into another climbing turn.

  And, as he did so, he felt a tremendous thump directly under his seat. Peterenko looked around the cockpit displays and saw no warning lights. A brief flare of relief was quickly squashed by the realization that he couldn't see anything else either. Every electrical display in the cockpit was dead. The mechanical instruments were still working. One of them told Peterenko that his engines were running at 10,000 rpm, a rather ominous figure since the fans were supposed to explode at 8,700. The control column was frozen stiff and he had to use both hands to shift it. It was definitely time to go home. Fortunately, that last Immelman had pointed his nose in the right direction.

  For some reason, Peterenko couldn't quite work out why, his Tumansky engines kept running. They were screaming in protest at the abuse but running nevertheless. He tried to dive but the movement on the control column started a reaction that tried to drag him forward. This was bad; he was already crossing the border and ejecting was an option but if he could bring the aircraft in, he would. He was the first fighter pilot to kill an Elle, he didn't want to cap it by being the first fighter pilot killed by one. He tried working the controls and made an interesting discovery. The whole of the left side of the cockpit was dead and the controls that routed there were frozen but the right hand side was more operational. Some of the bits there still worked and using them Peterenko started a slow descent. By the time he had reached his home base, he'd managed to get enough control to bring his Illena in. Of course, doing so with jammed controls and no instruments was going to be interesting.

  Emergency system to lower the undercarriage. That was good in theory but the problem was, there was no way to tell if it was down. Peterenko banked towards the sun, hoping the shadow would tell him what he needed to know. It worked, sort of. The undercarriage was down but whether it was locked was another matter. He brought Illena around in a wide curve, towards the runway, and put the MiG-25 firmly down. As the aircraft came to a halt and the ground rescue crews surrounded him, he tried to rise but couldn't. He hadn't realized his legs had been hit by fragments before.

  Three hours later, Peterenko left the base aid station, limping on his bandaged legs. Gray 441 had filled in the missing pieces. The second aircraft he'd hit hadn't gone down after the R-60 hit. It had lost an engine but kept flying and, as Peterenko had passed, had put a burst of 30mm cannon fire into his fuselage. Gray-441 had killed the other Elle, then escorted Peterenko clear while another MiG-25 element took over the escort role. And the terrorist training camp had died under the lash of two 750 kiloton airbursts. As the Americans often said "Nothing succeeds like excess."

  Peterenko pushed open the doors of the mess, his stomach growling. The mess sergeant looked at him without even the slightest trace of sympathy. "Sorry, Sir. You're too late for lunch. You'll have to wait for afternoon tea."

  RB-58G Xiomara Over Syria Satrapy, The Caliphate

  "Tell me again, why we are doing this? What exactly was wrong with my nice warm hangar at Andrews?"

  Brigadier-General Kozlowski was amused by the slightly wary questions. "You were bored stiff at Andrews and you know it. Anyway, you're the G-model lead ship and what better opportunity to test the new gear out?"

  "Anyway Xioey, we missed out on the Jaffo attack so we haven't doled out any payback for Marisol yet. And that means, we're out here hunting SAM sites while the Rapiers take care of the fighters." Eddie Korrina listened to the suppressed snort over the intercom system. Even after flying Xiomara for six years, he'd never worked out whether she was jealous of Marisol's near-legendary status.

  "Speaking of SAM sites, Xav, what have we got? How's the new gear working?"

  Back in the Bear's Den, Xavier Dravar was scanning the new displays that had been installed. The RB-58G had the reconnaissance end of the B-70's DAMS and provided an almost real-time defense electronic intelligence assessment to the bombers flying behind. In theory, it was simple. The RB-58G would collect the information on the defenses threatening a specific ingress route for the Valkyries and relay it back to the bombers, supplying them with the locations of the enemy missile and anti-aircraft positions and the electronic intelligence data needed to jam and spoof the enemy radars. All of that was downloaded in the Valkyrie's DAMS computers and used to update the situation display the bomber crew used to penetrate the defenses.

  Easy to say, not easy to do. It was an old story, one that had plagued the B-70 since its inception. The computer memory and processing power available weren't up to the tasks demanded of them. Originally, there was to have been a specialized version of the B-70, the RS-70 that would have filled the role, but it had been delayed even more than the Valkyrie. The RB-58 had been radically upgraded and modified with new engines and electronics as an interim solution. The resulting RB-58F had worked so well the RS-70 had been canceled. Xiomara had the equipment needed for the DAMS recon role installed as a test-bed for the definitive RB-58G. The only problem was that the RB-58 configuration with its underbelly pod was incompatible with the Pyewacket anti-missile system.

  The computer data transfer limits remained. Instead of relaying everything back, the RB-58G crews would have to make value judgments on what the bombers behind them really needed and ration the data flow accordingly. In a very real sense, that made Dravar effectively a fifth member of the Valkyrie crews behind them.

  "Threat display is quiet at this time. Syria's clear, after Jaffo the Caffs shifted most of their stuff back from the coast. Xioey's got a good point Mike, how come we suddenly got re-attached to the 3O5th? Or, more to the point, who did you blackmail?" It really was a good question. Dravar and Korrina had just made Colonels and were immersed in the schools needed to fully understand the new equipment they were being given when they'd been hauled out of academia and found themselves sitting in their familiar seats aboard Xiomara. They'd known Kozlowski would be taking command of the 305th when his Pentagon tour was done and that they'd be the senior offensive and defensive systems experts when the group re-equipped with the RB-58G but this had been completely unexpected. "Forget that, we have life. Search radars just come on. Long-range search, no launch signatures."

  "That sounds unpleasantly familiar." Korrina was scanning the frequencies of the radars that had just lit up.

  "We're OK up here, 74,500 and cruising at Mach 2.8. We're in the envelopes of Guidelines and Guilds but we'll get plenty of warning if they fire. Xav, warm up a couple of AGM-76s just in case though."

  "Mike, got a read on the new radars. They're playing games down there. I count at least four decoy sets around the primary search sets and there's three of those. From the fix, they're in an equilateral triangle, about ten - fifteen miles per side with landline connection. They're rippling the transmissions between the three sets, sort of rotating quick bursts around the triangle and using the decoys to mask the pattern. These guys are a lot better than they were six years ago."

  "And that's supposed to make me comfortable?" Xiomara's voice in the intercom was indignant.

  "Don't sweat it. We can handle this. I'm relayin
g the data back to the Valks. They need to know this pattern."

  "Hey guys." Dravar's voice had just picked up urgency. "We have a lock-on from the ground. Probably Guilds. Want to take them out Eddie?"

  "Hold it guys. We need to know what's coming up before we treat them to an instant sunrise. You sure it's Guilds Xav?"

  "Think so, no. Hold that, we've got continuous wave tracking. Must be Gainfuls. Recommend we take them down."

  "Do it, as soon as you've got the fire control locked."

  The rotary launcher in Xiomara's belly pod whirred and a nuclear-tipped AGM-76 slid into firing position. Dravar was already triangulating on the enemy missile battery and the data was being relayed to the waiting missile. Then, there was a lurch as the missile fired and it streaked off, angling down towards its target. Almost at the same time, Xiomara's radar picked up four missiles leaving the area where the search radars had been detected. It wasn't a contest. The AGM-76s were accelerating downwards, picking up speed all the time. The four Gainfuls were fighting gravity in the steep climb towards the bomber high overhead. In this sort of contest, the aircraft at the top of the gravity well always held the advantage and the AGM-76 initiated before the Gainfuls had even climbed half way towards their target.

  Kozlowski hadn't taken any chances, as soon as the missile was on the way, he pulled a wingover, blew chaff and anti-optical flare/smoke decoys. Dravar had started to pour white noise energy into the frequencies used by the Caliphate missile battery. The white flash and kidney-pounding Shockwave told Xiomara's crew that their precautions hadn't been necessary. The enemy missile launchers were now little more than slag on the desert sands. Where they had been was now a shadow on Korrina's radar screen, an artifact of the burst of random electronic emissions that were a by-product of nuclear explosions. Korrina selected a pre-determined pulse repetition factor, amplitude modulation and jitter factor for the ASG-18 and cut in the filters. The shadow magically cleared as the radar set rejected all the transmissions except those with the specified values.