“No Sir,” technically Dedmon and Pokryshkin were equal in rank but the Russian's “Guard's” prefix was a tie-breaker. Getting that, being the commander of a Guard's Fighter Regiment, indicated something very special indeed. ''Texan Lady is currently a B-36H-3O Featherweight IVP. What that all means is she is stripped down for minimum weight. They even took away our ability to carry conventional bombs. All the racks and wiring were taken out when we converted from Featherweight III to IV configuration. Taking the wiring out alone saved 800 pounds.
“The P, though, indicates an aircraft in peacetime standard. That gives us back our galley here, the bunks we're sitting on. a coffee machine and a few other luxuries. When we go to war again, all that comes out and we go from IVP back to IV status. Takes about twenty minutes to do the job. All the amenities on board are palletized you see, we just lift them straight out. When we went to Berlin, we ate Army emergency rations, drank coffee from thermos flasks, slept on the deck back here in steeping bags and the comfort station was a bucket.”
“How high do you fly Colonel? We heard you made your bombing run from over 50,000 feet. How did you hit something from so high?”
Dedmon hesitated for a second. What the hell, he’d been told to hide nothing, or more, precisely, he'd been advised that what he shouldn't tell, he didn't know. “Bombing's done by radar these days. We don't even train for visual bombing any more. Normally we cruise between 37,500 and 42.500 feet, that's primarily to reduce the fatigue on the fuselage from pressurization cycles.
“On paper, the service ceiling of a H-30 Featherweight III, that was our configuration when we went to Berlin, was 48,500 feet. Truth is though, that's service ceiling, defined as when our rate of climb drops to 200 feet per minute. In reality, we did the run to Berlin at 52,500 feet, we were maxed out at that point Texan Lady was giving us all we could ask from her. As a Featherweight IV I guess we could get to 54,000 easy. The RB-36s go higher but you'd have to talk to one of their crews about that. The Recon Rats don't talk much to the Bomber Barons. What are you flying now Sir?”
Pokryshkin was licking the grease off his fingers. “We are converting to MiG-9 jet fighters right now. Once we are operational on them we will make our first foreign deployment. Then, we are to be the air defense regiment for Moscow. We do not think the fascists will be foolish enough to try an attack on Moscow. Mostly they are trying to save their skins. Some are negotiating, some trying to tight us off. But, in truth, who knows what the fascist beasts may do in their madness? So we must always be on our guard. Over Archangel, we never had to worry about high altitudes. For us to fly as high as 5,000 meters was unusual. There, our Lavochkins were the equal of anything the fascists had. But now, the world has changed has it not?”
Dedmon was quiet. The history of the war on the Eastern front was studded with the names of sieges. The ones everybody knew, Sevastopol, Stalingrad, Petrograd, Moscow, and the ones only the historians and the military professionals remembered. Nizhny Novgorod, Smolensk, Kursk, Kiev, so many others that the American Navy had named an entire class of aircraft carriers in their honor. But of them all, there was one that had a chilling horror clinging to it, a cold that froze the bones, like the frigid fog that had shrouded the city during its calvary. Archangel.
The great port-city on the Arctic Circle that had marked both the northern end of the Russian front and the furthest edge of the German tide. Stalingrad had held for 150 days before falling, Moscow for 180. The street fighting in Archangel had lasted for 650 days and not one of those had been any the less ferocious than the worst of those in the other cities.
“Yes sir, it’s changed, and I hope for the better. Our nations should never have to pay such a price again. Perhaps when the world understands what Germany brought upon itself, it may decide that it’s time to find better ways to live.”
“I doubt it Colonel. In Russia we have a saying. 'The beast never dies, it only sleeps.' The world will learn for a moment but then it will forget. Perhaps this...” He was interrupted by a rumble in the communications tunnel that stretched for 80 feet through Texan Lady's bomb bay. The hatch opened and a boy started to clamber out, discreetly helped by Major Clancy. Pokryshkin beamed as he saw the delighted smile on his son's face.
“How did you like our cockpit son?”
“Very good Sir. Thank you. Sir.” The boy spoke good English although it was labored. Dedmon guessed his parents had taught him a few polite phrases and responses and rehearsed him in them.
“Would you like another hamburger?”
“Very good Sir. Thank you. Sir.” Yup Dedmon thought, carefully taught some polite phrases. In the background, he could smell Smith starting to cook another hamburger for the kid. The aft compartment had a warm, comforting air to it, reminded Dedmon of the local diner back home.
“What would your son like to be when he grows up?”
Pokryshkin translated the phrase into Russian, His son said something before grabbing his hamburger and eating. “He says he wants to be a fighter pilot. He apologized, but said that bomber pilots could kill more Germans but fighters protected the Rodina. Mother Russia.” He paused for a second and looked over to his wife who had been sitting quietly in a corner while the men spoke. Now she had tears on her cheeks. “We spoke of change in the world Colonel Dedmon? Now, here today, we have seen a small but important change. For many years we did not dare say 'when' our children grow up here in Russia. We said 'if they grow up. Now, at last we can say 'when' again.”
Suddenly Dedmon's mind came to a screeching halt. “Foreign deployment Sir? May I ask where you'll be you going?”
Pokryshktn grinned. “Nevada!”
Russian-Japanese Border south of Khabarovsk, Siberia, Russia
Sometimes, one could see a mistake coming and do nothing to avoid it. That time was coming fast. Soon, the border would be making a sharp turn northwards and the formation of Russian aircraft would make a terrible mistake and miss that change. They would then fly accidentally into Chinese - now Japanese - airspace. Ooops. Navigational error. Apologies all round. There were five aircraft in the group. One, an RF-63F Kingcobra was below them, its cameras ready to start turning. A thousand or so feet higher and behind the photorecon bird were its escorts. A flight of four Yak-15 jets, their pilots craning their heads around in their seats, watching for interceptors. They were being screened by radars, certainly from the Russian side and those radars were supposed to warn them of an impending attack. The Yak pilots trusted those radars just about as much as they trusted German promises.
They were also being tracked by Japanese radars and the Russian pilot's eyes gave them warning of the attack only a split second after their ground radars sent the message to their ears. Japanese interceptors closing from five o'clock high, estimated speed 800-kay. That meant Kendras. The Nakajima-built equivalent of the German Me-262.
The Japanese had been very reticent about making public their aircraft designations so the Americans had come up with a naming system. Women's names for fighters, men's for bombers. Much easier than remembering some foreign names and numbers. Senior Lieutenant Paul Lazaruski watched the Japanese fighters streaking in, carefully waiting his moment. Once, he'd done what many would consider impossible, he'd shot down a Me-262 with his old P-39Q. He'd seen it flying below him, limping for home after one of its jets had exploded, he'd dived on it and shot the cripple down with a careful burst of 37mm into its cockpit. The feat had got him a medal but it was pure luck. Now, he was flying a better match for the twin-engined jet.