The bomb that went off course plowed into a dense area of residential buildings, not far from the Kremlin and Red Square, causing significant civilian casualties. The bunker busting bomb not only plowed through the fifteen-story apartment building, it buried itself near several metro lines before detonating. The GBU-57 collapsed three different metro line tubes, killing and trapping hundreds of people. It also ignited numerous underground gas lines, which subsequently destroyed several other buildings. In all, this bomb resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,763 civilians, and close to double that number were injured. In addition, thousands of people were left without a home.
“What do we do now, Pappi? That missile seems to have lost our lock but it’s still tracking towards us,” Ricky said nervously as he strained himself trying to look below and behind them for the missile.
As thoughts raced through his head, Pappi kept going back to his training. If the missile lost lock on your aircraft, then it would estimate the most likely position your aircraft travel to and then detonate, hoping you were in range of its blast. With that thought in mind, Pappi increased airspeed, turned the B-2 eight degrees to their right, and began to climb. He wanted to add a few thousand more feet of altitude and veer off course. Hopefully, that would be enough to evade the path of the missile.
“Hang on Ricky, I’m getting us some more altitude and changing course. This should throw the missile off our trail,” Pappi said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
The missile continued to track towards where they would have been. However, as the missile got within eight kilometers, it suddenly changed course and began to head right for them.
“Oh my God, the missile just turned… it’s following us!” Ricky shouted over the intercom, suddenly realizing it might actually hit them.
“How in the hell did that missile know where we were?” Pappi thought. “How could it have redirected like that?”
Pappi had no good answers for any of his own questions, but he didn’t have time to get bogged down with trying to figure it all out. He simply increased the throttle to the max, climbed and angled his aircraft harder to the right, hoping his stealth ability would again aid him in evading the enemy missile.
Then, to both of their horror, the missile continued to close in on them like it knew where they were. Then, it exploded, spraying shrapnel everywhere. The aircraft shook hard; alarm bells began to blare in their ears, letting them know the aircraft had been damaged. The bomber started to shake violently and pulled to the left. Pappi saw that they were losing hydraulic pressure. Shrapnel must have hit some of the lines. He hit a few buttons, switching over to their auxiliary system and hoping it would work.
Ricky began to call out the problems on the dashboard. “We are hit! I’m showing a fire in engine two, loss of oil pressure in engine two, and hydraulic pressure loss on the left side of the aircraft.”
“Turn engine two off, and hit the fire suppression system. We need to get that under control. I’m switching over to auxiliary hydraulics now,” Pappi directed. Then, realizing there was a real possibility they might have to abandon the aircraft, he ordered, “Do a quick check of our location, Ricky. What are we near? How far away from Latvia are we?”
As the two of them struggled with getting the aircraft under control and addressing the problems as best as one can at 34,000 feet, the SAM alarm came on again. Two more missiles had been launched at them from another SA-21 system, and began streaking in the sky towards them.
“We are roughly 109 miles west of Moscow, and several hundred miles away from Latvia. Those SA-21s missiles are still at least four minutes away. What are your thoughts Pappi?” Ricky asked, voice trembling. He knew the plane wasn’t going to make it. He just wasn’t sure when and how they needed to bail out.
“We are going to have to eject. The bomber is too badly damaged, and we’ve lost our stealth ability. I’m angling us towards Toropets. There are a number of forest preserves in that area. Try to steer your parachute towards this section here,” he said, pointing to a green area on the map. “Let’s try to meet up at this spot, near Lake Yassy.”
Pappi paused for a second, then seeing that the enemy missiles were now less than sixty-seconds away from impact, he offered one final word of encouragement. “You can do this Ricky. Just remember your training, and you’ll get through this.”
Then, without another thought, he hit both of their ejection buttons, sending them flying into the air, away from their crippled bomber. As he bolted through the air, wind whipping past his face as he waited for his parachute to open, he managed to see that Ricky’s chute had just opened up. He was grateful that he looked to be OK. Seconds later, his own chute opened as well, making a snapping sound as it jerked him like a ragdoll.
“Dear God, did that hurt,” he thought.
Once he got his bearings again, Pappi looked up and saw his B-2 still heading towards Latvia, trailing smoke as it flew. The two Russian missiles were still streaking towards it. They both abruptly impacted against the bomber, ripping it apart into a million little pieces.
As chunks of his bomber rained down to the ground below, he thought, “Well, this is a rather inglorious way to end my Air Force career. I’ve flown dozens of combat missions, and I’ve never lost an aircraft… here I am in my last few months in the Force and I managed to lose a $2 Billion bomber. I’m probably going to be captured, too. Maybe I can hold out long enough for a search and rescue team to recover me… maybe.”
Bunker Down
President Vladimir Petrov had been sitting in the Central Command Room, going over the progress of the war with his generals and senior advisors for the past hour. On the one hand, they had lost a lot of fighter aircraft throughout the day, which was troubling, considering these were some of their tier-one frontline aircraft. On the other hand, they had also shot down three NATO E-3 aircraft and seriously damaged a number American and NATO airbases. One analyst reported that over 160 fighters aircraft were destroyed on the ground alone.
The admirals were still upset over the loss of so many submarines and surface ships. They had effectively lost nearly 50 % of the entire Russian navy in the opening day of the war. On the bright side, they had sunk the Supercarrier George H.W. Bush and several other critically important surface ships. The Americans did not have as large a fleet as they did during the Cold War. Back then, they could absorb losses in carriers and other vessels. However, that was simply not the case in the budget-constrained environment the US found itself in now.
One of the Air Force officers was droning on about the effectiveness of the new S-400 and S-500 defensive systems. “We intercepted 98 cruise missiles throughout the day, preventing the Americans from causing crippling damage to our critical infrastructure and airbases. With the new Lenovo targeting computers, even the S-300 is seeing a significant improvement in effectiveness.”
Petrov was glad to have the good news, but he was also getting bored listening to one officer after the other blather on. Then, as they were discussing tomorrow’s objectives, an alarm began to blare inside the building. Everyone looked up at the ceiling, as if somehow a bomb was about to drop through it.