“You miss being up in pri-fly Boss?” a voice said from behind her. “The grand ballet of colored shirts, the smell of jet fuel and Red Bull…” She recognized the voice of Commander Justin Halifax and turned. He was the senior officer on Little Diomede, CO of the Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station or NCTAMS and therefore her senior officer. He commanded the communications station and dock operations but he wasn’t an aviator, so he left day to day flight operations largely to her.
He had an office and quarters in the radar installation which was the Navy’s cover on Little Diomede, and only took the elevator down to the cavern every few days to check on progress or investigate the frequent hiccups. Nonetheless the lure of a launch had pulled even him down from topside. He stood looking skeptically up at the roof as though it was about to drop on his head. Rodriguez’s private theory was that he was claustrophobic, but that was OK, because that meant with nearly half of all personnel under the Rock under her command, she had a pretty free hand down here.
“Miss my shooter’s position more to be honest Sir,” she said with a smile, “Less ballet, more rock and roll.”
Halifax looked around the cavern, “Everything still on track for launch?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve got the Cat pulling like it should now. We’re good to go.”
“Good,” he nodded. “We have to start ramping up the test flights, Lieutenant Commander. We’re two weeks behind,” he pointed out. “And I’m not planning to be the one telling Naval Air Forces Command in Coronado we can’t hit Phase II transition.”
“No sir.” Rodriguez looked over to the trailer parked at the top of the submarine dock, where she knew Bunny O’Hare would be sat at her bank of screens, going through her own pre-flight routine. “But we’re still short a pilot sir and the one I have is an Australian born DARPA test pilot. I’m supposed to have moved Navy aviators into that trailer by now.”
Halifax looked annoyed at being reminded, “I know. We’re not exactly top priority down here, with all the shit going down in Korea. I heard they deployed two more squadrons of Fantoms there this week.”
“Any word on my request for blast doors to seal off the pond sir?” Rodriguez said. “We might be under 500 feet of rock, but that won’t help if Ivan drops a nuke right outside. Right now, even a minor cyclone could push so much water and ice into the pond we’d be out of commission.”
He sighed, “I tried again. It’s still no. They’re not investing in any more infrastructure before proof of concept.”
From down by the flight deck she saw men in green jackets who had been crouched around the locking bar on the drone stand up, and her yellow jacketed catapult officer spun around and gave her a thumbs up.
“Roger Cat 1. Moving to the Island,” Rodriguez said into her mike. The Island was the nickname they gave to the drone command trailer, which here served a similar function to primary flight control inside the command island on a carrier. “If you’ll excuse me Sir?” Halifax had told her he wanted to be topside for the launch, standing over the lip of the chute to see how visible the drone was exiting the cave at night. Baffles should mask the exhaust from the naked eye, and Navy had an infrared satellite parked overhead for this test flight, trying to pick up a signature, but he had wanted to see for himself.
“Actually I’m coming with you, I need to talk to O’Hare,” he said. He hunched his shoulders, ducked his head and followed after her.
Rodriguez frowned, but led the way across the dock to the trailer and thumbed the lock on the door to let her and the CO in. The trailer was parked broadside to the flight deck, and had been modified from a standard drone control center, being lengthened by about ten feet with the addition of a stool, extra comms gear and windows to allow Rodriguez to look out on the catapult and recovery dock. Otherwise it was a standard drone trailer, with a bank of screens and controls for two pilots. The second chair was empty, as Rodriguez had pointed out.
“CO on deck,” Rodriguez said as she pulled open the door.
“As you were,” Halifax said before O’Hare could react. She was busy punching data into touch screens in front of her.
“On track for launch 0230 hours ladies and gents,” Bunny said without taking her eyes off her screens. “Fantom is singing like a bird.” She pointed to data from the drone, streaming across a screen. Rodriguez had no idea what it meant, but Bunny sounded satisfied.
“Good, I have a change of target for you. Requires a new mission profile,” Halifax said. He had a tablet under his arm and held it up then tapped away at it, “Sending to you now.”
He finished sending and handed the tablet to Rodriguez. Now she understood why Halifax had sounded a little mysterious. The original Operations Order was for a full-scale launch and recovery test. The flight plan had called for Bunny’s Fantom to exit the Rock and head east over the Alaskan coast to the Yukon Delta, test its cameras with some night vision shots of a fishing camp near Dall Lake and get safely home again, hugging the terrain and wave tops to try to stay off the radar. North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) had been tasked to try to identify and track the flight to see if The Rock could be identified on radar or satellite as the point of origin. But now she could see they were being given a different sort of test, perhaps to see how Rodriguez and her team performed under pressure. Change the target at the last minute, change the mission profile, stand back and watch the chaos unfold. Well, if Halifax wanted to see her fail, he’d be disappointed, she’d make damn sure of that.
Bunny opened a dark screen and pulled up the data Halifax had sent her. Now she turned around, a puzzled look on her face. “The target is USAF Eielson Air Base?” she said.
“Correct Lieutenant,” Halifax smiled. “Someone in the Pentagon thought it would be a good test of Air Force air defense systems to see how close you can get one of your drones to Eielson field before they threaten to shoot it down. You have mode 7 crypto IFF on your machines, correct?”
“Yes sir,” Bunny replied, still sounding dubious. The Identify Friend or Foe system was something that by default she would engage, to ensure she wouldn’t be shot down by mistake.
“Then monitor air force comms and keep the IFF off until we pick up an imminent shoot down order,” Halifax said. “The exercise will conclude either when you have simulated a missile launch on Eielson, or when you are forced to light up your IFF.”
Bunny bent to her screens and started punching in the new data.
“If we even get close, this will not do wonders for Navy — Air Force relations sir,” Rodriguez said, smiling and handing back his tablet.
Halifax looked across at her, tucking the tablet under his arm, “Stop grinning Air Boss. The new mission profile calls for an F-47 in ground-attack configuration, not recon.” He glanced down at his watch. “Your people have 23 minutes to pull that Fantom off the deck and either dial up a new bird in ground-attack config or reload it with air-ground ordnance.”
SCOTTISH VODKA
It was 0220 by the time Bondarev was finished with his staff meetings and felt comfortable that preparations were in hand. The first task had been convincing his officers that this was not just an exercise… they were about to conduct the first sanctioned Russian attack on US territory in history. The fact Saint Lawrence Island was only 60 miles from the Russian Chukchi Peninsula was irrelevant. Bondarev and his men knew it might as well be Washington DC, the way the USA would react to Russian troops on US soil.
Bondarev was third generation Russian Federation military. He didn’t question the orders of his political masters, not in front of his subordinates anyway. But if he was to be part of starting a world war, he wanted to know why, and he knew it wasn’t because some shipping magnate had lost one of his shiny new toys.