“Executing,” the pilot said. She finished hammering in the maneuver codes with her left hand, went to tap ‘execute’ with her right… and found her arm was frozen. It wasn’t just her hand, her forearm and bicep had locked into place. The hand just lay on top of her mouse, useless!
“O’Hare!” Rodriguez jumped.
The first phase of a Tsirkon hypersonic missile launch was a booster which took the missile from its 600-knot launch speed, to Mach 2.5, inside thirty seconds.
Once the first phase boost was finished, the solid fuel booster rocket would fall away and the second stage scram jet pulse engine would ignite, speeding the missile to an unstoppable Mach 4.5.
Like Elmendorf-Richardson and Eielson, Anchorage was defended by multiple HELLADS systems. In the first wave of the Russian air offensive, the HELLADS at Eielson had faced supersonic Brah-Mos II missiles, successfully bringing down a large number of the missiles before being overwhelmed.
The American strategists defending Anchorage had learned from that mistake. What they had learned was it was better to let a few missiles through and still have sufficient firepower to take on a second wave of missiles, than to commit all your energy to the first wave and leave yourself defenseless against a follow-up attack.
Faced with a single missile though, the HELLADS surrounding Anchorage, on paper at least, should have been more than capable of defending its 200,000 residents.
Except that the Tsirkon was not a supersonic missile like the Brah-Mos, and though the US had never admitted it, a HELLADS system had never actually successfully intercepted a hypersonic missile like the Tsirkon. Which was why the US had concentrated considerable diplomatic efforts on treaties to ban any use of hypersonic weapons and declared that the use of hypersonic weapons in any conflict would be regarded in the same vein as the use of nuclear weapons, and would trigger a proportionate response.
A threat which, right now, was completely moot.
Reaching across herself with her left hand O’Hare ignored her lunging CO and frantically slapped the ‘execute’ key on her right-hand keyboard, ordering the Fantom to light its afterburners and move into a spiraling climb over the Tupolev. Agonizing seconds passed as it eased ahead of the Russian bomber, before it inverted and dived down toward it. In her virtual-reality view, the big wing zoomed up toward her.
“Target locked, guns on auto. Guns guns guns!” Bunny called.
Captain Alekseyev waited with one hand on his stick, the other on his throttles, threat warnings screaming in his ears. The American had accelerated above him, rendering his defensive measures useless. Seconds, he just needed seconds…
He listened to his weapons officer tersely reading from his screen, “Bay doors open. Rotary launcher down, locked and cycling up. Target locked. First phase ignition counting down. Launching in…”
Alekseyev’s muscles tensed. As soon as the missile was away, he’d roll the Tupolev on its back and point it at the earth, leaving the enemy drone in his wake. He’d never tried to put a TU-162 into a screaming Mach 2 vertical dive and had no idea if he had any chance of pulling out of it at this altitude, but he would soon find out.
“Five…four…three…”
The shells from the Fantom’s 25mm GUA/8L cannon punched the Tupolev in its canted Concorde-like nose. Alekseyev actually had time to see the sparks of the detonations as the shells walked along the nose toward his cockpit. Had time to hear his weapons officer say in triumph, “… two…one…launch!”
Had time to take his hands off his stick, lean back in his seat and pray as he died, “Forgive me God.”
“Missile launch!” Rodriguez yelled. She couldn’t see it of course, but the tactical screen on the boxes next to her flashed the warning and a new bright blue icon appeared on the screen where the Tupolev had been and began tracking east.
“Got it,” Bunny said calmly. She had seen the slightly delayed vision of the Tupolev rolling on its side as her cannon shells struck vital control cables, saw the missile tumble free of its launcher and its rocket booster ignite, saw it begin to accelerate. She locked the missile optically and ordered the Fantom to intercept.
Rolling level again, hauling its nose up toward the horizon at G-forces that would have blacked out a human pilot, the Fantom got its gun pipper centered on the blazing light of the fast disappearing Tsirkon missile and held its virtual thumb down on the trigger.
The Tsirkon was still inside the two-mile range of the 25mm shells and with the Fantom traveling at near Mach 2, the question was whether the added 3,000 feet per second velocity of the GUA/8L would be enough to catch the missile before it had reached its first stage boost peak and went hypersonic!
The line of cannon shells reached out for the flaming missile like grasping fingers.
It didn’t explode. It was simply slammed in the rear, folded in two, and tumbled out of the sky.
Bunny didn’t explode either. She just took her left hand off her keyboard as her right dangled uselessly beside it and held it in the air, fist clenched. Eyes fixed on the screens inside her helmet, watching as men in chutes tumbled free of the falling Tupolev Bunny O’Hare was smiling broadly as Bondarev spoke.
“That was truly impressive,” he said. “Now, shall we discuss your surrender?”
Private Zubkhov had taken nearly ten minutes to drag himself up the ladder on the side of the tank with his one good arm and one good leg, expecting to be shot at any moment. But he had made it, and now he trained his gun on the man lying in the bottom of the tank as he raised his head over the lip of the manhole cover and peered inside.
Zubkhov had waited a long time under the water tank, alternately haranguing the American, trying to goad him into speaking, and firing the occasional shot into the base of the tank to try to provoke him. He had even eased out from under the base of the tank and taken an angle which allowed him to put a round through the metal wall of the tank, near the top, just to remind the man that he was a fish in a barrel, in case he needed reminding.
But after nearly 30 minutes, with no reaction, not a sound, Zubkhov had decided to make his move. It was going to get dark soon, he was wounded, he couldn’t keep a watch on the tank all night.
The man at the bottom of the tank was lying on his side in a fetal curl with his back to the manhole cover. A rifle was leaning up against the wall of the tank beside him, but of course he could have a sidearm hidden away. Private Zubkhov held his fist against the metal of the tank to stabilize it, sighted on the man, and fired twice.
The bullets thudded into him without any effect. He didn’t jerk, didn’t move. It was like shooting a side of beef.
Still, Zubkhov took no chances. He lowered himself down into the tank legs first, pistol pointed at the man as he slowly negotiated the internal ladder. The grenade on his belt bumped against the ladder all the way down — clang, clang, clang. But when he reached the bottom he saw with satisfaction the thing he had come for. The radio.
Bigger than he’d imagined. He didn’t have to take the car battery the man had been lugging around but the radio set wouldn’t fit in his light backpack. He’d have trouble getting that up the ladder with just one working arm. But here it was, at last. His radio.
“Thank you friend,” he said sincerely to the dead man’s back. Then he realized that all this time, since their first meeting on the airfield, he had never really seen his face.
With a grunt, he took the man by the knees and rolled him over.