Chandler’s aircraft was levelling out when Spectre One reported the successful activation of all six RERs and green lights on all six weapons.
“Roger Spectre One, this will be a simultaneous drop on all six targets just as planned, but I want twice the spacing between aircraft plus a thousand feet of vertical clearance. The rest of us will turn in toward the target to draw some guns our way in thirty seconds time, so you wait twenty seconds longer and begin your runs.”
He received three acknowledgements and had time left for a deep breath before banking hard right, bringing the nose around to point toward the silos and opening the throttles all the way.
The sky ahead was receiving a fairly equal share of attention but pretty soon he noticed that change. The bursting shells seemed to home in on his flight level and he pushed the nose down in response, losing five thousand feet before levelling out.
Fire Arrow Zero Two was caught almost immediately by a searchlight, a second later two more locked on, trapping it in a cone of light for all to see and all to shoot at. The F-117As pilot twisted and turned the aircraft in a vain attempt to throw off the searchlights, before rolling and diving for the valley floor. Chandler watched the manoeuvres with trepidation, the Nighthawk isn’t built for high-speed aerobatics, and it is not terribly keen on the medium speed variety either. It relies upon stealth rather than the classic fighter aircraft qualities to achieve its mission goals. Pilots who have unwisely tried to throw the aircraft around the sky like some stunt machine have found the F-117A flying away without them, in several different directions at once. The colonel was unable to follow the Nighthawk with his eyes so he did not then know how its pilot fared, but to the west he saw fire in the sky as yet another of his B1-B Lancers fell.
A near miss shook the B2 he was flying and he decided that his flight of three had done all it safely could for now so he ordered them to break off and reform to the south once more.
A SAM radar came up, sweeping the skies with radar energy until a Dark Lighters HARM obliterated the transmitter vehicle. A searchlight passed across Chandler’s B2, the glare robbing him of his night vision but then the man-made turbulence ended and they were back in the clear.
Chandler couldn’t see Spectre aircraft carrying out the attack but he banked around and peered out into the night sky at where he thought they would be.
“Come on guys and gals” he muttered to himself. “One good run and we can all go ho…..”
A 90mm shell pierced the composite belly of Spectre Three and detonated as the rotating dispenser was in the process of cycling the second BLU-116 out of the weapons bay. The B2 disintegrated a bright flare of light in the night sky and then it was gone.
In the central command bunker a quarter of a mile from the line of silos they could neither hear nor feel anything that was going on around them, such was the depth below ground and thickness of the walls, and yet the screech of audible alarms shook the staff there more than the actual sight of five of the silos being destroyed would have done.
The five weapons successfully released had flown true, homing on the splashes of light of a wavelength no human could see unassisted, to penetrate the silo caps and explode inside where the volatile fuel was being pumped into the ICBMs added to the destruction.
The subterranean fuel tanks ruptured and the contents flash ignited causing an over-pressure that wrecked the integrity of the underground structures. The ground buckled, bulged and burst open with a roar, the valley was momentarily lit up like day as the fireballs expended themselves. Slabs of reinforced concrete flew hundreds of yards to smash into the frozen earth whilst the tremors caused by the explosions ventured even further from the sources, radiating outwards like the ripples on the surface of a pond to shake the very walls of the valley.
High above the valley floor on the ridge top the accumulation of snow about Site Six shifted. Its grip with the rock and ice loosened, the mass began to move slowly at first but it was unstoppable now, it gained momentum and swept down towards the edge. The laser designator in its niche was swamped before the weight of snow tore the securing ice screws free and the designator joined just one of many avalanches and rock falls triggered around the valley.
“Was that all six, was that all the silos?”
Colonel Chandler didn’t catch the callsign of the person asking the question, the one who asked what they all wanted to know.
“Ringmaster, Spectre One?”
“Go ahead, Spectre Four?”
“I don’t know if Three released on silo six, I was looking real hard but I only saw five clear strikes.”
“Roger…….Spectre Four this is Ringmaster?”
“Ringmaster, Spectre Four, we just dialled in designator six’s freeq, and it’s no tone, I say again, negative tone on target six at this time…..resending activation codes……Ringmaster, negative tone, negative tone, over.”
Chandler was still for a moment, allowing his brain to absorb what must follow. Switching to intercom he spoke, an edge of determination in his voice.
“Send it.”
Wild cheering erupted before the message had been completely read out and Henry Shaw shouted for silence. Those giving voice were almost exclusively civilians.
“I will have silence in this room.” He growled, glaring at the slower to respond.
“This is a War Room, not the bleachers…this thing is not over yet.”
The President took the message slip from the signaller and read in silence.
“How many were aboard Santa Fe and Columbia, Henry?”
A flicker of surprise passed over General Shaw’s features, he too was ignorant of the messages entire content.
“I am not entirely sure, perhaps as many as three hundred in total Mr President.”
He handed across the message.
“They were ambushed by the missing attack submarine; HMS Hood collected both her and the Xia.”
Henry read the message himself, trying to recall who, if anyone, he or his son and daughter may have known on the vessels, or perhaps parents whose pride and joy whom they had raised and had such hopes and dreams for were soon to be destroyed by a stranger at the door in uniform.
His thoughts were interrupted by another signaller. A folded message slip held outstretched.
He took it with a nod, opened out the single sheet and read the two words printed upon it.
“Mr President, we have a message from ‘Circus’ sir”
Circus was the codename for the airstrike on the ICBM silos and the President could tell from his tone, kept professionally neutral, that it was not necessarily one of cheer and victory.
Damn stupid name for a military mission he thought, and not for the first time. He raised an eyebrow and his heart thudded at the response.
“It reads, Crescent Moon.”
The crescent, the incomplete circle, a thing not finished.