“Get me General Popov,” Nox spoke into the craft’s communication system. Nox preferred the voice command feature, even though he could control certain aspects of the craft thru thought commands.
“This is General Popov. What can I do for you, Sir?” General Popov asked.
“Where are you, right now?” Nox asked.
“I’m in Moscow, at the bunker.”
“Excellent. How many next generation BAS units do we have operational?”
“Other than yours, and the other resident Ondagra, we have ten Battle Armor Systems with trained Russian operators,” General Popov said. “What do you have in mind?”
“How many Ondagra are there at the base?”
“Three that I know of.”
“I want the three Ondagra and the 10 trained operators deployed in an antigravity fighter to Site Four. I believe there are enemy forces on the ground there, and they shot down our Mi-26. Make sure that you take extra care when applying the anti-freeze to the exterior of the craft; that’s what forced me to divert. I should be at Site Four within an hour.”
“Consider it done, Sir.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Magadan Oblast
“We need to carry these containers to the ground level and outside for pickup. When the NATT arrives, we need to be able to load up quickly and get the hell out,” Snap to Lightning Squad from Deck 12 of the crashed Impegi.
“We have several containers to carry off this deck to ground level. Each of you grab an end, and we will walk them down the stairwell,” Neal added.
“There’s seven of us. You six, grab three containers, and I will stay up here and look for the missing units,” Snap said pointing the men to the large containers.
Carrying the heavy containers down multiple flights of broken and uneven steps was challenging, even with the aid of their titanium exoskeletons. Forty-five minutes later the containers were lined up, like coffins on the frozen tundra, ready for transport. Snap found no more of the missing containers.
“So here we are, in the open, sitting ducks for any Russian fighter pilot to light us up,” Williams said, as the squad stood by the line of containers on the ground.
“Our sensors would tell us if there were any Russian planes on approach,” Snap said. “All we have to do is wait for the NATT to come pick us up, and we are home free.”
“What if they have stealth planes? Our sensors would not alert us to those,” Williams pointed out.
“It’s unlikely that they have stealth planes this close to the Arctic Circle. Those assets would be stationed near Europe and Moscow,” Snap replied.
“How far out is the NATT?” West asked.
Snap checked the display on his forearm, “Fifteen minutes out.”
“Should we bring Bob and Taylor down off the ridge?” West asked.
“Not yet. We may need them, still. Leave them up there until we are ready to leave,” Snap said.
“Snap, since we have a minute here before the Transport arrives, I got a question for you,” West said into the COM so that only Snap could hear him.
“West, what’s that?”
“So, how did you get the nickname ‘Snap’?”
“Ha,” Snap chuckled, “That’s a funny story. We got a minute. Back in junior high school, I was about 14 years old. I had this super-hot science teacher, long blonde hair and big tits.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah, well, one hot summer day, it was pouring rain outside, and she ran into the classroom holding her briefcase over her head with both hands. She was wearing a very thin, almost see-through silk blouse. Her blouse was soaked and pulled tight around her breasts because her arms were up over her head.”
“Sounds like quite a sight for a fourteen-year-old.”
“Shit. I’d like to see that again, now! Just as she was coming through the door in her drenched silk blouse, the AC cuts on, and it was full on headlights – her nipples poked through that silk shirt. Let’s just say it didn’t leave much to the imagination.”
“Nice.”
“West, as soon as she came through that door, my eyes went straight to those hard nipples, and I yelled at the top of my voice, ‘Snap Dog, tits!”
West and Snap chuckled.
“Every boy in that class started laughing. The teacher dropped her brief case and cupped her own breasts – that’s when the girls started laughing. Needless to say, I got sent to detention. When I got back from detention, everyone started calling me Snap Dog. Funny thing is, we never saw that teacher’s pointy nipples again - she must have gone out and bought padded bras.”
“That’s hilarious.”
“Yeah. That story followed me around for a long time. In college, they shortened my nickname to ‘Snap.’ Even my mom still calls me Snap.”
“Your mom found out?”
“Yeah, she thought it was funny too,” Snap said with a chuckle.
The entire squad’s HUD units sounded at once, indicating an approaching aircraft. It was their built-in Identification Friend or Foe system, or IFF for short, informing them that the NATT was on approach.
“Hell yeah, mission accomplished,” Williams said.
“Not so fast, we can celebrate once we are out of Russian airspace with the cargo,” West cautioned.
“This is Flying City, we need a visual confirmation of the LZ,” an unfamiliar voice boomed through the squad’s COM.
“Roger that, Flying City. This is Major Morgan Slade. Turn off the PID, Jackson,” Snap ordered. The Projected Invisibility Dome flickered off.
“Flying City, can you see us?” Snap asked.
“Clear as day,” the voice responded.
“We are standing with the cargo; it’s only 80,000 pounds. Can you land close to us?’
“No problem. We will be vertically landing and will hover 10 feet off the ground. You can load the cargo via a drop ramp; we will be heading home in 10 minutes.”
“Roger that,” Snap said with a bit of excitement.
All the men looked up into the sky, expecting to see a large transport plane hovering over them, but there was nothing but dreary winter flurries.
“Look, there, about 75 yards out,” Johnson said as he pointed to the snow swirling in the sky.
“I see it, just barely,” Davis said. Slowly, as it approached, the NATT came into focus, the images of blowing snow being projected on its fuselage, just a hair off from the real snow surrounding it.
“It’s perfectly invisible at 300 yards, but as it gets closer, the invisibility is less effective. Within 25 yards, it’s hard to miss,” West said.
“Yeah, still impressive. Flying Mach 2 at 30,000 feet and it’s impossible to detect. You can only see it after it’s already up your ass,” Snap said, as the plane stopped its vertical decent and hovered just above the surface.
The Flying City, appropriately named, had no real wings and sported an aerodynamic fuselage that was 165 feet wide and 174 feet long. The NATT, or Nuclear-powered Tactical Transport, stood 40 feet tall and was triangularly shaped, like the TR-3B, but was white, rather than black. Unlike the TR-3B, the Flying City had a clearly designated front and rear. One smooth, aerodynamic point of the triangular shaped fuselage was a cockpit area with windows for the pilots. The back of the plane had powerful jet thrusters. The other side, which was facing the containers, had a ramp that was extending downward toward Lightning Squad.
“Holy shit, it’s like a triangle shaped building, how does it take off with no wings?” Williams asked.