“Well I don’t know. Fly fast or something. For fuck’s sake man… you are flying the most advanced jet of the generation.”
“Bodo base, we are still quite heavy on fuel. We should have got the F-22s… just saying.”
“Enough with the F-22s… the Bears will be there within thirty seconds.”
“Rodger that.”
“Try and hang on for twenty minutes. Brits have scrambled their Typhoons.”
“Spread Eagle out.”
The F-35s after a brief contemplation, engaged their after burners and turned south. One minute after hitting Mach 2, the onboard radar informed the Squadron Leader Aas about an incoming intruder. Unfortunately, the radar couldn’t really say what the hell the intruder was? It was sort of free falling but coming towards the Norwegian jets… like a JDAM… abandoning its database, the onboard computer checked Wikipedia and confirmed that it wasn’t a bomb.
It was a carbon based biped.
“Fuck me,” whispered Aas.
“Fuck fuckity fuck. How do we dodge this bum?” shouted one of the other pilots, a Larsson.
The radar suddenly beeped again, indicating that two more objects — again human beings — were floating towards the F-35s.
“Try dodging.”
“I tried. They have some JDAM shit attached to their asses. How is this even possible?”
The F-35’s super advanced electronic array radar beeped again. There were in total nine kamikazes. The presumably Spetsnaz dudes were within 500ft.
“Too late to turn around. Let’s do a rapid dive to 10,000ft.”
As the pilots began their dive, all sorts of alarms started to blare up inside the F-35 cockpits. The words CPU OVERLAOD began flashing in a very friendly font — Comic Sans MS –rendering every knob and control useless.
As the Norwegian pilots thrashed around their cockpits, the onboard computer was ballsy enough to flash a ‘Would you like to send bug reports to Lockheed, Nevada?’ Incredibly the popup’s NO button was grayed out. Hoping to unfreeze the darned jet, the pilots hit YES.
As the upload began, the six jets levelled out at Mach 0.5 and settled on a straight line.
Moments later, a smiling Spetsnaz dude landed right on top of Aas’ cockpit with a loud thwack. The Spetsnaz agent wore a suit…. Not some pressure suit… but a sweet Reservoir Dogs style suit… bizarre, but definitely not uncool. The Russian was smiling.
Within seconds, other Spetsnaz agents landed on the F-35s. Some got two.
To the Norwegians’ horror, the Spetsnaz dudes pulled out hammers and sickles and got to work on the F-35’s multimillion dollar cockpit.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
“Sweet fuck. What the hell is wrong with these guys…? Bodo base, this is Squadron Leader Aas. We have nine or more Russians trying to break into our cockpits. Bodo base can you hear us…”
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
CLANG. THANG. WOMP.
Hearing silence from Bodo base, Squadron Leader Aas frantically began searching the F-35’s service manuals for something do in case of frozen CPUs and a dangling Russian. The tablet manual returned zilch. Aas gave up after the third loop through the index.
THUNK. CRASH.
One of the Russkies had cracked the plexiglass dome. Long streaks spread across the dome as Aas felt the Russian might.
Just when all seemed lost, the onboard CPU returned. The ‘CPU OVERLOAD’ sign was replaced by a smug smiley face waving a checkered flag. Aas tried the controls again. This time the F-35 responded. Wasting no time, he twerked the controls causing the aircraft to rollover. The bloody Russian was blown away.
The rest of the squadron, made similar moves to rid themselves of the Russians.
By the time the F-35s landed back in Norway, they were the No.3 breaking news all the way from Oslo to Atlanta. No.1 went to some late night guy announcing his retirement, while Crimea took No.2.
‘Heroic N’wegians outflank Russian aggression’ ran the Washington Redgister, ‘Foolish Spetsnaz caught beating off to F-35s’ opened Calamity News Network, ‘F-35s ward off Bear Blitz’ crooned The Nephew. The whole thing about the CPU freezing up was swept under the rug citing national securitah.
This was obviously sweet music to the USAF, DoD and other concerned entities. If that reindeer-petting-zoo of a country could dodge the Russians, imagine what a true-blue-Top-Gun-squadron could do… Kaching! Kaching! Kaching!
Murmansk — Arctic Circle, Russia
Korlov and Primakov thanked the Severomorsk base commander Gruzinsky.
“Thank you Sir… for the Bear bombers,” said Primakov.
“Fuck that shit… so how’d you do it?”
“What?”
“The dead guys… how did they ‘get alive’… how did they hammer the F-35 cockpit?”
“Bacon,” offered Korlov.
“Bacon?”
“Americans love to wrap everything in bacon… so we wrapped some mechanical gear and chips with bacon… 900 pounds of bacon.”
“What a waste… muhahaha,” laughed Gruzinsky.
Chapter 25
Washington, District of Columbia
“This will not stand. This will not stand. This aggression against Norway will not stand…,” Doug Sanders the US rep to NATO declared via GovChat. Jim Borland and Sarah McAllister sat across the 32 inch screen that streamed Sanders all the way from Brussels.
“Doug, there’s no need to go all 91 over this,” said Sarah McAllister the Undersecretary of State.
“91? 91? You should be glad it’s not 76…”
“76?”
“1776 man. What kind of a patriot are you?”
“But 1776 was good, it was good for America…” Jim Borland the CIA dude responsible for clowning Russia replied.
“Whatever, like I was saying, this… this aggression, this act of petulance against an all-weather ally will not stand….”
“Ya we get it Doug. That’s why we are here.”
NATO’s Sanders shook his head before continuing, “But what the hell is wrong with those Russians? We absolutely need to protect the F-35s.”
“Well we have a few theories, Jim you want to take this?” asked Sarah.
“Thanks Sarah. It’s actually quite simple. The Russkies have a raging boner for our F-35s.”
“Raging Russian Boner? Worst pickup line ever.”
“Guys get back in here,” chided Sarah.
“Right, as I was saying, the Russians envy our F-35s. Greatly. Their fifth gen fighter, the Sukhoi PAKFA is in shambles. On the one side you have India, their FGFA developmental buddy flirting with the French Mirages, while their other ‘partner’ China is hell bent on pirating their jet fan technologies… you throw in Ukraine and suddenly you see how bad it is for the Russians.”
“Ok. So what’s the recourse? I need some actionable points…” protested Doug.
“Two parts: Defense and Offense. Defensively, we box the F-35s someplace safe till things cool off, or at least till someone exterminates the bugs. Offensively…”
“No effin way. The Paris Air Show is crucial. We can’t afford to pull out. It will be an absolute disaster,” protested Doug.
“Gotta agree with Doug here, Jim. We can’t abandon Le Bourget. We need those camel boys to buy the F-35. Forget profitability, a Saudi-Emirati order is our only hope for saving Lockheed and its American jobs. Abandoning Le Bourget would be an ArmsRace 101 Fail.”
“Well I thought there is no such thing as bad publicity.”
Doug Sanders still streaming via GovChat flared, “This isn’t some Hollywood starlet caught injecting bitumen up her ass in an Arby’s restroom. We are talking about trillions of dollars here… and American jobs.”