“This is Tiger Flight. That’s a good copy,” responded Captain Blake. “We’ll head in that direction. Vector us in as we get closer and send us the targeting data. We’ll engage them from range.” Tiger grinned; he was eager to enter the fight.
Twenty minutes went by as their fighters continued to cruise ever closer to the unsuspecting enemy fighters. Steadily, they came into range of their AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles. The airborne radar aircraft that had been vectoring them toward the enemy Hawks sent the final targeting data they needed.
“Raptor, I’m going to fire off my first missile at target 003,” announced Tiger. “I want you to fire at target 004, five seconds after I fire mine. We’ll loiter in the area and make sure the missiles find their marks. If they miss, then we’ll engage them with another set of missiles. Is that understood?” Since the Indonesians had no idea they were in the area, and they weren’t actively trying to evade enemy radar or SAMs, he wanted to take this first engagement a bit slower and by the numbers.
“Copy that, Tiger. Standing by for your order,” replied Raptor, trying to contain his excitement and nervousness.
“We’re birds of prey… about to score our first victory,” Raptor thought privately.
A minute later, the silence was broken. “Fox Three, missile away,” Tiger announced, initiating the countdown to when he’d fire his own missile.
The first missile ignited as soon as it had dropped free of the internal weapons bay and shot out quickly after the enemy aircraft. Lacey then depressed the firing button on his flight stick. He felt his fighter lift a bit in altitude as his own missile dropped from the weapons bay and raced toward the enemy.
The two of them watched for a couple of minutes as the missiles streaked toward the Indonesian planes, getting closer to their prey with each passing second. Then, the Hawks detected the incoming threats and took evasive maneuvers. They accelerated and dove for the ground, hoping they could lose the missiles in the ground clutter. Unfortunately for them, the missiles had gotten too close to them before they had detected the threats. The missiles quickly entered their terminal speed and slammed into both warplanes.
“Score! We got them, Tiger!” yelled Raptor excitedly over the radio. They had officially achieved the first air-to-air kills for the Royal Australian Air Force of World War III.
“Settle down, Raptor,” Captain Blake chided. “Maintain radio discipline. We’ll celebrate tonight with the rest of the squadron. Right now, we need to focus on getting back to base without getting shot down. You can bet the enemy is going to know we’re operating in the area and look to find us with their SAMs.” He did his best to hide his own level of excitement so that they could make it back to base safely.
The Indians Are Coming
Lieutenant General Adhar Chatterji of the Second Indian Expeditionary Army watched the tired and battered Russian soldiers stand in line, waiting to board the train that would take them West, toward the next defensive line. Should his Indian forces not be able to stop the Americans from steamrolling across their positions, they would hopefully be rested and ready to fight. While the Russian soldiers stood silently waiting for the train to empty, Chatterji felt pride swell within his chest as nearly a battalion’s worth of his Indian Army soldiers exited the train. These new arrivals were led to a long line of trucks that would transport them to one of the many military camps that had sprung up around the city of Komsomolsk.
A month ago, the Americans had landed a sizeable force of Marines among the coastal cities along the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Once on the ground, the Americans had advanced stealthily throughout the Russian Far East, severing the oil and natural gas fields of eastern Russia and disrupting a host of other mining operations. The Marines were quickly gobbling up the Far East, which was why General Chatterji and his corps now found themselves here, as opposed to Eastern Europe.
While General Chatterji was not thrilled with being allied with the Chinese, he understood the reasons why his government had gone along. The one concession the Indians had made the Chinese agree to was that neither country would station soldiers on each other’s territories, at least not until both sides felt more comfortable with the arrangement. If it hadn’t been for President Petrov’s intervention in the negotiations, Chatterji highly doubted India would have joined the new Eastern Alliance.
In the dark recesses of his mind, General Chatterji felt bad about going to war with the Americans. His younger brother had emigrated to America twenty-six years ago and loved being an American. Becoming a US citizen had been one of his proudest moments. He’d brag about it nearly every time he came home to visit.
“I hope Krishna is still doing OK in America,” Chatterji thought. He hadn’t been able to talk to his brother in a while, and he worried that some of his nieces and nephews might have been drafted.
After greeting and welcoming his soldiers to Russia following their nearly eight-day train ride from India, he turned to leave the trainyard and was pleasantly surprised when his soldiers spontaneously started to sing an old military hymn.
“They’re excited about going to war…” he reveled to himself.
An hour later, he walked into his headquarters building and made his way over to the room he had set up as his new office. When he walked in, he was pleasantly surprised to see his new boss, a Russian major general, and one of his colonels. Smiling, he extended his hand. “Major General Oleg Chirkin, it’s good to see you. I thought we were meeting for dinner in a couple of hours?”
Major General Chirkin smiled briefly at the question. “Yes, I have a reservation made for us. However, I wanted to speak with you now — it’s a matter of great urgency,” he replied, still standing near the wall of the office.
Chatterji signaled for the two Russian officers to take a seat as he walked around to his desk. Chirkin remained standing. “General, I understand you arrived yesterday and have set this building up as your new headquarters. As my new deputy, I must insist that you pick a new location for your headquarters,” urged Chirkin. “I also recommend that you find a way to trim your staff down by at least half and find a more discreet way to run operations.”
Lifting his head up a bit, Chatterji clarified, “You’re concerned with this location being quickly identified by the Americans and then destroyed?”
Chirkin nodded. “Yes. My predecessor didn’t relocate his headquarters when the war started, and the Americans blew him up with a cruise missile. By all accounts, you’re a very competent general. I don’t want the US to score a quick victory and destroy your HQ the first week you’re in Russia,” he replied, hoping the new general wouldn’t take offense to him saying this.
Chetterji smiled broadly. “We’ve already thought about this, General. We made a lot of noise about this new location and are setting up enough communications transmissions emanating from this building to be convincing as well. I even have a body double who will come here daily. We want the Americans to destroy this building. We want to show our people at home how vicious the US is, and how they will even kill civilians and then blame us for setting up our headquarters near a heavily populated area.”
Chatterji wagged his finger with a smile. “I already have a secured headquarters set up. After today, I’ll never set foot in this building again. This is all a ruse,” he concluded.