“Raptor Control, this is Swan 1, we are on station and available for tasking,” Bondarev reported.
“Acknowledged Swan 1, we see you, hold station,” the controller onboard the A-50W responded.’ “All quiet here. We are moving to phase II. Out.”
This was war, Bondarev reflected, running his eyes across his instruments and checking them against what his heads-up display was showing him. Hours of total tedium, interrupted by moments of sheer terror. But his old grandmother had once said to him, “May you never live in exciting times.” Unfortunately, her wish hadn’t come true in the past, but he fervently hoped it would at least hold for today.
“I have Foreign Minister Kelnikov on the line for you Ambassador,” Devlin McCarthy’s assistant said over the phone. McCarthy was in the back of her car, on the way out to a dinner with the Canadian delegation in Moscow.
She sighed. More bluster about that lost ship no doubt, she thought. What Russia hoped to achieve with it wasn’t clear. “Put him on,” she said. She heard static on the line, and coughing in the background. “Minister Kelnikov,” she said. “How are you?”
“Rather busy I am afraid,” the man said. “I am calling to advise you we have another nautical emergency in the Bering Sea, this time off the coast of your island of Saint Lawrence.”
McCarthy leaned forward in her seat and tapped her aide on the shoulder, motioning him to get the car to pull over. “What emergency Minister?”
“One of our Kazan class submarines has suffered a flash fire and as a precaution, the Captain has chosen to scram the vessel’s reactor. We have lost contact but his last report said he was unable to surface. We have mobilized rescue assets from Anadyr and Lavrentiya and air-sea rescue reconnaissance units are over the submarine’s last known position.”
McCarthy thought quickly, “Are you requesting our assistance?”
Kelnikov grunted, “No Ambassador. We have the matter in hand and have notified your Coast Guard in Alaska. But I am advising you so that you can pass the message up your chain of command, that they should not be alarmed to see Russian military vessels and aircraft in the area of Saint Lawrence while we stabilize this terrible situation.”
“I will advise our military attaché and the Pentagon immediately,” McCarthy said. “But I suggest your President also contact my President to open a channel of communication if the situation worsens. There will be concern about the risk of nuclear contamination.”
“He is already doing so I believe,” Kelnikov said. “Our ambassador in Washington is also on his way into your State Department.”
“We stand ready to assist in any way we can,” McCarthy said. “I imagine a nuclear sub reactor scram is not a small matter Minister. I suspect our military chiefs will want to move emergency response assets to Saint Lawrence just in case they are needed.”
There was hesitation at the other end. “That may be prudent,” Kelnikov said. “Can you please arrange to give us the contact details for whichever officer you put in charge, so that we can speak with them directly? It would be best to let our two militaries manage this event between themselves so that no confusions arise.”
“I’ll personally see that you receive those details,” McCarthy said. “Was there anything else?”
“No, that will do for now. I will keep you advised as best I can, but I do not expect any new information in the next hour or so. As I said, we have lost contact with our vessel; our military command will decide how to respond.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with those men,” McCarthy said. “Can I ask what the name of the vessel was? It was a Kazan class submarine you said?”
“That is all I know at this point,” Kelnikov said, clearly dissembling. “Which of our Kazan class vessels is involved, I am sorry I cannot say.”
She hadn’t expected him to identify the vessel, but it was worth a try. ‘Cannot say’ was not the same as ‘do not know’, but in the same situation, US Pacific Fleet Command wouldn’t rush to identify to the Russians which of their nuclear missile capable vessels was currently bottomed out on the seabed off a foreign coast. It was probably already a breach of about ten different nuclear disarmament treaties that the submarine was even operating in the sea off Saint Lawrence.
“I had better start making some phone calls,” McCarthy said. “If you will excuse me Minister.”
“Certainly, goodbye for now.”
She cut the connection and leaned back in her seat. “Get us to the compound, stat,” she told her aide and he pulled up a list of destinations and tapped it in. This wasn’t the sort of thing she could discuss over a cell phone, even an encrypted cell. As the car accelerated into traffic she made a mental list of who she should call and in which order. As she tapped her fingers on the window pane nervously, she bit her lip. You lying sack of dung, she thought. Nuclear sub reactor scram off Saint Lawrence my broad ass.
First the Ozempic Tsar, now this. What the hell are they up to?
IN COMMISSION
Air Boss Alicia Rodriguez was deeply asleep, dreaming of lying on a field of warm green grass staring up at a blue sky filled with rolling white clouds. There was someone beside her and they were playing games finding shapes in the clouds.
“That one is an ambulance,” the mystery person beside her was saying. “Or a fire truck. It sounds like a fire truck.”
“Sounds like a firetruck?” Rodriguez was about to respond in her dream, when she suddenly realized she wasn’t dreaming. There was an emergency siren ringing out through the base. At exactly that moment, the phone charging at her bedside began to buzz. She grabbed it.
“Lieutenant Commander, this is Commander Halifax. We have a situation, get down to the flight deck,” he said. “I’ll brief you when you get there. I’m calling all hands to action stations.” He hung up.
Rodriguez stared confused at her handset for a second before her adrenaline kicked in. Within two minutes she had pulled on her flight suit and boots, pulled her black hair into a ponytail and was running at full pelt from the officer’s quarters at the back of the docks and up metal stairs toward her command trailer; her position when action stations were sounded. There were men and women also swarming up the steps and she shouted at them to stand aside and let her through, pulling at a couple of shoulders as she bustled past taking the steps two at a time.
Halifax was already in the trailer when she pulled the door open and jumped inside, and she saw Bunny at her pilot console, punching buttons and bringing her systems online. Which was kind of pointless since they didn’t have a drone on alert…
“Lieutenant Commander,” Halifax barked. “How quickly can you get a Fantom onto that Cat?”
Rodriguez didn’t hesitate. If the station had been at readiness, there would be a Fantom hanging in the loading crane on alert, able to be dropped onto the Cat with five minutes warning. But it wasn’t. She did have a hex of Fantoms pre-flighted and loaded into their cartridges already fueled. They could be fitted with ordnance for a range of mission types from the auto-loading magazines with the tap of a few keys.
“Seventeen minutes Sir,” she said. “Ten to load mission ordnance package, five to get flight systems online, two to verify system status and spool up for launch.”