It wasn’t a wasted effort. Inside there were some American cigarettes, a large hunting knife with a razor sharp edge on one side and a serrated saw on the other and a broken fishing reel. The knife had a delicately carved whalebone handle. He hefted it, feeling the balance. A fine souvenir from his first ever ‘kill’ — even if it was only a glorified motorbike he had shot. There was no map in the compartment, nor did he expect there to be. The locals had all grown up on this wind-blasted rock in the middle of the Bering Sea and there were no roads between the only two villages anyway, so why would they need a map?
Shots! Zubkhov threw himself flat, scrambling to keep the wrecked bike between him and the sound of the gunfire. He kept his head down, trying to identify the weapon. It was Russian, a light anti-air gun. Sticking his head up, he saw one of the hastily erected gun emplacements by the runway open fire again at a target barely visible above. It looked like a light four-rotor commercial freight drone; not much more than a teardrop-shaped bulb the size of a car with wings. The second burst from the anti-air gun hit it as it was descending toward the runway and it tumbled from the sky to smash into the sea about a hundred meters offshore. There was some sardonic cheering from the gun crew but Zubkhov shook his head as he stood up. The first anti-air kill of the war was a glorified shopping trolley. Hooyah.
Something flapping off to his right by the overturned sled caught his eye. He hadn’t noticed it before. It looked like a jacket, torn to shreds. The man must have been wearing it when he was thrown from his bike, and cast it off before he jumped into the sea. It occurred to Zubkhov there might be something in the pockets; another ‘souvenir’ perhaps, or maybe even some US dollars? He walked over and picked it up, searching it for pockets. There were two deep external pockets which contained only a box of matches and an old piece of candy, stuck to the lining of the pocket. There was an inside pocket that held about twenty dollars and a piece of paper with what looked like a shipping consignment, but other than that was empty. Disappointing.
That was when he noticed the patch on the arm of the jacket. He held it up to his face so he could see it better. A polar bear, holding a globe in its claws. Around it were the words, 712th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. It looked military. Zubkhov felt his heart jump. No wonder the man had fled. He was US military! Their briefing had been clear on this, there was no military presence expected at Gambell, and only a token force manning the early warning station at Savoonga.
Well, the bloody briefing had been wrong! There was at least one US serviceman on the loose in Gambell.
Zubkhov looked around for Captain Demchenko, eyes searching among the dozens of men swarming over crates and boxes on the runway as dust and gravel were blown around by the rotors of the transports. His eyes landed on his CO, and he started running.
He knew it. He should have shot the bastard!
OPENING VOLLEY
“ANR, I see rotary winged aircraft on the ground at Savoonga. AI indicates they are Russian Mi-26s, are you getting the feed?” Bunny’s voice didn’t bely her shock. Russian troop transports at a US air defense facility?
Nuclear submarine incident be damned.
“We copy your feed, NCTAMS-A4. We are showing clear airspace to your south, pull back twenty miles south of your current position, stay out of sight and await new tasking.”
Bunny made a new waypoint, dragged it across the tactical map with her mouse then watched as her four machines began moving south from Savoonga, using terrain following laser to hop over hills and into depressions to stay off Russian radar. They hadn’t picked up any targeting radar over Savoonga, so if Russian aircraft or ground-based radar was operating there, they didn’t get a return off the small profiles of Bunny’s Fantoms.
“Russian ground forces? What the hell?!” Rodriguez said, saying out loud what O’Hare and Halifax were both thinking.
“I can’t think of any maritime rescue scenario that would require Russian troops to put down inside the perimeter of a US military installation,” Halifax said. “But it explains why ANR can’t raise Savoonga on comms.”
“Sirs and Ma'ams, I’m no expert on geopolitics,” the Australian aviator commented. “But I do have two heavily armed Fantoms at the end of my kite string. You might want to ask for a review of the rules of engagement.”
While the intel from Bunny’s report was being processed back at Elmendorf-Richardson AFB, alerting NORAD about the presence of uninvited Russian troops on US soil for the first time in history, Major-General Yevgeny Bondarev was playing Cat and mouse with the US Air Force in the Bering Strait between Saint Lawrence and the Alaskan coast.
His own rules of engagement were anything but standard. He was free to do what he felt necessary to ensure the undisturbed operation of Russian ground forces in the theatre, including pre-emptive attacks on American Air Force targets, if he deemed them a threat. Right now, he could imagine USAF officers were frantically checking with their superiors in the Pentagon to validate Bondarev’s claim that their two Presidents had agreed to a temporary US no-fly zone over Saint Lawrence. Bondarev himself had no idea whether the Russian President had even made a call to his US counterpart, but assumed that if the cover story was to be credible, he would need to have done so.
The only warning that Bondarev was likely to get if the US high command didn’t buy their cover story, was the high piercing chime of a missile launch warning in his ears before his combat AI seized control of the aircraft and sent it into a screaming spiral earthward. Bondarev didn’t plan to be caught at a complete disadvantage though.
“Eagle Flight, please assume a position above and behind our American escort.” On his tactical display he saw his newly arriving reinforcements peel up and slowly slide to starboard, wedging the US aircraft between two formations of Russian fighters. It was a classic ‘Mexican standoff’ and would require the US commander to react. How he reacted would tell Bondarev if he was dealing with an American with an aggressive or defensive mindset. An aggressive commander would decide he still had a perfect firing solution on the bulk of the Russian fighter force, even though he was threatened from the rear. A defensive mindset would mean the American was more worried about his own planes and pilots than about challenging the Russian fighters, and he would break away to try to re-establish a tactical advantage, probably by withdrawing to long-range missile distance.
A few tense minutes passed, then Bondarev heard a voice drawl over the Guard channel, “Ivan, your trailing element is so far up my tailpipe that I have to assume you Russians are all a bunch of ho-mo-sexual ass bandits. Please confirm.” Checking his tactical display, Bondarev saw no sign of the US flight breaking position. He smiled.
Very well. An aggressive commander. Let us see who blinks first.
“Raptor control, please scramble a further nine Mig-41s from Lavrentiya and vector to my position.”
Alicia marveled at how cool Bunny remained. She had her wedge of four drones hidden in ground clutter in a shallow valley south of Savoonga. She had a combat AI system that was filtering all the inputs, making sure she didn’t drown in data and only had her attention directed to critical information, but Rodriguez knew her own head would have exploded trying to keep track of it all, at the same time as sending orders to her machines and being ready to execute any one of a hundred tactical options if needed.