“OK, got that. Anything else? Do you see rotary aircraft, transports anything like that?”
Perri watched as another pair of jets took off. “No, just the fighters. Oh wait, it may be nothing, but about a half hour ago there was a big airliner type of aircraft up high, circling over the island. Three jets took off, met up with it like an escort, you know, and they all headed north.”
Perri heard a noise like paper rustling at the other end. “Can you be more precise? What did the big aircraft look like, exactly what direction on the compass did they go? Not east, or southeast? Definitely north?”
Perri knew why he was asking. East was Alaska. Southeast the US mainland. North was… nothing. Big Diomede, Little Diomede. Open sea. “Yeah, north,” Perri said. “The big plane was way up high, just a little white shape. Maybe it had a glass nose. It seemed to catch the light, you know. And I didn’t check the compass, I just know they went north,” he said. He looked at Dave in case the boy had anything to add, but he just shrugged. Another aircraft roared off the runway outside.
“I’m going to have to log out,” Perri said, the pitch of his voice rising, “I don’t want to be yelling, and it’s getting noisy here. You’ve got about twenty Russian fighters taking off right now!”
“OK White Bear, keep the radio close. Call me in thirty. I’ll have more questions, Sarge out.”
Perri sat down, hands over his ears. The metal of the perforated water tank was like an echo chamber and the noise of the jets came in through the walls and shrapnel holes and bounced around, assaulting them from all sides. There was nothing they could do except grit their teeth and ride it out.
Admiral Solanta had come through for Rodriguez. He sent word that he was committing two anti-air capable submersible fast attack drones (S-FADs) to the defense of Little Diomede. The Manta Class S-FAD was a particularly potent weapons platform. A trimaran design, with the vast majority of its hull and superstructure built of lightweight and radar-translucent carbon-composite materials it had a length of around 130 feet and a long and streamlined center hull. Originally designed to be able to hunt and kill anything from nuclear to the newest near silent air-independent diesel subs it soon became evident the platform was capable of being adapted to field multiple weapon systems including sea-launched ground or air attack missiles. Lurking beneath the waves, with only a cable-buoy mounted Naval Integrated Fire Control Counter-Air data link to air and land radar, and satellite tracking systems, each anti-air S-FAD/A carried 12 cells capable of firing the latest over-the-horizon, networked SM-6 (Enhanced) anti-air missile with active seeker autonomous terminal interception capabilities.
Solanta had gotten four of his stealth submersibles successfully through the Russian naval picket and sent them north in support of the Enterprise Carrier Battle Group. Two had already reached station in the Bering Strait when the Enterprise was forced to turn back, so he had kept them on station and in reserve. It was a platform that had demonstrated an ability in testing to intercept everything from fast moving fighters and bombers to satellites or ballistic missiles. But it had never been used in combat, until now.
Rodriguez' operations order was simple: draw the enemy to Little Diomede and identify targets for the S-FADs. With a projected shoot-kill ratio of 70 % against 5th gen Russian fighters, the two S-FADs between them should be able to account for about 16 Russian aircraft. He’d just seen human source intel indicating Russia was sending around 20 aircraft against Little Diomede, leaving Rodriguez and Bunny to mop up the remainder and then put their drones down in Juneau. The Admiral hoped with a bit of luck, they may even be able to avert a direct strike on the base, and if the ploy off the Kurils worked, the shooting match might be over before Russia could gather itself and mount a new attack on the island base.
It was a calculated risk. And his officers on Little Diomede had already proven Lady Luck was their personal friend. But they would need all the help they could get.
Admiral Solanta was a deeply religious man. As he looked at a map of the Russian control zone, and the tiny dot right in the middle of it that was Little Diomede island, he crossed himself, “May God protect you ladies.”
Perri’s frantic warning from Savoonga had been relayed by Canadian intelligence to NORAD immediately. The FLASH alert from NORAD was received at The Rock simultaneous with a contact alert from the F-47 out in the harbor flashing onto Bunny’s threat warning screen. She scanned both reports.
“We better get down to the deck ma’am!” Bunny said. They had both been lying on makeshift bunks inside the trailer, trying to doze, saving their strength. “ANR has received human intel indicating Russian aircraft are scrambling from Savoonga. Estimated 20+ bogies, and radar confirms they are headed this way. Skippy outside has just detected what looks like a Beriev Airborne Control aircraft, with escort, taking up station about fifty miles south of us. We need to get our electronic-warfare birds up there, jam that sucker and get those S-FADs networked.” She looked over at Rodriguez, “This is it, Boss.”
“Skippy?” Rodriguez asked.
“The Fantom out in the harbor. I gave it a name,” Bunny shrugged. “It’s earned it.”
Rodriguez smiled, “OK Lieutenant, let’s get this production line rolling…”
They had a Fantom locked and loaded on the Cat and had it on standby power, ready for a five-minute power up and launch. The rest of the drones were queued, fueled, armed and programmed — two with Electronic Warfare pods and the rest with air-air missiles. They had disarmed the explosives in the cave, but were acutely aware that a lucky Russian shot through the cavern mouth or down the chute could trigger one of the charges and bring the roof down on them. It would have to be extremely lucky — the chute was only 100 feet wide and putting a missile all the way through it would be like Luke Skywalker’s Hail Mary shot at the Death Star cooling tower. The only way to attack them within the cave would be from water level — a missile fired straight into the mouth of the cave — but all that would do, unless it was a nuke, was to take out the dock and command trailer. Bunny would lose her cockpit, and they would be deaf and blind (perhaps literally) but the flight deck was shielded from a direct hit for exactly that reason, and as long as the Cat kept working, the chute was clear, and at least one of them was alive, they could keep launching.
One last precaution they had taken was to create a ‘castle keep’ — a fortified position deep inside the network of racks and belts serving the catapult feeder system; with light, food and water, arms and ammunition and a low frequency radio linked to the subsea array in the Strait so that they could stay in contact with CNAF. Bunny had wryly observed that they could hold off an army from inside the ‘keep’, so they were more likely to die of thirst and hunger, or boredom.
They sprinted down to the flight deck and pulled on helmets, as much so that they could communicate, as for protection. The first drone was ready to rock and roll, so Bunny waited behind the blast shield while Rodriguez went to the shooter’s chair, just like in her former life aboard carriers. The console showed a lot of different readouts, digital and mechanical, but in the end it came down to just two buttons really: charge and launch. She hit the first, and the Cat started humming. It was already on reserve power, and needed only a few minutes to reach full charge, drawing on only a small percentage of the power that could be generated by the nuclear power plant buried deep under the Rock. As it charged, it triggered the engine startup sequence for the Fantom and the liquid hydrogen Scimitar engines whined into life. A slipstream exhaust fan sucked most of the displaced air down into vents for distribution around the cave, but not all, and dust and small particles started swirling while a small ripple began dancing on the surface of the Pond. Green lights began showing on the shooter’s console, telling her the Cat was fully charged and ready to deliver the required thrust, the drone was locked to the shuttle, its engine was at full power, ready for the afterburner to be lit, and its combat and autopilot systems were up.