They rushed through the launch sequence.
“Preparing to light the tail,” Bunny said into her helmet mike. “Clear?”
“Clear, aye,” confirmed Rodriguez, crouching lower.
“Launching!”
The Cat fired and the afterburner roared, hurling the Fantom along the catapult, flinging it down the chute and out into the open air. They both watched the shrinking silhouette to see that it flew true, turning away and slowly pulling up until it was gone from the small letterbox view they had of it.
“Electronic-warfare 1 away,” Bunny said. As she spoke, the catapult shuttle returned to its start position while the automated delivery system lifted a new drone cartridge off the conveyor belt, and dropped it on the catapult rails. Bunny hit a release and the two halves of the cartridge fell away into pits on either side of the catapult and were ejected into the Pond, like bowling pins at the back of an alley. While Rodriguez fixed a hand-held system diagnostics unit to the newly arrived Fantom, in essence ‘booting’ the drone to life, Bunny was rocking it back and forth to lock it into place on the shuttle and fitting the holding rods.
Rodriguez felt the Fantom thud into place and counted off precious seconds as hydraulic rods pushed the wings down.
“Locked!” Bunny said, arms in the air, stepping away.
“Booted!” Rodriguez said a moment later, seeing the go-codes on her handset and pulling the magnetic connecting cable off the access point on the drone’s skin.
Bunny jumped over the blast protector again, as Rodriguez ran for the shooter’s chair. Every minute now was literally life, or death. The Russians scrambling from Saint Lawrence would be forming up, waiting for guidance from their Airborne Control aircraft. If they formed up in the usual Russian formation of two flights of three, the first fighters could be on their way already. Flying time from Saint Lawrence to the Rock was about 20 minutes for an Su-57. They needed to get at least six Fantoms in the air by then. What they were trying to do had never been done before. Launch two electronic-warfare birds then a hex of air-to-air Fantoms inside thirty minutes? With only two people. It was crazy.
As she waited for her shooter’s console to light up green, she looked over at Bunny and saw the woman looking across at her too.
They could be hit at any moment but Bunny was grinning like a fool, “Are we having fun yet ma’am?”
“Spruce leader, this is Spruce Control,” Bondarev heard his airborne controller say. “We are experiencing heavy jamming. Intermittent signal loss on several frequencies. Status over the target is unchanged, no activity.”
Bondarev cursed. The observation from the airborne controller was contradictory. If the enemy had started active jamming, then the situation over the target had changed, obviously. It showed they had detected or anticipated Russian activity, they had spotted or suspected the presence of the Airborne Control plane, and were targeting it with electronic-warfare aircraft. It was unlikely to be ground or satellite-based jamming, therefore there was at least one US stealth aircraft in the Operations Area that the Airborne Control and mainland-based radar had not yet detected. Probably more than one.
He had taken off in the lead formation from Savoonga. Spent ten frustrating minutes forming up. Was still 15 minutes from Little Diomede. His flight of six aircraft would set up a CAP over the island. If there were any enemy aircraft in the air near the island, he would deal with them. And he didn’t need the airborne controller to tell him they weren’t picking up any returns, he could see that on his empty threat warning screen. The only upside was that the jamming confirmed beyond doubt that there was a significant enemy base on the island.
It was an interesting tactical challenge. Recon photos showed a small cave at water level, with an opening not much higher or wider than the profile of one of his Okhotniks. It was conceivable you could fly a drone through it, but it would require skill. And there was no flight path cleared along the water outside the cave. Several fishing boats were wrecked in the shallow harbor lying in front of the cave, so while it was possible a ski-equipped drone could land in the mouth of the cave, taking off would be problematic as there wasn’t enough ‘runway’ to get an aircraft up to take-off speed. Once he had dealt with any threats, he needed to get a low level look at the mouth of the cave himself before he sent his special ops team in.
Following behind him were ground-attack armed Okhotniks, four carrying deep penetrating precision-guided bombs with 1500 lb. warheads that could punch through 10 feet of hardened concrete, or 20 feet of soil. The rest were armed with short range ground attack missiles designed to take out enemy armor. Their warheads were smaller, but their guidance systems more precise. If he was to have a chance of getting a shot inside that cave mouth, it would most likely be with an Okhotnik, flying in at wave-top height and delivering its ordnance at point blank range.
An icon Bondarev had rarely seen on his heads-up display threat display started blinking, as the Airborne Control aircraft broadcast again, “Spruce Control to Spruce leader, we are blind. Total signal failure. Interference on all frequencies, anti-jamming measures ineffective. Sorry Spruce leader, we could give you a vector to the likely source of the jamming, but you are already headed there. We will update if status changes.”
“Spruce leader, understood, out,” Bondarev replied.
He quickly scanned his heads-up display, the skies, his wingmen’s’ positions. The passive and active sensors on his Sukhois should be able to burn through any jamming once he arrived over the target, but that meant long-range missiles were virtually useless, reducing his effective payload from eight to four missiles per aircraft. He was not concerned. The jamming aircraft were likely just unarmed drones. And if there was a significant force of drones in the target area, the airborne control aircraft should have picked them up before it went off the air.
“Spruce leader to Spruce flight,” Bondarev said, speaking to his wingmen. “Radars up, arm short range ordnance, take your targeting from your flight leaders. We are probably facing stealth drones, stay sharp!”
He flicked his eyes around the skies and across his instruments again. That familiar combat operation tension was building in him. He didn’t believe the BS from pilots or commanders who tried to sound like a combat mission was just another day at the office. Any flight had the potential to cost you your life if you weren’t careful, and a combat mission put all the odds against you. And different thoughts went through your head. You couldn’t shut them out. He had no wife and he didn’t think about his mother or father at times like this. He thought about his grandfather, hero of the Russian Federation, former commander of the Aerospace Forces. The man who had taught him to fly, nearly thirty years ago, sitting on his lap in the cockpit of a Yak-152 turboprop, his feet working the rudder pedals while Bondarev flew with stick and throttle. The man who had taught him how to fight — not the combat maneuvers, but the mindset he needed. “Kill without thought,” his grandfather had told him. “Without regret. The enemy pilot has made a choice to fly, to fight, and to die if needed. No pilot in modern war is there against his will. If he wanted, he could object, refuse to fight, and take the consequences. But if he fights, he also accepts the consequences.” His grandfather had died ten years ago now, but Bondarev imagined the man watching his every move when he was in the air. Looking out for him? No, that was his own job, but perhaps guiding his decisions, yes.