The young pilot went back to thinking about the mess that seemed to be drawing former allies into battle. One thing he knew for sure: it was important for the Ukrainian people to secure their own borders and get out from under the shadow of their former master. This air patrol, although probably insignificant, was still important. No one, especially Russia, should be allowed to push anyone around, especially an ally.
These round-the-clock patrols were staged more for Moldova’s and Romania’s satisfaction — and for the Ukrainian people — rather than for any tactical military considerations. Romania and Moldova were charging the Ukraine with siding with Russia in the Dniester dispute, and this was a way of showing them it wasn’t true. More importantly, the newly elected liberal government in Ukraine needed support for its policy of international cooperation and openness. So this was a way of showing the world how much they desired peace — and a way of showing the Ukrainian voters how tough they could be.
Yeah, right, he mused. As if throwing a few old fighters up against the cream of Russia’s crop showed anything but how desperate you were. Well, if nothing else, this was flying time, and logable formation-lead time, as well as task force leader time. More points toward promotion to Major of Aviation, which young Pavlo Grigor’evich Tychina could expect in—
“Inbound, inbound,” a voice suddenly came over the radio — in English, of all languages! “This is Lubin air traffic control center on GUARD, aircraft at zero-seven-three degrees from Lubin at one-three-eight kilometers at one-two thousand meters, descend and maintain one-zero thousand meters, contact me on frequency one-two-seven-point-one, and squawk four-two-two-five normal. Acknowledge all transmissions. Welcome to Poland. Over.”
Tychina shook his head, totally confused. Lubin was a Polish air traffic control sector, about a hundred kilometers west of the Ukrainian border — but the location of the unidentified aircraft they were talking to was in the Ukraine. The Polish air traffic controller was obviously giving the Ukrainian jets a friendly “heads-up” about the intruders, disguising it as a standard initial call-up to an inbound flight. But night flights by commercial aircraft were prohibited at night over most of Eastern Europe. Who was out there?
Tychina hit the radio button on his throttle: “Amber Two, this is Blue One, you have contact on that unknown?”
“Say again, Blue One?” the pilot of Amber Two, Aviation Lieutenant Maksim Fadeevich Ryl’skii, replied. Ryl’skii’s voice plainly sounded drowsy. Good thing all the aircraft were separated by at least fifty kilometers or else they’d be running into each other for sure.
“Christ, Mak, aren’t you monitoring GUARD?” Tychina yelled. “All Imperial aircraft, check your switches and monitor GUARD channel. Lubin air traffic control called unidentified traffic over our airspace, and he wasn’t talking about us. Northbound Imperial flights, configure for aircraft above one-zero-thousand meters and sing out if you see anything.”
Seconds later, Tychina heard, “Imperial, this is Amber Two, I have radar contact at zero-two-zero degrees and thirty kilometers from Reference One, altitude one-two thousand meters.” Reference One was the city of Kovel, about seventy kilometers south of the Belarus-Ukraine border … the unknown aircraft was definitely in Ukrainian airspace.
Thank God for the Polish air traffic controllers, Tychina thought — the Ukrainians liked to make fun of the Poles, but they may have just saved their asses.
“How many you got, what direction, and what speed, Amber One?” Tychina demanded. Come on, damn you, Tychina cursed silently. Don’t go to pieces on me now—give me a proper radar report. Some fighter jocks always sounded so macho, so competent, until a real emergency happened, then they turned to putty.
“I got multiple inbounds, headed south, at seven hundred kilometers per hour,” Ryl’skii replied several moments later, his voice shaky. He had never seen so many unidentified aircraft on his radar screen before. The Sapfir-23D J-band attack radar in the MiG-23s had been recently upgraded to allow more autonomous air intercepts — the older system was made for ground-controlled intercepts, but that was useless if you no longer had many ground-controlled radar systems. “Andrei, get your ass up here and help me … my God, there must be a dozen inbounds up here!”
“Relax, Amber Two,” Tychina radioed. “Amber One, you start your turn yet?”
“Affirmative,” Aviation Captain First Class Andrei Vasil’evich Golovko in Amber One replied. Golovko was an experienced pilot and a former flight commander, sent back to pushing a jet because of one drunken episode several months ago. Tychina thought the demotion was unwarranted but was glad to have Golovko in his unit. “I have got you and the bogeys on radar; Amber One, you can turn off your exterior lights. Pavlo, we have got multiple inbounds heading south. Jesus, at least fourteen … what the hell is going on? … Pavlo, I’d call ’em hostile. There could be jokers in the deck. What do you want to do?”
For the first time since leading these patrols, Tychina had to make a real command decision. Their orders were to intercept and, if necessary, destroy any unidentified foreign aircraft crossing the border. The caveat “if necessary” disturbed Tychina — it was anyone’s interpretation what that might mean. It would also be virtually impossible to get a visual identification. Some of the MiG-23s, including Tychina’s plane, were equipped with the TP-23 infrared search and track system, and they could use it for a visual identification if they could safely close within about ten kilometers. But closing in that much meant possibly tangling with the “jokers” Golovko was warning him about — enemy fighters. If this was a flight of Russian bombers, it was very possible that they’d bring along fighter escorts.
Pavlo Tychina paused, then ordered, “Amber One, keep the aircraft and Amber Two in sight. Take a high patrol perch if you can. Break. Blue Two and Green Flight, rendezvous with me over Reference Two; I will be at base altitude plus four, so join in the block.” Tychina knew that, other than landing in poor weather, most aircraft accidents occurred during night-formation rejoins. He would try to bring his wingman and the two planes in the adjacent orbit areas over to a reference point, stacked one hundred meters below his “base altitude” plus four thousand meters, then hope they could all use radar and visual to join on him.
They practiced a lot of night rejoins, but Tychina could start to feel his own pulse quicken and sweat start to pop out on his own forehead — the rejoin would be difficult and very dangerous under normal training circumstances, and all the harder with hostile aircraft nearby. “All other flights in task force Imperial, I want you to stagger your patrol orbits westward fifty kilometers and shorten your orbits to increase surveillance time along the border. Purple One Flight, contact L’vov and tell them to get task force Royal airborne as soon as possible. Out.”
With a steady stream of prompting (as in swearing, yelling, vectoring, and cajoling) from Golovko, the two Amber Flight aircraft joined, climbed to fourteen thousand meters, and approached the unidentified aircraft. They were operating at the very upper end of their altitude capability — a MiG-23 could not fly much above fifteen thousand meters’ altitude, and even at fourteen thousand the possibility of flameout or compressor stall was very good — and so far the intruders weren’t descending.