“I think we’d all agree with that,” Cole said grimly. Now at least they had something to focus their anger on, something to take their minds away from dying men, women, and children in Europe, and back to the task of defending their nation. The Backfires were too close to home, and that fact helped them to concentrate. “Okay, gentlemen, let’s get down to our job. We’ve got a helluva lot of work to do. God help us.”
PART FOUR
It is the habit of every aggressor
nation to claim that it is acting
on the defensive.
TWENTY-FIVE
“We have begun receiving radio broadcasts from the outside,” Colonel of Aviation Petr Panchenko said. “It is my great pleasure to inform you that although Ukrayina is gravely hurt, the Republic is intact.”
The cheer that rose in that conference room was hearty but a bit strained. Panchenko was presiding over a meeting of the surviving officers and senior enlisted staff of L’vov Air Base in western Ukraine, deep within the base’s underground command center. The twenty men and women attending the briefing were exhausted and stressed to the point of breaking, both mentally and physically, but an observer who knew nothing of the grave situation outside their earth, steel, and concrete walls would never guess the circumstances the soldiers were under. Panchenko, as senior officer, had prescribed normal dress and deportment, even after all outside life-support systems had been cut off shortly after the attack. Clean, shaven faces, clean uniforms, and spit-shined boots were mandatory, supervised by regular inspections, and twice-daily exercise periods were required for all personnel. Panchenko was determined that military discipline be strictly maintained despite the horrible tragedy that faced them.
“As we surmised, the Russian invaders conducted no attacks in the Ukraine south of the forty-eighth parallel, with the exception of Krivoj Rog army transport base,” Panchenko continued. “The reason is simple: more Russians live in the Crimea and Azov regions of the Ukraine than any other. The Don region was untouched, primarily because Russia values the coal and ore mining operations there. The capital received only isolated, non-nuclear attacks to outlying military installations. Obviously, the large number of Russians living in Kiev is the reason for this. So far no foreign troops appear to be marching on the capital, although the M21 highway from Vinnica to Minsk and the M10 highway between Kiev and Moscow across Belarus is closed and is clogged with military traffic.”
One officer sitting at the head of the table beside Panchenko was only half listening to the briefing. Captain of Aviation Pavlo Tychina, looking like a sinister Phantom of the Opera with his sterile gauze mask, sat still, eyes straight ahead, arms at his sides. He did not react at all to Panchenko’s words of encouragement, but remained motionless, lost in his own tortured thoughts. The Colonel had told him that such self-imposed misery was selfish and useless and nonproductive — everyone in that bunker had lost someone close to them — but his words made no difference. Tychina allowed himself to mourn deeply — and propped up those thoughts with ones of revenge. Nothing would keep either of those thoughts out of his head. He had the skill and the desire to inflict great pain on the Russians who staged the preemptive attack on his homeland, and nothing would stop him from—
“Captain?” Panchenko was asking, trying to get his attention. His commander’s voice had a sharp edge. “Your briefing, please.”
Tychina didn’t apologize for his inattention, but stiffly rose to his feet. His audience’s eyes were riveted on him, not only because of his horrible wounds but because of who he was and what he had lost. As Colonel Panchenko had said, everyone lost someone in the hell’s fire above, but somehow Tychina’s loss affected them all.
“Comrades, I was asked by Colonel Panchenko to interface with other surviving aviation elements in the country to catalog the national defense strike units, namely, the MiG-23, MiG-27, and Su-17 fighter and fighter-bomber units,” Tychina began. “Unfortunately, that has been almost impossible. The nuclear explosions aboveground created an electromagnetic disturbance in the atmosphere that until recently has disrupted all normal military communications. The BBC, Voice of America, and Radio Europe report that Ukrainian military units near the capital have been attacked by Russian air raids over the past few hours and that all air defense units in the north have been destroyed or have been rendered non-mission effective. We don’t know the full effect of the nuclear attacks against our base or against Vinnica, but I think we must assume that our forces in the north have been destroyed.
“That leaves the Fifth Air Army in Odessa as the only untouched fighter group. So far I have heard no reports about any air attacks into Odessa, so I assume their units are intact and possibly dispersed,” Tychina continued. It was good that Panchenko made him do all this research and act as a sort of intelligence officer — it helped clear his head, got him thinking tactically again, and helped keep his mind off the disaster that awaited him aboveground: “The Fifth possesses one MiG-27 bomber wing, two squadrons of about eighteen aircraft each. We may be lucky enough to have a few elements of Kiev’s Eighth Air Army who survived the conventional bombing attacks and escaped to Odessa, and we know that as many as twenty MiG-23 fighters from our unit and a few MiG-27 and Sukhoi-17 bombers from Vinnica were airborne and may have escaped the nuclear air raids. Therefore, I estimate that we have a force of approximately one hundred fifty, possibly as many as two hundred fixed-wing strike and fighter aircraft. It is completely unknown at this time how many attack helicopters survived — Odessa had lost one hundred and forty Mil-24 attack helicopters in the Fourteenth Combined Arms Division and at least two hundred Mil-8 combat transport helicopters.”
The group was very silent — they knew the devastation was enormous. The Ukraine had had almost two thousand strike planes and helicopters just twenty-four hours earlier — now they had fewer than five hundred, maybe less. How could they ever hope of mounting any sort of counteroffensive? Except for the use of nuclear weapons, which did not seem to be that extensive, the Russians actually seemed to hold back their concentrated attacks, and three-fourths of the Ukraine’s air force had been wiped out. What could they possibly hope to do?
“Thank you, Captain,” Panchenko said, sensing Tychina’s drifting attention and concluding his briefing for him. Tychina nodded and took his seat. To the staff, Panchenko said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what we’ll find up there. We may in fact be down here for quite some time. The main exit appears to be intact but may have suffered damage, and the escape tunnels may be our best option; I have people checking on them now, and they should be reporting in soon. If we can get out, we may take the risk and evacuate to Odessa soon — assuming they can dig us out of here. In any case, I want you all to remember that we are warriors, combatants, and members of the Ukrayina Air Force. We will use whatever weapons we find up there to take up the fight.” He paused, scanning the faces around him, and finally resting on Pavlo Tychina. “Is that clear, Captain?”
“Yes, sir,” Tychina responded firmly.
Panchenko turned to his intelligence officer for a briefing, but before he could begin, a telephone rang somewhere outside the conference room — it was the first telephone ring they had heard in many hours. A communications technician leaped to answer it. He listened for a moment, covered the mouthpiece, then cried, “Sir! A rescue crew is at the outer door! The door is intact and they are requesting permission to enter!”