Panchenko had no sooner opened his mouth to speak than Tychina was on his feet and sprinting for the door. Panchenko yelled, “Captain! Take your seat!” but it did no good. To the communication technician, Panchenko said, “Clear the security area and weather station, and all personnel, including Captain Tychina, will wear exposure suits and respirators before those doors are opened. Everyone else is to be in the communications center or beyond.” He dismissed the staff and hurried off after Tychina.
As he expected, by the time Panchenko reached the security area just inside the blast doors, the doors had been opened, the hallway was filled with anxious people — none of whom were wearing chemical antiexposure suits or respirators — and Tychina was nowhere to be found. “I ordered this area cleared and authorized personnel to wear protective equipment,” Panchenko said to a senior master sergeant. He couldn’t be too angry because he was anxious to get upstairs as well.
“Sorry, sir, they rushed the door as soon as it was opened,” the senior NCO replied. “The Captain — the Phoenix — ordered me aside.”
The Phoenix — Panchenko had heard that name being muttered around the base and the command center. Tychina’s efforts at turning away the first Russian air raid were beginning to take on almost mystical proportions. The quiet, rather introspective young pilot was turning into something of a legend in L’vov. No doubt it would spread throughout Ukrayina before too long — if Tychina survived his anger and thirst for revenge.
“I gave an order, and I expect it to be carried out, Sergeant,” Panchenko said irritably, “no matter what Captain Tychina tells you. Now clear this hallway.”
As the master sergeant complied with his orders, a man in a silver firefighter’s suit — not a proper chemical/nuclear exposure suit, but it would offer limited protection — approached Panchenko. “Are you the commanding officer here, sir?” Panchenko nodded. “Chief Warrant Officer Usenko, Twenty-oh-four Ordnance Battalion, Seventy-second Motorized Rifle Division, from Kiev. I’m very glad to find you, sir.”
“Thank you for digging us out of here,” Panchenko said with relief. “How bad is it up there?”
Usenko shrugged. “Bad? We didn’t have to dig you out, sir. A few structures and aircraft were on fire, and the petrol-tank farm was burning from a bombing attack — that’s why I’m outfitted like this — but otherwise the base is intact.”
“Intact? How is that possible? We were hit, a direct hit … our dosimeters registered very high radiation counts.”
“Dissipated,” Usenko replied. “The Russians attacked with low-yield nuclear weapons, exploded at high altitude over selected targets. They caused only momentary communications blackouts, a few blast damage effects, and—”
“Casualties, Usenko … what about casualties?”
Usenko’s eyes averted to the floor for a moment, then raised to Panchenko with a tortured, haunted expression. “Too early to tell, sir,” he replied. “Each target complex hit with the subatomic weapons had a few initial casualties, mostly from flashblindness, moderate burns, and shock — less than one-half of one percent casualties and injuries, I’d estimate. The weapons produced virtually no extensive damage — no craters, no fires, no fallout. But as you have determined, transient neutron radiation levels were extremely high, and unprotected individuals may have received a fatal dose. Casualties are expected to be very high in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
“You mean to tell me … you mean, there are still people up there, alive?”
Usenko looked as if he’d been slapped in the face. He shuffled uneasily, then nodded his head: “Uh … sir, most everyone that was indoors during the attack, those not affected by flashblindness or overpressure, survived. Persons outdoors but protected from the flash and overpressure also survived or were only injured. But they all would have received tremendous doses of radiation, far above lethal levels. Personnel here in the command center and in other underground or shielded facilities are probably safe, but the others … there may be nothing we can do for them.”
“My God … is there any danger of fallout or exposure now? Is it safe to let my command post personnel outside?”
“Russian fighter planes have been patrolling the area, reconnaissance planes mostly, so we’re safe from any more air attacks for now, and as far as the radiation threat, it’s safe, yes, sir,” Usenko responded. “There is no danger of radiation poisoning, and no fallout. It is probably best that your people be briefed on what they are to expect up there, though. We will be asking all available personnel to assist with medical and mortuary services.” Usenko paused, then motioned toward the corridor leading to the surface and asked, “Sir, was that Captain Tychina — the Phoenix? I was hoping he was still alive. I knew he could not die. I wanted to shake that man’s hand.”
Panchenko stared into the darkness beyond the blast doors of his command center, silently praying for his young pilot. Tychina, and all of them, were going to need all the strength they could muster to get through this disaster.
Tychina was determined to sprint the entire one and a half kilometers to the chapel, but the horror of what he saw was like a vacuum that sucked all the energy from his body. Several buildings and structures were burned down, mostly older wooden structures and the ugly billboards with “inspirational” messages on them that were so common to ex-Soviet military bases, and it seemed that every window in sight was gone — not just broken or shattered, but completely blown away. What he then noticed was the flatbed trucks — dozens of them, lined up outside the headquarters building, the central base personnel office, and other administrative buildings. His eyes were drawn to the trucks’ cargo. At first it seemed as if they were unloading tables or medical supplies to set up a triage detail, but when he looked closer he discovered they were loading bodies onto the truck. The bottom rows of bodies were in dark plastic body bags, but they obviously ran out of body bags very quickly because the middle stacks of corpses were covered in sheets, and the stacks above them were covered in clothing, and a few were not covered at all. Each flatbed truck was stacked four or five rows high with bodies, well over two hundred on each flatbed.
But even worse than that sight were the sounds of hundreds of people in agony. For every corpse in those flatbeds, there appeared to be a dozen men and women who were not dead, but horribly injured or maimed from the attack. The sidewalks, the snowy lawns, the entry-ways and hallways of every building had been converted into makeshift field hospitals, where the dying were crying out for help. It was difficult to fully comprehend — the damage to the base itself was not that extensive, yet the casualties were probably in the thousands. Did the Russian nuclear attack miss its target? Did they use some sort of chemical or biological weapon? Tychina saw a few chemical exposure suits, but most of the relief workers had no protective gear at all. Weren’t chemical weapons more persistent than this?
“Look! It’s the Phoenix!” someone shouted. “Phoenix!”
“Where were you when the bombs hit, Captain Phoenix?” someone else shouted. “Why couldn’t you stop this?”
“Shut up!” an officer interjected. “He’s alive and he’s with us! He’s our best pilot — he won’t let us down!”
Tychina nearly stumbled in his hurry to get away. An argument between some of the men in the mortuary detail broke out, some on the side of Tychina and those who were safe in the command center, others who thought that Tychina was on his way to the flight line and cheered him on. Panic seized the young pilot, and he hobbled down the vehicle-clogged street as fast as he could.