Beneath the belly of the aircraft, a large, angular pod of similar colouring was suspended from a thick pylon, and Trumbull realised that this housed what must’ve been a large an quite powerful cannon as it opened fire on the second fleeing Messerschmitt at what had to be a range of at least half a mile in his estimation. A huge muzzle flash flared ahead of the pod as it fired and a torrent of streaking, pink tracer literally tore the J-4A to pieces.
Trumbull was suddenly forced to take his mind and eyes away from the other strange aircraft as a minor explosion reverberated through his Spitfire and he immediately began to lose power once more. The smoke that poured from his exhaust turned from grey to black, and he could now see sparks carried with it. As he struggled on he prayed fervently that he’d have enough time and altitude to reach dry land.
At the commencement of his attack run on the hapless J-4A fighters, Thorne had ‘lit up’ his main radar systems to obtain a target range for his fire control computer. Its emissions had instantly been detected by a Luftwaffe surveillance aircraft flying high over the French coast, a hundred kilometres north-east. Word of the detection was then passed on quickly through various channels to the OKW Western HQ near Amiens, and as that news reached the hands of Albert Schiller, all hell had broken loose. Within seconds he was bursting through the doors to the briefing room as Reichsmarschall Reuters looked up from that same table, still pouring over production reports and figures.
“Kurt, Sentry just picked up a temporal violation west of the Channel…!” The words struck Reuters almost physically, leaving him momentarily unable to speak as his mind assimilated the unthinkable information. Another moment and he was all business once more, the initial shock dissipating as training and adrenalin took over and the Reichsmarschall leaped from his chair, reaching for a phone at the far end of the table.
“Details…! What are we talking about…?”
“They don’t know yet…emissions were erratic and of an unidentified type…”
“How is that possible?” Reuters demanded with a sharp stare. “We had Sentry’s database upgraded with the signatures of every known operational military aircraft on record prior to our departure!”
“Sentry’s Chief Intel Officer can’t explain it, other than to say that other than the radar emissions, they could detect no sign of the aircraft itself on their main search radars, and at an estimated range of a hundred klicks there was no way any normal aircraft could’ve stayed hidden. The bloody radar signal simply ‘appeared out of nowhere seconds before the bastard ‘bounced’ a pair of J-4As south of Swanage, sprayed them all over the Channel in less than two minutes and then bloody-well disappeared again off their scopes…” Schiller grimaced, recognising the enormity of what he was about to add “…whatever it was, the nature of the emissions suggested a phased array transmitter and that it must have been stealthy to have evaded detection at that range.”
“They detected just one aircraft?”
“Only one aircraft detected…” Schiller conceded, then added “…but who’s to say how many might’ve been out there that weren’t using active radar?”
“Guess there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there,” Reuters snarled and finally turned his attention to the operator at the other end of the phone who’d answered the moment he’d picked it up. “This is Reichsmarschall Reuters! Get me Wuppertal Air Base immediately!” As the NCO at the other end took note of the tone in his Commander-in-Chief’s voice and hurriedly complied with the request, Reuters turned momentarily back to Schiller.
“Get back to Sentry: tell them to head east and stay well out of the way of the sneaky bastard…they mightn’t be able to see him, but he’ll damned sure see them and I don’t want them inadvertently finding themselves at the wrong end of a heat-seeker as a result! Make sure they keep their eyes open: even if they play it safe and move back into German airspace, they’ll still be able to pick up his emissions if this fellow ‘lights up’ again, and I want to know about it the moment that happens! I want to know what the bastard is up to and I damn sure want to know where’s he’s going! Make sure they stay high and stay alert — I’ll have a pair of escorts up shortly to look after them!”
“Wuppertal Air Base for you, Herr Reichsmarschall…” the operator announced quickly. There was a crackle of static, followed by a new voice on the line as Schiller bolted from the room without waiting to be dismissed.
“This is Oberst Ernst Pohl, Herr Reichsmarschall… Is there a problem?”
“You’re damned right there’s a bloody problem!” Reuters snarled, in no mood for pleasantries. “Get all four of the Flankers fired up and into the air now! I want two of those fucking planes as a protective escort for Sentry and the other two heading for the English coast in five minutes or I’ll have someone’s skull as a pisspot!”
“May I inquire as to the mission of the second two jets, Mein Herr…?”…came the return query in a tone decidedly unnerved by the mental imagery that last statement had created.
“Never mind that all that shit…they can report in directly with Sentry and the area controller once they’re up! Just get those bloody planes flying!” He slammed the receiver down and stormed off in pursuit of Schiller.
Near the outskirts of the city of Wuppertal in the German Ruhr Valley, two pairs of jet aircraft thundered into the sky exactly four minutes later, their wing and fuselage pylons loaded with fuel tanks and air-to-air missiles. The aircraft, once known as Sukhoi Su-30MK multi-role fighters, were each the length of a Heinkel bomber and twice the weight. Often still referred to by the outdated NATO nickname ‘Flanker-C’, the four sleek, shark-like craft climbed easily to altitude and roared away westward toward the French frontier. None carried any unit markings, and the only variation to their completely black fuselages and wings were a white-bordered swastika on each of their twin tails beneath which was a single red number — the aircraft numbered ‘1’ through ‘4’ respectively.
“Hawk-One, this is Sentry: do you read…over?” The call from the area controller was picked up immediately even though the high-flying Sentry aircraft was more than 200 kilometres away.
“We read you, Sentry — this is Hawk-One…over….” the response was instantaneous.
“Hawk-One, we’ve detected a temporal violation over the western end of the English Channel, approximately thirty kilometres south of Bournemouth…over…”
“Identity…?” The pilot frowned deeply at the unpleasant news.
“Unknown, but potentially stealthy: it appeared approximately eight minutes ago, immediately attacking and destroying a pair of J-4A fighters that were in pursuit of a damaged British fighter at the time, then disappeared again from our screens. We suspect it’s acting alone but have no confirmation on that…over…”