The Naval base in the Polyarny Inlet, Murmansk, was abuzz with activity, food, and all manner of supplies were being delivered. Submarine crews assembled. It was the same at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka peninsula in Siberia. Yasen and Akula class boats were readied for sea. The Northern and Pacific Fleets were about to join the hunt for the enemy. The hunt for USS Stonewall Jackson.
Lieutenant Rice pulled up to a stop, and the platoon pulled up too.
“Chief Konerko. Try raising the drone, it should be here by now.”
Konerko took off his comms set and set the controls to flash a signal for the MQ-4C Triton drone. If it was here, it’d be circling at 40,000 feet or so. He tried several times, to no avail, then there it was.
“Sir, we’ve got contact. It wants me to enter part one of my verification code. I’m sending it now.”
The flashing signal light showed the drone was still broadcasting.
“Signal sent, sir. It has my PIN, it’ll pass this back to the Naval Air Station Jacksonville in Florida.”
The SEALs waited in the blowing biting wind cutting through the Arctic darkness. Rice pushed his mitts into his side chest pockets and hunkered down against the bitter wind. Time passed.
“Sir, the Triton’s acknowledged us. It’s asking for your PIN and mine.”
Rice keyed in his PIN and Konerko typed in his.
“Has it accepted them?”
“No, sir, it has to go back to Jacksonville with them and they’ll need to go to Special Operations Command at Mac Dill AFB. There, the duty Operations Officer will need to check them.”
Rice huddled down away from the wind. “Dear shit. What a SNAFU.”
Afterburners lit and the two Saturn AL-31F turbofans, generating 55,000lbs of thrust, forced the SU-34 down the runway and skyward, up into the low cloud base of the Kola peninsula, far Northern Russia.
Major Kornukoff rolled the fighter bomber left and climbed to 30,000 feet for the transit to the combat air patrol zone north of Greenland. To his right-hand side sat Lieutenant Elena Orlova.
“Sir, selected waypoint four, come to vector 282. I have a sat con on Momma barmaid one.”
“Copy, Elena.” He engaged WP 4 the rendezvous point with the Il-78 in-flight tanker.
Kornukoff was surprised at how far west the patrol position was, but he’d been told it would be a regular operating area for some time. The patrol was weapons state three. That was: if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it is a duck. Shoot it. NATO contacts were on open season. He knew this was unusual, especially for an operating area so far west, but ops had been specific; it had come from upstairs apparently.
Kornukoff had been a single seat fighter jockey on the SU-30 and saw the 34 as a fat, bulky thing, but it came from the same basic design as the SU-27. He’d found it wonderful once you’d adapted, and sharing the workload with someone sat next to you was surprisingly good.
For this flight he’d a mixture of air to air and air to ground weapons. KAB-500 laser and satellite guided bombs and for air to air work the short range R73 Archer and the medium/long range Vympel R-77 Adder.
After a long cruise, they approached the Ilyushin tanker.
“Momma barmaid one this is Dog one. Over.”
“Dog one, you are go for approach, Momma barmaid over.”
The SU-34 took on fuel and continued west. As they approached the play box, Orlova adjusted the controls on her V004 passive phased array radar.
“Distant contact, sir. Come to 267 degrees. Refining.”
She followed the contact, noting its speed, direction and altitude. Orlova engaged the UKR-RT SIGINT system. It wasn’t a large aircraft but not very small either, flying high altitude. Too little information for an ID yet.
She watched and ran it through the targeting computer; it came through with some silly possibilities. They got closer and it became possible to monitor some signal traffic from the aircraft.
At a location high over the icecap north of Greenland, the contact went into an orbit. That and the traffic that was almost certainly satellite-bound, finally gave the game away. Orlova tensed and licked her lips. She waited for another communication burst from the contact.
“Sir, I have an ID on the contact. Near certain it’s a MQ-4C Triton UAV. The targeting computer also agrees and returns a 97 % probability. It’s up there to act as a search and communications drone. I’m going to pass the ID back to air group north and confirm.”
She waited several minutes, and the confirmation came through along with a reminder of their weapons state. She checked the contacts position; approximately 80 kilometres away.
“Confirmation by air group north. Am selecting R77.”
The screen’s radar return became an air engagement display.
“Sir, R77 engaged. Your call, sir.”
Kornukoff knew there was only one way to go; his orders had outlined that.
“Engage contact. Release.”
Orlova ran her eye over the board one more time. Then reached out and pressed master arm on. R77 selected. The contact flashed red on the screen. She pressed release.
The missile fell from its underwing hardpoint. Through the cockpit window, she saw it rush off into the sky ahead. The missile’s solid rocket boost motor soon ran out and the ramjet kicked in. The missile soon reached its Mach 4 cruise speed, and picked up on the midcourse correction. As it neared the target, the terminal active radar and IR seeker activated. Finally, the target merged in with the no escape zone and then…
The R77 ran in a Mach 4, it struck the port wing and detonated 22 kilograms of high explosive. The Triton was ripped into three parts and fell onto the white wilderness below. She waited for the V004 passive phased array radar to confirm what she already knew.
“Target destroyed, sir.”
“Good shooting.”
He turned the aircraft and entered the standard patrol pattern. Just under two hours to go and then it would be a top up from Momma barmaid and then home.
An icy wind blew from the west, it sucked the life out of anyone out on the desolate dark white cap.
“Anything yet from our friend up there?” Lt Rice asked Konerko.
“No, sir, it should have by now. In fact, it should have several minutes ago. Sir, I think we have to assume it’s unserviceable.”
Rice nodded. Bastard.
“Right, let’s get on our way then.”
The troop stood and they pushed their way west. One ski after another, push left, push right. On into the white death zone skiied the 20.
Nineteen men and one woman pushed into the cutting wind. Alone up here, with the Russian VDV hunting them; it chilled the soul. They pressed on towards CFB Alert, far away to the west.
12
To anyone looking, up there in the white desolation, there was something odd. It was a black submarine sail protruding from the windswept, snow-covered icefield, an oddly human object out in an open desolate place.
USS Stonewall Jackson’s batteries were now close to full charge. It was Mexican night in her galley. Sailors dined, laughed and joked in the only Mexican restaurant in this part of the world. Few of them thought of the white hell zone outside.
In the control room, Lieutenant Commander Lemineux turned to Nathan.
“Sir, we have a call on Gertrude.”
This was an acoustic short-range device allowing personnel to speak to each other whilst submerged. He picked up the set.