The takeoff was uneventful. As I was climbing to altitude I received a radio transmission that radar (such as it was down here in Grozny) had picked up 3 large echoes with one trailing behind by 30 minutes and I was to investigate. The height was estimated at 11,000 meters. They gave me the compass heading and I throttled back to conserve fuel. As is said the Dart is a fine plane to fly. Being short of stature I was very comfortable in its cockpit…”
Yegor stopped and stared at the wall for a few seconds and then began again.
“I have repeated the same thing for four hours now. We must stop. I need a respite and I resent being treated like this.”
Yegor Kasyanov was indeed being treated like a common criminal. He was seated in a very uncomfortable chair with a light shining in his eyes in a room where you confess whether you did it or not. The room and its decor screamed torture and confession with its grey cement walls and cold heavy air. It was underground so the feeling of being buried alive was unmistakable.
Why was he here? Because he had done his duty and shot down a capitalist pig terror bomber just after it dropped a large bomb in the area of Grozny.
“Once more from the beginning Yegor, if you please.”
“Comrade I protest. All I did was my duty and now I am being treated like a prisoner. Please I cannot stand confined spaces and the thought of being underground is torture to me. Can we not finish this above ground at least?”
“Yegor you are a hero of the Motherland for what you did. It was an amazing feat. This place we are in is the only thing keeping us alive for now. Another Amerikosi terror bomber has dropped an atomic bomb upwind from us and the poison is spreading this way. You will sicken and die if you go into the open. Now please one more time so we can advise other brave pilots like you on how to destroy these so called Superfortresses with the new jet plane, Stalin’s Dart. I’ll make a concession. Tell the story one more time and we will move you into the commissar’s office where you can stretch out and sleep a little. You have earned a good night’s sleep for all you have done.”
“Somehow I don’t feel I have a choice comrade.” He mutters as he begins again.
“I was vectored in to the radar blips and saw them at great range. They were huge and all silver, like they didn’t have a care in the world, and could just go where they wanted with no concern for staying hidden. This for some reason made me angry. Who the hell did they think they were? Did they really think that they could just go wherever they pleased, and drop bombs like we did not have the ability to even harass them? I was determined to show them what my Stalin’s Dart could do and what lengths the others that follow me would go to as well.
My initial mission was to test out the twin 30 mm guns so my ammunition was supply was full. As I neared the lead bomber in the V formation shot at me at far too long a range and I determined that they were still using 50 caliber machine guns that the Amerikosi love so much. My 30 mm could out-ranged them easily. Before I could get into firing position the lead bomber dropped a huge bomb and then veered to the right. The other two kept on flying straight.
I was white hot with anger. I had failed and now 10s of thousands of men women and children were going to die agonizing deaths. Somehow in my rage I reasoned that the bomber that dropped its bomb was not a threat anymore. It was the other two that still had missions and I would stop them no matter what it took.
I lined up on the left bomber and shot it out of the sky with a single burst. The 30 mm rounds just ripped it apart and the crew never stood a chance. It disintegrated in midair. When facing the right weapon, being flown by the right man, these bombers were no better than any other and were destroyed just as easily. I maneuvered to get a shot at the third when my fuel ran out. No warning my engine just quit. I tried to keep the nose up to ram my target but physics won and I plunged towards the earth unable to do my duty any longer.
I was pounding the inside of my plane in fury as I helplessly glided back to base. Since I was going back the way I had come I caught a glimpse of the fourth bomber that was about 20 minutes behind the first three. At any moment I expected to be blown to bits by the first bomb that was dropped but nothing happened. I was relieved and now doubly frustrated thinking that the last bomber was the real threat after all. After a few minutes I could not help but think that maybe we had been spared and concentrated on landing and flying another day to prevent the unthinkable from happening. Maybe the plane I shot down was the one with the bomb after all. They all were the special models we were taught to concentrate on so there was no way to tell. They all were missing their turrets and that was how we knew how to tell the ones with the atomic bombs from the ordinary bombers.
Just as I was getting close to the start of my landing and was about to call the tower, there was a blinding light. I happened to be looking down and was going away from the blast wave when it hit. My wings came off immediately and somehow before I passed out I hit the eject lever the next thing I knew was when I woke up in the infirmary under guard and far underground.”
“You have done enough for today comrade. Now let’s kick that fat ass commissar out of his office so you can get a good night’s sleep.”
“I believe sleep will elude me for a long time Maior. I blame myself for not doing enough and not getting their fast enough to prevent what has happened. How many are dead? How bad is it comrade… how bad is it…?”
Yegor collapsed into his hands weeping like a man possessed, which of course, he was, and would be from that day forward. He would never be the same again and would never fly again. He will not spend another waking moment being normal. He will relive this day and his choices, be they right or wrong, until the day he dies. In his mind he made the wrong choice and thousands died and he will ever see their faces in the night.
SAC HQ
Outside of Cairo
Oct. 2nd, 1946
“Who was it?”
“Finnegan.”
“What the hell happened?”
“From the descriptions we got it was a Soviet version of the He 162.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“It’s a late war jet supposedly made for the Hitler youth to fly against our bombers. Single engine job made out of plywood. I gave you that report on it when that British pilot ran one into the ground when the tail came unglued.”
“That’s right. The other pilot who flew it the most said it was a great plane but just needed better glue. What a thing to lose your life to. What are the performance specifications?”
“Let’s see… I had it right here… Hey Jenkins do you have… ah, found it. So top speed of 559 mph, range of 600 miles, small only 23.7 foot wingspan, 30 foot long and weighs only 3660 lbs. It was fired by a BMW 003 but who knows what the Reds have put into it. It probably had 2 30mm cannons from the way the witnesses were talking. Pretty much tore Finnegan’s Wake in two with only a few hits.”
“Jesus”
“You said it. Rate of climb is 4615 feet per minute and ceiling 39400. The one described appears to be the planned D model so it should have greater range.”
“Shit! How did they get there so fast and how did they know we were coming? GOD DAMN IT, heads will roll if someone screwed up.”
“Sir… if I may? It was only one plane. It appears to be a fluke, some guy on a training run. We have no increase in radar or electronic traffic. They must have had a training or research facility close by and the guy just got lucky. The others all got through without a hitch and the plane he shot down was the backup. Half of Baku is toast.”