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Phoenix
Looking out the window to his right Arkady Frolov could see a stream of moonlight shimmering on the water far, far below the Yaroslav Mudry, and when he swept his gaze upward, even the stars seemed larger and closer than usual. It was a clear night, with views that seemed to stretch forever across the Baltic, and quite beautiful.
It was also making the bombardier of the Tupolev Tu-22M5 nervous.
"Time to release point zero-three-zero minutes, repeat, thirty minutes and counting," said the voice of the pilot in his earphones.
"Frolov na svjaza," he acknowledged in tandem with the co-pilot, looking over at the defensive systems operator sitting next to him. Valentin Borodin was a new addition to the crew, added in the last hectic weeks of training, and he wasn't entirely accustomed to the procedure - while he was enthusiastic enough, all the excitement in the world couldn't really make up for experience in that area, and Frolov wasn't sure whether it made him annoyed or nervous. Seeing that Borodin was busily scanning his radar screens and making no response, he reached across and nudged him with a flight-suited arm, and tapped the side of his helmet when he looked up sharply.
Almost hidden under the bulky oxygen mask and heavy helmet, Borodin’s thick eyebrows rose in understanding. Sitting up straight suddenly, he barked "Borodin na svjaza!" into his microphone loud enough to make Frolov wince. He rolled his eyes. Well, so long as the young flight leytenant was good at his job – and his test scores said he was, though Frolov knew from experience in Africa just how much stock to put in those – he supposed he was willing to put up with the odd annoyance.
Odd annoyance? He shows up out of the blue...
He shook his mind clear. He had other things to think about. The mission, Arkady, the mission, he told himself silently, and he brought his mind back on task with an effort.
The weather could not have been worse - he snorted inwardly at the irony; for anyone else, he knew, it surely could not have been better - the lack of clouds meaning that there was no cover in which to hide from interceptors and the cold and low humidity levels making the air clear as glass to the long-range radars in Fylingdales and Brdy. They’d have seen them coming, alright; Frolov just hoped that the European Continental Army's Air Defence Command wouldn’t realise that this was far more than just another training mission until it was far too late.
As if on cue, Borodin hunched over his scopes, and his voice appeared over the bomber's intercom. "Borodin, new contacts bearing three-one-zero," he said excitedly.
"Stoyanov, confirm?" came back the voice of the pilot warily.
"Confirmed contacts, multiple, range approximately two hundred kilometres," he replied.
"Vector?"
"Radar is resolving... probable north, fifteen, forty seven west," he said slowly.
There was a short pause as the pilots checked the information Borodin was feeding through to their cockpit displays.
"You mean towards us," said Stoyanov.
"Probability is approximately eighty -"
"I'll take that as a yes. Cueing OLS."
Frolov tapped the multi-function display that had replaced the cumbersome old radar scope in front of him when they gave the old Troikas an update to the new M5 standard, bringing up the image from the optical locator system under the nose as it zoomed in on the approaching contacts. He couldn’t see much; at this range the heat of the engines registered as barely a speck against the vast, cold dome of the sky, and without the radar pointing it in the right direction, they would never have even noticed it. But it was apparent that there were multiple specks, and they were arranged in what looked like three triangles.
"Stepashin, classic intercept configuration, EF-3000s," said the co-pilot. "Going to attack plan Grach. Hold on..."
Grach - the rook - called for a sudden and drastic dive to the deck. Their flight was supposed to look like a training run, and they couldn't risk the Euros getting a look at the number of other bombers behind them. And that meant...
His stomach lurched as the pilot slammed forward on the stick, sending the bomber into an almost vertical descent. A pen came loose from the pocket of his flight suit and floated freely in front of him; he tried to reach out and spin it on an impulse, but he could barely move as the blood began to pool in his temples, only partially counteracted by the suit. The red in his vision began to fade as the bomber reached a constant velocity, and then returned as the nose came back up. With a start Frolov realised he could no longer see the horizon out of the window. He willed his fingers to fumble for the flight display on the console and watched the numbers scroll down on the altitude indicator, then rolled his eyes as it stopped at 30 metres. The showoff... he thought. The plan only called for fifty, but it wasn’t as if Valeriy up front could resist a challenge like that.
He looked out the window again - a luminous shape had come into view, a cascading trail of incandescent gas and flaring, twisting snakes of light; a display that almost hurt his eyes next to the dim red glow of the cockpit combat lighting and the cold and distant moon. This was why they were here; hidden behind that glowing shield, visible here and there as it thinned and ablated in the thicker atmosphere and heavier air rolling off the waves below was the upturned snout and leading edges of the wings of a Tu-22M5 much like their own, but with strange, ugly boxes protruding here and there from which the luminance emanated. He smiled grimly. Plasma stealth. It was the only way this assault would ever work; and if the Euros realised what was going on, the game would be up, and this war would suddenly get far bloodier far sooner than the Kremlin desired. They were 'running interference'; the lead ship in each flight, an unmodified M5, led a trail of plasma stealth-equipped aircraft astern, hiding in their radar signature and looking at long range just like an afterburner. To radars, it would appear to be a formation of twenty aircraft on their regular patrol runs; in reality, the formation was four times the apparent size, and fully battle-ready.
Or at least that was the plan. And it would not survive close inspection.
"Stoyanov, coming up on turn. DSO, ready jamming," said the pilot.
"Borodin, warming transmitters," came the reply. He hadn’t seemed to notice or care that Valeriy had referred to him by his crew position and not his name; there was a silent agreement that names were reserved for when the crew knew they could trust each other. Names were dangerous, more than anything for the attachment they represented.
Frolov checked the mission clock embedded into the arming controls that dominated the right-hand side of his panels. The time had shifted out slightly as the mission computer adjusted for the turn; but they were now just over ten minutes out from firing the first salvos that would liberate Great Russia. His chest tightened in anticipation.
Get there first, he admonished himself. The next ten minutes were the most critical of all, and with the Euros closing in, anything could happen.
"Borodin, contacts going to afterburner, verified as Whirlwind-type, eighteen, direct intercept course," said the DSO urgently. "Range one-hundred forty three kilometres, time to intercept two and a half minutes and counting."
"Turn in twenty seconds. Go to full jamming."
Borodin flicked a series of switches next to his radar scope. "Jamming running. Whirlwinds deploying ECCM..."
Frolov drummed his fingers on his console nervously. This was the risky part - the operation would never have succeeded without jamming to conceal the other bombers at the critical moment, but electronic warfare was usually fought only in simulation, neither side willing to reveal their equipment to the other unless push came to shove. Using it would normally alert the ECA that something was up, but their flights - patrols on the 'run' used by the two superpowers to 'test' each in their continual mutual shows of strength - had been running low-powered jamming for a week now to attempt to pave the way. The ECA were disturbed; defences had immediately gone on high alert in the first run, but Frolov hoped they'd got used to it enough by now to not react violently. Otherwise they'd get a Meteor up the tailpipe.
"ECCM not holding!" reported Borodin jubilantly. "Jammers operating on full. Go for Grach."
"Stoyanov, turn in twelve seconds. Going to afterburner..."
Frolov felt himself shoved backward in his seat as the growl of the twin Kuznetsov turbofans behind them amplified into a deafening roar. Out the window, the water below was lit up in a blaze of light as columns of white fire poured out the jet nozzles - enough, perhaps, to momentarily dazzle the Euros...
He checked the mission clock again, trying to read it as the whole aircraft vibrated underneath him. So close...
Over the headset, faint against the penetrating background thunder, came "Three, two, one, turn!"
The aircraft banked sharply, almost knocking Frolov’s helmeted head against the side of the cockpit before his harness arrested the motion.
"Hold AB... hold it..."
Frolov made an arcane gesture of good luck he knew was beneath him but couldn’t help. Either this had worked or it hadn't...
"Cut afterburner!"
His head jerked again, forward this time, as the noise ceased and thoughts came streaming back.
Have we made it... haven't we made it... have we made it...
Outside the window, two pairs of blinking red and green lights appeared. Face barely visible behind the eerie green glow of his helmet's display systems, a European pilot gave them a universal gesture that said: Nice try.
Frolov's heart raced as he leaned forward, straining to look past Borodin out the other window. He counted another three sets of wing lights.
Where were the others?
A much larger shape shifted into view, trailed by another three Whirlwinds, red combat lighting emanating from its cockpit – one of the other bombers. But was he a flight leader like themselves, or had he been caught out trying to turn away?
A voice unfamiliar to Frolov came over the headset. "Thought we’d give you a test," said one of the other bomber pilots in stilted English. "Glad to see you can descend to the... party, yes?"
Frolov's heart leaped and he almost cheered before thinking better of it. The code words! They'd done it!
Now far behind them, the trailing bombers that had doused all lights and pulled away the split second the afterburners cut would be looping back around, climbing to gain the range advantage a higher altitude and higher speed implied for their missiles. Just as they'd hoped, the jamming they'd deployed and the strict line formations they'd drilled for months had hidden their comrades in their radar signature, and the burners had hidden the shrouds of the plasma stealth. The moon evidently hadn't been enough to reveal the five dozen Tupolevs swinging away from the heat and turbulence they'd endured for the last six hours - and on to their greater duties at last.
The adrenaline in his system swung back to pure nerves. Would they be low enough to stop the Euros from getting a look at their underside - and the two cruise missiles jammed into the semi-conformal centreline station along with it?
Valeriy evidently wasn't sure, as the bomber jerked down another few metres. Frolov couldn't see the waves below them any more - the window visibility hadn't given the Tu-22M its nickname of "Blind Jack" among their old Soviet comrades for nothing - but he could almost watch the white froth tearing by underneath with his mind alone as the aircraft shook violently under the turbulence they inevitably encountered at such a low level. He refocused on the arming panel. Getting airsick now would be simply unthinkable.
"Backfire leader, this is Tiger One. Be advised that you are in breach of our territorial sovereignty," said a German accent masked by the persistent static of the jamming. "You will comply with NATO emergency aerospace directive eighteen or we have authorisation to fire at will."
They heard it every week, of course, but it became a great deal more serious now that they had no intention of playing along with the European game in a way that went far beyond the previous banter inevitably traded between two highly-strung yet often-meeting adversaries.
"Of course," replied a voice - he thought it was Valeriy's - "Just give us a little while to enjoy the view, won't you?"
"Backfire leader, we have noticed several anomalies in your approach. Submit to aerial inspection or you will be destroyed."
A chill went down Frolov's spine. Their comrades might have got away alright, but they would not.
"Look at us - on our weekly patrol, are we not? We have nothing to hide."
"Backfire leader, cut the jamming now."
Frolov looked to his left. Borodin was sitting uncomfortably in his seat fidgeting slightly, but his face, pointed up against the cockpit roof with his eyes closed, was calm. Perhaps he'd underestimated the fellow. He looked like he knew what to do.
The red and green lights outside the window dropped backward as the lead Whirlwind attempted to gain a better viewpoint on their aircraft, but Valeriy dropped down again in response. The bomber bucked sharply as an air pocket rolled off the sea below, and Frolov thought he could almost hear the hissing of water as it splashed up against the underside, but dismissed the thought. The wings - still in their cruise configurations to hide the underside better - weren't helping, and he knew it had to be testing Valeriy and Mikhail to their limits to keep something this large, this unstable, and going this fast, down this low.
Borodin opened his eyes and reached for his helmet, and Frolov realised with a start that he was going to talk to the Euros. Before he could reach over to stop him - God knew what he was about to say, but the pilot was the only crew member authorised to communicate with the enemy - the DSO said in a jovial tone, "Doesn't seem to be bothering you!"
"Backfire flight, who is this?"
"Valentin Borodin, major, FSB," said the DSO from next to him. Frolov's head jerked up in surprise. The Federal Security Bureau? What were the FSB doing on-board?
"Major... Borodin," came back the German voice, "Stand down your flight and submit your aircraft to inspection. If this continues we will have no choice but to report to Air Defence Command, and you will be severely reprimanded. Do you realise what harm you could do by continuing on like this?"
This time Borodin really did laugh. Did they realise what harm they could do? Did they realise? It was almost priceless.
"Tiger One, say again, please," interjected Valeriy in a tone that was not even remotely convincing.
The voice raised its pitch and volume. "You will cut your jamming or we are author-"
"Yes, we know," snapped back Borodin suddenly in a tone that would have melted metal. "We won't be submitting to inspection, Tiger One. Sokol, vragi, molot."
The hissing from the external comm suddenly shut off as Mikhail cut external communications.
"Stepashin, Borodin," said the co-pilot angrily, "You might be FSB, but what the blazes do you think you're doing?"
Borodin looked over at Frolov with a meaningful glance. "We're out of time," he said shortly.
Frolov's brows furrowed for a second before he glanced down at his displays and saw with a start that the launch point was only five minutes out. They'd never get rid of the Euros before then; they'd hoped to string them along for long enough that the smaller fighters would run out of fuel and be on their way home as the Tupolevs launched their missiles, but they'd intercepted later than had been projected, and it looked like they were carrying drop tanks. Now, as soon as they fired, they'd die. It was as simple as that. And they could not delay; the attack was timed to the second, and if it slipped, the more missiles would be downed by air defence stations put on alert by the first wave, the more enemy bases would be saved, and the more of their comrades would die as a result.
"What do you -" he started to ask, but Borodin simply waved out the window.
"We must gamble. Sokol will do the rest."
"Backfire leader, this is your final warning. We will open fire if you do not cut the jamming in six, five, four - what the-"
With blinding speed a tongue of fire speared the lights, which disappeared into a flaring, tumbling ball of wreckage that plunged suddenly down into the cold, dark waves with a clap of thunder. Eight more peals sounded in short succession before the skies grew quiet once more.
Frolov smiled. A hawk indeed, descending upon its unsuspecting prey. He’d often wondered what had happened to the PAK FA programme. Now he knew.
The bomber climbed immediately upward, burners thundering behind as it gained height and speed for the launch, and he began to hum as his fingers ran through the well-practiced arming motions - well-practiced for this instant. Perhaps Borodin had come to make sure he did his job as well. He needn't have worried about that.
Yet his fingers wavered as they hovered over the 'commit' switch. Everything seemed to snap back into focus from a continual blur. This was it. The moment. Could he do it?
The display read:
00:07
00:06
00:05
00:04
00:03
He smiled. Of course he could.
00:02
00:01
He could do anything.
00:00
His fingers hit the switch - such a small switch...
Looking out the window to his right Arkady Frolov could see a stream of moonlight shimmering on the water far, far below the Yaroslav Mudry, and when he swept his gaze upward, even the stars seemed larger and closer than usual. It was a clear night, with views that seemed to stretch forever across the Baltic, and quite beautiful.
It was also making the bombardier of the Tupolev Tu-22M5 nervous.
"Time to release point zero-three-zero minutes, repeat, thirty minutes and counting," said the voice of the pilot in his earphones.
"Frolov na svjaza," he acknowledged in tandem with the co-pilot, looking over at the defensive systems operator sitting next to him. Valentin Borodin was a new addition to the crew, added in the last hectic weeks of training, and he wasn't entirely accustomed to the procedure - while he was enthusiastic enough, all the excitement in the world couldn't really make up for experience in that area, and Frolov wasn't sure whether it made him annoyed or nervous. Seeing that Borodin was busily scanning his radar screens and making no response, he reached across and nudged him with a flight-suited arm, and tapped the side of his helmet when he looked up sharply.
Almost hidden under the bulky oxygen mask and heavy helmet, Borodin’s thick eyebrows rose in understanding. Sitting up straight suddenly, he barked "Borodin na svjaza!" into his microphone loud enough to make Frolov wince. He rolled his eyes. Well, so long as the young flight leytenant was good at his job – and his test scores said he was, though Frolov knew from experience in Africa just how much stock to put in those – he supposed he was willing to put up with the odd annoyance.
Odd annoyance? He shows up out of the blue...
He shook his mind clear. He had other things to think about. The mission, Arkady, the mission, he told himself silently, and he brought his mind back on task with an effort.
The weather could not have been worse - he snorted inwardly at the irony; for anyone else, he knew, it surely could not have been better - the lack of clouds meaning that there was no cover in which to hide from interceptors and the cold and low humidity levels making the air clear as glass to the long-range radars in Fylingdales and Brdy. They’d have seen them coming, alright; Frolov just hoped that the European Continental Army's Air Defence Command wouldn’t realise that this was far more than just another training mission until it was far too late.
As if on cue, Borodin hunched over his scopes, and his voice appeared over the bomber's intercom. "Borodin, new contacts bearing three-one-zero," he said excitedly.
"Stoyanov, confirm?" came back the voice of the pilot warily.
"Confirmed contacts, multiple, range approximately two hundred kilometres," he replied.
"Vector?"
"Radar is resolving... probable north, fifteen, forty seven west," he said slowly.
There was a short pause as the pilots checked the information Borodin was feeding through to their cockpit displays.
"You mean towards us," said Stoyanov.
"Probability is approximately eighty -"
"I'll take that as a yes. Cueing OLS."
Frolov tapped the multi-function display that had replaced the cumbersome old radar scope in front of him when they gave the old Troikas an update to the new M5 standard, bringing up the image from the optical locator system under the nose as it zoomed in on the approaching contacts. He couldn’t see much; at this range the heat of the engines registered as barely a speck against the vast, cold dome of the sky, and without the radar pointing it in the right direction, they would never have even noticed it. But it was apparent that there were multiple specks, and they were arranged in what looked like three triangles.
"Stepashin, classic intercept configuration, EF-3000s," said the co-pilot. "Going to attack plan Grach. Hold on..."
Grach - the rook - called for a sudden and drastic dive to the deck. Their flight was supposed to look like a training run, and they couldn't risk the Euros getting a look at the number of other bombers behind them. And that meant...
His stomach lurched as the pilot slammed forward on the stick, sending the bomber into an almost vertical descent. A pen came loose from the pocket of his flight suit and floated freely in front of him; he tried to reach out and spin it on an impulse, but he could barely move as the blood began to pool in his temples, only partially counteracted by the suit. The red in his vision began to fade as the bomber reached a constant velocity, and then returned as the nose came back up. With a start Frolov realised he could no longer see the horizon out of the window. He willed his fingers to fumble for the flight display on the console and watched the numbers scroll down on the altitude indicator, then rolled his eyes as it stopped at 30 metres. The showoff... he thought. The plan only called for fifty, but it wasn’t as if Valeriy up front could resist a challenge like that.
He looked out the window again - a luminous shape had come into view, a cascading trail of incandescent gas and flaring, twisting snakes of light; a display that almost hurt his eyes next to the dim red glow of the cockpit combat lighting and the cold and distant moon. This was why they were here; hidden behind that glowing shield, visible here and there as it thinned and ablated in the thicker atmosphere and heavier air rolling off the waves below was the upturned snout and leading edges of the wings of a Tu-22M5 much like their own, but with strange, ugly boxes protruding here and there from which the luminance emanated. He smiled grimly. Plasma stealth. It was the only way this assault would ever work; and if the Euros realised what was going on, the game would be up, and this war would suddenly get far bloodier far sooner than the Kremlin desired. They were 'running interference'; the lead ship in each flight, an unmodified M5, led a trail of plasma stealth-equipped aircraft astern, hiding in their radar signature and looking at long range just like an afterburner. To radars, it would appear to be a formation of twenty aircraft on their regular patrol runs; in reality, the formation was four times the apparent size, and fully battle-ready.
Or at least that was the plan. And it would not survive close inspection.
"Stoyanov, coming up on turn. DSO, ready jamming," said the pilot.
"Borodin, warming transmitters," came the reply. He hadn’t seemed to notice or care that Valeriy had referred to him by his crew position and not his name; there was a silent agreement that names were reserved for when the crew knew they could trust each other. Names were dangerous, more than anything for the attachment they represented.
Frolov checked the mission clock embedded into the arming controls that dominated the right-hand side of his panels. The time had shifted out slightly as the mission computer adjusted for the turn; but they were now just over ten minutes out from firing the first salvos that would liberate Great Russia. His chest tightened in anticipation.
Get there first, he admonished himself. The next ten minutes were the most critical of all, and with the Euros closing in, anything could happen.
"Borodin, contacts going to afterburner, verified as Whirlwind-type, eighteen, direct intercept course," said the DSO urgently. "Range one-hundred forty three kilometres, time to intercept two and a half minutes and counting."
"Turn in twenty seconds. Go to full jamming."
Borodin flicked a series of switches next to his radar scope. "Jamming running. Whirlwinds deploying ECCM..."
Frolov drummed his fingers on his console nervously. This was the risky part - the operation would never have succeeded without jamming to conceal the other bombers at the critical moment, but electronic warfare was usually fought only in simulation, neither side willing to reveal their equipment to the other unless push came to shove. Using it would normally alert the ECA that something was up, but their flights - patrols on the 'run' used by the two superpowers to 'test' each in their continual mutual shows of strength - had been running low-powered jamming for a week now to attempt to pave the way. The ECA were disturbed; defences had immediately gone on high alert in the first run, but Frolov hoped they'd got used to it enough by now to not react violently. Otherwise they'd get a Meteor up the tailpipe.
"ECCM not holding!" reported Borodin jubilantly. "Jammers operating on full. Go for Grach."
"Stoyanov, turn in twelve seconds. Going to afterburner..."
Frolov felt himself shoved backward in his seat as the growl of the twin Kuznetsov turbofans behind them amplified into a deafening roar. Out the window, the water below was lit up in a blaze of light as columns of white fire poured out the jet nozzles - enough, perhaps, to momentarily dazzle the Euros...
He checked the mission clock again, trying to read it as the whole aircraft vibrated underneath him. So close...
Over the headset, faint against the penetrating background thunder, came "Three, two, one, turn!"
The aircraft banked sharply, almost knocking Frolov’s helmeted head against the side of the cockpit before his harness arrested the motion.
"Hold AB... hold it..."
Frolov made an arcane gesture of good luck he knew was beneath him but couldn’t help. Either this had worked or it hadn't...
"Cut afterburner!"
His head jerked again, forward this time, as the noise ceased and thoughts came streaming back.
Have we made it... haven't we made it... have we made it...
Outside the window, two pairs of blinking red and green lights appeared. Face barely visible behind the eerie green glow of his helmet's display systems, a European pilot gave them a universal gesture that said: Nice try.
Frolov's heart raced as he leaned forward, straining to look past Borodin out the other window. He counted another three sets of wing lights.
Where were the others?
A much larger shape shifted into view, trailed by another three Whirlwinds, red combat lighting emanating from its cockpit – one of the other bombers. But was he a flight leader like themselves, or had he been caught out trying to turn away?
A voice unfamiliar to Frolov came over the headset. "Thought we’d give you a test," said one of the other bomber pilots in stilted English. "Glad to see you can descend to the... party, yes?"
Frolov's heart leaped and he almost cheered before thinking better of it. The code words! They'd done it!
Now far behind them, the trailing bombers that had doused all lights and pulled away the split second the afterburners cut would be looping back around, climbing to gain the range advantage a higher altitude and higher speed implied for their missiles. Just as they'd hoped, the jamming they'd deployed and the strict line formations they'd drilled for months had hidden their comrades in their radar signature, and the burners had hidden the shrouds of the plasma stealth. The moon evidently hadn't been enough to reveal the five dozen Tupolevs swinging away from the heat and turbulence they'd endured for the last six hours - and on to their greater duties at last.
The adrenaline in his system swung back to pure nerves. Would they be low enough to stop the Euros from getting a look at their underside - and the two cruise missiles jammed into the semi-conformal centreline station along with it?
Valeriy evidently wasn't sure, as the bomber jerked down another few metres. Frolov couldn't see the waves below them any more - the window visibility hadn't given the Tu-22M its nickname of "Blind Jack" among their old Soviet comrades for nothing - but he could almost watch the white froth tearing by underneath with his mind alone as the aircraft shook violently under the turbulence they inevitably encountered at such a low level. He refocused on the arming panel. Getting airsick now would be simply unthinkable.
"Backfire leader, this is Tiger One. Be advised that you are in breach of our territorial sovereignty," said a German accent masked by the persistent static of the jamming. "You will comply with NATO emergency aerospace directive eighteen or we have authorisation to fire at will."
They heard it every week, of course, but it became a great deal more serious now that they had no intention of playing along with the European game in a way that went far beyond the previous banter inevitably traded between two highly-strung yet often-meeting adversaries.
"Of course," replied a voice - he thought it was Valeriy's - "Just give us a little while to enjoy the view, won't you?"
"Backfire leader, we have noticed several anomalies in your approach. Submit to aerial inspection or you will be destroyed."
A chill went down Frolov's spine. Their comrades might have got away alright, but they would not.
"Look at us - on our weekly patrol, are we not? We have nothing to hide."
"Backfire leader, cut the jamming now."
Frolov looked to his left. Borodin was sitting uncomfortably in his seat fidgeting slightly, but his face, pointed up against the cockpit roof with his eyes closed, was calm. Perhaps he'd underestimated the fellow. He looked like he knew what to do.
The red and green lights outside the window dropped backward as the lead Whirlwind attempted to gain a better viewpoint on their aircraft, but Valeriy dropped down again in response. The bomber bucked sharply as an air pocket rolled off the sea below, and Frolov thought he could almost hear the hissing of water as it splashed up against the underside, but dismissed the thought. The wings - still in their cruise configurations to hide the underside better - weren't helping, and he knew it had to be testing Valeriy and Mikhail to their limits to keep something this large, this unstable, and going this fast, down this low.
Borodin opened his eyes and reached for his helmet, and Frolov realised with a start that he was going to talk to the Euros. Before he could reach over to stop him - God knew what he was about to say, but the pilot was the only crew member authorised to communicate with the enemy - the DSO said in a jovial tone, "Doesn't seem to be bothering you!"
"Backfire flight, who is this?"
"Valentin Borodin, major, FSB," said the DSO from next to him. Frolov's head jerked up in surprise. The Federal Security Bureau? What were the FSB doing on-board?
"Major... Borodin," came back the German voice, "Stand down your flight and submit your aircraft to inspection. If this continues we will have no choice but to report to Air Defence Command, and you will be severely reprimanded. Do you realise what harm you could do by continuing on like this?"
This time Borodin really did laugh. Did they realise what harm they could do? Did they realise? It was almost priceless.
"Tiger One, say again, please," interjected Valeriy in a tone that was not even remotely convincing.
The voice raised its pitch and volume. "You will cut your jamming or we are author-"
"Yes, we know," snapped back Borodin suddenly in a tone that would have melted metal. "We won't be submitting to inspection, Tiger One. Sokol, vragi, molot."
The hissing from the external comm suddenly shut off as Mikhail cut external communications.
"Stepashin, Borodin," said the co-pilot angrily, "You might be FSB, but what the blazes do you think you're doing?"
Borodin looked over at Frolov with a meaningful glance. "We're out of time," he said shortly.
Frolov's brows furrowed for a second before he glanced down at his displays and saw with a start that the launch point was only five minutes out. They'd never get rid of the Euros before then; they'd hoped to string them along for long enough that the smaller fighters would run out of fuel and be on their way home as the Tupolevs launched their missiles, but they'd intercepted later than had been projected, and it looked like they were carrying drop tanks. Now, as soon as they fired, they'd die. It was as simple as that. And they could not delay; the attack was timed to the second, and if it slipped, the more missiles would be downed by air defence stations put on alert by the first wave, the more enemy bases would be saved, and the more of their comrades would die as a result.
"What do you -" he started to ask, but Borodin simply waved out the window.
"We must gamble. Sokol will do the rest."
"Backfire leader, this is your final warning. We will open fire if you do not cut the jamming in six, five, four - what the-"
With blinding speed a tongue of fire speared the lights, which disappeared into a flaring, tumbling ball of wreckage that plunged suddenly down into the cold, dark waves with a clap of thunder. Eight more peals sounded in short succession before the skies grew quiet once more.
Frolov smiled. A hawk indeed, descending upon its unsuspecting prey. He’d often wondered what had happened to the PAK FA programme. Now he knew.
The bomber climbed immediately upward, burners thundering behind as it gained height and speed for the launch, and he began to hum as his fingers ran through the well-practiced arming motions - well-practiced for this instant. Perhaps Borodin had come to make sure he did his job as well. He needn't have worried about that.
Yet his fingers wavered as they hovered over the 'commit' switch. Everything seemed to snap back into focus from a continual blur. This was it. The moment. Could he do it?
The display read:
00:07
00:06
00:05
00:04
00:03
He smiled. Of course he could.
00:02
00:01
He could do anything.
00:00
His fingers hit the switch - such a small switch...
Word count: 2,995
Comments and criticism, as always, desperately sought.
