Thanks to CajunBear73 for his reviews and commentary.
=O=
Chapter 16
Berk AFB
Toothless taxied out of his concrete cave and trundled over to the runway.
Astrid's breathing was rapid and shallow as she ran through her preflight. Hiccup hadn't said anything since they'd finished going over their flight plan after the prolonged briefing session.
Okay, Hofferson, Haddock. You'll be flying recon over India tomorrow evening.
The lights of the runway stretched away before her, punctuating the dark night like a pair of railroad tracks to infinity.
It's a simple surveillance mission along the border. You'll barely be in their airspace – but make no mistake, you will be in non-disputed Indian airspace. We fly this route every few days - well, daily now. They've pinged us, but they haven't shot at any of our runs so far.
The cockpit was quiet but for the whine of the engines. For a split second, Astrid missed Hiccup's banal chatter with ground control.
The whole mission will be carried out under complete radio silence. You take off ziplip, you fly ziplip, and you refuel from the tanker ziplip. You only start yapping on landing.
Radio chatter would give the flight away to the Indians and their Soviet puppetmasters, allowing them to track, target, and kill them. She focused on the runway lights, the red signal lamp on the tower, and the mission.
Good luck, and good hunting.
The tower light turned green.
Astrid gunned the engines, and Toothless, riding twin diamond-shocked plumes of flame, shot down the runway and ascended into the night sky.
=O=
"Astrid, we're coming up on reference point one. Autopilot's gonna turn us around in three… two… one… mark."
Astrid checked her instruments as Toothless went into a turn that covered a goodly chunk of Sichuan. The engines were purring, the airframe was holding steady, and the controls were on the dot.
"We are on course. Descend to 65,000 feet."
Flying closer to the ground meant better radar pictures.
They flattened out, and in his mind, Hiccup pictured a giant transparent wall – the international border that stretched from the ground to one hundred kilometers up.
Beyond that wall was sovereign Indian airspace. And, as illegal entrants into Indian airspace, they would be fair game for every Indian SAM battery and interceptor within range. If shot down, the Indians would hold them as prisoners of war.
Hiccup shuddered as he remembered the horror stories from Siberia, where thousands of captured Pacifican prisoners of war had been subjected to years of physical abuse and vicious psychological brainwashing in the Gulag. Rumors persisted of POWs still languishing in secret Siberian gulags, left for dead by the government and forgotten by all but their KGB torturers...
He wasn't going to get shot down if he could get away with it. He had just gotten tickets to Lop Nur - Lop Nur! - and he had every intention of living to use 'em.
"Coming up on the border. Check… Side-looking Radar on. Mapping Camera on. Antennas live and collecting. Recorders running."
Hiccup smirked. The modular recon kit, while overpriced, excessively complex, and inferior to the SR-71's dedicated reconnaissance fit, was still extremely impressive. The side-looking synthetic aperture radar scanned the terrain below from horizon to horizon, piercing clouds, rain or snow to build up a very detailed radar "picture" with a resolution of a few meters. Combined with pictures from the superfast Nikon film cameras (capable of taking a horizon to horizon film strip good enough to read unit numbers on tanks) and electronic intelligence antennas, the Blackbird could map a long strip the width of a small country and thousands of kilometers long – in detail sufficient to identify all military forces within.
Hiccup nodded to himself. "Astrid, we are at reference point two. I'm go back here."
Astrid completed her check. "I'm go up front."
There was a pregnant pause. "Hiccup… are you ready for this?" Astrid said.
Hiccup didn't skip a beat. "Born ready, Astrid."
Astrid smiled. She knew he was ready, but it was nice to hear him say it.
While it would have been nice to scan the border from the Pacifican side, geography had other ideas. The four-thousand-meter foothills of the Himalayas blocked radar scans into the valleys between them from any angle except directly overhead. Satellites might have done part of the job, but revisit times were long, and the practically fixed orbital flightpaths of satellites made them predictable, allowing enemy forces to hide when satellites were known to be overhead.
This job was necessary. And they would do it.
They zipped across the disputed area in two minutes, hit the border at Mach 3.1, and entered Indian airspace.
"Let's see if those Indians are hiding anything in these valleys." Hiccup checked his bolted-on SAR display – a tiny, barebones display that showed just enough blinky lights to tell Hiccup it was working properly. The magnetic tape recorders simply could not be displayed on-board the aircraft.
Even as Toothless scanned the ground below with beams of energy, Hiccup knew they were being watched.
Toothless chirped and whined almost fearfully as his sensitive electronic ears picked up a multitude of radars – friendly and hostile, civilian and military, search and fire control.
The sky around them filled with the electronic shrieks, moans, and chitters of enemy radar and radio signals, and in his darkened, claustrophobic cubby, Toothless's electronic whimpering seemed to close in around Hiccup. His stomach try to claw its way back up his throat as his mouth went dry as the shrieks reached a fever pitch.
All the while, magnetic tape recorders whirred, dispassionately recording the howling electronic maelstrom around them for later analysis in the comfortable suburban offices of some signals intelligence agency.
"How are you doing back there, Hiccup?"
"We've kicked a hornet's nest, that's for sure. Heh." He paused. "We're being tracked by three Soviet Spoon Rest search radars and one Fan Song fire control radar. We've got HF transmissions from those same sites; so we can expect more radars to… okay, two Fan Songs."
The "Fan Song" was the primary fire control (i.e. missile-guiding) radar of the frontline SA-2 missile system, a big missile system designed to kill planes – bombers or fighters – at medium-to-high altitudes. As far as they knew, the SA-2 lacked the performance to engage Blackbirds – but missiles were always upgraded over time…
Astrid involuntarily scanned the sky for missile trails. "Hiccup, calm down. You trust me to do my job, right?"
Hiccup nodded fervently. "Yep. Three Fan Songs. Six missiles per battery means eighteen missiles total. We're also getting some gun radars now. They're just pointing them around." He checked the clock. "Their system reaction time is a lot better than before."
Hiccup checked his plot. "…but not good enough. According to the map they gave us, we're already out of the SA-2 missile engagement envelopes. We kinda sped through before they could turn their radars on."
Astrid nodded.
Toothless suddenly warbled in alarm. Hiccup's jaw dropped. "Oh, this is new. Pattern's new. Sounds like a search radar…"
They sped into Bhutan, and then crossed the length of Nepal in under twelve minutes.
Hiccup inhaled. They were on the home stretch – and by all accounts, a stretch as dangerous as the initial run over Assam. "We're coming up on Kashmir."
Following the bloody mess that had been the Partition of British India into India, Pakistan, Burma, and Bengal (the latter at the secret – or not-so-secret – insistence of the Joint Government), India had waged a series of inconclusive wars against Pakistan, many revolving around the disputed territory of Kashmir. Kashmir was heavily militarized – practically carpeted with SA-2 missile sites, army and airbases, and anti-aircraft guns.
Not particularly benign airspace, at any rate.
Hiccup frowned as he cleaned up the cacophony of chitters and shrieks to focus on one in particular. "There's that new search radar again. They were expecting us… as usual."
Astrid chewed her lip. "Of course they did. We fly the same route every time. Predictable patrol routes are a bad idea, escalation be damned."
Toothless shrieked in alarm. "Oh boy. New fire control radar." Hiccup racked his memory of the intelligence brief.
The SA-5 system is probably still undergoing prototype testing, and is unlikely to be encountered in the Indian Theater of Operations.
Hiccup swore. "Astrid, prepare to turn left. We're probably looking at a new SA-5 Gammon! Plotting a course for you now. This keeps us in sight of the target area while keeping the SA-5 at range. Prepare to evade."
Astrid recalled a Soviet propaganda reel about the new SA-5 – a huge, tree-trunk-sized missile with four strap-on boosters, big fins, and a huge engagement envelope capable of reaching the Blackbird (at a reduced range compared to engaging a slow jet, of course).
"You got it." She said.
If the SA-5 fire control radar and its inexperienced operators (who had turned their radar on early, before their shiny new missiles were in range, instead of using the search radar to track for them) were co-located with the missiles, then Astrid and Hiccup wanted to put as much distance between themselves and the radar as possible.
Astrid gunned the throttle, giving the missile site a reasonably wide berth.
"Electronic countermeasures on. Record and…" Hiccup frantically set up the sophisticated ECM system for a system it had never seen before, and hoped it would work. "…set."
The seconds ticked by as they approached the site. On the audio channel, the SA-5 radar, in search mode, gave off a series of slow beats – the steady growl of a tiger observing his prey.
"IRST on."
Sweat beaded on Hiccup's forehead as they closed with the radar. Once we get past the radar, they'll be in a tail chase. They won't take the shot after we pass them.
The SA-5 radar roared to life, and pounced. "SAM SAM SAM! ECM on! Air search on!" Hiccup checked the IRST and air search radar. "Two SAMs in the air! Bearing zero three zero, passing 3,000 feet."
Astrid inhaled. "Hiccup, turn or burn?"
Hiccup pondered his decision. The missiles had cleared ten thousand feet.
"I'm watching them. Give me a minute to see how they fly."
The missiles cleared twenty thousand feet.
"Burn. We can probably outrun the missile. It's more than fast enough to catch us, but it probably doesn't have enough fuel to change its course if we hightail it. Also, if this radar plot is right… it doesn't look like a very sophisticated intercept." Hiccup laid out his decision.
"Burning." Astrid opened up the throttle, and Toothless soared upward.
Hiccup looked at his instruments, and out the window. The black sky seemed to turn even blacker.
Mach 3.4… 3.45…
Mach 3.6.
Hiccup's eyes widened.
Mach 3.7. 100,000 feet.
Toothless levelled out. They were thirty kilometres above the surface of the Earth, covering a full kilometre every second. "SAMs are passing 80,000 feet… and turning towards us."
But the SAMs had been aimed too low, too far behind them – and, as they struggled against their immense speed to change course to engage Toothless – now higher and faster than before – they simply ran out of fuel, passing 120,000 feet three kilometres behind them.
"And… we're clear of this site!" Hiccup cheered.
Astrid was grinning from ear to ear. "Bringing us back down."
=O=
A hundred kilometers away, just across the Pacifican-Indian border, a modified airliner held orbit over the highest peaks of the Himalayas.
With a long, protruding nose and cheek compartments stuffed with electronic gear and antennas, the jet was easily identifiable as an RC-135 signals intelligence (or SIGINT), aircraft, tasked with detecting, recording, and analyzing the myriad of electronic signals given off by a military force – radar signals, jammers, communications equipment, and more.
On Indian radar, however, it looked like any ordinary tanker.
Today, it had been tasked with monitoring the Indian response to a supersonic Blackbird overflight. A very eventful overflight, it seemed.
In the cramped compartment of the RC-135, Fishlegs Ingerman excitedly ran towards the back of the plane. The blond-haired, overweight, bespectacled electronics officer shoved aside airmen and knocked around chairs as he moved around the rows of consoles and racks of electronics that filled the passenger compartment. "Hey Ruffnut! Check this out!"
Ruffnut rolled her eyes. Tagging along on HUNGRY VULTURE flights was fun for her EW officer, who loved to familiarize himself with the calls and shrieks of all sorts of new Soviet gear, but Ruffnut preferred to be the one flying the jet she was… flying in, thank you very much.
Ignoring her disinterested grimace, Fishlegs jammed a pair of headphones over her ears, and an eerie series of chirps, followed by a shriek, filtered through her senses.
"Behold the roar of the Gammon!" Fishlegs waved his arm dramatically. "Challenger of the stratosphere. Kingslayer."
Ruffnut yawned. "Lame. How do we kill it?"
=O=
Toothless soared gracefully at 80,000 feet at Mach 3.3, leaving the tanker far behind, far below.
Hiccup stared out his window, lost in thought.
"Hiccup, you ok? You haven't said anything for a while back there."
"Yeah, yeah. Sure."
"Something on your mind?"
They had fought together as a team. Him and Astrid, an actual honest-to-god fighter crew – their thinking, fighting, and flying as one. But he couldn't quite say that. It would be awkward, and besides, what would be the point?
Hiccup chuckled. Here he was at 80,000 feet, flying at three times the speed of sound, and all he could think about was the girl a mere foot in front of him.
"Just something crazy I came up with. Wanna see something cool?"
Astrid shrugged. "Why not?"
"Climb to 90,000 feet."
Astrid gunned the engines, and Toothless rumbled as the interceptor clawed through the increasingly thin air.
Then the lights went out. "What the…"
"Relax, relax. I just cut the lights."
Inside her helmet, Astrid smirked. "What are we up to this time, Hiccup?"
"Let your eyes adjust."
Astrid did, and realized that she could see her instruments. A faint, hazy glow was shining through the heat-resistant quartz glass.
"Now look up."
Astrid looked up, and exhaled in wonder.
A shimmering band of stars and dust filled the window, cutting across the heavens like a vast celestial river.
The Milky Way.
Astrid searched for the Big Dipper, and confirmed that she was looking north with a glance at her flight plan.
A trio, then a pair, and then another four shooting stars lit across the sky. Astrid inhaled sharply.
How… why? Shooting stars burning up in the upper atmosphere are easier to see at altitude. Right.
Toothless broke 95,000 feet.
"Cool, huh?"
"Yeah. Yeah."
"The Chinese call the Milky Way the Star River. They speak of two lovers, a cowherd and a seamstress, separated by the great river in the sky. Every year, at midsummer, a flock of magpies forms a bridge across this river, and lets the lovers see each other for one night. And only one night."
Astrid said nothing.
Hiccup chuckled. "You know, our star-tracker actually uses the seamstress, the magpie bridge, and the cowherd – among various other constellations. In official parlance, we call 'em Vega, Deneb, and Altair. They're three points of the summer triangle; our star-tracking automatic sextant locks onto them to compute exactly where we are. We fly so high up the sextant can see them all the time."
"Ain't that something."
They sat in silence, admiring the celestial vault above them.
Hiccup rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Astrid… I… uh… there's something I'd like to ask you."
Astrid, her gaze still fixated on the stars, sounded distant. "Yeah?"
Hiccup began tapping his helmet. "I got a reservation for a show at Lop Nur. The reservation was for one car, and since I'm going to have to rent a car anyway, I thought I'd ask you to come along. You know, so we can split the rental, get economies of scale. Just a fun activity for friends, you know…" Hiccup trailed off.
Astrid gently closed her agape jaw, careful not to reveal her surprise. Reservations at Lop Nur weren't easy to get, even for servicemembers. "Sure, sure. Sounds great."
Hiccup squirmed. "Great."
Astrid smiled. "Now shut up so I can enjoy the night sky."
They didn't turn the lights back on until they began their descent.
=O=
The analyst took his eyes off the microscope, and rubbed his eyes. Since they'd stepped up reconnaissance flights over the Indian border, his office had been completely swamped.
He took a sip from his cup of coffee. Nope. After sixteen hours spent staring at camera film through a microscope, coffee just wasn't cutting it anymore.
He inspected the synthetic aperture radar picture on the screen again – just for correlation with the photos. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a highly detailed radar terrain picture – the caption read Assam, Northeastern India - with little metal objects on top, trucks mostly. To any other observer, they looked like blobs; but that's why they hired analysts.
The platform whirred as the roll of foot-wide strip of processed film slid into position under his microscope. A series of long, narrow tents, trucks, and lines came into focus. Trees. Fields. Roads. Trucks. Fuel trucks. Tents. Tents covered in camouflage netting. Barracks. Support vehicles. Lots of fuel trucks. Nothing that looked like a FROG short-range nuclear artillery rocket or a surface-to-air missile base. Not that he had expected to see any FROGs anyway, no matter how big an intelligence coup that would've been. The diminutive FROGs fit on a small truck – he'd have to be exceedingly lucky to catch one out of cover.
That was a lot of fuel trucks – what were they fuelling, a helicopter regiment? A tank division?
And that was an awfully long tent. Pretty big one too.
Did this remind him of something?
His eyes had gone bleary again.
He really needed to move on to the pictures taken along the Bhutanese border. Since the damned Indians had launched an attack on a civilian air traffic control beacon (or so the press was saying) in Bhutan, a whole bunch of surveillance targets thereabouts had been allocated to his office, which would probably take him another… oh, god… four hours.
He wrote "fuel dump/support site" on his list and moved on.
=O=
Author's note: The nature of the Soviet/Indian surprise should now be deducible from the information given and some knowledge of history. Ladies and Gentlemen, place your bets and make your guesses: What is Operation Anadyr?
All will be revealed after three fluffy chapters.
