Thanks to CajunBear73 and Skrillwriter for their reviews and commentary.
=O=
Chapter 19: Super-Ready Status
Chongqing Underground Complex
Sichuan Province, Joint Government of the Pacific
General Drago Bludvist's footsteps echoed off the steel walls of the cavernous command center. While the deeply buried bunker would not withstand a direct hit from a large nuclear weapon, it, and the steel buildings mounted on giant springs within, would survive a half-mile miss, and the complex was completely fallout-proof to boot.
Technically speaking, this was not General Bludvist's command center. His place was on his EC-135 command plane, or even on his personal B-70 bomber. This was an Air Defense Command installation, and General Bludvist was only present as an observer for the joint ADC-SAC exercises.
He had taken over the complex regardless.
The screen lit up.
"It begins."
=O=
The Hardened Aircraft Shelter was pretty cozy, as far as things went. The four-meter-thick concrete walls of the plane bunker trapped virtually all the heat emanating from the men, machines, and heaters within.
Putting down her dog-eared book, Astrid glanced across the folding table to Hiccup, who looked absolutely ridiculous as he tried to do paperwork in his bulky pressure suit.
At least the gloves came off.
Astrid walked over to her duffel for a newspaper, passing Big Pete and his crew, who were having a nice game of cards. Astrid was almost sorry that they hadn't broken out the mahjong for this shift. That, at least, would have been a game she would want to play. Hiccup would have to break out the earmuffs, but that was really a small price to pay.
Toothless just sat there, fuelled up, bombed up, and ready to go, attended to by one lonely technician, who flipped listlessly through a white-covered magazine even as he kept an eye on the dials of the start-cart.
Astrid flipped open her newspaper.
INDIA NOT AFRAID OF NUCLEAR WAR, PRIME MINISTER SAYS
Astrid rolled her eyes as the Indian Prime Minister insisted that, no, India was not afraid of nuclear war with the Joint Government, that there were 500 million Indians and the Pacific could not possibly kill them all, and that if they tried, the Soviets would kill a billion Pacificans, against which the Pacific could not possibly retaliate by killing a billion Soviets, because there were only 200 million Soviets. He finished his diatribe by rehashing his conviction that nuclear weapons were a paper tiger, and that the ability of the Joint Government to blow up rocks in the middle of a desert did not scare India one whit.
Astrid groaned at the self-contradictory tirade. Thanks to that bastard, all leave for the Mid-Autumn Festival had been cancelled. While it hadn't really affected herself or Hiccup – they'd blown their leave on that trip to Atomland – the rest of the squadron had felt the pinch.
The entire squadron had been put on high alert, which meant days of camping out next to their aircraft in the dreary, stuffy boredom of the Hardened Aircraft Shelter.
At the same time, workloads had gone through the roof, as the squadron had scrambled to plan for the snap conventional (i.e. non-nuclear) warfighting exercises. Exercise JUMPKICK had kicked off the day before, and if Ruffnut's complaining was any indication, it was putting a helluva lot of Phantom Phlyers through their paces.
Astrid spread the paper over her face, donned a pair of earmuffs, and closed her eyes. She needed sleep more than news. Sleep...
"BBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
Astrid jolted awake and made a mad dash for the cockpit, joining the frenzy of action that had engulfed the shelter even as the alarm continued to blare its banal tone. Pete waved his arms like a madman as his crew pulled out diagnostic cables, sealed hatches, and removed chocks. Astrid scrambled into her seat as Pete backed the big truck full of computer diagnostic equipment away from Toothless. Hiccup was already running the preflight.
The concrete door opened to the roar of a turbojet. In the distance, a Blackbird roared off the runway in a cloud of black smoke, followed six seconds later by another identical aircraft.
They were being scrambled. At this very moment, Soviet ballistic missiles could be arcing across the sky towards Berk at fifteen times the speed of sound.
One minute had passed since the alert.
Soviet missiles could reach Berk in six.
Toothless's engines flared to life, and Astrid closed her canopy as Toothless rolled out onto the hardened concrete taxiway.
"Plasma 9, Plasma 9, you are cleared for takeoff from runway two, over."
"Plasma 9 copies, Tower. Runway two, out." Hiccup hoped it was just another exercise, but kept his speculation to himself. No, far better to treat this as the real thing.
Astrid scanned the scrambling airbase as Toothless rolled towards the runway, joining a steady stream of aircraft ambling from their shelters.
Since the escalation of the crisis, Berk had been overstuffed with aircraft of every stripe, and its aprons overflowed with airpower. Scores of jungle-green Tactical Air Command aircraft – turboprop cargo planes, lumbering heavy bombers, sleek multirole fighters, and swing-wing fighter-bombers stood idle, their air operations interrupted to make way for the top-priority scramble of strategic forces. A vast army of technicians, bomb haulers, and other service vehicles wound their way between acres of tentage, supply dumps surrounded by earthworks, and revetted aircraft – the massive volumes of conventional bombs prepared having exceeded the capacity of Berk's remaining serviceable WWII-era storage facilities.
A brand new EC-137 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft - a windowless silver airliner with a saucer shaped radar on top - roared off the runway, easing into the afternoon sky, followed by a stream of airborne refuelling tankers, taking off scarcely twelve seconds apart. More Blackbirds shot down the runway.
B-58B Hustler supersonic bombers, sleek chrome-grey aircraft with enormous belly fuel pods and four podded turbojets dangling off a swept delta wing, roared off runway one. The bombers were headed for their fail-safe points, an hour from targets deep within the Soviet Union.
Three minutes.
The Blackbird ahead lit its engines, and roared off into the afternoon sky in a choking cloud. The runway stretched out before her.
They shot down the runway and climbed into the sky.
Astrid pushed the throttle to the max, an eye always on the speed and altitude gauges. They needed to get out of dodge, and do it fast.
In the event of a nuclear war, Soviet missileers were expected not only to hit the base's runways and shelters, but also to carpet the airspace around Berk in nuclear airbursts, to kill bombers trying to gain altitude. That was what the Air Force planned to do to Soviet airbases, at any rate.
Five minutes.
They cleared the danger zone.
Still no boom.
"Plasma 9, this is Longhouse. We have multiple bogeys inbound. You have been assigned bogeys Bravo-17, 18, and 19 at Bullseye 187 at 121, 400 knots, 30,000 feet. Proceed to intercept and positively identify. Weapons safe, over."
"Plasma 9 copies, out."
Astrid gunned the engines, and they shot off towards the intercept.
=O=
"I have them on radar and infrared." Hiccup worked his fire control system furiously.
"I'll make a close pass over them at 70,000 feet." Astrid said.
"Electro-optical system on." Hiccup flipped a switch, and watched as a monitor flickered to life, displaying the image from a telescopic TV camera in one of Toothless's chimes.
They overflew a bogey, and a fuzzy picture appeared on Hiccup's monitor. A conventional-looking aircraft – a tube with wings and four engine pods - appeared on-screen, JGAF markings gleaming in the sunlight.
Hiccup exhaled. "It's a B-52. One of ours."
They went into a turn, overflying the remaining bogeys one by one. All B-52s.
"Longhouse, please be advised, Bravo 17, 18, and 19 have been identified as B-52 bombers. Friendlies, over."
Longhouse came in over the radio. "Message received, Plasma 9. Proceed to hold point."
Astrid sighed. "Just another drill."
Hiccup smiled. "Hey, we got out in time, made the intercept in time, and got everything done in one pass."
They were en route to the hold point when another voice came in over the radio. "Exercise, exercise, exercise. Attention Plasma flight, this is Longhouse. We have additional bogies; Charlies -3 through 15. Speed 1,800 knots, 60,000 feet. Headings… all over the place."
Longhouse began spelling out in great detail exactly what radars across the country were seeing – details that the bombers, with their much smaller radars and looser command and control, could not see.
Astrid whistled. It wasn't every day that they got to tangle with supersonic bombers.
Hiccup chuckled. "Has to be Valkyries or Blackbirds. Nothing else is that fast."
Astrid rolled her eyes. "Exercise, Hiccup."
Hiccup whipped out his slide rule. "We're going to need some help for this one."
The Colonel came in over the radio. "Copy, Longhouse. Plasma flight, you heard the man. Form up!"
Across the vast expanse of Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, and Xinjiang, the ten Blackbirds and dozen B-70 Valkyrie bombers gracefully set up their positions, players in the world's largest game of football. Far below the stratospheric players, two dozen or so F-106s milled about, eager to take potshots at the Valkyries if they ever were so foolish to fly directly overhead, and dealing with the slowpoke B-52s that continued to percolate through the exercise airspace.
The B-70s hit the first line of F-106s, accelerating or making majestic high-mach turns around the interceptors. A few F-106 interceptors tried snap-up shots, but none got close enough for a "kill".
"Plasma 9, you're on point. You have been assigned bogey Charlie-8. Go active."
Astrid gunned it, and Toothless charged towards Charlie-8. Hiccup turned on the Hughes radar, and let loose a mighty shriek of microwaves. As the shriek echoed all the way across Outer Mongolia (and into the ears of eager Soviet signals intelligence analysts across the border), bomber aircrews huddled in anticipation as their supersonic mounts chirped with fear.
Charlie-8 veered gently off course as it tried to evade Toothless. Two hundred kilometers away, another bomber tried to give Toothless a wide, country-sized berth. In doing so, it bunched itself up with a third bomber.
"Good, good, good, Plasma 9. Plasma 10, you're a go!"
Snotlout's backseater cut loose his radar, and across the breadth of Mongolia, bombers veered left and right in stately turns, breaking up the evenly-spaced formation.
As she closed with the bombers, Astrid took Toothless into a sharp, countrysized turn, forcing one more bomber to take evasive action.
Hiccup chuckled as Longhouse continued to update the situation map. The Valkyries were being corralled, and they barely knew it. He turned off his radar.
They'd intentionally veered away from Charlie-8, and it was still trying to get away. But even though the Valkyrie could turn as tightly as Toothless, Longhouse – and the AWACS feeding it information - allowed Hiccup to track the bomber's every move. They closed in on the hapless bomber, which was practically blind to the interceptor stalking it… as long as they kept their radars off.
Behind them, the rest of the squadron boxed conveniently bunched-up bombers between pairs of Blackbirds, or sent lone Blackbirds chasing after escapees.
Toothless's radar roared as they closed to missile range, and the telescopic camera, tracking the bomber, clicked at closest approach. In the blurry picture on his cathode-ray-tube display, Hiccup imagined he could just make out the silver-grey paint job, delta wing, and drooping wingtips of a B-70.
It was an unusual-looking aircraft – with a body plan that never failed to remind Hiccup of a giant goose. To its rear, six massive J93 turbojets and a bomb bay were buried in a wedge-shaped block, flanked by large delta-wings with drooping tips. From this block, a goose-necked fuselage protruded forward, ending in a sleek nose decorated with cockpit windows and a pair of canards.
The tiny picture belied the sheer size of the aircraft. The Valkyrie measured nearly sixty meters from nose to tail – just ten meters shorter than a Jumbo Jet. Despite its size, the B-70 could fly directly from Quebec to Moscow and back at Mach 3, making the 12,000-km round-trip in just over three hours. Its cavernous bomb bay could hold up to sixteen one-megaton thermonuclear bombs, sixteen standoff nuclear attack rockets, or twenty tonnes of conventional bombs – a much more substantial bombload than Toothless's puny four tonnes.
Toothless had scored a solid "kill" nonetheless.
"We got him, Astrid! We got the picture!"
Astrid whooped with joy.
All twelve bombers down. Two secondary targets "hit" by bombers. Victory.
They were taking on gas from the tanker when the new orders came in. "Plasma flight, be advised, you are now part of Exercise JUMPKICK. Return to base immediately for weapons re-arm and briefing."
Astrid raised an eyebrow. "Conventional warfare training?"
=O=
Astrid fumed as Toothless roared across the star-studded, pitch-black sky. Far below them, thin wisps of cloud glowed gently in the light of the full moon.
Everything had gone wrong. Damned conventional warfare exercises.
They had been late taking off, the strike package had been even later, and then they had spent most of an hour orbiting their own airbase. The special tanker with their JP-7 had been delayed, and half the Blackbirds had been forced off the mission for lack of fuel. Then, they'd raced ahead to provide a rotating combat air patrol over Red force bases while the slowpoke strike package made their ingress, coordinating with the defense suppression section to stimulate Red force radars. And just when everything finally seemed to be going well, the tanker was late again, and they couldn't tell the strike package about it because the frequencies were a mess…
She closed her eyes, and groaned.
"Still mad about the exercise?" Hiccup said.
Astrid sighed. "Yeah. We should have done better. We could have done better."
She gulped. "I should have done better."
"Why would you say that?" Hiccup asked.
Astrid chewed her lip. "Because… because I've flown top cover before. And MiGCAP. I flew the mission back in Siberia, with a crappier airplane and even worse support, and while screwups happened, we mostly pulled it off. I… know this! I used to be good at this! This shouldn't be this hard."
Hiccup shook his head. "Astrid, this is a new airplane. We're escorting new-ish birds, running the show through new command and control systems… this is practically a new environment. And it's not like we practiced this a lot – I mean, most of our training was nuclear. So… you're rusty. Everyone in the squadron's been flying nothing but intercepts. We're all rusty."
He sighed. "There's nothing to it but to hit the books and simulators, get practice, and learn. This is an exercise, Astrid. It's not about winning or losing. It's about learning lessons. Put down your ego for a moment, and think."
Astrid inhaled sharply. "I know, I know." She paused. "Thanks for reminding me. I needed that."
"Just doing my job." Hiccup chuckled. "Although you could bring us up to 80,000 feet and black out the cockpit. It is the Mid-Autumn Festival, after all, and moonwatching is traditional."
Astrid smiled, and took them higher and higher.
The cockpit lights went out, and the celestial vault came into view once again.
Toothless went into a gentle turn, as if to show off to the unblinking stars just how far man had come.
Together, far above the clouds, the three of them basked in the glory of the night sky.
Astrid sighed. "The stars aren't as nice tonight. The Moon's beautiful, though. I can see the maria easy."
Astrid traced the outline of Oceanus Procellarum. Billions of years ago, when the Earth had been young, the grey-black blotch had been a vast ocean of lunar lava. Lava tubes and rilles from that bygone era still graced the lunar mare, frozen for eons in flows of basalt.
Hairless apes infested those lava tubes now, wasting billions building pointless lunar colonies within the cozy, radiation-proof lava tubes even as the needs of the national defense went unmet.
"You know, I just realized that the stars don't twinkle up here. Not as much atmosphere between us and them." Hiccup gulped silently, and clawed at the memory of shared sunsets as he worked up the nerve to blurt the name of the proper restaurant he had managed to get dinner reservations for this time.
Astrid nodded. "Huh."
Hiccup took a deep breath, and focused on the starscape. "So. I…"
The starscape burst into a riot of color.
Shimmering curtains of green, red, and violet descended from the heavens, fluttering in and out of existence as they meandered across the night sky.
Hiccup and Astrid stared at the sky, utterly entranced. All thoughts of conversation fell by the wayside as the magnificent display unfolded before them.
The sky sang with light from horizon to horizon.
Astrid extended her gloved palm to the window, as if she could feel the caress of the aurorae through the quartz glass.
Hiccup, his breath taken away, just stared at the ever-shifting colors, which seemed to hold the promise of infinite knowledge beyond a softly glowing veil.
"It's… just… wow." Astrid sighed happily. Another magical moment. And we're sharing it together.
Hiccup bit his lip as he finally tore his gaze away from the window, and began hastily running through Toothless's systems. "This is not good. This is not good."
"What? Why?" Astrid turned to her instruments, and began checks in lock-step with Hiccup's.
"This isn't exactly the Arctic Circle." He sighed. "I can think of exactly three reasons for an aurora all the way down here. A really bad solar storm, a serious problem with the Van Allen Belt drainage program or..."
Astrid gulped. "…someone popped a nuke in low orbit."
=O=
Surprise!
