Thanks to CajunBear73, OechsnerC, Lady Haddock, TheDeathlyRider2287, and Atomicsub927 for their reviews, commentary and input.
=O=
Chapter 32: Love on the Nuclear Battlefield (2)
Astrid gripped her steering wheel tightly with gloved hands, feeling every bump and knoll in the grasslands as her little Ford tore across the parched environs of Berk. Through a shattered windscreen, a roaring, frigid slipstream ripped at her gas mask and tore at the chemical hood of her nuclear, biological, and chemical protection suit, obtained by insisting to an Air Force Security trooper that she was desperately needed on the flightline. Sweat, trapped inside the rubberized charcoal-lined coating of the suit, ran in rivulets across her forehead and down her back, pooling uncomfortably in her underwear and boots.
Through eyes stinging with sweat, and goggles fogged by hot breath, Astrid gazed upon hell.
Against a featureless, dust-filled night sky, thick palls of black smoke billowed skywards from burning lakes of kerosene. A soft orange glow filled the eastern sky, marking where the wind had fanned the flames, shifted the smoke, and scattered the fallout.
The orderly rows of bombers, tankers, and transports that had once carpeted the central apron were no more. A smouldering radioactive hole, the size of a football field, now dominated a plain of hardened concrete, surrounded by misshapen berms of rubble and fields of burning, dust-choked duralumin wreckage.
As she neared the south apron, further from the crater, Astrid could make out the outlines of dozens of wrecked B-52s, sucked from their retvetments and smashed to pieces like toys. A tanker aircraft lay split in two, its halves stark against walls of flame from a sea of fiercely burning kerosene. As damage control crews desperately - and perhaps unwisely - tried to save the aircraft that remained, pickups and boxy foam trucks raced across the apron, skidding to a halt just outside the worst of the fallout to send rivers of foam and water high into the air.
Another pall of smoke rose from the South Runway, another radioactive crater at its heart.
The Geiger counter in the passenger seat clicked noisily.
Astrid shuddered. Fallout.
Fallout: Radioactive dust, the pulverized remains of planes, concrete, dirt, and men turned radioactive, blasted to ash, thrown into the sky, and scattered to the winds by a nuclear bomb.
Fallout: Deadly radioactive dust, glowing with rays and in colors invisible to the human eye, rays and colors that could shine through skin, clothing, metal, and thin concrete as it if did not exist – and burn, maim, and kill delicate human bodies in their path.
Fallout was drifting across the airfield and settling into every nook and cranny.
The crack-crack-crack of small arms fire drew nearer as the thin grass of the Qingzang Highlands scrunched beneath her wheels. A little security bunker, spewing tracers, came into view. She killed her engine.
There had been only two survivors when the Indians had overrun the navigation beacon. They weren't overrunning Berk – not on her watch.
Gosh, that had been a lifetime ago. Berk had been safe, the country hadn't been cowering in fallout shelters, and her biggest problem had been having Hiccup for a backseater.
Hiccup. Get to him, save him, shoot anyone in her way. A simple plan. A good plan.
The radiation meter whined in alarm. Astrid stopped, looked around, and backed away from an unusual looking jagged rock in the distance – probably a chunk of airfield concrete, catapulted across the sky by the groundburst. If her radiation meter was any indication, it was hot hot hot.
A hotspot – an area where concentrated bits of fallout had accumulated.
Right now, walking across that piece of concrete would probably give her a fatal dose – or even give her immediate radiation burns or kill her outright on contact. As the worst of the radiation decayed over the next day or so (and it always did, because the rapid decay and high activity of the radionuclides was why it was so harmful), she might get sick if she used the blasted thing as a pillow for twelve hours. After a few years or so, building her house on top of the concrete chunk might marginally increase her risk of cancer – after a century, perhaps not even that, depending on which scientists were right.
An angry round whizzed by her head, and Astrid fell flat on her belly, sending her radiation meter chattering. "Don't shoot! I'm a pilot! I just need a weapon!"
An Air Force Security trooper, two white bands emblazoned on his helmet and a gas mask over his face, shone a flashlight in her face and waved her into the fighting position. "What the heck are you doing out here?!"
"I need to get to my squadron! Give me a gun!" Her eyes flitted across the piles of garbage that littered the position, and settled on a rusty old carbine next to a stack of coke bottles, which for all appearances had been lying out here since World War II.
Astrid's eyes widened in recognition. Déjà vu. "I can shoot that! I could shoot that with my eyes closed! Give me the gun!"
"We've got movement!" Another Security trooper pointed into the darkness, and a medium machine gun clattered as a steady stream of tracers disappeared into the smoke-filled night.
A third trooper gave Astrid a quick glance as he slid a magazine into his rifle. "Sarge, just give her the gun! She sure as hell doesn't look like one of them!"
"Could be a Russian!" The machine-gunner opined.
"You're kiddin' me, right? Movement two o'clock!" More tracers were swallowed up by the darkness.
The Sergeant swore, and handed her the carbine. "Weapons tight! Weapons tight, people! Don't shoot unless you're sure it's enemy!"
Astrid hefted the familiar shape – a bit lighter than she remembered – and looked down her sights across the grasslands towards the concertina fence in the distance, just barely perceptible in the faint orange glow of one hundred burning multimillion-dollar warplanes.
"Movement on the fence!" The machine-gunner let loose a short burst, and everyone followed his lead, filling the night with yet more tracers. Astrid, her night vision ruined, shook her head.
The Sergeant went to the radio, and Astrid frowned as an unusual sensation welled in her gut. "What's happening?"
"Fifth columnists! Saboteurs! Commandoes! They're everywhere! I heard shooting from the main gate!" The rifleman nervously scanned the fence.
"Classic one-two punch! They scope out the place for the nuclear bombers and slip inside while everyone's distracted! They did it to our outposts, they're doing it here!" The machine-gunner opined. "Prolly got nuclear demo charges to blow whatever the bombers missed sky-high!"
"Say again, reactor two?" The Sarge spoke into the microphone.
"Oh god, they got the reactor!" The rifleman glanced warily in the direction of the lake, where small pebble-bed reactors slurped coolant from its chilly waters.
"They could break containment and irradiate the base! Make it even more unusable!" The machine-gunner speculated.
Astrid shook her head as she examined the Security troopers. "Not gonna happen. That's a meter of concrete they'll have to break."
This was not where she needed to be. This was not where Hiccup was.
The crackle of gunfire was now overpowering. She glimpsed the hardened shelters as the smoke momentarily cleared. "I… need to get to my squadron! Cover me!"
The machine-gunner nodded, and Astrid shot onto the grasslands as the machine-gunner opened fire, covering the night in tracers. She made it to her car without setting off her radiation meter, ducked inside, and started the engine.
Astrid was halfway to the hulking hillocks of the hardened aircraft shelters when illumination rounds finally screamed skyward, bathing the grasslands in an unearthly white glow. Rifle rounds cracked across her Ford, and she stopped just short of her shelter before rolling out of her vehicle onto the hard concrete tarmac. She looked around for debris, and checked her meter. The meter clicked wildly as she approached the ground.
Groundshine. Settled radioactive dust.
No more lying down on the ground once you're in the hot zone…
Just east of her, a massive column of smoke and dust stretched skywards from the burning south apron.
That hot zone.
More machine-gun fire cut through the night.
In the distance, Astrid caught a glimpse of three men, stooped low, running evasively towards the hangar. Not again. Not again! Hiccup's in there!
The illumination rounds died, and Astrid frantically tried to find the sappers as darkness reclaimed the grasslands, half-expecting to be cut down by enemy fire. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap. They'll get him. They'll get him for sure.
A shape moved through the smoke. Don't hesitate.
Stance. Aim.
Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!
Astrid got to her feet, and charged towards the side door.
A shape emerged from the doorway. Astrid raised her carbine...
...and put it down as Gobber, masks cradled in his arms, walked past the radiation-proof bend. "Astrid! What's going on out there?!"
"Where's Hiccup?!"
"Decontamination crew, edge of south apron! Now we need some extra hands on…" Gobber turned around, but Astrid was long gone.
She drove towards the south apron. Even with her mask on, the smell of burning metal and jet fuel was intense, and, even from a kilometer away, she could feel the heat from the inferno of aluminium and kerosene through her rubberized suit.
A technician in a full suit drove past in a tractor, pulling a lightly damaged B-52 away from the blast zone. Water dripped from its wings and onto the tarmac as it lumbered past.
He said he'd follow her to hell and back.
She'd be darned if she didn't return the favor.
Astrid slung her carbine, and ran out onto the tarmac.
Next to a massive B-52 bomber, a slim man in a bulky NBC suit led a gang of maintainers as they sprayed soapy water all over the aircraft's surface. Rivulets of contaminated water spilled onto the ground and ran off into a foamy gutter beyond.
Big yellow radiation warning signs were everywhere – below the plane, on the wet tarmac, and especially around the gutter.
"Clean the top! Clean the top! Engines! Okay! Hosed off! Mop crew up! Wipe the bird down!"
"HICCUP!" Astrid ran towards him, arms outstretched, laughing manically under her mask. Hiccup was okay. Her world was radioactive and on fire, but Hiccup was safe, and that made everything better. Everything was okay.
He crossed his gloved, suited arms, warning her back. "Astrid? What the heck are you doing here?! Stay behind the signs! These birds got caked in radioactive dust from the groundburst, and when we wash it off, all the stuff goes in the water and in the gutter! It's all over my suit, too!"
This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair.
Astrid shook her head, and stepped back. The meter ticked appreciably when she pointed it at the gutter. Those would be hotspots someday. The gutters would be dangerous to sleep in for weeks, and uninhabitable for years – not that anyone would live in the gutters. Radioactive dust, relatively safe when dispersed over a wide area, might collect to higher levels in bends and cracks in the gutter, or the gutter might dry up, and the dust scattered by the breeze once more. Biologically compatible radioisotopes might accumulate in cockroaches as they rooted through the gutter – and in the birds that ate them, although the miniscule scale of this nuclear attack meant this was unlikely to be a major hazard.
Someone would probably end up ripping out the whole concrete gutter and burying it in a hole. Burial would probably be far cheaper than trying to decontaminate the darned thing. Decontamination would involve washing the radioactive dust out of every nook and cranny and sandblasting the surface until it was clean as a whistle, which seemed a lot of bother for a cheap concrete gutter.
"And stay away from that pile of debris! And the bulldozer! We lost a man trying to drive it! The concrete and metal debris is the worst! All hot!" He pointed to a mangled pile of airplane parts and rubble in the corner.
Astrid eyed her meter. It was all hot. All of it. More radioactive scrap for the hole.
A gang of maintainers began running big mops across the contaminated airframe, hoping to get rid of whatever dust was left on the aircraft. The interior of the bird would have to be decontaminated separately.
She stared into his eyes behind the holes in his gas mask – the only part of him she could see. It was more than enough. Hiccup was safe – for a broad definition of the term – and that was enough to bring tears of joy to her eyes.
Her mouth was dry again. She forced the embarrassingly unprofessional words from her mouth. "Hiccup… I'm sorry for making you wait! For shoving you around!"
"What?"
The words wouldn't come out. Not in that order.
She couldn't fail now. She had to tell him... something. Anything!
"You care about me a lot! I… care about you too! A lot!"
A truck drove by, and skidded to a halt in front of the decontamination point. The meter ticked gently. Men plunged mops into huge troughs of contaminated water.
Astrid scanned Hiccup's gas mask, hoping to catch a hint of a reaction. He was usually so easy to read. Was this how Hiccup felt all the time? Watching faces, trying to figure out what was going on behind them? Worrying, wondering, hoping?
He wasn't saying anything. How long had it been?
"Now? Now's really not the time, Astrid! SOMEONE GET THAT TRUCK!"
"Yes it is, Hiccup! If not now, when? I…" She... really couldn't say it, couldn't she? It was far too embarrassing to say.
But she'd tell him. She'd tell him now. She'd tell him if she had to move her jaw herself...
That was a plan.
She raised a gloved hand to her gas mask, and blew him a kiss.
Hiccup looked a little unsteady, but quickly regained his composure as the B-52 was towed out of the decontamination area. "Okay, Astrid. Go help with the hose!" He returned the blown kiss with an awkward derivative before checking his dosimeter badge. "I'll be over safety limits in thirty minutes!"
Astrid ran over to the truck, and grabbed a hose, taking good care to wash off the wheels.
She stood up to see if she could decontaminate the inside, and nearly vomited into her mask at the sight of dozens of badly burned men and women, their flesh a motted mass of charred blacks, raw reds, and bone whites, groaning in agony.
Someone else had already vomited. The corrugated metal decking was covered in patches of vomit, pools of… brown goo, and red-and-black bits of what could only be human flesh. Burn and radiation casualties.
Fallout is worse if it gets into open wounds. Well, these people were nothing but open wounds.
Dear god, had it been like this on the ground in India, sixty thousand feet below them?
"ASTRID, BACK OFF! THEY'RE ALL CONTAMINATED! MEDICAL DECONTAM IS ON THE LEFT! GO! GO!"
She choked down more vomit, and stepped off the cleaned truck.
She'd dropped low-yield weapons all over India. This was payback.
She'd pay back the payback tenfold, if need be. This was war.
The all-clear rang out across the base, and the PA blared to life. "Cease fire! Cease fire! Security troops, secure all weapons. We are not under ground attack, I repeat; we are not under ground attack. You people have been shooting at ghosts!"
Astrid thought of the man she had gunned down outside the hardened shelter, and turned pale as bile tried to claw its way out of her throat.
She gulped down the bile, hopped off the back of the truck, and grabbed the hose as the next truck heaved into position.
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Author's note: Ta-da! As promised, Love on the Nuclear Battlefield, where the sine qua non of nuclear warfare - the earthquake, wind, fire, radiation, and fallout - that distinguish nuclear warfare from its pedestrian conventional counterparts are on full display at the same time love occurs!
Additional thanks must go to TheDeathlyRider2287 for detecting a missile apogee error in Ch 20 - according to the AlternateWars website, ballistic missile apogees are about a quarter of maximum range, not half.