Thanks to Atomicsub927, TheDeathlyRider2287, CajunBear73, OechsnerC, and Ridersofrowan for their commentary and input.

=O=

Chapter 38: Deescalation

Toothless skidded to a halt at the end of the runway, and Astrid lifted her canopy as she taxied Toothless to the nearest hardened shelter. She opened her helmet visor, enjoying the chill of the stiff wind blowing down from the Himalayas.

Well, crap.

She slammed down her visor, hurriedly checking for dust on Toothless's skin. No dust.

Because that's all wide-area fallout is. Radioactive dust, produced when dust and ash gets sucked into a nuclear fireball, irradiated by neutrons until it glows in colors you can't see, and scattered to the four winds. If you can keep dust out of your house and out of your mouth for two weeks, you'll survive a light dusting. But if the dusting's heavy, and you don't have a basement to keep a meter of dirt or metal or concrete between you and the glowing dust cloud of doom… well, you'll die indoors. Possibly within hours or less.

It all depends on how heavy the fallout is, and how thick your roof is.

"Relax, Astrid. Toothless isn't hot – well, the airframe is hot because of supersonic flight, but it isn't radioactive hot right now." Hiccup gazed at the sky. "Even if there was substantial fallout, it's gonna take a while to get here. A few hours at least." He shrugged. "But we are probably going to eat most of the fallout from this. The prevailing winds over Central Asia blow west, and the Monsoon blows north this time of year. If the fallout plume is big enough, we'll be right under it."

"That is, unless the radioactive dust rains out over the Himalayas with the moisture from the Bay of Bengal. We sure as heck don't see any of the moisture here." He gestured to the parched grasslands around him even as he looked skyward, lost in thought.

"I think we'll have bigger problems than fallout, Hiccup." She gazed across a row of gleaming B-58Bs, stopping to squint at the Nike-Zeus anti-missile battery in the distance. "This place has bullseyes painted on it from one end to the other."

"We don't have to worry about fallout. We'll be fallout." Astrid chuckled darkly as she imagined her vaporized remains wafting into the sky.

"Airfields get groundbursts. You gotta rip out that runway somehow…" Hiccup chuckled with her, and shook his head as a B-52, a dozen white nuclear-tipped attack rockets dangling from its pylons, roared off the runway into an overcast sky, bound for a dispersal field somewhere in Inner Mongolia.

His eye flitted to the burned-out apron, and the huge trenches filled with piles of radioactive wreckage that lined its edge. A small army of bulldozers was hard at work burying the radioactive debris under layers of earth. Hiccup admired their optimism that Berk would exist long enough for the hazardous wreckage to matter.

We were almost fallout.

The trapezoidal hardened shelter loomed before them - a massive hillock of concrete, rubble, and more concrete. Four massive sloping doors, one for each aircraft bay, lay flush against a steeply sloped wall. A concrete berm ran along the far side of the shelter, providing space for a munitions dump while providing additional protection to the blast doors on the far side.

The shelter's shape never failed to remind Hiccup of an ancient Egyptian mastaba – the flat-topped trapezoidal tombs of prominent Egyptians not quite royal enough for pyramids. He shuddered, imagining what some far-future archeologist, studying, perhaps, the nuclear glasslands of Central Asia, would make of the shelter's contents.

Between the munitions, service equipment, and accommodations for crew and pilots buried deep within its concrete slopes, the hardened shelter could keep Toothless in the fight for days, even if cut off from the rest of the base by fallout or enemy attack.

The massive sloping concrete door – more of a moveable wall, really - slid open on well-oiled rails, and Toothless trundled inside as his engines cut out.

Much to their surprise, Gobber was waiting for them.

Hiccup hopped off the ladder, and made a beeline for his prosthetic-legged mentor. "Hey Gobber! What are you doing here? I thought you'd be working on deep maintenance."

Gobber laughed. "Are you daft, boy? We're in a nuclear war! If we can't get it flying in under 48 hours – that is, before the war's over – a jet is as good as dead. All hands on deck!" He rolled an inspection cart up to the avionics system, and began pulling out components as dozens of maintainers swarmed the aircraft.

"Do you have any idea what's going on? What are they saying on the news? Anything from higher headquarters?"

Gobber sighed as he checked and chucked a gizmo. "All that the local radio is saying is that there's a limited nuclear war in progress, and that residents should get to fallout shelters."

Astrid came jogging back. "Bathroom's yours." Hiccup raised a finger. "So we aren't retaliating against the Soviet Union? The war's still limited?"

Gobber shrugged. "If they let me figure that out, it wouldn't be much of a secret, eh? As far as I can tell, SAC's running the same over-the-top airborne alerts they've been running for the past week. And if that's all I can make of SAC, it's probably all the Soviets can make of SAC too."

"Hiccup's just starved for news." Astrid turned to her backseater. "Hiccup, if you don't use the bathroom soon, someone else will."

Hiccup left.

Gobber nodded. "We're all starved for news." He sighed. "How are things out there?"

Astrid shook her head. "Bad. We've pretty much carpet-nuked the mountain passes, and we counted seven one-megatonners over Assam before we headed to Central India. And we dropped… I'm guessing maybe fifty megatons worth of defense suppression all over India."

Gobber winced. This was a lot bigger than he had thought. "We're hitting central India?"

"I dunno about everyone else, but Hiccup and I hit airbases, air defenses, and maybe a few ports." She sighed. "Gobber, it was insane. We practically hit every SA-5 site we knew about with a SRAM, and we spent half our time dodging the mushroom clouds on our way back. I'd have ripped off the curtain to take a look… but the flashes just kept on coming."

"Aye, that'd have been a sight to see. Let's hope no Soviet weapons survived that. This is bad, though. I'm no analyst, but I can't see how the Soviets or Indians can walk away from this."

Astrid made a face. "Me neither."

She ran her eyes across Toothless, and took a peek at the bathroom doorway. "Gobber… when the Soviets loosed nuclear SAMs at us the day before, we lost one in three birds they shot at – and that was with a pretty badly dinged-up SAM network."

Gobber frowned. "Eh? I thought we lost one bird."

"They shot at three aircraft. We lost one. I heard the squadron next door lost two out of four."

Hiccup emerged from the bathroom.

Astrid gulped as she eyed Hiccup, who had stopped to chat with a maintenece sergeant. "In Toothless, I can evade normal SAMs. I can't always escape nuclear SAMs. If the war widens, and we have to go up against Soviet air defenses… I'm not sure we'll make it."

Gobber closed his eyes. "Well, if it comes down to that, you'll just have to trust in the first wave of defense-suppressing IRBMs, your SRAMs, and the integrity of the overall nuclear strike plan." He placed a hand on her shoulder. "The SAM sites you don't hit… someone else will hit them. The radars you don't see… somebody else is watching them. Focus on your part of the plan, and do things one step at a time. You've done this before. You can do it again."

Gobber eyed Hiccup, who gave them a cheery wave as he strode towards them. "Both of you."

Astrid swallowed, and nodded gently.

Gobber just closed his eyes.

"Hey guys! What'd I miss?" Hiccup gave Astrid a boyish grin.

Gobber spoke before Hiccup could finish studying the expression of incredulity on Astrid's face. "You two are being lined up for a plain interceptor patrol. We'll fuel Toothless up, bomb 'em up, and do some work while you two have lunch." He turned to Hiccup, and gestured to the dumplings on the folding table. "You two have a nice meal, because it'll probably be canned rations from here on out."

A fallout forecast blared across the base as the big concrete door slid shut.

=O=

Stoick glanced at his map board in horror. Across the width and breadth of the theater, dozens of red and blue markers representing Indian and Pacifican nuclear strikes pockmarked the map.

The red markers were a minority, swamped by a sea of blue.

A staff officer placed another dozen blue markers on the board. Not a single red marker had been added to the board for an hour.

Someone else came in with the latest casualty counts. The Hospital Board liaison was in for a busy day.

The Indians had managed to scrape together enough surviving tactical nuclear weapons to land a major blow against the Airborne and Mountain troops holding the disputed sectors. In both the eastern and western sectors, forward positions, supply dumps and helicopter strips had gone up in nuclear fireballs. Helicopter operations had slowed to a crawl – had it not been for Nike-Hercules SAMs and the dispersal order, they would have been wiped out entirely. Forward units were hanging on with profligate use of nuclear firepower, but their efforts were increasingly turning to survival, fallout protection, and evacuation. Out at sea, the Fifth Fleet had been mauled by the remnants of the Indian Navy, although the carriers had thankfully escaped major damage.

The only good news – if it could be called good news – was that the Indians were in even worse straits. The Indian supply system, bound much more than the airmobile Pacificans to the narrow passes of the Himalayas, had been utterly devastated by the overwhelming Pacifican nuclear counterstroke – a counterstroke that had been far larger, far better directed, and far more sustained. Pacifican tactical air operations had for the most part been untouched by the strike, and Pacifican civilian casualties virtually nil. And while panicked reports of Indian tank columns surviving nuclear artillery strikes abounded on the overworked radio nets, the overall picture was one of complete annihilation of the attacking Indians.

The massive nuclear area bombardment of Indian rear areas had been the icing on the cake for the Pacifican defenders, disrupting transport across the entire region.

Perhaps the best news was that the war was still limited. Despite the megatonnage involved, on both sides, nuclear use had been limited to military targets. Civilian collateral damage was heavy, but tolerable where nuclear war was concerned.

Heather walked up to him. "Latest reports suggest New Delhi has lost contact with its nuclear arsenal. It's not time for high-fives yet, but the guys upstairs are optimistic that we got all of them. It looks like they've stopped shooting off nukes for now."

Stoick nodded. More good news. They might actually survive this.

A staffer emerged from the videophone room. "Sir. Administration's ready for you."

Stoick sighed, and braced himself for the inevitable end for his run of good luck.

=O=

Stoick pinched the bridge of his nose in exhaustion, his eyes closed. "Mr. President, what you are asking of me will take time." Beside him, Heather jotted something down on a notepad, while General Kwok poured himself a cup of Xiangpian tea, filling the room with a comforting aroma.

On the other side of the thick, blurry videophone monitor, the President nodded. His office was noticeably emptier than usual – the Vice President had joined this conference call from a command plane somewhere, and the Treasury man was by Heather's report in a bunker under Idaho.

Someone would survive to take charge of the government, even if the President failed to evacuate Portland in time to escape a Soviet nuclear strike.

The Secretary, who had evidently elected to remain in Portland, leaned forward. "We need a freeze on tactical nuclear strikes as soon as possible, with our troops still in control of the disputed area. This was part of the plan."

General Kwok tried his best to hide his anger behind his tea cup, which he kept raised to his nose. "Contact with frontline troops is sporadic at best. Radio communications in the mountains are patchy in the best of times, and have been seriously disrupted by the nuclear environment. Some communications equipment has proven… fragile against nuclear blast, shock, and electromagnetic pulse effects. And troops in contact… cannot simply stop shooting nuclear rockets."

The Secretary spoke. "General, we're not being pansies! We have already achieved all our objectives in this limited nuclear war. We have demonstrated our ability to take the disputed territory even while under threat from the Soviet nuclear umbrella; we have dismantled the Indian air defense network and removed virtually all Soviet nuclear missiles from Indian soil; and we have firmly repulsed the Indian attempt to retake the disputed territory by means other than negotiation."

Heather choked down a laugh. An interesting way, she thought, of saying that the Indians had tried everything up to tactical nuclear war.

The Secretary continued. "As regards the credibility of our nuclear deterrent, our riposte to the Indian use of battlefield nuclear weapons was a more than adequate demonstration of Pacifican nuclear superiority, and of our ability to respond massively, effectively and proportionately to limited nuclear weapons use while keeping the conflict limited."

Fifty-four one-megaton nuclear bombs, nearly two hundred SRAMs, sixty medium-range battlefield nuclear rockets, and lord knows how many artillery shells, low-yield bombs, short-range missiles, and rocket launchers. That's some riposte.

"All our objectives have been achieved. The risk of unwanted escalation builds every minute we fail to reach a nuclear ceasefire with the Soviet Union. Every second we delay this freeze, we risk losing the very good negotiating position your men have sacrificed so much to gain for us, and worse, run the risk of global thermonuclear war – the risk of losing everything! It is time to denuclearize the conflict, and go to the next phase of the plan: Negotiation and conflict resolution. But we cannot negotiate when our nukes are still flying!" The Secretary pointed to the table for emphasis.

Steel filled the Secretary's voice. "We've won. We need a nuclear freeze now, or we will lose this war."

The Vice-President spoke. "General, your boys aren't being hung out to dry. Like you said, the Indians have had the worst of it. It doesn't sound like they're in any shape to push their advance any more than a few klicks – especially if you set off nuclear demolition charges and block the passes. Now the Joint Chiefs tell me that your boys trained for a fighting withdrawal in mountainous terrain under nuclear conditions. I know things have probably turned out differently from the exercises, but you should have a good base of experience to fall back on. And we only need troops to disengage, not withdraw."

The tactical air commander spoke. "Yes, but we need time to organize air support for the disengagement. At least three more hours to get the planes together and sort out the loss of two forward airfields."

"And scrounge around for helicopters." General Kwok added.

Stoick leaned forward. "Sir, we discussed this situation extensively at the start of the crisis, when we were running through the Tutti Frutti scenarios, and we did say that a quick nuclear freeze was feasible. However, we also expected to begin the de-escalation process at H+24, that is, twelve to twenty-four hours after the start of nuclear operations. We expected time to sort everything out, time for the Indian spearheads to run out of steam – and gas, and bullets – and time for all the frontline nukes to get used up by themselves."

The Executive Committee and the assembled military staff exchanged views in hushed tones as Stoick's words sank in.

The President spoke. "So we're all in agreement. The critical factor here is buying time for de-escalation. You boys have twelve hours to get your house in order. We'll stall for time."

"We could announce a nuclear ceasefire to begin in twelve hours, contingent on the ability of our forces to disengage." The Secretary suggested. "Or throw in 'no nuclear missiles in Pakistan'. Not much point to them anyway."

The President turned to his attaché. "Bring SAC down to DEFCON 3. Do it in the clear. Make sure the Soviets pick up on it."

Stoick's eyes opened wide. By lowering the readiness of the Pacific's strategic nuclear forces, the President was making a clear statement of intent to deescalate. It would also made SAC much more vulnerable to attack and much less capable of retaliation, but, well, that was the point. The Soviets would have to be idiots not to take the olive branch.

He nodded. "Can do, sir."

The videoscreen went dark, and a chill slithered up Heather's spine as the room burst into a frenzy of activity.

No, she did not think this was over. Something was wrong – something big. But what was it?

She shook her head. She had a nagging suspicion that the something in question was completely beyond their control – beyond anyone's control, really – and more importantly, she had a job to do.

She rushed through her tasklist, and found Stoick up to the rooftop, busy discussing something with a pair of staff officers.

She took a moment to breathe, and gazed across the airfield. Press-ganged Mountain Rescue Chinooks, chartered helicopters, and a few Air Force choppers pulled off base security duties crisscrossed the sky as they staged to the front. A Vertitruck delivered casualties to a steady stream of ambulances, their sirens blazing as they sped off to Jiegu Town Hospital. Most of the casualties would have been transferred to cargo planes at airfields nearer the battlezone, where they could be quickly shuttled to the big urban hospitals out East. With casualty estimates in the tens of thousands, those big hospitals were an absolute necessity.

A stick of fresh troops waited in line as the Vertitruck's litters were emptied. Even now, reinforcements were being fed forward in a steady stream, to replace men who had been through hell itself.

Across the field, the town of Jiegu seemed awfully quiet. Traffic in the streets was muted. The aluminum plant's smokestacks lay idle, their high-voltage equipment turned off in expectation of attack. With most of the populace retreating to the perceived safety of fallout shelters, and with the potential for fallout to disrupt operations for weeks, it was the right thing to do.

Stoick turned to Heather. "Ah, Heather! How are things holding up on your end?"

Heather smiled. "Not much yet. It'll take a few hours for the intelligence cycle to give us something to report. There's fallout coming in." She gestured to the sky, and experimentally stretched out an open palm as she checked for dust.

"A light dusting never killed anyone." Stoick chuckled. "I just wanted some fresh air before we get cooped up for a week." The forecasts were saying a few days, and they could always take showers or change clothes after going outside after the worst of the fallout passed, but the point stood.

"Good call." Heather smiled. "I've just got a bad feeling about this, that's all."

A staff officer emerged from the stairwell. "Incoming! Get inside!"

They exchanged a shocked look, and ran inside as air-raid sirens began blaring across town.

=O=