The alarm on Ryan's watch echoed through the shelter, causing both its occupants to wake slowly in the dawn light. Ryan himself yawned and checked the display lazily, 5:00 am, well; he thought, two hours to get back without being noticed. He looked down at the untidy mop of black hair that was resting on his chest, and smiled, he remembered the previous night, and bent down to kiss Julie on her forehead. She herself stirred, her eyelids batting in the sunlight, and she returned the smile.
The two pilots quickly got dressed, and made their way back to their respective barracks, ducking from the patrolling sentries and avoiding the various alarm systems. Ryan slipped into his dormitory, taking great care not to wake the other men, and silently crept into bed.
Roll call came an hour later, and after a lot of half muffled groans and considerable stumbling around, twelve half awake men walked across the deserted apron to the mess hall. Ryan gave a glance to a pair of Rapiers taking off down the runway and flying off into the grey clouds that blanketed the sky above. The airbase was almost free of aircraft now, only a few Harriers and a couple of C-17's were left, each with a handful of ground crew and fuel cables scattered around them.
After a couple of platefuls of eggs, bacon, sausages and toast, which seemed like a feast to the American pilots, who had been forced to live the last few weeks on watered down combat rations, the men walked over to the briefing rooms.
"Morning Gentlemen," said a cheery Wosley, whose feelings weren't shared by the rest of the pilots in the room. "Right then, first, we'll have a quick tour of your new aircraft, if you'll follow me please." The guys followed him out the door, across another part of the airbase, and into a large hangar. Inside were parked twelve Harriers, each one fully loaded and almost perfectly clean.
"Right," continued Wosley, walking up to the nearest Harrier, "let me introduce the latest version of the Harrier, the GR Mk 11, to the RAF, or the AV-8E to our American friends. It has many improvements, including a new ECM/ESM avionics package that can defeat almost any Russian electronic lock or jamming device, and in your mission, a chaff/flare dispenser will back this up further, and this will be located on your central pylon. A new Rolls-Royce Pegasus 300 Engine will provide you with a top speed of seven hundred and thirty miles an hour, as well as boosting your range to a combat radius of around six hundred miles. The plane also has been cleared for carrier operations, particularly from the Royal Navy's carriers and the US Navy's assault ships. Now, the weapon load you will be carrying…"
Wosley walked around the front of the aircraft, and the men glimpsed the 'bouncing bomb' for the first time. Shaped like a knocked over beer barrel, it hung clumsily under the Harrier's right wing.
"The bouncing bomb," began Wosley again, pointing to the device with his left hand. "A design based upon the Second World War weapon that the 617th used to destroy the Rhine Valley dams. But, obviously, with a few changes that our weapon laboratories can provide us with. It carries an explosive charge of just under a ton of high explosives, so it has a considerable punch. It has an inertia fuse, so when the bomb stops rolling, it detonates. It has a rapid pyrotechnic release system, so the bomb is actually launched faster than your ejector seat is, and a computerised gyroscope will make sure the bomb is deployed on a horizontal axis, so you only have to worry about flying the aircraft. Your left inner pylon contains a standard NATO six hundred gallon fuel tank, which give you a few more miles in the combat zone. Unfortunately, due to the drag restrictions of the main weapon, only two ASRAAMs can be carried on your outer pylons. Your only other weapons are your standard 30 mm Aden cannons, each with two hundred rounds of HE; so, you really need to hit the target with your bouncing bombs.
Then again, you are the best pilots in the world, so, if anyone can do it, it will be you guys. Over the next two weeks, you will undergo training to get you ready for the specific tasks and rigours of this mission. The first week will involve low-level flying over the Scottish highlands, including test shots of the bomb. The second week will involve your relocation to RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall, where you will learn how to fly from the Royal Navy's carriers. Then, hopefully, you will either deploy to the Indomitable, Invincible, or the Ark Royal, the three Royal Navy carriers that are commanding the British part of the Baltic blockade. From there, you will launch against the Soviet fleet in St Petersburg.
Anyway, there will be time for more detailed briefings in the coming days. Lets get you guys flying, shall we? Carbis?"
"Yes sir" Replied one of the RAF men, a six-foot high, brown haired man.
"Take all the guys to the Highland flight range, we'll radio instructions when you reach there. You will be given a chance to fire off your cannons, but not the bombs just yet. Good luck, men, and get these babies home."
"Yes sir," cried all the men, and each pilot went to his machine. Ten minutes later, the canopies had been closed, and the engines ignited. The hangar doors were opened, and Carbis lead the twelve machines out onto the tarmac. They waited for clearance to take off, and after five minutes or so the Harriers made their way onto the runway, trundling down the asphalt strip in pairs. It got down to Ryan and Peters, and Ryan slowly pushed his aircraft forward onto the runway. Watching the tarmac disappear through his HUD, Ryan gently pushed the nozzles to forty-five degrees, letting the jets push the aircraft forward and upward, and after fifty yards or so of rolling down the runway, the Harrier took to the air and entered its natural element.
After half an hour and roughly two hundred miles, the twelve Harriers flew into the Highland flight range. Ryan heard the radio beep into life as Carbis's voice sounded in over the intercom.
"Okay, listen up everyone, firstly we will undertake low-level flying, to get used to how our new crates handle, then we will practice refuelling, and finally, we will go to the Kenknock Firing range and let off a few 30mm rounds, is everyone clear on that?" There was a universal call of agreement. "Good, we will be flying down the Narlochley valley, so get your TFR's on, and follow me." With that, he banked the plane steeply and headed sideways along a high ridge, followed by the rest of the British airmen. Ryan hesitated slightly, before sighing loudly and following them.
Ryan immediately found the aircraft slow going, the bomb seriously limiting the performance, despite the new designs and improvements. The plane turned sluggishly, even when helped by the thrusters, and most of the squadron realised that if Russian fighters caught them, they were going to find themselves at the wrong end of a Commie missile. Nevertheless, everyone survived, more and less, and twenty minutes later twelve Harriers emerged from the mountaintops, ready for the next task.
After flying down the valley, refuelling was easy. Two Hercules tankers providing the spare fuel, and pretty soon everyone's tank were filled again. Now they flew north again, before dropping once more onto the firing range. This was little more than a field with a number of moving and stationary targets representing enemies. Pairs of Harriers would descend: fire off maybe two or three dozen rounds of ammunition at various targets, before flying back up again, and asking their wingmen how well they had done. The British airman, who had used this range hundreds of times before, did considerably better than their American counterparts, although Ryan wasn't particularly bothered, and he was quite content when the last rounds had been fired and they could all fly back to the base.
The next week consisted of much the same thing, except with the addition of 'bouncing bomb training', where they launched mock up and real bombs against old boats on the numerous small reservoirs that dotted the English countryside. News from the American front was scarce on British TV, why this was nobody knew, but the reports that came through were not good, and added a new urgency to the operation. Ryan also found he couldn't contact Julie either. He had been told that she had returned to England but at another airbase, somewhere down south. He tried a number of times to contact her, but she seemed to be flying or somewhere different to where he had been told. It was seriously beginning to annoy him.
On the other hand, the men in the squadron were really beginning to gel, and a proper introduction was made between the two parties. Along with Carbis was another six-footer, an old Etonian named Mark Philips, then a shorter, stereotypical red haired Scotsman by the name of Denis Campbell. There was also a thin, blond guy who had transferred from 11 Squadron, John Thornton-Ross, and a shaven haired guy with an Irish accent, by the name of Roy O'Shane. The last two were Londoners, Paul Toole, and Brian Heathcoat. Both had the traditional, if light cockney accents and sense of humour.
So the week passed, and the squadron was preparing for its last night at this base before moving to Culdrose in the morning. Their kitbags were packed, and the Harriers were ready and fuelled up. Another set of aircraft had arrived, and Ryan hoped that Julie was going to be flying one of them.
He was surprised when he finally found her, standing with a few other pilots outside the mess hall just after dinner. Instead of in her civilian flight uniform, she now sported a full fighter pilot's outfit, including a flak vest and tactical helmet.
"Hi babe," said Ryan, as she walked closer, "what you doing in that get up then?"
"Well," she said, with a smile, "as it will be likely that after your raid, the Soviet empire will launch an attack against America's European allies, so I thought I'd join up fully, and well, I have been assigned to the 110th Squadron, flying Typhoon fighter aircraft in the air defence role, so, I will be doing something more constructive with my skills I think."
"Oh," said a surprised Ryan, "right, well, if that's what you want, I suppose, anyway, what's the situation back in the States, I can't seem to get much out of the information services here?"
"Not good I'm afraid, from what I've heard and seen. Baton Rouge fell, I'm sorry to say, two days ago, after a huge battle, and the Commies now control the bulk of the southern US. God, I feel so sorry for you guys, you've been hit as hard as we were a few years ago. Anyway, enough about the war, its depressing, so, erm, how are you?"
"Fine, as always, and you?" Ryan looked apprehensive, the expression on his face betraying his feelings.
"Good, good." She replied, her mouth breaking into a weak smile, "so, what you doing now then?"
"Nothing?" Replied an intrigued Ryan.
"Good" replied Julie, "I don't think we have much time together, I have to be redeployed in the morning to Molesbury, quickly, come with me." She grabbed his hand and pulled him over to an empty hangar.
"Damn, and there was me thinking English girls were frigid." Said Galloway, throwing a glance at the retreating pair.
"Lucky sod", replied Carbis, looking at the departing couple, before turning to the rest of the squadron, "you guys ready then? Good, lets get some sleep, we got a long day tomorrow."
The next morning came far too quickly for Carbis as he walked back to the barracks, but, then again, he thought, it was one of the best going away presents he had ever received, and he chuckled to himself as he walked into the dorm. To his surprise, a few of the other men were awake at this early hour. Galloway was writing a letter to his wife back in Ohio, whilst O'Brien and Campbell were busy with a game of chess. Only Galloway looked up as Ryan entered the room, before giving a nod and settling back down with his letter. Ryan settled into his bunk, thinking about a number of things that kept going through his head. What would happen when he completed the mission? Would he complete the mission? What would happen to Julie if there were a war? These thoughts kept him awake until the morning roll call, and only with heavy persuasion did he get out of bed again.
Doing the now usual crawl over to the mess hall, the squadron sat down to their usual breakfast routine. Carbis buried himself in a copy of the day's The Times, whilst the rest of the men talked about the day's schedule. The morning sky was sunny and clear, cheering up the men slightly, but getting on the nerves of the two officers in the Radar Operations room.
The stifling heat, with the room's sealed nature preventing the air from circulating, as well as restricting any cool breezes, annoyed both men. Each was relatively new, but both were very well trained, and what they lacked in experience they usually made up in enthusiasm. Not today however. Their screens remained devoid of activity, apart the occasional CAP aircraft zooming in and out of range.
The man looking at the screen, a Lieutenant Fisher, wasn't therefore unduly concerned when a red 'unidentified' blip appeared at the edge of his map. He merely made a comment to the other officer, Captain Ruddle, to run a quick IFF scan on the target.
Then the single red blip became three, then six, then ten, and then Ruddle yelled back that the contacts were hostile. Fisher dropped his drink onto the floor, before whacking the alarm and picking up the telephone to the control room.
Back in the mess hall, the men had just risen when the alarm sounded.
"All aircrew to their aircraft immediately. This is a code red scramble. All personnel to battle stations. This is not an exercise, all per…" The pilots didn't need to hear anymore. They rushed out the door and to their parked aircraft. The ground crew had already removed the long-range fuel tanks, and replaced them with AMRAAMs. Each aircraft, as its pilot buckled in and ran their emergency checks, were each equipped with two ASRAAMs and two AMRAAMS. This load, although low in weight, allowed the Harriers to take off vertically almost as soon as they had left the hangar. Pretty soon the squadron was airborne, along with the only other fighter squadron available, comprising of sixteen Hawk trainers, each with a similar armament to the Harrier's own weapon load.
"This is control. We have at least fifty unidentifiable hostiles coming in from bearing 0-9-0, altitude 500 feet, speed approximately five hundred miles an hour. ETA is 90 seconds. Get ready."
"Will do," replied Carbis, before speaking himself. "Right men. Looks like the Commies want to gatecrash our party, well, we will teach them to mix with the best. Check your aircraft are fully ready, and remember to stick in formation, and also don't go after lone bandits on your own, it may be a trap. We will maintain radio silence for emergency transmissions only. Good luck, and lets kick some Soviet ass."
"Yes sir," yelled every man, particularly the Americans. They were ready for combat.
"Here they come!" Cried Campbell, and Ryan himself could just make out a couple of red dots on the horizon. The red dots soon became larger and more numerous, and the attacking formation looked like a swarm of angry red bees.
"Lock on with your AMRAAMs, lets try getting a few of these sods before they bite us." Ryan looked threw his HUD, checking each target. He watched the green circles around the planes turn to yellow as his wingmen locked on. He chose a MiG 29 that was flying straight at his Harrier. The little green circle round it changed to yellow as Ryan selected it, and the words 'Target Locked' appeared on the HUD. He was ready.
"Ready" cried Carbis's voice through the intercom, the only other noise apart from the hum of the engine. Ryan clicked off the safety catch on the trigger with his thumb.
"Aim." Ryan depressed the trigger.
"Fire." He released the button, and he felt the aircraft jolt as the missile dropped and fired off towards his foe. Ryan watched the vapour trail as it sped off towards the MiG. The enemy pilot saw the missile, Ryan observed, and tried to turn. The missile struck the rear of the plane as it was banking, and the force of the blast ripped the plane in two, the engines going one way, the cockpit in another. Ryan congratulated himself silently as the flaming wreckage fell to the ground. He spotted a dozen more MiGs bursting into flames or sporting black smoke and spinning towards the ground. A few white parachutes bloomed into the morning sky.
A flash of cannon fire that flew past Ryan's canopy reminded him he still had work to do. He spotted a pair of MiG 27s disappearing under his starboard wing. He banked steeply to the right, and fond himself on the two aircrafts' tail. They were heading towards the airbase, and each carried numerous bombs under its wings. Ryan opened the throttle and closed in on the pair, who seemed oblivious to his machine. Ryan fired off a burst of 30mm, and the two MiGs bolted in opposite directions. Ryan took chase of the one the dived to his left, and fired another burst, this time along the MiGs intended route. Several of the rounds ripped into the aircraft's fuselage and tail plane. Black smoke began pouring from the rear of the plane. Ryan watched as the canopy blew open and the pilot ejected into the air above. The MiG 27 then bank slowly left before heading into a dive.
Ryan scanned the sky for his next prey, before spotting a Hawk burst into flames a couple of hundred metres away from him. He pulled back on the stick and the Harrier went upside down. Ryan corrected it, before spotting a MiG 29 bearing down on another Hawk. Despite the smoke and weapons fire from both sides; Ryan dived down on the unsuspecting Russian. He switched to the ASRAAM missiles, and pointed the Harrier at the attacking MiG. The ASRAAM immediately picked up the 29's white-hot engines, and he released the missile. The Soviet plane, spotting it was under attack, released a flare, but it was too late. Despite not scoring a direct hit, shrapnel from the ASRAAM caused enough damage to wreck the MiG's control surfaces. Ryan watched, quite surprised, as the MiG put its landing gear down as a sign of surrender, and so Ryan turned to more pressing problems.
Another 29 had got onto his tail in the meantime, and had locked on its own radar guided missile, Ryan pulled back on the stick as he activated the chaff dispenser. The MiG fired, and the missile sped towards Ryan's aircraft, before banking towards the cloud of metal released by the fleeing Harrier. Ryan felt his plane jolt violently as the missile exploded below him, but a quick check of his control panel told him there was no damage to either his engines or his controls. He then grabbed the nozzle control column and turned them to vertically down. Ryan was pinned to his seat as the Harrier lost several hundred feet per second in its horizontal flight and instead powered upwards. The MiG 29 flew right underneath the Harrier, and the latter's targeting computer locked onto the 29 immediately. Ryan watched in amazement however, as a red trail zoomed in from behind him and hit the MiG directly in the engines. The Soviet aircraft was completely consumed in a great fireball, bits of debris flying out in all directions. Ryan looked on as another Harrier flew past his cockpit, which he instantly recognised as Carbis's.
Ryan grumbled into his mouthpiece, but Carbis signalled him to pull alongside. Ryan could seed the remaining MiGs flying off into the distance. The base itself was burning rapidly, and a large number of smaller fires bore testament to the fallen aircraft of both sides. Seeing his fuel supply being rapidly depleted of its last few pounds of fuel, Ryan landed the plane clumsily on the runway. He quickly got out of the aircraft, did a quick scan to check for any damage, before running over to Carbis's plane as it was landing. The two pilots were soon joined by their comrades as the aircraft returned. Pretty soon all the squadron was on the ground, and were busily exchanging conversation about their combat performances.
"I got two 29's easily," said Campbell jovially.
"I bagged a trio of 27's, but did you see the Hawk who got it?" said Thornton-Ross, looking worriedly at the landing Hawks behind the group. They counted only thirteen machines.
"Three must have copped it," muttered Toole, "poor sods."
The mess was subdued that night; the Hawk pilots were openly depressed at the loss of their comrades. The whole station gave a salute to them the next morning; when the 1st AAF was finally ready to fly out. The twelve harriers gave a flypast for the men, Ryan looking down at the scarred ground below where most of the station was on burial detail. He sat back into his seat once the base disappeared round the back of his canopy.
"It was a lot worse last time," muttered Carbis through the squadron intercom, though Ryan guessed the comments were aimed at him. "Sometimes we would come back and be the only ones left, you know?"
"Yeah," replied a crestfallen Ryan, "how many of the commie bastards did we get anyway?"
"28, with another two possible, not bad for three losses."
"Hmm, not bad, at least we avenged those poor guys. You know, in one engagement back home, with nine aircraft with two loses on our part, we shot down thirty six aircraft and Kirovs."
"Yeah, we once got forty four with thirteen aircraft and three loses during the last war. Despite their numbers, the Soviet training regime is terrible, and one on one you'll come out on top easily. Its just there is so many of them, it's like fighting a wasps nest sometimes."
"Uh huh, I know exactly what you mean." Ryan's mind returned to the battle at Dalhart.
One hour and four hundred miles later, twelve Harriers landed somewhat gracelessly on the runways at Culdrose, before the ground crew directed them into their individual Hardened Aircraft Shelters. Several scarred and burnt out buildings indicated that this base had been hit as well. Soon all the aircrews were heading towards the control tower, and all of them met up again outside the building.
Then Ryan spotted something else that made him look astonished to the rest of the squadron. A mile down from the airbase was the shipyards at Falmouth. It was full to the brim with massive eight-hundred-foot-plus battleships and aircraft carriers. The nearest, which looked both odd, with three massive three-gun turrets on the foredeck, and old, with the paint peeling off the sides and rust setting in all over the hull. 'HMS Nelson' was the ships name.
A massive crane was towering above the hull, chains clamped around the third turret, ready to remove it. Tomahawk missile launchers were ready on the dockside to replace it. Most of the secondary guns had either been replaced or in the process of being replaced by Phalanx 20mm Vulcan cannons in a CIWS suite, and the radar masts were also being modernised. The old veteran ships were being modernised to fight again, and despite their age, Ryan bet they could take on any other warship in the world.
"There" Carbis pointed to one of the aircraft carriers. "That's one like we'll be flying from. That's the 'Indefatigable'; she's being fitted out now and will be finished in a month. The one next to her is the 'Illustrious', she's being modernised, and she'll be back in action in about three months. We need every single ship we can get our hands on. Luckily though, the government only put the survivors of the last war in reserve, so, we have a fleet of ships that only need modernisation, thankfully. I tell you what, when they're up and running, we will be able to obliterate anything else on the waves."
The aircrews then turned round and walked back to the control tower.