"Morning sir!" the MP saluted to CINC-NORAD at the entrance to Cheyene mountain.
"Morning lieutenant." CINC-NORAD nodded in response, feeling foolish that he didn't know the kids name. It was the same guard that stood there every morning. CINC-NORAD, unlike most generals, drove himself to work. He let so many things be done for him, it was such a small pleasure now to drive to work every day like a normal citizen.
President Becerra had not at all been happy with the activation of a European orbital THEL along their eastern front. Of course CINC-NORAD had been woken up at the crack of dawn to hold a video conference with him and the chiefs of staff (who were three hours ahead in DC and as perky as they could be). A two hour long meaningless debate about what that could mean (what it meant in CINC-NORAD's opinion was that the Euros were getting their asses handed to them) and eventually culminated in the decision that the ASU-196 stealth satellite should be moved into position to monitor the Eastern front of the war.
ASU-196 was one of two US satellites in the world with stealth capability. It was small, it had very few retros and very little fuel and borrowed the same stealth concepts pioneered by the F-22, all perfectly angled (both planetward and spaceward) and coated with a mix of radar absorbent and solar absorbent material made it nearly impossible to see on the ground and impossible to detect from orbit. The imaging equipment on it however, was primitive by the days standards. It used a white hot-thermal imaging that could only discern large troop movements and thermal blooms of factory plants or missile launches. It was adequate for its job profile which was discrete imaging of targets (in NORAD, it was backhandedly known as the "pedofile") and after the meeting, a very grumpy CINC-NORAD had made the call for the eastern seaboard team to deploy the satellite over the Agean Sea because "American Eagle" wanted to keep an eye on their Israeli allies as well.
"Is everything right for the world?" CINC-NORAD barked as he strode into the Ops Center and tossed his coat onto an open chair.
"Nothings right with the world!" the young folk responded.
"Okay people, you know the drill, at 2100 today we will be conducting anti missile drills along the eastern seaboard."
"Yes sir!" the Ops crew responded as one.
"carry on!" CINC NORAD checked the email for more details one last time. Becerra was worried that the Europeans might get desperate and deploy subs to launch ballistic nuclear tipped missiles across the eastern seaboard. Not if NORAD was here to defend them of course. He'd be throwing his team lots of curveballs today, starting with possibly a scattered launch where the KinWeps platforms had to engage several targets at once, possibly an overwhelming strike, an EMP burst that might knock out the satellites…
It was an affair that was designed to be grueling. CINCNORAD would make sure it was grueling, it was the only exciting thing that happened around here.
"We have them on the run!" the two star in charge of 103rd mechanized said with a careful amount of glee in his voice. General Bankole nodded and hid the smile behind his stoic demeanour.
"Good work. Cleanse the Russians from our land General."
"With pleasure sir." The general nodded and winked out of the display.
Bankole brought up the map of the eastern front. Everything had swung in Europe's favor overnight, a massive air raid in the North had forced the Russians to deploy more air assets there and deny them to Hanburg where what was left of the Polish pilots were wreaking havoc on Russian supply dumps and air assets.
Hanburg itself was divided in two by a long line of glass but even now the enemy were being pushed back and the satellite Uplinks were being secured. The computer virus's had been removed so as to allow the crews of the sat uplinks to work at their peak efficiency. The Russians were on the run.
Andreyev, at times, looked back to his days as a boy hunting wolves on the harsh wastes of Siberia. His grandfather had been a sniper in the Great Patriotic war and had taught Andreyev his craft well.
"Wolves are hunters." He had whispered in the cold darkness as the pair waited in the forest. "You do not hunt them, you let yourself be hunted."
It had made such little sense at the time, the young Sasha had thought the old man had lost his wits. But on that day, he had learned an important lesson. Grandfather had taken his Mosin Nagat sniper, a weapon that he had killed many germans with, leaving the young Andreyev to tend to the fire and dinner. Grandfather had shot an elk earlier and had done the gutting and cleaning himself and the smells carried into the forest.
A wolf pack had tracked the smells to the camp and ringed Andreyev around a tree…
A shot rang out felling one of the wolves. The pack scrambled away as Grandfather appeared from the darkness, his face rubbed with soot to blur his outline.
"Always know boy, that when you are hunted, you can always become a more dangerous hunter with the right bait." Andreyev learned that lesson well.
Granted he never trusted his Grandfather to take him camping ever again, but he had learned it well.
General Izotov had sent him a terse flash message from Moscow
CONGRATULATIONS GENERAL ANDREYEV, LEADER OF THE 24TH MOTORIFLE SPETSNAZ GUARD BRIGADE.
It was a few moments to understand that he had been promoted. He also understood suddenly, that he was being given full release to use his Hydrogen FAE missile. The European counter attack was fierce, pushing his forward units out of the city and back to the outskirts, so Andreyev had directed his reserve units to pull back and told his frontline units to hold position and prepare to counterattack. The operation he had in mind would be complex and he conversed quickly with his comrade in the air force to prepare.
"If this attack is to work, we will need to ensure that the Europeans can't recover from the hit. That means air superiority and lots of it. This operation is of the utmost importance for the Rodina, we must have victory."
"How much do you require?" the General of the 26th close air regiment did not forget that the Spetsnaz were still under direct control of the SVU intelligence service and their zampolit.
"All of it."
It was something different for once. They were advancing. And they weren't running to do it, that was something. Sopot had never felt so elated in the war. He grabbed a hot meal, the Bratwurst in Hanburg was excellent and a few citizens here still did things the old traditional way, butchering pigs and taking the meat out to smoke in their huts before cooking and serving them with saurkraut and a pint.
Sopot hadn't had a pint in weeks and the fiery German beer was almost as good as Polish Vodka. The bratwurst wasn't a kielbasa but it was good nonetheless. Poland, Sopot's home would be retaken in a matter of weeks. If they were long, good, if they were hard excellent; he'd kill more Russians then.
His platoon stood easy along a destroyed street marked with craters and rubble from falling mortar fire. They teased the engineers who were busy repaving them and couldn't stop for a drink because their superior officer was watching.
"Captain." Sopot turned to see the Portugeause Lieutenant in charge of Fourth squad walk up to him and hand him a sheet of paper. Sopot drained his pint before reading it slowly.
"We have a few hours." Sopot said and handed back the mobilization orders. Yes it felt good to be advancing, and he and his men deserved respite from all the battles.
But he couldn't return home, not yet. Home would soon become a battlefield again, and he wondered what had become of his girlfriend. He hadn't thought about her in weeks and felt guilty because of it. He walked into one of the still servicible internet café's and checked his email for the first time and saw all the unread messages. They were filled with love and gave Sopot more hope. She had gotten away safely and was in the refugee camps by Rammstein. Sopot hoped he could see her soon.
Before he logged off he shot off an email to his superiors explaining that he and his men needed rest. His casualties had been light and the six men out of the 100 commando platoon would be sorely missed, but they were remembered here by the smiling faces and cheery swigs as all Europeans here reveled in the bitter German drink.
"We have them." The SVU lieutenant sighed as she approached the final set of firewalls.
"they surely can't shut us out now, even if they begin an active defense." She said.
"good." The colonel in charge of the electronics suite rubbed her shoulders. "I will tell the general that we can begin a Post crash of the Hanburg Uplinks. How long will that be?"
"A few hours at most. Six I would estimate." The girl shrugged and mopped her brow.
"Go out for a short break Comrade." The Russian colonel said, "all of you, go. No vodka yet, we need to be sharp."
"Ramps in thirty" the radio call came out, and a few of the Mossad SF operatives checked their kit one last time.
"We'll be going in fast." The Captain in charge of the operations said. "And with chemical warfare gear. The area around the silo's is still irradiated so I want everyone to stay in their suits and keep with minimal exposure. I don't like sleeping with night lights in the barracks."
That brought a round chuckle. Issad raised his hand.
"Sir, is it possible that we do not wear them? These suits will hamper our movement and we've never accessed the layouts of the area before, we've never done dry runs-" he choked off as he understood the gravity of the situation. The intel was dicey to say the least and the reason why Special Forces were usually so good at what they did was mainly because they practiced endlessly. Urban fighting wasn't ever really taught it was practiced and the only difference between practicing and real warfare in Issad's experience was that the enemy actually shot back. Mossad SF practiced with live rounds and their shooting was perfect.
But raiding a nuclear launch silo was something even the Mossad had never prepared for, but expected them to learn on the fly. Literally in this case.
"We will compensate." The captain said stiffly probably noting that Issad was Palestinian by birth. So some still didn't trust him, even if he had fought side by side so loyally? This would be his crucible then. After this operation called COVENANT, no one could deny that he had tried to save Israel.
"If you have to stay outside for more than ten minutes you will absorb enough Alpha radiation particles to kill you. Do not let that happen. Once we hit the ground each team will attack the complexes through the entrance tunnels and split into their respetive fireteams. One will head toward the nuclear launch control to disable launch protocols, the other to destroy the rockets themselves. The rockets are two stage supersonic ballistic missiles so they will be toughened, roughly half a kilo of semtex should create a large enough hole in the missiles that should they launch they will spill too much fuel and land in the wastes of Iraq.
Issad quickly did the mental math. The entire 200 man SF brigade was operating here, and if each team were taking a target…there had to be at least twenty silos to destroy. That meant enough missiles to glass Israel six times over if they each carried multiple nuclear warheads (which they would, the Iranians had copied the American ballistic missile designs in so many ways).
"We go in heavy, all of us." The captain said. "Extra ammunition, reconnaissance spheres, future force gear, heartbeat sensors and disruptors. Shoot straight men, Israel is counting on you."