“While they are preoccupied with Turkey, we will launch a massive preemptive strike, along the same mission plan as before. We can circle with ease over Turkey?after all, all of their interceptors will be otherwise occupied at that time, will they not?”
“Truly brilliant,” Yuri said numbly. The weapons load?what would he be launching with?
Another nuclear weapon?
It bothered him, even though the tactical first use of tactical nuclear weapons was well established in their military thought. It had always been viewed as a normal part of any battle for the Soviet Union?and now Ukraine?to take an aggressive posture against any force by introducing overwhelming force at the earliest possibility. Tactical nuclear weapons had always been part of that plan.
But why wouldn’t they tell him?
If it were truly in accordance with military doctrine, and truly a part of the Ukraine’s national military strategy, then why weren’t officers allowed to know that?
Why were they launched blindly, carrying weapons about which they’d been inadequately briefed?
And what were the possibilities of collateral damage?
In particular, to his own aircraft. Had he not immediately dived low and put airspace between himself and the first launch, there was a good chance that the EMP would have wiped out the avionics on his aircraft as well. He shuddered at the thought of being downed by his own weapon.
Yuri stood, carefully concealing the confusion whirling in his brain.
“It will be an honor, of course,” he said, saluting sharply. “I will go prepare for briefing immediately.”
“Where the hell is the carrier?” Bird Dog fumed. “Dammit, she’s-“
“She’s a little busy right now,” Gator pointed out mildly. “You think there’s a possibility of mines ahead, you wanna be real careful where you take your only airport. Makes sense to me.”
“Me too, I suppose,” Bird Dog admitted. “But dammit, we’re going to be getting low on fuel before long.”
The Tomcat, along with twenty other fighters off the carrier, was loitering just inside the Black Sea. Shiloh and Jefferson were supposed to be through the Strait by now, their reliefs launching from the ready deck.
At least that was the plan before the whole situation went to shit.
“Besides, we’ve got a tanker airborne,” Gator continued. “The Hornets are already sucking down,” Bird Dog said grimly. “Thirsty little bastards, they are.”
“I heard that,” the sharp voice over the tactical circuit snapped. “We ain’t thirsty, we just got a high metabolism. Accounts for all that muscle, you know.”
Gator laughed. “Muscle, huh? The only muscle you’ve got is from doing push-ups on the flight deck.”
“That’s Thor,” Bird Dog said, disgusted. “Goddamn Marines ought not to be flying?they ought to be down in the mud, like they’re supposed to be. Do you know what the Army calls the Marines? Pop-up targets.”
“Funny guy. There’ll be enough mud up here, if it comes to that,” Thor pointed out. “Besides, against one of those little MiG bastards, you want a Hornet. Not a Tomcat.”
Bird Dog yanked the Tomcat back into a steep climb, effectively reducing his speed over ground to zero. The jet rocketed up, its high power-to-weight ratio sending it screaming past the lighter Hornet.
“Muscle, huh?can you do this?”
“Bird Dog, cut it out.” Gator’s voice was sharp. “Gas ain’t something we wanna be wasting up here. Get back down to most economical loiter speed.”
Reluctantly, Bird Dog leveled off into stable flight. The Hornet, which had given chase, was still five thousand feet below him. “If he wants a muscle car, he ought to be in a Tomcat. Not that lightweight piece of shit.”
“You got a thing about wingmen?” another voice snapped over the circuit. “Because if you do, you’d better tell me now.”
“Oh, shit,” Bird Dog groaned. “I forgot about the kid.”
“Didn’t forget?just decided not to think about it, right?” Gator said out loud, his voice barely audible in the cockpit.
“Whatever.” Bird Dog flipped one lazy hand toward the backseat. “Don’t know why I have to be baby-sitting him. Damned nugget’s just on the boat a week.”
“Because this is a training mission. At least that’s what it was briefed as. That’s the only reason you’re flying, you know. And me too.”
Gator’s voice was infinitely patient. Over the last several cruises, he’d been a prime baby-sitter himself, keeping his feisty young lieutenant pilot in check from the backseat.
Baby-sitting?if anybody knew anything about that, it was Gator.
“Still, I don’t see why we have to do it,” Bird Dog continued, blithely oblivious to Gator’s sarcasm. “After all, you and I are the most experienced combat pilots around.”
“For now.”
Skeeter’s slow Southern drawl was grim. “That crap about baby-sitting?from what I hear, you need one yourself. Sir.”
“He’s got you, Bird Dog,” Gator said, laughing. “Any pilot who’d go off and leave his wingman needs one.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,” Bird Dog muttered. He glanced down at the fuel gauge again. His stupid little stunt had cost him more than he wanted to admit. “Let’s go see if we can hit the tanker, how about it?”
“On your wing,” Skeeter chimed in. “We could use some too.”
“Skeeter, the only thing I want to hear from you from here on out are two things: the word ‘two,’ acknowledging my directions, or the phrase ‘Lead, you’re on fire.’ You got that?”
“Two.”
The other Tomcat moved in closer, glued itself into the appropriate position on Bird Dog’s wing, and cycled through the gentle turn toward the carrier with him.
Gator flipped over to the ICS. When he was certain that no one else could hear him, he said, “Bird Dog, sometimes you are such an asshole.”
Yuri walked out of the hangar and paused for a moment to survey the aircraft arrayed up and down the flight line. A slight breeze blew in off the Black Sea, warm and humid in the temperate early fall. The dull roar of aircraft engines turning over, winding up into a high-pitched feral scream, filled the air, accompanied by the sharp staccato of aircraft maintenance workers and technicians. Aviation fuel mixed with salt air, forming the peculiar tang he always associated with this base.
His MiG was parked at the end of the line, away from the rest of the aircraft. A junior technician stood a lackadaisical guard watch over it.
Yuri headed for his aircraft, walking slowly to survey the other craft parked along the line in order to later compare them with his own bird.
The MiG-31 was not a radical departure from previous airframes?lighter, packed with advanced avionics, with a peculiar jutting radar dome near the front. Her skin was smooth and bright, washed daily to prevent the salt air from corroding her. She was still new, so new that no maintenance dings and dents marred her finish. The patina laid down by the factory still glistened in the sun.
He exchanged a few words with the guard, then dismissed him. No one had attempted to approach the aircraft. Despite the alleged secrecy of the project, almost everyone on the flight line knew that there was something special about this bird. Even if the rumor mill had not been operating at full force, the presence of an armed guard alongside the bird would have sparked their curiosity.
He pulled out his laminated checklist and began the preflight. Tires, struts?he jiggled each fuselage panel to make sure it was securely latched. He paused at the weapons hung on the wing, checking the safety streamers plugged into the firing circuit. His plane captain accompanied him.
Plane captain. Spy, most likely. Ukrainian politics intruded on almost every aspect of a pilot’s life. No doubt the secret police got regular reports on his conduct around his aircraft. If his political reliability were ever called into
