// 400KM North of the Thitu Reefs, South China Seas
Lt. "Bear" Jenson flew his plane with an expert touch. A member of
the F-14 fighter fraternity, part of him would never accept the fact that
very soon the Tomcat would fade into aviation history. Performing
admirably since their introduction nearly three decades ago, they were
simply too old now.
"I can hear you thinking again, Bear" his RIO, Lt. "Hawkeye" Sharpe
interrupted. "You still going on about transition training?"
"How can I not, man! All my life, I've dreamed of flying the F-14, and
nothing else. Now, they politicos are saying, 'thanks for all your hard
work, but we're getting you in something better, see you back in school!'
How may times have they told us that?"
"Progress, man, progress. The Rhino is a beaut. I got a friend that
had a hand in her OPEVAL. She's one hot piece!"
"What's the Delta not got that the Rhino does, huh? The new engines
are a beaut, she's finally getting the capabilities they never put in... Man!"
"Okay, pipe down you two! Skull Flight!" a voice suddenly cut into the
banter. Lt. Jenson groaned. Lt. Cmdr. "Cleeves" Vincent, squadron
commander of the VF-103 Jolly Rogers was known to be business, all
business, and nothing but business. "Must be desperate to hit the
promotion boards," Bear muttered to himself, though he'd never say it in
public. "Hawkeye, give me a readout."
"A lot of air search radars up, I got a faint read on an X-band, maybe 60
nautical miles away, nothing to worry about. Nowhere near lock-on
values."
"Anything on your IRSTSs?"
"Negative air, but we got our meat down there... yeah, I see 'em! Two
o'clock low."
And what Lt. Sharpe saw was the new Chinese aircraft carrier, Chung
Jung (Long March). 60,000 tons of steel and guns... and a complete
shock to the world community. All the pilots shared the lament of another
intelligence failure of shocking proportions. All estimates had placed the
hull, formerly known as the Varyag, as worth less than scrap metal value.
"Can't tell at this range, but looks like we got us a few Luhais, a few
Jiangweis, and ... Jesus, are those Sovremennys?!"
"Sov Sovremennys? You sure?"
"Doubled-checked it myself, it's a damned Sov ship!" Hawkeye said.
"Well that makes things interesting," Vincent commented to himself. His
flight of Tomcats were under orders to approach the Chinese battlegroup
in a 'friendly' sort of way, with strict provisions of no hostile actions or
provocations. With the Soviet ships in the mix, it changed everything.
"Commander, your six!" Bear suddenly screamed, and for a very good
reason. "Break, Lead, break, bandit at your six! Shit, I'm out of
position!"
Coming from nowhere, a MiG-29K, the naval variant of the famed fourth
generation Soviet fighter, suddenly had climbed up to Skull Flight's
altitude, not more than 20 meters away from Lt. Cmdr Vincents tail,
known in fighter pilot's parlance as his 'six.'
* * *
Captain Sofia Irinovna of the Soviet Northern Fleet, Naval Air Force's
cruel, twisted smile formed behind her oxygen mask. It had worked as
the scientists had said, the flight of Tomcats had not detected her, nor had
the Americans' vaunted E-2C Hawkeye. Long used to playing games with
the Americanski that arrogantly sailed the Atlantic, she knew how quickly
their fighters reacted if an enemy was approaching, especially from
behind. But this time...
It would have been so easy. The second generation ECS mounted on her
MiG had hidden her completely visually and electronically in broad
daylight. They never saw her, much less had time to react if she had
fired her R-73s, known as the Archer by the Imperialist West, GRU has
said. "Clever," she thought.
She still had a bit of admiration for their naval pilots; the two F-14s went
into simultanious barrel rolls in opposite directions, to break any possible
lock-ons or launches made at them. She had no doubt they were now
changing their underwear after she had appeared so suddenly. The voice
over her encrypted radio circuit broke into her train of thought.
"Captain! Captain, did you see it? The Americanskis!"
"Yes, Viktor. I saw it."
"Captain, they did not even know. I will disengage my ECS system
now and we will..."
"Negative, Viktor. Remain unseen. We will not show all our cards just
yet. That is a direct order!" Normally the last sentence would be
unnecessary, but her wingman, Lieutenant-Pilot Viktor Suavrov was
something of a hot-head, and eager to please, especially around
her. "Male pilots," she thought testily. "Give them a plane, or a beautiful
woman, and they will behave no better than dogs." Of which she had
ample first-hand experience. Thr first female Soviet front-line pilot since
the Great Patriotic War, men always clustered around her, crowding out
her space. During advanced flight training, several overeager comrades
had caused a near accident when jet wash had caused the engines on her
plane to flame-out. Their explanation was 'mistaken judgement of
distances and closing speeds.'
Her current assignment to the Pacific seemed to speak of her superiors'
assement she was more valuable as a walking, talking ornament than a
serious combat pilot. One KGB officer, feeling alittle full of his vodka,
made the comment that the Chinese had their weaknesses for women,
for which Sofia would be amply valuable. He came within two seconds
of swallowing his glass with his vodka had her squadron commander not
held her back.
"But, Captain! You saw! You saw that they cannot see us! I am
disengaging ECS now!"
"Negative!" Sofia screamed. "Do it, and I will shoot you down myself, do
you hear me, Viktor! We have work to do than fulfilling your fantasies of
making up for your less-than-adequate plumbing!" That immediately shut
him up. Freed of that distraction, she began phase two of her mission.
Flipping a switch not normally found on production-model MiG-29Ks,
she advanced her throttles slightly to match pace with the F-14s. The
Americanskis were playing it very cool. So far, so good she
thought. Play the game, show them you are harmless and they will be
as sheep. Turning her head and raising her hand, she gave the F-14s
a friendly wave, while the onboard computer did its work.
* * *
"Damn, aren't we one cool bugger," Lt. Cmdr. Vincent commented.
"Skipper, he just showed up, like... outta nowhere."
"Hummer 1! Did you have him?"
"Negative," came the reply. "Please reconfirm."
"I say again, a MiG just came up on my six, I got no warning,
Hummer 1! Please confirm!" Which was a friendly way of saying
'what the hell are you smoking over there?'
"Wait one."
"Great!" Lt. Cmdr. Vincent fought the urge to swear, it wouldn't have
been professional, but after a fright like this. What the hell is going on
here he thought to himself.
* * *
"Data read... good! I have a clean data read." Sofia said. "Test
successful. Mission accomplished."
"Roger, Knight One. Return to base at your discretion." The voice
clicked off.
"At my discretion, huh?" That certainly left her some possibilities, but
with the testosterone-fueled idiot on her wing, she didn't want to risk
an international incident. She looked back at the F-14s one last time,
remebering their tail numbers... it might come in handy in the
future. "Lieutenant Suavrov!" She called out over her radio.
"Yes, Captain!"
"Excellent job today. You kept your head about you." For once, she
didn't add. If she had been able to see Suvarov, she would've seen his
blushing face. "Begin evasion pattern back to base. Now!"
Ever the professional, the coded transponder from Suvarov's plane
made a beeline straight back to the Chinese carrier. "Well, at least
he listened this time. I won't have to bust his nuts, much," another
twisted smile forming under her mask.
She flipped her MiG into a barrel roll, following after Suvarov.
Stressing the airframe like tha relieved her somewhat of her tension,
but a much better one for her to vent her frustration on lay in wait.
* * *
Bear couldn't believe if. First, the MiG just appearing out of nowhere
like that. Second, the balls of the MiG pilot to eye them over when
he'd been in perfect firing position. Third, that it had just flown off
after a wave. He remembered Tom Cruise's immortal line from his
favorite movie. We were communicating, keeping up foreign
relations. "Yeah, I'd like to keep up foreign relations with him, like a
Sidewinder up his ass!!" he muttered under his breath.
"Well that tears it!" Lt. Cmdr. Vincent's voice broke in. Hummer 1
never had the bastard on their screens. It's as if he just appeared
out of nowhere. I'll say this, the Sovs are getting smarter these days."
"Oh bullshit, Commander!" Bear suddenly retorted out. "We've been
doing this for over fifty years. The Sovs are just starting, they can't be
that good!"
"Lieutenant, stow it! Thinking you're better than everyone else has
gotten more than one hotshot pilot killed, okay? CIC's given us the
choice between continuing on and returning home. I say we go back
and find out what kinda games the Sovs are playing with our radar."
"I say we buzz 'em, on-the-deck style. Show 'em they're still second
best!"
"Lieutenant! We're going home, is that clear? We were beat today.
We'll get the chance to even the score soon enough."
Yeah, we'll even the score Bear thought to himself.
* * *
Back aboard the USS Carl Vinson, everything was in an uproar. The
plan to sneak up on the Chinese battlegroup and her defenses had
gone awry the moment the MiGs had made their appearance. Every
operator was replaying their radar tapes of the whole thing, and they
all said the same thing, one minute the MiGs were not there, the next
they were. Right now Admiral Batesman, commander of the US
battlegroup, had all department heads sitting in a conference to find
some answers, for which there were precious few.
"So that summarizes the whole thing. Comments, people?" The
Admiral said, struggling to hide the nervousness in his voice.
"It points only to ECS camo, Admiral, but ECS is barely off the
drawing board." Captain Renard, CVBG Intel Head said. "They've
only gotten working models onto the hardware within the last year."
"Care to explain WHAT the hell you're talking about, and HOW that
applies to this, then?" a voice spoke up from the back of the room.
Renard struggled to compose a coherent answer, weighing the merits
of revealing some highly sensitive material. "ECS is like Stealth
Squared. Next Gen, HIGHLY classified stuff. I can't even reveal to you
the generalities of how it works, just that it does. In theory, you're
invisible to any visual and electronic device like radar, even the human
eyeball. The problem, as I said, is it's too brand new. The first gen stuff
has some big operating limitations, weather like rain and dust screws it
up, and the optimal operating time for it is at night..."
"So what makes you think it is ECS we're dealing with here?" another
voice said, cutting him off. "To carry gear that can make you just
disappear like that, gawd, it's GOT to be huge!"
"I can't say for sure. Only that it FEELS like ECS. I know of a few
developments that have been working on miniaturizing the gear itself,
but I can't tell you more than that." Captain Renard hated going out
on a branch when called to make an intelligence evaluation, especially
when you went in with half the information. The problem with intel
since time immortal was that there was NEVER anything as a surefire
thing, only educated guesses. And he had far to many experiences of
being called to the carpet when others blamed him for providing what
they called 'false or misleading intelligence.' "Now there's a
contradictory phrase," he thought bitterly to himself.
"Jesus, if this is true..." someone started.
Admiral Batesman held up his hand, forestalling the meeting from
degenerating into speculative talk. "Thank you, Captain Renard for
your evaluation. I'd like your writeup by the end of the shift. Now,
where do we go from here is the question."
"Admiral, I say we send this stuff FLASH to CINCPAC. If what
Captain Renard's saying is true, this best get up the ladder fast."
"Agreed, and I'm putting the battlegroup on a heightened state of
alert. If this is indeed... Second Generation ECS, God knows what
kind of advances Ivan's made with them."
"Are we speculating they've gotten them onto all their combat aircraft?"
"Or worse." Admiral Batesman didn't care to guess at what 'or worse'
could be. "As for the ChiCom battlegroup..."
"Admiral," CAG immediately responded, "I can have another flight up
in less than an hour. We'll go alittle more cautiously this time. Instead
of a direct flight like that last time, we'll try a circular approach, and we
won't let them surprise us this time."
"God knows what other surprises they may have for us next time we
try a stunt like that."
"Better than sitting here and crying about it" CAG commented.
"Approved. And get Hummer 1 to keep a very close eye on them.
I don't want any more surprises like that the next time we go and be
neighborly with them. Dismissed."
The meeting broke up on that somber note.
* * *
Deep aboard the bowels of the Chung Jung, the atmosphere was
markedly different. Captain Sofia had reason to be quite pleased. The
radar intercept officers confirmed how from the moment of launch to
when she had disengaged her ECS, the Americanskis never knew what
was happening.
"Comrades, as you can see, Second Generation ECS is now fact! The
Americanskis did not see my flight, nor give any indication they
knew I was there before I disengaged cloak."
"Very fine and well, but this was a controlled test. How do you know
that the Americanskis weren't somehow decieving us, that they did
know about 2GECS but wished for us to show them your wonderful
new... toys."
Sofia's eyes immediately narrowed. She HATED her professional
judgement being questioned like that. "Comrades, I've flown against
the Americanskis in the Atlantic for over ten years now, and I say
they did not know myself or Lieutenant Suvarov was there. Pilots
around the world are predictable, if you have an enemy coming up
behind you, you will react, not wait for them to get into range to shoot
you!" She put that as forcefully as she could, hoping the mass of inertia
she faced would at least see the logic behind her argument. "Fools," she
thought. "they still see me as more useful in a skinny dress than a
defender of the Motherland. Very well."
She continued on, not giving them a chance to second guess her.
"The second part of the mission was also completed successfully."
Activating the projector in the room, she waited for them to digest
the implications of what was being shown.
And understand they did. The collective gasp told her that.
"Comrade Menishkin, if, as you say, they knew about our new toys,
how do you explain them letting me get these?" Her sinister smile
flashed again.
This was a series of pictures of the F-14s she had intercepted, but not
an ordinary two dimensional picture. Fitted on her MiG-29K was a new
sensor, so new that it did not have a name, and was simply known as
Project 446.1. With the advent of BVR weapons, the growing problem
on both sides of the Iron Curtain was that the extra range at which you
could shoot was useless if you could not tell whether what you were
shooting at was enemy, friendly, or neutral. The Americans learned that
in Vietnam, and the Soviets had learned it with the KAL007 incident.
Project 446.1, an outgrowth of new information obtained from
Whispered 'volunteers,' was an attempt to rectify the situation.
Sofia herself barely understood the physics behind it, but the best
explanation she had heard was that it was like "being next to your
target 200km away, and an identification manual with you."
The pictures passing in sequence showed how far Project 446.1 had
progressed. One set, taken upon Sofia coming within 30 nautical
miles of the F-14s didn't have much in the way of fine detail, but
conclusively shown them to be F-14s. Another set, taken while flying
side-by-side, had such resolution the assembled throng could count
the number of bolts used to fasten the F-14 together. Truely, her
audience was awestruck.
"Comrade Captain..., indeed... I may have been, hah,... too hasty..."
"Indeed Comrade Menishkin." Sofia smiled cruelly. "What you all
decide to do now is your decision. I am merely saying, in my
professional judgement," stressing those two words, "both 2GECS
and Project 446.1 work, and work under field conditions."
"Then a trial under true combat situations should be attempted, in a...
friendly... sort of fashion with the Americanskis." someone suggested.
"Perhaps, but that decision should not be made here, Comrades."
Menishkin said, reasserting his authority. "Good work, Captain
Irinovna. Dismissed."
Sofia Irinovna saluted and left her superiors to their politicking. Viktor
Suvarov was waiting for her outside, like a puppy after its master.
She fought the urge to beat him senseless for the troubles he had
caused on the mission and continued walking on, ignoring those
simpering eyes of his.
"Captain! Captain, wait! Please!" He caught up with her, matching
her pace. She could already hear the panting in his breathing.
"So, how did it go with the Captain?" Suvarov asked as non-chalantly
as he could. Sofia didn't respond.
"Ummm, about my performance today..."
"Uh, Capta-aaaaaaaain!!" Sofia suddenly lashed out, gripping Suvarov
in a very delicate place, pushing him against the wall. Looking into
his eyes, she could see the fear within them; she liked that.
"Now get this straight, LIEUTENANT Suvarov. The next time you are
on my wing, you follow MY orders, not THIS thing's orders, you got
that?" She spun around, and walked off, leaving Viktor Suvarov
nursing his very sore groin.
* * *
Author's Notes on Military References
1st / 2nd Generation ECS - as seen in the FMP anime. 1st Generation
is affected by rain and dust, and rarely employed in daylight conditions.
2nd Generation is not affected by rain or dust, and is 90%+ effective in
all daylight conditions.
BVR - Beyond Visual Range.
CAG - Commander, Air Group. Senior-most officer in charge of all
planes aboard a carrier.
ChiCom - Chinese Communist.
CIC - Combat Information Center, place aboard a carrier where all
relevant information is collected and colliated.
CINCPAC - Commander IN Chief, PACific (Naval).
FLASH - message of highest importance.
Great Patriotic War - Russian designation of the Second World War
GRU - Soviet Military Intelligence. US equivalent is Defence Intelligence
Agency (DIA)
IRSTS - Infra Red Search and Track System
KAL007 incident - incident in the 1980s, where Soviet Air Defence
mistook a civillian 747 for a US reconissance plane.
OPEVAL - OPerational EVALuation
R-73 - Soviet 4th generation air-to-air missile. Known to the West as
the AA-11 Archer.
Rhino - nickname for F/A-18E/F
RIO - Radar Intercept Officer.
Sidewinder - AIM-9, standard US infrared-guided air-to-air missile.
-------------------------------
Okay, I admit it, I'm bored, I got nothing better to do these days.
Doesn't help that I'm working my butt off at my job but don't get
paid
So what do I do? eat, sleep, write fanfic, encode, repeatad infinite absurdum
I'll let Chap 3 speak for itself, while I futz around with the next couple
chapters. The backstory on Kalinin & Mardukas and how they ended
up on the TDD is all scripted in my head, just not written down yet...
Going to get back to writing for Souske & Chidori. It was fun going
GunBunny for this chap, but I'm bored now
@blackrose & Jae, especially
As I promised, after I write 3 chaps, anyone who wishes to host/share/etc.
this fic is welcome to. I've HTML-formatted the first 3 chaps and will
upload to my webpage sometime.
Regards
care to explain this one?
