0548 Hours
T Minus Twelve Minutes to Sunrise
Aboard Spirit of Rio
According to U.S. Navy press releases, the Ryan A4R-5 Retaliator heavy attack bomber had a top speed of Mach 2. Diving from the stratosphere in afterburner, stripped of everything including the paint, perhaps. At 200 feet off the deck, hauling a full bag of gas and several tons worth of Uncle Sam’s very best high explosives, Julie Rosemont felt lucky to be pushing Mach 0.95.
Spirit of Rio cut through the heavy, humid morning air like a finely balanced throwing knife, the shock wave of her passing throwing up a curtain of salt spray in her wake and intermittently covering her nose with ephemeral clouds of condensed water vapor. Rosemont flew on, hands making almost imperceptible adjustments to stick and throttle as his eyes slid from instruments to his navigation display and then back to the predawn horizon.
Spirit of Rio thundered over the beach and over Madagascar, with Warhammer 504 following closely in her wake. Next to Rosemont in the
Spirit’s cockpit, Lieutenant Brown checked one of his displays, threw a switch on the radar panel, and keyed his mic.
“Spirit is feet dry and four balls. We have the lead.” Beneath his oxygen mask, Rosemont felt his face stretching into a grin. The
Spirit’s internal navigation system had predicted the point where they’d cross from sea to land within a tenth of a mile. Rosemont had spent a year as a production test pilot for the Retaliator, and he knew damn well that you were lucky to get that kind of accuracy on the day the bird rolled off the production line. He owed Chief Hereford a bottle of the good stuff as soon as they all made it to someplace that had liquor.
“Terrain coming up.” The screen in front of him shifted as Brown brought his radar on line, sweeping in a regular arc back and forth in front of the
Spirit. The terrain following radar’s output filled the screen, the curves of the next ten miles of earth spilling out in a long strip while a blip danced at the left edge, the peaks sliding towards it but never touching. This was the Retaliator’s real secret weapon, the ability to follow the ground’s contours so precisely that the first warning of its presence would be bombs exploding in the enemy’s laps. In theory, an autopilot mode existed to link the radar and the Retaliator’s brain so the plane would automatically maintain a set clearance from the ground, hugging the earth tighter than any pilot could hope to. In practice, the Retaliator’s radar and computer still managed to pack it in completely on about one flight in four. Squadron lore had quickly labeled the Terrain Engage button the “Suicide Switch”, and even with the best bird he’d ever ridden Rosemont wasn’t touching it. He’d trust his own eyes and reflexes much sooner than he’d trust the plane’s computer.
The two Retaliators swept low over the rolling green hills of Madagascar, the very tops of which were just starting to show the sun’s first light. A low bass tone sounded in Rosemont’s helmet, and he grimaced. It looked like the Cobra site operators were up with the dawn too, and no matter how closely he and Mondo managed to lose themselves in the ground return the Snakes had to notice something sooner or later. Well, in another minute or so it wouldn’t matter.
“Sixty seconds to target.” Brown reached up to start the
Spirit’s clock, ticking off in the corner of Rosemont’s vision. He’d sent that one on the radio too, a warning to Ellis’ people that their moment was coming. “Pilot, IP in thirty. Stand by.” Brown’s voice was high-pitched with nerves, but a quick glance at the radar told Rosemont that his cue was right on time. As long as his navigating and bombing were on the money, the kid could sing falsetto for the whole flight as far as Julie Rosemont cared. He counted ten, then slid the
Spirit over onto her right wing, letting Mondo in 504 see him signaling the turn. Fifteen seconds. Ten.
“IP!” Brown’s cue came just as Rosemont hauled the stick back, reefing the
Spirit over into a tight, low turn that left them pointed straight for the entrance of Bohner’s valley sanctuary. He rolled out, aiming the nose at one of the two bluffs guarding the entrance by feel rather than by the system’s cues, watching the cliffs almost blur as the
Spirit shot towards them at nearly the speed of sound. He saw the screen light with a time-to-release cue as Brown slewed the radar around and locked it onto the target, and squeezed the trigger on his stick to give the Retaliator’s brain permission to drop the bombs.
At long last, it was show time.
0550 Hours
T Minus Ten Minutes to Sunrise
Hide Point Dragon Three
For Centurion Pietr Ellis, the battle began with a low, distant rumble in the sky. It grew nearer, closer, like some impossibly long peal of thunder, and then a pair of dagger shapes streaked past the Century’s hide point, impossibly fast as they shot out and over the bluffs Bohner’s people had fortified. A brief flicker of motion from their wings, a suggestion of vanes snapping taut in midair as the shapes accelerated still faster.
Then the bluffs disappeared in a bright orange and yellow flash, fireballs and smoke running up into the dimly lit sky, and the hammering of the explosions mixed with the high
crack of the Retaliators’ sonic booms as they shot out over their target. The sheer impact of it stunned him, but he’d at least had time to steel himself. Within a few seconds he slapped his driver on the back of the helmet, bellowing in his ear.
“Go! Go, go, go!” Reflexively the man stomped down on the gas, shaking his head and focusing on the task at hand once the familiar sensations of the Hyena in motion took over his senses. As the ringing in his ears cleared, Ellis could hear the snarls of diesels as the rest of the scout cars followed, then the rest of the Century. Eternal Nothing knew that his men and women were probably all a little shell-shocked by that performance, but years of combat experience stood them in good stead as they instinctively followed their commander’s vehicle.
Third Tetrarchy, the Century’s self-appointed wild men, had their damned speaker system wired to the outside of their Buffalos again. Now as the Century roared across the open plain music started to play, felt in the chest more than heard as it added to the cacophony of a mechanized company on the attack. Tribal drums and steel guitars, music from the new generation of Draka who half-ironically wrote songs in the voices of their former serfs, using words that could just as well apply to the Draka since 1945.
White man came, across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
He killed our tribe, he killed our creed
He took our game for his own need
We fought him hard, we fought him well
Out on the plains, we gave him hell-
Ellis leaned forward to yell in the driver’s ear, then stopped himself as the man automatically slowed to let the Scorpion combat cars take the lead. Good. Better still were the heavy black puffs of shells bursting in front of them, the Century’s SP automortars firing off full clips of smoke rounds boresighted three quarters of the way to the target. More tricks to confuse Bohner’s people, buy the rest of the Century time. The music played on, a message for any of them who cared to hear as the Draka vehicles screamed towards their targets.
Run to the hills
Run for your lives
Run to the hills
Run for your lives
0550 Hours
Outside Ragnarok Project Primary Site
Madagascar
If the Retaliators’ bombing run was impressive from a few kilometers away, it was apocalyptic up close. Gouts of fire, pulverized rock, and twisted metal shot up into the sky, and all Trooper McIlheny could do was hold on as the earth trembled, seemingly trying to shake his prone body off. He’d stood close fire from howitzers before, but nothing like this.
Then it stopped, and McIlheny shook his head, throwing off the hint of glassy shock that had begun to cover his perceptions, and hurled himself to his feet. Just enough time to get himself up to a full sprint, then he was out onto the trail, catching the backs of Bohner’s roving patrol as they stared in horror at the burning emplacements. The first of them had just started to turn when McIlheny and Trooper Vehrec snapped their Holbars carbines up and swept the trail with a quick burst.
The enemy soldiers crumpled to the ground, and then the two Recondos were off again, sprinting towards the pair of emplaced antitank guns on the edge of the canyon wall. They were fairly heavily dug-in, earth-roofed bunkers lined with sandbags. It didn’t matter. McIlheny shrugged off the satchel charge he carried, yanked the friction fuse, and gave it an easy underhand toss at the left-hand bunker before diving for cover. The earth shook again, and McIlheny looked up to see the bunker’s roof caved in. Six inches worth of solid ground was proof against fragments and grenades, but not forty pounds of high explosives. Before the dust settled, Vehrec ran up to the bunker’s firing slit, jammed his Holbars inside, and emptied the magazine. That ought to do it.
There was a pounding of feet from up the trail, and McIlheny whirled to see Pierce and Uller, the other Recondo team assigned to this side of the cavern, throw up their hands. McIlheny let out a breath before carefully easing his finger off the Holbars’ trigger and calling,
“The other two?” Pierce grinned.
“Expended.”
“Right. C’mon.” Vehrec had circled around to the back of the bunker, Holbars at the ready. He peeked inside, then raised both arms over his head.
“All clear.” Pierce and Uller moved upslope, snugging in to provide rear security, while McIlheny joined Vehrec in the bunker. The gun there was a standard Archonate AT piece, a single-barreled 40mm with a breech-block action and iron sights. McIlheny squatted in the gunner’s position, carefully working the aiming levers until he found a missile down in the valley below. Bohner’s people were swarming over it like ants, frantically trying to complete launch preparations, but McIlheny held his fire. Setting off one of those missiles would torch it and a good part of the valley, but the smoke would mean they could forget about putting paid to Bohner’s whole stockpile. Not a good option, unless there wouldn’t be any others.
“HE.” Vehrec slid the shell home, clanked the breech-block closed, and then they both settled in to await what would come.
Ragnarok Project Primary Site
0552 Hours
T Minus Eight Minutes to Sunrise and Counting
D Century slammed into the mouth of the valley like the mailed fist of an angry God. First through were the Scorpions, their turrets already trained on the valley floor positions Ellis had scouted out. One of them, a big 120mm recoilless rifle of Eurasian War vintage, managed to boom out a shot that shattered one of the Scorpions. Mercifully, the wreck was pushed against one valley wall instead of blocking the way for the rest of the Century. Before the 120’s crew could reload, the next combat car in line crashed out a shot from its long 90mm gun, hitting the 120’s ready-use ammunition and sending a bright orange fireball up into the sky.
The Scorpions angled off to the sides, opening a gap in their lines for the Century’s Buffalos to push through. The valley’s second line of defense was at the first major turn, a web of interlocking trenches and spider holes sown with anti-vehicle obstacles. Getting past it would be a real problem for a mechanized force. Fortunately, Ellis had no such plans. The position would give him a good line of sight, and that was all he needed.
The troop carriers charged forward, clouds of steam rising from their stacks as their drivers pushed the engines to the limit and their guns stubbing out short, barking bursts of fire. Ellis followed them into the inferno.
0552 Hours
Aboard Spirit of Rio
Julie Rosemont could see a thick line of smoke rising up from the valley below. It had started at the mouth, where the craters he and 504 had left were still smoking. Now it was reaching further up the valley, towards the bend that would give Ellis his firing position. If things kept going as well as it looked from here, Ellis would only need a couple more minutes to get into position.
Which, all things considered, was just as well.
“Some flak starting.” Brown’s voice was taut and sharp with tension, but with only a hint of a nervous quaver. Black clouds were starting to bloom over the valley, barely distinguishable from the still-dark sky and the smoke from the fighting. A sound broke through Rosemont’s earphones, a menacing high-pitched beeping. “Cobra missile battery acquisition radar coming up. Stand by to evade, pilot.”
“Rog.” The Draka missiles weren’t that big of a worry, unless you were flying straight and level. Which, unfortunately, was pretty much what you had to do to make a good Deadeye drop. Rosemont reefed the
Spirit in tightly, snapping into a turn to keep from getting too far from the valley.
It was turning into one hell of an interesting morning.
0553 Hours
Aboard Warhammer 504
“Missile launch! Snake and evade!” Lieutenant (j.g.) Justin “Saint” DeSanto slapped a button on his bombardier’s station, locking one of Warhammer 504’s two Nail antiradiation missiles onto the electronic signature of the Cobra battery’s radar. Seconds later, Lieutenant “Mondo” Sheehan squeezed his strick grip trigger, punching the missile off the rail and igniting its rocked motor before putting his Retaliator into a barrel roll as Saint pumped out chaff from their internal defense pod. A few seconds later, what looked like an oversized firework streaked past the belly of their plane, missing and arcing down towards the rainforest below. Bare seconds after that, there was a distant flash from beneath the tree cover, and the missile battery’s tracking radar blinked off of Saint’s scope. He bared his teeth at the pilot.
“Scratch one.” The spooks in
Reprisal’s photo lab had said there only appeared to be one battery in the area. Given that these were the same people who had failed to notice ballistic missiles being assembled under their noses until it was almost too late, Saint was disinclined to trust their word.
Mondo pulled 504 into a turn, making sure they were close enough to cover the
Spirit. Sure enough, thirty seconds after the first battery had gone off the air a second signature blossomed on Saint’s scope, the low bass warning tone of the search radar quickly switching to the beeping of tracking and fire control. Saint grimaced and glanced over at his pilot as they turned to attack the second missile battery.
“Mondo, sometimes I hate being right all the time.”
“Don’t worry.” 504 rolled level, and Saint quickly set up his second attack. “After this noise is over we’ll hit the bars in Venta Bellagrium. The girls there can cure what ails you.”
“Of what? My keen insight?” Saint locked the Nail in.
“Nope.” Mondo squeezed the trigger, then sent the plane diving for the deck behind more chaff as their missile once again passed a Draka SAM in midair. “Your ego.”
“Hey. Didn’t I-“ Saint broke off, staring at his scope. “Oh, shit.”
“Oh, shit?” Mondo’s rising tone made it clear that he did not want his bombardier saying those words right now.
“Snakes shut their tracking radar off too quick after they missed us. The Nail went dumb.” Without a radar signature to home in on, the anti-radiation missile was nothing more than a half-million dollar unguided rocket. “The radar’s back up.” And they were fresh out of missiles. And the Snakes probably weren’t. And the
Spirit was going to have to make its run soon.
“Gimme a steer.” Mondo’s voice was level, and Saint automatically read off the course to the radar signature. It wasn’t until he saw the pilot reach down and adjust the armament panel that he realized what the plan was.
“Ohhhh shit.” This time it sounded more like a prayer.
A/N: Yes, I am mean enough to cut this action scene off in the middle. I’m a bad, bad man. Deal
The only obvious external difference would be F-14 style twin tails rather than a single tail.
