Chapter 1

“Range to primary target” I hear Major Blackwell’s tense voice in my ear.

“Range 2000 kilometers to primary target. Furthest secondary target now at 2350 kilometers. All targets in range.” Replies First Lieutenant Zara al Masri, our offensive weapons officer. “Ready to launch”

The air in the cockpit seems to still as we all wait for the order, the one we never thought we would hear, the one that didn’t seem possible even as we penetrated Russian airspace laden with weapons that our aircraft had been rapidly retrofitted over the past few weeks to once again be capable of carrying. The plane continues to jink up and down over the vast Siberian tundra as its autopilot maintains a constant height above the ground. In a strained voice Major Blackwell gives the order.

“Launch on all targets” Immediately Lt al Masri begins the process. She flips the safety up on all the launch switches and methodically flips them all to the fire position. As she does we feel the shudder of the nuclear-tipped AGM-86B cruise missiles leaving their mounts and watch as they leap forward and accelerate ahead of us on their apocalyptic journey. As the last missile launches I hear a sob over the intercom. First Lieutenant Lei Jing’s tearful reaction fills our headsets until Major Blackwell mutes her. “Maintain your composure. We still have to survive this somehow. Captain Ridge, turn to heading 060 and ascend to 3000 feet”

“Yes ma’am” I reply and begin the process of turning the incredibly fast moving aircraft to a nearly reciprocal heading and bringing us up from our terrifyingly low altitude of 300 feet. As we ascend I see a streak of smoke out of the corner of my eye.

“SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE 9 O’CLOCK” I scream into the headset. I see Lt Jing’s belated reaction out of the corner of my eye as she recovers from her sobbing and scrabbles to launch countermeasures. I pull hard to the right and up, trying to evade but knowing I don’t have the speed or altitude to do much but watch it all unfold. Flares stream out of the bottom of the aircraft as the missile lock tone screams in our ears. All of a sudden I hear a horrible explosion followed by what sounds for all the world like paper being ripped. I stabilize our course, now at 2000 feet and tearing along on a 030 heading.

“Damage?” Asks Major Blackwell calmly.

“Rapid loss of fuel in left fuel tanks ma’am” replies Lt Jing.

“Dan, get us out of here as fast as you can. Zara, calculate our operational range with only right side fuel tanks”

“Yes, ma’am” Zara and I reply in unison. I push our airspeed up as much as I dare and reduce altitude to try to get below the horizon of any air defense radars. Lei pulls something up on her display.

“HF databurst from STRATCOM. All forward bases and refueling squadrons downed. Do not expect recovery if ditching outside of US or allied territory.” We all pause again to take this in. If STRATCOM was acknowledging that any aircraft currently on sorties would not be recovered then things were truly bad. As if to emphasize this point a bright light flashed to our left, followed by a distinctive mushroom cloud forming.

“Looks like the 52s got through to hit Archangel” Zara says soberly.

“Focus on our mission” Major Blackwell instructs “Zara. What is our operational range?”

“Ma’am, if we went to bingo we would have to ditch in the Arctic ocean north of Canada. We can maybe make it another 1000 KM depending on additional fuel loss”

“Shit. Ok. Dan, turn us south. I like our chances in the Siberian wilderness over survival in the Arctic Ocean in early March” I pause before complying.

“You want us to fly back, deeper into Russian territory right after we just launched nuclear missiles at them?”

“Yes” a hint of anger in her voice “Because no matter how bad it might be for us in Russia, freezing to death in the Arctic Ocean is worse. We will head back south and find a suitably remote but survivable location as close to Mongolia as possible. If we can get there then at least we will be in neutral territory. Now do it.”

“Yes ma’am” I turn us back to the south and the sleek bomber begins tearing over the tundra again.

“We also need to avoid known nuclear targets and their associated fallout. Winds are from the east so we need to stay east of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, and Bratsk. It looks like we can make it just to the north end of Lake Baikal” she plotted in the course and I brought us to the indicated heading. The next 30 minutes ticked by slowly and silently as we all focused on doing our jobs and tried to not think about what the near future held for us. Below us the terrain slowly turned from barren tundra to green coniferous forests covered in snow.

“5 minutes from waypoint” I say as we approach the planned site for ejection. Major Blackwell’s plan is to set the aircraft to autopilot and eject 30 km before it runs out of fuel. Given the isolated location we have chosen and the distance to the crash site our hope is that anyone who might care at this point will simply assume we all died in the crash and not attempt to track us down.

“Prepare to eject, starting with Lt Jing.” Major Blackwell was opting for the manual, as opposed to auto ejection mode to ensure that all crew members were able to eject before she did. I slowed the plane as much as I could to reduce the distance between our locations on the ground. We all doublechecked our straps and prepared ourselves. I could hear Lei muttering the coordinates for our rendezvous location over the intercom. “Lt Jing, eject.” Without a word, Lei yanked on her lever and a detonation followed by the screaming of air into the cockpit filled the cabin as her seat ejected out of the plane. “Lt al Masri” she pulled the lever but nothing happened. Immediately a flurry of cursing filled our headsets as she yanked again and again to no avail. “Fuck” Blackwell mutters “Ok, Zara get up here. Sit on Dan’s lap and get strapped in. Lets hope it fucking works”