John Schettler - Armageddon

On this day it had a very important mission to ready, and one that might fit neatly into the script of either of those two old movies. For among other units stationed there, the base was home to some very special aircraft that would soon rise into the skies in an ominous prelude to what might happen soon after. They were not stealthy, sleek, black-tiled warplanes, or high flying hypersonic reconnaissance planes. In fact, anyone who might have seen them taxi from their secure hangers onto the wide tarmac near the 55th Bomb Wing Headquarters building would recognize their familiar silhouettes at once. One man who saw them that day was in no way surprised when their big engines began to turn over, the sound rolling across the field and reverberating amid the squat concrete buildings housing high level command facilities.

“Hear that?” said Airman First Class Ernie Mason. “I told you they would be flying today. The E-4 hanger doors were open at 04:00 hours this morning.”

“You were up at four AM, Mace?” His buddy Airman, James Suder was still working his first cup of coffee that morning, looking tired and needing sleep.

“I had the night shift. Took some down time at the Old Stripes Club, but there was no one there but old stripes. Good name for the place.”

“There a lot better clubs in Omaha,” said Suder. “Shark Club, Goodfellas, Whisky Tango.”

“Well who can get to Omaha and back on a thirty minute leash, Suder? I had the duty. We had to go over those engines with a fine toothed comb last night. So I knew the spooks were going to be up today.”

“Spooks?”

“That’s what I call them. They only fly the damn things when all hell is about to break loose. Scares the crap out of you because the only reason they made the damn things is to make certain someone survives to send Emergency Action Messages if we get toasted here on the ground.”

“What’s on the tarmac this morning?”

“E-4B Nightwatch is out there making noise right now. We had to work over the RC-135 Rivet Joints plane and the E-6B Mercury TACAMO plane too.”

“Jeeze Louise! That’s some serious business, Mace.”

The E-6B looked like a white Boeing commercial airliner, and the Nightwatch plane actually was a commercial airliner, a big 747 jumbo jet with the telltale porpoise hump and nose and a bright blue stripe down each side of the fuselage. It didn’t seem dressed for the part it was to play as the “Doomsday Plane,” an airborne command and control plane for the civilian leadership in the event of a major national emergency.

“No shit, Sherlock,” said Mason. “You can bet the Nightwatch will be heading east to find the President somewhere. And the Air Force brass will be in the E-6 by now. STRATCOM building looks like everyone left for a funeral or something. All the offices are shut down. There’s nothing but janitors mopping up over there now.”

“They probably all went into their gopher holes,” said Suder. “They’re all underground by now, which is where we should be. If the President is going airborne with the rest of the stripes, then you and I had better find us a couple cases of bravos and dig a hole ourselves. The proverbial shit is about to hit the fan, my friend.”

“Well hell, Suder. Did you think we were going to take that crap the Chinese pulled over the Pacific coast lying down? Hell no! I think we’re going to toast something to let them know what’s up. Any bets on what they do?”

“Rumors say they might hump Shanghai or some other big city over there. But you know the drill-they throw one, then we throw one, then they throw a few more and on it goes. This business has been wound up tight for the last nine days. Something is about to give, I tell you. Can’t you feel it?”

“Yeah, I’ve had the same feeling. I don’t think we’re going to back off on this one. It’s pedal to the metal from here on in, and that means you and I will either be real busy or very dead in the next 48 hours. Well, I say we make it through.”

“How do you figure, Mace?”

“We made it through the alien attack in Independence Day. We stopped those wacko alien ships in Battleship, and we beat the pants off ‘em in Battle: Los Angeles and War of The Worlds, and even kicked ass in Signs — swing away, Merrill… Merrill…Swing away!” He made as if he were holding a baseball bat ready to swing on the first alien that showed its snout.

“Right, we always win against the aliens,” said Suder. “But this time we’re not up against them. This time it’s us, the good old primates. We’re going to swing away alright, but those planes out there might end up being the only things left around to see what happens. Nightwatch…good name for the damn thing.”

High above the Pacific, NROL-52 was up and running, a replacement sent up the previous day for a bird the Chinese had taken down with their surprise ASAT attack. The Americans had seen to it that they would not lose any more of their precious satellites, at least not at the hands of the Chinese. They had sent their B-2s in with a devastating fast new cruise missile and blasted all the key satellite launching facilities the Chinese relied on. To express their displeasure, the Chinese escalated by sending a sub launched missile over the US Pacific coast and, though the resulting EMP burst was not as devastating as originally thought, it had taken down power grids from Seattle to San Diego.

Watching the latest developments very closely from space, 2nd Lieutenant Matt Eden was on the duty roster again that day at the Naval Intelligence Center. He had already lost one bird, and wondered how long this one would fly as he monitored the regrouping of the Russian Red Banner Pacific Fleet. He was told to look for the principle surface combatants, but thus far the only capital ship of note he had been able to identify was the Admiral Kuznetsov.

It was time to make his scheduled report to the Deputy Watch Commander, and he punched up line two on his phone set.

“Deep Black Ten, sir. Lieutenant Eden reporting on RB1.”

“Anything new, Lieutenant?”

“Yes sir, but communications with the satellite have been difficult. There’s a considerable electromagnetic disturbance from that eruption and it’s propagated through the atmosphere into space. The high altitude EMP burst didn’t help either, but at least our bird was over the horizon at the time and the system wasn’t fried. Our optics are still nice and sharp. Lucky for us the ash fall has been blowing south, otherwise we couldn’t see a thing.”

“I don’t need a weather report, Lieutenant. What’s up with the damn Russians?”

“Sorry sir. The flotilla was regrouping and replenishing in the Sea of Okhotsk, but that operation appears to be concluded now. They transited the Gulf of Sakhalin and moved into the Tartar Strait off Sovetskaya Gavan and Vanino. There’s been some helicopter activity around the carrier but it looks like they were just delivering a few missile canisters. Now they have moved what appears to be a sub tender into the area. I’ve sent the digital imagery to Section Four for analysis.”

“Any sign of that hot submarine PACCOM is still looking for?”

“Nothing has surfaced, sir. But I’ll watch this tender and see what it’s up to. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

“Good enough, Lieutenant.”

Eden hung up the phone and returned to his console, deciding to take a closer look at the new arrival. What would they need a sub tender out here for unless there was a submarine nearby, and possibly one in difficulty? Could this be a blood trail from the submarine Naval Intelligence is all hot and bothered about? Perhaps it was wounded in action on its first sortie, and is licking its wounds in sheltered waters until help can arrive. The Russians sure moved that sub tender there in a hurry. My data points indicate it was making sixteen knots, and that is the top of the scale for that class ship.