Christopher Nuttall: Second Chance

It was large, bigger than a Eurofighter, with a bigger wingspan. Two propeller engines, one on each wing, propelled it through the air. He closed in, and the intruder, apparently aware of him, adjusted it’s own course. It headed down sharply, trying to lose him.

“Unidentified aircraft, you are ordered to identify yourself and prepare to be escorted to a military airfield,” he said, into the radio. Legally, ever since a private aircraft had nearly destroyed Edinburgh Castle, all aircraft were required to monitor the emergency frequency. Unfortunately, so did the media; several scoops had been discovered that way.

There was no reply. “I’m going in for a close pass,” he said. He scowled; blasting past at just below the speed of sound was the airborne equivalent of hey, stupid . It could be dangerous, even to a relatively small fighter jet. Several nations, China and Russia among them, refused to recognise it as a tactic, calling it aerial terrorism.

“Understood,” Dunbar said. “I’m taking position behind you.”

Abernathy listened with half an ear, concentrating on his position. His heads-up display was becoming sharper as an AWACS launched and linked into the growing defence network, supplying tactical information to any airborne fighters. He waited, preparing, and then…

“Moving in,” he said, and kicked in the afterburners. The Eurofighters screamed forward, trailing a line of fire, and screeched over the top of the strange plane. As he left the unknown plane behind, he was suddenly aware of a trail of fire sparking out towards him; the unknown plane was shooting at him!

“Ground control, target has opened fire on me,” he snapped. “Clearing to engage.”

“Understood, Charlie-one,” the controller said. “You are cleared to engage.”

The strange aircraft seemed to have flipped lower, trying to turn and run back over the sea. It was ludicrously slow; what manner of terrorists would try to evade a fighter jet in a propeller-driven aircraft? Abernathy carefully lined up the shot and fired a burst from his cannon directly into the left wing and its engines. Trailing a line of fire, the unknown aircraft fell towards the ground, several parachutes appearing from it as it fell. It slammed into the ground, exploding in a burst of fire.

“Ground control, the crew bailed out,” Abernathy said. “At least three parachutes, heading down towards the ground.”

“Where else would they go towards?” Dunbar asked dryly. A note of concern entered her voice. “Victor, are you alright?”

“No damage,” Abernathy reassured her. “We can remain on station above the crash site, or we can return home.”

“Come on home,” the controller said. “We have the crash site marked and local police are moving in.”

“Excellent,” Abernathy said. “We’ll be home in ten minutes.”

Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ)

London, UK

“The Prime Minister is in the bunker underneath Whitehall,” Stirling reported, as the Principles took their positions around the table. Cunningham nodded. “We have landline links to every base in the UK proper, but nothing yet from outside the UK. The Navy has got contact with almost all of its ships, but several vessels were stationed on the other side of the world and we have no contact with them.”

Cunningham nodded grimly. “Anything from anywhere else?”

“Only a handful of strange signals, very low frequency, from Europe and America,” Stirling said. “As yet, we don’t know what they are.”

“I see,” Cunningham said. “Any news on the interception?”

Stirling gulped. He’d hoped to avoid that topic; the wreckage of the unknown plane had suggested horrible things about their predicament. “Sir, I think that had better wait for the briefing,” he said, knowing that Cunningham would want the news at once. The General opened his mouth, but caught the eye of the First Sea Lord and left Stirling alone, for the moment.

“I think we can call this meeting to order,” the First Sea Lord said. “We have datalinks with Whitehall and Hack Green.” He looked around, every inch the superb naval commander that he was. “Seal the doors.”

The doors closed and locked; two Marines were posted outside. “General Cunningham?”

“Captain Steve Stirling has compiled the main brief,” Cunningham said. For a long absurd moment, Stirling felt like a small boy called before the headmaster. The Defence Crisis Management Committee, the highest non-Government council in Britain, was designed to allow the service chiefs to agree on their recommendations. Collective responsibility, otherwise known as sharing the blame.

“Ah, thank you, sir,” Stirling said. Amazingly, the entire room paid attention to him; the sheer scale of the crisis outweighed the traditional feeling that junior officers should be seen, but not heard. “At midnight, two hours ago, we lost all outside communications with our embassies, our forces overseas and the rest of the world. I’ve checked around, but as far as I can tell this situation is total; not only satellites, but radio, communication cables, mobile phones, everything.

“RAF Fylingdales reports that all satellites and the American space shuttle that was also in orbit has disappeared,” he continued, knowing that it was hardly the most shocking piece of information he would be giving them. “There is no wreckage, no EMP-damaged satellites, but just empty space. It’s as if they never existed at all.”

He allowed the room a moment to absorb the implications. “There is almost nothing coming from the continent,” he said. “The French air defence network seems to be down. The civil air traffic control – down. There are a handful of aircraft, all slow and old, moving over France. Indeed, several of our aircraft have vanished; they were over Ireland and France when they vanished.”

“Dear God,” the First Sea Lord said. “What about the interception?”

“Ten minutes after the satellites suddenly shut down, an unidentified contact appeared – I mean appeared from out of nowhere – near the east coats, and proceeded to head towards Cambridge. Two Eurofighters were scrambled from RAF Coningsby and vectored in towards the target, which seemed unaware of them until the jets entered visual range. At that point, still without communicating, it attempted to evade, and then fired on the jets, which fired back.”

He took a breath. If it hadn’t been for the hastily-transmitted photographs from the army detachment that had secured the crash site, he would never have believed the report. He just knew that the assembled chiefs wouldn’t believe it; he didn’t want to think about what Prime Minister Howard Smith would say.

“An army detachment was flown in via helicopters from Aldershot,” he said. “They secured the crash site, finding two bodies; both human.”

“Captain?” General Cunningham said. “Spit it out, man!”

“Sir, the aircraft was marked with Nazi markings from the Second World War,” Stirling said, and braced himself for a blast of high-ranking scepticism. They stared at him. “The bodies were examined and their effects studied; they lack some of the medical advancements that were made compulsory in Europe in 2010. For example, they were not vaccinated against bird flu or the Jihad virus.

“At my request, Captain Fenton took some of the effects of the crew to Cambridge and asked the opinion of the dean of Nazi Studies, someone who has done work for us in the past,” he said. “Sir Torrance, the author of The Nazi Enigma , was more than willing to help and examined the artefacts. With the exception of their age, they seem to be around a year old, they are genuine and survived a careful testing process. In effect, we have two dead bodies, from out of time. There are also a number of objects; a pay book, some German coins, a bible, also in German and two Luger pistols.