Джон Шеттлер - Condition Zebra - The Next War - 2025

The radar may be fouled, he said, but why the difficulty making radio contact? They had to hear those calls…. “Whalesign Leader, this is number one. Come in please….”

Silence….

His plane suddenly ran into turbulence, and he decided to climb a bit. Then he would point the nose down and have a look at the sea from good elevation. The radar continued to show hazy uncertainty on the contacts ahead, and then there came a bright light, and seconds later a strong jolt. It was as if his plane had been hit with a shock wave, buffeted by a strong force that saw him struggling to recover control. Turbulence was never really anything that mattered to most pilots, but this was something different.

Now his radars saw what it was, and the tried and true Mark-1 eyeball confirmed it.

“Damn,” he said aloud. “Someone threw a nuke!”

He could see the angry fire of a massive mushroom cloud ahead off his left wing, climbing into the sky with its terrible wrath. What in the world was happening? Was that ours? Did we throw one at the fleet I was out here to investigate? Nice of them to clue me in on it. Damn!

“Flight leader, this is Whalesign One—Firebright! I repeat Firebright! I have eyes on the mushroom. Over. Whalesign Three, come in!”

There, down on the sea, he saw what he had come to find, ships, ships, ships —glowing red and gold in the evil light of that detonation. Now his missile warning came on, and the blood chilling warning told him he was under attack. He turned left into a barrel roll, then came around and dove for the sea. Both maneuvers were good for befuddling missiles, which could not track a barrel rolling plane easily, or turn as tightly as a fighter could. Diving for lower altitude would also force the missile’s radar to fight clutter from the sea if it was trying to reacquire the plane. The dive gave the plane much needed speed, and speed was your friend when under attack like this. If he had to, he would turn again, putting the missile at his three o’clock position, and forcing it to make a continuous turn to follow him. The intention was to bleed energy from the missile as it tried to track and close on his plane.

The maneuver seemed to work, and now he poured on the power. Missile range decreased at lower altitude and for every 100 knots he threw on the fire, that missile would have to work all that harder to catch him, further bleeding off its energy.

He was up over 700 knots, felt another hard jolt, more turbulence, and then clear air. His warning light went dark, alarms quiet, and he seemed to be completely alone on that cold December morning. He pulled into another turn, radar active, looking for that broiling mushroom cloud again, still wary of that missile…. But both were gone.

WTF?

“Whalesign Leader, this is Whalesign One. Come in! Whalesign Leader, do you copy?”

No one came back.

It was as if he was the only living man within a thousand miles. The mushroom was gone, the ships were gone. There was no missile after him, only the dark morning sky, glittering with stars.

“Now this is downright bonkers,” he said aloud. “Where’s that bloody nuke?”

He circled, scanning every horizon visually, and he knew he had not gone too far from what he had seen, but nothing was there. Yes, it was bonkers. What was he, away with the fairies out here? Rats in the attic? A screw or two loose? Things like this just did not happen.

“I must be as barmy as the bloody radar,” he breathed. “Best wing for home.”

He came around, to a heading that should take him home to the carrier, and announced his intention to return on the radio, but there was no response. There was still plenty of fuel, and he was bound to find the fleet in any case. Yes, the whole bloody fleet was out there ahead.

Or so he believed….

“Strange,” said Karpov. “Every get a feeling that something was wrong, but you can’t seem to put your finger on it?”

“Is that why you’ve been checking the radar and sonar stations every half hour,” said Fedorov.

“Have I? Well, I suppose I have. Got this itch, Fedorov. Something is amiss, but I’m not sure what it is. Rodenko reports nothing unusual in the radar field. Tasarov says all is quiet below, but I can still feel it. Something is wrong.”

Fedorov gave him a look. “Perhaps a meal would do some good. I can hold the watch if you want an early lunch.”

“At a time like this?” said Karpov. “We’re likely to have a missile storm heading our way. The American battleship just put in an attack on that leading task force, the one with Vietnamese ships that was firing cruise missiles at the airfields on Singapore. Now there’s another small package coming in for Ranai airfield, air launched.”

“Rodenko says he thought the Chinese were recovering the planes they scrambled off that carrier we sunk.”

“Indeed? Well, we’re lucky the Chinese J-31 doesn’t load out much in the way of anti-surface ordnance. Strange. The Chinese are quick studies. You would think they would have copied the American GBU-53 by now for their stealth fighters. That would give their carriers a little clout. At the moment, the best extended range bomb they can carry only has a range of 30 miles. They’re stealthy, but not that good. Get in that close to this ship and my Gargoyles will have a feast.”

“The Chinese are still coming south,” said Fedorov. “Is that what’s bugging you?”

“No, I expected they would. It just means we have to move south with them, and keep the range outside 300 miles so they can’t use their YJ-18’s. It’s a dance out here, Fedorov. They take a step forward. We take a step back. There’s plenty of sea room yet. So no, it’s no bother. I just feel like there’s something else going on… a feeling of presentiment, but with no clear danger in sight, aside from that Chinese fleet up north. That I can deal with, but this…. This inner feeling is something else.”

“You mean like that sound Troyak reported once on that mission to Siberia?”

“Sound? No, I don’t think it’s anything like that. It’s just an inner feeling, a hunch, but laced with adrenalin. Something is telling me to be wary, but it’s nothing I can see.”

“I’ll check with Tasarov. His ears are the best we have. Does it have to do with the ship? I could go down and see what Dobrynin thinks.”

“No, no, it’s probably nothing. Maybe I’ve been in combat too long. Could just be a case of raw nerves. I feel fine, but there’s something…. Something…”

Fedorov nodded. “Get some lunch, Admiral. Give me a shot at the big chair for a while. If they hit us, it will probably be with their YJ-100. Our SAM’s can track and kill those easily enough.”

“Alright, Fedorov. I’ll take your advice and see what’s on the boil in the officer’s mess. In fact, I have some business to attend to there. But yes… Check with Tasarov once in a while. They have subs out there too. They bushwhacked this Admiral Pearson the last time he showed the flag, and gutted all the RSN frigates that were good enough to sail with him.”

Karpov headed for the hatch and ladder down.

“Admiral off the bridge,” said Rodenko.

“I have the Con,” said Fedorov. “You are officer of the deck, Rodenko.”

“Aye sir.”

Captain Samuel Wood had heard that his old friend Francis Drake had just made another kill, and now he was thinking to even the score and stay in the race. Drake had a very new boat, HMS Anson , and Wood had one of the first really good attack boats the Royal Navy commissioned, HMS Trafalgar . So he would show them the old girl could still dance.