Harry Kellogg III - The Red Sky - The Second Battle of Britain

We were flying an interesting but not very glorious mission in our practice raids. When signaled in by our controllers we would fly along a route calculated to cover gaps in a smoke screen. These kind of gap filling missions were considered very dangerous but we had done them before. We had flown a number of smoke screen missions against the Germans with great success. We knew we could do it but it was still a very freighting mission fraught with danger. They all knew about the proximity fuse of NATO and had even seen demonstrations of it from captured supplies. It was not a threat to their low flying IL10s however. The British only used the fuse in their 3.7” AA gun which was a long range gun and not used for low altitude.

The fuse couldn’t even get itself armed. The machine guns and even the 20mm were not that much of a threat. A well-aimed 20 mm could bring you down but it was not likely. The only real threat to the Beast was the Bofors 40 mm gun. They had to really respect this weapons system. Luckily they were not controlled by radar and even if they were the IL10 flew too low on most missions. Direct line of sight was needed by the Bofors and that line of sight was what their mission was all about.

The room smelled like sickness… human sickness, old man sickness. The light was low and the feeling of sleepiness hung over the whole room and its tableau of shadows. He knew Stalin was in the room for he had been summarily summoned. You did not ignore a summons from Stalin and live to talk about it so it was strange that the room seemed empty. Stalin hated to be alone especially at this time of the day. Even Sergo sensed that something was wrong with the whole situation. Then he heard a slight noise like some well-oiled door being slid open and out from what was a blank wall came the familiar large nose, pocked marked face and mustache gradually appeared and was followed by the short frame of possibly the greatest mass murdered since Genghis Khan.

Sergo could not see what was behind the panel that had opened but from the smell he guessed it was a private water closet for Stalin. Stalin looked a little startled when he realized Sergo was there in the room and Sergo briefly wondered if the guard and secretary out front were going to lose their lives for letting him in before they ascertained just where in the room and what the status of “Uncle Joe” was. Silly name for such a dangerous man but then again the Americans were a silly people.

Stalin spoke. Sergo couldn’t see Stalin’s face and it was beyond his capabilities to determine from just tone of voice what kind of mood he was in or if the question that had been asked, had been a serious one or one of Stalin’s “jokes”. Sergo didn’t understand jokes or humor or irony so he used to just laugh when those around him laughed. He had come to realize by the time he was 7, that most of the jokes and the laugher was directed at him. If Sergo was a normal human being he might have sought out some of his tormentors and demanded justice for the decades of slights. But he wasn’t a normal human being. He wasn’t exactly a sociopath and not anti-social but almost incapable of reading other peoples physical and verbal clues. As any psychologists will tell you, non-verbal communication and voice inflection are 90% of communication. So he was dreadfully handicapped in this area. Stalin recognized this from their very first encounter and this was the reason Sergo was still alive and still advising him.

He finally figured out that Stalin had asked him a real question without any hidden agendas and truly wanted to know what Sergo’s thoughts were on the subject. The question was retrieved from where his brain had temporarily stored it and when he finally comprehended what Stalin had asked was a serious question, he answered.

“Comrade I would say that our concentrating on the defense of the skies above the motherland was indeed the correct decision. How else were the Americans and English going to attack us? Their armies, even at their height, could not hope to do what the mighty Wehrmacht could not do. And now that they were almost pushed off the continent how could their armies be anywhere near the threat that their air forces were? I am no Marshal or even General but even I know enough about land warfare to know that to invade once again from Britain and then to fight continuously for 2500 kilometers to even reach Moscow, would be a feat none have readily accomplished successfully.

After all comrade, the army is not atrophied or even been starved of resources. They continue to function quite well and are within weeks of conquering Spain. With the Royal Air Force on its knees there would seem to be no readily apparent way the capitalists can successfully attack us but from the air. Hence the decision to concentrate our scientific and manufacturing efforts on the skies would seem to me to be most warranted and wise.

Later after the British succumb to the inevitable, I suggest we concentrate on possibly becoming a naval power. For now keeping our skies clear of B29s and atomic bombs is victory enough and that was only made possible by you having the foresight to listen with an open mind to the logical ideas I presented. I also give Beria absolute credit for the brilliant espionage work he has accomplished over the years. His spies have been enormously critical to our plans.”

Stalin slid over to the well-padded office chair and virtually fell into it. It took him a minute for him to start to speak.

“Don’t you worry about Beria… he will get what he deserves fairly soon. I have to say I agree with your assertions Sergo. The so called NATO forces would commit virtual suicide if they tried to re-conquer our newly acquired Western lands with the same army they conquered Germany. They could not live with the casualties that the Nazis and we sustained over the years. Not even the British had such casualty rates as we had, fighting literally tooth and nail for every inch. The American public is weak and would not stand for the kind of mass slaughter it would take to even re-conquer the new Socialist Republics in the West. Like the French Vichy their new governments and leaders have a vested interest in not going back to the old ways of capitalistic exploitation. No, land warfare is not the way they are going to try attack the new Republics. Since we are self-sufficient in oil and minerals their navy cannot cut off our supplies.

I enjoy our little talks Sergo. I do grow more and more weary of the bickering and in-fighting amongst the politburo. It use to delight me to see them squabble for hours and then to jump when I spoke, but it does not hold the same fascination and delight for me it used to. I made Malenkov urinate in his pants once, he was so afraid… and with good reason I might add. Why do I tell you this Sergo? I’ll tell you why, because you have no political skills, you do not think like the others and that Sergo is why I tell you these things and why I can confide in you knowing full well you have no idea what to do with such information, nor do you care. Is that not right my robot? Have you heard the term robot before Sergo in reference to yourself?”