Cheodaev's Cancelled Mission.
October 26, 2120. GMT 15.25
Arctic. Polar Region.
The polar sun, hanging low above the horizon, painted the day in pre-sunset colors, which for some reason were usually called warm.
At the beginning of the flight, the monotonous northern plain, already sprinkled with rare first snow, slowly floated below; now there was nothing but ice of the Arctic Ocean.
To cover their tracks, the "unknown command" first sent a flight to a base near Irkutsk, then to Noyabrsk. In both places, the bombers unloaded their ammunition in parts.
Over the years of his work on the Central African Front, CAF, Cheodaev had already forgotten how it happens, how winter comes, although he himself was from these parts.
This transitional season, if not depressing, is harsh and gloomy. At first, all nature takes on gray-brown shades, where gray is the sky. Then the earth is brightened by rare snowflakes, falling here and there in stripes during the first snowstorm. Then everything may melt, but in the end everything freezes, becomes glassy and is covered with a smart white blanket of snow, or even a feather bed. The main thing is that there is no city nearby, otherwise this blanket will quickly lose its whiteness, but again, until the next snowfall. Then there are holidays - some drink vodka, some tangerines... It used to be like that, and it didn't go away during the war.
The bombers trudged sadly to the west. The final decision of the command was to transfer the "Two hundred and fifty-second" to a base in Greenland. Then the measures to cover up the tracks should have been considered completed. All five vehicles with crews were still withdrawn from the main unit, which gave some hope that the daring, elegant and undoubtedly effective action would still be carried out. At least, Cheodaev was counting on it.
- How did it happen that the shuttle deflated? - the second pilot began once again, - at least listen to the civilian channels.
- Well, go ahead, try listening to them, - Cheodaev answered sullenly.
The trick here was that, despite all the perfection of the onboard radio intelligence systems, which were part of a larger electronic countermeasure complex, there was no way to listen to civilian channels, or any third-party voice messages at all. The pilots simply did not need that. There were encrypted channels for voice communication, but they were now blocked - the flights were in radio silence mode.
- Well, it had to be that way... First, to take off successfully. Conduct the first orbital turns, get in touch on the Internet, stir up everyone, and then suddenly start making a crazy idea, - Cheodaev did not let up.
- A successful takeoff... - the second pilot said thoughtfully, - You say it as if he really climbed in and stole this shuttle himself.
- Well, I mean, the takeoff was successful. It was a shuttle after all, and a manned one at that. A rarity these days. And this one, what's it called... They say it didn't fly for a long time, but was sitting under cover.
- Do you think the conspirators would have put a ignorant gal there?
- Conspirators... - Cheodaev said thoughtfully, - Who can be considered one of them? I mean, how wide is this circle?
- Better not blab, - the second pilot interrupted Cheodaev's thoughts that threatened to slip out loud.
However, Cheodaev himself understood perfectly well what could be said in a machine that had as much electronics as a person has water, and what was better to remain silent about.
- I'm more interested in what's going on with the bombs, - Cheodaev steered the conversation in another direction.
- Which ones exactly? - the second pilot responded, more willing to talk.
- The ones he dropped on Antarctica.
- Ah. Yes, that's a funny story. I have to give him credit, he wasn't lying about the bombs not hitting anything. He may have damaged a few satellites.
- That's what interests me. It's not for nothing that Interlink has been "running" all day.
- In case you've forgotten, it's not just Interlink that's "running", but also our onboard electronic countermeasure system, - the second pilot replied, - It's been writing about radiation for about an hour now. Do you know what they're shining at us now? The "@enemy" are irradiating us with their anti-missile radar! It's here! If it weren't for this radio silence, I would have asked the ground guys what was going on a long time ago. - Maybe they have a new satellite? - Cheodaev suggested.
- No fucking way! - the second pilot replied, - This is radiation from the Garbage anti-missile radar. Our electronic warfare has determined this with complete certainty.
- The jammer on the satellite imitates this "garbage," Cheodaev clarified.
- Who the hell knows. And what the hell is it for?
- Who the hell knows, - Cheodaev answered in the same tone.
- One way or another, something is wrong with one link in the chain. I'm talking about the radar-radio-our ECM chain, - the second pilot continued his reasoning.
- If there is something strange about the radar, then this strangeness is that it is not a radar, but a jammer, - Cheodaev concluded affirmatively. And it is flying somewhere.
- It makes sense, although I have never seen anything like that. I have never seen anything where the "@enemy", simulating their missile defense, were able to do this in such a rear area. It's not so much difficult as it is pointless. The next link, or rather from the other end of the chain, is our ECM. But it can't be out of order, since all the lines in the pre-flight check were OK. Sabotage could be an exception, but how realistic is that? - the second pilot thought.
- Radio broadcasting remains, - Cheodaev grinned, - On the millimeter range!
The second pilot also cheered up a little. For both officers, this sounded like a joke - both knew perfectly well how radio waves propagate. Low-frequency ones, with a length of meters and tens of meters, can really bend around the Earth, reflecting off the ionized layer of the atmosphere. They can even bend around the planet, and more than once. Microwaves cannot do this. For them, there is only direct visibility. There is an exception with tropospheric re-radiation, but there are a lot of conditions that need to be met. - No, I still think there really is something new here, - Cheodaev continued, - Something like interference from orbit. If they had thrown a whole radar there, it wouldn't have flown for long. But they took advantage of what was happening now and launched some of their crap just to cause trouble. They were offended that we had such a huge sodium lamp in the sky, so they responded as best they could.
- I would fly on such a lamp, - said the second pilot, - Compared to these big things, we seem to be crawling on the ground. Like on four wheels through shit. It's even kind of annoying.
- That's true, - Cheodaev agreed. - They've created competitors for us, for aviation. So is it nuclear or thermonuclear? Haven't figured it out yet?
- Not yet. Everyone says what. They should explain it in human terms soon, otherwise they've spread confusion and secrecy. It's just like a Soviet Union.
- The Soviet Union… - Cheodaev said. - We had the Soviet Union right here, - he poked and ran his finger along the display where the firing information was usually displayed, - It was definitely here, until everything went wrong.
- It's not that Soviet, - the second pilot answered.
- To hell with them, OMSDON can handle it itself, although we could have made it look absolutely beautiful, - Cheodaev drew a line under the topic of the cancelled mission. - Better take a look at the polar lights that played out. You can see them even during the day, and they're some kind of lilac, like potassium permanganate. They also stretch upwards in some unusual way.
- I don't think there's anything unusual about that. Maybe it's like that here every day. Or every other day. Have you seen many polar lights yourself? Although why am I saying that… We have a ton of polar lights in Africa. You just need to drink something local or smoke. And if both...
- Both burst out laughing.
- My job is still dear to me, so I somehow managed without the African polar lights, - said Cheodaev. - Still, about how they usually look... Haven't you seen them in pictures or videos? I've never seen such lines stretching upward.
- In general, I agree, - the second pilot answered. - The typical aurora is rolled up like a ribbon. Like a scarf hanging in the sky.
- SAM LOCK, SAM LOCK, - the AI rattled off quickly and anxiously.
Cheodaev, keeping his cool, brought up the radar receiver window, RWR.
At nine o'clock SAM "Gibbon," Cheodaev announced what the second pilot had probably seen before him.
Cheodaev laughed nervously. The second pilot cursed.
- You understand that it won't fix its beam on us even at a hundred kilometers.
Judging by the direction, the "Gibbon" was on the Central Air Force, not on the Eurasian Front, but in Africa. If we only discard the option that the "@enemy" made their way to the Arctic on a submarine and placed a lone vehicle with a SAM radar in the ice, the direction definitely pointed to Africa. Anything could happen during the war, but given the radio anomalies that had already manifested themselves, this option with an ambush in the ice could be safely discarded.
- What's going on anyway? - Cheodaev asked himself, having calmed down.
- If its beam came from far away, then it blurred, and we flew into this radio spot. The receiver decided that the beam came from a nearby radar, and that this beam was aimed at us. I don't know how it didn't lose power, assuming it was from orbit... If it was a standard Gibbon, it wouldn't have seen us from the satellite. And our RWR, apparently, has such a high sensitivity reserve. In general, the "gibbon" has a powerful radar for a simple air defense - it can also illuminate low-orbit satellites.
- The "gibbon" radar is in orbit... - Cheodaev said doubtfully.
- We'll find out at the base, - the second pilot concluded, - Still, I'm interested in something else... I'm looking at these polar lights. They're just too powerful. The lines are moving right before my eyes.
- The fact that they shimmer before my eyes is normal.
- No fucking way! - the second pilot objected. - Look for yourself.
- I can't see a thing from my seat! - Cheodaev answered irritably.
- Should we tilt it? About twenty degrees is enough.
- Okay, - Cheodaev agreed and began to smoothly tilt the plane to starboard.
- Yes, really! - he muttered admiringly when he finally managed to see the aurora hanging over the northern part of the horizon and the thread-tongues that had become mobile. Some lines were stretching away from the ground, while others were being pulled toward the ground. After watching for about a quarter of a minute, he began to level the plane back.
- What if this is not without reason? - said the second pilot, - Some manipulation of the ionospheric layer? Then the passage of radio signals is explained by itself.
- The question is, why do something like that now? - answered Cheodaev, - or is someone not happy with the way things are going? De-escalation at the front has practically taken place. It is not far from conversion there. Freezing the fronts should be good for the "@enemy" too. The shuttle, no matter how you feel about it, worked at its best. True, we screwed up with the Super Federation, - he added with annoyance. - Of course, this has nothing to do with the big war. In general, why do something like that now, - he shook his head in the direction of the glow, - Do something like that? It would be wiser to take a break. Elections again...
- We'll think about it later. Or we'll see, - the second pilot slowed down the conversation once again.
- Well, as for asking someone or looking on the Internet... It won't take long to guess. To the base... - Cheodaev glanced at the display with interlink layers, - ETA one hour thirty-two. Once upon a time, I spent more on the Moscow metro every day on the road.
- True, what's the point of guessing? - the second pilot agreed. - We should record this on video, - he began to fiddle with the menu of the onboard video system.
Unlike the main optical station, this one, consisting of numerous video cameras watching from miniature windows scattered throughout the fuselage, worked constantly. Its main function was to track the tracks of SAM missiles.
In addition, it worked as a panoramic all-angle video recorder - the staff computers and the unified combat environment UCE were constantly trained. Some of these cameras had more advanced large-caliber optics and the ability to change the zoom and rotate.
The second pilot began to manually orient one or several of these cameras.
Five minutes passed in meaningless exchanges of incoherent phrases and comments on what was happening. Suddenly the second pilot burst into another tirade of obscenities. The tone was both delighted and excited.
- They are stretching upward like MDS missiles, - he exclaimed after all his swearing.
Cheodaev raised his eyes and saw how the lilac lines, turning into red and then yellow, were moving away somewhere upward, into outer space. The glow clearly outlined, in scientific language, popular along with swearing among thoroughbred officers like pilots, outlined a family of curves, seemingly resembling the configuration of the Earth's magnetic field.
Cheodaev wanted to express this thought, but then the lines increased the rate of their extension, and then unanimously changed direction and moved somewhere to the east. All this gave an eerie resemblance to the launch of anti-missiles. Only the scale of the objects, or rather tracks, were different.
- If this is a weapon... This is a monstrous superiority, - the second pilot muttered in the tone of a man overcome by a feeling of religious ecstasy.
Cheodaev, who restrained his emotions, nevertheless experienced similar feelings, or rather, a feeling of admiration, although it was not clear why. At first, he completely rejected the treacherously creeping thought that these were the tricks of the "@enemy". For a while, the logic of the inner mind, screaming that everything began with such a completely natural and man-made phenomenon as the polar lights, for a while sealed its barrel and did not interfere with admiration. Most shocking of all, as already said, these threads behaved like anti-missiles - they initially followed one trajectory, and then turned.
- Where did they fly? - the second pilot wondered. - You don't mean to say that these are actually rockets, - answered Cheodaev, who had recovered from his first impressions. - Firstly, it all started with the polar lights. Secondly, look at the range. Who the hell knows what it is, but it's all clearly happening at orbital altitudes. There can't be tracks like that there.
- Anything you see for the first time cannot be explained from the standpoint of previous experience, previous observations, - the second pilot answered, still with admiration in his voice.
- You're totally over the top! I agree with the idea, but this phenomenon looks... Like something natural. It doesn't look like the result of human activity - no air launch, no laser beam. And it all started with the polar lights. Even if they weren't quite ordinary.
- Maybe it's some kind of plasma weapon, - the second pilot didn't let up. - Maybe it's plasma flying? You see, they turned.
- And how do you imagine that? How do they direct it? You're an officer, with a technical background... Plasma is held in place by a magnetic field. They could very well be directed by the earth's magnetic field... Yes, the polar lights are directed... Your mother! Do you know what they turned?!
- Why?
- Need you minute to think?
- Speak already, we not need have exams here too!
- What does the Earth's magnetic field look like?
- It looks like a magnetic field. Rings. Well... Lines of force. You get the idea.
- Look at the sun.
- What does the sun have to do with it?
- Have you ever seen videos about space? I haven't studied this topic specifically, but I've seen some things. I immediately remembered this picture...
- What picture? - the second pilot asked, puzzled.
- The picture from the videos. It's the same everywhere. Do you see how these lines go away from the sun?
- Well, why do they go away from the sun?
- The magnetic field is stretched out like an onion. If they drew everything in the right proportions, you can even compare it to an onion. The magnetic field interacts with the sun and stretches out. It interacts with the solar wind, to be precise.
- Exactly, I remember something like that.
- But still, this is some kind of rare phenomenon. It looks too impressive. And you started talking about missiles, about weapons...
- I didn't say anything about missiles.
- Oh, what a wonderful missile! We're defeating everyone! - Cheodaev continued to mock.
- You're the one who said "Oh, what a wonderful missile," - the second pilot answered angrily, - It's a perfectly normal desire for our side to get something advanced...
- A message arrived in the mailbox, - the second pilot suddenly interrupted himself.
A mailbox was sometimes, though not often, the name given to the communication module that had thwarted the attack on the Super-Federate fortified areas, to which those terribly inconvenient text messages, compared to normal two-way communication, were sent. It was this kind of encryption that ordered us to deploy when there was very little time left before the attack. The block itself was isolated, and the lines on the monochrome display resembled service messages on a telephone, that is, mail, reduced to the most archaic form.
- What's there?
- They order us to redirect to Trondheim. Five hundred kilometers total.
- Even better, my ass is already stiff, - answered Cheodaev.
- Look at the interlink. Signal level... - the second pilot announced a new input.
- What's wrong with it?
- Line status.
Generally, as a rule, the interlink screen, in addition to everything else, displayed information about the communication channel status. Just like a telephone. Only unlike a telephone, where, like a hundred years ago, there was an antenna icon with a number of bars next to it, on the display with the interlink, in a secluded corner on the left, there was the inscription LINE. The inscription replaced the antenna icon.
Instead of the bars drawn next to it, there was an abstracted percentage rating of the signal level and an abstracted stepped letter characteristic of the channel quality. This letter rating changed from AA and down to F. Now the quality was characterized as EE, which was a step away from F, at which the line was cut off. In general, for an hour and a half, the percentage level of the signal had also been falling, but this was common.
Now the level was 35 percent, but it sometimes dropped to 15, but the rating did not fall below B.
What was happening now was typical of being in an enemy ECM field. Having spent a few moments putting one thing into another, Cheodaev came to the conclusion that this was happening for the same reason as the radar contact - due to the abnormal passage of electromagnetic waves.
The second pilot, however, did not perceive his assumption as something indisputable and obvious - there was a reason for his doubts. The onboard complex would have easily detected extraneous signals of the enemy ECM and would have reported them long ago. It looked as if the station with which the onboard terminal of the interlink communicated was somehow not working correctly. But the onboard terminal and other communications of the bomber were not hanging on any one station - there were several such stations. More questions.
Cheodaev began to change course - Trondheim was located south of the original route. Seven minutes after receiving the message about the need for an emergency landing, the interlink went out.
The lines going into space continued to hang overhead, like meridians drawn in the sky. Some spread into stripes-ribbons.
In general, the bomber could easily reach the coast and the base without any communication with external remote systems. That's what the inertial navigation and the TSICS visual terrain recognition system, which stored a visual map of the entire surface of the planet, were for.
Cheodaev reacted emotionally to the interlink being turned off, cursing. The Second Pilot, unlike him, if one could put it that way, had time to get tired of excessive emotionality and took the news calmly.
- Look at the horizon, - the second pilot began instead of discussing the problem with the interlink. - I thought my vision was blurred by the light filters, but now I see that it's not.
Cheodaev turned his head and glanced through the second pilot at the low-hanging luminary above the horizon.
- Do you notice anything? - the second pilot asked.
- It's kind of greenish in the sky.
- That's what I noticed too. It doesn't look like a green beam effect - the sun is shining as usual, but the sky...
- The background is too uniform for the polar lights. Damn radio silence...
Cheodaev turned his head to the left and began to peer into the eastern horizon, darkened by the winter cold. His vision did not adapt immediately, but it soon became quite obvious that the sky in the east had acquired an unnatural color component, of course, green.
A bluish static discharge ran across the windshield. Then another. This happened sometimes, but it was not typical for these latitudes and weather.
Finally, the coastline appeared. By this time, the plane had already dropped its altitude to three thousand meters.
By the time the bomber landed and froze at the end of the strip, the entire sky was clearly shining with a green phosphorescent light. The base was filled with all sorts of aircraft, there was even a rear AWACS, towering with its antenna among the transports. Cheodaev also managed to make out a couple of civilian airliners. Obviously, what was happening at the edge of the atmosphere or above posed a threat to air transport to one degree or another.