Dead Zone
Authors: Robison Wells
For my dad,
who got me reading about both superpowers and the military
CONTENTS
SEATTLE SEEMED COMPLETELY DESERTED. ALEC
sat in an overstuffed chair in the Columbia Center, one of a dozen empty skyscrapers in the center of the city. He was on the twenty-fourth floor—it was the highest he felt like climbing; the electricity to run the elevators was out. Between him and the window, there was a PlayStation, its wires trailing behind it like a jellyfish. Alec could just imagine the conversation. Some kid wanted to take it along when his family evacuated, and a parent had said it was too much unnecessary weight to carry.
Alec smiled and looked off into the bay, wondering how much longer it would be before his people got here.
ZASHA LITVYAK FLEW ACROSS THE
northern Pacific, low enough that she could feel the salty spray as the ocean surged. This was the culmination of years of preparation; everything had led to this moment, and the work that would follow.
The Russian Federation had invaded Alaska.
It sounded worse than it was. It was a tiny landing force at the northernmost part of the state, just enough to startle the residents and seize the oil reserves. The real invading force was coming now.
Fyodor Sidorenko groaned as he dangled in a harness underneath her.
“Shh,” Zasha said. “It’s about to start.”
“We’ve been waiting long forever,” he replied, pain apparent in his voice. “Let’s get it over with.”
He’d do his part soon enough. He was the real weapon. She was just the transportation.
“They’re here,” she said as she spotted the lights of the American task force in the distance. She saw the first carrier,
70
painted on its superstructure. “The USS
Carl Vinson
. And behind it is the
Ronald Reagan
.” In addition to the carriers, Zasha could name most of the destroyers and frigates in the group. But there were a dozen support craft that she couldn’t identify. They were auxiliaries that had fled the terrorist attacks at Bremerton: research vessels and hospital ships and cargo carriers. This group was a cluster of unprepared misfits, not a war-bound task force.
“I wish I could see,” he said.
“You’ll see the fireworks.”
He laughed at that—a wet, raspy laugh in which she could hear the damage to his body. Too many drugs.
No, that wasn’t right. It was the perfect amount of drugs—a formula that had been tested on him time and again until they’d gotten the results they wanted. Fyodor meant
gift from God
. It was his new name, given by their overseers at the training facility. And if this plan worked, he would be.
Zasha liked her new name, too. No longer was she Inna Fedorov, a name that meant little. Zasha meant
defender of the people
, and her surname came from Lydia Litvyak, the world’s top female flying ace. At training school Zasha had put on a dour expression and pretended the title was a solemn honor, but out here—soaring over the ocean—she adored it. Soon she would be an ace, a flyer who aimed her weapon with such precision and grace that the enemy wouldn’t even know how they’d been hit.
Zasha moved slower now, so she could fly closer to the rolling ocean. Two teenagers wouldn’t show up on the fleet’s radars; even if someone did track them, they’d give off signatures no different from birds. And should anyone catch sight of them from the deck, their black-and-white camouflage would blend in with the dark sea and breaking waves.
As Zasha neared the fleet she felt her heart leap, knowing that the plan was going better than they had hoped. The flagship was the legendary USS
Nimitz
. Two carriers was a feat. Three carriers was a miracle. Of course, the carriers were surrounded by a host of defensive ships and air cover, but that was what Zasha and Fyodor were for.
Zasha checked the GPS on her wrist. Everything hinged on being in just the right place. She glided around a tall, blocky cruiser—the USS
Princeton
, she noted, the names drilled into her by her trainer—and moved farther back into the group.
She checked the GPS again. Just about right. She made an adjustment, flying two hundred yards to her right. Fyodor had a range—a diameter—of just under twenty-six kilometers. Zasha hovered in place and pulled a syringe from her hip pouch. It was already filled, and she checked it for air.
“I’m ready,” Fyodor said through a tense jaw. They both knew the pain he’d feel. Maybe she knew it better than him—her mind was clearer while it was happening.
“You’re going to be a hero.” She jabbed the needle into Fyodor’s shoulder and depressed the plunger.
He strained, his whole body going rigid. She gazed up at the stars, waiting for the inevitable, and then she saw it. First one, then two, then four fighter jets fell from the sky, careening uncontrollably. Soon all the aircraft that had been flying above the carrier group were falling, followed by their parachuting pilots.
One plane was in the distance—outside of Fyodor’s range. It was foolishly moving back toward the group. A moment later it began a sharp descent into the inky black sea. No parachutes emerged from that one.
Every ship was dark. Every door light, every cabin window, every beacon. Everything. It was just like Zasha had imagined, and it thrilled her.
She checked her watch—an old wind-up one that didn’t rely on batteries; Fyodor’s abilities shut down anything with an electric current. She was right on schedule, which meant her backup wouldn’t be far behind.
Thirty-two Backfire bombers were coming at the carrier group, flying low over the ocean, using strategies not seen since the Second World War.
It was an old admiral who had come up with the plan, or so the story around training camp went. In World War II, torpedo planes would fly low to the water—hoping to dodge the incoming anti-aircraft fire—and then drop their torpedoes.
The problem now was Fyodor’s dead zone. The Backfires needed to get their projectiles through the bubble without entering the dead zone themselves; Fyodor’s abilities did not distinguish between friend and foe. The Backfires had been equipped with special torpedoes, created just for this mission. Long range, accurate, and with an impact detonator. Each plane would drop two torpedoes without having to watch out for anti-aircraft fire. The only challenge was to aim.
Zasha wondered what was happening on the American submarines caught inside the bubble. They’d be nothing more than steel pipes in the water, completely dark and powerless, drifting aimlessly. Their crews would have no idea what was happening on the surface—no sonar, nothing.
And then Zasha saw the first of the Russian Backfires, screaming up and away, its torpedoes dropped.
She checked her watch. The torpedoes had a range of eleven kilometers.
“Four minutes,” she said to Fyodor, even though she knew he couldn’t understand. Or maybe he could understand—maybe he just wouldn’t remember any of this.
The sky was filled with Backfires now, pulling back and turning away from the dead zone. One didn’t make it—it pushed too far and came to a stop in midair, then began to spin down into the ocean. The first Russian casualty of the American War.
Fyodor was writhing in his harness, the powerful drugs amplifying his abilities and wreaking havoc on his mind. Zasha had sympathy for him, but his name was accurate: he was a gift from God, and a gift to be used.
Two minutes to go. She hoped the torpedoes would get past the ring of ships at the outside of the carrier group. For that matter, she hoped that the torpedoes would be on target at all. She knew the Backfire pilots had been practicing for months, but it was a tricky maneuver, and trickier still under pressure.
Somewhere in the distance, the Backfires were reforming, opening their bomb-bay doors and getting ready to drop heavy missiles.
For just a moment—an instant—Zasha had a flicker of remorse. Or was it pity? More than thirty American ships, including three Nimitz-class carriers—three of the largest ships ever to sail the oceans—were about to be destroyed. It was easy for a Backfire pilot to fire an anonymous torpedo and watch it sail away into the dark. It was harder to be among the ships—to hear their crews’ calls as the sailors scrambled for some kind of defense.
The first torpedo hit, a geyser of flame bursting upward from the side of a frigate. Zasha was thrown backward a dozen yards by the impact blast. Before she could get her bearings there was another impact, and then another. The sky was blazing with orange-white fire.
Three ships were engulfed; soon it was four, then six, then eight. Finally, the first carrier was destroyed—the
Ronald Reagan
. Then it seemed as though the entire
Carl Vinson
rolled, hit by half a dozen torpedoes in a single moment. Zasha could see sailors falling overboard as the massive steel beast shuddered and swung back to right itself.
“Look at it, Fyodor,” she said in awe. “Look at the fires.”
Smoke was pouring from a dozen ships now, billowing in the Pacific winds and obscuring her view. Zasha watched the raging inferno, pride swelling in her chest. The American fleet was in ruins.
She checked her watch and marked the time, then flew east, away from the burning ships. Now she would set the trap.
It had to be done by sight. She couldn’t administer the drugs to Fyodor to calm him down; she wasn’t done with him yet. So she couldn’t use her GPS to track the thirteen kilometers she would need to fly to move the bubble off the carrier group—she’d have to do it by sight. But she’d trained for this, long and hard. She could judge thirteen kilometers on land, or on sea, in the light or the dark.
At thirteen kilometers out she stopped, hovering over the waves. She watched the undamaged ships’ lights come back on.
She checked her watch again. It had been two minutes. By now any carriers that were still operational would have launched their first wave of waiting aircraft. Zasha knew the fighter jets wouldn’t pursue the Backfires, not yet. Not until they had a substantial force in the air, and not until their radars saw the Russian planes returning.
Fyodor groaned and mumbled something that she couldn’t hear over the rush of the ocean. She wished he could see this. He was her partner. She was the gun and he was the bullet.
“It’s okay, Fyodor,” she told him. “Everything is okay.”
The burning ships were oddly beautiful, like a distant row of campfires billowing in the night sky. She wondered what the sailors on board were doing—what procedures they had in place to deal with this kind of unexpected attack. Firefighters would be out in force, and the captains and admirals would be scrambling to save their vessels. They’d be waiting for another attack, watching their radar, anticipating a return of the Backfires.
But they wouldn’t be anticipating a return of Zasha. She flew back toward the fleet, watching as lights began to disappear on the nearest boats, and made her way to the center of the fleet. She arrived just in time to see one of the Nimitzes’ catapults—running on steam power, not electronics—launch a powerless fighter jet over the edge and into the water. She knew that the rest of the air patrol would be falling now, and she strained to see them, but there was no sign of the planes against the darkened sky.
And again she would wait, her bubble directly over the carrier group once more, disabling all their sensors and radar. The Backfires would return, their bays open and their missiles ready for a killing blow. They’d be followed by Mainstays with radar arrays to guide them in, and Fullbacks to provide fighter support. Not that they needed it. Fyodor was stopping every American aircraft that was trying to move.
It was a longer wait this time, but Zasha didn’t care. How many years had they planned this? Decades? It was ever since they learned of Fyodor’s abilities, and then they’d sought out a flyer with Zasha’s strength and intelligence. Not many could make the distance, or hold so steady over the water. Not many could follow the exactness of the plan.
The thought struck her: How many men would be killed in this glorious battle? Carriers had nearly five thousand each. A frigate had about two hundred, and a destroyer had as many as two fifty. And who knew how many all these extra ships had.
More than fifteen thousand. Maybe twenty?
She checked her watch one last time. The missiles would be nearing her bubble now, and it was time to get out of there. She only needed to stay long enough to keep the missiles off the radar. Zasha turned and headed east again. As she flew she withdrew another syringe from her pouch, flicked away the air pockets, and stabbed it into Fyodor’s arm. He’d drift to sleep, and the electronic interference would melt away. She could return to the Varyag to debrief and celebrate. And then the preparations for landing the ships in Seattle would begin.