Storm Over Saturn (13 page)

By the time they were through, night was falling. Hunter ordered the pilots to get some sleep, which they did right on the first floor of the off-base housing building. Hunter, however, stayed awake all night planning the route they would take tomorrow.

The flight up from Spain to the Franco-German border would burn more than half their fuel, this due to the overloads of bombs they would be carrying and the route they had to take. No matter which way Hunter spun the numbers, there just would not be enough gas for them to return to Rota. That was OK, though. Why would they want to come back here?

But where was their alternative base? If the latest news reports were accurate, most of Western Europe was flooded with deadly gas. Hard or soft, that meant many, many rotting corpses or lots of territory under control of the Soviets.

So there was no way Hunter could find a safe place for them to set down once they'd unloaded the munitions.

Unless some sort of miracle came along then, this was going to be a one-way mission.

Dawn arrived.

The sky was bloodred, always a sign of bad things to come. Hunter woke the five reluctant pilots and lied to them. He told them that he'd identified an air base still in friendly hands just outside Paris. They could fly their missions, land at this base, possibly load up again, and go up again. The five pilots greeted the news with only mild grumbling. They did one last check of their airplanes, and then it was time to go.

By design, the highways leading into the base at Rota were long and straight and wide. Their size allowed them to be used as emergency runways. The six airplanes lined up on the highway heading north. They took off, one by one. Hunter was the last to get airborne.

Per his orders, the three F-15s took the lead, forming a loose chevron about 1,000 feet in front of Hunter. The two bomb-heavy A-10s took up positions in between.

They flew in silence. Hunter's flight plan took them out over Spain to the French Alps. It was a slightly roundabout route, and would use up precious fuel, but there was a method to Hunter's madness. The small strike force had one main enemy: radar. If they were picked up too soon, no doubt the Soviets would send masses of aircraft after them. While the F-15s and Hunter's plane could dogfight with ordnance attached, the A-10s were not aerial combat weapons. They would be sitting ducks.

Hunter knew they could not avoid being picked up on radar forever; the idea was to delay detection as long as possible. Thus the strange flight plan. The Soviets would have many air defense radars attached to the columns advancing into Western Europe. These radars would be activated to protect the nose of their columns, but would they be watching the flanks? Possibly not. Not if the Soviets were trying to make as much headway as possible. .

That's why they were taking the long way around. They would hit these guys where they weren't looking.

It was strange because at first the terrain below them appeared fine. Small villages, red roofs, winding roadways, gradually filling with snow. The French Alps seemed positively idyllic, the new sun glistening off the snow.

But everything changed once they got over the mountains. Below them now was complete devastation. Cities, villages, dams, power stations, military bases—all of them utterly destroyed. The horror seemed to get worse every mile they flew north.

About ten minutes into this, the other pilots broke radio silence. They started freaking out. They wanted to turn back. They wanted to give up.

Hunter's blood pressure went through his eyeballs. His first instinct was to tear each one of these guys a new one. But he stopped himself, keyed his microphone, and calmly but firmly ordered the five of them to press on—and to stop talking on the radio.

But Hunter knew what he was seeing below didn't make any sense. Poison gas killed people, but it did not cause widespread destruction.

Why then the devastation below?

They went over a number of French cities, all of which had been leveled. Their rivers seemed to be running black with debris, their streets rainbow-colored by gasoline.

Then off in the distance, Hunter could see storm clouds. They stretched across the entire northern horizon. This was strange. The weather all around them was ironically pleasant and fair. No cloud banks. And certainly no atmospherics that would lead to any major storms. So what was this out on the horizon?

Hunter ordered the five pilots to stay their course, then he zoomed up to the ear-bleeding altitude of 50,000 feet. From here, using his amazing eyesight, he could see the source of the tremendous commotion. This was no storm. Not a typical one, anyway. It was the Red onslaught. No less than ten Soviet armies on the march, pouring out of the lowlands of southern Germany like a long river of blood. Tanks, trucks, APCs, mobile rocket launchers, millions of Soviet soldiers, swallowing up the territory in a massive and ravenous fashion. Hunter felt his stomach do a flip.

This was getting serious now.

It was not the smart thing to do, but Hunter booted in his afterburner and went down to almost ground level. Soon he was zooming right above the advance columns of the Soviet juggernaut. He seemed to be moving in slow motion again. The scene below him was indeed like a nightmare. Soviet soldiers were marching in step in parade formations, insanity in a combat environment. They were all spit and polish, their bayonets gleaming in the early sun. And civilians were lining the roads, greeting the Red Army as heroes. The Soviets just about ignored Hunter as he flew over. As before, those that did acknowledge him, did so with laughter and derision.

It went on like this for miles. Small towns. Villages. Red flags flying everywhere. Then, on the outskirts of one large city, Hunter saw a most horrible sight. Thousands of American soldiers lying on a vast killing field. Among the still bodies, American flags were burning.

This was worse than any nightmare for Hunter. He had to get away. He put the F-16 on its tail and climbed for five miles straight up. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He was having trouble breathing. He turned over and found his five reluctant pilots in almost the same spot where he left them, as if they'd been standing still all this time.

He put on his best bravado voice and told the five pilots he'd identified the choke-point target he'd been hoping for. It was a bridge spanning the Vogel River, close to the border between France and Germany. It was approximately 300 miles behind the head of the Soviet columns.

Hunter went back down to the deck, the five other planes grudgingly following behind. They soon had the huge span in sight. It was at least two miles long, with large cities on either side. Soviet tanks were rolling over the bridge four across. Troop concentrations were also in evidence on both sides of the nverbank, as were typical rear area components such as fuel dumps, staging areas, and repair stations.

Hunter flew over the bridge at high speed, not dropping any ordnance, simply hoping to draw any antiaircraft fire away from the main attack force. But not a single round was fired in his direction. Even though Hunter could see mobile AA units in the nonstop Red Army parade, none of them seemed to want to bother to stop and shoot at him. He did three passes while the rest of the strike group orbited at low altitude nearby; still no one even looked up at him.

Hunter radioed back to the other five jets. No need for military niceties here. He simply told them to bring it on. He went up to 3,000 feet and began circling over the target area. As they had planned, the A-10s went in first. Just one 2,000-pound bomb could drop the bridge's middle span if it hit right. Each plane was carrying four of the kick-ass bombs.

The Thunderbolts streaked in, again with absolutely no antiaircraft fire being thrown up against them. The A-10s were side by side, and each dropped two of its big bombs in tandem. Hunter's heart leapt from his chest when he saw the four iron bombs heading dead-on for the middle span of the bridge. And all four hit; but just like his attack earlier on the Soviet carrier, incredibly, all four bounced off. Right behind were the three F-15s in a ragged line. They were on the scene even before the A-10s' pulled off. These three pilots saw the A-10s bombs bounce off, but they were already into the delivery runs. Perhaps the A-10s' bombs were duds.

The F-15s roared in and dropped two 2,000-pound bombs apiece, plus a 750-pound high-shrapnel bomb. Each explosive had more than enough firepower to sink the span or at least grease everyone on it. But incredibly, all of their bombs bounced off, too.

Hunter felt he was being sucked further down into this bad dream. He flipped over and bore in on the bridge himself, this time making a lengthwise approach. He intended to drop his entire load right in the middle of the central span. No one fired at him as he turned into his bomb run. Those soldiers below riding on tanks and APCs hardly re-acted to his presence at all. He let loose everything he had, coming in hard and fast…

But all his bombs just skidded off the edge and fell harmlessly into the river. Furious, he turned over and strafed the columns. But his bullets had no effect. Just like before, it looked like his cannon rounds were bouncing off anything they hit.

His radio came alive. It was one of the F-15 pilots. "Can we go home now?" he asked.

But before Hunter could answer, he saw the F-15 in front of him suddenly get blown out of the sky. There was no way to tell what happened. It was just gone in a ball of flame.

Screams in his ears now. The other pilots were flipping out again.

"We told you so!" one bellowed—before he, too, was hit by something and destroyed. The two A-10s turned to escape, but they were quickly shot down as well. The remaining F-15 pilot simply drove his plane into the ground.

Then Hunter felt his own plane get hit. Suddenly there were flames all around him.

Instinct alone made him reach for the ejection lever. There was a burst of smoke and flames, and an instant later he was floating in the air. No noise. No motion. Just him floating and the bridge and flames below.

Then came a sudden jerk; his chute had opened, a small miracle. Now he seemed to be dropping even faster. The river passed out of view; he was approaching another killing field, a place where many more thousands of recent American graves had been laid out. American flags were everywhere, smoldering on the ground.

It seemed to take forever for him to make it to the surface. He hit hard, rolled, and came up on his feet. The chute disappeared. He was right in the middle of the field of the dead. American rifles with American helmets stuck on top of them. He heard gunfire. Bullets were suddenly zipping by him. He started to run.

Russian soldiers in perfectly pressed uniforms began chasing him through the graveyard. They were laughing at him even as they were shooting at him. Hunter looked down at his uniform and saw it was threadbare. His boots were suddenly without their soles. His hands were dirty, and his fingernails cracked and sore.

More bullets. More laughing. Tripping over freshly dug graves, he somehow reached the top of a ridge and found another small army of Soviet soldiers coming up the other side right at him. He turned left. More soldiers, bayonets extended, were rushing toward him. He turned right. At least a hundred more Red Army soldiers were advancing on him. He was absolutely surrounded and unarmed. At his feet, in the dust, a discarded American flag.

If only I had wings
, he thought, /
could get out of this
—

More than a thousand Red Army soldiers were now converging on him. They'd stopped shooting at him and were advancing slowly, with bayonets out front.

If this was the end, then he wanted to do it right. He reached down and picked up the flag at his feet, intending to literally wrap himself in it, when suddenly it burst into flames. Bright orange fire, that covered his hands, covered his face, but did not hurt him.

And at that moment, it was as if a bolt of lightning hit him right between the eyes.
Get a hold of yourself! You're in an amusement park
! No one had been killed. No one had been shot down. This was all just a grand illusion. It was just so real, so personal, he'd gotten caught up in it to the point of not thinking clearly.
Idiot
…

The nearest Russian soldiers were just about ten feet away when Hunter simply held up his hand and started waving the twice-punched yellow ticket. This stopped the soldiers cold in their tracks. They all stared back at him for a moment, but then they all seemed to relax a little, too. The show was over.

He flipped the ticket and pointed to the picture of the Mad Russian.

"Anyone here know where this guy is?" he called out.

"That's Crazy Ivan, I think," one soldier said in broken English. "He's the guy who built this place."

Hunter got a bit excited. What better place for a Mad Russian to be than in a world where the Russians always win?

"So you've seen him around?" Hunter asked them. "Recently?"

But then they all began shaking their heads no.

One called out, "No, not in a long time."

"A very long time," said another.

"Last I heard, he was spotted over on Moon Three," said a third. "Or was it Moon Four?"

"OK, thanks," Hunter called back to them. "Sorry to bother you all—"

Most of the soldiers just nodded or waved and started to walk away. One officer was nearby. Hunter flagged him down and asked him if he knew where the next ticket booth was.

The officer just pointed to a nearby hill. Hunter had to squint to see it, but sure enough, there was a structure up there surrounded by banks of white carnival lights. He thanked the officer and then they shook hands.

"
Das-vee-darn-ya
," the officer said to him. "And come back real soon…"

Hunter started his way up the hill.

The answer here? Obviously this
was
a re-creation of what was known back in one of his lives as World War Three. But it was that conflict as seen not through the eyes of an American but of a Russian. Soviets invincible and courageous. The Americans threadbare and cowardly. And it had been done so realistically, and had been so close to an experience he'd had way, way back, Hunter had simply fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.