Arctic Storm Rising by Dale Brown (readera ebook reader .TXT) 📗

switching to the view from one of the bomber’s rear-facingthermal cameras. Two ghostly green-tinted images appeared on his helmet visor. They were closing fast.

“What the hell are those clowns doing?” Petrov growled. The two Su-57 stealth fighters that had been escorting the IL-78 airtanker had abandoned their charge and were now chasing after the PAK-DA.

Mavrichev leaned forward again, this time with a satisfied smile on his face. “I made a small alteration to your originaloperations plan, Colonel. Those fighters will accompany us as our escorts, at least until their fuel runs low. If any of thosepatrolling interceptors you’ve already detected ahead spot us in turn, the Su-57s will engage and destroy them—opening a clearpath to your targets.” He sat back in his seat, looking even more pleased with himself. “And as an added bonus, having friendlyfighters along will let you test this aircraft’s secure communications systems under realistic conditions.”

Petrov’s jaw tightened. Beside him, he noticed Bunin surreptitiously roll his eyes in disgust. The whole point of a stealthbomber was that it didn’t need a fighter escort. If anything, adding more aircraft to the mission package only increased theodds they would be detected. But Mavrichev was a dinosaur who’d cut his teeth as a younger officer flying lumbering Tu-95turboprops and supersonic Tu-160 swing-wing bombers—both aircraft types with enormous radar cross-sections. The general’sunderstanding of strike tactics must have ossified years ago, Petrov concluded with justified contempt.

Outside, the two sleek-looking Su-57s separated and slid into positions four kilometers off the larger bomber’s wingtips.More uninvited guests at my private party, he thought coldly. This situation was getting worse and worse. His brain went into overdrive as he frantically evaluateda new series of alternatives. He had the means to handle Bunin and Mavrichev. But those Su-57 pilots were beyond easy reach.At last, he shrugged and accepted reality. Things were going to get a lot messier than he would have preferred, but the stakeswere far too high for him to back out now.

Petrov pulled down his oxygen mask and ostentatiously took out his father’s old stainless-steel hip flask. With a quick jerkof his head, he mimed tossing back a shot, but he kept his teeth and tongue clenched tight to avoid swallowing any of theliquid inside. He lowered the flask with a strange sense of regret. He missed the sensation of high-proof vodka flowing downhis throat like cold fire. Then, with his thumb held firmly over the top, he gave the flask a fast, hard shake to thoroughlymix all of its contents together.

Forcing a more genuine smile, he swung around in his seat and handed it back to Mavrichev. “One for the road, General?” heasked. “Before we get too busy to have any fun?”

The older man laughed and took a huge gulp before passing the flask up to Bunin, who did the same. “You surprise me, Petrov,”he joked. “I had you pegged as a bloodless technocrat. But now I see that you’re just as big a hell-raiser as your old man!”

Still smiling, Petrov retrieved his flask from Bunin and stowed it away again. Mavrichev had come very close to the truththere. Hell was precisely what he planned to raise. He toggled their secure tactical communications system. Like its strategiccounterpart, it encrypted and compressed signals into millisecond-long blips before transmitting them. “Prizrachnyy Polet, Specter Flight, this is Shadow One,” he radioed. “We are descending to five hundred meters. Suggest you take station tenkilometers out in front of me for now. Stay a little higher, though, say one thousand meters.”

“Affirmative, Shadow One,” the lead Su-57 pilot replied. Even with the inherent distortion imposed by signals compression, he sounded confident, almost cocky. “We’ll swat any hostiles out of your way as needed.”

Petrov pushed his stick forward, beginning his descent. Through the canopy, he watched the two fighters pull out ahead. Seenfrom behind and below through the bomber’s sensitive IR sensors, the Su-57s were marginally brighter against the cold, starlitsky. Despite design features that significantly reduced their engine heat signatures, they were still more detectable fromthe aft quarter.

He shot a quick glance at Bunin. His copilot’s head slumped forward. The fast-acting drug he’d used to spike the vodka hadtaken effect. It was a fentanyl derivative, originally concocted by chemists for Russia’s Spetsnaz hostage rescue units. Anotherswift look over his shoulder showed that Mavrichev was also unconscious. Or perhaps dead. Mixing any fentanyl variant withalcohol was incredibly dangerous, often leading to total respiratory failure. As Bunin’s superior, he’d had access to theyounger man’s medical records. When he concocted this plan months ago, he’d run those records past shady medical experts providedby Grishin’s go-between, Pavel Voronin. They’d assured him that his copilot’s risk of a fatal overdose was reasonably low.Mavrichev had no such guarantee.

Petrov shrugged. One more death would make no great difference to his conscience.

He leaned forward and checked the readouts from his navigation and sensor systems again. They matched. Except for the distantinterceptors and AWACS planes patrolling far off to the east, there were no other air contacts for hundreds of kilometersin any direction. To clear the skies for this top secret Ghost Strike exercise, Russia’s air traffic controllers had temporarilydiverted all routine civilian flights away from this isolated, almost uninhabited wilderness region. Effectively, his stealthbomber and its unwanted fighter escorts were all alone in the middle of nowhere.

Petrov grimaced. He was out of options. And almost out of time. Mavrichev’s surprise move to assign those fighters to this mission had boxed him in. At last, with a frustrated sigh, he entered a new series of commands on one of his displays. Four warbling tones echoed through his headset. Data from the PAK-DA’s thermal sensors had been successfully downloaded to four of the self-defense K-74M2 heat-seeking missiles carried in the bomber’s internal weapons bays. They were locked on target.

Gently, he squeezed the trigger on his stick.

With a high-pitched whine, two bays under the wings cycled open. And one by one, four missiles were dropped into the air andignited. Trailing smoke and fire, they slashed across the night sky—streaking toward their