Read ' The Longest Night ' & ' Crossing the Rubicon ': The Original Map Illustrated and Uncut Final Volume (Armageddon's Song) for Free Online Page A

larger number of hypergolic propellant tanks for its maneouvring thrusters in order to survive the game of orbital dodge ball that had been running since day one of the war.
    The Vega’s satellite would control not only the B61 weapon for attacking the bunker, but the Nighthawk’s air to air and ground attack ordnance also. But it needed a RORSAT to provide the required radar and thermal data on the targets.
     
     
    Russia
     
    Major Caroline Nunro allowed herself a glance at the watch on her wrist as if distrusting the digital time being displayed on the instrument panel before her.
    “I don’t know.” Patricia said, anticipating the question.
    The plan called for dedicated satellite support and that support simply had not materialised.
    There was no way to know if there was a delay or whether…
    Her comms panel lit up as the communication satellite that the Italian Vega had carried aloft sent an authentication query. It would not open a downlink until it was satisfied with their bona fides.
    Patricia’s fingers flew, inputting the correct response and then breathing a sigh of relief at the data which flooded down.
    The cockpit screens and panels giving virtual views through 360 ° began to light up with updated mission specific information on static and mobile air defences. It was being fed to them in the form of an encrypted datalink from a CIA ground station in Illinois where the mission was being run. There was no voice transmission only data.
    “How current is this?” Caroline queried.
    “Thirty six hours.” Pat replied.
    “Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick…” Caroline responded “Can you bring up the target area as a map overlay?”
    The rolling hills had given way to open ground with little in the way of habitation on their line of flight. She let the aircraft systems take over and concentrated on what was her first look at their target.
    They were both silent as they took in the defences they needed to defeat, by stealth or force.
    “Tatischevo, Sharkovka, Petrovsk, Engels, Saratov West and Saratov airport.” Caroline read off the airfields nearby.
    “Tatischevo is a deactivated ICBM base; Sharkovka is a MiG-29 base, ditto Petrovsk….” Patricia narrated the intelligence data for the area that had been collated since they had sent the information supplied by Svetlana’s contact.
    “…Engels is a bomber base, Tu-95 ‘Bears’ and an aircraft museum, Saratov is a civilian airport and Saratov West is deactivated, a graveyard for old military helicopters.”
    “Saratov West is the closest to the target but it is thirteen miles away…” Caroline mused.
    “Doubting Svetlana’s contact?” Pat asked.
    “We have no reason to trust them.”
    “The runway looks well maintained.” Patricia was bringing up the satellite photos of the base taken a year before.  Beside the runway, on the untended grass field were row upon row of early production troop transport Mi-8s, and many of those without rotor blades.
    For a downgraded airbase though the tower and hangars looked better maintained than the other buildings.
    The mine workings near Topovka were thought to be a mile deep but what was above ground just looked as you would expect a mine that had been worked out for twenty years to look like. The satellite images, being a year old, bore no signs of recent activity, or the lack thereof, to confirm or deny its alleged purpose.
    “Would you have a car park next to a mine shaft?” Patricia asked.
    “I’ve no idea why you wouldn’t, if that is any help, so I guess we just waste the place and hope the information was kosher.”
    A Soviet nuclear bunker could reportedly survive a hundred kiloton near miss owing to them being super-hardened boxes supported on all sides by giant shock absorbers, so their B61 weapon’s relatively small dialled-in 30kt yield warhead had to be delivered on target and bury itself as deep as possible. After a time delay in which the F-117X needed to put