Russian Amerika: Chapter Twenty Seven

27 Tetlin Imperial Aerodrome

    Twelve Yaks roared into the air, following their flight leader and his wingman. Major Valari Kominskiya watched them buzz toward Chatanika Crossing until they blended into the sky. She hurried back into the radio room where General Posivich sat on a reversed chair, his chin resting on crossed arms.

    "Have a seat, major." He nodded toward a metal folding chair. She sat.

    The speaker crackled and all eyes in the room focused on it. "This is Talon One, do you read me, Tetlin?"

    "Yes, podpolkovnik. We read you clear and loud," said the corporal with the headset.

    "Acknowledged. Talon Four, take your group and reconnoiter the target zone."

    "Yes, sir. Talon Four, out."

    Valari let her eyes slide over to the general. He sat with his face buried in his arms. A small sliver of anxiety worked its way into her composure.

    "Talon One, this is Talon Four. We see only a cabin in a clearing. Over."

    "Are there signs of habitation, Talon Four?"

    "Yes, podpolkovnik. Smoke is coming out of the chimney."

    "Tetlin, this is Talon One, did you copy our transmission?"

    "Tetlin copies, Talon One," the corporal said. "Over."

    "What are your orders?"

    Valari glanced over at the general. He stared back at her. The corporal carefully looked to the lieutenant in charge of the radio room.

    "Lieutenant?"

    The lieutenant merely stared at the general.

    "Your orders, General?" he said, standing at attention.

    "Tell them to destroy the cabin," Posivich said. "I want to be through with this transmitting turncoat once and for all." He lowered his face back into his folded arms.

    The corporal relayed the order.

    "Talon Four, your people go first, Talon Eight goes next, then Georgi and me," the wing commander said. "Talon Six, you hold over the Tanana."

    Terse acknowledgements crackled.

    Valari felt her pulse quicken. Everyone else in the radio room seemed to be asleep. She felt like screaming.

    "Direct hit, Talon Five. Good shooting." The voice sounded laconic, disinterested.

    "Anti-aircraft fire!" a voice blurted.

    "Identify yours-"

    "It's coming up from all sides!" a different, youthful voice shouted, breaking on the last word.

    "Gain altitude! Get above it."

    "They're bracketing us on all sides!"

    "Andronivich just crashed, Talon One."

    "This is Talon Three, I've spotted one of the gun positions. I'm going in after it."

    "Where is it, Talon Three?"

    Crackling dead air filled the room. Valari felt sweat running down her temples and wiped at it as unobtrusively as possible.

    "Talon Three! Talon Three! Pull up, pull up-"

    "Jesus, he crashed into the gun," a youthful voice said with evident awe.

    "Tetlin, this is Talon One. We have lost two aircraft and the rest have sustained damage. We have destroyed one anti-aircraft emplacement but are unable to locate others due to the amount of flak and smoke in the area."

    "Tell them to return to base," General Posivich said wearily.

    "Return to base," the corporal said into the microphone."

    "Sergei's on fire," someone said in a tight voice. "He's going down."

    "There's his chute, at least he made it out alive," another pilot said.

    "This is Talon One, return to base. I repeat: return to base."

    "Yes, podpolkovnik." The voice sounded relieved.

    Valari felt nauseous and bewildered. Where had they obtained anti-aircraft guns? Rezanov, with Grisha and his damned Indians, had suckered her and the Imperial Russian Air Force. The Dena' were amassing quite the butcher's bill, and she could hardly wait for the day it came due.

    "Major," the General said heavily, "your bright ideas have cost us a wealth of aircraft. Unless your 'special operation' bears successful fruit very soon, you're going to find yourself in the field like a common trooper."

    "Send in the Troika Guard," she said quickly, hoping he would agree.

    "Send them into a trap?" Posivich radiated hostility. "If the damned Indians can blow fighters out of the air they can no doubt handle a few ground troops."

    "The Troika Guard is an elite fighting force." Valari's words stumbled over themselves in her rush to get them out. "They know how to infiltrate and decimate a hostile force. They did it three years ago in Afghanistan."

    "Afghanistan doesn't have boreal forests in which to hide rebels."

    "The other choice is to let them get away with destroying our aircraft," Valari said in a low voice.

    "My first act of retribution is almost over the traitors," Posivich said, eyes gleaming.

    "General?" Valari said.

    "Switch to Combat IV," the general ordered.

    The radioman complied.

    "…over the Yukon-Tanana junction." The voice sounded muffled, the speaker was talking in a small space. "Target dead ahead. We see smoke rising from where the fighters attacked."

    "More fighters?" Valari asked.

    "Bombers!" General Posivich said with a sinister chuckle.

    "Bombs away!" the muffled voice said.

    "The Indians aren't the only ones who can plan an ambush, major," he said, smiling widely.

    Glancing over at the burning pyre, which had once been a Yak fighter and an anti-aircraft gun, Lieutenant Sergei Muraviev stood calmly with his parachute bunched in his arms as the four men approached him with leveled rifles.

    "Do you speak the English?" a sergeant asked.

    "Somewhat better than you do," Sergei said with smile.

    The sergeant scowled, made a prodding motion with his rifle. "Raise your hands!"

    Sergei sighed and dropped the chute. The constant light breeze caught it and it started to billow.

    "Gawd dammit!" the sergeant snapped at one of the privates with him. "Secure that damned parachute!"

    "You should have let the lieutenant hold it, they're difficult to use as a weapon."

    Sergei realized his captors were from two different armies.

    The fourth man was totally at ease, while the men in matching uniforms seemed agitated.

    "You do it your way, lieutenant," the sergeant actually lifted his lip in a slight sneer, "and I'll do it mine."

    "I imagine the artillery does things differently than the infantry," the Dena' said.

    Sergei had never seen a Native with this degree of self-confidence before. He stared at the sergeant's uniform.

    "To what army do you belong?"

    The sergeant stuck his chest out and smirked. "The Army of the United States of America, that's who."

    Sergei looked at the Dena'. "This means continent-wide war!

    The Dena' nodded and started to speak.

    A growing roar suddenly washed over the meadow. The Dena' stared up with a gasp.

    "Bombers! Get into the tree line and take cover!" Without waiting for anyone to agree, he sprinted for the closest clump of trees about 60 meters away.

    Sergei started to follow him but the sergeant snapped, "Hold yer water there, Russki. We're going this way." He nodded back over his shoulder toward a gun emplacement already filling the sky with shells.

    "Sarge, I think we should follow the lieutenant!" one of the privates said, his voice shaking.

    The increasing artillery made conversation difficult.

    "-do what I say!" the sergeant bellowed.

    The shriek of falling bombs cut through the din.

    Sergei ran as fast as he could but the explosions caught him, and he heard his deceased mother call out, "Over here, darling." and it was easy to go that way.