The next chapter needs more research than usual, so I wrote this instead. Also, it's fun to turn things on their heads... Not my best piece by a long short, but it's enough to keep this thing alive. Up next, Ian vs SS Zombies...not really, but SS will feature.
Chapter 360
14th June 1996
Operations Centre, Red Banner Pacific Fleet, Vladiviostok, USSR
Half of the massive, brand new Liquid Crystal Display on the far wall of the huge, dome-like room showed a minimalist map of the Soviet Union's pacific coastline. Most, if not all of the shipping was marked in the yellow the Soviets and the Allies used to denote the Wake Island Association, but down south, where a sliver of West Japan was visible, blue denoted a few Allied or Allied-aligned ships and planes.
Most of the display was dominated by the orange bulk of East Japan, the Pacific Fleet's primary enemy. Yes, they were the red-headed stepchild among the Soviet Navy's formations, but that only extended to ships. What few capital surface ships the fleet had were for the most part with the Northern and Baltic Fleets, meant to do the same there as the Pacific Fleet was here, ensure the safety of the Soviet Coastline if war with the Americans and their allies came, or, and that was considered far more likely, ensure Soviet neutrality and the safety of Soviet shipping if war between the Americans and the Pact broke out.
To that end, most of the vessels Admiral Padorin had under his command were Submarines, Destroyers and a few ASW cruisers. His main striking power came from Naval Aviation. He had two dozen Regiments under his immediate command. Since here range was not as much of an issue, all but six flew elderly but still very useful TU-142 Maritime Strike Bombers.
Several of those where on patrol, and once they crossed an invisible line half-way between the Soviet coast and East Japan, accompanied by East-Japanese or American fighters.
The nature of the theatre also made it necessary that there was a PVO liaison officer present, and Padorin counted himself lucky that the man was both pleasant to work with and competent at his job, something all too rare among those assigned to the post.
Padorin was studying a two day-old Moscow Newspaper article on the last local elections for the Surpreme Soviet[1] in the Georgian SSR. As had been usual for the last ten years, the percentage of the Communists Party had dropped further.
His aide knocked at the door of his office.
“Sorry to interrupt, Comrade Admiral, but we have a situation on the other side of the line. Our snooper aircraft have reported an increase in wireless chatter in the East-Jap northern air defence sectors, and the A-50 we have over Sachalin reports that they are scrambling fighters.”
Padorin dropped the newspaper and made a 'wait one moment' gesture towards the aide. Rising to his feet, he picked up the phone on his desk and pressed a button.
“Duty Officer.”
“This is Admiral Padorin. Wake the chiefs of staff and have them report as fast as they can. Contact PVO and tell them to warm up the ready planes on the alert fields.”
“Yes, Comrade Admiral.”
Padorin replaced the phone and thanked god[2] that the defence of the coastline was under the command of the Navy, and that because of that he had the authority to scramble interceptors if he had to do so at short notice. It was fortunate that he made a point of pulling at least half his weekly duty shifts here in the command bunker, as he had only to walk down a few corridors from his on-base quarters to the main operations room.
The room was wide and dotted with four rows of consoles, it all patterned after similar facilities in the west, such as RAF Space Command's mission control outside Freetown or Fighter Command HQ in England. He had also been provided with a desk and a chair to sit down on an elevated platform near the rear of the room, allowing him to keep an eye on the master and secondary displays at the far wall as he worked.
But he hadn't even sat down when the PVO liaison motioned for him to come and inspect one particular message he had just received.
Out over the Sea of Japan two Soviet SU-35M Interceptors followed cues by the RDF Aircraft hovering over Soviet Sachalin.
“Penguin 22, two groups of incoming targets, bearing 010. Go active and investigate, over.”
The flight leader acknowledged, and flipped the switch that turned on the powerful RDF system in the nose of his aircraft. As he had been told, he showed two groups of targets almost directly ahead, and judging by where they were coming from, they were most likely Japanese aircraft. Changing course as to approach them from the side.
As they broke through the clouds, the flight leader almost immediately spotted them, and he managed to identify the first one.
It was an American-built F-111/75b tactical bomber. He could barley make out the markings at this distance, even with the electronic aides, but it clearly was an East Japanese plane. The second group were...two East Japanese F-15 interceptors. Clearly, something odd was going on.
The Flight Leader keyed his wireless into a set of frequencies known to be used by the East Japanese Air Force and spoke.
“Attention East Japanese Aircraft, this is Penguin Flight of the Soviet Air Force. You are approaching Soviet Airspace, state your intentions or be fired upon.”
All this accomplished was that the F-111 increased speed.
As it came closer, the Flight Leader could see that it wasn't armed, instead it was loaded down with external fuel cells of the type the Americans and British used when transferring planes over long distances and....
His threat receiver interrupted his train of thought. The lock-on did not come from the first plane, but rather from the two Japanese interceptors, as the RDF set was instantly identified as an American Type 85 Air Combat Radar[4].
Clearly, the Japanese fighter pilots wanted to do this the hard way. The Flight leader now suspected that the F-111 crew was trying to defect. It had happened before, the short distance between Soviet Sachalin and the northern Island of the Japanese Archipelago made some choose this route instead of braving the Air Defences on the demarcation line.
“Sokol, this is Penguin 22. We have one F-111 pursued by two East Japanese Interceptors. Upon being challenged, the Interceptors initiated missile lock on our aircraft. We presume the F-111 is trying to defect. Please advise, over.”
The reply came almost instantly.
“Prevent an incident, but only fire if fired upon, Penguin 22. Sokol out.”
With a grin that was hidden behind his oxygen mask, the Flight Leader locked his own RDF-guided missiles onto the two F-15s, more to get their attention.
“Attention, Japanese Aircraft. You are about to enter Soviet Airspace. Cease your aggressive acts and turn around immediately or be fired upon.”
When the Japanese turned without firing their missiles, he let out a sigh of relief, and as they sped off into the distance, the two SU-35 took up escort position, one beside and one behind the F-111, lest it have funny ideas after all.
When they approached the base half an hour later, the regional GRU Officer was already waiting. He was Military Intelligence, but he had been around long enough to know that F-111s could yield only little new information, the rather turbulent 1970s had seen to that, but whatever was found would eventually find it's way to London, a sort of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” arrangement Moscow had with the British, but would swear up and down on all the saints did not exist.
He only knew because he had himself had several clandestine meetings with the British while stationed with the Soviet Mission to the League of Nations, and as the planes landed one after another, he wondered if he would ever get to leave 'the game'. As much fun as the Bond Novels and films were, real intelligence work took a hefty toll on a man.
Being part of the GRU District that dealt with two sorts of, to say use a British colloquialism, stark raving bonkers old-style Stalinists was even worse. But sometimes, days like this happened. It wasn't the first defection he dealt with, nor the biggest one, nothing beat out a platoon of Chinese Infantry walking up to a border crossing in Manchuria.
The two Japanese would be wisked off to somewhere, their intelligence value might be small for him, but the communications people where always interested in someone who had first-hand knowledge of Association codes and procedures. He gathered himself and spoke in accented but understandable Japanese:
“Welcome to the Soviet Union. Welcome to Freedom.”
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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?
[1] Which, by 1996, is actually fairly democratic. The Communists are still large, and usually the largest opposition party. but haven't actually had any sort of absolute majority since 1985. At the moment the President (whose confirmation by the Military Council is pro-forma these days and who is the first not to be a member of the Communist Party) is from the Social Revolutionary Cadets, basically a centre-left party by European standards. There's about a half dozen smaller special interest or regional parties, but usually the Cadets and the Communists decide matters between them.
Politically the USSR is more a Confederation, though the constituent Republics know that Moscow will take a lot of shoving to let them go should they desire to do so. Also, they know that for the most part they are better off economically as part of the USSR.
Speaking of the economy, the Soviets have abandoned command economy to the extent that even the CPSU has changed it's political manifesto to accommodate it, i.e. “one can only start building communism as a unified effort of all the world” and that until then, using capitalist methods for the benefit of the people is permissible. Western pol-sci experts usually believe that this formulation was decided upon because those doing it in the 80s knew that it would never happen, yet wanted to keep the legitimacy of the Party alive.
All in all, they are like a more authoritarian Western country that has a lot of commie trappings and just happens to be called USSR.
[2] Church and government have a sort of 'Don't mess with us and we won't mess with you' relationship.
[3] Let's just say Beria and the NKVD didn't survive Stalin for very long, and hence no KGB.
[4] An APG-63 with the first upgrade. In electronics the tech gap is the greatest. Ironically TTL, the Soviets are somewhere between Allies and Americans, thanks to a far more open USSR.
