Survivalist - 21.5 - The Legend Read online

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  Title : #21.5 : THE LEGEND

  Series : Survivalist

  Author(s) : Jerry Ahern

  Location : Gillian Archives

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  Prologue: Warfare

  The matte black German gunships closed up tightly around his own craft. John Rourke wheeled the captured Soviet machine 180 degrees on its main rotor axis and fell into the center of their formation. Flak fired from mobile antiaircraft, batteries exploded around them and shoulder-fired surface to air missile launches, were increasing by the second. Several of the German gunships were already damaged, one of them aflame, but, as yet, none brought crashing down to the icefield which stretched in all directions below them as far as Rourke could see.

  German J-TV vertical take-off and landing fighter bombers with fresh coatings of arctic camouflage screamed out of the snow-heavy clouds from the north and across the airfield in high speed, low altitude strafing runs. The Allied goal was to keep as much as possible of the massive Elite Corps installation at GurTev (where the Ural River met the Caspian Sea) intact so that, once taken, the field and its extensive synth-fuel dumps could be utilized as a staging area for the impending Allied assault on the Soviet Underground City in the Ural Mountains. This thrust, in conjunction with a simultaneous attack on the Soviet underwater facility in the Pacific, if successful, would be the last battle of the war which had raged across the planet now for more than five centuries.

  From the main portion of the fuselage behind him, albeit well back from the cockpit, Rourke heard the sounds of his son Michael and his friend Paul Rubenstein reloading their weapons, their justifiably anxious talk concerning the the demolitions work all four of mem-Michael, Paul, John Rourke himself and Natalia-had accomplished in preparation for the attack. Below Rourke, visible

  through the Soviet gunship’s chin bubble, the main helicopter hangar, the smaller hangar which had accommodated Soviet fighter bombers and the field’s main control tower all lay in still fiery ruins.

  In the co-pilot seat beside John Rourke, Natalia Tiemerovna removed the short blonde wig she’d worn when they’d infiltrated the base disguised as Soviet Elite Corps personnel. Her real hair beneath the wig-so dark a brown it was almost a true black and very beautiful-cascaded to her shoulders. She shook her hair free, then put the headset back to her ear and resumed tuning the frequency scanner on the radio. Their eyes met, her eyes’ almost surreal blueness holding him. But, making a conscious effort, Rourke looked away from Natalia and back to what he should be looking at, the controls of the helicopter he piloted.

  “John!” Natalia was normally an alto, but the excitement in her voice edged the pitch higher. “Listen. It’s Sam! Til put this on speaker.” She had been working the radio, hunting for transmissions from the commando teams which went after GufYev’s primary antiaircraft batteries, the teams led, respectively, by Major Otto Hammerschmidt of New Germany and U.S. Marine Corps Captain, Sam Aldridge of Mid-Wake.

  Aldridge’s voice came up on the speaker. “I say again. Knockout One to Snowbird Leader. We have total control of Objective Alpha. I repeat, total control of Objective Alpha. Over.”

  There was a burst of static, then Colonel Wolfgang Mann’s voice. “Knockout One, this is Snowbird Leader. Knockout Two reports similar results. Can you hold your position? Over.”

  “Snowbird Leader, this is Knockout One. Resistance minimal. We can hold but would appreciate air support against platoon strength enemy unit approaching rapidly from map coordinates G-15. Need that ASAP. Enemy unit is armed with at least one energy weapon and we are currently receiving moderately heavy incoming mortar fire. Please advise. Knockout One, Over.”

  John Rourke took up Natalia’s headset. “Snowbird Leader, this is Rourke in Soviet Helicopter KH R 333 658. We can interdict enemy force at coordinates G-15 if Knockout One can talk us in. Over.”

  “Yes, Herr Doctor. But-” Mann’s voice seemed to hesitate, then, “Do you copy this, Knockout One? Over.”

  “Affirmative, Snowbird Leader. We can talk the doctor in. Over.”

  “Very well, Doctor. Snowbird Leader, Out.”

  “Sam, ETAs about two minutes. Over.” “I copy that, Doctor. Knockout One, Out.” “Rourke, Out.” John Rourke handed back the headset. “Can I change frequencies for a minute?” Natalia asked. “Sure,” Rourke nodded to her.

  She flicked back to the main German frequency. There was chatter between the air strike units and the heavier aircraft coming in at considerably higher altitude, coordinating the pull-back of the J-7Vs to allow for the landing of German paratroopers on the field itself.

  Michael leaned over between their seats. “Going to try the energy weapon, Dad?”

  “That’s what Fm thinking, Mike.” He’d called his son by his nickname perhaps three times in his life. Michael clapped him on the shoulder.

  From the rear of the fuselage, Paul called out, “John. After that energy pulse we took a couple of minutes ago, you think the wiringll stand using the energy weapon we have aboard?”

  Natalia shouted back to him, “Asbestlcantell, the rotation of the main rotor is constantly recharging the power supply, Paul. We should be all right, even on emergency power as we are, because the systems shouldn’t interconnect.”

  “All I wanted to know!”

  Rourke had been climbing the machine since Mann gave the go-ahead and he was well enough above the German gunships now that he could bank to starboard and clear the other helicopters. The J-7Vs were moving out to the south, the lead elements of the attack formation already manuevering into position for a second strafing run, but selective this time, in support of the paratroopers once the men touched down. Already, through the overhead bubble, Rourke could see the first of the chutes starting to open in the sky well above their machine.

  Many of these “parachutists” weren’t parachutists at all, only drones, similar in concept and purpose to those used by the Allies during pre-dawn portions of the D-Day invasion in June of 1944, near the close of World War Two. Articulated dummies, miniaturized to perfect scale with their smaller parachutes, they were air dropped in conjunction with actual paratroopers, providing a greater number of targets to draw fire from enemy personnel on the

  ground, thereby minimizing the potential for real casualties while at the same time deceiving the enemy into believing that he had to deal with an even larger force.

  More chutes were opening now, and Rourke heightened the Soviet machine’s speed so he could clear the area before any of the chutes neared his operational deck.

  Tm switching back to Sam’s frequency, John,” Natalia announced.

  “Paul and I can set up doorguns,” Michael offered.

  “Go for it,” Rourke nodded, checking his compass coordinates. Rourke rasped to Natalia, “Get Sam to talk us in on that enemy platoon.”

  Natalia started calling for Sam Aldridge now, and Rourke, the machine he piloted well out of range of the fray at the airfield, began descending, following terrain to minimize the enemy’s chances for establishing visual contact.

  At last, Sam Aldridge’s voice came over the speaker, reciting coordinates, the sound of detonating mortars in the background at times deafeningly loud. John Rourke activated the gunship’s headsup display, searching for the correct map grid, finding it, then making a mental fix on the relative position of the advancing enemy platoon. He locked the auto-navigator system on the coordinates, for the first time since leaving the immediate vicinity of the airfield looking fully behind him along the interior of the fuselage.

  Soviet heavy machine guns, mounted on rotating tripods, were going up on either side of the
aircraft just inside the open doors. Paul and Michael wrapped seatbelt webbing around the mounts to secure the guns once the relatively steady flight pattern changed to the erratic pattern of battle. The floors of the Soviet machines were fitted with cleats to accommodate bipods, but no bipods were apparently present in the machine, these machine guns just being hauled rather than intended for combat use.

  Rourke’s eyes flashed to the headsup display. Auto navigation was bringing the gunship in along a broad arc from the west to the south that would intersect the enemy unit’s assumed line of movement, but he suddenly had a better idea. John Rourke adjusted the unit’s controls, no need for his full attention to navigation just yet. The helicopter banked slowly, evenly to port now Rourke’s goal in modifying the flight plan was to come upon the attacking Soviet

  platoon from the rear. He had no desire to test the capacity of the enemy energy weapons against his own machine, the potential for a duel serving no purpose.

  “I see them, John,” Natalia said after a minute or so passed. Rourke only nodded, seeing them, too. He switched off auto-navigation and went to manual. “We have a full charge on the energy weapon,” Natalia added.

  From aft by the open fuselage doors, Paul shouted out over the slipstream’s roar, “We’re ready, John!”

  John Thomas Rourke had never liked war, felt that no rational man did. Violence was the last resort when reason failed, and reason had failed dismally in the days immediately prior to The Night of The War.

  And reason had done nothing but fail ever since.

  And now, in seconds, he would bring the liberated Soviet gunship screaming in over the heads of men who were, to him, total strangers, then attempt with all his abilities and the technology of the aircraft he flew to cut them down.

  He hated war.

  Soon this war would end.

  “We’re going in,” John Rourke almost whispered, banking the Soviet gunship to port, then levelling off as he took control of the energy weapon tire mechanism. “Power full?”

  “Power full,” Natalia said from beside him.

  There were three dozen men below him, men in enemy uniforms.

  John Rourke pushed the fire control. The machine guns on both sides of the gunship opened up.

  The earth below him seemed to incinerate, bodies vaporizing as the blue wave of energy passed across the ground, machinegun bullets rippling across the bodies as yet untouched.

  And John Rourke pulled up, satisfied that the energy weapon in possession of the enemy ground force was no longer functional.

  He didn’t look at anyone as he levelled off, letting the machine rotate 180 degrees on its axis, his eyes narrowed and focused on the fleeing enemy forces beneath him.

  Two thirds of the platoon strength enemy unit was dead, what remained of their bodies smoldering on the snowy ground beneath him.

  Sam Aldridge’s voice came over the speaker. “You got ‘em, Doc

  tor Rourke! The rest of them are wimdrawing! Can you intercept-” John Rourke cut off the radio speaker and when he said the word “Enough” he almost whispered it…

  This was the stuff that legend would be made of in the Earth’s future, if indeed the Earth had a future.

  An army like no other one ever assembled was forming now near the entrance to the Soviet Underground City in the Urals, much of the force on a high snow-covered plain swept by icy winds which never ceased to blow. Perhaps, at some point in human history, there had been larger armies preparing for an ultimate battle, but not even in World War Two had an alliance been formed which was so unique, Paul Rubenstein thought.

  Tanks were being flown in swinging on cables beneath large, powerful cargo helicopters, trucks and armored personnel carriers were moving everywhere, men and equipment in such great abundance that he did not attempt a tally of any sort.

  The alliance here was of men, really, not of nations. A unit of Icelandic police, battalions of Germans born and raised under Nazi dictatorship who, with a taste of freedom, now committed their all to its cause, a few Americans, the Chinese who had remained faithful to the sweep of change and democratization which started, then stalled, then split the very fabric of China, even-although precious few of them-men from the Wild Tribes of Europe, not trained in fighting, nor skilled in technology, most of them unable to communicate verbally in any real sense, but doing their part by moving crates of ammunition and disposable rocket launchers, aiding in whatever manner they could.

  Paul Rubenstein would have liked to just sit in the prefabricated tower which controlled air traffic for the field and use that time jotting down notes for his journal; but, instead, he too was busily working. As time went on in this war which, he prayed, would now end, he had become something of the ‘expert’ concerning Soviet computers, on several occasions hiry-rigging Russian-made instruments because the job needed doing andno one else was available. Now, he worked with Natalia, what he witnessed over the landing field only possible for him to watch because he had needed to rest his eyes from the green of the screens he had been staring at for

  more hours than he wanted to consider

  “I think I have it, Paul!” Natalia called up to him. Paul Rubenstein sighed heavily, rubbed at his aching back, dropped to his knees on the tower floor beside her and rubbed his balled fists over hiseyes. Indeed, it appeared she had at last made the critical connection linking the auto-navigation broadcast system aboard the captured Soviet gunships into the German navigational computer used by the tower controllers. If the system worked, it would be possible-in theory, at least-to track every single Soviet helicopter gunship that would be sent against them on computer, then link that system into missile targeting.

  The result would be obvious. A computer operator could locate, track and destroy each of the Soviet gunships at whim merely by locking a missile onto each individual gunship’s auto-navigation evasion program. By the time the Soviet pilots caught on that their own evasive action was homing a missile on to them, it would be too late. Eventually, the better pilots would realize what was happening, but by that time, it would be too late to save the majority of the Soviet gunships.

  “You’ve got it,” Paul agreed, checking the screen “So, let’s try it out.” He crossed to the other side of their private corner of the tower and took up the radio microphone, beginning to signal to Michael Rourke who was airborne over the ice more than five miles downrange…

  This is Sitting Duck, reading you loud and clear. I will commence evasive pattern starting now. Sitting Duck Out.” Michael Rourke punched in the standard Soviet evasion program and watched as his instruments, on auto-navigation, suddenly seemed to have a mind and will of their own, moving the Soviet helicopter he flew to a higher altitude and commencing a zig-zag pattern.

  On his iiKoming radar, in what seemed like seconds but was at least a minute, he saw the predicted missile, the blip very small at first, but growing larger and larger by the microsecond. And the Soviet machine which he no longer piloted saw it, too.

  He thought of his talk with his father before taking off. “You’ve gotten pretty good with one of these things, Michael, but never mink you’re too good. Once the missile is on target and the machine

  is responding with evasive action and the missile seems locked on regardless, cut out of the auto-nav mode, dive the machine and call in to Natalia and Paul to give the destruct code for the missile. You don’t need that thing crawling down your neck to prove the system works.” “I can handle it, Dad.”

  His father smiled. “I know you can handle it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing it.”

  Michael Rourke hadn’t quite understood his father’s meaning with that remark, realizing full well that John Rourke could have meant it several ways.

  He checked his instruments again. The Soviet gunship was playing out its heart, really, and Michael Rourke could feel that in his stomach, the climbing, the diving, the rapid direction changes. But the growing blip of missile still moved inexorably nearer to the center of the green
screen with the yellow grid. And the radar screen itself was that center.

  He decided to hang on a while longer, really giving the new system the test it deserved. If the system worked, coundess allied lives could be saved, because the Soviet gunships would, themselves, call on target the missiles sent to destroy them.

  Michael Rourke watched the blip, the blip growing larger because it was coming closer.

  In his peripheral vision, he saw the snow, the sky-the sky was just a darker white-and, at last, he saw a contrail.

  “Sitting Duck to Guardian Angel, Sitting Duck to Guardian Angel. Come in, Guardian Angel. Over.” Michael Rourke switched off auto navigation and cancelled auto pilot interlock, starting the gunship into a high speed dive. “Sitting Duckto Guardian Angel. Come in, Guardian Angel. Over.”

  “This is Guardian Angel, reading you loud and clear, Sitting Duck. Over.”

  “Execute destruct sequence now. I say again, execute destruct sequence now. Over!”

  Michael Rourke had let the missile get too close, he realized. And he banked the Soviet gunship hard to starboard, starting a maximum acceleration climb to avoid the consequences of his error in judgment. The missile itself was visible as a blurred streak of darker gray against the sky, a snow white contrail snaking after it,

  zig-zagging maddeningly but ever nearer.

  At the high point of his acceleration, Michael Rourke dove, the missile visibly streaking past him just over his main rotor. He glanced right, the missile making a near right angle turn, still homing in.

  Michael Rourke grabbed for the knife given him in Lydveldid Island by old Jon, the Swordmaker. It was an identical duplicate, copied faithfully over five centuries, of the Crain Life Support System I, smaller than his father’s original Life Support System X in both blade and handle. And now, it was his only hope. There was something wrong with his auto navigation system, had to be, and in another second or two the missile, still homing in on him, would be remotely exploded. The concussion, at this range would be great enough to damage the Soviet chopper Michael Rourke flew and bring the machine down.