Bomber B-1001SF No.25002 "Liberation Wind"
26.feb.2120.
SSSF Territory
A white glowing shroud merged with the equally white surface of the earth rushing below. An unkind sun hung as a blurred, blinding spot directly ahead. Such a panorama somehow reminded me of the picture that is created after a megaton strike over the ocean - the same white shroud and the same blurred sun. Such means were still sometimes used to combat naval formations. Only in the case of a flight over the ocean, the surface below, of course, would not be white.
Apocalypticism was added to the picture by the nearby, less than ten miles, black smoke rising from the horizon in the direction of two o'clock. Apparently, "@enemy" managed to hit some kind of fuel depot, nothing else.
The bomber was flying at an extremely low altitude, no more than five hundred feet. Given its three-hundred-foot wingspan, it was practically skimming the ground, fortunately the terrain here was flat, very smoothly going down and then up again. And now the plane had passed a section of very gentle elevation and found itself in front of a wide valley into which it was about to dive.
That's when the panorama with the white sky, smoke and blurred sun unfolded.
Major Somerset began to manually follow the relief line, slightly dropping the altitude. In the mountainous south of the region, things were completely different, and only AI could guide the bomber along a winding route. Now the plane was flying easily - at such an altitude, the optimal speed from the point of view of control was not high - three hundred twenty to three hundred eighty knots, no more. The reduced engine power, in addition to the controllability factor, also reduced the radioactive track - two GBA Westinghouse "Advanced Closed Cycle Airborne Power Plant ACCAPP-5500" units with two turbo units each could keep the B-1001SF in the air for up to two weeks. They could do it for a month, but in that case the radioactive track would increase. The flight was dynamic. Fields, separated by forest belts, roads, and some villages flew by below. A black column of smoke shifted out of sight to the right and soon disappeared. Before that, I had a chance to fly right over the quarters of the capital of this notorious Super-Federate. Or rather, two half-capitals. The fact that the city had been battered by battles in previous years was clearly visible from the thousand feet that the plane gained over the populated area. Nevertheless, it was impossible to compare this with what could be observed in the same Ireland. It seems that pre-war, or rather pre-crisis Dublin was comparable in population to this city, and what it was turned into... The same as this one, without any "@enemy".
The AI once again began to move waypoints - the route changed dynamically, right on the fly. First of all, the trajectories of enemy cruise missiles were taken into account, swarms of which were once again, in another wave, rushing either to the missile launch site or somewhere else. In addition, the fact that a bomber could interfere with the air defense or even get into the trajectory of the defending missiles was taken into account. It was absolutely impossible to imagine how such a flight could be carried out without staff computers and all other UCE components.
With all this, there was its own powerful information and communication complex on board, capable, in particular, of distributing interlinks while in the rear - for this purpose, knife-like elements were released from special compartments protected by radio-absorbing flaps, which could be mistaken for some kind of aerodynamic planes. A bunch of various microwave and other microwave antennas were hidden in these elements. From an invisible plane, the plane turned into a flying communication point thundering with streams of digital signals. Now it was invisible. With all this electronic complex and a deadly arsenal of two hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, or more precisely sixty-four GBA sys.1500 cruise missiles, the only thing missing was its own defense with A-A missiles.
On the second day from the start of the F-158 raids, truly frontline activity unfolded in the sector, only the distances were more extended and the machines were different. Bomber B-1001SF No.25002 "Liberation Wind" and two more of the same type, "Protecting Storm" and "Encouraging Thunder" had been sent to the sector the day before, and before that they had been hovering over Northern Europe, as was now clear, in anticipation of a covert dash to Siberia. The plane was controlled by two people - a pilot and a gunnery officer. Each had two replacements, who rested in the compartments behind the cockpit.
The presence of three bombers, just short of the "large aviation" category, ready to escalate a local confrontation at any moment, either served as an open deterrent for the "@enemy", or, on the contrary, was supposed to be a kind of hidden switchblade up the sleeve - the crews did not know this.
In addition to vague ideas about the real goals of the mission, the crew members, having a lot of free time, nevertheless, also found themselves cut off from the world in terms of general civilian information. All that was left was to entertain themselves with printed literature, regardless of the mode in which the onboard electronic complex was operating - in stealth mode or as a flying communication post.
Despite all this somewhat oppressive ignorance, Somerset sat in his place at the instrument console, like a superhero in a starship, looking down from above at what was flying below - the view was excellent. Perhaps someone on the ground, someone who happened to have a suitable optic like a monocular in his hands, would have been able to see not only the flying black wing, but also the man sitting arrogantly behind the strip of glass, two people whose figures towered above the low line of the instrument console.