CARRIER 9: ARCTIC FIRE By: Keith Douglass

He looked up and saw Captain Craig’s face twitch. “You got something

on your mind, COS?” Batman demanded.

“No, Admiral,” the chief of staff said quietly. “You’re right, that

young pilot does seem to be in the middle of every tactical situation he’s

been near since he’s been in the Navy.” COS stopped and carefully assessed

the man standing before him. “I was just thinking about someone else,

that’s all.”

Batman stared at him. “Why, you old fart. Are you saying-?”

The chief of staff nodded.

Batman stared at the COS for a second, then turned back to the screen.

“Maybe I won’t court-martial his ass after all. TAO,” he said, raising his

voice, “get those Alert-Five Tomcats in the air. And move four Hornets and

four more Tomcats to Alert Five. I want asses and cockpits on the deck and

metal in the air. Now.”

The TAO nodded, and picked up the white phone to call the CDC TAO.

His counterpart twenty frames down the passageway would automatically add

tankers and SAR support to his revised flight schedule.

Moments later, the full-throated growl of a Tomcat engine ramping up

shook TFCC, which was located directly under the flight deck. Batman

stared up at the overhead. “Damn, those bastards are getting faster every

day.”

1910 Local

Kiska

“How many of you are with me?” the old Inuit demanded. He gazed

around at the circle of faces arrayed before him. To an outsider, the men

would have seemed impassive, but he could read the subtle emotions as

easily as he could distinguish between new-fallen snow and ice. He

frowned. “There is a problem?”

One of the older men stirred. “This mission–we are not young men

anymore,” he began. He glanced around the circle, saw heads nodding in

support.

“Not all of us are old,” the elder argued.

“This is your war,” a younger man piped up. “What have these men ever

done for us? Let them kill themselves out there on the ice, for all I

care.”

“You forget your place,” the older man said softly. “You are here at

our tolerance only–you have no say in these matters.”

“The old ways.” The young man looked disgusted. “What have they

gotten us?”

“You forget who you are at a price,” the old man responded sharply.

“If you have no honor, then you are nothing–do you understand, nothing.

You would no longer exist to me.”

“All this talk about honor is a fine thing, but what have the

mainlanders done to our people?”

“And you would rather live under the heels of these others? Have you

not listened? Those men are Cossacks. Cossacks, I say.” He saw a stir of

uncertainty ripple across the faces. “Don’t the stories mean anything to

you?” he pressed.

An uneasy silence fell over the group. Men avoided each other’s eyes.

The women, standing in the back of the room, murmured quietly among

themselves. Finally, the eldest woman spoke up. “Stories are kept safe

for a reason,” she said quietly. “The things I know–the things my mother

taught me, and her mother before her, and on and on, are true. Above all,

we must not let these invaders stay on our soil.” Around her, the women

moved closer in support.

The elder whirled on the circle of men. “Even the women remember,” he

said, disgusted. “And who would know better than they? Murder, rape,

killing as the whim seizes them–this is what the Cossacks would bring to

us.” He made a motion as if to spit on the floor. “And you complain about

the mainlanders? Pah! You know nothing.”

Finally, one elder spoke into the silence. “Better mainlanders than

Cossacks,” he said, his conviction growing as he spoke. “Though it last

happened centuries ago, that people has not changed. I would rather live

with sickness and disease than under the Cossack hand. We should go.”

The mood shifted in the room, as one by one the men nodded assent.

The women looked even graver than they, knowing that many of them would be

widowed or would lose a son in the weeks to come.

“It is done, then.” He turned to a younger man. “Your army

experience–it will come in handy now. Begin assembling all the weapons

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