parallel runway several hundred meters to his left.
The weather was abominable, fog and occasional flurries of snow and rain.
But that was nothing out of the ordinary and Senior Lieutenant Abrin had
nearly a thousand hours flying out of this base.
As they passed the critical point, he eased back on the stick and the
powerful interceptor lunged into the air. Even as he climbed into the
overcast, Sergei Abrin ran another quick check of his systems.
A Mig 29 had the range for this mission and no Soviet interceptor carried
a more powerful or sophisticated radar than the one in the nose of his
Flanker. Whatever those things were they were damn hard to pick up on
radar and he would need all the power he had.
Satisfied, he watched the altimeter wind up and considered what he and his
men were heading into.
For weeks now the powerful warning radars along the coast of Siberia had
been getting anomalous and faint returns from out over the narrow sea that
separated Russia and Alaska. Recon flights had shown nothing and previous
attempts to intercept these things had failed. After the usual dithering
and indecision, Moscow had decided to make a serious effort to discover
what was happening on this most sensitive of borders.
An early warning aircraft had been assigned and interceptor squadrons were
given permission to depart from their regular training plans to
investigate in force the next time something was sighted. They were also
fitted with long-range fuel tanks and given full loads of fuel-a departure
in the defection-conscious Soviet air force. If that wasn’t enough to
convince the pilots how serious this was, the KGB showed up and installed
a number of very black boxes in each aircraft.
Senior Lieutenant Abrin thought of himself as a man of the world, as
befitted the son of a medium-high party official. He had his own theory
about this thing.
It was no accident that nearly invisible aircraft were flying along the
US-USSR border. Obviously the United States intended this series of
provocations as a tactic to wring further arms concessions from the Soviet
negotiators in Vienna.
Well, they would learn the folly of their ways. For longer than Sergei
Abrin had been alive, the men and machines of the PVO had stood between
the Motherland and the Capitalist aggressors. If they wanted to play games
over this narrow sea they would find that the Red Air Force could play
also-and far better.
Still, he thought as his interceptor raced out over the ocean. This was a
bitch of a day to be flying.
“Go!”
Patrol Two kneed the dragon and pulled on the reins. In response the beast
swept into a wide, gentle turn. He was obviously happy to be going home
and so was Patrol Two.
The squadron leader’s instructions had been explicit. Head out on this
track for four day-tenths, then reverse course and return to the temporary
base the dragon riders had established on one of the small islands. Each
rider had set out alone on a slightly different course to cover as much of
this strange new world as they possibly could in the least amount of time.
The squadron leader didn’t want to stay on the island too long for fear of
discovery and for once Patrol Two fully agreed with him. They would pause
another day to rest their dragons and then they would leave this
ill-begotten place.
This particular corner was worse than most, Patrol Two admitted as the
dragon’s strong wingbeats bore them along. Not only was there the
strangeness here that made dragons uncomfortable and dampened the effect
of magic. Here there was also constant fog mixed with freezing rain and
snow from thick, low-hanging clouds that forever darkened the sky. Were it
not for the dragon’s homing instinct and the fact they had flown a
straight course out, Patrol Two wasn’t at all sure they could find their
way back to their fellows.
A weak sun broke through a ragged hole in the clouds, turning the sea the
color of fresh-beaten lead. Patrol Two frowned. The sun seemed to be in
the wrong place. Then a shake of the head. Well, it wasn’t the only thing