Arctic Storm Rising

At the knock on his open door, Flynn closed the science fiction thriller he’d been reading on his tablet. “Come in,” he said, fighting down an exasperated sigh. Between PT at what felt like oh dark thirty; a predawn foot patrol around the whole island in subzero temperatures; firing exercises out at their improvised range; a public relations — required Q-and-A session with kids at the local school; another of Takirak’s regular lectures on wilderness and winter survival tricks and tips; and the routine mound of paperwork so beloved of higher-command echelons, he felt like he’d already had a pretty full day. His fatigue was compounded by the fact that they were now down to just a little over five hours of sunlight out of every twenty-four. Spending two-thirds of the usual waking day in darkness really screwed up circadian rhythms for most people — himself included.

“Uh, sir?” Senior Airman Mark Mitchell said cautiously, poking his head around the doorframe. The redheaded communications specialist had a knack for reading other people’s emotions… or at least figuring out when they were pissed at him for pulling some boneheaded practical joke, usually after it was too late. Like the time a week ago when he’d excitedly brought Private First Class Hynes fake transfer orders to Hawaii’s Schofield Barracks. Luckily, the team’s brawny Carl Gustav recoilless rifle gunner, an Army specialist from New Mexico named Rafael Sanchez, had stepped between the two men before Hynes could go totally berserk.

“What is it, M-Squared?” Flynn asked patiently.

“We just got an alert message from JBER,” Mitchell said.

Flynn looked pointedly at his watch. It was well after 1900, and the sun had been below the horizon for more than four hours. “The real thing, Airman?” he asked dryly.

For Mitchell’s sake, he hoped this wasn’t another lame attempt at humor. After all, there must be worse military duty posts than this isolated radar station. Though, admittedly, none sprang readily to mind. The enlisted man was a decent radioman, but there were definitely limits to the amount of juvenile crap Flynn was willing to put up with. If pushed too far, he’d boot M-Squared out of the unit first and worry about finding a new com specialist later.

“Honest to God, sir,” Mitchell assured him earnestly. “This is the genuine article. And it’s not just us. It’s everyone. All over the whole world. The president or the Pentagon or whoever is ordering everybody — Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, Space Force, the whole bunch — to DEFCON Three.”

Flynn dropped his tablet and rolled off his cot in one smooth motion. The U.S. armed forces hadn’t gone to DEFCON Three since 9/11, in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. That was more than twenty years ago. What the hell had just happened to trigger this kind of drastic move now? “Show me!” he snapped.

He followed Mitchell down the hall to the station’s dining area in a hurry. Next to the kitchen, it was the largest open space in the station’s ramshackle living quarters, big enough for up to twenty people to eat at the same time. The airman had taken over a corner table for his computers and other electronic gear. A sleeping bag nearby showed that he was sleeping there, too, probably to get away from his nominal roommate. Flynn had heard grousing that Army Private Wade Vucovich’s snoring should be classed as a prohibited nonlethal weapon under international law.

The airman dropped into his chair and pulled up the encrypted message file they’d been sent from Alaskan Command down at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. “See, sir?”

Quickly, Flynn scanned through the alert. Key phrases jumped out at him. “Unprecedented levels of military air activity observed across the entire Russian Federation.” “No immediate confirmation of hostile intent.” “Increase in readiness levels directly authorized by the National Command Authority,” which meant the president and the secretary of defense acting jointly. But there was nothing about what might be behind these sudden Russian moves that had alarmed Washington.

His mouth tightened. He didn’t know what was worse: the possibility that nobody in D.C. had a fricking clue as to why Moscow had just put its entire Air Force and air defense network on a wartime footing. Or the very real possibility that the Pentagon brass and the intel community had simply decided not to share their information with the grunts, squids, and zoomies posted out at the sharp end… figuring that they didn’t need to know the whys and wherefores. Just like at the C-130 crash site in the Libyan desert, he thought bitterly.

Ditch that anger for now, Flynn told himself. His most immediate problem was figuring out how to translate this unexpected DEFCON Three directive into concrete action by the troops under his command. Older, more established Army formations and Air Force bases had thick manuals stashed away in their secure safes — manuals that laid out each and every action required to comply with the new, higher alert status, all the way down to precise rules of engagement for any extra guards posted at gates and perimeters. As a brand-new, completely untested unit, the men of his Joint Force security team didn’t have any comparable manuals to tell them what to do in a sudden crisis. They were entirely dependent on his intellect, training, and instincts.