Bond Gets Carrier Qualified
Q and Bond stood before the Pilatus Turbo Porter he had just flown to glory during the French train escapade.
"007, one of the problems with the Turbo Porter is that it has thick wings for lift in order to take-off and land from very short distances".
"How is that a problem, Q?"
"Right. The Americans rejected their 'AU-23 Peacemaker' version during the Vietnam war because it couldn't dive fast enough, exposing itself too long to enemy fire...."
Bond was perplexed.
"Why must we dive to attack?"
"Exactly, 007 glad you agree. One of the secrets we British had even as far back as WW1 was the sonic interrupter gear so we could fire machine guns through propellers."
"WW1? You must be joking."
"No, 007 I'm not. Even the Germans could never figure it out."
"Well how is this going to help if I still have to DIVE to attack ground targets to line up my aircraft's nose guns? If I get target fixated I fly right into the ground..."
Q beckoned 007 to look under his Turbo Porter's belly. There was a mean-looking cannon on a turret underneath.
Bond whistled.
"Its a 30mm recoilless Mauser cannon on a turret. The Germans got that right that we needed to save weight by going recoilless. So now you don't have to dive like you did to put those rockets into that French train like you did, nice work by the way..."
"Thank you, Q".
Q picked up a military helmet and showed it to Bond.
"You simply take your helmet mounted sight and look at the target and the turret will slew to wherever you are looking at and if you press the trigger button on your controls, it will fire and hit whatever you are aiming at if its within range...no need to dive at it...the American Apache helicopters have had this for years..."
"What if my target is straight ahead like another aircraft or helicopter or a drone?"
"It still has the sonic interrupter gear and will not fire if aimed into the prop. The American's V-22 abomination desperately need a belly cannon like this since they cannot take off and land quickly."
Bond was definitely thinking...
"And where are WE going to take-off and land from?"
Q motioned out to Bond to the river's edge.
"You see that container ship?"
Bond nodded yes.
"That's MI6's new Commando carrier. You will take-off and land Turbo Porters from it. It has a SCADs flight deck on top. If we have to put a team in we don't have to beg the RAF for an aircraft which they might be fussy and not very tight-lipped about it."
Bond had examined the Porter with the 30mm cannon and noticed the entire fuselage was taken up by a metal drum.
"Ehh, Q how will we parachute or land a team in if the entire back of the Porter is taken up by your huge 30mm ammo drum?"
"Good show, 007! I'm glad you noticed. That porter is set-up as a gunship to strafe the drop zone for the team parachuting in from another Porter or Twin Otter if we need a larger team."
"That's wonderful but by the time we know where they are, they'd have already fired a shoulder launched missile at us, taking us out."
Q was smiling even wider.
"007 you do, do your homework, don't you?"
Q walked over to another aircraft covered in a tarp.
"Please help me uncover this plane you are going to learn to fly."
The two men removed the cover revealing a 2-seat, low-wing crop duster turboprop plane.
"This is the armed crop duster. Except its not going to lay chemicals, its going to lay down Patterson fog oil, laying a smoke screen before your MI6 team parachutes or lands."
Bond loved it.
"And its armed so on the way in, it can blast who it sees?"
Q pointed out the under-wing hard points for rockets, gun pods and bombs.
"This plane can also be configured to hunt for submarines and destroy them with the man in back looking at the magnetic anomaly detector (MAD) screen for 8 hours missions if our ship is escorting convoys. We have float plane versions that will rocket launch from any of her Majesty's ships, too. We saw what the Admiralty were doing with the SCADS systems and insisted we got our own ship for clandestine ops".
Bond was eager to start.
"Slater is going to meet you here in the hour. He is already qualified to land on our ship. He will sit in back or besides you as you do simulated tail hook traps on arrester wires laid across our runway. When you are ready, the ship's captain will take you out and you will do it at sea. For the next 30 days you will be eating and sleeping carrier landings, M's orders."
Bond was immediately displeased.
"The sooner Slater checks you out, the sooner you can go into town and chase your ladies, 007"
Bond struggled for a smile.
"Thanks, Q".
Bond's cell phone then rang with a text message.
"GOTFO."
Something's Not Right
Bond flies off the MAC in a Turbo Porter
2300 Hours
Arabian Sea.
Bond was looking out across the pitch black night sky from the bridge of MI6's containership cum commando carrier. To his right was the helmsman, a young agent named Bristol and the captain, a former Royal Navy destroyer commander Hallett-Davies. In the past he had inserted with his SBS team from a destroyer helmed by Hallet-Davies; his men had to jump from the ship at high speed in fins/masks and had some injured. He remembered the skipper made no fuss at slowing down to recovered the wounded men--as many would.
"What do you think, Bond?"
"I think this is ideal weather for someone to sneak in if they have got the chutzpa"
The Captain approached closer to talk out of ear shot of the young helmsman.
"Isn't that the whole problem? We still in the 21st century can't stop people sneaking in--or out?"
Bond racked his mind to concur or non-concur with the Captain's observation.
"I'm afraid you are right. However, if we applied our full resources we'd build a sensor security fence between Afghanistan and Pakistan backed by quick reaction forces ready to shoot-to-kill. That would stop trouble makers and drug runners cold. And if anyone used either place to launch a terror attack on England or America, we'd have a mobile offshore base (MOB) kind of where we are now full of an air-mech brigade to stomp on them"
The Commander looked at the radar screen ahead then looked back towards Bond again.
"Maybe they don't want the problem fixed. If there's 20 million drug addicts in the United States needing a $10 fix each day, that comes to about $200 million a day for $73 BILLION dollars each year"
Bond laughed.
"My, my you put your time to good use out here!"
The Captain laughed.
"One of the benefits of the sea...makes a man think about things...but getting back to my point...with that much money being thrown around how do we know we are on the right side doing the right thing?"
Bond was immediately troubled.
"Let me think about it and get back to you, let me check my men down below, Captain".
Bond tried to put the idea out of his mind that perhaps he was on a fool's errand trying to keep lunatics from killing each other or addicts from oblivion. A professional military would refuse fool's errands and smother conflicts if it were not a racket; but such military men like a Sam Damon from Anton Myrer's Once an Eagle are rare, most are raving Courtney Massengales bent on ego and greed; they just camouflaged it well with the flag.
Down below in their bunks sleeping by their piles of mission gear or playing cards was the Operation SINCERE team; playing cards was their leader, a man of Bond's age, Jason Naylor who was playing Texas Hold' Em poker with his assistant, Matthew Darnell. Bond has participated in an operation with Felix before to extract a defector from the Red Chinese in Hong Kong. The man was going to cut through the wire fence and rendezvous with the British Gurkha bicycle patrol which Bond had joined up and was waiting. However, when the time came to cut the wire, the cutters Naylor supplied did not cut, and the defector was captured and executed.
"How are my airplanes, Bond, 'ole boy?"
"In better shape than you take care of wire cutters"
Naylor laughed contemptuously.
"Are you ready to take-off the minute we make contact?"
Bond was ready.
"Yes, we are. 4 planes. Two Porters and one smoke plane. One Agplane as a spare. Unfortunately, the one with the floats. Are you ready to board the ship after a water jump? We will be a long ways out for a helicopter to pick you up."
"And which plane will you be flying?"
"I'll fly the smoke plane. I want to get a close look at that ship."
Bond continued on to his bunk and tried to put away his concerns that Naylor was a sloppy operator and would get a 4-man MI6 team killed in a water jump....so much to go wrong. Without a seaplane to land and pick them up, if their Zodiac F470 rubber boat didn't work they'd be in a survival situation in the middle of the Arabian sea. The nearest vessel that could covertly get them would be a Royal Navy submarine on patrol, and that might take hours to reach them. Bond decided to take an ASW sonobuoy with him in case the team needed to be marked for rescue if he had to fly back to the carrier if low on fuel.
ALERT! ALERT!
The horn sounded and Bond met Naylor on the bridge. Radar had picked up the Ptarion. The first Porter with the 30mm cannon had launched. Naylor's team was loading into the drop bird.
"I'll see you overhead, Bond. I'll signal for you to lay the protective smoke."
As Naylor left and entered the Porter, its engine roared to full power and took off.
Bond glanced at the radar screen as going to the door....Captain was also looking at it.
"The Ptarion is not moving its adrift. Something is not right. Be careful, James"
Bond nodded and hopped into his armed Agplane, engine revved, pre-flighted and poised for take-off by his co-pilot, Captain "Ace" Sanders formerly of the RAF.
"Ready for you, James".
Bond strapped into the front, armored seat and got his hands used to the controls.
The flight landing officer (FLO) waved his glowing wands clearing them for take-off.
Gunning the engine, releasing the brakes held by his two feet on the rudder pedals, the Agplane leapt into the air, Bond easing back on the stick as the carrier shrank into blackness of the dark night.
Much faster than the Porters, Bond quickly caught up with the two ahead using their GPS read-outs on his moving map display as guide. They were flying extremely low over the water; Bond with NVGs and Sanders looking through the forward-looking infared (FLIR) screen. They were using complete radio silence to evade both the Pakis and the Indians. Communications was by burst text messages. Naylor wise-cracked in text from Rapier 1.
Glad to see you made it.
Bond in Rapier 3 replied.
Roger.
It would be a 2 hour flight to reach the Ptarion; it would be dawn when they arrived. Very bad since they could be fired on by both small arms fire or worse, shoulder-fired missiles. Bond was troubled by the Ptarion being dead in the water, it smelled a trap. However, he did not trust Naylor to reveal this detail.
As dawn came to life, even low over the water, they were now visible. Naylor texted Bond.
Rapier 1: climb to 100 and turn on Yehudi lights.Rapier 2: Roger.
Rapier 3: Roger.
The flight climbed to 100 and turned on their lights all around their aircraft bottom to blend their light blue-gray undersides with the light blue sky.
"I see them ahead, 5000 meters"
Sanders spotted the Ptarion ahead on his long-range television sensor ball. They would be there on top of them within 5 minutes.
Rapier 1: Rapier 3 go on ahead and recce the ship. We will cover you from above. Take video and feed back to us.
Rapier 3: Roger.
Bond placed the Agplane into a shallow dive towards the Ptarion, he would turn away from it at the last minute using his agility and not over-fly it.
"Got the video cameras working?"
"Roger, ready."
"I'm arming our gun pods and rockets, too."
As Bond dived towards the Ptarion, the video camera on the FLIR ball swiveled and when he swung his plane in a hard right turn the whole world turned loose.
Gunfire erupted from the ship from stem-to-stern, even a missile plume rose into the sky. Had Bond continued flying ahead over the ship they would have flew right into a wall of lead and been shot down. It was a trap.
Rapier 3: They are alive down there.
Rapier 1: Rapier 2 hose down the engine area with cannon fire. Rapier 3 lay smoke immediately afterwards.
As Bond climbed back to where the others were circling, he saw Rapier 2 wing-over and shallow dive as its 30mm belly cannon sparked to life, exploding fireballs at the rear of the ship. He was underneath and to the right as Rapier 2 banked left and he turned on his smoke screen, blanketing the ship in liquid fog oil smoke. Then his plane was hit.
Cannon shells exploded all across his nose, killing the engine and going over the top of his armored cockpit. He had no time to call out a MAY DAY!. He dropped the sonobuoy and intercommed Sanders to prepare to ditch.
The plane hit the water with a mighty splash followed by a crash of his body held by the 4 point restraint. Good thing the plane was built of tubular metal like a NASCAR racer. WHAMMM! water sprayed into the cockpit. Must get out...inflate life raft....Sanders was already out and inflating the bright orange raft....As Bond got out he saw Rapier 2 overhead sparking with its 30mm shells....AT THEM!
The shells blasted the water in a string of geysers reaching up to Sanders!
"Get down Sanders!"
It was too late a 30mm cannon shell exploded his body into a pink frothy mist. Bond dived head long into the water, knowing even shells cannot make much head way into the water.
Even though flying away, Rapier 2's deadly 30mm cannon turret swiveled and kept the fire going into Bond's Agplane, reaching its fuel tanks and exploding the sea on fire all around him....then the MI6 planes flew off towards the coast--not back to the carrier.
Bond had been double-crossed. He immediately went back to his survival training. His Nomex flight suit was a special two-piece version Q and him had concocted so it would be easier on land to relieve oneself. Now, he detached the top off and unzipped his leg cuffs to slip his pants off. Tying the legs into a knot, he grabbed the waist and flung it into the air to scoop it up and back down into the water to make floatation for his neck. Now that he was floating, Bond reached down into his boots and hit each switch to let out mini-water fins on them so he could kick. He would not use his LPU-18 inflatable lifeboat at his neck until he could find out what the hell was going on. Thank God he took along the sonobuoy now beeping to the Royal Navy submarine on station. What the hell was Naylor up to?
Bond began to kick towards the Ptarion, now on fire and giving off a rising column of smoke. Dead-in-the-water.
Bond checked his equipment. Survival kit in vest. LPU-18 at neck. Walther P99 9mm pistol in holster with extended 30 round clip. Two extra magazines with 17 rounds in his vest. Now all wet. Would they work?
Reaching the ladder on the side of the Ptarion, he popped his boot fins back in and crept slowly up to the edge of the deck and drew his P99. He shook as much water as he could out; the barrel had a plastic plug that would pop off the first time he shot it.
Everyone on the ship was dead. It was also not adrift but plowing ahead slowly at around 5 mph headed to the coast. He could smell the stench of something faint...some kind of gas....then he got sick and began to throw up. Nerve gas. Placing a water damped rag over his mouth, Bond crept to the pilot room. The GPS map display--rather pricey for alleged raghead terrorists showed a course for Pakistan--not India. The ship was obviously going to be deliberately offered up to them as a false flag. Looking at the dead men's uniforms he noticed they were all in the garb of the Indian Navy's commandos. Some were wearing Sikh turbans. Bond cursed. He had been had.
His watch/cell phone combination chirped to life.
It was Team Omega.
It was also a global sat phone so he chose to go to voice.
"Bond here".
It was Anne Tanner.
Anne Tanner, Leader of Team Omega
"James, bad news. We've uncovered the document's plans. Both sides have agreed to supply commandos to each other in false flag attacks that would be thwarted. I'm afraid you are.."
Bond cut her off.
"I'm already on a ship full of dead Indian commandos drifting towards Pakistan. I need to know how India will be attacked."
"The plan is for dead paratroopers to be dropped"
Bond realized this was Naylor's task. However something still was not right.
"You cannot start a war with two thwarted false flag attacks."
Just as Bond said those words he put it all together....the large green rucksack by Naylor's bunk...
"Google me a picture of an American back pack nuke"
Anne replied and within a few seconds had sent Bond a pic.
"That's it."
A Mark 54 Special Atomic Demolition Munition (SADM). A Cold War item for special forces to take out entire bases. In an olive drab green backpack. Jumpable.
Horror struck Bond. MI6 was going to nuke an Indian city and toss out some Pakistani paratrooper "dummies" to start off a nuclear war between the two. It had been 30 minutes since the shoot-down. It was only 3 hours before they'd reach the Indian coast. Bond couldn't have Tanner contact anyone or risk blowing the Omega team's cover.
"Think, Bond! Think!"
He could alert the Indian Air Force...
"Anne get some kind of cut-out arrangement, warn the Indian Air Force that two highly camouflaged turboprop planes are approaching their coast from the south at low level....one has a nuclear bomb...."
"Where is that sonobuoy?"
Grabbing a pair of binoculars, Bond began to scan the horizon...
"There it is..."
And by a miracle, a column of water arose...a newly camouflage painted blue Royal Navy submarine surfaced alongside....a small boat team scrambled out and was approaching him...
"Ahoy, Mr. Bond, we got your message"
To his amazement, Bond saw a large watertight container aft of the top sail....
Within minutes he was on board the submarine talking to its skipper, Captain Hargraves.
"What do you have in the containers?"
"Two planes, one a seaplane that can transport in a boat team."
"Too slow. What's the other?"
The Captain smiled.
"A folding wing, attack plane, a Sadler Piranha, no floats, takes off by ZEL rocket."
"Any armament?"
"30mm cannon".
"Perfect. I have a bomb to catch".
Folding Wing Sadler Piranha Attack Plane
Blasting off by rocket, Bond was in the air racing to catch up with the Porters. He was already 1 hour behind. At 100 mph they'd be 100 miles ahead....pushing the engine to full power, he was flying at never-to-exceed 420 mph ruining the DeltaHawk diesel engine in the process. He'd have as much as 300 mph closure rate and at the worst only 100 mph if they were going over 150 in the Porters....
Bond had no time to learn all the gadgets in the Piranha...he used his cell watch/phone for a GPS map feed of the Porters to get a fix on them...fortunately they assumed he was dead and didn't bother to turn off their tracking devices.
At about 100 miles off the shore, he spotted them. Lining up directly in their rear, he waited and waited to reach their six o'clock within 30mm range.....
"Come on!!" Bond though as he pushed the throttles against their stops they were already resting on.
At 12 miles he could see the shoreline.....he could hear jets overhead, but none were intercepting....if they reached the ground clutter you could kiss radar lock-on goodbye. Bond knew surprise would not last beyond his first barrage of fire...he must get close as all the WW2 aces did. That would not mean the 2, 000 meters the 30mm could reach out to, but point-blank at around 300 meters....but which one was which? When could he see the one with the 30mm belly turret? Maybe he wouldn't want to see that killer device?
Under 1, 000 meters now.
Bond armed the cannon. Feet dry. They were over the Indian coast. Just 50 miles to Bombay--and the Indian Presidential palace.
Bond lined up his sights on the rear most Porter which should be the drop ship with the nuke.
500 meters.
It was the one with the 30mm cannon!
Tracer shells flicked over his head as it broke hard right into a turn. The other broke left and dove to the treetops.
"Damn it!"
As his adversary turned, shells continued to follow him getting ever closer.
Bond pulled up into a climb and was on his back, then rolled over...a classic Immelmann turn. The 30mm shells couldn't follow him from a belly cannon...Bond realized the Porter's weakness was its top...he must attack there so the cannon couldn't swivel through itself.....
Rolling to his left with aileron, Bond looked down and saw the Porter banking left then right, then left again to jink him away from the drop ship....having the height advantage, Bond dived and lined up his 30mm gun heads up display on the center wing box of the Porter and fired at about medium range, 1,000 meters....shells began to explode into the fuel tanks, bursting the plane into a crumpled fireball that exploded again and again as its ammunition cooked off...and the flaming wreckage holding two men careened into the Indian countryside in a final flash of exploding fuel...
However, the drop ship was long gone....
Bond immedlmanned back to his original inbound direction....
Its target only a few minutes away...Bond's only chance was that Naylor would stick to the cover plan and drop the dead paratroopers....
Scanning ahead along the original course of roughly 35 degrees....he saw 4 chutes ahead.....
Then he saw the Porter droning on ahead straight for the capital!
That's when the Indian Air Force SU-35 fighter-bomber swooped over him.
"Not now! You fool's! I'm not the bad guy".
However just like the 1927 epic movie Wings, they good guys didn't know that. He was in a light gray plane with no national markings. Bond pressed on ahead and fired at Naylor who turned into him. They were now charging at each other head-on. That was the right thing to do when facing a more maneuverable aircraft. Naylor was firing his rockets at Bond, Bond his 30mm cannon. Then he was out of ammo.
Both men now out of ammo screamed towards each other in a game of chicken. Bond knew what to do: he had one advantage: he had both a recovery parachute and a rocket extraction seat like the A-1 SkyRaiders had. Bond banked left and clipped his wing right into the prop of the Porter which shattered as he spun around....the g forces pinning him down....must pull handle...pull handle....the Porter already had careened into the trees below and exploded.....Bond could see the trees when his chute opened and the spinning started to slow.....
Then the Indian SU-35 zoomed over him missing him with cannon fire due to his sudden deceleration...the Flanker zoomed off and turned around.....
Bond saw the flash of an air-to-air missile.....pulling his last option, he was rocket extracted from his seat and fortunately missed the huge recovery parachute....and his seat pack chute opened just as he smacked into the trees....the Sukhoi flew away and victory rolled, no doubt going to claim both planes....
An Indian Army patrol hours later found Bond stuck in a tree and asked if he needed help getting down.
"Ya think?"
