Cauldron

CHAPTER 20 Meeting Engagement

The small village of Legnickie Pole had a troubled history stretching back over many centuries. In 1241, Duke Henryk the Pious and his Polish and Silesian knights had been defeated there by Mongol horse archers pouring out of the eastern steppes. Benedictine monks built a monastery to honor the fallen duke but were driven out by German overlords during the Protestant Reformation. They returned centuries later and built a new abbey facing the old. Unfortunately for the monks, covetous secular hands were never far behind. For nearly a century, the abbey buildings housed a Prussian military academy. One of its graduates was Paul von Hindenburg, Germany’s last commander in chief during World War I and the man who named Adolf Hitler as Germany’s Chancellor.

Now Legnickie Pole served as a temporary headquarters for another invading force.

The cluster of jeeps, trucks, and armored vehicles constituting the 7th Panzer Division’s forward command post filled a small campground on the edge of the village. Infantrymen, Milan antitank missile teams, and air defense units stood guard around the perimeter. Polish stragglers cut off by the rapid Confederation advance were showing an irritating reluctance to accept defeat and surrender. Instead they seemed determined to fight on — attacking supply convoys, command posts, and even fighting units whenever possible. Constant vigilance was necessary — especially at night.

Lieutenant Colonel Willi von Seelow paused before following Colonel Bremer into the central headquarters tent. Since the war began he’d been spending eighteen to twenty hours a day inside the brigade’s cramped M577 headquarters vehicle — preparing and discarding or distributing new operations plans as the tactical situation changed. Now he relished this rare chance to stretch to his full height. It was also a chance to breathe fresh air only lightly tinged with diesel fumes, smoke, and sweat.

Flashes lit the night sky to the south, followed seconds later by the muffled drumbeat of heavy artillery. III Corps gunners were pounding stubborn Polish rear guards holding the road junction at Jawor. A flickering orange glow to the west marked a village set ablaze during the day’s fighting.

Von Seelow could also hear the steady rumble of heavy traffic crawling south and east along the highways outside the town. He frowned. With six divisions converging on a front only fifty kilometers or so wide, the roads were clogged. Vital supplies — tank and artillery ammunition, and diesel fuel — weren’t getting forward fast enough. Unless those rear-area logistical tangles could be sorted out, this offensive risked bogging down under its own weight.

He shook his head, pushing away strategic concerns beyond his scope, and went inside.

Bremer was up front, near a pair of cloth-covered map stands. The 19th Panzergrenadier’s short, dark-haired commander stood in the middle of a small circle of other senior officers, chatting amicably with the men who led the division’s two Panzer brigades. Willi pushed through the crowded tent to join him. General Karl Leibnitz had evidently summoned all of his combat commanders and their top staff officers to this late night meeting.

That wasn’t surprising. With events knocking their prewar plans further and further out of whack, the 7th Panzer and the other Confederation units inside Poland urgently needed new instructions and new objectives.

“Achtung.”

The assembled officers came to attention as Leibnitz pushed past the tent’s blackout flap.

“At ease, gentlemen.” The general took his place at the front. “Let’s not waste time with formalities.”

He pulled the cover off the left-hand map. It showed the EurCon Army’s current positions and those held by the Poles. “Summer Lightning has failed to achieve its primary objective — the encirclement and annihilation of the Polish 4th and 11th mechanized divisions. The Poles have fallen back too far and too fast for us to get behind them.”

Von Seelow and the others nodded. Despite their best efforts, the 7th Panzer’s rapid advance through the forest had netted only a few laggard enemy units — none larger than company-sized groupings of antique T-55 tanks and wheeled troop carriers. Poland’s best troops had escaped the trap. The war plan’s vaunted “jaws of steel” had closed on empty air and deserted Polish farmland.

“As a result, we’ve been given new orders by II Corps.” The division commander turned to the map on the second stand. It showed a set of red arrows arcing north past Legnica before turning and coming south again.

“We turn northeast, pushing along these tertiary roads here and here.” Leibnitz traced them as he talked. “Our first objective is the bridge over the Cicha Woda at Kawice.” He tapped a tiny village near the junction of the Oder River and its small tributary.

“From there we advance southeast toward Sroda Slaska and Katy Wroclawskie, using the Oder to protect our left flank.” The general saw their understanding and nodded. “That’s correct, gentlemen. If we move fast — very fast — we can swing around the Polish lines and cut them off from Wroclaw before they have time to retreat again.”

What? Willi wondered which idiot on the corps staff had come up with this half-baked half-measure. Without stopping to consider the consequences, he shook his head and took a step closer to the map.

The movement and gesture caught Leibnitz’s attention. “Something about this plan troubles you, von Seelow?”

Suddenly feeling all the eyes in the crowded tent boring into his back, Willi nodded. “Yes, Herr General, it does.”

“Well?”

Willi swallowed the urge to retreat. His duty as an officer required him to speak up. “This turning movement is too shallow, Herr General. Once the Poles realize what we are up to, they’ll have little trouble shifting local reserves to slow us down or seal off our penetration entirely. And once that happens, we’ll only find ourselves locked into a bloody, head-to-head slugging match again.”

“And what do you suggest instead?” The general’s flat tone made it very clear that he had better damned well have an alternative in mind.

“That we advance north past Kawice and cross the Oder itself before turning east.” Von Seelow injected as much confidence in his voice as he could. “Then, with the river protecting our right flank, we can swing deep around Wroclaw itself. If III Corps does the same to the south, we can still pocket a sizable portion of the Poles in and around the city.”

Leibnitz pondered the map in a silence that dragged uncomfortably. Then he shook his head. “Our orders are clear, Colonel. They come straight from General Montagne himself. He has little patience and less time for perfect ’staff school’ solutions. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Von Seelow groaned inwardly. Until now their French corps commander had seemed content to rely on his staff and his division commanders. The prospect of trying to carry out superficial plans hatched by Montagne himself sent chills down his spine.

“Good.” Leibnitz scanned his assembled officers. “We move out at first light. I suggest you all make sure your vehicles are topped off and restocked. Once we break into the enemy’s rear areas, it may be some time before we can be resupplied.”

His gaze fell on the commander of his reconnaissance battalion. “Major Lauer’s tanks and scout cars will lead the way. Your watchword, Max, is speed. Speed, speed, and still more speed!”

His ears still burning from the general’s implied rebuke, Willi von Seelow listened to the rest of the briefing in silence.

Sixty Leopard 1 tanks, Luchs scout cars, and Fuchs infantry carriers raced east, thundering through fields of standing wheat and corn. Dust plumes marked their passage. Robbed of rain by several days of unseasonably clear weather, the roads and fields were dry.

Major Max Lauer spat to clear some of the dust from his mouth, and used one gloved hand to swipe at his goggles. He squinted down the dirt road ahead, trying to catch a first glimpse of the little farming village called Kawice.

It appeared as soon as his command tank crested a low rise rolling up out of the flat Polish countryside. A half-timbered church steeple rose above scattered roofs only a couple of kilometers away. Small stands of trees traced the meandering path of the narrow river that cut Kawice in half. The bridge linking the two halves was still out of sight. But at this speed, his battalion would be on top of it in minutes.

A voice crackled through his headphones. “Rover One, this is Rover Charlie One.” The commander of C Company — a mixed force of Leopards and Luchs scout cars — had something to report. “Spot report! Vehicles moving toward the town! Across the river.”

Lauer snapped his head in that direction and raised his binoculars. At first, he could only see the yellow-brown haze of dust churned up by speeding tracks and tires. Then he could make out individual vehicles — little more than brown and light green dots at this distance. They were moving up the road from Sroda Slaska at high speed.

New reports came through his headphones, pouring in from vehicle commanders ahead of him. “Vehicles are BRDMs, BMPs, and T-72s. Estimate enemy is in company strength at least.”

Damn it. They’d run right into a Polish recon outfit heading for Kawice on a converging course. And the Poles were closer to the town and its bridge than they were.

“This is Rover Charlie One. Enemy in range. Engaging!”

Lauer could see C Company’s tanks and Luchs scout cars veering away from the road, trying to take the speeding Polish column in the flank. He nodded to himself. If they could force the Poles to halt, to deploy for combat, his battalion might still win this race for Kawice.

He keyed his mike. “All Rover units, this is Rover One. Push for the town! No stopping!”

Tank cannon cracked in the distance. C Company’s Leopards were in action — pouring 105mm shells toward the enemy as the range wound down. Moments later, he heard a steady chattering roar. The scout cars had opened up with their 20mm rapid-fire cannon.

Smoke boiled up through the haze. His men were getting hits! One of the lead BRDMs vanished in a ball of flame. Another lay on its side, on fire. Riddled by 20mm rounds, a BMP ground to a halt with smoke pouring from its engine compartment. Burning men tumbled out the back and crumpled to the ground. A T-72 sat off to one side of the road with its turret blown off.

But most of the Poles were still charging toward Kawice, swerving around the wrecked and damaged vehicles in their path.

Lauer swore fiercely. Those bastards across the river were too brave.

Something flashed past the Leopard’s turret, trailing a shock wave of displaced air that slapped him in the face and tore at his black beret and headset. Startled, he ducked and then swore again. The Polish T-72s were firing back on the move. Luckily, their Soviet-made 125mm guns weren’t accurate beyond fifteen hundred meters!

He’d been so busy commanding his battalion that he’d almost forgotten he was also inside a fighting vehicle.

The German major dropped back into his seat and grabbed the gun override, traversing the massive turret to the right. He pressed his face against the sight extension, searching for the enemy tank that had fired at him. There! A low-slung, turreted shape came into view, bucketing up and down as it crossed a dirt lane and ditch separating one wheat field from another.

“Gunner! Tank at two o’clock!”

“Identified!” His gunner, seated below and in front of him, had the T-72 in sight. “Sabot!”

“Up!” The Leopard’s loader confirmed they had a tank-killing, discarding sabot round in the main gun, and that he was out of the way.

“Fire!”

The gun fired and recoiled, rocking the tank to the left. A tungsten-steel dart, surrounded by a metal shoe, or sabot, left the tank gun barrel. As it cleared the muzzle, the sabot fell away, transferring the punch of a large-bore round into a much smaller, superdense projectile.

A cloud of smoke and flame from the muzzle blast obscured their vision for a brief instant and then vanished — left behind by the Leopard’s forward motion.

The T-72 was still rolling. They’d missed!

Lauer grimaced. “Gunner! Reengage!”

Smoke and dust billowed up in front of the Polish tank as it fired again and missed a second time.

“Up!”

“Fire!”

Another flash and bang and another cloud of smoke and dust. But this time, Lauer’s sight revealed the enemy tank swerving off to one side, cloaked in flame as its ammunition and fuel detonated. He kicked the gunner’s shoulder lightly. “Good shooting, Sergeant. Engage other targets at will.”

The major popped his head and shoulders back through the open hatch. He’d lost the bigger picture while concentrating on the necessary task of killing that one T-72. Now he had to regain his grasp of the tactical situation, and fast.

His own Leopard had almost reached Kawice — racing toward the little cluster of wood-frame houses, walled vegetable gardens, and narrow, unpaved streets. His lead companies were already there. He could see German armored vehicles and scout cars bunching up as they formed in column for a final dash toward the bridge.

Lauer mentally urged them on. Speed was crucial. They had to get across the river and into the other half of the village before the Poles could deploy.

A flash and puff of white smoke from a house across the water caught his eye. He spun around and saw a bright flame arcing toward them — only a meter or so off the ground. “Missile! Evade!”

He stabbed frantically for the button that would fire his tank’s protective smoke grenade launchers and missed as the Leopard swerved abruptly to the right, throwing him forward hard against the hatch coaming. In the next second, the tank’s main gun fired, and this time the recoil threw him backward.

The enemy antitank missile screamed past and slammed into the ground just a few meters away. It left a length of control wire draped over the command tank’s deck as concrete evidence of an attack that had come entirely too close for comfort. Lauer knew that only the combination of the wild evasive maneuver and a shell howling close by had spooked the Polish ATGM gunner, throwing his aim off in that last crucial second.

Other German tanks had seen the missile launch and now they opened fire, pumping HE rounds into the one-story wood house. It disintegrated, torn apart by a series of bright orange and red explosions. Pieces of burning timber tumbled lazily through the air before splashing into the river.

Dirt fountained skyward next to a Leopard on Lauer’s flank. Then it blew up, hit broadside by a second 125mm round from a T-72 that had been lurking between another pair of buildings across the Cicha Woda. The Polish tank reversed out of sight before anyone could return fire.

The voice of C Company’s commander came through his headphones, barely intelligible over the echoing roar of machine-gun and tank cannon fire. “Rover One, this is Rover Charlie One. Crossing the bridge now! I’ll…”

The transmission ceased suddenly. To his horror, Lauer saw thick black smoke climbing above Kawice’s rooftops.

“Rover One, Charlie One is hit and burning! The bridge is blocked! Repeat, the bridge is blocked!”

The major cursed. Despite the trail of burning and broken vehicles they’d left behind, too many enemy tanks and APCs had made it inside Kawice for Lauer and his men to simply bull right through them. With their antitank teams and infantry dispersed among the houses and gardens, the Poles could turn their half of the little village into a hornet’s nest.

The 7th Panzer’s recon battalion had lost its race.

Lauer scowled and lifted his mike. “Rover Delta, this is Rover One. Deploy your infantry to cover the bridge approaches.” D Company’s foot soldiers stood a better chance out of their lightly armored troop carriers. “All other Rover units, withdraw fifteen hundred meters west.”

Acknowledgments crackled in while he angrily reviewed his options. They were limited. Digging the Poles out of Kawice now would take the combined efforts of infantry, tanks, and heavy artillery. His battalion didn’t have enough infantry. The division’s artillery was still somewhere on the road behind them. And taking on those T-72s at point-blank range with his Leopard 1s was a good way to wind up with a wrecked unit.

He shook his head. No, he would have to let the 19th Panzergrenadier pass through to take the town.

While Bremer and his men fought it out, Lauer planned to scout south along the river, looking for a spot shallow enough for his snorkel-equipped tanks to ford. If that failed, they would have to wait for the division’s engineers to lay another pontoon bridge across the Cicha Woda.

The 7th Panzer Division’s “lightning-fast” advance against the Polish flank had been slowed to a slogging crawl.

Von Seelow lay prone on the lip of a small fold in the ground watching artillery pummel the Polish-held woods. Thirty-six 155mm howitzers were in action, dousing the treeline with high explosives.

The brigade’s TOC and other command vehicles were parked in the shadowed hollow behind him. The sun was a huge red ball low on the western horizon.

Colonel Georg Bremer came stomping up from von Seelow’s M577 and dropped flat beside him. He’d been talking with both the division and corps headquarters over the TOC’s radio. “Madness! They’ve all gone crazy back there, Willi! Now that there’s no hope of pocketing the Poles here, they’ve changed their minds again. Now we’re supposed to push them out of Wroclaw by direct assault. The higher-ups claim that will end the war!”

Von Seelow frowned. Madness, indeed. Abandoning maneuver warfare in favor of a straight slugging match to take a single geographical objective violated the three basic tenets of German Army doctrine — mobility, agility, and flexibility. Attrition warfare wasted lives, supplies, and time. It was also unnecessary.

With half their army still tied down watching their eastern border, the Poles could not possibly be strong everywhere. Throwing six EurCon divisions squarely at their main line of defense was foolish. His worst fears were coming to life. Frantic to win a quick victory before the war escalated further, the Confederation’s political leaders were starting to grasp at straws.

He lowered his binoculars and turned his head toward Bremer. “So we attack as planned?”

The colonel nodded silently, too frustrated to speak out loud. Both of them had urged another end run around the Polish troops blocking the Sroda Slaska road. But General Montagne, unwilling to accept further delay, had ordered a full brigade attack on the enemy positions instead. And Leibnitz, their division commander, still seemed unable or unwilling to contradict his French superior.

The barrage lifted suddenly, leaving an unearthly quiet in its place. But the silence did not last long.

Twelve PAH-1 attack helicopters swept low overhead, flying in line as they approached the woods at high speed. Fiery-white flares streamed out behind each helo. It was a wise precaution.

Several white smoke trails arced up out of the shell-torn and splintered trees. The Poles were firing hand-held SAMs at the German helicopters — either American-supplied Stingers or Soviet-made SA-14s. Von Seelow held his breath, watching the missiles curve toward their targets.

The SAMs missed, decoyed by the falling flares.

And the PAH-1s opened fire, volleying hundreds of unguided, spin-stabilized rockets. From a distance, they looked like swarms of glowing sparks lancing down into the trees. Brown clouds of rocket exhaust coiled beneath the helicopters, caught in their rotor downwash. Explosions crackled through the woods.

Still trailing flares, the German helos veered west and lost altitude, heading for their own lines with their skids only meters above the ground.

Perfectly timed by a forward air controller, the next attack came in right on their heels. Four swept-wing Tornado attack jets screamed north along the edge of the woods. Thousand-pound bombs tumbled off their wing and fuselage racks — twelve from each plane.

The Tornados were turning away when a Polish ZSU-234 antiaircraft gun hammered them — spraying 23mm tracer rounds across their flight path. Staggered by multiple hits, one of the German jets rolled over and nose-dived into the ground. It exploded in a rolling, tumbling ball of flame. The other three howled past von Seelow and Bremer and disappeared.

The edge of the woods seemed to dissolve in a rippling series of blinding white flashes.

When the afterimages stopped dancing in front of Willi’s eyes, he could see flames and black smoke rising from the treeline. There were burning Polish tanks and APCs in there. He nodded to Bremer. “That was the last air strike, sir.”

“Right.” The colonel wriggled backward until he was below the rise. Then he clambered to his feet and jogged toward the little cluster of command vehicles in the hollow, already shouting the orders that would set the 19th Panzer-grenadier’s battalions in motion.

Von Seelow swiveled his head, watching clusters of armored vehicles break from cover and rumble toward the shattered patch of woods. Forty long-gunned Leopard 2s led the attack. Marder APCs crammed with infantry followed several hundred meters behind the tanks.

Shells began bursting inside the trees, churning the smoking earth. The German artillery batteries would “shoot in” the assault — firing until the Leopards and panzergrenadiers were almost on top of the enemy’s defensive positions.

Willi von Seelow glanced at the setting sun and shook his head in dismay. Although he was sure the brigade’s attack was powerful enough to shove the Poles out of the woods and back another few kilometers toward Wroclaw, he knew it wouldn’t tear a lasting hole in the Polish lines. It was too late for that. Disentangling the intermingled panzer and panzer-grenadier battalions, evacuating their casualties, and refueling and rearming their surviving vehicles would take hours — especially in the confused darkness under the trees.

The German and French offensive was bogging down, blunting itself in a series of head-to-head clashes with an increasingly experienced and prepared enemy.

Flashes pulsed in the black early morning sky. The Germans were shelling the Polish battalions forming a new line just west of the city.

Major General Jerzy Novachik stood in the tall grass beside the two-lane road, watching the remnants of one of his battle groups limp by. Every vehicle showed signs of damage — scarred by shell fragments and blackened by flame. Ambulances interspersed with the retreating Bradleys and M1s carried the worst of the wounded toward Wroclaw’s hospitals. Other injured men, still able to fight or just too stubborn to quit, stayed with their comrades. A third of those who had gone into battle were dead — trapped in burned-out tanks or torn apart in smoking shell craters.

More tanks and fighting vehicles lumbered past the stumbling, weaving column, heading for the front.

These gallant soldiers had held the enemy long enough for reinforcements to show up. Other units of Novachik’s division were coming in piecemeal — delayed by EurCon air attacks and the refugees flooding all northern and eastern roads out of Wroclaw. Each new force joined the battle as soon as it arrived.

The general’s bushy eyebrows came together as he frowned. His troops were slowing the enemy advance, but they couldn’t stop it. There were too many German and too many French tanks and guns pouring across the frontier. Trying to hold them back with three battered Polish divisions was like trying to hold back the tide with a few schoolchildren armed with buckets and shovels.

EurCon’s growing air superiority only made things worse.

Novachik had watched French and German warplanes and helicopters bombing and strafing his men all day — working back and forth along his lines with apparent impunity. Where the hell, he wondered bitterly, was his nation’s own vaunted air force?

“Porucznik! Porucznik!

Lieutenant! Lieutenant!”

Someone was shaking Tadeusz Wojcik’s shoulder, dragging him out of a soft, warm blackness. Awareness came flooding back, like the memory of a particularly bad nightmare. He realized he had been asleep in the pilot’s quarters and that it was time to get up for another mission. The voice was still speaking, but it took him several seconds to decode the orderly’s Polish.

He had to think for a moment before he could even say “Dziekuje,” or “thank you.” Normally his Polish was very good, but right now he was just too groggy. Even speaking coherent English would have been a chore. After five days of three or even four combat missions a day, four hours’ crew rest didn’t refresh him — it barely took the edge off his fatigue.

The corporal took a moment to make sure the porucznik, or first lieutenant, was fully awake, then went on to his next victim.

Tad’s watch read 3:04, but he resolutely dragged himself out of bed. He had a mission scheduled for this morning. Right now, just moving took an effort. Sitting in an ejection seat and flying at high g-levels day after day had given him a sore back and behind. Lying deep in sleep for four hours allowed everything to stiffen up, so that now on waking he felt like he’d been beaten up.

The day’s flying would only make that worse. He could expect to be in the cockpit for eight to twelve hours today, if he lived that long. And survival was high on Tad’s priority list.

He was proving very good at that. His skills had been honed to a razor’s edge since that first night battle in the sky over Hungary. He had eight kills to his credit now. Most were attack aircraft of one kind or another, but there were German Fulcrums and French Mirages hanging from his belt as well. Still, the flying, always at the edge of his skill and endurance, drained him.

A cold shower helped clear his head, but it couldn’t touch the deep core of fatigue that left him aching and bone-weary.

When he came out, a TV in one corner of the deserted commons room was on, as it had been when he fell into bed. It was tuned to CNN. Tad heard the American anchorman speak of “anguished appeals from Warsaw and Prague for immediate military aid.”

The journalist’s words irritated him, although he wasn’t quite sure why. They were probably a fair statement of the desperate situation his adopted homeland found itself in. Maybe he just didn’t like hearing about it. Not in such dispassionate tones from a man thousands of miles away and well out of danger.

Buttoning his tunic, he stepped out of the barracks into the chilly, predawn blackness — headed for the airfield’s operations center.

The building was still under repair. Ground crewmen working under dim, shielded lights were busy shoveling dirt away from one bomb-damaged side, while heavy equipment stacked concrete slabs against other parts of the bunker. Some of the damage had been inflicted by the EurCon stealth cruise missile attack more than a week before. Some was more recent.

Two nights ago, enemy planes had raided the base — this time hitting the runways with Durandals while they targeted buildings and aircraft shelters with laser-guided bombs and missiles. Four aircraft had been destroyed on the ground. Another had been shot down trying to defend the field.

Luckily the Russians who had first constructed the base had built well. The thick layer of earth covering the ops bunker had been blown off, and its outer walls had been weakened, but the officers inside were still in business, planning missions and assigning pilots to fly them. Of course, stacked runway sections and sandbags couldn’t offer as much protection as reinforced concrete. One more direct hit would finish them.

The same repair crews working on the bunker had put the damaged runways back in service within hours. Even the lost shelters were not too terrible a hardship, either. There were fewer and fewer planes and pilots to fill them.

The raid had been expensive for the enemy as well. Wroclaw was well defended by American-made Hawk and Patriot missiles and Soviet-made antiaircraft guns. Tad glanced at a shadowed, angular mound of metal piled between the two runways. Only the shape of the outer wing panels and part of a Maltese cross identified the wreck as the remains of a German Fulcrum. The sight cheered him up in a grim sort of way.

The inside of the ops bunker was alive with activity. He headed for the briefing room first, which was now also doubling as a cafeteria. It was half-filled with pilots and other squadron personnel, listening as the intelligence officer briefed them on the night’s developments. Most were eating, and they all had lined, drawn faces.

The smell of food made his stomach growl, and Tad spotted a side table piled high with coffee, juice, sandwiches, and kolduny, meat turnovers. As he loaded up a paper plate, he listened to the brief.

“… SAM battery at Legnica is being reinforced to battalion level, so it’s dangerous to approach the place within thirty kilometers, except at low altitudes.”

“Kostomloty fell last night.” Reacting to the looks on the faces of his audience, the intelligence officer tried to reassure them. “It’s one step closer to us, but the army hadn’t really expected to hold the town for long, and they made EurCon pay for it.”

Maybe so. But that put the French and German spearheads only twenty-five kilometers from the edge of the city.

“Remember, our strategy is to delay them and inflict as many casualties as we can. With luck we can hold on until Tad’s old friends can make it over here.”

Wojcik, sitting down as he chewed on a kolduny, shrugged and tried to look hopeful. He had taken a lot of ribbing, some of it with a sharp edge, over the apparent slowness of the American and British response to the invasion. All the press statements and proclamations in the world from the White House and 10 Downing Street weren’t going to stop the French and German troops surging deeper and deeper into Poland.

“The general staff confirms that we are still a major objective of the EurCon advance. If they can take Wroclaw, they cut Polish-Czech communications, take a big step toward Warsaw, and interfere with the operations of Poland’s best fighter regiment.”

Scattered laughter and smiles showed there was still some spirit in the assembled pilots.

A sergeant nudged his elbow. “Lieutenant, Major Broz is ready for you.”

Carrying his food, Wojcik left the room, with the briefer’s words trailing after him into the crowded hallway. Nodding to those he knew, Tad edged through the press into a room marked “Mission Planning.”

Broz, the first squadron’s operations officer, sat at one of four desks crowded into a room meant for two. Another pilot was just standing up as Tad walked in, and the major tiredly waved him into a seat. The remains of breakfast were mixed with maps, printouts, an F-15 flight planning handbook, and rather ominously, a 9mm automatic pistol being used as a paperweight.

“It’s a solo mission for you first, Wojcik,” Broz announced. “Air-to-ground along the A4 Motorway, two-thirds of the way to Legnica.”

As he spoke, he handed Tad a packet containing the mission profile, radio code card, and the other information he would need.

Although the Eagle was designed as an air-to-air fighter, it still had a respectable ground attack capability — at least in daylight and clear weather. Thankfully the weather was clear, because the Polish Air Force was throwing every aircraft it had, even trainers and squadron hacks, against the advancing EurCon columns. There were plenty of air-to-air targets, too, but killing airplanes wouldn’t stop the tanks closing on Wroclaw.

Tad remembered the intelligence officer’s briefing. Wroclaw’s capture would shatter Polish-Czech communications. And that would put an end to any hope that Czech troops could move north to reinforce Poland’s outnumbered army.

He scanned the mission profile, noting that his Eagle would be carrying an interesting mix of ordnance. The F-15 was loaded with twelve Russian-designed KMGU cluster bombs on two MERs, multiple ejection racks, along with American-built Sidewinder and Sparrow missiles for air-to-air combat.

The old Soviet Air Force had designed all its ordnance with NATO-standard bomb lugs, just like their planes’ fuel and electrical fittings. Intended to let them swiftly take over NATO airfields in time of war, it now allowed western- and eastern-bloc weapons to be used together. It was another of this war’s many ironies.

Broz finished talking and nodded him toward the door. It was time to fly.

Back in the open air, Wojcik hurried toward the fragment-scarred rows of squat, concrete aircraft shelters. He passed by other pilots and other enlisted men on the way. The ground crews looked even worse than he felt.

At least standing regulations required flight personnel to get a certain amount of sleep. Maintenance techs and the other ground staff basically worked until they fell over, and they were then allowed a little rest before being wakened again.

He grimaced. The base was damaged, they were losing aircraft, and everyone was on the edge of exhaustion. Poland’s ground forces were “regrouping” to meet the unexpected EurCon invasion. If they didn’t regroup soon, Tad thought, it would be too late.

He found his shelter, and was relieved to see a well-maintained, if worn, Eagle loaded and ready. The crew chief, a stocky, unshaven staff sergeant, still had enough energy to salute and report the aircraft ready.

Tad took his time going over the plane. Tired people make mistakes and mistakes kill pilots. So he looked carefully for unfastened access panels or improperly mounted bombs and missiles. He needed help from the staff sergeant as well, to check the arming wires on the unfamiliar Russian ordnance.

He climbed up into the F-15’s cockpit, checking the upper wing surfaces at the same time. With a twinge in his nether regions, he settled himself into the ejector seat and ran through his checklist while he hooked up. Satisfied, he hit the starter and waited while the engines spooled up, bringing life to the plane’s instrument panel.

With both engines roaring, Tad took his Eagle through the shelter’s open armored doors and out onto the runway. He already had clearance for a fast taxi and takeoff as soon as he was outside. Poland’s aircraft were more vulnerable on the ground than in the air.

Even fully loaded with bombs and missiles, the Eagle still seemed to leap skyward, and some of his fatigue seemed to stay behind on the ground.

Turning north, Tad cruised at low level until he picked up the Oder River valley, then turned northwest to follow it, dropping lower. By doglegging north along the valley, he planned to avoid the enemy troop concentrations deployed across the A4 Motorway. Frontline troops were never easy targets. Dug in, concealed, and ready for trouble, the odds were against him. His primary target for this mission was further back, one half hour’s flying time from Wroclaw — most of it spent on this detour down the Oder.

He hugged the water, now silvered as the sun rose, constantly moving his head as he scanned his instruments and the sky. EurCon aircraft did not have complete air superiority, but the numbers were usually on the wrong side for the Poles, and the last thing Tad wanted now was a dogfight. Not only would he have to jettison his air-to-ground ordnance and abort the mission, but he might lose, and Poland needed every plane it had. Standing orders repeated by Broz this morning, were that he was to “preserve” his aircraft, and coincidentally himself, so that they would both survive to fight tomorrow, and the day after that.

The river started to curve around to the west, as it approached Brzeg Dolny, a sleepy river town that was still in Polish hands. The waypoint cue on his HUD shifted, and Tad carefully nudged the throttles forward a little.

Banking left and climbing out of the valley, he turned southwest, skimming over alternating patches of forest and farms with freshly planted crops. The land was all thickly settled, and he could see the invasion’s impact on the roads. Orderly groups of military vehicles, presumably Polish, since they weren’t shooting at him, moved to the west. Refugees, dark, ragged shapes on foot or packed into heavily loaded cars, fled to the east.

He thought of his grandparents, and wondered if they had looked like that in those first terrible days of World War II, trying to flee a merciless enemy. His hand tightened on the F-15’s stick. Now his mother and father faced the same dangerous, heart-wrenching trek.

His parents lived, or had lived anyway, in Wroclaw. His last communication with them had been a hurried phone call three days before. Life in the city was difficult, his father had said, but not as hard as what you are doing. Tad knew that wasn’t true. Doing one’s duty was easy. Especially when it meant fighting Germans.

Then they asked him if they should stay or go, a sensitive question to ask one of the city’s defenders. With his mind full of bleak situation briefings, Tad had told them to go — erring on the side of caution. Now they were somewhere on the road, heading to the east and uncertain safety in Warsaw.

Anger built up, but he tried to channel it, turning it into concentration on the job at hand. Maybe he could buy his mother and father a little more time to reach a safe haven, if any place in Poland could truly be said to be safe. He only wished his parents had kept their American citizenship so he could have wangled them a place on one of the evacuation flights back to the States.

The halfway point on his southwest leg was the road from Sroda Slaska and Wroclaw. According to this morning’s intelligence summary, the city was still in Polish hands, so he’d planned to pass west of the town.

The summary was out of date.

As his Eagle sped past the outskirts of town, the right side of his cockpit came alive. The radar track, and launch warning lights all lit up at virtually the same moment. The enemy radar signal showed dead ahead.

Tad looked up from the panel and saw two dark shapes arrowing toward him, rising on billowing white columns. Radar-guided SAMs!

Reflexively he turned hard left — almost too hard. The F-15’s nose dipped toward the ground, and he hurriedly corrected, adding more throttle. At the same time, one thumb punched both the chaff and flare buttons. He wanted chaff in the air to confuse the enemy launcher’s radar, and he wanted flares spewing out behind him in case the SAMs had a backup IR tracker.

The F-15’s nose spun to port, and Tad put the missiles on his right rear, about five o’clock. He couldn’t outrun them, but the Eagle had a smaller radar signature from that angle, and if he could just get beyond the horizon of the ground-based radar guiding them, the missiles should lose him.

He pushed the throttles forward to full military power, and even lowered the jet’s nose a little — diving lower still. Flying so low was hazardous in this built-up maze of power lines and buildings, but it beat getting his tail blown off. He fought the urge to crane his head back and see where the missiles were. At this altitude, taking his eyes off his flight path for that long would be suicide.

The Eagle built up speed quickly, although the drag and weight of the bombs prevented him from going supersonic. Hopefully it was enough. Wojcik counted the seconds, trying to figure ranges and speeds. And the threat display went dark, just as quickly as it had lit up. Pulling up a little and throttling back, he risked a glance behind him.

The Eagle’s bubble canopy gave him an excellent view to the rear, and he could see the two smoke trails, curving smoothly upward, angling off to the left. He was clear. Some bastards on the ground had tried to kill him and they’d failed.

Tad let out his breath and turned back toward his target, following the steering cues on the HUD in front of him. He made a mental note to warn intelligence that EurCon’s forward units were now past Sroda Slaska.

A small village loomed ahead — surrounded by fields and small orchards.

It was time. He changed his weapons settings, selecting the cluster bombs instead of the Sidewinder he always had prepped in transit. As he double-checked his settings, the cockpit threat receiver lit up again, this time warning him about a search radar probing somewhere up ahead. He knew the signal’s source, the SAMs guarding the Cicha Woda River crossing.

Retreating Polish troops had dropped the highway bridge as EurCon forces approached, but enemy engineers had quickly rigged a replacement across the narrow river. But that wasn’t his target. Pontoon spans were easily replaced.

Instead, Wojcik was going to hit the traffic waiting to cross that pontoon bridge. No temporary bridge could be as efficient as the original span, so the area’s already-crowded roads were backed up with every type of enemy vehicle. The military term for the traffic jam was “chokepoint.” The drivers stuck in it probably had their own, considerably more profane terms.

Tad pushed the nose down once again, taking his plane from a hundred meters high to twenty. The radar warning signal went away. Whether they’d shut down or simply lost him, he didn’t know. He was now masked by the surrounding terrain, which was the only reason any sane pilot would want to fly this low. He stayed low, holding his breath but glad to have it.

Skimming over plowed fields, he shot through a gap in the treeline praying that there weren’t any power lines strung in front of him. Still, he’d risk running into wires rather than exposing his plane to SAMs or flak. Now Tad ignored the landscape in front of the Eagle. Even throttled back, all he could see was a streaked blur. Instead, he gauged his height by looking out to the side, where his eyes could fix on objects in the near and middle distance.

Trees, houses, and fields flashed past and vanished astern. Flying this low was somehow exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. Not even the wildest roller-coaster ride could compare. Although he tried to look at the steering cues on his HUD occasionally, he dared not risk a look at the map display. Instead, he relied on memorized landmarks and mental calculations to plan ahead. Things were going to start happening very quickly.

Suddenly a cluster of buildings at a crossroads passed underneath and he was at the IP — the initial point for his bomb run. Gladly shedding the hair-raising safety of nap-of-the-earth flight, he throttled to full military and climbed, turning slightly to line up with the road ahead. He set the chaff and flare dispenser to automatic.

His F-15’s nose had barely come up when the warning receiver lit up again, every light and warning buzzer sounding one right after the other. The EurCon air defenses were ready and waiting for him. He ignored the sounds, instead concentrating on the motion of the aircraft and his carefully planned attack maneuver.

As the fighter’s nose popped up, it blocked his view of the target area. Tad gently pressed the stick to the right and rolled his airplane inverted, so that the terrain was laid out in front of and over him.

He easily spotted the Cicha Woda River and the A4 Motorway running east to west, crossing it. The wreckage of a concrete span lay to one side, and he could see the gray-green pontoon bridge next to it, with raw cuts in the earth embankment on either end where heavy engineering vehicles had bulldozed and scraped ramps down to the river.

The bridge and the road west were lined with trucks, personnel carriers, tanks, and every kind of military transportation. Tad could see soldiers jumping from truck cabs and scattering in all directions, but tracers were still rising from all along the road. Every vehicle with a machine gun was firing at him.

More tracers floated toward him from a flak battery deployed on the south side of the highway. Oddly enough, the enemy ground fire didn’t seem to be bothering him too much, either. Combat had taught him to spend more time worrying about the dangers he could control, evade, or defeat. Flak was too random. If one of those glowing balls arcing skyward had his number on it, so be it. There wasn’t much he could do about it.

His HUD said he was high enough, and pulling the stick hard to the left, Tad quickly rolled wings level and a little nose-down. The F-15 straightened out at two hundred meters high — just above minimum safe height for his cluster bombs. He felt his speed building up.

His concentration was completely fixed on lining up on the mass of enemy matériel in front of him. He noted the ground fire, gray puffs and tracers more intense than before. Now it was starting to worry him, and fractions of a second passed like years as symbols crawled across his HUD and the ground rippled past beneath him. He had to hold a steady course. If he jinked, he’d miss.

The bomb line shortened to a dot in the center of his windscreen and Wojcik pressed the weapons release. Cluster bombs dropped from the ejector racks at quarter-second intervals, fell a hundred meters, then split apart, showering the enemy with five-pound antitank bomblets. Over five hundred of the deadly spheres rained down onto a box fifty meters wide and three-quarters of a kilometer long.

The area below him erupted in small explosions. Dust kicked up by each blast quickly obscured his view. Small red flashes lit the inside of the dust cloud. While the bomblets were relatively small, each one could destroy a tank or any other vehicle it landed on. Each explosion also sent deadly fragments slicing in all directions.

The stores panel showed the last bomb gone, and the Eagle accelerated again, freed of their drag and three-ton weight. The road ahead of him was still full of German and French equipment, though. Deviating from the attack plan, Tad lowered the F-15’s nose and pressed the gun trigger, hammering the stalled column with 20mm fire. He had to slow the enemy down, to kill as many of them as humanly possible. He held the run as long as he could, but finally had to break off as his altitude dropped dangerously low.

He banked hard right and kept his nose on the horizon. Although it was a dangerous companion, the cluttered landscape was turning into a familiar friend. Automatically he reset the gunsight and computer from air-to-ground to air-to-air mode, selecting Sidewinder. He was now ready to defend himself, though he hoped he wouldn’t have to.

He ran north at high speed, then angled to the northeast, over flat farmland and small villages. Occasionally he saw a burned patch on the ground or a cluster of vehicles where none should be.

The HUD cues changed, and he throttled back to cruise, turning carefully to the southeast. A minute’s run at afterburner had put him twenty-five kilometers away from the scene of his attack, and hopefully his victims had reported him fleeing to the north. Now his turn toward base should evade any pursuers. He eased up to the relatively safe altitude of one hundred meters. At economical cruise, he was only a few minutes from Wroclaw.

The symbols on the HUD were just stabilizing when the right side of the instrument panel lit up again. Sparing a glance down from the blurred landscape ahead, Tad saw two bearings on his radar warning receiver, with the legend “RDX/Rafale” next to each one. Almost as soon as they appeared, they changed, with the track warning light illuminated. Two of EurCon’s most advanced fighters were in the air and they knew right where he was.

His chest tightened, and almost without thinking he accelerated to full afterburner, pointing the F-15’s nose straight at the fighters. He energized his own radar, not really expecting to see anything, and was rewarded with little more than a few flickering echoes across the scope. The Rafale was not a “full stealth” design, but it had a reduced radar cross section. Even if anyone was lucky enough to get a lock on one, its powerful radar jammer could easily break the tenuous hold.

But Tad had expected that. Ever since that first embarrassing mock dogfight with a Rafale, he’d put a lot of mental energy into developing the tactics he’d need to take them on and win. Lining his aircraft’s nose up on the enemy fighters, he also angled it down, back toward the ground. With the speed of long practice, he set up his weapons panel.

He watched the HUD cues carefully, smoothly trading altitude for airspeed. Tad knew his maximum speed in this load configuration, and he also knew the range of the French Mica missile, about fifty kilometers. He counted the seconds, hoping that the French radars would have trouble sorting him out of the ground clutter. The French pilots, not feeling threatened, might take a few extra moments to set up their attack. After all, they might reason that a plane on the deck, running fast, was probably trying to evade — its pilot too busy and too frightened to strike back effectively.

Tad was forced to divide his time between the HUD, the threat warning display, and the earth racing by below him. The track warning was still illuminated, the missile light still dark. Wojcik pressed the chaff release twice, although he was pretty sure it wouldn’t help. It didn’t. The French radars stayed locked on.

Now! Tad pulled back on the stick, hard. He was braced for the g-forces, but the crushing sensation grew and grew until the edges of his vision grayed out and his breathing was no more than a shallow pant. His HUD danced with squiggling lines and symbols. The g-meter showed seven point something.

A glowing box suddenly appeared on the glass in front of him. He eased off on the stick and guided the plane’s nose up until the box was inside a large circle — the vulnerability cone, a visual cue showing the area where his missiles were most effective. He was now going almost straight up, using the raw power of the Eagle’s big turbofans to maneuver vertically as well as horizontally. The Rafale’s largest radar cross section was from above or below, and his radar had finally found enough return at that angle to get a lock.

The instant the cueing box passed into the circle, Tad pressed the trigger, and was rewarded with a roar and a plume of smoke in front of him as a Sparrow missile raced skyward, almost straight up.

Even as the instruments confirmed a valid launch, Tad thumbed the weapons selector button on his stick. Lettering on the lower left corner of his HUD changed from “AIM-7” to “AIM-9” and without waiting for a tone, he fired a Sidewinder. His radar was still guiding the Sparrow as it accelerated to almost Mach 4. It wouldn’t be long now.

He climbed through the expanding trails of the two missiles, searching for the enemy fighters. The smoke billowed across his canopy, sometimes blocking the area in the sky enclosed by the HUD box. He concentrated on keeping it at the center of his windscreen, and risked a glance down at the radar. The two fighters were high, almost twelve thousand meters. Still, the Sparrow should be there in a few more seconds. Just a few more…

The box disappeared. Maneuvers, jamming, chaff, it didn’t matter how the French fighter had shaken off his radar lock, but without it the chance of a Sparrow hit went way down. Tad shifted to boresight mode, centering the radar antenna and pouring radiation into the space in front of the F-15’s nose. Nothing. The Rafales had vanished. He peered into the windscreen. Where were they? Had they split up? If they’d moved too far to one side…

The launch warning light on the threat display commanded his attention, and Tad craned his neck right. A white spear sped from his four o’clock straight for him. Shit!

Banking hard left, Tad abandoned the Sparrow. Split seconds counted now. Breathing in pants to fight the g-forces, he put the incoming enemy missile at his eleven o’clock, triggered more chaff, and sent the Eagle into a corkscrew maneuver designed to eat up the missile’s energy in a series of last-minute course corrections.

The world spun around Tad’s canopy, and the shifting g-forces pushed him around the cockpit. Out the corner of one eye, he saw two white lines drawn against the blue sky. One, his Sparrow from the size of the trail, went straight up until it faded from sight, but the other ended in a dirty-gray puff of smoke, with smaller trails extending downward from it.

In the midst of his jinking, Tad smiled grimly. The Sparrow had missed, but the Sidewinder he’d fired had locked onto the Rafale’s engines when it maneuvered to avoid the first weapon.

A shattering explosion rocked the Eagle, almost stunning him. Tad’s head rang, and a sharp pain behind his eyes made him afraid his neck had been broken. It sounded like someone was throwing rocks against the side of the plane. He’d been hit! Already violently maneuvering, the sudden shock threw his fighter out of controlled flight, tumbling toward the earth.

Fighting to keep control of the aircraft, he felt it fall out of the right bank onto its back and start to spin. Desperately Tad throttled back and tried to right the plane, unsure if his controls even functioned. The cockpit was a mass of red lights and flickering numbers. His vision blurred, and the jarring ride sent flashes of pain into his head.

Either by accident or as a result of his efforts, Tad found himself with the sky above and the ground beneath him. Quickly, lest the opportunity pass, he stomped hard on the right rudder pedal and pushed the stick forward, hoping he still had enough altitude to recover.

Wincing at the pain, he craned his neck up and back, searching for the surviving Rafale. The sky seemed clear, and his threat display was empty. Maybe the Frenchman had a more pressing engagement elsewhere. Or more likely the enemy pilot had seen the Polish F-15 spinning out of control and assumed his missile hit was a kill.

The horizon steadied, and Tad took a moment to find out where he was and where he was headed. He turned southeast, heading back for the airfield, now only twenty or so kilometers away. His Eagle’s response was unusual, though, with the bank almost turning into another spin. He had to apply positive pressure to hold the nose up and keep the plane from turning to port. He’d taken the blast on that side. Drag from damaged, fragment-torn skin was certainly pulling the aircraft in that direction.

With the F-15 in moderately controlled flight, he quickly scanned his cockpit instruments. The nav system was out, as were the stores panel and the artificial horizon. Port engine rpm were down by over fifty percent, and the turbofan also had an elevated tailpipe temperature. Some of the warhead fragments must have sliced into that engine. He was lucky they hadn’t connected with one of the fans. Time to shut it down, he thought, no questions asked.

As he pulled back on the port throttle with his left hand, he advanced the starboard engine power a little more. When he checked his fuel status, he saw that his port wing tank was empty. More holes.

That was bad. Even though each had been only a few minutes long, those two earlier afterburner blasts had already taken a big bite out of his fuel supply. Losing what was left in the port tank wasn’t going to help. The gauge showed twelve hundred pounds remaining. If he could set the jet down fast, that should be enough. But getting the Eagle down fast might be a big if.

Intending to request a straight-in approach, he called the Wroclaw tower.

The base ground controller answered instead, using the tower frequency. “Zebra One, divert to Lask. We are under artillery barrage.” The controller’s rapid words, almost slurred in his haste, also carried fear. “We’ve already lost the tower, Zebra, and now our SAM batteries are being hit. Wroclaw is closed!”

Tad felt panic rising inside, and controlled it only with effort. How had the enemy moved that close? A breakthrough? It didn’t matter — certainly not to him right now. Lask was 150 kilometers to the east. He couldn’t make it anywhere but the base. He was running out of both gas and airplane.

“Negative divert, Ground.” He checked his instruments one more time, making sure. “Insufficient fuel and aircraft damage. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in the air. Is the runway clear?” Tad didn’t mention the pain in his head. He wasn’t bleeding, and seemed to be able to fly. Besides, he thought darkly, he’d probably be killed trying to put the half-wrecked F-15 down anyway.

“Affirmative, Zebra. No damage yet. There’s no other traffic, and you are cleared for a straight-in approach. Good luck.”

Tad clicked his microphone switch twice, then concentrated on flying the aircraft. He retrimmed it, since it was taking even more pressure to keep the nose up and straight.

He scanned the countryside. Tad knew the Wroclaw region well, but he couldn’t see the airfield. A gray-brown haze hung over the whole area, and only long practice let him make a visual approach.

Finally, at half the normal distance, he spotted the long, friendly ribbon of runway. He dropped his landing gear, and was pleasantly surprised to see three green lights on the panel. Gear down. He started to ease down the flaps, but the Eagle almost fell out of control to the left again. Something was jammed or damaged on the port side.

There was no need to throttle back. With one engine and a port yaw, he was already at minimum flying speed.

Although his attention was on the runway, Tad could see the rest of the base. Bustling, if battered, when he’d left just over an hour ago, it was now deserted, with no sign of human life or other aircraft. Standard procedure when an air base came under ground attack was to evacuate immediately. He’d even participated in drills where they’d moved the entire regiment. But this wasn’t a drill. The 11th Fighter Regiment was gone. He felt suddenly adrift.

As he watched, two shells landed near the hangars. Earth fountained up, spilling away from bright orange balls of flame. The explosions were audible even over the noise of his jet engine.

His lineup was good, and Tad nursed the damaged F-15 down gently. He had twice the runway he needed, so he took his time. He had a good descent rate. There was only a little crosswind. Nothing fancy, Tad thought, just plant this thing and taxi quickly under cover.

The runway’s rough, gray surface appeared under his wheels, and he smoothly brought the Eagle down. He felt the first touch of the wheels as they kissed the concrete, then pulled up gently to flare and slow the airplane.

A loud bang threw the Eagle off course, and Tad tried desperately to stop the sudden turn as his fighter spun to port. For an instant, he thought an artillery shell had landed nearby, but then he realized that his left tire had blown. Damaged by missile fragments, it had shredded itself under stress, and the port landing gear was now nothing more than a steel pipe, dragging on the ground in a shower of sparks.

Wojcik instinctively chopped the throttle and rode the right brake hard. In the half-second it had taken for him to understand what had happened, the crippled Eagle had already completed a full circle and was starting on another, with no perceptible loss in speed. A horrible scraping, grating sound fed his fear.

The F-15’s main gear strut, abused and maybe damaged itself, gave way, tearing out of the wheel well and taking part of the mechanism with it. His port wing tip dropped to the ground, tipping the plane over. Praying hard, Tad reached for the ejection handle and then stopped. With the wing dragging on the ground, the aircraft was slowing more rapidly. He decided to ride it out.

After another very bumpy half-circle, the Eagle finally stopped moving, surrounded in a cloud of what Tad hoped was dust and not smoke. He hit the canopy release, but it didn’t work. The backup release, driven by a battery, did.

As the dust-streaked canopy bubble whined upward, he hurriedly disconnected his harness, g-suit, and microphone leads. He remembered to grab the maps and other papers in the cockpit, then squeezed out through the opening as it widened and dropped to the ground.

Tad’s only thought was to get away from the still very flammable airplane, with its jet fuel and oxygen systems and missile warheads. He scrambled upright and started to run for the nearest shelter. Then he saw a GAZ jeep hurtling across the airfield, straight toward him.

It braked just a few meters short of him, and a technical sergeant he recognized, one of the regiment’s maintenance staff, jumped out — grabbing a gasoline-filled jerrycan on the way. “You all right, sir?”

When he nodded, still a little dizzy, the sergeant pointed him toward the jeep. “Hop in, quick.”

Leaving Tad still standing in a daze, the maintenance tech ran toward the wrecked F-15. Pulling down the Eagle’s built-in access ladder, he used it to climb up to the cockpit, and opened the jerrycan. He sloshed gasoline over the seat and instrument panels, then splashed more onto the upper fuselage — as far as he could reach. Then he jumped down, still holding the open can.

More shells hammered the far side of the field, setting several buildings ablaze. Tad watched the sergeant’s bizarre actions for about two seconds, uncomprehending. Then, as he realized what was happening, and where he was, he scrambled into the jeep, the pain in his head completely forgotten.

The maintenance sergeant took one step under the F-15’s tilted wings, set the can down and deliberately tipped it over. Gasoline poured out, spreading across the runway beneath the plane.

Satisfied, the sergeant trotted back to the jeep, slid behind the wheel, and backed up a little further, angling upwind.

He drew and loaded a flare pistol.

Tad looked at the broken Eagle, sitting just off the runway. It had probably been almost a loss anyway, but the only reason to burn a plane was to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. German and French tanks must be close.

The sergeant’s flare drew a straight, bright line from the pistol’s muzzle to the fighter’s forward fuselage. As it burst, the gasoline, already partially in vapor form, ignited in an orange-red cloud with an explosive whooph.

The maintenance tech already had the jeep turning and speeding away. “We’re evacuating, sir. All the flyable aircraft have already left. The rest of the regiment will be gone in a few hours. You’re 1st Squadron, right?”

Tad nodded, then winced as his injured neck sent what felt like a red-hot nail stabbing into his skull.

“They’re still here, over at the ops building.” Once away from the burning aircraft, the sergeant slowed the jeep from flat out to a merely breakneck pace. “So how did your mission go?”

Among the artillery explosions in the background, a slower, deeper rumble ended in a boom. Tad looked back to see a ball of thick black smoke billow upward from his shattered aircraft.

He sighed, remembering the burning trucks and supply vehicles he’d left behind him at the Cicha Woda bridge. “Good. Just not good enough.”