United Hogsweat
01-01-2008, 16:57
Hogsingrad
Politburo Special Building
22:00
Vodka flowed freely into the large glasses held by small hands. This was, after all, a Politburo meeting, and a Politburo meeting without alcohol was like a hospital without medicine. The men in here, while not being recognised as powerful outside their circle, where the most powerful men in Hogsweat. They could order the deaths of thousands - if they felt like, millions - or they could pick someone from the street and have him shot. They could start devastating wars, and with their nuclear trigger fingers could destroy entire nations. Here they were, in an old building with particularly bad architecture but contrastingly excellent furniture, discussing the future of the Soviet Federation.
"Comrades, I have assembled you here to show you the course of action that I and Vasily have created and are about to suggest to you." Alexei Sorovosky, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Federation, said to the assembled group. Pulling down a map of Hogsweat and the surrounding areas, he took down another gulp of vodka and waved at Vasily Sashannovich Volodkin, or VSV as he was known to his proffessional work colleagues. He was the Defence and Foreign Minister of the Communist Party.
"Comrades, I will be short and to the point. Our waters and borders are secure; the Doomani will not advance south, and if they do, we will repulse them!" he smacked the map with his pointing stick on the north border, and drew a line across the pictures where the defensive positions and divisions and air force units lay. "We now have but one foreign problem; an island, which the capitalists call Georgeland, and upon which the Praetonian flag flies. One of our greatest enemies, Comrades: The Praetonian Capitalist, Imperialist, and Tsarist. This small island is of no practical value, but is an outpost upon which the entire Capitalist world can strike us. It must not be allowed to stay in the dirty hands of the foreign factory owners."
A murmur of agreement.
"Our forces are ready. This island is but a thousand kilometres - within conventional nuclear missile range - of our shore line, but this works to our advantage comrades! So easily can we stage an invasion of these islands and capture them, easily bringing air and land forces in to cover our invasion. Even our landbased bombers of Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskogo Flota and Dal'naya Aviatsiya are in striking range. We can cover this area with aircraft. If the Capitalists respond, we will crush any task group they can send, and it will take them much time to send them. Our Aviation and Tank Plants are running around the clock at maximum efficiency to produce war materiel. I have been told personally by the Commissar of Zhernov Plant that another sixty Su-27S will be ready by within three months. This provides us with excellent capabilities to control the air."
"What is your point Comrade?" the Economic Minister, Andrey Larisakov rolled his eyes. "Yes Comrade, our military is strong and our production is high. But we still have our own problems at home, especially in areas of consumer goods and agricultural production. A foreign conflict can do nothing but damage these important areas of economic growth... we do not have the Capital to fight a foreign war yet."
"Agreed, Comrade." The Agricultural Sub-Minister nodded. "Agriculture is suffering due to the budget cuts and collectivi-"
"No, Comrade!" Sorovosky slammed his vodka glass on the table. "We do not need Capital! We are Communists!" His mood had soured. Resistance to his plans, whatever they were, were not recieved well by the General Secretary, and it was rarely advisable to upset him in such a way. As it was, the country was generally run how he liked it. "Perhaps, if you are unable to effectively manage the agriculture of this country, you might prefer a more menial task, Comrade Gennadiyonov? If you are unable to provide for the Motherland in your current capacity, perhaps less intellectually stimulating tasks would suit you better? Need I remind you that many clerks in the bureau would envy your position and likely perform better than you?"
"N-N-No Comrade. You are correct. Agricultural production will continue and reach new heights unseen before Comrade. You have my word." The stuttering Gennadiyonov retreated, his dissenting voice crushed by the unpleasant images of being forced back to the underclasses that worked the factories, farms, and mines. It was not a nice feeling that your future was in the hands of such a man as Sorovosky.
"Well then. If Vasily would like to continue the invasion plan...?" Sorovosky's mood calmed, and again he waved the Defence Minister onwards. With much Gusto, Vasily Volodkin continued his presentation. "After a massive aerial strike on the Praetonian fleet in port, and the flushing of our entire submarine fleet to cover an umbrella around the island, we will land on four sides and close in, especially taking the airstrip located here. This is vitally important for basing aircraft and bringing in supplies. After taking the island, our submarines and naval aircraft will fan out in an umbrella, bleeding any Praetonian response dry as they slowly withdraw and give space. After bleeding - if not destroying the Praetonians as their fleet arrives, they will be totally demoralised. Then, a gigantic missile strike from the surface, the air, and the sea, will finally finish them. Our submarines will be acting to close up any gaps behind the Praetonians as they advance, effectively sealing off their task force from resupply. Meanwhile, our aerial forces will be acting to shoot down as many Praetonian satellites as possible - I already have KGB acting on finding out which satellites are Praetonian and which aren't."
He smiled, finishing his glass of vodka and pouring himself another. "This is, of course, all assuming the Praetonians even try military action."
Georgeland
Three Days Later
The lone Tu-95RTs soared at 14,000 metres, unaccompanied. It was a lonely job, standing off from the Praetonian fleet at Port Royal over three hundred kilometres away, trying to gather what electronic intelligence they could at that distance. Soon the aircraft would return to be followed up by another, and another, until solid detail was gathered. A pair of ocean satellites directed to fly over Port Royal did so twelve hours later, picking up important information as to the formation of the Praetonian fleet there. The attack itself was relatively simple: three large formations, one of Tu-16 Elkas, one of TU-22M3, and one of Tu-16K-26.
In the early morning of the next day, the crews at the Naval Avation base of Stralneychesk waved off their bombers into the bloating setting sun after attaching the missiles to them. Already in the air were 90 Tu-16 Elkas, spread out over a distance and flying low - at least as low as they could go - before they would appear on Praetonian RADAR, at which time it would be far too late, as the massive barrages of jamming began. Ahead of them where six Tu-95RTs, still gathering intelligence, which would provide the targeting information for the missiles on the aircraft. At seven o' clock, on the Praetonian radars, the ninety Tu-16s would show up at almost two hundred kilometres, at which point the Praetonians would have twenty seconds breather time before the Tu-16s gathered their jamming targets and data from the Tu-95RTs, and began their barrage attacks. They didn't have long however; they wouldn't stay on station forever, and the formation would soon peel away, the aircraft circling round the island but keeping the range.
Firstly, though, they had to deal with the Praetonian fleets at sea. The Tu-95RTs patrols that had been set out had discovered them, and within time the Praetonians would find themselves being shadowed by Tu-95s quite regularly, as they did the same to the Hogsweatian shoreline. However, the three destroyer squadrons would find themselves quickly in a whole heap of trouble. Observing late in the afternoon that the shadowing Tu-95RTs had finally broken off to a longer distance of 400 kilometres, they would find themselves under attack; thirty Tu-22M3s each, with a pair of KSR-5 missiles were vectored in to attack each group. The Bears had only been a test - this was the real thing, but if all went to plan, the Praetonians wouldn't think so. The Tu-22Ms were spread out, and non heading in the direction of the Praetonians; at the right minute they would turn around and fire both their missiles before hitting their engines to top speed and running off to home. After these lightning attacks on the Praetonian ships at sea, the main attack began.
At a mere six thousand metres, the Tu-22M3s, loaded down heavily with Kh-22 missiles were ready for the primary attack. The confused Praetonian squadron, which presumably had set to sea, was being tracked by the six Tu-95RTs planes, and the data being fed back to the Tu-22M3s. At four hundred kilometres, as the sun set on the ocean, a hundred and eighty Kh-22s dropped from the wings and bomb bays of the 131st and 132nd Naval Air Squadrons of the Hogsweatian Naval Aviation and activated their Isayev rocket engines, soaring towards the area of the Praetonian squadron, which eventually would become targeted and locked by the Kh-22's active radar. With all their systems under massive attack, the Praetonians would have their hands full with the electronic attack that had only come four minutes earlier.
Another sixty aircraft, this time the last wave, came only six minutes later, the entire attack designed on a twelve minute combat bracket, which so far had gone to plan. The Tu-16-K26s had taken off a long time ago, being quite slower from Tu-22Ms and being based further inland, and were on the final stretches of their run. To mantain decent speeds, they would meet with tankers on the return back, but at their pilots had not yet tasted blood. Each was laden down with a pair of KSR-5 missiles, which would be fired at five hundred kilometres. The Kh-22s would just have hit their targets when the KSR-5s kicked up their engines and accelerated towards the Praetonian fleet. They too would turn on their active radars when approaching the target, following the plotted information given to them by the bombardiers, who in turn recieved their information from the Tu-95RTs ptarols.
These were covered by the pair of Kuznetsov class CVGNs from the Fleet of the Stralneychesk Sea and their assosciated battlefleets, which travelled behind and allowed air cover from a large combat radius with their Su-33s. Although it was a small amount, twelve Su-33s were always in the sky at one time, protecting the gigantic air fleet from a Praetonian counterattack in the air. The Su-33 was a capable aircraft, and they were assisted by a pair of AEW aircraft frmo the mainland; two A-50 Mainstays flying some distance back but still able to see over the island. Should any planes be launched, the Su-33s would be vectored in to attack them. The Kuznetsovs were not true carriers, but all that was available in such short notice.
It was hoped that this first wave of attack would destroy the Praetonian fleet, or at least critically damage it, in harbour or just outside it.
Travelling with the Kuznetsov's Battle Group six hundred klicks from the island, eight Ivan Rogov Class Landing Ships, loaded down with tanks and infantry from the 1st Rifle Division, the crack troops of the Soviet Army, were to provide the core of the invasion force.
Volniov Frontal Aviation Base
Very early the next morning
So don't become some background noise,
A backdrop for the girls and boys,
Who just don't know or just don't care,
And just complain when you're not there,
You had your time, you had the power,
You've yet to have your finest hour.
The MiG-31D sat on the tarmac, its radar humming a rather non-rhythmic beat. The snow lay across either side of the long runway, but this morning it had been specially swept aside, although it began to creep back slowly, as it always does. The fat wheels of the specially modified Foxhound could cope with the snow, but this mission was very special indeed. In fact, it was absolutely critical to the victory of the Motherland. The pilot, a one Major Boris Golovkin was to undertake this very important first mission. That morning, the techs had been working to translate the signals the GRU department had given them for the radar of the MiG and for the weapon it was carrying; a modified version of the ASM-135 anti satellite weapon. GRU signals had interpreted the satellite signals sent from Praetonian ships in Port Royal to their satellites in orbit and from that had ascertained which satellites were Praetonian and which were not. They hadn't actually broken them; GRU was still very amateur in these sort of things, but it knew which was which simply by discovering to which satellites the Praetonian ships sent their signals. If this mission was successful, they would break open the vodka at GRU, but more importantly more MiGs would be sent up to shoot Praetonian satellites.
Golovkin watched his ground crew attach the cumbersome missile to his aircraft, sipping coffee from a cheap plastic cup as he did so. He had enough hours on the machine; at least 400 in flying time, and was a high ranking officer, but still felt slightly nervous about the upcoming mission. Gulping down the last of the coffee and throwing it in the bin, Golovkin stepped outside to light up a cigarette. What if he was to die? No... the mission was quite simple, and not even in the way of harm. This mission was a godsend - Golovko didn't really even understood where the phrase came from, but he used it in his mind anyway - it would mean a medal, a promotion, greater access to consumer goods for him and his family. His family. In his left hand Golovko folded back and forth a small picture of him with his wife and children in his Air Force uniform, while taking another long drag on the shoddy cigarette. It was about to fall apart in his fingers, but he smoked it anyway, and realised how nervous he must have looked to the two younger ground crew who had been standing watching him for the past minute as he finished his cigarette.
"Comrade Major Golovkin, your aircraft is ready. First there is someone who wants to see you Comrade."
"Thank you Comrade. Who is i-" Golovkin's eyebrows shot up and the cigarette fell out of his fingers onto the soft snow. Approaching him was the most famous man in Hogsweat, and his entourage of bodyguards. He had heard that Alexei Sorovosky had visited the bomber pilots, but he never thought he would come here. Using his peripheral vision he could see the two ground crew - and indeed everyone within thirty metres had sharply saluted, and he quickly moved to do the same, until he realised he was saluting with the family photograph still in his fingers, now raised against his forehead.
"At ease Comrade." Sorovosky said with a smile, seeing Golovkin breath a sigh of relief. "I believe you are about to depart on a very important mission Comrade?"
"Yes Comrade Sorovosky. This is my aircraft. We are travelling into the stratosphere this afternoon to shoot down a Capitalist Satellite."
"I see. We'll make a cosmonaut out of you yet, Comrade Golovkin!" The General Secretary of the Communist Party joked. Golovkin didn't point out that he would have to travel another 580 kilometres higher to be a cosmonaut.
"Yes Comrade!"
"What is this?" Sorovosky inquired, noticing the picture in Golovkins saluting hand which he had tried to slip into his pocket. "A photograph Comrade. My family, Comrade."
"I would like to see this." Sorovosky seemed genuinly interested, and his face seemed to warm as the Major handed over the photograph for inspection. "A very beautiful wife and children you have Major."
"I am a lucky man Comrade."
"There is no such thing as lucky Major Golovkin. Only hard work. Work hard in your mission and you will be victorious." Sorovosky handed back the photograph and exchanged salutes with the Major, then promptly left.
Within twenty minutes the MiG was in the air and climbing sharply. Golovkin now had time to think and reflect upon what Sorovosky had said. Luck didn't exist? Well, perhaps he was right... as he looked up into the clouds, Golovkin thought about the impossibility of God; soon, he would be able to see into space from his aircraft, and he knew, for he had done it before, that there would no bearded face staring down at him. Yes, the General Secretary was right. Luck certainly did not exist. A beeping was warning him that he was approaching 18,000 metres, and he eased back on the stick; almost time to fire. All systems were ready, and the ASM-135 knockoff was locked onto the Praetonian satellite that had been over Georgeland some eight hours ago. Sure that he was locked on, Golovkin pulled the release trigger, and looked out of his starboard window as the missile kicked into life. Turning his plane around and heading home, Golovkin hoped everything had gone to plan.
Politburo Special Building
22:00
Vodka flowed freely into the large glasses held by small hands. This was, after all, a Politburo meeting, and a Politburo meeting without alcohol was like a hospital without medicine. The men in here, while not being recognised as powerful outside their circle, where the most powerful men in Hogsweat. They could order the deaths of thousands - if they felt like, millions - or they could pick someone from the street and have him shot. They could start devastating wars, and with their nuclear trigger fingers could destroy entire nations. Here they were, in an old building with particularly bad architecture but contrastingly excellent furniture, discussing the future of the Soviet Federation.
"Comrades, I have assembled you here to show you the course of action that I and Vasily have created and are about to suggest to you." Alexei Sorovosky, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Federation, said to the assembled group. Pulling down a map of Hogsweat and the surrounding areas, he took down another gulp of vodka and waved at Vasily Sashannovich Volodkin, or VSV as he was known to his proffessional work colleagues. He was the Defence and Foreign Minister of the Communist Party.
"Comrades, I will be short and to the point. Our waters and borders are secure; the Doomani will not advance south, and if they do, we will repulse them!" he smacked the map with his pointing stick on the north border, and drew a line across the pictures where the defensive positions and divisions and air force units lay. "We now have but one foreign problem; an island, which the capitalists call Georgeland, and upon which the Praetonian flag flies. One of our greatest enemies, Comrades: The Praetonian Capitalist, Imperialist, and Tsarist. This small island is of no practical value, but is an outpost upon which the entire Capitalist world can strike us. It must not be allowed to stay in the dirty hands of the foreign factory owners."
A murmur of agreement.
"Our forces are ready. This island is but a thousand kilometres - within conventional nuclear missile range - of our shore line, but this works to our advantage comrades! So easily can we stage an invasion of these islands and capture them, easily bringing air and land forces in to cover our invasion. Even our landbased bombers of Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskogo Flota and Dal'naya Aviatsiya are in striking range. We can cover this area with aircraft. If the Capitalists respond, we will crush any task group they can send, and it will take them much time to send them. Our Aviation and Tank Plants are running around the clock at maximum efficiency to produce war materiel. I have been told personally by the Commissar of Zhernov Plant that another sixty Su-27S will be ready by within three months. This provides us with excellent capabilities to control the air."
"What is your point Comrade?" the Economic Minister, Andrey Larisakov rolled his eyes. "Yes Comrade, our military is strong and our production is high. But we still have our own problems at home, especially in areas of consumer goods and agricultural production. A foreign conflict can do nothing but damage these important areas of economic growth... we do not have the Capital to fight a foreign war yet."
"Agreed, Comrade." The Agricultural Sub-Minister nodded. "Agriculture is suffering due to the budget cuts and collectivi-"
"No, Comrade!" Sorovosky slammed his vodka glass on the table. "We do not need Capital! We are Communists!" His mood had soured. Resistance to his plans, whatever they were, were not recieved well by the General Secretary, and it was rarely advisable to upset him in such a way. As it was, the country was generally run how he liked it. "Perhaps, if you are unable to effectively manage the agriculture of this country, you might prefer a more menial task, Comrade Gennadiyonov? If you are unable to provide for the Motherland in your current capacity, perhaps less intellectually stimulating tasks would suit you better? Need I remind you that many clerks in the bureau would envy your position and likely perform better than you?"
"N-N-No Comrade. You are correct. Agricultural production will continue and reach new heights unseen before Comrade. You have my word." The stuttering Gennadiyonov retreated, his dissenting voice crushed by the unpleasant images of being forced back to the underclasses that worked the factories, farms, and mines. It was not a nice feeling that your future was in the hands of such a man as Sorovosky.
"Well then. If Vasily would like to continue the invasion plan...?" Sorovosky's mood calmed, and again he waved the Defence Minister onwards. With much Gusto, Vasily Volodkin continued his presentation. "After a massive aerial strike on the Praetonian fleet in port, and the flushing of our entire submarine fleet to cover an umbrella around the island, we will land on four sides and close in, especially taking the airstrip located here. This is vitally important for basing aircraft and bringing in supplies. After taking the island, our submarines and naval aircraft will fan out in an umbrella, bleeding any Praetonian response dry as they slowly withdraw and give space. After bleeding - if not destroying the Praetonians as their fleet arrives, they will be totally demoralised. Then, a gigantic missile strike from the surface, the air, and the sea, will finally finish them. Our submarines will be acting to close up any gaps behind the Praetonians as they advance, effectively sealing off their task force from resupply. Meanwhile, our aerial forces will be acting to shoot down as many Praetonian satellites as possible - I already have KGB acting on finding out which satellites are Praetonian and which aren't."
He smiled, finishing his glass of vodka and pouring himself another. "This is, of course, all assuming the Praetonians even try military action."
Georgeland
Three Days Later
The lone Tu-95RTs soared at 14,000 metres, unaccompanied. It was a lonely job, standing off from the Praetonian fleet at Port Royal over three hundred kilometres away, trying to gather what electronic intelligence they could at that distance. Soon the aircraft would return to be followed up by another, and another, until solid detail was gathered. A pair of ocean satellites directed to fly over Port Royal did so twelve hours later, picking up important information as to the formation of the Praetonian fleet there. The attack itself was relatively simple: three large formations, one of Tu-16 Elkas, one of TU-22M3, and one of Tu-16K-26.
In the early morning of the next day, the crews at the Naval Avation base of Stralneychesk waved off their bombers into the bloating setting sun after attaching the missiles to them. Already in the air were 90 Tu-16 Elkas, spread out over a distance and flying low - at least as low as they could go - before they would appear on Praetonian RADAR, at which time it would be far too late, as the massive barrages of jamming began. Ahead of them where six Tu-95RTs, still gathering intelligence, which would provide the targeting information for the missiles on the aircraft. At seven o' clock, on the Praetonian radars, the ninety Tu-16s would show up at almost two hundred kilometres, at which point the Praetonians would have twenty seconds breather time before the Tu-16s gathered their jamming targets and data from the Tu-95RTs, and began their barrage attacks. They didn't have long however; they wouldn't stay on station forever, and the formation would soon peel away, the aircraft circling round the island but keeping the range.
Firstly, though, they had to deal with the Praetonian fleets at sea. The Tu-95RTs patrols that had been set out had discovered them, and within time the Praetonians would find themselves being shadowed by Tu-95s quite regularly, as they did the same to the Hogsweatian shoreline. However, the three destroyer squadrons would find themselves quickly in a whole heap of trouble. Observing late in the afternoon that the shadowing Tu-95RTs had finally broken off to a longer distance of 400 kilometres, they would find themselves under attack; thirty Tu-22M3s each, with a pair of KSR-5 missiles were vectored in to attack each group. The Bears had only been a test - this was the real thing, but if all went to plan, the Praetonians wouldn't think so. The Tu-22Ms were spread out, and non heading in the direction of the Praetonians; at the right minute they would turn around and fire both their missiles before hitting their engines to top speed and running off to home. After these lightning attacks on the Praetonian ships at sea, the main attack began.
At a mere six thousand metres, the Tu-22M3s, loaded down heavily with Kh-22 missiles were ready for the primary attack. The confused Praetonian squadron, which presumably had set to sea, was being tracked by the six Tu-95RTs planes, and the data being fed back to the Tu-22M3s. At four hundred kilometres, as the sun set on the ocean, a hundred and eighty Kh-22s dropped from the wings and bomb bays of the 131st and 132nd Naval Air Squadrons of the Hogsweatian Naval Aviation and activated their Isayev rocket engines, soaring towards the area of the Praetonian squadron, which eventually would become targeted and locked by the Kh-22's active radar. With all their systems under massive attack, the Praetonians would have their hands full with the electronic attack that had only come four minutes earlier.
Another sixty aircraft, this time the last wave, came only six minutes later, the entire attack designed on a twelve minute combat bracket, which so far had gone to plan. The Tu-16-K26s had taken off a long time ago, being quite slower from Tu-22Ms and being based further inland, and were on the final stretches of their run. To mantain decent speeds, they would meet with tankers on the return back, but at their pilots had not yet tasted blood. Each was laden down with a pair of KSR-5 missiles, which would be fired at five hundred kilometres. The Kh-22s would just have hit their targets when the KSR-5s kicked up their engines and accelerated towards the Praetonian fleet. They too would turn on their active radars when approaching the target, following the plotted information given to them by the bombardiers, who in turn recieved their information from the Tu-95RTs ptarols.
These were covered by the pair of Kuznetsov class CVGNs from the Fleet of the Stralneychesk Sea and their assosciated battlefleets, which travelled behind and allowed air cover from a large combat radius with their Su-33s. Although it was a small amount, twelve Su-33s were always in the sky at one time, protecting the gigantic air fleet from a Praetonian counterattack in the air. The Su-33 was a capable aircraft, and they were assisted by a pair of AEW aircraft frmo the mainland; two A-50 Mainstays flying some distance back but still able to see over the island. Should any planes be launched, the Su-33s would be vectored in to attack them. The Kuznetsovs were not true carriers, but all that was available in such short notice.
It was hoped that this first wave of attack would destroy the Praetonian fleet, or at least critically damage it, in harbour or just outside it.
Travelling with the Kuznetsov's Battle Group six hundred klicks from the island, eight Ivan Rogov Class Landing Ships, loaded down with tanks and infantry from the 1st Rifle Division, the crack troops of the Soviet Army, were to provide the core of the invasion force.
Volniov Frontal Aviation Base
Very early the next morning
So don't become some background noise,
A backdrop for the girls and boys,
Who just don't know or just don't care,
And just complain when you're not there,
You had your time, you had the power,
You've yet to have your finest hour.
The MiG-31D sat on the tarmac, its radar humming a rather non-rhythmic beat. The snow lay across either side of the long runway, but this morning it had been specially swept aside, although it began to creep back slowly, as it always does. The fat wheels of the specially modified Foxhound could cope with the snow, but this mission was very special indeed. In fact, it was absolutely critical to the victory of the Motherland. The pilot, a one Major Boris Golovkin was to undertake this very important first mission. That morning, the techs had been working to translate the signals the GRU department had given them for the radar of the MiG and for the weapon it was carrying; a modified version of the ASM-135 anti satellite weapon. GRU signals had interpreted the satellite signals sent from Praetonian ships in Port Royal to their satellites in orbit and from that had ascertained which satellites were Praetonian and which were not. They hadn't actually broken them; GRU was still very amateur in these sort of things, but it knew which was which simply by discovering to which satellites the Praetonian ships sent their signals. If this mission was successful, they would break open the vodka at GRU, but more importantly more MiGs would be sent up to shoot Praetonian satellites.
Golovkin watched his ground crew attach the cumbersome missile to his aircraft, sipping coffee from a cheap plastic cup as he did so. He had enough hours on the machine; at least 400 in flying time, and was a high ranking officer, but still felt slightly nervous about the upcoming mission. Gulping down the last of the coffee and throwing it in the bin, Golovkin stepped outside to light up a cigarette. What if he was to die? No... the mission was quite simple, and not even in the way of harm. This mission was a godsend - Golovko didn't really even understood where the phrase came from, but he used it in his mind anyway - it would mean a medal, a promotion, greater access to consumer goods for him and his family. His family. In his left hand Golovko folded back and forth a small picture of him with his wife and children in his Air Force uniform, while taking another long drag on the shoddy cigarette. It was about to fall apart in his fingers, but he smoked it anyway, and realised how nervous he must have looked to the two younger ground crew who had been standing watching him for the past minute as he finished his cigarette.
"Comrade Major Golovkin, your aircraft is ready. First there is someone who wants to see you Comrade."
"Thank you Comrade. Who is i-" Golovkin's eyebrows shot up and the cigarette fell out of his fingers onto the soft snow. Approaching him was the most famous man in Hogsweat, and his entourage of bodyguards. He had heard that Alexei Sorovosky had visited the bomber pilots, but he never thought he would come here. Using his peripheral vision he could see the two ground crew - and indeed everyone within thirty metres had sharply saluted, and he quickly moved to do the same, until he realised he was saluting with the family photograph still in his fingers, now raised against his forehead.
"At ease Comrade." Sorovosky said with a smile, seeing Golovkin breath a sigh of relief. "I believe you are about to depart on a very important mission Comrade?"
"Yes Comrade Sorovosky. This is my aircraft. We are travelling into the stratosphere this afternoon to shoot down a Capitalist Satellite."
"I see. We'll make a cosmonaut out of you yet, Comrade Golovkin!" The General Secretary of the Communist Party joked. Golovkin didn't point out that he would have to travel another 580 kilometres higher to be a cosmonaut.
"Yes Comrade!"
"What is this?" Sorovosky inquired, noticing the picture in Golovkins saluting hand which he had tried to slip into his pocket. "A photograph Comrade. My family, Comrade."
"I would like to see this." Sorovosky seemed genuinly interested, and his face seemed to warm as the Major handed over the photograph for inspection. "A very beautiful wife and children you have Major."
"I am a lucky man Comrade."
"There is no such thing as lucky Major Golovkin. Only hard work. Work hard in your mission and you will be victorious." Sorovosky handed back the photograph and exchanged salutes with the Major, then promptly left.
Within twenty minutes the MiG was in the air and climbing sharply. Golovkin now had time to think and reflect upon what Sorovosky had said. Luck didn't exist? Well, perhaps he was right... as he looked up into the clouds, Golovkin thought about the impossibility of God; soon, he would be able to see into space from his aircraft, and he knew, for he had done it before, that there would no bearded face staring down at him. Yes, the General Secretary was right. Luck certainly did not exist. A beeping was warning him that he was approaching 18,000 metres, and he eased back on the stick; almost time to fire. All systems were ready, and the ASM-135 knockoff was locked onto the Praetonian satellite that had been over Georgeland some eight hours ago. Sure that he was locked on, Golovkin pulled the release trigger, and looked out of his starboard window as the missile kicked into life. Turning his plane around and heading home, Golovkin hoped everything had gone to plan.