Fantastic Voyage: Microcosm

Prologue

Tuesday, 1:15
p.m
., local time (Caspian Sea)

After a suicide mission wiped out the Russian peacekeeping encampment, Vasili Garamov knew there could be no quick diplomatic solution to the Baku crisis. He gazed off into the distance, paying no heed to the ominous thunderstorm building off the Caspian Sea. Despite the smoldering cigarette clenched between his lips, the Deputy Foreign Minister could smell smoke from burning aircraft fuel and charred flesh.

I should have gotten here sooner,
he thought, then cursed the usual bureaucratic mix-ups that had delayed his arrival.

On the other hand, if the misrouted diplomatic airplane hadn't diverted him to Armenia instead of bringing him directly here to Azerbaijan, Garamov himself might have been a casualty of the rebel attack. Then Moscow would have buried their Deputy Foreign Minister with full honors (probably misspelling his name on the tombstone), before sending out the next supposed peacemaker on their list…

It was a wonder anything ever got accomplished when dealing with the Russian bureaucratic behemoth.

Five days earlier, Azeri militants had taken over Baku, one of Russia's most vital oil fields and refineries, and begun a systematic slaughter of all non-Muslims within the city. Russian troops had responded, grinding to a halt beyond the city, just out of range of the hastily emplaced rebel artillery. Refusing to negotiate, the militants had then threatened to obliterate the Baku oil refineries if the Russian army made a move. It was not a bluff.

Through no merits of his own, Vasili Garamov had been called in to end the crisis. Despite his ambassadorial credentials and suitably high political rank, his presence here was a complete mistake. Garamov's expertise was in dealing with American research and industry—
technical
problems, not religious or ethnic ones. Though familiar with cooperative research programs and technology transfers, he had little experience with historical hatreds and cultural clashes. He had no special skills, nor any particular knowledge of obscure ethnic difficulties around the Caspian Sea. He didn't even speak the local language.

But because someone had misfiled his papers,
he
had been selected for this assignment.
Typical.

Another clerical error had gotten him on the wrong plane, so that he arrived eleven hours behind schedule, well after the situation had fallen irrevocably apart. Though the bureaucratic mistake had inadvertently saved Garamov's life, no doubt some official would be reprimanded for it…

Following the inferno of the suicide attack, the surviving Russian troops howled for revenge. Equipped with the best military hardware in the region, they wanted to level the besieged city, never mind about the 1.7 million innocent civilians or the vital petroleum industry there.

A squadron of SU-35 Typhoons loaded with air-to-air missiles had already been summoned from the nearest Russian air base in the Caucasus Mountains. Mobile land artillery was in position and ready to move in a full-scale assault. The order had already been given, storm or no storm.

Garamov just hoped the fighter jets wouldn't hit the wrong target.

He stood outside the prefab command shelter, knowing in his bones that the impending operation would be a bloodbath. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under the sole of his shoe. Even as Deputy Foreign Minister, Garamov wasn't really in charge here, though he'd probably be blamed at the end of the day.

He would rather be back in Moscow reading his technical reports.

He turned his lean, sharp face toward the stiff breeze. His chalky-pale skin emphasized the darkness of his lips as he lit another cigarette, counted how many remained in his pack—three—and wondered if he could make them last the afternoon.

Field Commander Kamenev marched up, holding his cap against the wind. His thick red mustache made him look perpetually displeased. “Artillery is ready to move forward, Deputy Foreign Minister.”

“And you are sure they were sent in the correct direction?” he said under his breath, not really expecting a response. The air was electric with the wet-metal scent of ozone; lightning crackled like unexpected anti-aircraft fire in the thick soup of clouds.

Kamenev was deaf to sarcasm and ignored the comment. “If you will come inside the command tent, we can observe the fighter-jet squadron on our satellite screens. I would like to have you at my side.”

For political cover?
he wondered. “I prefer to watch from out here, with my own eyes.” Garamov slicked back his dark hair, but the wind ruffled it again. “When do the Typhoons arrive?”
When can I go home?

“Due in half an hour, Mr. Deputy Minister. The pilots are confident the storm will not be a hindrance.”

“Of course they are confident.” Garamov took a long drag of the acrid smoke and exhaled it in a visible sigh.

“It is time to send in the armored vehicles and artillery. I have authorized them to crush the roadblocks and retake the city.” Kamenev saluted, his face a waxy mask of controlled righteous anger. “We will have our revenge on the murderous rebels, sir.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”
And anyone else who gets in the way.

During his bungled journey, while Garamov had struggled to rearrange his diplomatic flights through incompetent Armenian officials, a rebel-hijacked C-130 aircraft fuel tanker had taken off on a suicide mission from besieged Baku, headed toward the largest concentration of Russian troops on the outskirts of the city. A sluggish old prop plane bought long ago from the United States, the C-130 was neither an attack craft nor a fighter jet. It had no weaponry.

But the tanker itself was a weapon. A flying bomb.

By the time Russian troops realized that the rebel pilot intended to crash into their encampment, they could not shoot it down fast enough. The fireball crisped eyebrows a kilometer away and incinerated anyone standing closer. It would be another day before recovery teams could venture into the smoldering graveyard to excavate the countless charred corpses.

Though he was a respected politician, Vasili Garamov was no field commander. Kamenev had already made up his mind to launch an immediate, if ill-advised, retaliatory strike. It seemed to the Deputy Foreign Minister that a sensible leader would have waited for the weather to clear, but the time for common sense had passed. A bureaucratic error, a mistake in the chain of command. The Russian army would retake Baku using overwhelming force; the rebels would lose—would, in fact, be exterminated.

A communications officer rushed out of the tent, his face cheesy-pale, blue eyes wide with excitement. “Sir! The rebels have launched their own attack jets. We are seeing activity on the Baku airfields.”

“Secondhand Iraqi aircraft,” the field commander said. “No match for our SU-35 Typhoons.” He brushed down his reddish mustache, unperturbed.

“Yes, Field Commander, but our Typhoons are not yet here,” Garamov pointed out. “Very well. Now I will see these satellite pictures.”

They ducked into the tent to watch the surveillance images. One tracking screen displayed the Russian jets, which had already crossed the Azerbaijani border and were rapidly closing the gap… flying straight into the fist of the brewing storm.

Hotspots on the terrain displays showed long-range artillery bombardment of the Baku airfield. Garamov considered it likely that the Russian counterstrike would cause more damage to the refinery infrastructure than the militants ever would.

“Typhoons are closing,” the communications officer said, his Russian thick with a Georgian accent.

As Garamov watched blips on the screen, another dot appeared from out of range and at a high altitude. “What is that? I did not see it before.”

“Not one of ours,” said the comm officer, tracking the Typhoon squadron. “Just one aircraft, unfamiliar configuration. It does not seem to be maneuvering.”

Shouts of surprise rang out as the rebel jets veered from their original trajectory,
away
from the approaching squadron.

Garamov understood immediately. “They do not intend to face our Typhoons, Commander. They will strike
here,
perhaps even make further suicide runs.”

The field commander watched the approaching rebel MiGs, his face grave, his voice decisive. “Mr. Deputy Minister, we have a helicopter ready to take you to safety.”

Garamov tried to pull away. “I should stay here.”

“You should stay
alive,
sir. You are a diplomat. You do not belong on a battlefield.” Garamov had no argument for that.

Less than three minutes later, he found himself strapped into the back of a jostling helicopter. Gray rain began to slash down, and the pilot fought against the wind. Booming explosions in the clouds sounded distinctly different from thunder.

As the helicopter took him to safety in the wrinkled, mountainous folds of the Caucasus, Garamov maintained his command-and-control link and received regular battlefield reports. He felt detached from the action, helpless.

The Typhoons shot three MiGs out of the sky. A single rebel aircraft slipped through and dropped haphazard bombs on the army encampment. Showing no restraint, Russian ground troops broke through the Baku roadblocks, and the Azeri militants were in full retreat into the city. Casualties would be high on both sides.

Then the storm struck with full force. The Typhoon squadron continued its hunt in the clouds, tracking and destroying rebel MiGs, but two Russian jets were already down. Everything was slipping out of control.

Garamov had accomplished nothing here. He'd been unable to. He might as well write his own political obituary.

“We have lost contact with base,” an artillery sub-commander shouted in Garamov's earphones. “We confirm five major ground explosions, and one rebel jet crashed in the vicinity of the command tents.” He paused. “There are no orders from Field Commander Kamenev. We presume he is dead.”

What else could possibly go wrong?

The Typhoon squadron leader patched through. “Mr. Deputy Minister, the unidentified radar trace is approaching. Request permission to engage and destroy.”

Were there no other high-ranking officers? Garamov groaned. He wasn't a military commander and had no business giving battlefield orders. Because of his status, some bureaucrat had probably designated him second-in-command. He stalled, knowing that failure to make a decision was preferable to making a bad one. “What kind of craft is it? Are there any scheduled commercial flights in this air zone?”

“None, sir! This is no known type of aircraft, unrecognizable to our systems, and it transmits no IFF signal.” All military aircraft sent out a coded “Identify Friend/Foe” beacon to keep from being targeted by friendly fire.

“It is heading straight for us, sir, no evasive maneuvers whatsoever. Just like the suicidal C-130 tanker.”

Because of the recent massacre, the fighter pilots were out for blood. Even before the rebel fighter jets came within visual range, the Russian pilots had launched air-to-air missiles at them—far more than were necessary, but everyone wanted a piece of this kill. It looked like a disaster waiting to happen.

“Sir! Please respond! Weapons ready.”

Garamov saw the blips on the screen, watched the strange craft blundering into the attack zone. He remembered the Korean Air Lines passenger jet that had been shot down over Sakhalin Island—another flaw in the chain of command—and the subsequent political fallout.
Please don't let it be another mistake.
Rain pelted the helicopter's windows, leaving streaks that blurred the landscape.

“Permission granted,” he said over the shuddering drone of the engine.

On the screen, he watched traces as the Typhoons converged on the sluggish craft. The unidentified target did not attempt to escape. Missiles struck the slow-moving target and detonated. A bright blip flashed on the screen.

“Identification?” Garamov leaned sideways in his seat, gripping the side wall as errant gusts shook the helicopter, “Did any pilot actually see the target before it was destroyed?”

“No, sir. Nothing left but smoke and falling wreckage.”

Watching the fireball and debris cloud dissipate on the screen, Garamov saw a secondary trace dropping in a parabolic arc. “Looks like the pilot ejected from the unidentified craft, sir!” the squadron leader called. “Maybe there is a survivor.”

“Track it. Mark where it falls.” Garamov motioned to the helicopter pilot. “We are on our way.”

The thunderstorm ripped across the Baku battle zone. Russian ground artillery continued to pound three surprisingly well-defended Azeri strongholds outside the city. All but one of the rebel MiGs had been shot down, and four Typhoons were in a frantic chase after the last one. It wouldn't take long.

Garamov pressed his earphones close as the squadron leader described the rugged terrain around where the ejected pilot had crashed. As the helicopter zeroed in on the area, the Deputy Foreign Minister still hoped he could salvage the situation, rescue a downed rebel pilot … do
something.

He hoped the helicopter wouldn't fly into a mountainside. That would be the perfect end to his career.

The pilot circled over the forested hillsides, looking for a place to land. Broken, burning trees smoldered in the thick rain, marking the spot where an oblong, coffin-sized object had plowed into a steep slope.

Not a man dangling in a harness and parachute. Not a pilot at all.

Something else entirely.

The helicopter pilot finally landed, his craft tilted at an angle, skids slipping in the mud. Before the rotors had stopped spinning, Garamov climbed out and stood without an umbrella, cold rain streaming down his dark hair and pale skin. The air held a roasted smell with a metallic undertone mixed with the richness of churned earth.