Ice War

Canada

December 1994

Colonel Calavicci stood in the briefing room at the Canadian Joes’ base, in front of an overhead photo of a crashed plane on the big monitor.

“This is a Russian Tupolev-22MR electronic intelligence bird. She crashed little over an hour ago on our northern shore. We don’t know what caused the crash, but a CF-18 was ten miles away, shadowing her, when she went down. This photo was taken by the back-seater. The bird is loaded with classified goodies that the Russians were using to scan our defences. We don’t want them getting that information, even if we are all friends now in this age of thawing relations. We also don’t want Cobra getting their grubby mitts on it,” Calavicci explained.

“I take it you want us to secure the wreck?” Shiver asked.

“Yes, but only long enough for Quick-Synch and Trace-Route to strip out the black boxes. Moosejaw, you pick the team, but make sure those two are on it. Use your Tomahawk, time is of the essence.”

Moosejaw nodded, serious for once. “Aurora, Line Dance, Valkyrie, you’ll accompany me and the techs. PP, you fly us up there. Snowbank, I want you to fly cover in the Hailstorm.”

Pulse Pounder rolled his eyes at Moosejaw’s contraction of his codename.

“Let’s move, people, eh?”

Moosejaw’s team worked quickly to gather their gear and weapons, before heading to the hangar where the Tomahawk and the Hailstorm were parked. Moosejaw couldn’t help marvelling once again at the fact Shiver had stolen the prototype Cobra North fighter from under their noses, disguised as a technician sent to repair it.

Snowbank climbed into the fighter’s cockpit, whilst Pulse Pounder climbed into the Tomahawk’s front seat.

Minutes later, as Hard-point drove the small tractor tug clear, the Tomahawk lifted off, followed by the Hailstorm.

Canada’s northern shore

Ninety minutes later

Snowbank took the Hailstorm up to high altitude and reduced speed to conserve fuel as he began a racetrack pattern orbit over the crash site. Pulse Pounder, meanwhile, brought the Tomahawk in low near the wreckage and the team jumped the three feet to the hard-packed snow. The Tomahawk climbed away and disappeared over the nearby hills as Moosejaw directed Aurora and Valkyrie to take up cover positions near the forward half of the wrecked plane. He and Line Dance moved to positions near the broken main wing. Quick-Synch and Trace-Route moved inside the fuselage through a hole ripped in the side. Both technical troopers carried their side arms at the ready, but they soon found the crew’s dead bodies.

“Guess we don’t need to worry about those guys any more, right, Trace-Route?” Quick-Synch said.

“No kidding,” Trace-Route answered. He set down his backpack and began removing tools.

“You read Russian?” Quick-Synch asked

“I prefer English literature,” Trace-Route replied. “Not big on reading stuff in a foreign language.”

Quick-Synch rolled his eyes, “Funny man. I meant could you read the language? Do you know which parts we need to pull out?”

Trace-Route smirked as he pulled out a laptop computer. “I got copies of the plane’s blue-prints,” he replied. “CSIS got them from the British after one of their assets stole them from Tupolev.”

CSIS was the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the local counterpart to the American CIA.

Trace-Route set to work pulling up diagrams on the laptop as Quick-Synch opened up his own pack and began removing items.

As the two specialists went to work, Valkyrie and Aurora were setting up a defensive position, using wreckage from the plane to form a small ‘nest’ for themselves. Moosejaw was standing in the shadow of one of the Tu-22’s stabiliser wings, which had been ripped off and wedged into the hard-packed snow. Line Dance had managed to scramble atop the fuselage and set up his sniper rifle, watching the southern approach.

As Aurora and Valkyrie moved the last piece of their nest into place and smacked it into the snow using two smaller pieces, Line Dace called out, “Company!”

“What is it?” Moosejaw asked.

“Not sure, but I see vehicles moving on the horizon. Could be Cobra,” he adjusted his scope. “Must be about ten miles out.”

Moosejaw immediately switched frequencies on his radio. “Snowbank, this is Moosejaw, we may have Cobras approaching. Can you give us a fly-by, please?”

“Roger, stand by,” the pilot replied.

Although Snowbank was a tracker, he had proved to be the most adept at piloting the Hailstorm. He proved his skill now as he dropped the fighter out of the sky, levelling off a few hundred feet above the ground and speeding toward the column of vehicles he could now see.

“I have a visual,” he reported to Moosejaw. “Looks like four HATE tanks, the HATE Scout and six WOLF vehicles. All except the HATE Scout have infantry hanging off them. Probably either Snow Serpents or Coyote Troopers.”

As the Hailstorm flashed overhead two of the HATE tanks opened fire, their guns failing to track the fast jet.

Snowbank flashed the jet around in a tight, high gee turn before coming back for a second pass.

He rolled up on one wing as the Hiss Assault Tank Elites opened fire again. One round clipped his wingtip, not doing enough damage to be a cause for worry.

Snowbank climbed up to a thousand feet and reduced speed.

“They’re coming fast,” he reported.

Captain Ruin watched as a pair of Coyote Troopers fired at the retreating Hailstorm before keying his radio, “Cease fire, idiots! He was out of range before you even fired!”

Captain Ruin was one of the senior officers of Cobra North. He’d been ordered to command the mission to retrieve the electronic gear in the Tupolev even with Retrofit on the mission. Retrofit might’ve been Black Ice’s second in command, but he and Chacal Noir would be too busy scavenging from the plane to worry about defending it. That was Captain Ruin’s job, with the troops they’d brought with them. Captain Ruin ordered the vehicles to accelerate. Clearly the Joes were either already at the wreck or nearby, if the Hailstorm’s presence was anything to go by.

Traction immediately sped up, pulling ahead of the rest of the vehicles in his HATE Scout.

“''All units, do not engage the Joes with your heavy weapons,” cut in Retrofit, “Only use your guns. We need to be sure we can retrieve what we came here for.”''

Captain Ruin gritted his teeth in annoyance at Retrofit giving orders like that, but said nothing.

“WOLF units, engage with guns; Infantry disembark and move in under their fire. HATEs stand off and prevent the Joes from escaping. We can’t afford to lose the components!” Ruin ordered.

Aurora opened fire with her light machine-gun as the Coyote Troopers and Snow Serpents debarked from the back of the HATEs and the sides of the WOLF vehicles. Valkyrie opened fire next, picking off several Snow Serpents. Line Dance sniped three of the Snow Serpents manning the HATE tanks’ gun turrets. Moosejaw picked off a Coyote Trooper before grabbing his radio.

“Snowy, get your butt down here and give us a gun run across their lines!” Bullets pinged off the wreck next to him. “Curds and gravy!” Moosejaw cursed.

“Tipping in,” Snowbank reported as he lined up on the Cobras.

“Cleared hot!” Moosejaw yelled.

The  Hailstorm screamed down out of the sky before the guns blazed, ripping across the Cobras’ line. Several of the Snow Serpents and Coyote Troopers were shredded as two WOLFs exploded. A third was destroyed as flying wreckage from one of those destroyed slammed into it.

“''Good effect on targets! Give us another pass!”'' Moosejaw called as the Cobras tried to find cover.

Snowbank executed a sweeping turn, circling back around. He could see that the Ice-Vipers and their gunners were trying to suppress Line Dance as the jet screamed around. Snow Serpents were trying to climb aboard the HATEs, no doubt hoping to use their turrets to fire on him.

As Snowbank levelled out for the second gun run, the HATE Scout suddenly shot out from between the HATEs and opened fire with its twin cannon. Snowbank tipped the fighter up on the left wing and screamed past without firing.

“Moose!” Quick Synch shouted. “We’ve got the components!”

“I’ve called Pulse Pounder,” Trace Route added, shouting over the rattle of automatic gunfire. “He’s on his way!”

“Great!” Moosejaw shouted back. He shot another Snow Serpent before hitting his radio. “Fall back to the plane’s wreckage and prepare for evac!”

Line Dance leapt down from the top of the wrecked plane and dashed into the plane as Moosejaw covered him. Quick Synch and Trace Route laid down cover fire for Moosejaw as he darted inside.

Valkyrie fell back to the jagged rent in the plane’s fuselage next as Aurora switched to full automatic fire and sprayed bullets at the Cobras. Another WOLF exploded, as Aurora ran back to the plane.

Snowbank came back for another pass, flying higher this time, before dropping the two Mk. 82 bombs hanging under the wings. The bombs obliterated two of the HATEs and one of the WOLF vehicles, Retrofit’s WOLF was picked up and flipped over by the explosions.

The combined effect of the two bombs was enough to kill or at least incapacitate the remaining Cobras.

As they struggled to recover, the Tomahawk screamed in toward the crashed Tupolev.

Moosejaw led the team out the smaller hole in the plane’s left side toward where Pulse Pounder had lowered the Tomahawk into a hover a few feet off the ground.

The team scrambled aboard and Pulse Pounder immediately lifted the heavy lift helicopter up and away from the wreck. The Tomahawk sped away from the area, with the Hailstorm quickly moving to accompany it.

Captain Ruin struggled from his WOLF. Chacal Noir was standing nearby, looking dazed. Several surviving Snow Serpents were attempting to free Retrofit from the smashed WOLF he’d occupied.

Shaking his head, Captain Ruin considered there was one good thing about this disaster: Black Ice would take it out on Retrofit, not him. He allowed himself a small smile. Then he moved to help Chacal Noir to find a working radio, they would need to contact Black Ice for an evacuation helicopter…

The End.