“I know, I know,” Cole said, flipping his binder to the DEFCON Three checklists. “Sir, STRATCOM is directing all units near the coastline to disperse their fleets as much as possible, to protect them in case of a preemptive attack.” Initial reports suggest that the Russians used low-yield nuclear devices against some Ukrainian air bases.” Voices fell silent, and every head turned toward Laughlin and Cole. Massive waves of bombers are attacking several military bases in the Ukraine, Romania, and Moldova. “Sir, Russia is bombing the Ukraine and Romania,” Laughlin said. DEFCON Three was a medium-threat war-readiness level, not far from all-out nuclear war. “Jesus,” Cole exclaimed as Laughlin put up the DEFCON Three slides and updated all of the Wing’s schedule times - the group commanders could see Laughlin’s fingers trembling as he put the slides on the projector. Major Laughlin stepped right in front of General Cole: “Sir, message from NEACAP - we’re going to DEFCON Three.” We may have to do all loading and preflight actions in hangars and then tow them to their parking spots.” “If we get that snowstorm later today or tonight, our weapons handlers will be under the gun. “If the weather holds up, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Mace said. “Will it be a problem downloading their training stores while you’re uploading the … special weapons on Alpha Flight?” Another euphemism - the military, even the men and women trained to handle nuclear weapons, hardly ever called them “nuclear weapons”-they were usually called “special” or “unconventional” weapons. “We’ll need to get Bravo Flight back on the ground as fast as we can,” Cole said. Fortunately, Charlie Flight’s bombers were not uploaded with training ordnance when the message came down, so those bombers should take less time to generate.”
“Alpha Flight’s planes, which were in tactical deployment configuration, can be reconfigured for SIOP rather quickly - they have fuel, tanks, racks, expendables, all that stuff ready to go. “I feel pretty certain we can meet the twelve-hour time limit for sorties one through four,” Mace said confidently. Mace stood up, took the slides prepared for him by Captain Porter, and put them on the overhead projector.
“We need to put the brakes on the Bravo exercise, generate six bomber airframes and four tankers for SIOP missions, and begin predeployment ops.” SIOP, or Single Integrated Operations Plan, was the nuclear warfighting “master plan” that would be executed by the White House and Pentagon in case of war, coordinating attacks against thousands of targets by hundreds of weapon systems - bombers, land-based missiles, and sea-launched missiles - over several weeks. “Okay, Daren, you’re in the hot seat now,” General Cole said.
DEFCON 26 SCHEDULE UPDATE
Hurry.” It took about ten minutes for Porter to dash over to the command post with a briefcase full of slides and transparencies, fill in the spaces from the main DEFCON time schedule slide, and get an update on the status of the Wing aircraft from Maintenance Control to complete the slides. “Make sure the sergeant stays put and near the phone - we’re starting a recall. Porter was sharp: she would know what an A-Hour was and she would hustle. The exercise is over, and we have an A-Hour.” Mace heard a slight intake of breath on the other end. “Captain, I need you over here in the command post on the double. The first thing he did was call Alena Porter. “ He hurried into his seat at the conference table and opened up his own binder of checklists. A shooting war has broken out in Europe, and LOOKING GLASS and the NEACAP are airborne.” “No exercise, Daren,” Cole said to his new MG. “DEFCON schedules? We changing the Bravo exercise?”
DEFCON 26 SCHEDULE SERIES
When Daren Mace entered the room, his first look was at the main projection screen, which had the words DEFCON FOUR TIMELINES at the top and a series of times penciled in. One by one the group commanders and key members of the Wing staff hurried into the battle staff room.
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