The Lotus Eaters

Anno Condita 471 Belalcázar Air Force Base, Santander, Terra Nova

In his headphones Pavlov heard, "Unidentified aircraft! Unidentified aircraft! Move away from the flight line and parking areas or you will be engaged!"

Pavlov ignored the calls except to mutter, "With what?" Reducing power to the main rotor, he allowed the chopper to descend to only one hundred and twenty feet above the ground. That was high enough to provide enough fall to arm the mines his bird carried, and also high enough not to worry about sucking any trash that might be blown skyward into the engine.

Pavlov looked left and saw that his wingman had likewise descended and was even now slowly moving along and above the taxiway. From the rear of the wing helicopter, through the open clamshell doors, a deluge of little mines, some of them glowing, descended to the concrete.

It was seeing the glowing mines hit and then bounce up off of the concrete that made Pavlov think, I have entered the world of the surreal.

Pavlov, himself, went for the one of the aircraft parking areas showing plain in his goggles. A lone guard below fired his rifle at the bird, the muzzle flash plain in the gloom.

"Ignore that," the pilot cautioned his door gunner. He pretended he hadn't heard the gunner's return comment. At the fighter jet parking area, Pavlov swung stick and played with his pedals to produce a sort of aerial ballet overhead, the chopper twirling and swinging and shifting from side to side. The Santandern jet below was deluged with toe popping mines. The helicopter moved on to the next. Unheard by the crew, sirens wailed out a warning, rousing the base from its slumbers. More rifles were fired at the IM-71s. These, too, were ignored as the choppers continued their work of making the only nearby Santandern air base temporarily unusable. As each HIP finished its mining, it turned its attention to the radar dishes, several civil and one military. Machine guns sparked, colanderizing the radar dishes with fire.

Well, thought the crew chief, we weren't told a thing about not shooting up the radar.