Departing from Khabarovsk at night, sailing all the way to the northeast, the "Ruslan" flew very smoothly in the vast sky, and the crew and passengers hardly felt that the behemoth was cruising at a speed of 700 kilometers per hour.

Carrying a Sukhoi fighter on its back, it is still easy to fly, the An-124B could have carried a "Buran" class space shuttle with a length of more than 30 meters and a total weight of 100 tons, while the Su-27M2 is only more than 20 meters long and has a full weight of less than 30 tons, which is of course nothing to the "Ruslan".

In the dark night sky, flying along a makeshift route, the An-124B, which maintained radio silence, did not have a single navigation light on, and almost silently flew over the Tatar Strait, across Sakhalin Island and into the Sea of Okhotsk.

Not emitting radio signals and turning off navigation lights to fly is a bit risky.

Unlike the situation in peacetime, the war in the Far East is in full swing at present, and almost all the aircraft coming and going in the sky are military aircraft, and their respective mission plans are different, and the flight situation is also changing from time to time.

The danger is there, but for now, it's not a problem.

Just behind the silently flying An-124B, two distant Su-27M fighters are turning on radar and electronic jammers, scanning the airspace near the transport plane's route for IFF identification of any approaching aircraft. At the same time, the local route - that is, the route of "Ruslan" is notified by radio command. Alert all friendly fighters to evade.

From the 210th Fighter Aviation Regiment of the 239th Division. Both Su-27Ms were piloted by Viktor Rezenov's subordinates, which is actually just a kind of insurance measure.

As early as when the battle situation in the far sea changed and the General Headquarters decided to implement the combat plan in advance, the VVS and PVO sides immediately adjusted the campaign deployment, and there was hardly even a single fighter near the route; It is related to the temporary adjustment of the battle in the far sea, the reason of course needs to be kept secret, but this thing is not difficult to do at all, anyway, compared with the secret operation of Comrade Lieutenant General, the Tu-22M3 of several regiments of the Red Navy has made a big combat readiness and black pressure to attack in the air. Even if there are some sleeper spies in the Red Air Force and the Territorial Air Defense Force, they will only link the deployment adjustment with "the movement of Russia's 'Backfire' fleet." As everyone knows, this move is killing two birds with one stone.

In accordance with the unified command of the General Headquarters, the 317th Guards Bomber Aviation Regiment stationed at the Komsomolsk-on-Amur Air Base was the first to embark on the journey, and 22 Tu-22M3s carrying Kh-15 anti-ship missiles took off one after another, organized into three flight formations, and climbed all the way to the east.

A large number of long-range bombers lifted into the air. Due to the need for a long-distance attack, the silver-gray giant bird carrying anti-ship missiles in the magazine quickly climbed to more than 10,000 meters and entered a high-speed cruise state. It soon attracted the attention of NATO's air situation monitoring system.

A group of suspected "backfires", flying at high altitude and high speed, this kind of movement is often a sign of launching a surprise attack on the open sea!

The officers of the Hokkaido Air Defense Command Center soon discovered that this sign was extraordinary, and they did not dare to slack off at the moment, and while calling on all forward positions to increase their vigilance and send fighters as much as possible to try to intercept them, they immediately reported to the US side that "Lucia's bombers are heading east."

The intelligence of the client state, together with the report of the US military's own remote monitoring system, immediately surprised the US Pacific Command, and even felt a trace of panic.

What do you mean, the Russians dispatched a "backfire", could it be that they have accurately located the position of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle group?

Stimulated by this news, the snowflakes of inquiries and orders immediately flew everywhere in NATO's entire vast command system, and the intelligence was transmitted from the Tokyo Forward Command Center to the Pacific Command in Hawaii, and at the same time flew to the Pentagon.

The reason why the situation is as clear as if facing a great enemy is that although the "backfire" of the Russians is ferocious, it cannot be thrown out without a clear indication of the goal.

So, what went wrong in this game of hide-and-seek in the depths of the ocean that allowed the polar bears to obtain the precise coordinates of the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier battle group and even complete the target screening work required for missile attacks?

Not only was it discovered by the enemy, but also the tactical deployment of the formation was figured out, and this terrible situation was certainly not trivial.

Admiral Thomas Kincaid, who was in charge of the Pacific Command, quickly calmed down and gathered a team of staff to analyze the situation, while he got together with Vice Admiral Joseph Prueher, the deputy commander of the Seventh Fleet, who had just returned from Washington, and the chief of operations staff.

Now that the Russians have taken action, the most important thing at the moment is, of course, to determine the situation of the aircraft carrier battle group in the front.

For the U.S. Pacific Command, commanding an ocean-going naval battle in Hawaii, thousands of miles away, it is certainly impossible for the command to directly issue every step of the action plan, and the specific actions of the battle group must be decided by the forward commander, Lieutenant General William Pratt, himself.

Judging from the information that has been fed back so far, the position of the US aircraft carrier battle group is indeed a bit dangerous, and if you look at it on the chart, it probably falls within the combat radius of the Russian long-range bombers, and this seems to be an extremely dangerous signal, and the command quickly reached a consensus that it is possible for the Russians to learn the location and movements of the US warship group through guò reconnaissance planes, satellites, and even sleeper agents, and order the forward command organization to move immediately.

At the same time, the command also reminded the command personnel to strengthen secrecy work throughout the fleet, and paid special attention to checking out Russian spies who may be ambushed in the communications command organization.

The reason for such a reminder is actually obvious: even if there are Russian spies lurking in the US aircraft carrier battle group in the vast sea, if you want to leak key information such as the location of the fleet, first, this person must have access to these secrets, and second, he must always have a channel to report to the outside world.

In this way, if the Russians do get the information, the location of the spy will be easier to determine.

In addition to such a suspicion, it is not very likely that there will be a leak of secrets by the aircraft carrier battle group in the vast ocean, and the opinion of the command is, first, to consider the bravado of the Russians, and second, it cannot be ruled out that the opponent is really preparing to launch an offensive, so this shows that the main force of the Russian fleet should also be in action.

According to some information sent by the forward fleet, as well as the signs of the Russian fleet's activities obtained by reconnaissance satellites and other means, the command ordered the aircraft carrier battle group to "cautiously engage the enemy", and take the opportunity of the polar bear to thwart its attack in one fell swoop, and even destroy the main force of its fleet.

The order, which was transmitted shortly after the information, reached the command staff of the USS Theodore Roosevelt.

With the help of invisible radio waves, one command after another is fed through the antenna of the Hawaii Command satellite ground station in guò to the "MilStar" communications satellite suspended high in synchronous orbit, transmitted in an encrypted low-rate channel, and received by the U.S. Navy warship sailing in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and finally decrypted into plaintext.

Standing on the wide seagoing bridge of the CVN-71 USS Theodore Roosevelt, Vice Admiral William Pratt, who was holding his hand on the edge of the white console, stared out of the porthole, and the silhouette of the hazy and huge deck was faintly visible. There will never be any light again.

The night was deep, the sea breeze was still howling in the waves, and the huge ship with a displacement of more than 100,000 tons was also swaying from side to side at a relatively slow pace.

As a terrestrial creature, most of the ancestors of human beings came from the sea, but the vastness of the sea is not something that everyone can adapt to, or even enjoy.

In control of a powerful aircraft carrier battle group, in such a dark night without moonlight, Vice Admiral William Pratt did not rush to the combat command room below the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, but looked from the railing on the navigation bridge, even if he could not see any scenery in the dark night, at least he could blow the cold sea breeze and calm his feelings a little.

Speaking of which, these hateful Russians, the intelligence from the headquarters actually said that they had dispatched a "backfire", could it be that they were going to have a bitter and happy decisive battle?

Hmph, take a look at the shape shì, I'm afraid it's really like this.

As a senior naval officer with rich experience and considerable generals, Vice Admiral Pratt has served in the U.S. Navy for many years, and has some knowledge of the old enemy on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and does not need to be reminded by adjutants and staff, and he also knows that the polar bears are deployed in the Far East in the sea and air forces, and the Russians have a total of five "backfire" bomber regiments. (To be continued......)