After receiving direct orders from above, Colonel Koridub snapped into action. He had the rooms cleared out, asked the kitchen to prepare a hot meal, and even rehearsed a welcome speech. The plan was simple: host the technicians from Factory 126 properly — feed them, house them, let them rest before starting work the next day.
But the moment they arrived, they bypassed everything — the meals, the bunks, the speeches — and went straight for the EP-3.
So now Koridub was sulking in the front seat of a rattling Gaz jeep, bouncing down the runway with Andrei sitting beside him, still buzzing with excitement.
Officially, there was no reason for Andrei to tag along. But he'd insisted — half out of curiosity, half to witness history. Koridub had waved it through. After all, it wasn't every day you got to see Soviet technicians dismantle a top-secret American surveillance aircraft.
When they arrived at the aircraft, the engineers were already swarming the EP-3 like ants on sugar. The base commander and his entourage followed them up the narrow metal steps into the plane's belly.
Inside, the smell of sweat, oil, and electronics filled the cramped air.
"Comrade Simonov, it's an honor. I'm Colonel Kozhedub Koridub, base commander."
Koridub extended his hand, eyes twinkling.
The man who turned to greet him was slightly overweight, high cheekbones, thinning gray hair — Mikhail Petrovich Simonov. The father of the Su-27. Andrei's chest tightened. He was looking at a legend.
Simonov shook Koridub's hand with a polite smile.
"Thank you, Colonel. The men of the 513th have done the Union a great service. What you've delivered us today is a leap forward in electronic warfare."
It finally made sense. Why Moscow hadn't punished them. Why they'd been awarded. This wasn't a diplomatic disaster. It was a technical windfall.
Andrei's heart was pounding. The Su-27 was still in prototype form, but in a few years it would become the pride of Soviet aviation. And Simonov? Simonov had built it with his own hands. And now he stood here, sleeves rolled up, ready to pick apart an American bird like a hawk with fresh prey.
Simonov's story flashed through Andrei's mind — from the Kazan Aviation Institute to the Sukhoi Bureau, the Su-24 bomber, the first sketches of the T-10 prototype. After Pavel Sukhoi passed away, it was Simonov who took over the Bureau and turned the dream of the Su-27 into a reality.
Andrei could hardly believe it. The man was right here. In front of him.
Simonov noticed him. He studied Andrei briefly — saw the way the young pilot stood straight, jaw clenched, eyes wide. He smiled. Soldiers and engineers shared a mutual respect in the Soviet system. Simonov appreciated it.
Meanwhile, behind them, voices started rising inside the aircraft.
"Transistors?"
"What the hell is this black blob? It's got so many legs—wait, is this an integrated circuit?"
"Where are the tubes?"
The Soviet engineers had just cracked open the instrument panel. They expected glowing glass vacuum tubes, wired by hand. Instead, they found something else entirely.
Transistors. Chips. Printed boards. Compact, alien, silent.
To a Soviet technician raised on valves and resistors, this was like opening a Soviet truck and finding a UFO engine inside.
"We can't trace this... no schematic, no obvious logic gates. How the hell are we supposed to map it?"
That was the issue. You could reverse-engineer a vacuum tube. You could follow wires, measure capacitance, guess the design. But integrated circuits were like black boxes. Without the internal blueprints, they were damn near impossible to copy.
"Idiots. One nuke and this whole setup gets fried. Tubes survive EMP. Chips don't."
One engineer muttered, shaking his head.
"No. They're right."
A calm voice replied behind them.
It was Simonov.
He stepped forward, arms behind his back, eyes locked on the disassembled panel. "Tubes are relics. We're clinging to a dead age. The Americans bet on microelectronics — and they're ten years ahead."
The technicians fell silent.
Simonov continued.
"Do you think a future war will allow time for repairs? For tube replacements? No. What wins is speed. Efficiency. Compact firepower. And we are losing that race."
Andrei watched them, watched the tension in the room, and felt the full weight of it. This wasn't just about one plane. This was about everything. About how far behind the Soviet Union had fallen in microchip tech. And about how this EP-3 might be the only chance they had to catch up.
"Map everything. Copy what you can. Photograph every inch." Simonov said.
He turned to Koridub. "We'll need another EP-3. If you get another one, bring it down intact. And quickly."
Koridub raised his eyebrows, nodded slowly.
Andrei exhaled.
This war wasn't only in the skies anymore. It was in circuits, algorithms, board layouts.
And for the first time, Andrei understood just how far they still had to go.
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