Chapter Text
“Alert! Alert! All staff to briefing immediately.”
Kirito found himself wondering just what the hell was going on that required everyone to attend a briefing first.
If they were under attack, they’d be scrambled immediately.
If not, then surely they’d be following normal procedures… and why was it just staff being called?
His thinking (and running) was soon interrupted though as he got into the room. “Any idea what’s going on Kirito-kun?” Asuna asked, and he had to admit he knew as much as she did in this situation – that being very little.
“Must be some kind of situation developing. What kind though, I don’t know.”
“Least we get ta fly again, probly!” Argo admitted, and he couldn’t help but the feel the same way. He was going mad being relegated to the ground and just flying the most basic of training missions; especially now they’d been able to upgrade from their battered F-4E to a brand-new F-14A Tomcat, one that Liz had handily made some modifications to.
Those modifications had been mostly centred around the engines – the notorious TF30 – to reduce the odds of the engines simply just stalling and sending the pair into a terrifying and unrecoverable flat spin, one that they’d both become familiar with having been sat down by the Solitaire trio to watch Top Gun, because, and he quoted Sierra here: “Don’t be Goose.”
Not “don’t be a goose” (as little sense as that made in any context, let alone their current one), but “Don’t be Goose.”. All had become apparent when they’d watched the movie, and Kirito wondered what it said about him that he now dreaded the moment they would have to eject…
Either way, it had been nearly a month since they had been flying anything but training missions, and he was getting a bit tetchy – they had a new toy, and he wanted to make the best use of it!
“I think we can all agree there. I, for one, will not miss being grounded…” Honestly, the fact that Alice hadn’t actually stolen an aircraft simply to go and fly, regardless of instructions not to, was a serious testament to how much of a calming influence Eugeo was on her, he thought to himself…
“Sorry to call you all here on such short notice, but there’s a situation developing in the Southern Ocean, and we’re expecting the squadron to be called up on short notice.” Bercouli explained to an image of a small-ish island on the projector, as the rest of the group began to filter in. “This is the island nation of Adamas, about 50 miles off Leasath. It’s small, geographically insignificant, and for the past three years, it’s held the title of “most coup’d nation in the world”. Today though, it’s run by a brutal dictatorship that calls themselves The Administration, and they’ve just made their big move.”
The image on the projector changed to a picture of an older Boeing 737, probably a very early model given it had its engines mounted in long, cigar-shaped pods under the wings, and Kirito already felt a tinge of dread at this. The last time they’d be called to assist an airliner was Flight 668, and they all knew how that one had gone.
Horribly.
“Osean Southern Airways Flight 701 was en route from Oured to St. Carver in Aurelia this morning, when the pilots reported a problem onboard, and diverted to the main airport on the island, Telos Major.”
Ignoring that Telos Major sounded less like an airport, and more like a sci-fi planet, he was trying to work out what was so suspicious about that. Airliners diverted all of the time, and it didn’t sound as if it was shot down either…
Before he could say anything though, Eugeo beat him to it. “Err sir, planes divert all of the time, what’s so unusual about this one?”
“True, it isn’t. This, on the other hand, is.” Bercouli tapped a button on the table, and a slightly distorted voice started to play.
“This is a message to the Kingdom of Belka, and the Osean Federation that sits on by idly as we are massacred… this aircraft and its occupants belong to the Free Rectan Organisation! Our demands are reasonable; simply that Recta is recognised as a sovereign state, and that Belka leaves our territory immediately! Should they fail to be met by midnight… we will execute a hostage every hour. Any intervention to prevent this will result in retribution… the Administration promise us that much…”
He didn’t need to speak revolutionary/terrorist/freedom fighter to know that was not good news.
“So, what are the odds of them actually listening to them?”
“None. Which is why I’m doing the briefing, not Diavel. He’s spent all mornin’ trying not to throw somethin’ at the big bosses.” Bercouli explained. “Anyway, we’ve got a bit of a plan, and-”
“With all due respect sir… Free Rectan Organisation? Weren’t you on the same side?” Sierra asked, an uncharacteristic scowl on his face.
“We had the same goal, yes – to drive the Belkans out – but we were not on the same side. We went about it in very different ways, Captain. The RLO, that was us, were more of a standing army. We followed the laws of war… mostly.” No one missed the pointed glares at Pitohui from the Rectans. “The Free Rectans on the other hand were terrorists. Plain and simple. They didn’t target military targets, so much as they’d aim for civilians; anyone with a link to the Belkans was fair game to them.”
Kirito remembered what was often said about terrorists – one man’s terrorist was another’s freedom fighter, after all. In this case though, he struggled to really understand how anyone would believe these people were freedom fighters, and not just glorified thugs with a smidge of xenophobia thrown in for good measure…
“The FRO are almost as bad as the Belkans. No, honestly, they might be worse.” Eydis said, an unusually dark tone to her voice. “The Belkans attacked us, they killed us, but they rarely attacked civilians. The FRO targeted anyone – even children were fair game to them.”
“Eydis, you don’t have to-”
“I helped at an orphanage when I wasn’t flying. One of the kids there, well, she reminded me of Alice a bit, and I think we’d become friends. She was only a child, they all were. None over thirteen, just kids. At some point, they must have worked out I was in the RLO, and… well, the orphanage was destroyed.”
Finding out that they had targeted civilians purely for connections to Belka was horrible, but discovering that they had targeted children? Not even for connections to Belka, but for connections to a rival organisation?
That was unforgivable to him.
“Regardless, the FRO aren’t our concern today. Their actions are, and we’ve been asked to overfly the island and gather information for a special forces mission to go in and rescue the hostages. Preferably before we find out they released half a hostage or somethin’.”
“Reconnaissance, then.” Asuna asked, receiving a nod.
“Just recon, yeah. High Command have been very clear on that – we’re on restricted ROE here, especially after St Calippo. No more international incidents, so shoot back only if you have absolutely no other choice, got it?”
To everyone’s surprise, the first voice of dissent and discomfort did not come from any of the usual suspects, but rather Fanatio, who seemed considerably more concerned by the actual mission than the backdrop it was taking place against. “Commander, Adamas is… well, it is a fortress, there is no denying that.” She pointed to a diagram of the island with a lot of symbols on it, and the group took a closer look at what those symbols represented…
Known air defences.
That was a lot of them, too. Long range S-200 batteries surrounded the island in all directions, backed up by S-75 and S-125 batteries to defend against closer in targets, whilst a number of 2K12 Kub and 9K33 Osa mobile launchers to deal with anything inside their airspace, not to mention a variety of anti-aircraft guns of almost every calibre, including some truly ancient ones – the fact that they had a FlaK 88 around the capital showed they really were just throwing everything at any potential threat.
Yeah, that was a fortress, he had to agree with Fanatio there. The worst part though was that that was just their known air defences, which likely meant it didn’t include anything they were speculated to have received or anything they simply didn’t know had been received, not to mention the Air Force that was marked down at the bases X-2 and X-3, though with no mention of composition… which meant they were a “known unknown” as Argo had once called something.
They knew they had them, but they had no idea how many they had, or what they might have…
“Almost any kind of rescue looks suicidal against that much of a defence.”
“That’s why we’ll be making the hole for the special forces to go in through too.” Bercouli told them, and he couldn’t help but feel uneasy about that idea.
The idea that they were now bait for an air defence network that would’ve made most planners drool…
“Besides, we have a few aces up our sleeves too. Follow me…”
Unless said ace was an SR-71 Blackbird, he wasn’t too confident it would make much difference against that much of a defensive net…
/-/
Inside the hangar that they had followed Bercouli to were two aircraft front and centre. The first was clearly an F-4 Phantom that had been heavily modified, and… “What the hell did you do to our old Phantom, Liz!”
“Relax, I just gave it a few boosts. Demineralised water for pre-compressor cooling and some new intakes to make a more efficient airflow into the J79s. Trust me, this thing is the fastest thing on base, unless someone’s got an Oxcart.” Liz explained, ignoring the indignant huffing from Sinon from the speed comment, and he took a look over the airframe that had once been his Phantom.
The most obvious and visually intrusive change was the pair of conformal fuel tanks embedded into the spine that no doubt housed the water used for cooling the engines, whilst the intakes had been replaced with a far larger design than he was used to seeing on the Phantom, no doubt to accommodate the boosted engines too, but by far the most noticeable change was the nose…
Gone was the AN/APG-12 radar and M61 bulge that they had gotten used to, replaced by a single huge camera in the now reshaped nose that gave Lisbeth’s “Super Phantom” a rather unflattering design at the front, as if someone had given it a rather unpleasant looking rhinoplasty…
“Cruise speed of Mach 2.4, and a dash speed of Mach 3.2. I think I outdid myself here… honestly, this can outrun a Foxbat at full chat now, I reckon…”
“And you might need that.” A new voice said, and everyone turned to face them. The new person was a girl about their age with messy ginger hair, no doubt another player. “Adamas have a squadron of Foxbats, just waiting to go hunting.”
“Ah, I forgot to introduce you. Captain Takamiya, 313th Reconnaissance Squadron, welcome to the 23rd, 24th and 25th Fighter Squadrons. She’s on secondment, we needed a recon specialist and…”
“They sent me. Name’s Philia, by the way. I’ve heard a lot about you guys here, so I’ll be looking forward to watching you-is that an RF-4X?!” She exclaimed suddenly, almost running up to the Super Phantom in glee.
“Alright, who had that on their bingo card?” Jet asked, a tone of amusement in his voice before a swift jab to the ribcage from Kureha shut him up again.
“Uhh, sorry, I’ve just never seen one up close and personal.” Philia apologised. “Still, I don’t know if that’ll be enough to break through. It’s fast, but you aren’t outrunning an S-200 in that.”
“Yup, so here’s the second of our new toys…” Liz pulled a cover off the aircraft underneath to reveal… a Victor bomber? A modified Victor at that, the wing mounted pods being enlarged slightly, and the refuelling equipment removed, replaced with two new pods in their place. “The EDKB-72A Victor. Blame Command for the designation, not me.”
“So… it’s a former bomber and former tanker with a load of lumps and bumps. What exactly are we using it for?”
“You know the ECM gear in the Prowler, the souped-up ones you guys made up for St Calippo?”
“Yes…” Sierra grimaced, and he reminded himself of how powerful the bodged AN/ALQ-99 pod on the Prowler had been back then in jamming the Belkans…
“I scaled it up. Massively, takes up the entire bomb bay now.” She ignored the looks of shock on any of the mechanically minded members of the squadrons faces and carried on. “That thing can blast electronics at 250 miles in the right mode and fry an egg at ten paces too. Or a sparrow…” Liz looked hesitantly at the electronic warfare aircraft… despite being stood next to it.
“The missile?” Bercouli asked, now suddenly quite hesitant too around the harmless looking aircraft…
“Uhh, no. The bird. Upside, it now has an anti-bird strike system… technically!” Kirito could imagine it did, given it apparently had a “do not enter” radius now, and one that was big enough that a particularly unlucky bird had been used to prove the effectiveness of the system…
“Umm, Liz? It won’t kill us… will it?” Yuna asked, clearly also a little hesitant at the system’s effectiveness. For once, he really hoped Liz was exaggerating her own abilities…
“Probably not, but just in case… the cockpit is lead lined.” Liz answered quickly. Too quickly, in his opinion.
“Uhh, can we move onto something less likely to prematurely end our lives please?”
“Sure, here’s the next gadgets. Drones.” Liz pulled another tarpaulin off. The first drone looked less like the drones they were familiar with from the news – in fact, it looked more than a bit like it had been slapped together with whatever spare parts Liz had borrowed off abandoned airframes, with the rest being junk found in the bin. The other was a lot sleeker, and bore a resemblance to a scaled-up missile of sorts, though with much longer wings, almost like a glide bomb…
Still, she looked almost more pleased than he’d ever seen her before at them, so he wasn’t going to insult her by saying what at least one of them looked like… “I call them Liz-1 and Liz-2.”
“Liz, per chance, did you ever appear on Scrapheap Challenge?”
“They aren’t scrap!” Liz defended her designs. “Well, the Liz-2 isn’t. Liz-1 is a bit rubbish, I’ll grant you. It was only meant to be a disposable target drone anyway.”
“So… what are we using them for?” He asked her.
“They’ll be your making you an entrance to get through the air defence network. The Liz-2 isn’t fast, but with the right lenses, it’ll certainly give them something to shoot at that isn’t you guys and tell us what they’re shooting at them with.” Liz explained. “The Victor’ll carry the Liz-2s up on wing pylons and release them to pursue after the Super Phantom. You guys will have a rudimentary data link set up to the drones, and the drones back to the Victor, which means we’ll be able to gather information almost instantly.”
“Rudimentary?” Bercouli asked, a little insulted by the insinuation that the most advanced tech in the world was rudimentary. He could understand Liz’s description of it though – when you came from a world where stuff like the F-35 was fast becoming a standard, and data could be shared between pilots in a formation faster than a human could realistically speak, it was hard not to see such a bit of technology as rudimentary by comparison…
“Why aren’t we just transmitting the data back to the Victor?” He asked, asking the most obvious question first.
“Range. The datalink isn’t quite stable enough to transmit over hundreds of miles, but we’ve got it up to twenty miles flawlessly. Hence the drones forming a chain to transmit back to the Victor.”
“So… we’re leading a load of drones over one of the most heavily defended airspaces in the world, unarmed and with no kind of escort whatsoever, and expect them not to kill us.” Kirito answered, unimpressed with the idea. The only positive was that most of the equipment was relatively expendable, and didn’t involve having a human in them, just a basic flight computer and a sensor package to sniff out the SAMs.
Hopefully, it was just SAMs they were dealing with though, and Philia was wrong about the squadron of Foxbats waiting for them, else the routine recon mission was going to go horribly wrong. First though, they would have to get to a nearer base, else they would be flying a nearly six hour round trip…
/-/
The early evening fell, and after an afternoon of hopping the Super Phantom between bases along the path of the Bay of Oured, before reaching an airbase outside Bana City at 19:55 local time, with the aircraft hooked up to a tanker to keep its tanks topped up and ready to go whenever the mission was declared a go.
Those “delivery” flights had been nothing special, and he hadn’t really tested the RF-4X out, other than the basics. He’d ensured that he hadn’t done anything too stressful to the airframe and hadn’t really climbed above 15,000 feet or gone above 400 knots in the cruise, just to ensure nothing would break before the mission.
Now though, the Super Phantom was sat waiting on the active runway at Bana City, awaiting clearance to depart on the mission. It had taken thirty-five minutes before the mission was declared a go at 20:30. Unlike many of their earlier night missions, the lighter evenings had drawn in, and so, they would be taking off into a still light sky, rather than in total darkness as they often had done.
“Everything configured back there, Argo?” He asked, knowing that Argo had set them as soon as the aircraft had been powered down for refuelling.
“Yup, cameras set Kii-bou, datalink set up on our side, thumbs are twiddlin’.” She replied, a tone he recognised very much as boredom…
“Good.” He answered. “Black Blade Lead, Tower, requesting take off permission.”
“Black Blade, permission granted.” The tower answered, and he opened the throttles of the souped-up twin J79s. In normal circumstances, the Phantom already had impressive performance off the line, but these were something else entirely!
He wasn’t so much pushed against his seat, as he became one with it, the acceleration being almost insane when he thought how the F-4 normally accelerated!
“Rotating.” Around halfway down the runway, he pulled the Super Phantom into the air, and pulled the throttles back from the afterburner gate to preserve fuel. Even with a trip via a KC-135, it was a relatively long run for the Phantom, and he didn’t imagine that the increased speed had done much to help the range out any…
“Liz-chan weren’t kiddin’ ‘bout this thing, was she? Blimey!” Argo laughed from the back seat. “How’s she feel on the stick, Kii-bou?”
“About the same as a normal Phantom. Bit more force required to lift off, but otherwise, no different to our old Phantom.”
“Black Blade, this is Mother Hen.” He really didn’t like that callsign, even if it was very accurate for their mission. “We’re on station, circling over Lake Hoe now.” Unlike them, the Victor had flown direct to the staging area, with only a brief diversion to refuel from a KC-135 circling around Oured, and so, he imagined Liz’s crew were getting slightly bored of this mission now…
“Understood Liz. We’re just climbing out of Bana now, on station in fifteen minutes.”
“Mother Hen, Black Blade, this is Poltergeist. Do you read us?” Poltergiest was the special operations forces assigned to rescue the hostages onboard Flight 701, and the whole reason for this recon mission in the first place. From what had been revealed to them, they would be infiltrating the defence net aboard an HH-53 Pave Low, a larger helicopter used mostly for special operations such as this.
He couldn’t say he envied the pilots onboard Poltergeist:
They would have to keep a low profile, infiltrating some of the most heavily defended coastlines in the world, whilst trying not to get shot down, land at Telos Major, unload the Marines aboard and keep the Adamasians and FRO hostiles pinned down whilst everything hopefully went to plan… and then leave again, whilst the Marines stole an An-12 that a spy satellite had confirmed was there with all the hostages onboard.
If he was being completely honest, it made Liz’s plan sound just that little bit less ridiculous by comparison.
“Loud and clear, Poltergeist.”
“We’re over the Spring Sea now, ETA to target is 21:18.”
“Understood. Black Blade, you got that?”
“We understand Liz, we should be on station about two minutes before they enter the net.” With any luck, he reckoned, an aircraft breaking into their airspace at Mach 2.5 and accelerating should easily get and keep their attention away from them, whilst the helicopter snuck through the gaps that the Liz-1s made in the net…
“Got it. Mother Hen to all units, Rodeo Go.” Philia, onboard the Victor as a systems controller and analyst, called out. That call was the signal for them to commence a climb to 76,000 feet and accelerate to top speed, whilst the Victor launched the Liz-2 drones that would follow them.
“Ready, Kii-bou?”
“No, but I suppose it’s now or never, right?”
“That’s th’ spirit!” Argo joked, before he pushed the throttles through into afterburner. If he had thought the power providing on take off was immense, he was not at all prepared for the power delivery that the J79-Liz-3 (Liz’s designation system needed some work, he’d decided) would give out when it was really pushed to the gates…
“Holy-!” Argo exclaimed, as the Phantom began to accelerate to transonic speeds even without the afterburner igniting. It had taken him a few seconds to pull the nose up through the sound barrier, and stabilise the climb as the Super Phantom broke the sound barrier in a climb…
Not a shallow climb either, but one of nearly 40 degrees. Damn, Liz really had made a beast of a performer here!
/-/
After around 3 minutes, the RF-4X had reached the cruising altitude of 76,000 feet and Kirito had pushed the throttles wide open, allowing the boosted J79s to start to push the aircraft faster and faster, until the point when the Adamasian defences would be a speck to them – a still dangerous speck, but a speck, nonetheless.
It hadn’t taken long before the Super Phantom was cruising at Mach 2.4, and Kirito, allowing himself a brief moment to focus on something other than the mission, looked out the cockpit window to see the sky below. At 76,000 feet, the Phantom was cruising in the stratosphere, and the view from their position was something many would’ve paid an obscene amount of money to see…
The sky above was no longer light blue, but dark blue, approaching black, whilst the clouds they spent so often inside of or under, were so far below as to look like just streaks in the clear blue sky down there.
He struggled to find many positives of being stuck in ACES, but he couldn’t deny that there probably wasn’t too high of a likelihood he would ever have experienced this in any other situation!
“Ya coul’nt even pay fer that view, could ya Kii-bou?” Argo seemed similarly impressed by the sky around them.
“Some people get a view of a city from their desk… we get a view of the world.”
“Black Blade, this is Mother Hen. They’ve got you on radar, interceptors have been scrambled.” Philia advised them.
“Understood, Mother Hen. Keep us informed of their progress. Argo, get the cameras ready so we can make a quick exit.”
“Those MIGs are ‘bout the only thing in the world that might actually get up here, ya know?”
“Then we’ll just have to make their lives as hard as possible, won’t we?” He opened the throttles again, this time allowing the engines to produce the maximum amount of thrust possible in order to push the RF-4X up to its dash speed of Mach 3.2; still pretty close to the top speed of the MIG-25s that were likely being scrambled as they spoke, but at a point where the Foxbat would be tearing its own engines apart to reach them.
What concerned him more than the narrow performance gap was what weapons those Foxbats were equipped with – if they were carrying their usual loadout of four missiles; a pair of IR guided R-40s, and a pair of semi-active R-40s, then the Foxbats would struggle to reach them, though the missiles were still a big risk to them. If they were only carrying two missiles however, there was a chance they could actually reach their altitude, and he really didn’t want to find out what a dogfight at Mach 3 would look like…
“Black Blade, interceptors are in the air. Looks like they’re making haste after you, and the missile batteries are being ordered to stand down until they’re in firing range of you.”
“Why the heck would they do that?” Argo asked, mirroring his thoughts on the matter. The S-200 sites that they knew they had would be easily able to fire on them, even up here and at this speed, but it almost suggested some degree of arrogance, a belief that the interceptors were there to humiliate anyone mad enough to overfly Adamas…
“We aren’t sure either, but none of the decoys are being fired on either. We think they-hold on, Yuna, what’s that?”
“It’s on a Yuktobanian frequency. Just dialling it in… now.”
“Black Blade, we have a situation. Looks like the Yukes weren’t just sitting around idle either and they’ve launched their own attack on Telos Major.”
“You’ve gotta be kiddin’ us, Phi-chan!”
“I wish I was. Poltergeist, this is Mother Hen, how copy?”
“Poltergeist, we’re approaching the target now. Is the airspace clear?”
“You’re heading into a three-way fight – the Yuktobanians have just shown up too!”
The next response was mostly inaudible, but of what Kirito could make out of the transmission – mostly swearing, but there were some words that could be broadcast in there too – they really weren’t happy to find that out.
“Black Blade, those MIGs are climbing fast. 45,000 feet and still climbing. ETA on them is within the next minute!”
Evidently, Philia’s timing was a little bit out as an alarm blared in the cockpit – one that he knew all too well… the missile alert. The Foxbats had already fired, and now they had precious little time to get the hell out of the way.
“Readying countermeasures, Kii-bou, work whatever magic you can to break the lock!” Argo told him, and he considered his options very quickly.
A high-G turn at this speed would likely rip the Phantom apart; the G-load combining with the significant friction on the airframe to disassemble the airframe and scatter it in every direction at the same time, which left only one option, an unthinkable one for a fighter pilot…
There was a saying in air combat – “speed is life, altitude is insurance” – and he was about to trade both advantages away to get them away from the incoming R-40s. He would roll the aircraft inverted and slam open the airbrakes, dropping the Phantom into a steep dive towards the earth, but at a lower speed than their Mach 3 dash. It wouldn’t be enough to allow him to get into a dogfight, but given that their plane carried no weapons, and (hopefully) the Foxbat pilots wouldn’t be stupid enough to get into a turning fight with anything slower than a space shuttle, there was no point in doing so anyway.
“Hold tight!” He shouted as he snapped the Phantom into the invert position and opened the underside mounted airbrakes.
Argo barely managed a squeak before the Phantom flipped over and fell fast. “Ay-AAHHHH!” She screamed, in a move that was out of character for her. Normally, she was much more collected than that, but he supposed flipping their plane over at Mach 2.9 and putting it into a nosedive was more than enough to terrify anyone!
Plummeting towards the earth at almost Mach 2.5 with the throttles closed, the altimeter went crazy, the needle spinning around the dial fast enough that it looked as if it would take off at any moment now!
The dive itself wasn’t the thing that worried him – the pullout was though. During the death-defying dive, he fought to turn his head to watch the wings carefully and hoped that the Super Phantom was as sturdy as its predecessor… it would need to be for the next bit!
“Black Blade, what’s going on?! You’re descending fast!”
“Tell-aghh-me summat I don’t-rragh-know!” Argo strained, as he pulled the stick back. With considerable force, he had managed to arrest the nosedive and pull the Phantom into a more controlled pullout, the wings pouring off vapour as they pulled almost 9G for around 10 seconds…
His weight increased ninefold, and he felt as if would fall through the floor of the aircraft, or that his neck would simply give up at the increased weight, all down to the significant force of gravity exerted onto them.
Thankfully though, the pullout was soon complete, and the Phantom returned to a somewhat more conventional attitude – nose up 5 degrees and climbing again. Argo, now recovered from being pressed into her seat at nine times the force of gravity, summed up the experience perfectly… “Holy shit.”
“You said it…” He panted, catching his breath back before the radio crackled into life again.
“Black Blade, come in! Kirito, Argo, are you two still there?”
“Yup, still alive. Just about, anyway. The Foxbats fired on us, so we had to take drastic action. Currently at 38,000 feet and climbin’.” Argo explained.
“Looks like the MIGs lost you in that dive. It’ll take them time to get into another position for an attack. I’d advise breaking away and heading back towards Bana at this time.”
“What about Poltergeist?”
“They’re engaged with the FRO, but it’s… well, there’s no nice way to put it, it’s a mess down there. The escape aircraft was destroyed by the FRO, and Adamasian fighter-bombers are being scrambled to attack them.” Philia explained. “We’re retasking the drones to attack the airbases, but that’s the best we can do. We’ll meet you back on the ground.”
A grim mood fell over the cockpit of the RF-4X as it continued to accelerate out of the danger zone. “Dammit.” He muttered to himself.
“I’m beginnin’ to think that airliners are just cursed in this game…” Argo grumbled in the backseat, and he found himself agreeing with her there.
/-/
Despite the mood surrounding them, the flight back towards Bana was relatively calm, with no more unwelcome interruptions by the Foxbat menace. About the only thing that had interrupted the normal feeling to the return was several spurious warnings about various systems, likely caused by damaged sensors during the 9G split-S, rather than anything actually wrong with the aircraft.
Even once they’d crossed through the busy airspace surrounding Bana and topped off at the waiting tanker over the Bay of Oured, it had still been routine, even if the various warnings were getting annoying...
That was until they were about 150 miles south of Canaveral, and another warning light came on, the fuel warning light for the central tank. “That can’t be right, can it?”
“Nah, we took on plenty at the tanker? Should still have an hour’s fuel left at least?” It was in that moment something in his mind clicked, and he realised that all the spurious warnings had to do with the fuel system – low pressure in the fuel tanks, low pressure in the feed system… all of them weren’t symptoms of a broken sensor, but rather a leaking fuel tank instead.
“Fuel tank must have cracked.” He explained to Argo, before getting on the radio. “Canaveral, this is Black Blade. We have a fuel leak and we’re heading straight to Canaveral. Request assistance to meet us on the runway, just in case.”
“Understood, Black Blade. ETA?”
“About twenty minutes.” He answered, looking carefully at the gauge. Thankfully, it seemed to be a slow leak, as fuel consumption was only marginally worse than it normally was, though he did wonder if taking on fuel had caused the leak to become much quicker briefly…
/-/
Kirito had never really been a clock watcher, as it were. No, he was far more likely to completely forget that time itself was a thing, so engrossed in a task was he, but right now, he wished he would be engrossed in something, purely to stop himself from counting down the minutes and the miles as he constantly recalculated the remaining fuel onboard, and the risk that having to glide back to Canaveral would entail.
The Phantom was not a particularly efficient glider, he knew that much, and he really didn’t want to have to quantify that with his own experience, much less with the modifications Liz had made to produce the Super Phantom...
Thankfully though, as they approached the ILS marker, he knew that they were almost home free. That marker meant they were only around ten miles from the runway threshold, and their fuel state was still just narrowly above critical.
“Black Blade, approaching runway 18 on final approach.”
“Crap! Engine 1 flame out!” Argo called from the backseat, and he made sure to keep a hold of the stick to prevent the asymmetric thrust from becoming too much of a major issue during the approach.
A single engine approach in anything wasn’t much fun – he knew that from spending more than a little time flying 737s in simulators and doing his best not to crash into things like the ground, trees… Tokyo Bay, with a single engine flamed out – but it was a very different beast in a Phantom.
On a 737, thrust asymmetry was a much greater threat given the distance between the engines and the centreline, and so, the roll rate would be greater because of it. On their Phantom, the engines were centrally mounted, so the distance from the centreline was essentially none, though it didn’t mean that it wasn’t an issue… just a bit less of one.
“Eight miles to the runway.”
“Understood. Tower, is assistance standing by? We’ve lost one engine, and we really don’t know if we’ll have the other on touchdown…”
“Standing by on the taxiway, Black Blade. Good luck sirs.”
“Understood.” He scanned the fuel state quickly – as close to empty as was possible without describing it as such. They had about a minute before engine 2 flamed out too, and then they were in trouble…
“Six miles, on the glidepath.”
Descending through 1500 feet, the runway became visible to them, encouraging them to press the landing – though it wasn’t like they had much of a choice really.
“Four miles, 1000 feet.”
Gear down, flaps set, and braking chute armed.
“Black Blade, cleared for landing.”
Those four miles were the tensest journey of his life, as he ensured everything was set correctly - the last thing they needed was to be crash landing, especially with a leaking fuel tank.
“100 feet.” Argo called out, and he pulled the nose up to flare for landing as they crossed the threshold. “50 feet.”
Much to his surprise, the landing was probably one of the smoothest he’d ever managed, with the touchdown only barely being felt. The one concerning thing was that engine 2 flamed out just as they touched down, but thankfully, the wheel brakes and braking chute were enough to bring the Phantom to a halt around halfway down the runway…
“Well, that was a lil’ bit too close fer comfort!” Argo laughed from the backseat, as he opened the canopy to get out the Phantom, with Argo following quickly behind as the emergency crews arrived at the empty, but otherwise completely fine aircraft…
Was it bad that he felt like kissing the tarmac below them after that landing?
/-/
About two hours had passed since they had landed, and after some time to decompress after the mission, Kirito and Argo were called into a debrief of what they had found from the recon flight.
“Well, that was a disaster.” Bercouli sighed, taking a swig from his flask. “Not your faults, of course, but… yeah. Command is currently going apeshit at their Yuktobanian counterparts, and the FRO are looking to lynch anyone who isn’t… well, actually just anyone.”
“Not a complete disaster, Commander. The photos we recovered from the Phantom were actually quite enlightening.” Philia spoke up as she entered the room. “Well, more terrifying, but yeah, take a look at these.”
She placed a set of photos down on the table, with some objects circled in red. Long, cylindrical objects that looked a lot like rockets. Big rockets at that…
“Are those what I think they are…” Argo asked, clearly hoping she was wrong.
“R-17 Scuds. Short range ballistic missiles.” The Commander clarified, a concerned look on his face. “You wanted to know what the Adamasians gained from helping the FRO? I’d hazard a guess it was those, and that airliner was meant to act as a human shield.”
As horrifying as that was, something about that explanation really didn’t add up in Kirito’s mind. Maybe it was the idea of a group of terrorists obtaining weapons from Belka, a country they despised (and by all accounts, the feeling was mutual), or maybe it was how those terrorists had then smuggled ballistic missiles into a tiny island nation without anyone noticing…
“How’d they get hold of ‘em then? It ay like the Belkans are just gonna give ‘em SRBMs, is it?” Argo pointed out one of his problems with that theory.
“I might have an idea on that one. The SV Ocean Transit. Left St Calippo about six weeks ago and sank in stormy weather off the coast of Adamas. No survivors of the crew, but there were witnesses who reported the ship exploding violently. Our guess was that it was carrying a shipment of equipment to Leasath at the time, so maybe they scavenged the missiles from the wreck?”
“Well Captain, looks like you’ve got your answer. The FRO sank a freighter and stole them.” Bercouli stated, as if he knew it to be fact; a curious thing considering it wasn’t him who had thought of the theory…
It also hadn’t escaped his notice that he wasn’t the only one unconvinced by that theory – both Argo and Philia seemed more hesitant to assume it was that. A lot of things didn’t quite add up in that theory, not least that an explosion of that scale would’ve destroyed the missiles too, and that six weeks to scavenge missiles like that was not a lot of time for a major power like Osea or Yuktobania… let alone a nation like Adamas that only had an air force because of constantly shifting alliances, and had no R&D department, so to speak.
“Right then, I’m off to go and try to sort this mess out. Expect a briefing in the morning on what we do next.” Bercouli interrupted their thoughts as he walked out the room, leaving the three of them together in the otherwise silent room.
“Well, that was odd.” Philia was first to speak up out of them. “Did he just assume I was right on that one? It was just a theory, and we never even confirmed the Ocean Transit had weapons onboard!”
“I gotta admit, he seems like he wants a reason t’ take the fight to the FRO, damn the consequences.” Argo answered grimly. “And that ain’t a good thing.”
“Can you blame him though, Argo?” He played devil’s advocate here, despite agreeing with her.
“If he’s gonna get us killed through some vendetta, then yeah, I can… and I sure as hell will. We fucked up in what happened at the Bay, and nearly got ourselves killed at St Calippo. Kii-bou, I ain’t lettin’ anyone else die for some dumbass order…”
“Uhh, stupid question here… but what happened at the Bay? And St Calippo? And what vendetta?” Philia diffused the tension with her question, and they must’ve both remembered that Philia had only been here today in that moment.
“We’ll explain in the bar.” Kirito answered. “Either way, welcome to the Black Blades… I’m guessing you’ll be here a while.”