Hey fanfic remember Sky Wolf...? Yeah, I used your review and made a story on that. Not exactly mine, just read the original in Chinese and made a parody off it.
Guys, don't worry about the Prologue...
That's not where the story starts...ok...maybe it does.
[Chapter 1]
'Join the Military they said,'
'It will be fun the said,' I muttered for the hundredth time as I checked the seal of the oxygen mask over my mouth, saluted the catapult officer on the deck to my Right and then placed my Gloved left hand on the Throttle of my F/A-18 Hornet.
And reluctantly fighting back my instincts wrapped my right hand around the 'Towel Rack' a metal handgrip high on the canopy in front of my head.
Any pilot's natural instinct when going airborne is to keep his hands on the controls of the aircraft, but carrier rules were different.
The carrier catapult would shove your body hard against the seat and there was a huge chance that If the person's hands were holding on to the stick there was a huge possibility that his hands would fly back with the high G-Forces and pull the stick back with him and pitch the airplane up, up and out of control….
So I had to hold on the towel rack while waiting to be shot like a stone from a slingshot.
To my Immediate right Major Jack "Gnasher" Carlo in his Super Hornet, callsign "Magic 2-1" sprang forward towards the bow ahead of the streaming catapult track and flame red engines. He was flying a second later and then banking towards the left, climbed into the beautiful clear skies.
And then I got moving.
No literally….Really moving.
My plane went from 0 to 165 miles per hour in two seconds along a 300 foot long track towards the end of the carrier. My helmet pressed into the headrest and my right hand gripping the towel rack pulled back, but I waited to feel the thump of my nose wheel popping up at the end of the deck.
As the thump came I was over the water, being hurled screaming from the deck with no control over my aircraft.
Quickly reaching for the stick I pulled my nose up slightly and banked gently to the left for a clearing run.
"This Fish is airborne." I said coolly into my inter flight comm radio letting Gnasher know I was in the air and flying.
The USS Ronald Regan had been patrolling the Taiwan Strait for 4 days along with several Taiwanese Gunships and because of this Chinese fighters began harassing Taiwanese fighters.
And we of course the JASDF…on constitution defying orders were forced to join in.
We were grouped together with the Americans who were there under the useless guise of "Being invited to make a Port call" and "Training the Japanese Pilots" and so I was forced to tag and be the wingman of Major Gnasher and had flown at least one sortie with him on each day.
Seriously I wanted to just grab a plane and run…..
But would be either gunned down or shot down even before I had reached an Angel.
My blood pressure was alright due to most of the flights being in the day, but….
It had spiked a few times from close encounters with Chinese fighters. We had been patrolling a sector just offshore of Taipei at the northern part of the Island.
ROC or Republic of China's F-16 flew the rest of the sorties along the rest of the Island and they like us, the ones from the Regan were careful not to cross into Chinese territory.
If only someone could teach topography to the Chinese….the Chinese seem to have no idea where their territory ended…
Oh wait, this whole conflict was because of the territory issue….
2 months ago the Chinese president announced that The South China Sea was their territory and will not tolerate any other country's Naval forces on their turf and began expanding their reach.
And they were pretty serious about it…
2 days ago we received reports of the Chinese landing their troops on many uninhabited islands and several inhabited ones as well and they had also attacked and sunk several Taiwanese gunships as well as clamping down and cutting off Vietnam's navy.
And some times in the past 4 days several PLAAF planes had taken off from their air bases in Fuzhou and headed towards the centerline. A dozen times their panes had actually got a locked on to several of the American, Taiwanese….or our planes.
These spikes were considered aggressive but even more aggressive were three cases where a flight of Chinese Z-5's actually flew over the centerline for a good 20 miles and then returned back.
Even when all of this was happening I still couldn't understand why we were forced to patrol along with the Americans.
Ah, yes it was because half of the squadron agreed to get "LIVE COMBAT EXPERIENCE"…
If you want to get shot down by an AARAM missile be my guest.
We were sent to our patrol areas by a naval flight officer relaxing his ass off in the Regan's Combat Information Center also known as CIVIC and received information from another controller sitting in the back of a E2-C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft patrolling far east of the strait and kept an eye on the region with their powerful radar and computers.
Once at station, we flew in a racetrack pattern at 20 angels over the water.
I moved my throttle loosely to stay in a combat formation with my flight lead and monitored my radar and listened to the Comms from the CIVIC and the Hawkeye.
'Relax' I reassured myself 'It will be another quiet day'. I looked around and admired the scenery.
There was nothing but some broken clouds below me but the rest was the clear blue sky. I could see bits of the Chinese mainland when we moved towards the north and could make out Tapei and some other cities on Taiwan anytime the clouds broke up a bit.
I had just turned south following Gnasher when the flight comms came up with a transmission from the Global Hawk.
"Contact bull's eye, Zero-four-zero, forty five miles, heading south-west, single group, two bogeys, south-east of Putian, heading Two-One-Zero, Appear to be heading towards the strait."
Gnasher's voice came over the headset, "Comming our way brother."
"Do you think we will end up in a fight?" I answered back because no matter what they, mainly Writers and politicians mostly, say I was actually nervous.
We had heard this kind of notifications over the past few days and nearly every time it was us, whose sector was infiltrated and then we raced towards them, they banked and raced back towards the centerline.
Not to mention it was quite frustrating.
Gnasher acknowledged the Global Hawk and then as we watched the radar, CIVIC came back on and informed us that two more bogey's were headed towards the sector just south of us.
That sector from what I remembered was patrolled by two ROC fighters who got their info from the Global Hawk as well.
"Magic-two-two, lets descend to 15 angels and move closer towards them in case they attempt an incursion," Gnashed said to me from the headset.
"Roger that," I followed him and then following his descend turned. I don't think that they will do anything other than what they had been doing for the past days.
But...
I also knew that he was experienced and wise enough to not be caught with his pants down if the Chinese decided to cross into the Taiwanese territory.
"Flight Magic, bogeys zero-Four-zero, climbing." CIVIC notified us.
A second the Global Hawk notified us that the bogeys in the south sector were following a similar flight path as well.
"Do you think this may be coordinated?" Gnasher asked me over the comms.
"Maybe, It's a bit different from what they've been doing…what do you think they're doing?" I replied and asked my own question while we were moving towards them.
"We're about to find out." Oh crap….that's a flag.
We pulled out of the descend and raced to intercept them. Even at this point I didn't think they would do anything else. That's when the CIVIC officer came back.
"Attention Flight magic, four more contacts taking off from Fuzhou, heading towards the strait"
Now…we have a problem….A BIG PROBLEM.
I've got 2 fighters heading towards us and 2 fighters threatening the sector just south of us and another four unknown fighters heading in behind the group just approaching us.
CIVIC replied that there were two flights of American and Japanese fighters finishing refueling and will be sending towards our sector just in case.
'Not that they will reach in time'
It would take them at least 9 minutes to reach this place at max speed.
"Fish, I've got the bogeys on radar do you tally?"
I clicked a button from among the three hundred and thirty switches in my cockpit which removed most of the display from my HUD and peered out into the clouds trying to find them.
"Negative." I replied but kept looking.
"Alright, let's fly at a twenty degree offset to show them we aren't threatening them."
"Roger that." I replied and tipped my plane so that our nose was no longer pointing towards them.
Within a few second I knew something was wrong and reported it.
"Bogey's are jinxing left and moving to intercept."
"Motherfuckers!" Gnasher replied back and I felt a bit of terror.
The two Chinese fighters were now pointing their noses towards the centerline and heading towards us. That meant they were pointing their weapons directly at our planes.
"Turn towards three-forty, let's pull away from them."
However now at 15,000 feet and twelve hundred miles an hour things were about to get serious….
Extremely….serious.
"Spike." reported Gnasher, meaning one of the bogey's had locked on to him.
I heard the spike warning for my plane a moment later.
"Spike, these guys aren't here for a Take out,"
Gnasher then spoke the next words with grave seriousness.
"Magic Two-Two master arm on."
"Roger that sir." I said and flipped my master arm on ensuring all of my plane's weaponry was now hot and an Air to Air missile was available for me to fire In case…
…Shit went down.
Global Hawk reported back that the ROC fighters had reported spike as well.
I looked around using the "Jay-Mikes" as the Americans call it, which is basically a visor enabling me to see the area around me. I spotted two black streaks heading in our direction from the direction of the centerline.
"Magic Two-Two, two bandits heading from our 2'o'clock."
Suddenly they turned away and headed away from us and Gnasher exclaimed.
"Looks like it's our lucky day." I just heaved an exhausted sigh.
"Flight Magic, Bogey's are turning back. Continue your patrol."
I wiped off a nonexistent sweat off my face…oh well…Looks like I live another day.
The two planes continued their patrol when suddenly something suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of them.
The Object looked like a Man-made cigar, it was a hundred meters long and had a shiny metallic luster to it with small blue lines running along the side of the object.
Normally they would look at it in awe, however right now they were about the crash into the thing at twelve hundred miles per hour.
"What the fuck…? Evade!" Gnasher yelled before yanking his stick send sending his plane away from the strange object. However Hachiman was less lucky.
At the moment of collision, Hachiman felt that time had stopped. The movement of his plane and the object became very slow.
He then noticed that his Hornet never actually touched the plane, but rather began to break apart a few meters away from it.
He looked on as the nose of the plane collided and then began to bend from Impact. It was like an egg was thrown against a rock. The nose collapsed and then it was the windshield.
He saw the bulletproof glass smash into countless pieces of diamonds. He saw the stick pierce into his abdomen and the dashboard twist into strange shapes. Falling forward the countless pieces of glass cut at his harness and rubber tubes and then at his body. He could see blood seep out from the wounds imposed on your body.
He couldn't feel anything as he saw the cold steel tearing through his body and the cockpit collapsing on him. The surroundings slowly darkened turning into a blur and then he sank into darkness.
The airmen abroad the Global Hawk and the Regan were shocked when suddenly one of the two signals from Flight Magic disappeared.
"MAGIC 2-2 IS DOWN! I REPEAT MAGIC 2-2 IS DOWN!"
Before the airmen could come to a decision the Global Hawk operator suddenly barged in.
"WARNING! ENEMY FIGHTERS ARE TURNING BACK! I REPEAT ENEMY FIGHTERS ARE TURNING BACK!"
"MAGIC 2-1. INTERCEPT THE ENEMY. WE ARE SENDING YOU IMMEDIATE REINFORCEMENTS. YOU MUST DELAY THEM!" The Air boss yelled before the control room turned into chaos.
[A Week Later]
"Today the JSDF released an official statement over the death of JASDF pilot Hikigaya Hachiman who was killed in mysterious circumstances. However most experts believe that this is just an attempt to justify their operations and push Japan into a War. "
"The F/A-18 Hornet pilot who along with several other pilots were undergoing joint training sessions with the American Pilots abroad the USS Ronald Regan when during a routinely patrol mission after encountering a Chinese Patrol group was shot down mysteriously. Both the Americans and JASDF have confirmed that he was not in combat at that time but was returning back from Patrol,"
"Though some experts believe that it could have been a machine malfunction that lead to his death, most military officials believes, the Chinese attack immediately after his plane exploding was too much of a coincidence."
"His death turned the already volatile situation in the South China Sea into absolute mayhem with the Air forces of China, Vietnam, ROC, India and America engaging in sorties all over the South China seas and Eastern Asian Mainland."
"US President Donald Trump, brutally slammed Chinese Emperor Xi Jinping and called for worldwide sanctions against China following the recent skirmishes. He has also threatened military action against both China and its Ally North Korea if the situation in the South China seas continues."
"Meanwhile, the JASDF also released the statement that both the plane and the pilot's body were lost at sea and offered their condolences to the pilot's family. Hikigaya Hachiman is survived by his parents and his younger sister."
"In other news, due to the…"
Officially the search had ended but in reality, the plane had been recovered…
But what puzzled the experts was that the pilot's body was missing from the plane. And no matter how much effort they put into thinking of a suitable reason they could not come up with a way to explain it.
In the end, the case was abandoned altogether and the wreckage was put away for cold storage.
And so ended the story of Hikigaya hachiman.
….or did it…?
Well…did say there was nothing to see….
Onto the next chapter….