"Delusions"

Author: Haruo Chikamori

E-mail: hhchikamori

Rating: M

Classification:

Spoilers: N/A

Summary: Harm goes Ace in the air… or is it just his imagination?

DISCLAIMER: The characters Harm Rabb, Jr., Sarah "Mac" Mackenzie, Meg Austin, AJ Chegwidden, Bud Roberts, Harriet Sims-Roberts et al. belong (in concept if not name) to CBS/Bellisarius. Animal and all OC characters are the property of Heather and Hugo Chikamori. No profit is being made from this story, nor is any infringement intended.

Raptor 117, Somewhere over Serbia

"Skates. Bogey Dope." Hammer grinned as he checked the rear views on his canopy rail. In the reflection, he could see the wide grin of his RIO, Lieutenant Beth Hawkes in the back seat of his F-14B+ Tomcat.

"Hammer, the Serbs seem to be all excited." The tracer fire was so thick you could practically walk on it, but surprisingly none of it seemed to come anywhere close to his F-14. "But I don't see any playmates."

"Well, let me know if you see anybody wanting to play." Harm said as he checked his gauges for the umpteenth time.

"Will do, Hammer"…Skates said just before she saw her radar explode into several clusters of dots. "Holy shit… Hammer, we got company!"

"Hey…Gramps. I'm back…" Harm's eyes bugged out as he saw X-Man in an F-14B just beside him.

"Didn't FNAEB ground your ass?" Harm exploded. Lieutenant Buxton was a menace in the air.

"Well, Grampa…FNAEB ungrounded my ass…so I'm back in the air again. And looks like you need my help…" Buxton pointed out the Serb MiG 21s and 29s that were in the air. There looked to be about one hundred and seventy of them in the air. The Yugoslav air force didn't have that many in their inventory. Something wasn't right.

But all that went out the window as the MiGs engaged the F-14s. It was a nasty hornet's nest of fighters going every which way. "SHIT!" Harm said as a MiG 29 passed within six feet of his canopy. "I can't get the angle on him."

"Hammer. We got one on our six."

Yanking his stick left, he broke missile lock. Rolling inverted he pulled back on the stick, sending the F-14 into a dive. Just as quickly as another MiG flashed into his HUD, he pulled the trigger sending 300 rounds down range impacting the MiG 21 which promptly exploded in a gout of flame worthy of the Death Star explosion.

"Yes!" Skates crowed as she saw the MiG 21 explode. "That's one kill.

Harm instantly tracked another MiG that was going after Buxton – the little bastard was a pain-in-the-ass, but he really didn't want Buxton to get killed. So he launched a Sparrow at the MiG…and surprisingly the damned finicky thing tracked true…making the MiG turn into spare parts, cartwheeling through the air. "You ow me Buxton!" Harm said.

"Tell that to me afterwards, Grandpa…I got three…" Damn the SOB was annoying.

Harm found kill number three trying to get the angle on his own F-14 Tomcat. That MiG got his ass handed to him via a Sidewinder shot, which caused the MiG's engines to explode, sending him into a cliff wall. Harm thought to himself. That was convenient, but how the hell did that cliff get there? Narrowly missing the cliff there, he yanked back on the stick going vertical…just as Fulcrum this time ended up in his sights. Clamping down on the gun trigger, he sent another 350 shots up towards the MiG 29 before his guns jammed. "Shit, Skates. My guns jammed, I'm missiles-only now." He growled as he saw the rounds impact the Fulcrum and sent it down, gouts of flame erupting from the damaged engines.

"That's Kill number 4." Skates said. "One more… Harm and you're going to be an ace…"

Harm thought to himself. "An ace, huh… that'll show Animal. First ace since the Viet Nam war, that's gonna be me…"

And he got kill number five as a MiG 21 presented a side aspect shot for his second Sidewinder shot. "I've only got 3 more Sparrows." Owing to the irregular reliability of the Sparrow he opted to make sure that he was in optimal range for the missile to perform perfectly.

"Let's volley these and get the hell out of dodge…" Harm said to Buxton who had barely managed to survive his encounter with a several MiGs.

"You do what you have to, old man." Buxton replied.

Harm locked up three MiGs on the AWG-9 radar and launched all three Sparrows. Three distant kills marked kills six, seven and eight. Damn, now he had a jammed cannon, and no missiles. He needed to get the hell out of there. "Skates…hang on tight…we gotta get the hell out of here…going buster." Jamming the throttles to full, he aimed the F-14B towards feet wet.

"99 Aircraft…99 aircraft…NOW HEAR THIS… we have a missile launch from a Russian ballistic missile submarine. Now hear this…confirmed missile launch from a Russian sub. The missile is targeted on Dubrovnik." Skates' eyes grew wide. That was the direction they were going to go feet-wet.

"Hammer!" her voice was panicked.

"We'll be able to make it…" Harm said. "We're approaching feet we-"…A brilliant flash in their face, as they slammed down their visors, temporarily blinded them. "Oh. Crap…our engines flamed out…" Hammer said.

"Plane's coupling up!" Skates said.

"Eject, eject eject!" Hammer yelled out… "Punch us out! Skates!"

"We're going to eject into a nuclear burst?" Skates yelled back incredulously. "We'd be better off riding this thing into the ground. We're dead anyways."

Hammer nodded soberly as they waited for the impact that would kill the both of them. Closing his eyes he waited for the impact.

The resultant jolt was not an explosion. Harm opened his eyes. Meg was looking back at him with a look of concern. "Harm, you hit your head on the ground when you fell out of bed. Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I think so… Man…that was a dream?" Harm had a silly grin on his face. "I gotta call Animal…"

Picking up the phone over Meg's protests that it was three o'clock in the morning, he dialed Animal's phone number.

"What the hell? Rabb…You know what goddamned time in the morning this is?"

"Yeah, 3AM…"

"So what the hell are you calling me for?"

"I'm an ace!"

"You're what?" Animal sounded incredulous.

"I'm an ace… I got five kills over Bosnia…" he grinned while Meg rolled her eyes. Her husband must have hit his head harder than she thought.

"Yeah?…Rabb?" Animal's response was less than enthused. "…and I'm the Easter Bunny."

"That dogfight was amazing…MiGs everywhere. I've got eight kills now…four more than you…"

"Yeah…right…Rabb…in your dreams! Good night…" Harm was left looking at a dead phone with a dial-tone buzzing in the receiver.

***THE END***

Steamboat: It's amazing what fantasies the human brain can conjure up when sustaining a cracked skull! Just how many times have you been knocked in the noggin? Lol! I enjoyed your story and admire your imagination! Thanks for sharing both of them with us!

Author Response: Quite a few times, actually. :D Thanks for the review.