August 30, 2018
International Space Elevator 'Lighthouse', Gunther Bay, Usea, International Territory Disputed by the Kingdom of Erusea, 1000 hours
It was a gusty, rainy morning over Gunther Bay, but that did not mean that the peacekeeping forces under the Osean Federation and International Union of Nations could slack off. Despite the mutual security and economic agreement signed between Osea and nations led by the Federation of Central Usea, a growing group of nations in Usea, led by the Kingdom of Erusea, vigorously opposed Osea's presence and development of the space elevator in disputed Erusean territory. While the Erusian Air and Space Administration did contribute technology to the international economic development surrounding the elevator, the goodwill gesture withered as soon as it became clear that Osea would be the elevator's main benefactor. It also did not help that Osea and the FCU were providing military forces to guard the elevator under the IUN aegis. The increased activity of the Osean military on the continent, especially in Erusean territory, stirred up the once-dormant Erusean/Usean nationalist movement within the country. Once again, the FCU and Erusea were at odds, dragging the entire continent into the dispute over Osea and the elevator. The old animosities the entire continent once held against Erusea during the Usean Continental war was replaced with even more polarized divisions, as many countries in Northern Usea sided with Erusea, while Sourthern Usea and North Point aligned themselves with the FCU, and Osea by extension. Seeking to bring further pressure against its rivals, Erusea began to seek political sympathy in its traditional allies overseas, Belka and Estovakia among others. As the world was reaching a breaking point over the Lighthouse, the IUN stepped up its peacekeeping and de-escalation efforts on both sides, to uncertain effect.
FCU Air Force pilot, Titan 2, callsign 'Titanic' was flying over Gunther bay in a four-wing formation of F-15X Super Eagles, patrolling the airspace around the incomplete Lighthouse. Looking out of her canopy, squadrons from other allied nations were out on patrol, alongside the much larger OADF squadrons and the OMDF naval fleet below. It was akin to a carnival of aircraft and warships. There was great hope that the solar power provided by the space elevator would bring the Usean continent and the whole world into a new era of prosperity and space development. However, because of anti-Osean hardliners in Erusea, and their renewed militarism aimed at uniting the continent against Osea, what was considered a joyous beacon of the future has become a rallying point for both anti-Osean and anti-Erusean sentiments. Then there was the new controversy of the Osean military preparing to deploy gigantic Arsenal Birds loaded with combat drones to the Lighthouse, which could either deter Erusian military aggression, or further inflame the militarists in Erusea to do something drastic. Neither scenario sounded appealing to the female pilot.
"Titan Squadron report in," the female voice of AWACS Unity chimed in.
"Titan 1, roger."
"Titan 2, roger," Titanic replied.
"Titan 3, reporting."
"Titan 4, present."
"Titan 1 here," Titanic's flight lead said, "our sector is clear, no unusual activity to report."
"Roger," AWACS Unity acknowledged, "your patrol flight is over. Mobius Squadron will relieve you. You are clear to return to base."
"Wilco," Titan 1 finished. Then he said to his flight, "alright Titans, let's bring it on home."
"About time," Titanic sighed, "my fighter is just about drenched, and I just had it painted."
"Don't worry 2," Titan 3 gruffed cheekily, "I say that we hit the bar in town and have some fun!"
"Yeah," Titan 4 cheered, "and maybe we can show those Osean newbies how we natives party around here, especially on our princess' birthday!"
Titanic smiled at that. "Sounds like a plan!"
"Happy birthday, Titan 2," Titan 1 cheered.
However, the happiness bubble burst when AWACS Unity rang on the radio, "Warning, warning. Radar is picking up an unknown within the air defense perimeter at Mach 1.8, altitude 6000 feet, bearing 40, 20 miles southwest of the Lighthouse and closing. Titan Squadron, change course to 206 and intercept."
Titanic had to groan at that. It had to happen just when they were about to return. "Now someone shows up."
"Cut the chatter 2," Titan 1 said, "roger Unity, moving to intercept. All wings, follow me." With that Titan 1 turned around. Titanic and the others begrudgingly turned with him, with throttles to the afterburner.
"I see the bogey on radar," Titanic said, "it's pretty faint on my screen though. Most likely a drone or stealth aircraft."
"AWACS," Titan 3 said, "a little ESM would be nice."
"ESM is active," Unity confirmed, "you should be able to see the aircraft on radar." True enough, the screen light up a bit more on Titanic's radar. The dot was still faint, but it was now enough for the label 'Unknown' to show up. There was still no IFF return from the bogey.
"There he is," Titanic said, "he's still on bearing 40 for the Lighthouse."
"We're two mikes from the target," Titan 1 said, "prepare for contact."
"Roger," Titanic acknowledged. She decided to do a weapons check. Her F-15X was equipped with its usual 20mm gun and 960 rounds, four AIM-9X Sidewinders, eight AIM-120 AMRAAMs, and two new laser gun pods. Seeing her weapons check out, Titanic refocused on closing in.
However, the screen suddenly went blank, as the unknown disappeared from radar. Titanic was flabbergasted. She looked up and around, and back to make sure that she was not making mistakes. However, there was still nothing on radar.
"Unity, where is he?" Titanic asked, now a little freaked out.
"Trying to track him," Unity replied, "but the ionization from the rainstorm and cloud cover are interfering with our radar. Standby."
"Standby?" Titan 3 was incredulous, "how are we supposed to track the bogey like this?"
"Stay sharp," Titan Leader warned, "it's likely he's using the clouds for cover!"
Titanic anxiously scanned the skies above. "Lead?"
"Don't worry, he won't get a jump on us," Titan 1 reassured, "raise altitude to 6,100. We'll get the bead on him."
The Titan aircraft began to climb. However, just as soon as they were going to touch the clouds, a pair of laser beams flashed out in front of Titan 1's F-15.
"Titan 1, evade!" Titanic yelled. It was too late, though, as the beams bisected the F-15 in two. The Titans watched in horror as their lead plane exploded.
"Titan 1!" Titanic screamed out.
"Titan 1 is down!" Titan 3 exclaimed, "does anyone see a chute?"
"I don't know, it was so sudden!" Titan 4 was shaken up.
"Spread out!" Titanic ordered. The planes broke formation into evasive maneuvers. "Unity, the bogey's fired on us," Titanic reported, "Bogey is hostile! Permission to engage!"
"Permission granted," Unity answered, "engage the bandit."
"Wilco, Unity! Stay on watch up there!" Titanic said as she armed her weapons. It was then that the missile alert went off. Seeing the missile streak in front of her plane, Titanic executed a barrel roll dive and ejected chaff and flare. The missile thankfully missed. However, Titan 3 was not too lucky as another missile came out of the clouds at a closer distance. Not having time to react, the missile impacted the top of his F-15, causing it to go up in flames.
"Titan 3's been shot down!" Titan 4 exclaimed.
"Unity!" Titanic yelled.
"I've got him... oh no... he's diving towards you, Titan 4! Get out of there!" True enough, the bogey emerged from the clouds, diving towards 4's F-15.
"Help me!" Titan 4 screamed as he gunned the engines, desperate to get away. Turning towards Titan 4, Titanic got a good look at the attacker. It was a white and grey X-02 Wyvern, with what appeared to be two TLS pods, and two stealth missile carrier pods on its inner wings. He was darting for her vulnerable wingman.
"Oh no you don't!" Titanic yelled as she turned to get behind the bandit. Titan 4 was turning quick to try and shake off the X-02, but given its swept-back wing design and thrust vectoring, his moves were being matched and overmatched at every turn. Titanic grit her teeth as she tried to keep up. This enemy pilot was playing with them. "Enough!" She switched to her gun and lined up the sight on the Wyvern.
As if it sensed her, though, the Wyvern aggressively pointed its nose up in a Pugachev's Cobra, showing off its white and grey digital camo, and the white roundel. Time slowed for Titanic, as she recognized the seven-star pentagon of the Federal Erusian Air Force. Not having time to react, her F-15X slowly overshot the Wyvern in her eyes. As if it was not bad enough, she caught a glimpse of an emblem on the plane's rear stabilizer, and her blood froze at the sight.
It was a winged angel emblem, with a sword running diagonally through it.
Time returned to normal for Titanic as she overshot, but now the Erusian was resuming normal speed, and now coming after her. The enemy plane unlocked its AAM bay door, and locked onto her. She yelled as she did a tight turn to break the lock. The Erusian fired an AIM-9X, which narrowly missed her, and went straight for Titan 4. She caught a glimpse of Titan 4's engines exploding from impact, giving the Erusian his third kill of the day.
"Darn it all!" Titanic was now mad. Now thoughts were swimming through her head about seeing her entire squadron downed, not to mention that the Erusian pilot had to insult an old friend's memory by stealing that angel emblem. Now she gunned her F-15 to Mach 2 to try and gain some distance from the highly-agile Wyvern, seeing that a turning fight was a no-win game. She felt herself pushed back into the ejection seat as she went supersonic. In her rear-view mirror, she could see the Wyvern folding its stabilizers and wings as he also sped up, chasing after her.
The two aircraft streaked across the sky, with the Wyvern trying to shoot down the Super Eagle. Titanic felt the cockpit shake as she worked to turn the aircraft. 25mm tracers streaked past her, and she did a zig-zag to avoid the Wyvern's fire. She had to fly even more erratically than usual, as the Wyvern could still turn more easily than the Eagle. She climbed, then dove, then banked, and so forth about a dozen times per five seconds, trying to shake the Wyvern off her tail.
"Gotta lose him in the clouds!" Titanic pulled the stick towards her as she ascended rapidly, with the Wyvern following her. She entered into the thick clouds, with a lot of rain splattering on the canopy, and the aircraft shaking violently. The HUD was still alerting her to the radar spike from the Erusian fighter, who was tracking her even when both had a difficult time seeing. It was then that Titanic could see flashes of lightning ahead. She knew she was crazy, but had no alternative. Hoping that her lightning protection would hold up, she gunned the afterburners towards the lightning. Soon enough she was weaving through the lightning, praying to God that she would not be struck. In the mirror, she could see an outline of the X-02 trailing her. Then it so happened that a bolt struck the Wyvern, causing the aircraft to wobble. Seeing her chance, Titanic broke hard, letting the enemy overshoot, banked left and sped out of the storm. Figuring that she lost him temporarily with that disruption, Titanic raised altitude to the point that she was above the clouds in a clear blue sky.
"Titan 2," Unity said, "I've alerted our allies, and Mobius Squadron is scrambling. It will take eight minutes for them to arrive. I'll provide you ESM for your radar and missiles."
"Tell them to hurry the heck up, Unity!" Titanic said as she could see the dreaded 'Switchblade' aircraft pop the cloud cover. She banked hard towards him to try and get a lock onto him. Remembering a proven tactic, she armed one of the AMRAAMs and a Sidewinder. Getting a positive tone, she fired the AMRAAM and Sidewinder consecutively. "Chew on that, Erusian!"
The Erusian aircraft twisted aggressively as it dispensed its flares, throwing the Sidewinder off. The AMRAAM streaked towards him, seemingly poised to hit. "Gotcha!"
However, the ace pilot seemed to predict it and turned the aircraft on its tail. He shut off the engines temporarily and fell nose first into the clouds, causing the AMRAAM to miss. "Dang, I missed!" Titanic was in disbelief.
Not to give her a break, the Wyvern then shot its twin TLS out of the clouds. Titanic had to roll to narrowly avoid the blue beams of death. She banked and twisted hard as the X-02 pursued her with lasers blazing.
"So this is how its going to end?" Titanic yelled over the radio, hoping the Erusian would hear her defiance, "I hope you enjoy sullying my friend's good name being a cheap knock-off ace!"
"Sorry, Titanic," a familiar voice unexpectedly chimed over the radio, "but I doubt you can exactly call me a cheap knock-off." Titanic's eyes widened in shock.
It was the friendly, confident voice of her friend and flight instructor, ISAF and Mobius Squadron veteran, Seraph.
"Seraph!?" She exclaimed as it all made sense. The anticipation of her moves, those tight turns, and that angel emblem... all could only belong to Seraph. Her former instructor and flight leader from flight training, a hero of the Usean Continental War for ISAF alongside the Mobius Squadron founder, was now fighting her with Erusian roundels on his wings.
"Only you would be crazy enough to fly your Eagle through a lightning storm like that," Seraph remarked, " and you certainly got that missile technique down." He followed up with a burst of gunfire, near enough to cause Titanic to flinch. "Happy birthday, Titanic."
She continued to maneuver, but was in disbelief of fighting her mentor from Delarus. "Why, Seraph!? Why are you fighting for Erusea!?"
"Why?" Seraph repeated as Titanic banked hard right across the cloudscape. He turned his Wyvern towards the fleeing F-15. "I trusted your country to lead our people into a new era of freedom and peace, to liberate my country from the military regime Erusea was imposing on us."
"Yet, you fight for the very people who occupied your country!" Titanic yelled as she used her helmet-mounted sight and the ESM from Unity to lock onto Seraph and fire another Sidewinder. She banked hard left, but Seraph did a tighter turn, which caused the missile to miss. Titanic barely avoided getting strafed by the Wyvern's lasers.
"Times have changed, Titanic," Seraph explained, "Erusea had changed, and was about to join ISAF in hopes of a united and strong Usea able to stand on equal footing with Osea and Yuktobania. Your president sold out when he signed that accursed treaty with Osea and Yuktobania in order to get his Lighthouse built, bringing more of Osea's troops and other foreigners to our continent. He corrupted ISAF with his double-dealings and cowardice." He continued to pursue Titanic with the blue TLS firing. "Delarus and I found that the Erusean Royal Family wanted the same thing, and had Usea's true best interests at heart, and so we did what we had to do. That Lighthouse belongs to Usea!"
"Well, I hope forsaking your Mobius strip was worth it, Seraph," Titanic was solemn and defiant, "and to think you were once a proud Raptor pilot!" When the Wyvern got close enough to shoot her with its gun, she broke hard and rolled across the top of her pursuer.
"Sheesh!" Seraph grunted as Titanic unleashed rapid-fire laser bolts on his tail. Now it was Seraph's turn to be chased by Titanic, who was shooting her gun and lasers at him, while trying to lock on with missiles. Seraph was a little surprised to seeing how easily Titanic's F-15X was spiking him with radar. It was then that he caught a flash in the high atmosphere. His helmet sensor zoomed in on the object, and he grinned, seeing that it was an Osean E-3 Sentry with some sort of enhanced radome and enlarged engines.
"Looks like I found your team flag, Titanic," Seraph joked as he gunned his afterburners towards the AWACS. Seeing that he was going for Unity, Titanic raced after him in desperate pursuit.
"Time to say goodbye to your extra eyes," Seraph mocked as he opened a weapons bay for his extreme long range AAM.
"Unity!" Titanic warned, "he's locked onto you!" True enough, Seraph's Wyvern fired its hypersonic missile, which rapidly ascended towards AWACS Unity.
"Activating ECM!" Unity said as her aircraft banked with flares spewing out. However, the disruption was barely fazing the missile, which detonated above the aircraft, not destroying it, but peppering the fuselage and radome with shrapnel. "We're hit, we're hit!"
"Seraph!" Titanic unleashed another AMRAAM, but Seraph did a backflip and sped down past the missile and Titanic. The F-15 pilot was temporarily more concerned with Unity's Sentry, though. "Unity, damage report."
"We're still flying, but the radome's out, and we've got an electrical fire onboard," Unity said, "we'll have to drop down to maintain cabin pressure. Be careful Titan 2!"
"Roger that," Titanic said as she backflipped and accelerated in pursuit of Seraph. Seraph's aircraft was fast, but with her engines and gravity working together she was gaining on him. She switched to her Sidewinder, ready to arm it at the precise moment to ensure a hit.
"You think you're still the hero?" Titanic muttered as she closed in, "well, it's time to flip that script!"
Unfortunately, Seraph planned for Titanic to lock onto him. As soon as she did, he sharply raised his nose and allowed for her to overshoot him. Using his off bore sight, now that Unity's interference was gone, he kept the lock on the Super Eagle and fired another missile.
"Jinx!" Titanic exclaimed as she used flares, this time, though the missile detonated on one of the flares too close to her. She felt her plane shake violently from battle damage. Her aircraft went into a free fall through the rain and clouds. She struggled to regain control of the fly-by-wire as she plunged towards the earth. Just as she regained control below the clouds, Seraph's X-02 came out of the clouds and began firing his gun. The smoking F-15X banked right as Titanic tried to still evade in her damaged aircraft.
"If only you had joined us, Titanic..." Seraph thought aloud. However, his panel began to flash red. His HUD warning also flashed about 'Low Fuel'. Then his radar picked up enemy planes coming to assist Titanic. Looking in the distance, he could see the F-18F Super Hornets, with the Mobius insignias on their tails. He sighed a little in nostalgia for his old squadron. "I'll give it to you, Titanic," he admitted, you've done it when no one else could do it." He then moved away from Titanic's aircraft, and changed his bearing to where his aircraft carrier awaited his return.
"You're wounded, but you've outlasted my attack Titanic," Seraph called back, "consider that a victory and my birthday gift to you. Fly home and tell your squadron about it." At that, he went Mach 2.5, leaving the battle zone and disappearing into the clouds and off radar.
Seeing that Seraph was gone, Titanic raised her F-15's altitude and put it on cruise control. While she was still in flyable condition, the missile that hit her still damaged quite a few things, such as her fire control system. The fly-by-wire was responsive, but the aircraft felt sticky to move. "Seraph..." She murmured as she flew towards the Mobius planes coming to her rescue. Eventually, the Osean fleet also found her squad mates in the water. They were wet, but thankfully alive. Titanic had to admit that it was one crazy birthday.
The FCU was naturally unhappy about the allegations that an Erusian fighter aircraft had attacked one of their squadrons, and the Oseans were steamed that their experimental AWACS had hundreds of millions of zollars of damage. However, because the X-02's missiles had somehow damaged and corrupted the surviving aircrafts' flight recorders, and the Erusian government could easily deny involvement, the IUN was forced to drop pursuing the case against that country. However, because of this incident, it became clear that the Arsenal Birds were much needed, lest the Erusians do a repeat of the August 30 Incident.
Happy Birthday to Titanic X, and go Ace Combat 7!
Starring:
-Titanic X as the IUN/FCU pilot, Titanic. (Aircraft: F-15X Super Eagle)
-MWSeraph as the Erusian/former ISAF ace, Seraph. (Aircraft: F-22A Raptor (former), X-02 Wyvern)
Note: Ace Combat 7, its plot, and the X-02 Wyvern are owned by Namco Bandai.
F-15X Super Eagle, F-18F Super Hornet, and E-3 Sentry are properties of Boeing.
Trivia: Titanic cites that Seraph once flew the F-22 Raptor, which is the signature aircraft of Mobius 1 and the Squadron. The X-02 Wyvern Seraph flies is often depicted in fandom as being used by Mobius One, but official sources have not confirmed it.