AN: first chapter, let's do this right
disclaimer: yeah ok. Ace Combat is property of Project Aces and Bandai Namco Entertainment, Inc; Voltron: Legendary Defender is property of DreamWorks Animation, WEP, and Studio Mir. The author owns none of these companies.
Mutenbe Air Base, Islamic Republic of Sotoa
250km WNW of the Western South Sotoa/Sotoa/Central Sotoa Tripoint
June 21, 2041
11:30 AM Local Time
A motley crew of pilots stood clustered around an oil drum-turned-table in the shade of a corrugated metal hangar, water and cards in hand - they were launching soon and ethanol + pilot seat = bad day. A diminutive Belkan, a svelte Sapinic, and a heavyset Perfanesian, all in UPEO flightsuits - only the flag patches on their shoulders identifying their nationalities as Belkan, Osean, and Perfanesian respectively. Their names were 2nd Lt Patrick 'Pidge' Gunderson, 2nd Lt Tsuyoshi 'Hunk' Garrett, and 1st Lt Lance 'Tailor' Piquero Bellmonte.
Their chests bore the sigil of their squadron - a black gullwinged plane with a shark mouth and a horse's bridle, being rode by a bearded man in a blue pirate costume - 9th UPEO Air Division 10th Tactical Fighter Squadron, Corsair. Or they would have, had any of them been wearing their flight suits properly - the Belkan had unzipped theirs and let its upper parts hang limply on their arms, though the Osean and Perfanesian had simply unzipped theirs to let air flow around their torsae.
Their planes sat ready in their hangar, waiting for the signal to launch. With the COFFIN systems installed, they almost looked like drones - but no, these three planes were all piloted aircraft. The miracle of COFFIN removed the need for glass cockpits. Sitting nearest to them was Hunk's equally hunky aircraft - a Neucom R-302D Fregata. Big delta wings, heavy armor, and four massive engines made the large attacker unmistakeable, and tan-green-and-turquoise 'coastal' camouflage set it apart from other Fregatas. Sure, the Fregata was old, and early models had their teething issues, but the D variant had fixed most of them, and it was still better than the newer R-201 Asterozoa.
Next to it, Lance's R-101 Delphinus. Organic lines to go with its laminar flow control technology granting it incredible maneuverability, it looked quite spindly all things considered, with a strange spade-shaped tail and rectangular vertical stabilizer. Furthering its oddness was that unlike Hunk or Pidge's aircraft, Lance made no attempt to provide his plane with camouflage - the trailing edge and most of the forward fuselage was a cheery Neucom blue, with the rest of the plane being a bluish-white.
Pidge's was the most practically-colored, and the newest. An EF-35E Howler, apart from the glassless cockpit and large hump on the back to store the electronic warfare equipment, it looked like a pretty standard F-35B. Green and tan jungle camo covered the top and sides, with a pale blue-grey underbelly and a bright white stripe down the back separating it from the regular camouflaged sorts.
The game was hold'em, and the trio played with cheap plastic chips. Well, 'played' would be a rather grandiose and sugar-coated term for 'Pidge and Hunk were neck and neck while simultaneously crushing Lance out of existence'. Hunk was in the lead, but that had changed four times in the past fifteen minutes and would change again - Lance was dealing and Pidge's cool was about to break.
Lance's patience with the heart of the cards was just about at its limit, as evidenced by his emotional (nervous) face compared to Hunk and Pidge, who could have been mistaken for statues.
"Screw it. Fold." said the Lance.
"Ha," said the Pidge, their stony face breaking for the first time in twenty-five minutes. "Straight flush. Pony up, bitches."
"Three of a kind," mumbled Hunk halfheartedly, tossing his cards on top of the pot, which Pidge slid into their own growing pile.
"You're all lucky this isn't a serious game 'cause we're on QRA," added a grim-looking Lance.
"Whaaaat?" asked Pidge in mock incredulity that dripped from their words like grease from a cut-open stick of deep fried butter. "Are you saying that, were we not on high alert, you would actually stand a chance against I, Pidge and He, Hunk? Preposterous! Were we not on high alert, I, Pidge, would flatten you both."
"Yeah, well-"
Lance's retort, which would have no doubt been eloquent and precise, was interrupted by the whining roar of an approaching jet. The squat form of an RQ-170 drone, decked out in jungle camouflage, made its presence known. It rolled to a stop just a few meters past the hangar.
At the same time, a man burst in from the door at the back of the hangar, panting and sweating like he'd attempted to run a marathon in the sweltering heat. Three pairs of eyes turned to face him.
"Get to your planes - the drone got spotted on the way back!"
Three pilots swore in three different languages and ran for their three planes.
"We probably don't have more than thirty minutes before the rebels get their planes in the air!"
"All right people, let's go, go, go! I want you all up in the air in 5," commanded Lance as he practically flew into his cockpit. Sliding on his helmet, he plugged in the cables to the back of his helmet and tensed slightly as the aircraft faded away and began to communicate with his neurons. It was an odd feeling, but after the first few times using COFFIN, you got used to it. Some even grew to like it.
«Tower, who's our AWACS?»
Pidge. A typical question - UPEO could provide a lot, but for smaller squadrons like Paladin, where pilots practically had to pay for everything out of pocket - thank God oil was cheap and planes were discounted for UPEO - it generally didn't provide airborne early warning craft. Or if it did, it liked to shuffle them around for various reasons. Paladin was one of the latter, which was a good thing as airborne early warning craft were expensive, as were the crew required to fly 'em.
«Some Nordennaviker Captain, name of Sven Holgersson. I think his callsign was Regulus. He's taking off from runway 2.»
«Tell him to launch as soon as the three of us are airborne,» said Lance as he looked behind him - one of the advantages of COFFIN, the cockpit didn't block your vision.
«We'll wait for him, but tell him we won't wait long.»
«I'll pass it along.»
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Near Nyaroiba Air Base, Islamic Republic of Sotoa
June 21, 2041
11:56 AM Local Time
15,000 Feet Above Ground Level
It was a beautiful sight.
The Yare River cut through the level terrain in a gentle east-west arc, an inky blue-black parenthesis in a sea of greens and tans on an eleven hundred mile journey to the Eusean Ocean to the west. A vast wetland spreads out in the cradle of the arc, tens of kilometers wide in places and hundreds of kilometers in others further to the west. To the north, the wetland faded to the greens and browns of the Zahel grasslands, here dotted with trees and shrubs. To the south, the green of the wetlands expanded and grew to a shag carpet of trees.
It was so beautiful, it was almost a shame that they were here to blow it up.
Interrupting the carpet was a two-lane highway, heading east to edge a pentagonal bit of raised land on the edge of the river, just large enough to fit an airfield with three landing strips - two parallel and one perpendicular, six hangars, and a couple buildings. Beyond it, some twenty miles away, was the city of sixty thousand it was named after - Nyaroiba, located on a small rocky hill that provided a commanding view of the river.
«To all UPEO aircraft - this is AWACS Regulus. Range to Nyaroiba Base: 50 miles. Corsair Squadron, attack formation, you may fire when ready.»
«So Regulus, said the Hunk with a bit more than usual curiosity in his voice.«What's on the menu this fine day?»
«Let's see… just like the drone's report said. Four SA-15 Gauntlets, four SA-19 Grisons, and two SA-22 Greyhounds. According to our intel, there should be eight MiG-35Ds on base and two in the air, with eight Bears and four Y-20s.»
«Pidge to Regulus, don't you mean MiG-35K?»
«Negative. Those are glass cockpit MiGs, I can tell from the radar.»
«...well I'll be damned. They are glassheads!»
Lance mapped out the situation in his head. If he were a betting man, he'd say the newer Greyhounds with their superior missile range would be nearest the base, with the Grisons at the near edge of the land space used by the base - their range was meager but they could still do some damage, and they would do their best damage well within their range. The Gauntlets' range was between that of the Greyhound and Grison (12 km vs 20 and 8, respectively) so they would form the middle 'ring', with one at either end of the parallel airstrips.
The MiGs would normally be trouble, but if they were still using glass cockpits they had to be some thirty years back in technology at the minimum.
Yeah. They could do this. They could easily do this.
«All right! Let's do this. Hunk - you take out those Greyhounds before anything else, we don't need a safety ceiling that high. Pidge, once we get in firing range you turn on your jamming and you keep it on. Try and take everything out before they get in the air, but if they do, don't worry, we've all got air-to-air. I'll keep the fighters off your back.»
«Understood.»
«Jawohl! Regulus, who's our backup?»
«Belkan Air Force Gabel squadron, four F-16XF Gyrfalcons. ETA in ten minutes.»
We'll handle things until then, I suppose.»
«All right. We all know the plan. To all UPEO aircraft, this is Corsair Actual, callsign Tailor. Engage! Weapons free!»
«Corsair Two, Engaging!»
«Corsair Three, Engaging!»
The three planes all surged forward in tight formation before breaking away from each other - Lance's R-101 towards the fighters, Pidge's EF-35E towards the heavens, and the four engines of Hunk's R-302D sent it screaming towards the Earth below, pulling up only to level up a mere thousand feet above the ground.
Pidge hm-hm'd in their cockpit and cracked their knuckles as they prepared to work their magic on the rebels. A few thoughts, and their 'control panel' indicated that all the necessary ECM equipment was up and running. Almost immediately, the sound of air raid sirens made itself known even through the roar of the turbofan behind them. If the base didn't know they were under attack before, they sure as Hell did now.
«Pidge to friendlies, music and buzzer active. They can't see or hear us.»
«Perfect timing. Rifle!»
The R-302 was a big plane, with big wings and big load ratings for its wings, meaning it could carry some serious firepower on the outboard pylons if one didn't care much about stealth, and even more on the inboard weapon bays. With jamming, one didn't need to care (as) much about stealth, and thus 2nt Lt Garrett's Fregata was armed to the teeth, with all four pylons filled - two one-ton bombs (imperial, that is) and six AIM-190 JAGMs, effectively a better Maverick missile. The gold standard for air to ground.
One such missile dropped from the left wing and streaked towards its target, an SA-22 Greyhound anti-air weapons platform. With guns and missiles, it was a major threat, but its superior range to the SA-19 it was built to replace made the most of the danger.
But with Pidge's jamming fully active on every band UPEO wasn't using at the time, it didn't have time to get a lock on Hunk's plane, let alone fire, and let alone see the missile coming. The anti-air unit and the tracked vehicle it was mounted on exploded in a great vertical fireball behind Hunk as he pulled up and released first one bomb and then the other, guided by his aircraft's computer.
«Pickle!»
The first bomb landed in one of the hangars as one of the bombers began to pull out in a very emergency emergency takeoff. When the bomb plunged through the roof and handily blasted the hangar to pieces, the aforementioned bomber found itself bereft of a tail and promptly booped its own nose on the tarmac. Secondary explosions and bits of hangar set off in the hangars next to the now completely destroyed hangar, which set off secondary explosions in a fourth hangar, which set the control tower next to it ablaze.
The second bomb slammed into the second runway on top of a Y-20, and the cargo plane ceased to exist. It also left a sizable dent in the runway, reducing the number of usable airstrips down to the two parallel strips.
«Hey Hunk, we want to use this airfield once we've cleared it of the rebels, you know?»
«Sorry, force of habit. How're you doin?»
Lance was doing quite well for himself, all things considered. The MiG-35s in the air had promptly gone after him as soon as they had him on radar, and continued to attempt to pursue even when the jamming came on - Pidge stuck close enough that the jamming was intense near him but not so close that she herself would be put in (too much) danger. Whatever these MiGs were expecting, they clearly weren't expecting to have much use for infrared guidance, because they only had four between them, and a whole lot of radar-guided missiles. Which they were currently in the process of firing uselessly at Lance who simply maneuvered out of the way of the missiles or, rarely, dropped just enough chaff to get them off his tail. When the did get a solid lock, he let them hold it juuust long enough for them to think they had him before dumping chaff and running. They kept focus on him, while Hunk wreaked havoc with their air defenses - after all, with Lance out of the picture, they'd be able to escape easily once Hunk was down.
So tightly did they focus on Lance's R-101 that they failed to notice the EF-35 behind them until, upon it noticing they were out of radar-guided missiles, it locked on to them.
«Pidge, Fox Three!»
The MiG-35s had been utilizing the AA-12 Adder (aka R-77) missile, which Yuktobania had developed in response to Osea's AIM-120 AMRAAM. They were good missiles for the time, but even the K-77ME had begun to look a little old by this the year 2041 that it found itself being utilized in, and the K-77 wasn't designed to be used under heavy jamming. Pidge's Meteor Mk III missiles, jointly developed by Belka, Usea, and Nordennavik, however, were.
At the very least, their ejection seats still worked.
«Good kills, Corsair Squadron.»
«Yeah, well it's not over yet.»
Hunk had by this point finished off the second Greyhound and was now moving on to the Gauntlets. These would prove less of a challenge - while both the Greyhound and Gauntlet were capable of shooting down missiles, the Gauntlet was specifically designed to be able to fire under intense jamming, however the Greyhound could fire while moving and the Gauntlet couldn't. The Gauntlet also lacked guns, which all the countermeasures in the world couldn't protect you from.
«Rifle.»
Another missile descended from Hunk's craft. The Gauntlet tried - too late - to shoot it down with a missile of its own, and severely damaged itself in the process. It wasn't destroyed per se, but it was certainly out of the fight. As he turned, he noticed two of the remaining bombers lining up to takeoff, with two of the MiGs beginning to taxi.
«Hunk to Tailor, be advised we've got two Bears and two Fulcrums taking off with… one of the cargo planes on the way.»
«All right, we'll take care of it, you focus on those SAMs!»
«Wilco.»
Hunk turned towards the next Gauntlet in his path as Lance flew low and Pidge flew high. Lance kept to the 'bushes' at less than 500 feet It would be easy, *painfully* easy, to just destroy the bombers where they were and keep them from taking off, but they intended to capture this base once Corsair and Gabel squadrons were done neutralizing it, so he had to wait.
Two more of the Gauntlets were destroyed by Hunk's missile fire as Lance waited, one of them managing to get two missiles out and nearly hit him. Only through chaff, the jamming, and high-G turns did he manage to avoid it as the second bomber rose into the air. (Thank God for G-pants.) And even then, the left wing of his Fregata was still peppered with bits of shrapnel. (Thank God for armor!)
The fourth was blown away from the position of the third without Hunk even bothering to go after it - two close calls so close together was enough to make him think twice about getting close to such a target, even with jamming. At least the Grisons were old enough that they wouldn't pose near as much of a threat. He could just metaphorically park himself outside of their firing range and blast away, thought Hunk as the second MiG took off, just as Gabel squadron arrived.
There we go!»
«Gabel Actual to Corsair Actual. Looks like you have the situation under control. Want some extra assistance anyway?»
«Anything to speed up getting rid of that anti-air, hiding like this all the time is crampin' my style, stealth or no stealth.»
«Understood. Gabel Squadron, Engage.»
Besides bullets, the infrared-guided missiles Lance's R-101 was packing were probably the oldest things on the battlefield, at least their original versions were. The Sidewinder, which had survived almost a century without replacement, was still the mainstay short-range missile of the Osean Air Self-Defense Force with no replacements planned. Chalk it up to it being designed to be upgraded from the beginning. Lance's plane packed four of the latest as befitting a flight leader.
Lance was about to expend all four of them in one salvo, and completely get away with it. The Grisons would've had enough trouble locking onto him were his R-101 not a semistealth aircraft, and taking off left an aircraft extremely vulnerable to enemy fire - all effort had to be put into gaining altitude, and any evasive maneuvers were as likely to send your ass to the dirt and your soul to heaven as a missile was. The sound of the Sidewinder's guidance system switched from a low growl to a high whine as Lance locked on.
«Tailor, Fox Two!»
Two dropped from the inner of the three pylons on each wing, and two more from the R-101's admittedly miniscule weapon bays.
The first hit the MiG in the rear squarely between the engines, and the warhead took out most of the vertical and horizontal stabilizers, but the MiG was able to survive long enough for the pilot to eject at a not-totally-lethal altitude.
The second hit the first MiG to take off directly below the engine intakes, cutting the plane neatly in half. That was far less survivable, and all three UPEO pilots winced at the display. Not a fun way to go.
The first and second bombers were killed in roughly the same way, but mirrored - each lost the outboard engine on their wings, each tumbled to the ground sideways, each made a lovely fireball that was of the size one would expect of an unladen strategic bomber.
«Good kills, Corsair One.»
«What can I say? I never miss. Hunk, Gabel Squad, how you doin'?»
An explosion to the south answered him, and at last the anti-air guns fell silent.
«I'll take that as a... 'doing good'. Let the choppers know they can land at their convenien-»
«Warning! Warning! Bandits inbound from vector 280. They're F-15S/MTs - Four of them.»
«They're locked on to us!»
«They're firing! MIRVs! MIRVs! Break!»
Sure enough, the radar warning receivers of all of UPEO's planes screamed at them to turn, dump chaff, and do anything to get out of the way of the incoming multi-warhead missiles, a feat they managed well enough to survive. Gabel Two and Three had gotten severe wing damage, and Hunk lost an engine. He'd still be able to fly, but for the time being he'd be more harm than help in an air-to-air battle, and Gabel Two and Three were definitely out of the fight. It was up to Lance, Pidge, and Gabel One and Four now.
«Corsair One to Gabel One, what do you have for air-to-air?»
«Two Sidewinders, two JDRAMs between us. You?»
«I've got four JDRAMs left, and Pidge has a pair of Meteors.»
«Well, we better make them count. Engage!»
The four planes of UPEO turned to face their foes. Lance and Gabel One fired the opening shots - a JDRAM each. The replacement for the AMRAAM, the JDRAM was designed more for beyond visual range combat than a pure dogfight, but it was nimble enough to handle close range combat in a pinch. The F-15s responded in kind with JDRAMs of their own.
Both groups charging forward, the missiles missed each other by scant inches, and the rebel's missed the UPEO flight by the grace of chaff and Pidge's jamming, but not by enough to prevent them from getting a cantaloupe-sized chunk torn out of their left wing. The UPEO flight's missiles managed to hit one of their targets, knocking out one of the F-15's engines and damaging the left canard of another.
A new salvo, with the same missiles but this time Pidge let loose with one of her Meteors, and the F-15s retaliated with a JDRAM each. No-one was downed, but a second F-15 was damaged - this time on the right wing.
Ten miles. Now within visual range, and the range of the far more agile and accurate Sidewinders. Gabel squadron fired both of theirs, and Lance fired his remaining JDRAMs. This time, both of the damaged F-15s were knocked from the sky, but the lead plane remained, and the UPEO planes were undamaged.
«Gabel to Regulus, we are Winchester.»
«Tailor to Regulus, Winchester. Out of missiles. Continuing attack.»
Come on baby, you wanna dance? Let's dance.
Five miles. Neither side fired, instead they accelerated on a collision course - a supersonic game of chicken, or a joust with exploding lances. The old school way of deciding victory between jet aces.
Three miles. Lance and Pidge could easily make out the sole remaining F-15S/MT. It was seal brown on top with a single salmon-colored stripe down the middle, and a blue underside. Vulture squadron. Not the best the rebels had to offer, but certainly one of the better ones. Still, no side fired.
One mile. Very close. At this distance you could make out the stains on the paint.
Half a mile, within effective gun firing range. The RWR sounded, Vulture One was going to fire a missile (dangerous at this range, but frighteningly accurate) and if Lance was going to survive he had to do something fast.
«Pidge, Fox Three!»
Vulture One moved, breaking up and to the left in the hardest turn Lance had ever seen an Eagle derivative perform in his life, putting it right in the sights of his gun. He didn't have time to think, so he reacted. Five 20mm shells slammed into the sky blue underside of the Eagle before him, and while it wasn't enough to blow him out of the sky, it was enough to put him out of the fight.
«Pidge to Regulus, Winchester.»
«Regulus to Pidge, roger.»
«Is that all of them?»
«...Confirmed. A squadron of glasshead F-35s was en route to assist Vulture squadron, but they are retreating. No further enemy activity in the area outside of the base.»
«Excellent. Regulus, tell the choppers that they can now move in to take the base.»
In the air, it was over. With their only chance of rescue gone, the remaining aircraft on the ground were as good as captured. Nyaroiba Air Base would return to the legitimate Sotoan government and UPEO forces by three in the afternoon, and Nyaroiba would be recaptured by sunset.
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Westchesterfields Hotel, Room 307
Nyaroiba, Islamic Republic of Sotoa
June 21, 2041
8:27 PM Local Time
The bad news, Hunk's bombs had burned down most of the officer's quarters, so UPEO was making do with hotels within Nyaroiba.
The good news? The stars of the battle got a corner room.
The bad news? There were only two beds.
The good news? The couch pulled out - and surprisingly was about as comfortable as the mattresses. (Pidge got the couch, they wanted the couch pillows.)
The bad news? The battle to retake Nyaroiba had smashed up the kitchen, so there would be none of the hotel's famed Yare Perch filet.
The good news? Hunk made some himself.
"It's still hot, so be careful - that means you, Pat."
"That was one time, Hunk!"
"You couldn't eat anything but oatmeal and Gatorade for a week, man!"
"I'll be fine! Jeez, you sound like my mother. Where's Lance?"
"Getting the beer. We don't have any combat missions for the next few days, so it should be-"
The door creaked. In walked Lance, carrying two crates of some dark liquid that could arguably be considered beer in some parts of the world. He placed it on the table next to the platter of fish fillets, which Hunk and Pidge were greedily splitting between themselves.
"Hey, leave some for me!"
"Snooze ya lose, Lance."
And thus did their dinner progress. Drinks were had, fish were eaten, stories were told and exaggerated, and the three of them decided on how specifically to exaggerate the day's events to the civilians of today and the nuggets of tomorrow.
Minutes passed to hours, and by ten PM the 'celebration' as some would call it began to wind down. As the other aces began to turn in for the night, Pidge grabbed their laptop bag and a backpack and snuck out of the room - no small feat with as creaky a floor as the Westchesterfields Hotel's third floor. At least the floors were carpeted.
The door to the roof stairs was on the eighth floor and controlled with an electronic lock. But for someone who had spent most of their lives studying programming, computer engineering, and cybersecurity, it wasn't that hard. Also the password was written down under the 'DO NOT ENTER' sign taped to the door. 1-0-8-4.
The hotel roof was flat and bare apart from the stair door and a few HVAC machines. Nyaroiba was a sizable town that had just sustained a battle, but there were no fires burning at this late hour and it was remote enough that one could see most of the stars. More than Pidge ever could have back home in Hoffnung, at least.
It sucked that there wasn't a suitable plug up on the roof (their laptop had more than enough battery life to last the night, but it was nice to have a plug just in case), but they could deal with it for now. First the laptop boot up, then the portable wireless router, then the radio receiver, a notepad, an erasable pen, a pair of thermal/visual binoculars, and lastly their headphones.
Her laptop came on, and the familiar sight of Galm Team's F-15s above the skies of B7R greeted her. A few mouse clicks later, and it was replaced with a program of her own design for monitoring communications - from Earth, from the rudimentary lunar colony under construction, and of course from alien life. It was no Perfanesian Extremely Large Telescope, but it could reach as far as the Oort Cloud and that was good enough.
"Monitoring active and… what the hell?"
Their expletive was well-deserved - they hadn't seen this level of activity since they started listening in, during the Kerberos mission. No, wait, it was even more intense than it was then. Was something interfering with the signal, bouncing it off against some bit of space junk? Were fake signals being fed to the receiver to drown out anything important? Had they been discovered? Were-
"Whatcha listenin' to, Pat?"
If Pidge were in their jet they wouldn't have moved as fast as they did. They practically flew up from their seated position and slammed their back into Lance's chest and their head into his chin.
After disentangling each other and letting out a few choice words in a variety of languages, Pidge calmed down enough to be angry at Lance for another reason besides being in the flight path of their skull.
"Jesus, Lance, you scared the shit out of me…"
"So what are you doin' up here, anyway?"
"Oh, y'know, just… stargazing."
"With a radio telescope," Hunk added as he finally left the doorway.
"...yes."
"So what's the range?" asked Hunk, his hand drawing closer to the machinery only to be swatted away by Pidge.
"I can detect signals from the far edges of the solar system."
"Really? Can you reach Kerberos?"
Pidge sighed, and swatted Hunk's hand away yet again.
"Hey, Pat, if you don't want to tell us, it's fine-"
"Nah, I was gonna tell you some day anyway. The Kerberos mission… wasn't lost due to pilot error, or an acci-Final warning, Garrett."
"Last name. He's serious, Hunk. Anyway, go on."
"So I've been scanning the area and I've been picking up… alien radio chatter."
Pidge let the statement hang in the air for a few seconds. Hunk looked… frightened, but he had always been a bit skittish when not in something heavily armored. Lance looked like he was deciding whether to laugh or just pass off this as another one of Pidge's infamous conspiracy theories. He chose the latter.
"Ok, so first you believe in Cipher, now you believe in aliens."
"They're both real, asshole! And I have proof, look!" Pidge slid their computer screen to the side, allowing their squadmates to get a better look at the screen. It was showing a tremendous amount of communications traffic from well beyond Neptune's orbit, in the general direction of where Kerberos and Pluto had been about a year ago. Still, Lance refused to show that he was impressed, at least just yet.
"Okay, so there's a lot of radio chatter coming from the Kuiper Belt. What do they want?"
"Something about a 'Voltron' or whatever. And I've gotten more traffic in the past ten minutes than I've gotten all month, so-"
The sirens sounded.
In general, there were three kinds of public, non-vehicular sirens one would hear in the world.
The first, was a storm siren - it varied by region, but it was easily identifiable and was inevitably accompanied by the sights and sounds of the oncoming storm.
The second, was an air raid siren - a long, loud wail that rose and fell. It indicated the approach of bombers, attackers, or some other weapon of destruction towards the city.
The third was the worst of all, represented by a wail that staggered up and down. The third was a Ulysses siren, which was used for one purpose - falling fragments of the asteroid that shattered the post-Belkan War peace in 1999 and sparked countless other wars. Even 42 years later, the repercussions were still being felt.
"A fragment? There hasn't been one in-"
"Eighteen years. Oh, this is bad, this is very bad.." The usual panic from Hunk in regards to anything to do with Ulysses or meteors in general. Pidge, however, grabbed their binoculars for a closer look, switching rapidly between the infrared and visual spectrum.
"Wait… that's no-HEY!"
Lance with his usual swiftness took the binoculars for some look-seeing of his own.
"Okay, so Pat's right. There are aliens. And that's an alien ship."
Hunk seemed to calm down for all of half a second as the bright red meteor in the sky grew larger and larger until it was pretty clearly a ship about the size of an R-352 Sepia starfighter. As the other two gawked, Pidge hastily gathered up their gear and ran towards the fire exit.
"Whoa, Pat, where are you goin?"
"If that's an alien ship then I'll be damned if I'm not going to get a closer look when it lands!"
"But what if-" Lanced sighed. The conspiracy theorist had a point, much as he didn't want to admit it at this hour. Why couldn't aliens land in the daytime?
"Fine. Hunk, you left the rifles in the truck, right?"
"Of course I did, why?"
"Just in case."
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Crash Site
10:39 PM Local Time
It was a blessed and merciful god that designed the L-ATV's suspension system. Over hill, dale, pothole, gravel road, felled tree, and boulder it rode and the frame and suspension did not once complain. Twenty years of production and still steady as a continent. A continent on big rollerskates.
Pidge stood in the back seat with their head and upper body sticking out of the hatch on the roof, their binoculars practically glued to their eyes. Speaking over the roar of the diesel engine was impossible , but slapping the roof and pointing with their feet when necessary was enough to steer Lance around the more difficult obstacles that even a military offroader wasn't able to handle.
A helicopter thwopped overhead, heading towards the crash site. Pidge, satisfied with their direction, slid back into the cabin and shut the hatch.
"Almost there. Hurry up, that's the second chopper they've sent."
The L-ATV whumped its way over a fallen log, and Lance pulled it up behind a large rock at the edge of a small cliff overlooking a minor tributary of the Yare River and a roughly acre-sized clearing in the trees that was currently occupied by two heavy helicopters, four L-ATVs with guns on the back, three ambulance L-ATVs, two hazmat trucks, four regular tents, one hazmat tent, and the crashed ship. The three pilots climbed out as silently as they could and took position next to the rock, with the laptop hidden behind it.
"It… looks like a shoe," mused Hunk.
He was right - it did look like a shoe. It was somewhat roundish for most of its body, wider than it was tall, with purple lights on the roof and sides, complementing the dark greys and blacks of the hull. The front end was a bit narrower than the back, with the 'main' body of the nose being about as wide as a fighter's nose, and six flat triangular protrusions on either side of the nose - canards, perhaps? Some sort of control surface judging by how they were jointed to the hull. The ship itself had been strapped to a flatbed truck.
It was also heavily guarded by soldiers with-
"Are those laser rifles?!" half-shouted Lance incredulously before he could catch himself. "They only give those to special forces!"
"Well, whatever was on that ship, there's no way mere mortals like us can-"
"Wait, hold on Hunk, I almost got the feed to one of the security cameras… there."
The feed was fuzzy, but it showed the interior of what could only have been the hazmat tent. There were the usual hazmat medics in hazmat suits, medical equipment, and on the table was an older Shiro than any of them remembered, in black and grey-violet rags. And he did not look happy. Or angry. More distressed-via-fear-and-exasperation.
«What are you doin-»
«You know the drill, Shiro. Have to keep you in quarantine in case you got some kinda Andromeda Strain out there.»
«No, they've- they've shattered planets, enslaved entire species - ggh- Aliens are coming, and they're coming soon!»
"That's Captain Shiro, the guy who convinced me to sign up in the UPEO Air Force."
"Guess he's not dead after all. You were right, Pat."
But where's Matt… and Dad, said Pidge to no-one but their own mind.
«Do you know how long you were out there?»
«A year? More, less? We don't have time for this! Aliens are coming here for a weapon, and they're probably en route now! We don't stand a chance unless we start preparations now! We have to find… we have to find Voltron!»
"There's that Voltron thing again!"
"So even a prisoner knows about this 'Voltron'? Guess those aliens don't have very good opsec."
«Look at his arm, some kind of cybernetic implant.»
«Put him under until we know what that thing's capable of.»
«What? No, no, don't put me under, please, you need to LISTEN, there's NO TIME-»
"They didn't even ask about the rest of the crew," said Pidge sadly to no-one but themselves, but out loud.
"More importantly, why aren't they at least giving him the benefit of the doubt? This guy's clearance is off the scale, it's not like he's an idiot."
"We have to get him out of there," Pidge said as they stood up abruptly.
"Yeah, c'mon, let-
"Whoa, whoa, wait, Pat, Lance, hold on - weren't we watching everything from a hacked security cam because of the laser rifles and laser machine guns?"
"Yeah, well that was before he confirmed every crazy thing Pat has said as long as we've known him except for the shit about Cipher."
"We could steal some Hazmat suits..."
"We could sneak in there, Solid Snake style…"
"Or, OR, we wait for UPEO to declassify this entire thing, and while we wait, go to that neat shawarma place I saw on 5th and Botha."
Stares.
"...yeah, okay fine. But seriously, how?"
"We need some kind of distraction."
Explosions rocked the countryside and threatened to rock the rock off the cliff. Four explosions from what looked like large IEDs on the other side of the Yare River.
"Yeah, like that."
As the UPEO trucks raced off towards the source of the explosions, a red hovercar raced towards the hazmat tent from the east over the river. Odd technology, hovercars. A recent invention and growing rapidly in popularity, but so far no military has bothered to use them - a wheeled vehicle won't crash into the ground if the engine dies, after all.
"Who is that?"
In response to Pidge's question, Lance once again practically pulled their arm off to get the binoculars.
"Of all the… that's Keith!"
"Who?"
"Oh great, here he goes."
"Oh he is not stealing this from me! Come on!" Lance didn't even wait for the others, he just slid down the cliffside and practically ran across the shallow river, as well as one can run across a shallow river.
"Seriously, who's Keith?"
Hunk slid off after him, and Pidge followed as close behind as they could after gathering up their equipment in a backpack.
The river was nice and shallow, but it was still deep enough to reach halfway up the shins, which slowed their progress. Sounds of fighting could be heard inside the tent, which only made Lance even more pissed than he already was. For a moment, he seemed to seriously consider just swimming across, but the instant he did the river abruptly grew shallow enough to pick up the pace.
By the time they entered the tent, whatever 'fighting' had taken place was already over. A thin-looking Seianese man with a red jacket and (of all things) a mullet was cutting Shiro free with a dagger, and-
"Nope, nope, no no no, you're not saving Shiro, I'm saving Shiro, you're helping at the most, move."
This 'Keith' looked… nonplussed at the best.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Lance looked even angrier than before, which at this point was a feat.
"Lance! From Heierlark, remember, training, to be a pilot?"
Something almost, but not quite, not entirely unlike realization dawn on Keith's face.
"Oh, right… the cargo pilot."
Hunk sighed, expecting another eruption of Mount Lance, but the volcano proved inert.
"Not anymore! I fly fighters now that you FAIP'd out." Lance seemed proud of this. Hunk was embarrassed for Lance's sake. Pidge had put together a rough idea of what these two's past relationship had been like and was thus also embarrassed for Lance's sake. Keith… tried to pretend to care.
"Oh… congrats."
Keyword tried.
"Look, can we just get Shiro out of here before UPEO realizes what's going on and court martials all our asses to kingdom come? I'd rather not go back to Belka in a prison truck, thanks."
Now Lance was feeling the proper amount of embarrassment at this situation, the five of them moved to the car which mercifully had enough room to seat all five of them. Pidge was not happy with the middle seat, but they were the Smallest so they had to Deal With It.
Whatever had caused those explosions, it was a far enough distance that Keith's hovercar (and Shiro) were long gone by the time the UPEO forces had returned to the crash site.
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Nyaroiba Air Base
11:48 PM Local Time
The greatest advantage by far of a hovercar is that as long as the terrain was mostly flat, there was nothing stopping you from speeding along at velocities well beyond what you'd be allowed to travel on a highway. A very useful feature to have when being pursued by trucks that could only do sixty miles per hour on a flat and even road in a straight line. As a result, they managed to get to the base itself well before the trucks did.
However, wireless transmissions do an average of 670,616,629 miles per hour, so what trucks were on base were already at the entrance.
"Great," muttered Lance over the Mindless Self-Indulgence blaring from the radio. "Now unless you plan on jumping the fences-"
"Hang on," said Keith without a second of hesitation as the needle flew past 150 miles per hour.
"Hold up, hold up, I WAS ONLY KIDDING, JESUS CHRIST LOOK OUT FOR THE-"
There was no need to tell Keith to look out for the truck turning to stop the hovercar's path, nor to tell Keith to look out for the soldiers now jumping out of its way, or even the ten-foot-tall barbed wire fence that stood to oppose them. Because the hovercar was now twenty feet in the air and for all intents and purposes flying over the fence.
Keith popped the airbrakes, deployed the parking wheels, and powerslid to the front of the 'main' hangar. Surprisingly, the hangar was unguarded - the UPEO forces must have not expected them to make it past the guards at every entrance to the base since neither Lance, nor Hunk, nor Pidge owned a hovercar.
Keith was pulling open the hangar doors as soon as he was out of the car, with no luck until Lance just used the button on the side to open it. Their aircraft, naturally, were all in one hangar - and by this hour, all repaired. Damage had been fairly minimal besides Hunk's damaged engine, and because of its complexity the Fregata was designed to be easily repaired, to make up for it. There was a fourth - a Harrier II trainer with what looked like Mk I COFFIN installed.
"How fast can you three get in the air?, and who has the shortest ferry range?" Keith didn't even bother with asking about anything else, he just hoisted Shiro into the trainee's seat like a sack of potatoes. The Corsair squadron pilots followed suit once they realized he was seriously going to take off with UPEO ground forces after him.
«Pidge has the shortest ferry route at 1700 miles.»
«Good enough. Take off as soon as you can and follow me out. I have a safe house about 1500 miles to the northeast.»
«1500 miles to the northea- THAT'S IN KARABASTAN, KEITH YOU FUCKIN-»
«Pidge, try and see if you can't cover our tracks at least until we're out of missile range. My callsign is Ronin.»
«Understood, Ronin.»
«Hey, I'M the officer of rank here, mullet-»But Keith was already in the air and heading off to the northwest, having taken off vertically right in front of the hangar doors.
«Nyaroiba to Corsair Squadron, what the hell's going on? The MPs are saying you stole something from a special operation-»
The three pilots looked at each other, then at the slowly shrinking glow of the exhaust from Keith's Harrier.
They then committed the gravest sin imaginable.
«Negative, Nyaroiba, we were taken hostage by the guy responsible. Moving to intercept.»
«Understood. Will you need assistance?»
«Negative. I know this guy, and he's flying a trainer. We can take him. Pidge, once you're in the air, activate jamming. Hunk, you've got the biggest engines, you bring up the rear so you don't accidentally overshoot the target again.»
«Understood! Good luck, Corsair One!»
We'll need it, thought Lance. Just what is Mullet planning?
By the stroke of midnight, there were four fighters in the air, en route to the land of Karabastan to the northwest, and something far greater than they could ever have imagined...
AN: So this took... a lot longer than I had planned. I had originally planned for this to go up the day before or the day of Season 3's release. Oh well. Starting with this chapter I'll be doing factoids and stuff about characters and aircraft involved, along with a few more notable weapons - everything else will be on another 'fic' list for this. And aircraft WILL be involved - Strangereal will play a larger role than Earth in canon Voltron. I'll also define terms used here that can't be found on Wikipedia's list of multiservice tactical brevity codes, for convenience's sake. Oh, and Pidge is still Katherine Holt in this AU, I'm simply using 'their' pronouns until she reveals it ICly. OH! And Pidge is not!Celtic/North Germanic here because a) there is no direct Italy equivalent in Ace Combat (the closest would probably be Emmeria) and b) I headcanoned her as Irish before they announced her being Italian so w/e, some of my fics will have her being of Italian descent some of Irish descent. She'll still speak Italian (Emmerian) though.
QRA: Quick Reaction Alert, a state of combat readiness used IRL by NATO air forces, especially the UK's Royal Air Force. Pilots in QRA are at immediate readiness 24 hours a day, fully dressed in the aircrew ready room (if there is one) in or near the hangar facilities. Aircraft are fueled and loaded with weapons and are expected to be able to take off in 15 minutes or less.
Opsec: OPerational SECurity. Exactly what it sounds like - things need to be on a need-to-know basis and you don't need to know, because opsec. Loose lips sink ships.
FAIP: First Assignment Instructor Pilot, a living Hell for fighter pilots where they spend the next few years training nuggets and n00bs how to not crash to the earth as a burning meteor of death and actually be a fighter pilot.
COFFIN: COnnection For Flight INterface, a control system unique to the Ace Combat series that provides a superior field of view compared to a glass cockpit, in addition to allowing the cockpit to be fully armored (or at the very least not made of glass). The Mk I version, found on the ADF-01 FALKEN, is the simplest and consists of a set of cameras on the exterior of the aircraft (mostly around the cockpit) providing a near seamless 'bubble cockpit' via the video feed. Mk II, the kind here, uses ENSI (Electro-Neuron Synapse Interface) to allow communication between the plane and the pilot via neural connections. This allows them to control the plane at the speed of thought, and provides a seamless sphere of vision to the pilot. The typical control sticks of an aircraft are reduced to a backup role (if they are even present at all), and ENSI contact is made via cables attached to the helmet and neural panels on the seat for the hands to rest on. There is a Mk III system utilizing ONSI (Opto-Neuron Synapse Interface) that connects the plane to the nervous system directly using cables that plug into a cybernetic implant on the back of the neck, and artificially accelerates brain function to better handle piloting. The pilot is only semi-conscious during flight, and stimulus-response delay is nonexistent. However, the Mk III system is expensive and carries the risk of brain damage should the ONSI system be overloaded or interrupted, or if the brain simply receives too much information to handle. Most aircraft by 2041 use either the Mk I or Mk II version of COFFIN. Aircraft without COFFIN are colloquially known as 'glassheads'. The EU is currently experimenting with something similar called Project Brainflight.
So tune in next time, where Hunk throws up, Lance crashes into some things, and Shiro does something leaderly.
