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Also HYPE FOR ACE COMBAT 7 TOMORROW. I will be playing it as soon as I pick it up from the store since I pre-ordered it!
Chapter 7 - White Bird (Part 1)
Amidst the eternal waves of time
From a ripple of change shall the storm rise
Out of the Abyss peer the eyes of a demon
Behold the Razgriz, its wings of black sheath
- Heierlark Air Force Base, North Osea -
- September 30th, 2010 2007 hrs -
They set off for the northern region to refuel. This place was paradise compared to what's further ahead for them. Beyond their destination through lies the closed gate to Nord Belka, a horrible, empty, barren land populated by only a few cities. Fifteen years ago, the Belkans set off seven nuclear bombs, nicknamed the "Seven Pillars", to stave off the advancing allied forces, entombing themselves in the frozen valleys to the north.
That bit of history should have been enough of a lesson for them all.
The seven Belkan cities near the gate were vaporized and the local area is still highly radioactive.
Their landing point was in the state of North Osea, formerly a haven for Belkans, but now entrusted to Osean rule. If you refer to it by that name in front of a local, though, he'll put a scowl on his face and tell you that this is South Belka.
Heierlark meant a lot to them. Their flight training took place there on that airfield. On the base, they were surrounded by junior cadets eager to hear war stories. The newspaper article about them, written by the journalist Gennette at their Island, it made it faster here than they did. Somewhere along the line, they had become the most experienced pilots in the entire war.
Captain Bartlett's nuggets.
- McNealy Air Force Base, Western Osea -
- 167°23'0"0N 2°06'21"E -
- October 1st, 2010 0751 hrs -
They were directed to take those inexperienced pilots back with them to Sand Island when they returned.
"Man, we'd better thank Pops for this." said Chopper in one of his more optimistic voices.
"Why's that?" asked Grimm.
"Cuz he's the one who pounded basic fighter maneuvers into us. Now we can lord it over all these guys." replied back Chopper gleefully, Blaze silent during their conversation.
"You said it." added Nagase with a small smile.
Those pilots had only a tenuous grasp of flying, much less mid-air refueling, so they had to land at every base along the way.
The reason why Blaze wasn't speaking during the chatter between Chopper, Grimm and the rookies were that he knew what their fate was, and he didn't want to get into a relationship with any of them, get to know them, nothing. They were being sent to guard the western coastline...and he knew more then half of them would return not in their planes...but in a body bag.
When they landed at McNealy Air Force Base, two days later, they were quickly drawn into the briefing room, which was filled with the entire base staff as well. The commander of the base and his briefer met them there, and both had a serious expression on their faces, so they assumed that what they were about to be told was something highly important.
"My apologies for dragging you all into this, but we have no available fighter aircraft or ground forces capable of this mission at this moment, you are all we have." apologized the Base Commander before his briefer took over.
"An SSTO craft launch facility lies to the east of our current location, McNealy Air Force Base. The facility was a collaborative project between Osea and Yuktobania. It was built to be a bridge to outer space, with a Mass Driver 7.5 miles in length. Our radar has detected several planes from a Yuktobanian squadron approaching the facility from several directions. The facility is currently conducting pre-launch operations for an SSTO craft. The Base Commander will provide you with further orders." explained the Briefer before stepping back, allowing the Base Commander to speak again.
"All of you, including those that are refueling at this base, are now under my command. You shall engage the incoming enemy and prevent the destruction of the Basset Space Center. But, all untrained pilots are barred from taking off. They are still kids and will not participate in the defense operation. Dismissed."
- Basset Space Center, Western Osea -
- 02°01'13"S 171°10'33"E -
- October 3rd 2010 1200 hrs -
Blaze, Nagase, Chopper and Grimm approached Basset Space Center, the ground forces sent from McNealy already setting up defensive pillboxes at key checkpoints. Truthfully Blaze wished they had more forces that could defend the space center because having only a few pillboxes to defend against who knows what is unacceptable.
"Ten minutes to launch. Commencing countdown." reported one of the staff of the center, the SSTO getting prepped for launch.
Nagase remembered the Space Center well, while the others, mainly Chopper and Grimm, weren't that very knowledgeable of it. The Mass Driver was built by Osea and Yuktobania as part of their collaborative efforts to construct an international space station. The nation's anti-war President used the surplus funds that came from cutting the defense budget to build it.
At the time of its construction, both Yuktobania and Osea were pleased with how it turned out, but now, seeing that the very center they built together was under threat by one of its creators, it hurt.
"Is that the Arkbird?" asked Grimm while he looked up at the sky, the white underbelly of the gigantic ship barely visible.
The Arkbird is a giant "bird" built as the first step toward the realization of the space station project. Now, however, it's left its home in orbit and has come down just low enough to graze the atmosphere with its belly. The reason for this was to pick up the laser cannon module Bassett was going to launch up to it through the use of the mass driver. The original purpose was to that they were building a 'bridge of peace' that would span into outer space, but not anymore. The beautiful machinery meant for this peaceful mission was about to be used for their counterattack.
"Hey, listen." said Chopper, starting yet another discussion with Grimm.
"Yes?" replied Grimm.
"Isn't that thing supposed to work like a satellite? Why'd it climb down all this way?"
"Well it's a maneuverable orbiting spacecraft."
"I know that. I'm just saying, if the system uses atmospheric friction to change its orbit, then wouldn't that make it pretty hard to defend itself?" asked Chopper, gazing up at the giant ship as he talked.
"Hmm...I guess it'd be in trouble if someone started firing at it right now."
"Yeah, so shouldn't be higher up then?"
"Continue countdown, three minutes to launch." reported the control room of the space center, interrupting their conversation and reminding them of their operation.
When they entered the airspace over the facilities, everything was calm for a few minutes before multiple enemy hits appeared on the radar from all directions, the space center quickly reporting the appearance so that they could see them.
"Halt the countdown! Enemy incoming! This is the Base Air Defense Command. The enemy has a large formation of transport planes escorted by a squadron of fighters. They're conducting an air assault to capture this base."
"What? They're actually planning to invade Osea?" exclaimed Grimm.
Blaze whipped his head around and saw the transport planes fly from the ocean over the base, he recognized them as Yuke Il-76s, a plane of comparable status to an Osean C-130. He managed to catch one of them open up its rear bay door and his instincts kicked in when he saw BMPs being rolled out and sent out into the air with parachutes from them.
"They're dropping airborne tanks down onto the ground!" he yelled out before gunning it. "I repeat, airborne tanks are being dropped from enemy transport planes!"
"Right behind you Blaze!"
Nagase turned her jet around to followed behind him while a quick order from Blaze kept Chopper and Grimm on the right side of the base. They began attacking and shooting down the transport planes, trying to get to them before they could drop their payload of BMPs which, unfortunately, some could.
After bringing down one of the aircraft and being chased off by an escort fighter, Chopper glanced back over his shoulder at one of the parachuting BMPs and had an idea.
"Hey, if we shoot the parachutes before the tanks detach, we'll smash them into the ground. You with me Grimm?" suggested Chopper.
"I'm with you, let's go." Grimm agreed when right on cue, four tanks dropped out of two Il-76s at the northeast corner of the space center.
When more enemies flew into the airspace, Blaze gave the order to spread out to cover all four corners of the space center, shooting down any fighter, transport plane or Airborne tank that appeared in their view or was close enough to them on radar.
"They have overwhelming numbers, we can't destroy them all at once!" said Nagase, struggling to fight two fighters and take down the Yuke vehicles on the ground and in the air all at the same time.
"There's nothing we can do, just try to destroy as much of them as you can and thin out their numbers!" grunted Blaze as he narrowly avoided a missile from a Yuke MiG-29.
"Its all over if the tanks breakthrough. Blaze, do you think our forces are sufficient?"asked Nagase while he spun through a blanket of gunfire from the two planes pursuing him, unable to land a hit on him.
"I'd like to think so, but no, we don't."
"More work for us, that's fine. We should be used to that by now!" laughed Chopper as he watched a BMP he shot out of the sky smash into the ground and become a metal pancake.
"Alright, revision of battle plan. Grimm, Chopper, you focus on assisting the ground forces with those BMPs, shoot 'em down out of the sky, destroy them on the ground, whatever. Do anything you can to halt their ground attack. Since the transport planes are defenseless, Nagase and I will focus only on the escort fighters." ordered Blaize, the three of them quickly complying with the order.
Slowly they started to eliminate the enemy forces, gradually lowering the threat level over the area. An Il-76 dropped two BMPs from its cargo hold before Blaze shot it out of the sky, with Grimm finishing off the tanks by filling their parachutes full of bullet holes. Down they went until they smashed into the ground and exploded in two balls of fire.
"I'm going to try and convince the Flight Director to restart the countdown for launch." said one of the staff down below, Blaze surprised by the man's utter calm in the face of an enemy air and ground attack.
"What's the status on those airborne vehicles? Grimm?" asked Nagase.
"We've been handling it pretty well over here, there's only two of them on the ground at the moment."
Two explosions appeared on the ground followed by a laugh from Chopper.
"Scratch that, there are no tanks on the ground." smirked Grimm before going after another transport plane.
Luckily for them the waves of enemies grew less and less before Chopper destroyed the final BMP as it landed on the ground, the transport planes in the air either gone or shot down by the Wardog pilots. They didn't have any escort fighters to worry about either, so it seemed like everything was in the clear for them.
"All airborne AFVs and escort fighters destroyed, and enemy transport planes have retreated from the airspace. Wait a minute...additional hits on radar. Oh no, It seems that they've abandoned the ground invasion and decided to just destroy the space center." reported Air Defense Command. "Large number of cruise missiles detected on the outer edge of our radar coverage. Wipe out the remaining enemy forces and make an effort to minimize any damage to the Mass Driver by destroying those cruise missiles."
"Really? Cruise missiles? God dammit...I swear they'll never give us a break." Blaze growled before gunning it towards the ocean. "Same plan as before, Chopper and Grimm handles the East, Nagase and I handle the West. Go!"
He met the first cruise missiles and shot them down easily enough with his gun, the flames streaking past his Tomcat's wing as he made a wide turn to go after a second pair close by, Nagase flying straight east to the other side of the base to intercept three cruise missiles.
"This is Flight Director Adam Gittleman. Continue SSTO Launch. Recommence launch sequence. Attention all personnel, we only have one chance to launch, so let's all do our jobs and see this through to the very end. That is all!"
"We'll give you cover and make sure missile make contact with the SSTO or the Mass Driver." said Grimm before he downed two missiles on his side, Chopper taking out the third.
"Roger Air Force. Weather team, what's your status?" asked Flight Control.
"Weather team is A-OK. We're ready to go."
"All other teams, sound off."
"Flight control team, roger."
"Guidance team, roger."
"All teams roger, it's a go!"
Blaze gunned down the missiles present on their side with Nagase and spotted three Su-34 Fullbacks flying towards the Mass Driver.
"Nagase, handle the missiles! I'm gonna take out those Fullbacks before they can attack the Mass Driver!"
He whipped his plane back around and came up behind the jets, scaring them into splitting up and having to make him chase them down one by one. While it took some effort Blaze was able to shoot down each fighter bomber with a single missile each, and Nagase herself took down another grouping of cruise missiles before they got even close to the Mass Driver.
In their moment of respite before the next wave came, in a rather quiet voice, Nagase confided in him a question.
"Blaze...do you know why the Arkbird was built?"
"Yeah…I do." he replied back in a rather quiet voice too, his gaze rising to the Arkbird once again.
"Ironic, isn't it?"
Blaze was about to answer but he quickly shut his mouth, swallowing his words. As he looked up at the Arkbird, so high up in the air, and blinked, for a fraction of a second the bright blue skies were replaced with dark clouds and flaming meteors like from his dream. He shook his head to get the vivid imagery out of his brain and once he opened his eyes again, the blue sky was back and he let out a sigh of relief.
"Second wave incoming from all directions, heads up!" said Chopper, his voice knocking Blaze back to reality, his first act being to shoot down the three Fullbacks he was chasing then switch to target the cruise missiles approaching from the northwest.
"Four minutes to launch, hold them off until then!" reported the Control room, Chopper responding near frantic.
"Four minutes?! We won't last that long!"
"We're getting pushed back, little by little!" said Grimm, the fact he stated being true.
The endless waves of cruise missiles and Yuke fighters was slowly spreading them thin, already some cruise missiles having gotten past them and hitting the Mass Driver. Blaze cursed when he saw his missile reserves were low and had to resort to skillfully bringing down the cruise missiles with his guns, Nagase having to do the same when she ran out of missiles entirely.
"Flight control, your job is done. Evacuate the area immediately!"
"We can't have any mistakes. We're staying until the job is done!"
"Fox three!" said Grimm, two XLAA missiles departing his plane and shooting down two cruise missiles before they could get close to the Mass Driver.
"Damn, this is harder than we thought. That thing is as hard as diamond!" growled a Yuke pilot observing the cruise missiles as they flew towards the giant Mass Driver.
"Communications, I want you to ensure all lines of communications remain open."
"We've got it covered sir. Three modes of communication: Wired, wireless and runners!"
"Kid, is the launch facility safe? I can't tell from here." asked Chopper, too preoccupied with some Fulcrums to look back over his shoulder.
"For now it is, keep fighting!" said Blaze. "Focus on the mission at hand, worry about the Mass Driver afterwards!"
"Sorry, I'm sorry!"
"Three minutes! Three minutes to launch!" notified the Control Room. "Go ahead and seal off H block. No one is in there anyway, right?"
The sound of an explosion was heard over the radio, a downed Yuke fighter had crashed into that specific part of the building, sealing it off for them with rubble and debris.
"Take the wounded to Warehouse Four!" shouted one of the Control Room staff.
"Hurry it up in there!" yelled Blaze, shooting down two missiles before spinning to the right, narrowly avoiding a missile launched from one of the several Yuke fighters tailing him.
"Final pre-flight check. All stations, go over everything one last time. Guidance, navigation, flight, control, telemetry, communications, flight dynamics. Do we have a go or a no go?"
"All systems go from all team leaders, proceeding with launch."
"Wave number Three, Wave number Four, Wave number Five...there's too many!" yelled Grimm in a worried tone.
"Just one more minute!" yelled the Control Room.
Blaze growled as he soared past a cruise missile and pulled back, bringing the nose of his aircraft up as he flipped his plane back around to used one of his final missiles to bring down a Yuke fighter tailing him, then gunned it to down a cruise missile.
Four cruise missiles exploded on the other side thanks to Grimm and Chopper's efforts, but they still kept coming. Nagase was beginning to wonder what could be firing this many missiles at them and at such a frequent pace, but she pushed it to the side to shoot down a cruise missile she let fly by her.
"Special weapons are out!" yelled Chopper after shooting down a Yuke fighter. "Gonna have to use the gun!"
"Countdown, twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen, sixteen…"
"We're gonna launch this thing even if it kills us!"
Blaze sped after the remaining missiles, three of them in total. He destroyed one with his gun and the other with his final missile. The afterburners were red hot as he chased after the last missile, gaining on it and getting closer and closer to being within gun range.
"Five, four, three, two, one, zero! Lift off!"
"SSTO increasing speed!"
"SSTO passing checkpoint One. Passing checkpoint Two!" relayed the Control Room, the small craft speeding down the track towards the giant ramp at the end of the Mass Driver.
"SSTO passing checkpoint Three!"
Blaze gasped and pulled off from the chase at the last second, the cruise missile ramming into the Mass Driver directly before the SSTO craft and exploding.
"Mass Driver hit by cruise missile!"
Nagase, Grimm, Chopper and Blaze held their breaths, looking at the large smoke cloud formed from the explosion, waiting for the outcome of the small craft. The seconds ticked by, taking longer and longer, like time had slowed down at that exact moment, just to toy with them. Then the SSTO craft zoomed out from the smoke cloud, completely unscathed, and shot up the ramp and off into the sky towards space, more specifically, the Arkbird.
Blaze and his wingmen all let out a collective sigh of relief as they watched the small craft soar higher and higher into the blue beyond, leaving its earthly home behind to deliver its payload.
"SSTO status report." requested the Flight Director.
"Everything's clear. All systems are go."
"Yeah, I'm seeing it now. It's a beautiful sight. This is great!"
"Observation room reporting. The SSTO is climbing smoothly. Congratulations."
With their mission done and post-launch evaluations of the Mass Driver's integrity starting by the base personnel, Blaze, Nagase, Grimm and Chopper turned back towards McNealy to pick up the nuggets and make the return trip to Sand Island. As they did, they heard the sound of cheering echoing out from the radio, the space center staff celebrating in the Control Room at their successful launch even under pressure by the enemy.
"Whew...Let's go home. I've had enough stress for today." groaned Chopper. "I'm gonna have to check my blood pressure after this.
"I'm with you there." said Grimm, Blaze remaining silent again, and Nagase gazing back up into the sky.
"Hey, Nagase." Blaze contacting her over a different channel, between just them. "You were saying earlier?"
"Oh, well...I was just saying it was ironic...about the Arkbird's purpose…"
They happened to look up at the sky together to stare at the small outline of the Arkbird, both of them feeling a slight sense of ease.
"Yeah...a bird of peace being made to wage war…"
The four pilots watched the glorious white bird rise up once again, the newly delivered laser cannon in its wings. For them all, It was a moving sight. All of them though all shared the same thought, especially Nagase. She wished, in her heart, that the glorious white bird didn't have to be used in war.
None of them found out why the enemy targeted the base until much later. Of course, by that time...it was already too late.
^^^^Debriefing Message^^^^
We prevented the Yuktobanian army from capturing the launch facility, and on the other hand, the SSTO launch was successful. The SSTO docked with the Arkbird, which had descended into the upper atmosphere and successfully transferred the laser weapon module over to the craft. All aircraft with the 108th Tactical Fighter Squadron and the Sand Island detachment, return to base as soon as re-arming and refueling operations are complete.
