Zapland Air Force Base
July 6th, 2019
On a laptop in his cell, Full Band scanned over a document that he had managed to snag from the prisoner records.
Name: Kovac, Eric Paul (assumed, may be false)
Branch: Air Force
Rank: First Lieutenant
Role: Pilot, Fast Attack
Callsign: 'Trigger'
Service number: 574235235
DOB: 1st November, 1995 (age 23)
Entered service: 13th July, 2018 (age 22)
Service History: 49th Tactical Fighter Squadron (13th July - 18th December 2018), 501st Weapons Squadron (20th December 2018 - 13th May 2019), 508th Tactical Fighter Squadron (15th May - June 10th 2019), 444th Air Base Squadron (July 1st - Present)
Status: Active, Dishonourable Service to Convict Squadron
Reason: Murder of an Osean Defence Force service member, disobeying orders, ID theft
Aircraft qualifications: F-15C/D Eagle, F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16C/D Viper, A-10C Thunderbolt II
'Hmm…' Full Band muttered to himself as he read the PDF. There wasn't anything in Trigger's file that would indicate an excellency at piloting. He had been an A-10 pilot for a little bit, which might have explained his proficiency at ground attack. But nothing else.
'Full Band.' Someone from outside the cell said his name. It wasn't one of the convicts. Full Band swore quietly and slowly shut the lid of the laptop.
'Yep.' Full Band resigned himself to his fate, placing his hands up in surrender. The officer frowned.
'Oh, you're not in trouble man. I was just wondering what you were looking at.' He said. Full Band looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Captain Webber.
'Ah. Erm, Trigger's service record.' Full Band answered honestly. Webber himself raised an eyebrow.
'I'll leave you to it then.' Webber raised his hat to Full Band and left the area. Full Band exhaled a breath that he didn't realise he had in his lungs and opened the lid of the laptop.
In the hangar across the runway from the accommodation block, Alex stood underneath his Su-33, tracing his fingers along the riveting in the hull, looking for any sort of damage or wear that needed to be repaired. Despite this being harder to see because of the black paint, Alex still managed. He didn't find anything. Alex took a step back and was overseeing the entire aircraft when a metallic clang rang out from behind him.
'Ah, fuck me.' Someone swore. Alex recognised the voice. Trigger. Alex walked over, ducking under and around the aircraft in between until he found himself looking at half a man climbing up an F-15E's intake.
'Trigger?' Alex called out to the pilot who was attempting to do mechanic things.
'Yeah?' Trigger called back, his voice muffled by the fuselage around him. Alex walked forwards and stopped at the ladder to the cockpit. Trigger's legs were hanging out of the intake.
'Why are you climbing inside your own fighter?' Alex asked, amused. Trigger finished whatever he was doing and shimmied out of the intake to face the commander. He had a wrench in his hand. He raised it to Alex.
'Kicked this thing into the intake by accident.' Trigger answered, putting the wrench in one of his many pockets.
'More importantly, why are you trying to do things to your plane? We have dedicated mechanics for that.' Alex said to Trigger.
'Structural ones, yeah. But I've yet to see an avionics engineer around here.' Trigger pointed out.
'You're talking to one.' Alex said. He was an avionics engineer by trade.
'As are you. I know my way around aircraft.'
'And I thought you were a pilot?'
'I am now. I was a mechanic for two years.'
'And a chef? I heard from Major Grimm.' Alex asked Trigger about his jobs.
'Also correct.'
'Well, you're the jack of all trades aren't you?'
'Pays to be prepared.' Trigger shrugged and went over to the open nose cone that concealed the radar. Alex took a few steps and followed. He frowned when he saw the radar. While he had never worked on F-15s, he had worked on F-35s and he was fairly certain the two didn't use the same radar.
'Was this your handiwork?' Alex asked, looking at the installation of the AN/APG-81 AESA radar. It was solid, with no visible faults.
'Fifty-fifty. I had some help from the Scrap Queen.' Trigger replied while making sure that the radar was securely mounted.
'Hmm. Well, if you know what you're doing, I'll leave you to your business.' Alex stepped back and then walked off, heading back towards the accommodation block. At night, the area was cool, covered by the Spring Sea breeze. The airfield was inactive save for roaming guard patrols. McKinsey and Bandog had decided, for some reason that Alex had yet to find out, that Spare Squadron wouldn't operate at night, much to the advantage of Erusean bomber attacks that struck at night. While they had been occurring less frequently as of late, there were a couple of times where they struck. There wasn't any point complaining about it however, because their attacks always hit the fake runway and facilities.
July 11th, 2019
Trigger was escorted into the maintenance block of the hangar by guards and left there late in the afternoon. Avril saw him enter.
'Hey Trigger, where have you been?' She asked the pilot/mechanic/chef.
'Mission briefing. We've got an operation tomorrow.' Trigger answered, dropping a kitbag on the bench in the corner of the room and approaching an F-14A they were working on for the fake airfield.
'What kind?' Avril asked, showing some interest as she approached the F-14.
'Ground attack. There's a series of radar sites and AA batteries cutting off the safe return of some Air Force recon squad.' Trigger answered again, climbing up a ladder to the body. There was a welding torch, sheets of metal and bolts on top of the body, all intended to patch a hole directly behind the cockpit.
'So the usual suicide mission then. What aircraft are you taking?' The third question that Avril asked caught Trigger's attention.
'Avril, are you planning an escape again?' Trigger stopped what he was doing and looked at the lady, resting her arms and chin on the intake of the Tomcat. Her legs were on the ladder.
'No…' She said, hesitating to speak for a moment. 'It's just, the only reason I'm here in the first place was because I built and flew my own aircraft. I can accept being here, but I want to be able to go in the skies at least.' Avril looked down at her injured leg and inhaled. When she looked up again, Trigger was in front of her.
'To answer the question, I'm flying my F-15E.' Trigger jumped down to the floor, grabbed a black spray can and a prefabricated letter bank from a workbench and opened the door to the adjacent storage hangar. Trigger's Strike Eagle was the closest to the mechanic block. He climbed the ladder up to the dual cockpit, pressed the letter bank against the lip of the RIO's seat and started spraying.
'What are you doing?' Avril asked, her hopes rising. She went down the ladder and walked over to Trigger. By the time she arrived at the base of the fighter, Trigger finished his painting and stepped down for Avril to see. The latter took a few rungs up the ladder to get a proper view.
A. Mead
'Scrap Queen'
