Chapter 10: Great Balls of Fire

10 hours of much enjoyed sleep later...

Marcus was rudely brought out of his sleep by a raspy roar that had begun to radiate through the skies outside of the garage.

"For fuck's sake.." he quietly groaned as the sound got louder and grew closer.

'Guess our new neighbors are here...' Marcus thought to himself, Lennox had informed him yesterday that the Island would receive a small compliment of interceptors due to it's most recent additions. He said that NEST hadn't been given much funding so far in it's infancy, but it wanted to have something that could defend the Island from an aerial threat. The higher up's in the organization had originally went to the Air Force to see if any aircraft could be spared, specifically F-15C Eagle Air Superiority Fighter's, but the Air Force declined. They couldn't really spare any aircraft due to what happened at Mission City. The loss of ten F-22's, along with dozens of other airframe's meant that they just couldn't spare a squadron of aircraft to go throw to some island in the middle of the ocean.

NEST then went to the Navy to see if they could get any aircraft from them. The problem was that operating a squadron of F/A-18 Hornet's would cost too much, so it initially looked like they were out of luck.

Someone then decided that instead of looking at current aircraft, maybe past aircraft could get the job done. Pretty soon the desired aircraft was found: the recently retired F-14D Super Tomcat. The F-14's had been retired one year back in 2006, however dozens of airworthy Super Tomcat's and spare parts were still around in mothball storage or aircraft boneyards. These fighter's were the ultimate variant of the venerable naval interceptor that had first entered service with the U.S Navy in 1974. They had powerful radar's, a long range, could carry a lot of weight, and could utilize the intimidating AIM-54 Phoenix missile. This beast of a weapon had a longer range than any other air-to-air missile the U.S had in it's inventory. The Phoenix had a top speed of Mach 5 and was sure to down any aircraft it hit due to it's 135 pound warhead. Like their launch platforms, the AIM-54's had to be brought out of storage as they were officially retired two years earlier than the F-14 in 2004.

Along with air-to-air missiles, the Tomcat's could carry rockets and bombs, adding ground attack capabilities to it's use. So while the Tomcat's were older and less capable in some area's than their newer counterpart's, they were still deadly against any opponent that they could face.

Pilot's and WSO's for the eight F-14's NEST acquired came from current Navy squadrons who had most recently transitioned to the newer F/A-18's, so many didn't really need much of a refresher on their old bird.

Of course, none of this really mattered to Marcus right now. He wasn't in NEST, but he WAS pretty much right in the jet's flightpath as the first Tomcat drifted down on final approach.

Pakowski plugged his ears as much as he could, but those fighters were just TOO! FREAKING! LOUD!

Barricade quickly woke up after him as noted by the very irritated growling Marcus heard as his body started to vibrate.

"What's that STUPID NOISE!?" she snarled with her glowing, crimson eyes boring holes into the concrete ceiling.

"Pretty sure those are the eight fighter's Lennox said were coming over.." Marcus groaned as the first F-14 roared by in the skies outside.

"Well their loud, and stupid, and need to shut up, cause WE'RE TRYING TO SLEEP!" she growled with her voice rising in volume with each word.

Marcus sighed and rubbed his eyes. "I don't think that's gonna happen Cade'..."

The Saleen clenched her right fist as she unleashed a hellish and long roar of her engine. Marcus winced as the deafening utterance completely filled the enclosed garage. He turned and pinned her with a glare once it ended. "Can you like not freaking do that while I'm in here?!" he hollered.

"I can't help it! I'm mad, and it's those stupid fighter pilot's fault!" she defensively excused.

Marcus took a deep breath and began to push himself up. "Look. I'm...I'm gonna go outside. I don't think I'm going to get back to sleep." He didn't feel like getting his eardrums blown out as the first thing that happened after waking up, and he didn't want to start the day with a pissed off Barricade again. That sure didn't go well the last time it happened.

The metallic hand that was holding him slowly unwrapped around his body and pulled away as Barricade begrudgingly let her brother get up. The Marine clambered down the side of his sister's torso and kicked his sandals on before going over to the control panel for the door and hitting the button to raise the door.

Pakowski stepped out of the garage and looked past the palm trees at the edge of the front yard and into the sky beyond where a few rays of sunshine rose into the sky. The Eastern morning sky was a beautiful shade of pink as the Sun slowly began to crest the horizon. He then turned for the bungalow and headed for the back porch as he spotted the blinking red strobes on the nose and left vertical stabilizer of the second F-14's navigation lights.

He continued to watch the fighter as he drifted over to the patio and sat down on the staircase that went up to it in the back yard. It was amazing to watch the Tomcat come in. Truly there was nothing else like it in the world. It was a badass jet that would literally shake the ground below anytime a pilot lit full afterburner. The image of the big fighter brought him back to the first airshow his dad took him to when he was seven. The first show he caught was the F-14 Demonstration Team's display.

It was an early morning show that took place a little before the sun rose. He remembered being on his dad's shoulders with big protective headphones on when the ground started to shake as an intimidating roar radiated into the air from the right side of the runway. He looked toward the noise, and that's when he got his first glimpse of the jet. Two long blowtorches of white flame shot from the aft end of the Tomcat and reflected their light off of the runway as the pilot took off in full burner. The jet was kicked up off the ground as it blew by with engines still roaring as the pilot raised his gear and shot down the runway. When he got to the end of the runway he cranked the nose straight up and shot up into the sky with a thunderous roar, slamming off aileron rolls as his aircraft effortlessly shot up into the sky like a rocket.

It was exhilarating to watch the awesome sight as the big jet danced around in front of the crowd in a display of equal parts raw power and elegant grace. At the end of the show, after the pilot's lowered the jet down on it's nose gear in the famous "Tomcat Bow", Marcus' dad lowered him down to the ground and looked at him with a smile plastered on his face.

"You know kid, they got me flying those now." he told his son with all the swagger of an awesome fighter pilot of a dad. The young Pakowski's eyes lit up like Christmas tree's as he said a awe filled "Woooaahh!"

Marcus came back to reality as the second Tomcat drifted by.

The jet was painted a two-tone grey that was almost reminiscent of the Tomcat's of Ace Combat 5's Razgriz Squadron. The top of the jet was the same dark shade of blueish-grey found on F-15E Strike Eagle's while the bottom of the jet was Air Superiority Grey. There was an intimidating shark face painted on the white nose of the the Tomcat. The jet's nose number was a white and red bordered "503." The fighter had standard color US roundels behind the cockpit and on the wings. "1st STFS" was painted on the side's of the Tomcat's spine in Air Superiority Grey. The top of the Tomcat's tails were painted red and had the nose number painted on the center of them in black. Below that was some weird emblem Marcus had never seen on it before. It was a white triangle with a black, winged bull skull on it. "NEST" was painted in black above the bull skull. The fighter had two expendable external fuel tanks mounted under each engine nacelle. They were the same Air Superiority Grey as the rest of the bottom fuselage. "Vampires" was inscribed in black on the side of each tank. He stood up and followed the fighter down until it disappeared behind the palm trees.

He decided that he should get washed up and made his way inside and to the bathroom. He wasn't in there for tool long, mainly because he was used to quickly getting ready in the mornings just due to the swing of things in the Marines. Marcus walked back out a few minutes later and plopped back down on the staircase with a new set of "Cammies", as they were called in the Marines, so he was wearing the usual Desert MARPAT camouflaged top and pants with his pant legs tucked into his combat boots, and his sleeves rolled up to around his biceps.

Marcus reached up and ran a hand through his hair, cringing a little as he remembered that he was probably out of regulation now.

"Man I need to get a haircut, Dad definitely wouldn't approve." he noted to himself. He'd have to ask Lennox where the base barber was so he'd avoid getting chewed out by a higher rank. He glanced up as the fourth F-14 went by with it's gear down. He chuckled and looked up into the sky. "Hey Dad, they brought the big girl back." He could just imagine his dad spazzing at that news. He'd probably spread the word to his other friends and head to the nearest bar to drink to the Tomcat getting resurrected.

Marcus quietly chuckled to himself. 'Well, Dad always was an adrenaline junky...' Despite being woken up before he really wanted to be, seeing the Tomcat actually fly again was an awesome start to the morning.

It wasn't long before the Marine heard heavy footfalls heading his way...well really more of disgruntled stomping. The kid was either accepting the fact that they wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, or just pissed and wanting to be with him, probably the latter. Marcus looked off into the distance where the next set of blinking navigation strobes began drifting closer.

The footsteps eventually stopped directly to his left. "Morning kiddo." Marcus said. He got a tired groan in response before there was a loud thump as his sister collapsed down onto the ground and sat crossed-legged.

"I don't wanna be up! Stupid fighter pilot's and their stupid, loud jet's!" she quietly grumbled as she glared off into the distance.

"They ARE loud." Marcus agreed. "But those guys are probably more tired than we were yesterday. Lord knows what kind of hours those poor dudes had to fly." He looked up at his sister "They're pretty cool though, aren't they?"

Barricade huffed and glanced down at him out of the corner of her right eyes, mumbling "They're not as cool as me."

"I know, I know, but I mean, they're freakin TOMCAT'S! Those things are awesome, and don't tell me they're not." Marcus quietly exclaimed

"Don't care, I'm tired.."

"Alright, fair point..." Marcus sighed.

The two sat in silence for half a minute before Marcus felt something warm wrap around his body, He glanced down and saw Barricade's left hand wrapped around him. The ground fell away from him as he was gently picked up. His sister sat him down on her right forearm as she lightly held him to her chest in a cocoon of warm metal.

"Cuddles." she quietly declared once her human was where she wanted.

Marcus fished his arms out and placed them on top of his sister's forearm. He crossed them and leaned his chin on the top of his right hand. "You're pretty warm." he quietly commented.

"You're pretty warm too." Barricade softly rumbled above him.

The two went back to silence as the third and fourth F-14's passed by. Marcus became more excited the more he woke up. He watched the jet's come down with the same excitement in his eye he had as a kid when he first say a Tomcat. "That's awesome!" he quietly exclaimed as the fifth Tomcat's pilot slammed a quick aileron roll as they dropped their landing gear and drifted by.

"It's just a jet you know..."

Marcus shook his head and looked up. "That's not just any jet to me sis."

"Well I don't see what's so special about it." Barricade replied in the same tired monotone she'd been speaking in for the past minutes.

"Is that "I'm actually curious", or "I'm tired, be quiet?" Marcus asked.

The Saleen shrugged "I'm curious and tired."

"Alright then." Pakowski said. "Well for starters, that jet was officially retired from service last year, and supposedly the government was going to shred the remaining airframes so a certain country couldn't get their hands on any parts."

Barricade looked down at Marcus, completely confused. "But these one's are still here...?"

"Well yeah, there's a lot of F-14's, so it would take a long time to scrap them all." The Marine reasoned. "So officially, there aren't anymore U.S F-14's flying in the world. Technically these don't exist."

"Woah..." she exclaimed in amazement.

Marcus chuckled. "I know, it's crazy when you actually think about it." He looked up and was silent for a few seconds, even though then next fighter was still a ways off. "There's another reason I like that jet so much...My dad used to fly them."

His sister's eyes widened a bit. "Your dad was a fighter pilot?!"

"Is a fighter pilot." Marcus corrected with a hint of something in his voice that Barricade couldn't figure out. "He started out as an F-4E pilot and flew quite a bit during the end of the Vietnam War. It was mostly close air support missions. He dropped a lot of bombs, shot a lot of rocket's, and blasted a huge amount of 20 mil."

Barricade looked up what the F-4 was on the internet. The first image of the aircraft she got was an intimidating beast of a jet that was dropping a lot of bombs while in a dive. It looked really tough, like it could kick the butt of anything it faced.

A nostalgic look fell upon the Marine's face as he continued on. "The Tomcat was actually brought into service right at the end of the Vietnam War. It was designed to defend carrier fleets from soviet bombers, however they thankfully never had to do that. Dad's squadron continued flying F-4's until 1978, that's when they transitioned up to the F-14A. He mostly flew interception missions against people who got to close to U.S airspace, well until 1981."

"What happened...?"

"Dad was one of the alert crews on a Friday morning. His squadron had been intercepting jets on a regular basis, so it was business as usual when the order to scramble came. He and his partner, Captain Williams, got up to the flight deck and quickly hopped into the jet. Within the span of five minutes, him and his wingman had been catapulted off of their aircraft carrier and were roaring up into the sky with their wings swept back to intercept two possibly hostile fighter-bombers that heading for the carrier group."

"Dad and Williams got vectored to intercept the incoming jets. Williams was in back looking through the radar and toggling various settings while Dad scanned the skies outside of the cockpit to see if he could spot their targets."

"Target on the scope. He's on our nose, 16 miles out." Williams's called."

"My dad looked out and saw a black dot on the horizon. "102, visual on the bogey, currently at 21,000."

"The two groups raced toward each other at a combined closure speed of over Mach one. My Dad and his wingman tried to repeatedly turn away from the bogey's, but they turned back into him each time. It was like they wanted to ram him!" Marcus dramatically proclaimed.

By now Barricade was thoroughly enthralled in her brother's story, which also had the added benefits of waking her up and bringing her out of her grumpy mood. "What happened?! Did your Dad get rammed?!"

Marcus chuckled and put his hand up. "I'm getting there kiddo, just relax." The Marine quickly resumed his story. "Dad was starting to get real close to these bogey's. He asked for clearance to fire on them since in his word's: "These F-ers are going to ram us!", but the rules of engagement said that he either had to be fired on first, or the unknown aircraft would have to come within 75 miles of the carrier group. So far neither of those two things happened, but something else DID happen pretty quickly that did allow him to do something."

"Ooh! Did they shoot at him!?"

Marcus nodded. "Actually, yeah, they did. One of the bogey's, both of which had now been identified as Sukhoi Su-22's, shot a missile at my Dad."

"Shark flight has been fired on! Bogey's are hostile!" Dad hollered as he flipped his Tomcat onto it's back and dove for the deck while pumping out chaff and flares to break the missile's lock on him." Marcus flipped his right hand over and imitated the actions of his father's aircraft. "His wingman quickly returned fire. Shark Two, Fox 2!" he called as he punched a heat-seeking missile off at the lead hostile."

Barricade could just see the action as it played out. Marcus' Dad slamming his jet into a dive with the wings swept back while it's engines roared in defiance at the enemy missile as chaff and flares were shot away. All the while, his wingman in the other Tomcat firing a missile and watching as it streaked out for the enemy with a long tail of white smoke being left in it's wake. Meanwhile, his back-seater had their head buried in the radar screen as they tracked the hostile jet as it now had to also had to defeat it's own missile.

"Two missiles raced past each other, but only one hit its mark..." Marcus stated. "Can you guess which one it was?"

The Saleen shook her head and looked down at him in wonder.

"Ours." Marcus stated with a smirk and a slow nod of approval. "Dad dodged his missile and leveled out just in time to see his wingman's hit. The Sidewinder tracked right at the enemy Sukhoi and sliced it's right wing clean off. The jet went up in flames with the pilot quickly ejecting as it was slammed into an uncontrollable roll."

"Woahhh! That's so cool!" Barricade exclaimed as her optics went wide in amazement. The two had to temporarily stop as the next fighter drifted by. Marcus quickly got back to the story after the jet was past and the engine noise quieted down.

"Dad kicked his Tomcat up and around and put his sight right over the other Sukhoi as he switched to his own Sidewinder's." Marcus raised his right hand up to his eye as he pointed at the imaginary enemy with his left hand. "His missile's steady tracking tone quickly changed to it's lock tone. So with the lock tone growling in his ears, he fired. "Shark One, Fox 2 Fox 2!" he called as he mashed the firing button on his jet's flight stick."

"Dad saw the enemy pilot slam his fighter into a right turn away from the incoming missile, but he only gave it a better target as he showed the missile the glowing afterburner of his jet's engine. The guy kept pulling-" Marcus used his left hand to imitate the actions of the hostile Sukhoi while using his right hand to imitate his Dad's launched Sidewinder. "- but Dad's missile just went right up the guy's tailpipe and exploded in the engine. The Sukhoi was ripped in two and began tumbling out of the sky in two fireballs with the pilot quickly ejecting."

"Two Sukhoi's splashed! Great balls of fire!" Dad excitedly hollered into the radio as he did a victory roll over the enemy pilot as he drifted down in his parachute." Marcus said with a smile.

"What happened after that? Did your Dad and his friend's get awards?"

Marcus laughed. "Nah kid." he said with a shake of his head. "It was just business as usual after that. They were instructed to patrol around for sometime before they were cleared to return back to the carrier and land. The news got around the squadron and they got a few congratulation's and high five's, but it wasn't really some big thing that would score something like a medal. Dad DID get a Wikipedia entry and some clips of the flight used in documentaries though, so I guess he's kind of a celebrity." The Marine shrugged.

"So what happened after all of that? Did your Dad keep flying." Barricade curiously asked.

"Yeah. Dad kept flying Tomcat's and met my Mom when he got back to the States' after his deployment. The two started dating and got married soon after. They got things figured out, and later on I was born in 1988. Dad kept flying and got transferred to the upgraded F-14D in 1995. I was seven when that happened, and Dad took me to an airshow where I saw the F-14 for the first time in real life. It's still as awesome today as it was back then."

"Where's your Dad at now? He seems really cool and I want to meet him."

Marcus sighed and closed his eyes. He looked off into the distance with a sad look on his face. "Dad...Dad's in a better place now, sorry Cade'..."

"What do you mean...? Did...something happen...?" his sister worriedly asked.

"Yeah..." Marcus heavily answered. "Dad became a test pilot later on in his career. The government had him start testing a new, next-generation fighter; the X-35. I never saw any pictures of the thing because it's still really classified and still being tested right now."

"One day they had Dad testing out how the jet handled at high speeds and while at high altitude. The flight was going well as he went supersonic, and he banked the jet over onto it's left wing and began pulling a turn...and that's when it happened..." Pakowski looked down and closed his eyes. "I don't really know what exactly happened, but the jet somehow became unstable and went out of control. The thing suddenly broke up and became a fireball." he explained. "Dad...didn't make it out. I was twelve when it happened..." he finished in a murmur.

Barricade turned Marcus around and hugged him close to her. She moved her right hand and began gently caressing his back with her thumb. "I'm sorry Marcus. Your Dad sound's really awesome. I wish I could have met him...But stuff happens, and we can't change that." Marcus faintly nodded and pulled himself a little closer. The two remained like that for a minute before the nineteen year old took a deep breath and raised his head.

"Thanks sis." Marcus reached up and quickly rubbed his slightly damp eyes. "Dad wouldn't want me to get all sad now. He was one awesome father, and one really cool fighter pilot. Dad didn't pass from this world with a sad whimper." Marcus shook his head. "Nah, he went out like he wanted; in a blaze of glory."

Barricade looked off into the distance at the blinking lights of the next incoming Tomcat. "Great balls of fire..." she mumbled as she imagined that being Marcus' Dad coming in to land after a successful mission.

"Yeah kid, great balls of fire. And my Dad was the greatest." Marcus quietly replied with a small smile beginning to tug on his mouth.