October 4th, 2019
Tyler Island
OFS Wagtail
San Antonio-class landing platform dock
'Bridge, starboard wing, eyes on sailors in the water!' Over the closed communications system of the landing ship OFS Wagtail, Captain Kai Everson heard a report from the crew members on the right hand side of the ship's bridge. He looked to his right. Through the shattered bridge windows, he saw the sinking wreck of an AEGIS guided missile destroyer. Further out just below the horizon, Everson also knew that another destroyer in his flotilla was also burning and out of the fight. He didn't know where the missiles that had attacked his fleet had come from, but they had appeared close enough to catch the ships by surprise. Two of his three destroyers had been effectively destroyed. The Bunting had caught a missile, but Wagtail and Sunbird were luckily both intact. Their CIWS systems had shot down all incoming birds.
'Bridge, CIC, incoming unidentified aircraft, bearing 2-3-0.' The Wagtail's TAO informed Everson. Bad news. Now aircraft were approaching, and it wasn't likely they could protect against those.
'Shit.' Everson cursed. 'Prepare for combat, anti-air. Helmsman, left turn, 2-3-0.'
AIRCRAFT
Razgriz 1/Blaze: F-35B Lightning II
Razgriz 2/Swordsman: F-35B Lightning II
Razgriz 3/Archer: F-35B Lightning II
Razgriz 4/Mythic: F-35B Lightning II
Strider 1/Trigger: F-35B Lightning II
Strider 2/Count: F-35B Lightning II
Strider 3/Jaeger: F-35B Lightning II
Strider 4/Lanza: F-35B Lightning II
'Damn, it looks like the landing fleet has taken a beating.' Lanza commented as the flight of eight approached the group of ships on the ocean's surface near Tyler Island. Blaze saw the three landing ships and the two sinking destroyers. Something was out of place, he gathered.
'Osean landing ship Wagtail, this is AWACS Long Caster. The aircraft in your region belong to the LRSSG.' Sitting in the cabin of a Merlin Crowsnest some kilometers out of the battlezone, Long Caster attempted to contact the ships.
'You're the LRSSG? Oh, thank christ.' Captain Everson admitted relief that the fighters near his ships were friendly.
'What's the situation?' Blaze asked. If the ships were getting hammered, he imagined that the situation wasn't any better on solid ground.
'Fubar. The lack of comms completely dislodged our forces. Marines all over the island are disorganised and on the run.' Everson reported what he knew. 'We were running in to pick up retreating forces, but we got attacked before we made it to the shoreline.'
So that explains the burning ships, Alex thought to himself as Razgriz and Strider Squadrons flew over the Wagtail and towards Tyler Island. They had a job to do, and that was to take the island, or at the very least one of the airports on the island.
'LRSSG, do us a favour. If you find any of our guys on the ground, do what you can to help them. We're of no help ourselves out here.' Everson requested.
'Roger.' Trigger replied. Out in the distance, Tyler Island became visible and it became clear that the island had indeed turned into a warzone. Smouldering smoke stacks could be seen even from a significant distance. Some serious fighting had occurred.
'Strider, Razgriz, focus your attention on assisting friendly forces. Break them out of contact. After that, destroy anything controlling the southern-most airbase.' Blaze handed out orders to everyone. Allies were their priority. Having a place on solid ground to land was creature comfort. Razgriz Squadron took the lead all the way to the island. Blaze checked the image provided by his aircraft's FLIR pod as they got closer. Right at the point that they were going to cross feet dry, Blaze noticed a series of trucks with pods on their flatbed portions. Missile pods. Anti-ship missile pods. Probably the things that had fired at the fleet. Blaze targeted them as hostiles and dived down to go attack them. He selected Hellfire ATGMs from the air to ground munitions he had on hand, locked onto the fresh IR signature of the trucks and fired. Six missiles flew from their respective pylons and towards the missile trucks. Without an air radar, they wouldn't have seen the missiles coming. All of the missile trucks were destroyed in a flash, along with their high explosive cargos.
The Razgriz were investigating lethal cargo. The convicts were investigating unknown cargo.
Huntsman, Bandog, Keystone and Tabloid approached a downed cargo aircraft, weapons ready in case there were hostiles that had survived the crash. Huntsman personally doubted it. Last night there had been a really big crash. The cause, as they had just found out, was an Erusean Royal Family C-1 transport aircraft. Both of the thing's wings were gone, and the core of the aircraft was rolled over in the soil.
'What's royalty doing out here?' Tabloid asked as they approached the aircraft. A warzone was no place for a king, queen or princess.
'The entire continent is a mess. Probably doesn't have actual members of the royal family.' Bandog wagered a guess. Huntsman scoffed in agreement. They approached from the back of the aircraft. A good portion of the rear segment of the C-1 was missing, as if it had been hit by a missile. Tabloid, the smallest person of the group, approached the half-open passenger door at the front of the aircraft.
'What's it like inside?' Huntsman asked when he noticed Tabloid peeking his head inside the aircraft. Tabloid pulled his head back out to answer.
'I'll give you two guesses, but you'll only need one.' Tabloid answered sarcastically. Huntsman was about to give a witty reply, but the sound of a barking dog cut him off. Huntsman looked for the source of the noise. Tabloid threw himself out of the aircraft, stumbled and fell onto his arse. A golden retriever appeared out of the aircraft and playfully landed on the Belkan-born fighter pilot. Keystone raised his Minimi to fire, but Huntsman laughed and pushed Keystone's light machine gun down.
'Found a friend?' Bandog joked. Tabloid pushed the dog off of him with all his strength and crouched next to the dog. He petted it briefly.
'Scared the shit out of me.' Tabloid admitted. He stood up and went to enter the aircraft again. 'There's a civilian in there.'
Tabloid squeezed through the opening and entered the aircraft. The interior of the C-1 was a mess. Wood pieces and glass covered the floor, and anything that hadn't been bolted down had been thrown around and destroyed. To Tabloid, none of that mattered. Of more interest to him was the blonde-haired woman hiding behind a cluster of broken furniture. She was trying to hide. Tabloid put one hand in the air while reaching for the sling of his MK18 and gently putting it on the floor.
'I'm not here to hurt you, ma'am.' Tabloid tried to convince the lady that he meant no harm.
'N-no?' The lady asked shakily. She was scared, but from what Tabloid could see she was uninjured. Tabloid slowly approached her, both of his hands up and clearly visible to the lady to make sure he presented as little a threat as possible.
'I'm Tabloid. I'm a pilot.' Tabloid introduced himself to defuse the tension. The lady poked out from her hiding spot, curious.
'I'm… Rosa.' Rosa returned the introduction, staying put for now where Tabloid could get a better look at her. She was dirty, but again, uninjured. Tabloid frowned. He knew the name fairly well. And this was a royal family aircraft…
'Rosa D'Elise?' Tabloid asked to verify what he was thinking. Rosa nodded dumbly. Tabloid whistled in surprise.
'Of all the people to find in the wrong places.' Tabloid mused. He pulled out a radio from one of the pouches on his vest. 'Hey, any of you guys a fan of Erusean princesses?'
'Come again?' Bandog had to ask. It was a stupid question to ask at this sort of time.
'One of the passengers survived the crash. It's the Erusean princess.' Tabloid confirmed the situation for Bandog. A couple of seconds later, the AWACS operator poked his head in through the passenger door. He saw Tabloid and Rosa standing there in the cabin.
'Ah fuck, you weren't kidding.' Bandog was surprised that Tabloid wasn't bullshitting for once. He waved to the princess. Rosa weakly waved back before Bandog disappeared from her line of sight. Tabloid chuckled to himself. He offered a supportive hand to Rosa.
'Wanna come with us?' Tabloid asked. 'Place we have isn't that pretty, but it's safer than here.' Rosa moved to take Tabloid's hand, hesitated for a second or two, but then finished the action. Tabloid pulled her out of her hiding spot, and for the first time in twelve hours Rosa was on her feet. Rosa brushed excess dirt off her dress and exhaled. Tabloid turned around and headed for the passenger door with the princess in tow.
Huntsman stood around outside waiting for Tabloid to come out with the supposed princess. Huntsman was surprised to see Rosa. Royalty did not belong in a place like this. Royalty also didn't belong with armed military personnel belonging to another country. Tabloid wasn't wearing a flag on his uniform, but Rosa knew that she was with foreigners when she saw the Osean flag on Huntsman's shoulder. She apprehensively took a few steps away from the group.
'You'll all Osean?!' She asked, now legitimately scared. Keystone seemed amused at this fact. Bandog put his hands up in false surrender.
'Osean Air Defence Force. I'm Major Wilde, the commander of this squad.' Bandog introduced himself. Rosa seemed to register that fact. She looked at Huntsman and Keystone, looking for some sort of identity.
'Captain Webber.' Huntsman gave her the identities she was looking for. He tilted his head towards Keystone while looking at Rosa. 'That's Lieutenant Harken. We're all Air Force.'
'You aren't going to kill me?' Rosa asked cynically. Huntsman rolled his eyes while Keystone laughed.
'That'd be rude.' The latter said.
'We're soldiers, not executioners.' Huntsman noted. The golden retriever he saw before ran up to Rosa. She smiled and patted the dog.
'How'd you manage to get here anyway? We haven't had access to aircraft for a few weeks.' Keystone asked how Rosa had incidentally managed to crash on Tyler Island.
'I don't know. The last thing I remember hearing before my plane got hit was that we were being shot at by our own countrymen.' Rosa admitted that she didn't know. Right on cue with the group talking about planes and aircraft, a pair of matte-black jets roared overhead, their engines pushing out as much thrust as they could without going into wet mode.
'F-35s.' Tabloid identified the aircraft when they passed over. Huntsman noticed the unit marking on the bottoms of the wingtips. He recognised it as a legend from nine years prior. One that his former wing leader happened to be a member of. Bandog saw and recognised the marking as well. The two exchanged glances.
'Full Band's got the long-range.' Huntsman mentioned. Bandog looked to Rosa.
'Ma'am, follow us.' He said, turning towards their encampment and starting the hike that would take them there. Tabloid, Huntsman and Keystone followed shortly behind. Rosa had no choice but to follow along with her dog. Combined, the group of five plus family pet moved towards the 444th Squadron's camp.
In the air, Razgriz Squadron was busy finding and identifying potential targets and friendlies. So far all they had found were targets. There were no Osean vehicles that the squad could see. Blaze guessed that they had all been destroyed in the fighting. In front of him, Blaze noticed Tyler Island's mass driver. In true space machine fashion, it was a giant construct, much like the mass driver at Basset Space Centre he had helped defend nine years prior. He slowed down and looked at the airbase near the mass driver through his IR pod. To his surprise, there wasn't much in the way of aircraft or vehicles protecting the northern airbase. There were a scant few Su-35s on the flight line and a few AH-64s, but otherwise no aircraft.
'Heads up. Two strong MiG-29 flight returning from the north-east.' Grimm pointed out. He was correct. Out in the distance, two Erusean Fulcrums were returning to their base, probably a routine intercept. Blaze flipped down his HMD's visor and banked in the general direction of the incoming Fulcrums. He fired two AMRAAM missiles. They then went on an intercept path for the enemy fighters. Neither knew that they were being attacked by Osean fighters until it was too late to evade. One took a hit and exploded. The other realised that he was being fired upon and pulled away from the missile, but the manoeuvre didn't help and in one bang the pilot was forced to eject before his aircraft exploded underneath him.
'MiG-29s down.' Blaze reported. At low altitude, Razgriz Squadron flew in formation right over the mass driver. Once they were over the ocean at the end of the mass driver, the squadron split apart from each other and began their attack on the Erusean ground assets. Blaze did a barrel roll and came back down the mass driver, his engine roaring. He slaved his IR tracking to his HMD and looked around the airbase. There was an artillery firebase on the grass, with towed howitzers spitting out high explosive shells towards a target in the far distance. They were the first to feel Blaze's wrath. A salvo of anti-tank missiles made sure that they stopped their fire mission. The howitzers melted under the impact and exploded.
Grimm went hunting for active enemy tanks. The first of them that he found was a column of them leaving the northern airbase heading down south. They were targeted by Grimm with Hellfires. The missiles flew almost directly down into the turret roofs of the tanks in the column. Shaped charges melted through their armour so that the main charge of the ATGMs could enter the tanks unimpeded. Of the five in the column, none of them stood a chance against the attack. The crews of the tanks were either killed instantly or suffered a quick death by burning. Not too far up the road from where the tanks had once been, Grimm noticed that he passed a single truck, a troop carrier. He almost fired, but noticed that the paint scheme was off. It was painted in a desert scheme, not woodland like it should have been. Grimm circled around and took another look. It was on that second glance that he figured out the vehicle was an Osean model. In the back were numerous Osean soldiers. He wondered if they had a functioning tactical radio.
'Osean vehicle, this is Razgriz 3, do you read?' Grimm attempted to contact the vehicle on the standard air to ground net. There was no reply for a few seconds, but he did eventually get one.
'Razgriz 3, Ultima 5-1, was that you who just cleared our backs?!' The man on the radio was understandably confused, but recognisably Osean.
'Yeah. Ultima, I've got a mission for you. Retreat to the original landing zone. The Navy's pulling weight to pick up any survivors.' Grimm relayed the order that Blaze had given him to the marines.
'Understood, but there are still more guys out there.' Ultima 5-1 denied the order. They were Marines. It was either all of their brothers and sisters got out, or no-one did. Grimm sighed.
'Point them out on the TAC terminal. We'll find them.' Grimm agreed with the marines. His BLUFOR tracker updated with markers indicating the position of presumed friendly positions. This data linked with the others and soon every fighter aircraft in the sky had their trackers updated with this information.
Mythic acted on the marker closest to her; a position a scant few hundred metres south-east of the nothern airbase. From a distance, she observed the area with her imaging pod, seeing if there were actually Osean marines there. To her surprise, there indeed were, although not many of them were standing. Ingressing on their position, in the north there was a full platoon of 50 or so Erusean infantrymen and armed vehicles. Mythic approached from the south and dived on the Erusean company. She pressed one of the triggers on her stick and her aircraft's belly-mounted GAU-22 belched shells at high velocity into the ground. Her cannon fire lanced through the spearhead of the Erusean formation, breaking through it and proceeding to then tear apart a Jackal armed recce vehicle. As she ascended out of her dive, Mythic fired a pair of Hellfires at the two other armed vehicles in the platoon, destroying them both. She flew over the airbase and banked around back for the friendly position. She committed to another gunrun to further disperse the enemy infantry. When she was done, there weren't many Eruseans left to report the encounter.
'Osean ground troops, cut and retreat to the landing zone.' Mythic contacted the marines she had just saved. They didn't reply over the radio, but as Mythic flew away from the group for the next marker, she saw that the surviving marines were moving away from the area and heading in the general direction of the landing zones. She moved on. The next area wasn't in the middle of the fighting, but Mythic did see people on the move towards some sort of scrapyard. There were a couple of rusted space shuttles lying around, along with plenty of piles of other assorted scrap.
Bandog, Huntsman, Keystone, Tabloid, Rosa and her dog entered the perimetre of the scrapyard's administration complex via a breach in the chain-link fence. Taipan and Champ met them at the breach.
'Where the hell did you find her?!' Taipan asked the group, recognising the princess among them. Huntsman shrugged as they entered through the gate. A black F-35 roared overhead, launching a missile at something a little while away as it passed. Huntsman looked up. He didn't know the specific pilot, but he knew that paint scheme. Huntsman and Bandog sprinted towards the building that everyone in the team was hiding in. They burst through one of the doors to the surprise of Full Band. The latter raised his M4 in defence but quickly recognised the two men who had entered.
'Oh, it's you. Where are the others?' Full Band asked. Huntsman took a breath before answering.
'Not too far behind. I need the long range.' Huntsman explained, looking for the long range radio backpack that belonged to them. It was sitting at a bench on the other side of the room. He grabbed it by a handle near the top and dashed back outside. Once outside, Huntsman dropped the bag to the ground, extended a pair of antenna on the top, adjusted the radio to what he hoped was the right frequency and picked up the handpiece for the radio.
'Razgriz Squadron, this is TAC name Huntsman, callsign Wolf 1, do you read me?' Huntsman spoke. He desperately waited for a reply.
'-TAC name Huntsman, callsign Wolf 1, do you read me?' Grimm heard the radio transmission. He knew the voice.
'Wolf Leader, this is Razgriz 3, is that you Michael?' Grimm decided to reply. It was his old friend and squad leader of the 242nd's Wolf Squadron.
'You're still alive Archer? Fuck, second surprise for us.' Huntsman fucked around with Grimm for a brief moment before going serious again. 'Situation's pretty fucked. The Eruseans hold all the cards.'
'We're changing that, stand by.' Blaze popped in. 'Captain, are you able to move your guys to the first landing site?'
'Gonna take us forever to hike there, but we could.' Huntsman explained their situation, albeit indirectly. Up in the air, Blaze bit his lip. He had been wondering when his squad was going to encounter friendly foot-mobiles in the exact wrong place.
'Blaze, enemy interceptors spinning up at the south airport.' Trigger reported to Blaze. The Eruseans had caught onto the fact that there were enemy aircraft around and were sending up fighters to destroy them.
'Huntsman, hold your position.' Blaze ordered the grounded pilots before turning south to intercept the interceptors. As it turned out, he didn't have to go anywhere. Trigger reported the presence of two enemy F-15Js, but by the time that Blaze had made it there Trigger had shot down both interceptors. Blaze scoffed. He slowed down and targeted the armoured vehicles protecting the perimeter. The last of the Hellfires he had on his pylons flew off and went to go destroy every vehicle that he targeted. Eight flashes, eight dead vehicles. A tiny bit of the threat that the airbase posed was gone, but Blaze couldn't contribute much against it without air to ground weapons.
'Razgriz 1, Winchester on air-to-ground weaponry.' Blaze reported.
A little while out to sea, Snow was investigating. He had noticed an abnormal radar return to the north-west of the island. Unsure if it was caused by a spall or a surface warship, he was closing in on the signature. There wasn't any bad weather in the area, nor any sort of cloud cover. The naval aviator spotted a few specks on the surface of the ocean. Intrigued, Snow closed in to identify them. The ships weren't very big. The biggest of the quadrio of ships was a destroyer. A frigate and two missile boats were escorting the destroyer. Missile boats escorting larger ships tipped Snow off to the fact that the ships were not an Osean formation. The OMDF didn't operate combative ships smaller than a littoral combat ship.
Grimm flew over to a small town on the top of one of the island's flattop mountains. A pair of APCs and their infantry dismounts had engaged something in the town. Grimm was going to attack the APCs with missiles, but he didn't have to for whoever the Eruseans were fighting, they had come prepared. One of the APCs exploded, hit by a missile that had come from the launcher of an Osean anti-tank rifleman. The other was lifted a couple of metres into the air and flipped. Grimm then saw tracer fire rake the enemy infantry that weren't wise enough to take cover. Deciding that they didn't need help, Grimm moved onto the next possible target.
'Friendly aircraft, Medusa, requesting a GAU run to support a nearby unit.' The JTAC of the group that Grimm had just passed contacted him. Grimm turned around.
'Medusa, Razgriz 3, send details.' He requested for the position of whatever unlucky son of a bitch the JTAC was calling in.
'The town a kilometre to the south of our location. Reference the smoke grenades. Marines are in contact with mechanised infantry. Red smoke for hostiles, blue smoke for friendlies. You are cleared hot.' The JTAC gave Grimm the strike details. Grimm banked to the south and looked for the aforementioned smoke markers. The JTAC was right. There was a pair of BMPs advancing on a squad or two of marines. The BMPs had advanced past the red smoke grenades, but that didn't matter for now. Grimm climbed and dived on the two IFVs. He squeezed the trigger and cannon shells lanced into the engine compartment of the first BMP, disabling it. Grimm adjusted his fire so that the shells went through the turret roof of the second. The crew of the infantry fighting vehicle were turned into mush when the shells exploded inside the crew compartment. Both IFVs were disabled.
'Both armoured vehicles have been destroyed.' Grimm reported to the JTAC, turning away from the two towns and letting the marines deal with the dismounts.
'Copy, Razgriz, cheers for the assist.' The JTAC thanked the third man of the squad for his assistance.
Trigger flew around not particularly focusing on the supposed markers for friendly forces. Instead he shot at anything that was hostile that he happened to see. BTRs here, T-80s there, Trigger even came across a pair of UH-60M Blackhawks. He swatted both of the troop-carrying helicopters out of the sky with a single burst from his F-35B's gunpod. His random adventure brought him over to a series of radio towers roughly in the middle of Tyler Island. He noticed a firefight going on below and went in to investigate. Osean marines were attempting to do something with the towers and a company or so of Erusean troops embarked on trucks had noticed. Trigger lobbed a GBU-12 without any guidance into the middle of the Erusean's firepower. A big boom and a lot of people died. Trigger came around and dropped a second GBU into the next biggest group of soldiers. Over half the company was shredded in two bomb strikes, or roughly 60 people. Trigger came around for a third run and started tearing into the infantry with his cannon. He targeted the trucks of the company, destroying three of them and managing to kill an extra twenty soldiers in the process. The surviving forty men of the company wisely decided that getting torn apart by an angry man in a Lightning II wasn't high on their priority list and started splitting apart and running away from Trigger's airstrikes.
'Holy fuck. Captain, do you see that aircraft's tail?' An officer on the radio pointed out, referring to the three strikes on Trigger's dual tailplanes.
'Fuck me sideways, it's Three Strikes. Rescue is here, men!' The captain of that unit saw the three strikes as a morale booster. Trigger faintly smiled as he flew off looking for another target.
While the fighter pilots were flying around in their fixed wing aircraft, Long Caster was observing the radar feed from inside his new AWACS, the Merlin. Something popped up. Something at very high altitude. Long Caster frowned and tapped the screen to make sure he wasn't losing his marbles. Nope, the contact then updated to show a couple more. And then a few more. Long Caster leaned in to count. Twelve radar contacts were approaching Tyler Island at high speed from the north-east.
'Strider, Razgriz, unknown formation approaching the island at very high speed, bearing 0-5-0. Identify the formation.' Long Caster reported it to the pilots.
'Roger. Razgriz, move to formation and egress at 0-5-0.' Blaze ordered his squad to pull away from the island and intercept the unknowns. Long Caster had a couple of theories that he kept to himself, none of which were a good thing for the boots on the ground. Long Caster also noticed that Razgriz 2, Marcus, was outside the recognised AO circling around something.
'The hell are you doing...' Long Caster muttered to himself.
Blaze had noticed as well, but he was more occupied with gaining the altitude and speed required to get to the same level as the aircraft he, Grimm and Mythic were meant to be intercepting. He hoped they weren't hostile to them, because between the three they didn't have enough missiles to shoot down all of whatever the hell they were. Blaze flew through a cloud ahead of the unknown formation. Razgriz appeared a dozen or so kilometres in front of them at this point. His F-35's AN/APG-81 radar was able to passively identify the airframes of the various targets in front of them. They were Tu-160 Blackjacks, supersonic-capable bombers operated by the Erusean, Estovakian and Fascian Air Forces. Blaze cursed. He had a fall-back card, but he seriously doubted it would work. The Blackjacks had escorts, F-35Cs of the Erusean Navy. They all flew past Razgriz Squadron. Blaze turned and sped up so that he was following the formation.
'Erusean bomber formation, this is Commander Alex Williams, can you hear me?' Blaze played his fall-back card. Blaze grit his teeth and readied his air-to-air missiles in case this didn't work.
'Commander Williams, this is Lieutenant-Colonel Emeric Pons. Pardon my language, but what the fuck are the Demons of Razgriz doing here?' The flight leader of the formation, a man flying a grey and white splinter camo Su-35S, asked. Blaze recognised the aircraft. He had seen the same Su-35 over Anchorhead Bay when they went to go and rescue General Labarthe. Although the two didn't interact, Blaze knew that the Super Flanker pilot had been one of the people on Labarthe's side. Which meant that by extent, he was also an Osean ally.
'I could ask the same of you, Axeman. We flew in the same skies a few days ago, over Anchorhead. You were on our side then. Are you on our side now?' Blaze doubled down on his deck.
'Ahhh. So you're an Osean. Tell me Commander, what's it looking like down there?' Axeman asked who was winning on the ground.
'Could be better, but we're beating the enemy back.' Blaze answered.
'Glad to see you're attacking the radicals. Do you know about the mass driver, per chance?' Axeman asked. Blaze looked over at the gold-tinted cockpit of Axeman's Su-35, as if he could see the pilot.
'I know it exists. Is there anything special about it?' Blaze knew that Tyler Island had the mass driver, he had flown over the fucking thing. He had seen a couple of MDVs, Mass Driver Vehicles, in storage to the side of the mass driver but they were inactive and not primed for a launch.
'The Arsenal Bird uses them. It's how they resupply their weapons. If we destroy the mass driver...' Axeman explained their purpose that was relevant to the bomber armada.
'Then the Arsenal Bird runs out of ammo. But what about the civilians in the surrounding area? The island isn't just inhabited by military techs.' Blaze raised the point of the various civilian space program personnel that resided on the island.
'You're welcome to try and take down an eight-mile long ferroconcrete structure with GBUs, commander.' Axeman raised a counterpoint. Blaze grit his teeth. He had a solution, but it would require returning to the Orca and picking up a couple of two thousand pound JDAMs, and that would only put the mass driver out of commission for as long as the men occupying the station could move out to replace the tracks.
'Colonel, I ask that you call off the attack, at least for the moment. I've got a plan.' Blaze tried to bargain with Axeman.
'I'll give you an hour. We've got fuel, but not a lot of it.' Axeman relented. Blaze pulled away from the bomber formation and started heading towards Tyler Island with Grimm and Mythic following closely behind.
'What's the plan?' Mythic asked, a rarity for her, but warranted in this case. The mass driver was a solid target. Blaze thought for a moment. There were two options on his mind. The first was to return to the Orca and rearm with heavy bombs. The second was to order a missile strike on the mass driver via the Orca's two escorting destroyers, which carried Tomahawk cruise missiles.
'Long Caster, requesting a Tomahawk strike on the base of the mass driver. I'll laser designate the point I want you to hit.' Blaze decided the method to their problem.
'Captain, Marigold reports the presence of a surface vessel with a large radar cross section.' The TAO of the aircraft carrier Silverfish reported to the ship's captain. Talisman, Shadow and Raven all heard this interaction from within the CIC of the Emmerian carrier. They were easily within fighter launch range of Tyler Island, and ship-to-shore movement via small boats wouldn't take that long either. Talisman had been curious about the force composition of both sides in the battle, so she had a dossier in her hands while the CIC underwent the process of identifying the detected vessel.
'San Antonios, Arleigh Burkes, a Virginia...' Talisman read from the naval forces section of the dossier. It slipped her mind that she was talking openly, albeit quietly.
'Hmm?' Raven asked, intrigued.
'Talking to myself, sorry.' Talisman apologised for the slip. She finished reading the relevant section and frowned. Nothing that the Oseans nor the Eruseans had deployed could be described to have a large RCS. 'Commander, can you tell what type of ship it is?'
'If I had to guess Colonel, I'd say something like a Wasp or a Tarawa. She's big, fat and ugly.' The Silverfish's TAO wagered a guess. 'If she lit up a radar, we'd be able to tell for sure. But without that, only way to tell would be to get closer.'
'I'll take that bet.' Raven leaned forward so that he was leaning over the TAO's shoulder. His eyes scanned the radar screen. Marigold, the big and chunky Kirov-class battlecruiser that she was, was sharing her sensor data with the carrier. After a few seconds, Raven admitted that he had no idea and pulled away from the screen.
'Erusean?' Shadow suggested. Talisman shook her head.
'Subs would have gotten her by now.' She voiced her reason of disagreement. 'I'm going to launch and investigate. You two want to come?'
'Sure.' Raven agreed to come with his employer.
'May as well.' Shadow also agreed. The trio left the CIC for the pilot's equipment room. Emmerian carriers were equipped roughly the same as Osean ones, unsurprising considering most of their carrier fleet was composed of Osean designs. Raven didn't take long to get ready; the suit he was wearing was his g-suit. It took Talisman and Shadow a few minutes to kit up. Raven left to his aircraft so the other two could converse.
'So,' Shadow asked while sliding on her survival vest. 'How'd you become Emmeria's angel?'
'Where I come from, I'm considered extremely attractive.' Talisman replied. Shadow looked at the Emmerian lieutenant-commander. While not fluidly sexual by any means, Shadow admitted to herself that Talisman was indeed attractive, even at the somewhat mature age of 40. Sharp curves, a full body, the like.
'I imagine all the guys come after you.' Shadow joked. Talisman chuckled lightly, correctly adjusting her vest.
'They all shoot, but no-one ever seems to hit.' Talisman alluded to her relationship status. 'Much like in the skies. By any right, I should have died back then.'
'Funny how the skies work.' Shadow knew the feeling. There were a few times where Shadow should have died up there, including the run-ins with the Demon of the Northern Sea. Talisman picked up her helmet from one of the nearby lockers. She left the crew room and left for the hangar, leaving Shadow to her own thoughts for an extra minute before she too went to pick an aircraft for this recon op.
EXTRA AIRCRAFT
Garuda 1/Talisman: F/A-18E Super Hornet
Garuda 2/Shadow: F/A-18E Super Hornet
Raven 1/Raven: Su-57C Felon
Raven departed from the carrier early because of his aircraft's VTOL system. Talisman and Shadow had to get catapulted off. They came from the port-side aircraft elevator and were carted over to catapults 3 and 4. It didn't take long for them to get off the ship. Once the two Super Hornets were armed and fuelled, Talisman was connected to the catapult and in the moment that she saluted the bubble operator she was thrown back into her seat and chucked off the deck of the carrier.
Trigger got to watch as the mass driver on the northern end of the island got hit by four Tomahawk missiles. They burrowed into the ferroconcrete of the mass driver and exploded, shaking the structure and blowing out massive chunks of material. One of the missiles ripped out enough of the track on the mass driver to make it unusable without repair. The mass driver groaned, but the supports further down the line held it in place.
'Good effect on target. Axeman, the mass driver has been disabled.' Blaze called it out to their new Erusean friends, something that Trigger found ironic and necessary at the same time. He became less concerned about having Eruseans for allies when Long Caster pointed out a new contact to the east. Now there were potential Eruseans for hostiles.
'Strider 1, intercepting.' For the gods-known whatever time, Trigger split away from his squad to go out and intercept.
'Strider 2, intercepting.'
'Strider 3, intercepting.'
'Strider 4, intercepting.' Count, Jaeger and Lanza all had his back. As a unit, they chased down the new targets. Long Caster had reported a pair of Super Hornets approaching the Orca. Cyclops Squadron was on the carrier with their F-35s ready as an assurance, but Strider would get there before they could take off. Trigger went to afterburner to close the distance quicker.
'Orca reporting, we just got buzzed by an Su-57! No external markers!' The captain of the Orca reported. Trigger cursed. More stealth aircraft. Unable to tell if the Su-57 wasn't hostile based on the fact that it hadn't just dropped bombs on the Orca, Trigger slightly relaxed. He quickly unrelaxed when he physically saw the Su-57 in front of him. Even from a distance, Trigger recognised the scheme of the Su-57 as one he had seen while in the cockpit of the very aircraft he was in now. The mercenary aircraft shot right by without any regard for the F-35B squadron. Trigger elected not to give chase, but to maintain his bearing on the Super Hornets.
'Razgriz, you've got a Felon coming your way. Be warned, the pilot's good.' Trigger warned the top of the bunch.
Blaze had been alerted to the Su-57's presence by the Orca, but he hadn't expected the Felon to get in close and personal so quickly after it was reported. Blaze took the lead from the squad, putting himself in between the Su-57 and Grimm and Mythic.
'So, I found some allied Eruseans-' Snow returned to the radio right in time for the big event.
'Not now, we've got contact.' Blaze cut him off. The Su-57 approached.
Alright, who am I dealing with today?
