Sky's over Long Xuyen, Vietnam.
Rin POV
We were finally underway, we'd received the order to split into individual squadrons. The Liberation bombers were to suppress the enemy AA while we covered them from whatever pitiful crap the Vietnamese Kanmusu could get airborne. Last time I'd seen anything in the air that wasn't a human craft it was a Seagull floatplane. While the Browning 1919's were dangerous, the plane itself had a weak engine, not really capable of any real combat maneuvers, we'd rip them to pieces once we got altitude on them. And that was before mentioning we would probably outnumber them at a ten-to-one margin. My squadron was shadowing above and behind Liberation group 4, all 9 of our planes in V-formation.
"Rin! look to your ten O-clock! the F-4's are here!" Yui shouted from the back.
I looked over and sure enough, the human craft, MIG 21's if the intel was right, had been dispersed. Running scared from the Jets launched from CVA Kitty Hawk. It still ground my gears a bit that she didn't use Cat-Fighters like the one I was in, would have made for quite the name synergy for the Battle Cat to have Hell-Cats.
As I thought this, one of the 21's separated even further from the pack, immediately getting swarmed by most of the F-4's as the other two 21's burned off to the South, chased by the rest. "Those human sum'bitches know they are riding right into the main task force, right?" I asked rhetorically. Yui answered anyway;
"Looks like it, now pay attention to what's in front! I don't want to have to get resummoned because you plowed into a tree!" Yui was right, Abyss knew she'd ragged on the other pilots when it had happened to them. Though in Wo-03's very short operational history there had only been two non-combat crashes. I was taken from my thoughts as H-1 got on the horn with the squadron.
"We should be coming over the treeline in about 20 seconds, be ready for evasive maneuvers, we don't know how much AA this place has, but it's probably a lot." I settled into my seat, letting out a deep breath as I got comfortable.
15 seconds.
"You think we'll get alcohol rations after this? It's been at least three weeks."
"Trying to focus here Yui, just keep your eyes on your targeter."
10 seconds.
I checked the ammo counter out of habit, the 12.7 mm counter still sat where it had been, 2,400 rounds.
5 sec-
My internal countdown was interrupted as Anti-Air fire traced up from the forest directly under us. H-1 immediately gave the order to scatter, so I did, peeling out of our formation, going down closer to the treeline to limit the window of fire the human guns would have shooting up through the canopy. Most of the fire was insufficient, the fuses set for too long to go off within our formation, exploding harmlessly above us. One or two of the Liberation bombers, with their increased fixed wingspan, took direct hits, and one went down immediately, ripping through at least two tree trunks with its sheer mass before exploding, setting off the mark 47 bombs hung on its wings, fire rained down on that patch of the jungle. I liked to imagine I heard human gunners screaming below as I zipped past, but I honestly couldn't hear a damn thing over Yui firing into the canopy with her swivel-mounted M2 Brownings, what she hoped to hit, I didn't know.
"Yui! save it for when you have something to shoot!"
She looked back at me, cocking her head as she kept firing; "What?!"
"I said save it for when you have something to shoot!"
"Oh." The fire immediately stopped as we finally came out of the trees into the Song river. Just in time to watch as three of Kitty-Hawks F-4's slammed into the island upriver.
"Damn!" I got on the horn with my squadron. "H-6 speaking, Squad, spotted heavy AA due north, on the island, don't approach from the south, looks like they have their sights fixed downriver!" Pre-fixed fire was the only way I could see that they could've taken those jets out.
The single human MIG remaining was suddenly reinforced, two more squadrons coming out of no-where as they chased off what F-4's were left, I assumed Battle Cat would have more interceptors moving in soon to deal with them. What was concerning now though was the small swarm of aircraft coming in on my 1 O-clock.
I squinted my eyes, "Are those..." I muttered. Most of the enemy planes were recognizable, the lion's share were Zuiun floatplanes, though there was a squadron of type 0 recon floats as well as... Abyssal flying fish? The Seagulls were here as well, but I hardly counted them.
Our squadron came out of the tree's about then, blazing away at the cumbersome floatplanes with their M2's, the enemy formation scattered, and the fight was suddenly on.
Hachi POV
I barely kept ahead of the tracer rounds as I made a hard turn downwards, I hadn't wanted to lose altitude this early. But if it came down between low-altitude life and high-altitude death, I knew which one to choose. The enemy Hell-Cat zipped past, close enough I could have sworn I could see the pilot through the red-eyed cockpit window.
"Quick while she's passing shoot SHOOT!" Hahi swiftly obliged, stitching the air behind our craft with the rear-mounted 13mm type 2.
"It's smoking! I must have hit something important!" The Fairy exclaimed, only to flinch back as holes punched in through the rear-flap next to her and shattered the glass canopy. I banked hard left, and felt as rounds chewed into our right pontoon rather than our squishy bodies.
"Well hit something MORE important! It's on us!" I slowed to a crawl, risking a stall as the Abyssal fighter zoomed past us, with it now on my 12 O-clock I unloaded on it, my twin 20 mm forward-mounted type 99's chattering like a car-sized sewing machine. I watched as the fighter banked out of it, only catching a few rounds to one of its top horns as it sped off, trying to disengage to loop around probably. I stayed on its tail, my Zuiun able to match its pace as it sped off into the city proper, flying like an absolute lunatic into the streets to try and shake me.
"We have two more Cats coming in on our tail!" Hahi yelled worriedly, her Hachimaki flapping in the wind created by her newly-ventilated position. I grunted, flipping to our squadrons channel.
"This is CZ-2! We have two Cats on our tail, flying into the City, I'll try to shake them but I need as-" I banked hard left, avoiding a telephone pole as I turned a corner after my quarry. "-assistance soon as possible, over!" The Cat ahead of me suddenly tried a loop, corkscrewing through the air over me, probably getting on my 6 again.
"Hold on!"
"What wh-" Haha grabbed onto the frame as we dove, our heads almost perpendicular to the ground for a terrifying moment as I flipped us right-side around again, coming into the sight of the two, now three, fighters chasing us. I abruptly banked to the right, putting us right towards an office building as fire streamed past where we'd been. Hoping beyond hope the building had been evacuated I fired my fixed guns, the heavy caliber rounds shattering the window in front of us as I drove through, the Cats following after a moment. We flew down a large room lined with cubicles, of the type where office drones settled in to die. I dodged a post with sticky notes on it as fire traced past me, perforating the wall in front.
"Hahi are you waiting for an invitation?! SHOOT!" I shouted, as I maneuvered to try and get down the hall, there was another large window there. Type 2 fire answering me as the fairy shot into the first cat to turn into the same hall as us. I blew the window and looked back in time to see her stitch rounds right into the canopy, my pudgy grin turning to a look of horror as the fighter spiraled out of control. I upped my speed and shot out of the window just as the Cat-Fighter crashed into the floor of the hall, pulverizing the building in a fireball as its mass transitioned on contact with the floor. Out of the fire came the other two Cats, one still trailing smoke as they both blazed at us with their guns.
Tracers erupted around me as I made for the river, this was too damn dangerous for any civilians still running around!
Hahi's fire came to an abrupt stop as she cried out in pain. I banked into a side-street before immediately pulling up over a roof, hopefully losing LOS with the fighters for a few seconds as I looked back. Hahi had her arm cradled into her chest as she rocked back and forth, blood staining her flight jacket. "Are you OK!?" I yelled back to her, I hoped it wasn't too bad, it's not like I was in a position to help.
"Round went through the gun, I-I." She looked down, checking her hand; "I-It took my index and middle finger!" She immediately took a strip of her Hachimaki in-hand, ripping a strip off with her teeth as I noticed the two Cats come up over the roof behind us. I dove down into an alley, coming over the radio again, this time on an open channel as Hahi wound the strip around her finger stumps. "Any time with that support, any time at all! Coming out an alley over the Guangji Temple, please, anyone!"
No one answered as we shot out of the alley, fighters hot on our six. I flew through the gates of the Buddist Temple in front of me, surprised human PAVN soldiers diving out of the way as the Cats blazed away with their browning's behind us, taking massive chunks out of the golden architecture as they followed us in. I corkscrewed behind the giant Buddha statue in the courtyard, letting it take some of the fire as I looped around it, The Cat fighters following me in a deadly game of Ring-around-the-Rosie. The PAVN troops, overcoming their shock, fired on the Cats with their fully automatic ACE assault rifles. Churning up the fat statue's grinning form even more before a shot managed to puncture something important on the non-smoking Cat fighter, sending it careening off into a civilian truck parked outside.
In the ensuing explosion the last Cat peeled off, making for the gate again. I gave chase as I rubbed the Chinese good-luck knot tied onto my flight suit, it was getting put through its paces today.
