The day after the attacked followed. Saturday that did not have the same feeling as ones before. Students were told to stay at home, just in case that they won't get assaulted by those mafiosos. Unfortunately, that also meant that any events with friends were canceled.
On the lonesome yet partially cloudy Saturday morning, Chiaki slept in her bed like she usually does, in complete comfort and adventuring in dreamland. It took her about until noon one o'clock in the afternoon until she slowly opened her eyes in an incredibly drowsy manner.
"Mmmmm….weekend, right?" mumbled Chiaki, with her vision still really blurry. Even though she didn't see much as of yet, she could know that the alarm clock didn't go off. Her ears and dreams were at peace, with only Chiaki herself ending them. "Yep, it's weekend."
She rose up from the bed, having quite of a bedhead with her ruffled hair, only for her to remember what they said the day before.
"I just remembered….no one's gonna come, right?" frowned Chiaki the moment she reminded herself of it, meaning that no hanging around with her friends unlike before. No fun gaming sessions, no interesting discussions, nothing. It was starting to remind her of her old life, the one before she enrolled Hope's peak. All thanks to a gangster attacking her own classmate because he felt like it. Only thing she could do regarding her friends was to check her phone to see if she got any messages from them. Much to her surprise, she was flooded with messages of her classmates and her teacher expressing concern regarding her, especially after what happened to her. Even Future Gadget Lab members responded upon hearing what happened at the academy. A message that particularly stuck out was Fuyuhiko's, she did not expect that he would express great amount of worry for her, even if it was a foul mouthed rant. He seemed to even apologize for it. On one hand, Chiaki was incredibly grateful that she got people on her side to support and protect her, something that she didn't truly have before Hope's peak. She took time to reply with a thankful message to everyone. On other hand….
"Mmmm….they shouldn't worry, but….Chisa said that….I still don't quite understand...I still don't…" Chiaki thought of herself, just feeling unsure of herself. The girl always thought that causing concerns was a bad thing, especially for her friends, but words of her teacher stuck with her. However, no matter what, she still had to face the reality. "Well, this day is gonna be like how it was before Hope's peak…".
"I wonder how much will it take to-" Chiaki's mind started to succumb to all sorts of insecurities she had deep within, but the thought process was interrupted by her slapping her own cheeks. Perhaps even "Don't think like that, silly! It's just gonna be for this weekend. They'll come back, I'm sure of it….right?".
However, the interruption was brief.
"Still...if it wasn't for that mafia, we'd just have...a normal life. Is it hard to ask to ask for just a normal school life? We've only had like, what, three days of-" Chiaki caved into her insecurities once again before she suddenly slapped her cheeks, once again with more force than she should. The amount of force of the punch said something about Nanami herself. She was angry at herself due to her failings. "Stupid! Stupid girl, think of something to distract yourself with. Something that gives you some feeling of happy in the first place.".
After some time of thinking, she got an idea, which made her feel even more silly. Of course, it was video games.
"….Oh, how did I not think of this before?" Chiaki scratched her chin before she thought what type of game should she play. She preferred to play with others, but she also loved a single player experience too. "But what should I play? Hmmm….".
However, her thought process was quickly interrupted when she heard a door on the knock, startling her in the process. It couldn't have been her friends, since they were told to stay inside. Many things could be behind that door, including the adversary.
"Huh? Who's there?" wondered Chiaki as she went off her bed, stepping to the door. She opened it, only to reveal that it was just a postman. Nothing too concerning. He handed her the envelope without saying a word as he left her. She was now alone with the envelope in her hand.
"Postman? I wonder what did he bring?" wondered Chiaki as she went inside. Sitting on her couch, she opened up the envelope to see what did she receive.
It was taxes.
"….Oh." frowned Chiaki as she went to the kitchen to sit behind the table. She had to cover bills for things like electricity and much, which took a noticeable dent in her income. Luckily, Hope's peak's scholarship for Ultimates was solid enough, so she could still get basic needs. A question is how did she support herself before Hope's peak, where did she get the money, since she was always alone. "Welp, time to do it like I always did."
Chiaki started out filling papers with lethargy and somewhat of a hesitation. Took her a while to do so, even if she was slightly experienced with it. She had to do it for a long time in her life.
"There. Should be done. Now it's game time….but what?" Chiaki said to herself once she finished filling in taxes and placing the paper. Her thought process returned to think about what game should she play. Then, out of a sudden, a brief flash of a certain naval plane appeared in her mind, reminding her instantly on a promise she made to herself.
"Oh, I remember! Kazuichi showed me something cool before. Time to look up for it." Chiaki raised her finger as if she had a light bulb over her head. As she looked through her rather massive collection of games, retro and new, all belonging to different companies and developers. On her search, she found two particular games that had the plane in her mind: Top Gun for Nintendo Entertainment System (Famicom in Japan) and Turn & Burn: No Fly Zone for Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super Famicom in Japan).
"Oh, I have two games related to that plane already. I should probably try out Top Gun first, to follow chronological order." thought Chiaki as she prepared both aforementioned consoles for her gaming session. The first one to play was Top Gun, she popped it in and she was immediately greeted with a copyright message of the game, written in black letters on the white screen. After few seconds of waiting, the screen displayed a photo of the F-14 Tomcat turned into a sprite. The title of the game was written with big bold blue letters, accompanied with red lines, to imitate the movie's title. With a press of a start button, the screen transitioned into a short, simple cutscene of a Tomcat turning on afterburners. Following it were a selection screen, where the player could choose missiles of various types. Normally, she wouldn't have really pay attention to it, but her experience with actual flight simulators made her think about it.
"Hm...missiles have weird names. Shouldn't have been AIM-9 Sidewinder or something? Hm, I'm not too familiar with this plane's payload, so I have to look up. I still have a lot of learn." noted Chiaki, remembering F-16C's payload, at the very least air to air one. Usually, planes that originate from US seem to have Sidewinder as a heat seeking missile, Sparrow for semi-active radar guided missile and AMRAAM as an active radar guided missile. Seldom has been there a plane with a different missile, although Tomcat was just that. She just had to wait a little longer. Once she selected, the game began. It began with the first person view of a Heads Up Display, a rather simple one at that. Upper part just had few lines that showed a rectangle for a gun sight and few green lines that were supposed to be a HUD. The bottom part of the screen seemed to show a really simple green screen where radar was supposed to be, few gauges that were just there for aesthetics, missile counter, altitude indicator and speed indicator, with last one being completely automatic. It was clear that this was a product of its time and hardware. First mission began with Tomcat soaring over the sky, shooting down any bandit that traversed the same sky as her. However, the combat was incredibly simple, with A button used for gun fire and B button used for missile locking and launching. That's all there was to it to the game, shooting down other planes while trying to survive.
"Well, it's an older game and it shows, but I can see developers were trying. Still pretty fun." mused Chiaki to herself, enjoying the game despite its age and crustyness. There a special charm to old games for her, that could ease off her mind, no matter if they were masterpieces or kusoges. After a certain amount of time, the game decided that it was a time for landing. Not only just a landing, but a landing on a carrier to boot.
"Ah, landing time. This should be easy." Chiaki gained a rather determined look on her face as she simply followed the instructions displayed on the radar screen. It showed a silhouette of a Tomcat, going up or down depending on input. After plethora of corrections, a cutscene played, showing that Chiaki managed to successfully land the cat on the carrier. Mission complete "Got it.".
The rest of the game was similar, with some variations to spice up the game, such as air to air refueling from what it seemed to be to the four engine KC-135 Stratotanker. Odd thing about it was that in the game, it showed that it used a boom to refuel Tomcat, despite the fact that Tomcat was a Navy plane, which use probe-and-drogue way of mid air refueling. The game itself was finished in thirty minutes, a pretty standard time for Famicon games. Rarely were there games that exceeded over an hour.
"Whelp, that was quick. A lot of people don't like the game, but I still do. Any game can be fun." Chiaki reviewed the game, with only one hearing the review being Usami, her plushie. She was put on the couch, just so Chiaki had a feeling a friend was watching her. "Onto the next one.".
She left the game in the Famicon as she focused her attention on Super Famicon instead. She popped the cartridge in and turned on console. Once the copyright screen and logo screen were done, the game immediately had a more glamorous intro than the game that preceded her.
Instead of just immediately going to the title screen, a cutscene played, with F-14A Tomcat of VF-1 "Wolfpack" fighter squadron flying at mach one, since it had swept wings. Tomcats of that squadron were known to have insignia of a wolf on their tail. The flying machine banked to the right, disappearing from the sky as the actual title of the game appeared. It even had a white silhouette of a Tomcat facing forward. Compared to the title screen of Top Gun, Chiaki's mouth was agape upon seeing it, even though it was a game from the 90's.
"Oh my, this is shaping to be quite different." thought Chiaki to herself, already impressed by the game. Even little things in games got her. Upon pressing the B button on her Super Famicon controller, the screen transitioned to a scene of an aircraft carrier, specifically CVN-68 USS Nimitz, the might of naval power, just cruising through the waves as a large info dump served as an explanation of the story. Upon pressing start, a briefing was shown on Vertical Display Indicator, the one big screen on the front dash that served either as to show a locked bandit either with a line or as a camera. It foretold that the mission was going to be brief, with her only needing to take down five Migs. Once the debriefing was done, the game immediately threw her on the deck of the carrier, similar to what Top Gun did. Except, not only was she accompanied with a man in the yellow on the deck, the cockpit was a whole different best. Unlike in Top Gun, the digitized cockpit of Tomcat was much more detailed, with only gauges and minor details taking compromise. The visibility was lesser than in Top Gun, but it made up for authenticity. Even the sprite of a joystick was included, that moved on inputs.
"Ah, the Heads Up Display is different. It looks like an actual cockpit...maybe it is? I gotta check out...later though." noted Chiaki with a gleam in her eyes, promising herself she would do more research on Tomcat later. For that moment, it was gaming time. Unlike in the game before, she could control the throttle of engines, allowing her to adjust speed as much as she wanted. She could even select what type of weapon she could use, either be M61 rotary cannon, AIM-9 heat seeking missile, AIM-7 semi active radar guided missile and, unknown to her before, AIM-54 Phoenix active radar guided missile. As the mission began, it became clear to her that it isn't unlike Top Gun: shoot down specific amount of planes and return home. It had additional features that made the game much more complex, such as when you press start, you could see the map of the entire area, looking out for incoming bandits to find out whats their heading and altitude. All of those changes made Chiaki appreciate the game even more.
"I feel like this game is what Top Gun wanted to be. Amazing what technology can do." Chiaki smiled as she shot down any Mig, which were presented in game as MiG-29A Fulcrums, an already familiar plane to her from BMS, along with other more famous Migs (such as Mig-21 Fishbed, Mig-23 Flogger and Mig-25 Foxbat) and their Sukhoi brethren (Su-27 Flankers and its entire expansive family) with M61 as a selected weapon. She decided to spare the missiles for future engagements, in case things would become difficult. However, the game was rather easy for her, since Migs didn't pose much of a challenge.
Suddenly, her gaming session got interrupted when she heard some kind of engine noise outside of her house, making her pause the game in the process. She stepped towards the window, wondering what kind of vehicle caused such unique yet shrill noise.
"Huh? What's that? That sounded rather odd for a car." wondered Chiaki as she was peeking outside, but couldn't find anything nearby that seemed weird. Just normal looking cars, driving down the street. "Hmm...I don't see anything..".
She returned to the game as she intended in the first place, even though the noise still puzzled her. Unknown to her, it was a sound of V8 engine of a Formula One racing car, driven by none other than Fritz. He patrolled the city with the car that wasn't supposed to be on the public road, looking out for any Hope's peak student he could beat up on sight or even take down with his vehicle. His own Formula One car had slight modifications over the original one, such as multi-function display that showed the map of the city. It also had different functions as well, but those were only known to certain Daft Capo members, most notably Elite Bois. As he drove, with him overtaking every single car on sight, he hasn't found a trace of a Hope's peak student outside.
"Hmm...no scrub on sight. Weird, I'm pretty sure they should have been somewhere." thought Fritz to himself, observing every corner he could to find any trace of his enemy "Come on, you gotta find an ass to beat, my boy!".
As he was still searching for any target, Chiaki was just comfortably playing Turn & Burn: No Fly Zone. It took her a little longer than before, but she finished the game, awarded with the game saying that her achievements made the carrier strike group win the war. Even the president commended her for the achievements she has accomplished. All in the matter of two hours. Chiaki's eyes were still gleaming from the thrill of playing the Super Famicon game, much more satisfied with it than with the other one, even though she enjoyed both games.
"This game is great! Can get a bit repetitive, but it was really fun! I can already see why Kazuichi loves that plane...and I've gotta show it to my friends too!" Chiaki praised the game, although still only talking to her plushie. However, it wasn't enough to fill her fix, she wanted to expeirence Tomcat even more. She wanted to see how's the plane in other games. "But...those two are the only ones I have of that plane. I should look up games with Tomcat now.".
Then she stood up from the floor as she went to her personal computer, putting down her butt on the chair as she turned it on. Upon logging in, she immediately typed "F-14 Tomcat" in the search engine. With a press of an enter key, she was greeted with plethora of links. Chiaki switched to images, just casually looking at multiple different pictures of the fleet defender. They differed in wing sweep, liveries, angles and so much more.
However, one of the pictures caught her attention. At the first glance, it seemed like a normal picture of a Tomcat, just flying in sunset. Chiaki nearly pressed her face on the screen once she noticed few details of it: the resolution was too clear. Every single other picture, even the highest quality ones, had certain grainy feeling to them. Understandably so, since they were taken way back in the past, somewhere between 1970 to 2006. That sort of cleanness meant only one thing: it was a game!
"What?! That's from a game? But it looked so real!" gasped Chiaki upon seeing a single screenshot of that game. It looked almost real, she had to see what the game was about. "Let me see what this is about.".
Upon clicking the origin site, she found out that the Tomcat belonged under the game by the name of DCS World, a flight simulator known for its no nonsense approach to simulation. It was possibly the best the public could get a simulation of a real military aircraft at home. Just for further research, Chiaki took a look at multiple screenshots of the module. All of them looked almost indistinguishable from real life, but what really got Chiaki's attention was the cockpit.
"Oh, I know that cockpit! It's from Turn and Burn! Let me compare these two….and I should do a real one too." Chiaki's fangirl mode was starting to active once she saw that not only did the cockpit greatly resemble the one from Super Famicom game, but not only was every single thing in it modeled to great detail, but the game promised that it was interactive as well. "Oh my gosh, both of these games had it really close...though newer one looks almost like it's real life!".
Screenshots of the game immediately convinced her to buy it. She needed to have that as a part of her digital collection, which was kind of modest compared to her physical collection.
"Alright, game, you got me snatched. Time to look for-" chirped Chiaki, only to encounter the price of it. The world of flight simulation was not a cheap one, evident that a single module costed 8751 yen. One of the priciest modules of DCS, yet still low compared to other simulators."…..Oh, that's, um….a lot, for a plane. Falcon 4 didn't cost as much."
Chiaki thought about it if she should spare money so she could supply herself or willing to risk it. Luckily for her, one aspect of Hope's peak more or less enabled her to not be as cautious with money as she had to do before.
"I got scholarship from Hope's peak, so….hmph! Nothing stopping me." Chiaki nodded to herself as she went on to purchase it. With the few clicks, her bank account got quite a dent, but it didn't really matter, since not only she got herself a new thing, but she also had more than enough money to sustain herself, as long as she doesn't forget about it, as she often does. "And...got it!".
Right after the purchase, she immediately placed her mouse cursor on DCS icon, clicking it too times as she waited for the game to load. However, she had to wait not only for Tomcat to install, but for the game to update as well. It's been a while since she played it, but her internet speed was decent enough that it was just a mere thirty minute wait. In the mean time, she played a game on her handheld to kill time. Once everything was downloaded, the game was ready to start.
"Time to see how does this Tomcat look like." Chiaki said to herself as she waited for the title screen to show up. Once everything loaded, she was greeted with the picture of a civilian version of the famous American fighter aircraft of the conflict from 40's, P-51 Mustand (technically speaking TF-51). She always liked flying it, but she relegated that plane for free flight only, since it was unarmed.
"Hmmm….haven't touched this game in a while. It's an amazing flight sim, but other games occupied me a lot." Chiaki thought to herself, realizing that she kind of neglected the game. Not because she disliked it (in fact, she loved it), but other games occupied her more. A thing she noticed on the bottom was icons of multiple aircraft and helicopters too, much to her surprise. "Oh, there's more planes? Helicopters too?".
She inspected it and it seemed like each icon had a different plane or a helicopter. Some of them she was vaguely familiar with, like F/A-18C Hornet, another quintessential American naval multirole aircraft that also appeared in a lot of games, and any of Russian jets, since they were often adversaries. Some of them were a complete mystery to her, such as SAAB AJS-37 Viggen, a Swedish attack aircraft notable for traversing at above the speed of sound while flying just above trees. One of the planes immediately caught her attention, a pretty familiar one to her.
"Oh heck! Falcon! Falcon is there! I should probably get it next month….definitely. I wanna see it how the Falcon is in this game." Chiaki started hopping while sitting as she saw her favorite plane in the game, not even realizing that it was there for a long time. However, she still had to fulfill the promise. Not only that, but she switched the background. It changed from the render of a Su-25T Frogfoot that was accompanied by bombastic orchestral music to a real life picture of F-14 Tomcat landing on a carrier, accompanied with retro-esque synthwave music. "But now, Tomcat time.".
"Since I do know flight simulators take a bit to learn, I should probably do a free flight mission first." Chiaki said to herself as she pressed the button for "Instant Mission", giving her already pre-made missions for the Tomcat. She already had two maps installed, Caucasus and Marianas, so the missions for those were available. Because Tomcat was a naval aircraft, she chose Marianas as the map for her choice. One thing she noted that what she bought included not one, but two planes.
"Hm? F-14A and F-14B? Are they like….wait, let me check the differences." wondered Chiaki as she briefly opened task manager in order to get out of the game and then typed out in search bar. One for F-14A and one for F-14B. Once she got results, she closely looked at pictures of both variants of the same plane. One difference already stuck out more than most.
"Aha! I see it now! It's the engines. They look different. I should probably try F-14A first." Chiaki pointed out to herself upon noticing that F-14A and F-14B have different engines. B's engines (General Electric F110) looked much more streamlined than ones of A (Pratt & Whitney TF30). Yet, despite F-14B indirectly having more streamlined look, she chose to go with F-14A, since she felt like it was more appropriate to start with older stuff, like how she always began a franchise with the oldest games. Chiaki decided to start a free flight mission with F-14A. After a click, she waited for the game to load, but not before it gave her a briefing. Despite being a free flight mission, the payload it had consisted of a pair of really huge AIM-54 Phoenixes, one AIM-7 Sparrow and four AIM-9L Sidewinders. Once she fully read the briefing, she finally started it, waiting for it to load.
The free flight mission began with F-14A Tomcat already in the air. It was placed just south of Guam, one of the most significant islands of Marianas, since it hosted Andersen Air Base, where more often than not strategic bombers are stationed. The plane itself seemed to belong to VF-111 "Sundowners" fighter squadron. One of the first things that activated her fangirl mode was the cockpit itself. She had experience with clickable cockpits before, but not with such fidelity.
"Oh! Everything in the cockpit is clickable! I have to check it out! It does feel...how to say it, retro? It's definitely older than the Falcon." Chiaki started hopping once again on her chair as she inspected every nook and cranny of pilot's position. Every single thing, gauges included, was modeled to ridiculous detail, so much so she was slightly concerned it would affect the performance of her computer. The HUD was unlike from the games before, since it was an actual HUD of the aircraft. It looked much simpler, barebones in comparison to Fighting Falcon's HUD. What was displayed on HUD depended on what mode was selected and it seemed like it was currently A/A (Air to Air), allowing the plane to fire missiles if the master arm was on. Of course, she would need to select it first. One thing she was feeling mixed upon was sound. Not that it sounded awful, it was actually amazingly implemented, just that the noise of TF30's gave her heebie-jeebies.
"…..that engine sound is ghastly. It's giving me spooks." Chiaki shook for a bit as if she was feeling cold, but none than less she insisted, increasing the throttle to accelerate just a bit. She didn't put it on maximum, she felt like she wasn't ready for afterburner action yet. Suddenly, she accidentally pressed a 2 key on her keyboard, changing the position from pilot's to backseat. To say that pilot's seat looked simple was an understatement, she found out that Tomcat was a different beast than she imagined.
"Ah! T-that's….that's backseat? I've never seen this part of the plane before." Chiaki irises shrunk a bit due to her being startled by the change of position, but she regained her composure. She paused the game just to take a closer look of her position. Where as pilot's position only had two screens (Vertical Display Indicator and HSD), backseat had three of them, consisting of large circular Tactical Information Display (which essentially was radar display), smaller Detail Data Display (essentially radar control) and digital HSI. It also had far more switches and buttons than the pilot's seat did, some of them even being necessary for start up. She came to a realization what it was.
"So this must be...Radar Intercept Officer, right? That screen below looks so big...must be a radar." Chiaki rambled inside her head while also deciding that she'd rather be a pilot, more fun that way. Not that she was opposed to being a RIO, though. "But I think I'm gonna be a pilot now. Once my friends are gonna come, I think I'll be a RIO instead. Piloting seems to be easier, I think.".
As a test, Chiaki decided to make a turn with it. She made the plane roll with a single input of joystick's axis, then gently pulling the stick to herself, making Tomcat perform a turn. As she was pulling the stick more to herself, the entire cockpit started shaking. More she pulled, more it shook. She let off of the stick for a moment the moment she saw overwing vapor sheath forming, signaling her that the aircraft was going under high G forces.
"Oh my, it's shaking. Falcon didn't shake as much...I wonder why." Chiaki noted to herself as she made the plane roll, returning to its horizontal position. She noted that thanks to its large extended wings, Tomcat could make quite a turn, although it lacked fly-by-wire system that planes like Fighting Falcon had, meaning that if under high enough G forces, the plane could break apart. Next thing she wanted to try was to see how fast it was. Fighting Falcon was among the faster planes, so she wanted to compare to it. She put the throttle to the max, prepared to feel the thrill of afterburners. Funnily enough, it was the right engine that went into the mode first, with left engine taking few seconds longer to do so. Then, nozzles of engines opened, spewing out giant flames of burnt kerosene. Hundred pounds of fuel were consumed within seconds. Chiaki pulled up the stick just a bit to make the plane climb. However, despite being on maximum power, Tomcat struggled to reach the speed of sound. Despite that, hundreds of feet were climbed in a matter of seconds. The mission started her at merely 300 ft, yet she was up 20 000 ft in such short amount of time.
"It takes a while to accelerate and I should be gentle with the plane." Chiaki noted once again as she made Tomcat stop climbing, decreasing its angle of attack as she made the cat fly in a straight line. Her testing started to make her realize something: she wasn't playing a mere flight game. Others were that, where the main part was the action, not the plane itself. Here, she was flying THE Fleet Defender, an aircraft known to make enemy planes retreat on sight, a plane that defended carrier strike group for decades...and she was feeling like a true badass about it. Things that were deemed as an afterthought in other games were presented as absolute catharsis in the sim.
"I have a sudden urge….urge….for speed….Yeah….I'm feeling cool…." Chiaki started to cave in Tomcat as she briefly paused the game, only to get sunglasses to look like what she imagined to be a naval aviator. In games, all naval aviators had those glasses on, looking cool while also being responsible handling machines with such power which no man has seen before. However, she didn't have aviator glasses as she had normal sunglasses with cat decoration on them. None than less, she wanted to feel cool.
Then, she did it. At 25 000 ft, she shattered the speed of sound. No longer bound by that limitation, Tomcat was now cruising through the air like it was nothing. During the transonic transition, it shook a little, but once it overcame that, the ride became incredibly smooth. Chiaki looked back and saw something that got her real excited: wings have swept.
"Oh my hecking gosh, the wings! They're moving! Kazuichi was right!" Chiaki started hopping once again as she noticed that those mighty wings have been fully swept back, allowing Tomcat to cut through the air like a hot blade on butter. A simple flight managed to get her so pumped up, she had no regrets spending so much on the fleet defender. "Hehehe….this is great!".
She goofed around as she let the burners do the job, making such maneuvers such as barrel roll and similar. She even bypassed the nearest carrier, CVN-74 John Stennis, at low altitude, making the fleet defender roll side to side as if she was waving at them. All this fun was had until she noticed that the plane only had 5000 lb of fuel (out of 20 000 lb). She spent so much time on afterburner that she was nearly out of gas.
"Ah heck, I'm bingo fuel already? I see….those engines are pretty thirsty. I think it's landing time….hoo boy." Chiaki tilted her head as she notified the ATC of the carrier that she will be inbound. The tower gave her instructions to follow, such as at what heading should she go. She followed it closely as she prepared herself for landing: since Tomcat was a naval plane, she pulled down the arresting hook, put down the landing gear and let the flaps down, slowing down the beastly plane while trying to not fall into the endless Pacific sea. After some time navigating the plane, she was finally near the carrier.
With the arresting hook, she managed to catch the first wire on the deck, drastically slowing down the mighty beast in the process. Once Tomcat lost all of its speed, she was prepared to park it, but not before a certain someone had a thing to say. A feature of the module she did not expect.
"One wire, but not exploded on the back of the boat." reported Jester, speaking exactly like someone would imagine a naval aviator to. Even the radio like static was present in his voice. It told her that she shouldn't have hooked on the first wire, instead she should have aimed for the second or third.
"E-eh? The plane talks?" stuttered Chiaki before she realized that Jester was a feature, a helper AI of sorts. "Nevermind, it's the AI. I see, the developers made it that one person can pilot the plane, while the AI takes care of radar stuff.".
With the press of A key, Jester's menu opened up, allowing her to do various things, such as locking a bandit for her or jettisoning stores in the time of danger.
"Hey hey. I'm Chiaki, what's your name?" Chiaki greeted him with a hand wave, thinking that he will respond. However, he was just a part of the game, not an AI that could respond. She was kind of bummed out about it, since she thought having another AI friend would have been really cool. "….oh right, he's not like Chihiro's Usami.".
"So I landed, so I think it's time for B." Chiaki thought to herself as she did the exact same thing with F-14B as she did with F-14A. However, she already noticed the major difference: the noise of engines was less ghastly and more pleasant one to boot.
"The engines sound less soul crushing for sure, but other than that, the inside looks the same. On the outside, Tomcat looks less colorful though." Chiaki rambled in her head as she put the throttle to the max, this time both engines unleashing afterburners at the same time. What she did not expect was how drastic the acceleration was compared to the variant before. TF30's took some time to make Tomcat supersonic, but F110's did it in a short amount of time, not even climbing was that much of an obstacle.
"Oh, the acceleration is so much better! Look at that gauge go, I'm nearly mach one!" smiled Chiaki as she performed stunts with it. Since F-14B was more or less similar to F-14A in a lot of ways, she decided that she was ready for a sortie.
"Alright, so I figured out differences, so I wanna see it in combat. I think I'm gonna...try this out." thought Chiaki to herself as she exited the mission, instead going to the mission editor. Once again, she chose Marianas as the theater of the sortie.
On the southern part of the map, she placed one Stennis aircraft carrier. Even though the ship should have been accompanied by at least two destroyers, such as Arleigh Burke or Ticonderoga, but she decided to go with a simpler one, just so she could get a grasp on what does Tomcat do. Then, she placed a single Tomcat on the deck, choosing that she will go with a hot start (aircraft already prepared for take off). She armed herself with Two Phoenixes, Two Sparrows and Two Sidewinders. The livery of her choice was a VF-84 "Jolly Rogers", because she thought the skull on the tail looked really cool. It was like she was a pirate of sorts. Once the flight path was prepared, she wondered who could be the adversary. It had to be some kind of Mig or Sukhoi. Browsing through the list, she found possibly an ideal adversary:
Sukhoi Su-33 Flanker-D, the Russian naval variant of Su-27 Flnaker.
She wondered if the Flanker should start in air or on a carrier. After browsing through the list once again, she learned that Russia does indeed have a carrier (or rather heavy aircraft cruiser if we go by Russian classification), with the name of it being Admiral Kuznetsov. She inspected it and already found out that it had an entirely different philosophy than American ones.
"Why a ramp? Such a mystery…" Chiaki pointed out that it indeed had a ramp instead of catapults. Su-33 seemed like a huge plane, so it was even weirder for her on why would a carrier have such a system when the catapult would make the job a lot easier. None than less, once she armed the Flanker with four R-73 heat seeking missiles, six R-27ER semi active radar guided missiles and two R-27ET infrared homing (essentially a heat seeker) missiles, she was ready to go. Saving the mission under the name of "F-14A_Tomcat_First_ ", Chiaki went on to fly the mission.
Set in the evening, Tomcat spawned on the deck, prepared to be launched. With the salute of a pilot and its throttle set to max, the fleet defender was sent flying with the assistance of catapult. She started climbing as she put the flaps and landing gear up, prepared to face the Sukhoi, which was still more than hundred nautical miles away. She switched the display on the lower screen, so that she and Jester could share tactical information display. Then she ordered Jester to set the range to one hundred nautical miles.
"Roger." said Jester as he did just that. Then, after some time of climbing and flying, a number "29" appeared on radar warning receiver, signaling that the enemy is tracking. The reason why 29 was instead of 33 is because Flankers used the same radar as Fulcrums in the game, which rang true for early Flanker variants.
"Nails on our nose, 12 o' clock." alerted Jester.
"Ah, this must be it!" Chiaki nodded with a rather determined look on her face as she started speeding right towards the incoming bandit. She ordered jester to select track while scan auto and target aspect nose, so that she can track down the hostile aircraft with easy.
"You've got it, boss." approved Jester as he did just that. About 80 nautical miles away, the line on TID started flashing, indicating that the bandit was ready to be locked on.
"I can lock on already? Huh, really? That early?" wondered Chiaki before her thought process went back on track, making her prepare the missiles and heat up sidewinders. Master Arm was on. She selected Phoenix as her weapon of choice as she ordered Jester to get a STT (Single Track) lock on the Flanker.
"Spiking him! Target, 75 miles." said Jester as he established a lock on the Flanker. The HUD displayed the diamond, where the location of the bandit was. Vertical Display Indicator suddenly gained a huge dark green circle with a little green dot in the middle. The bandit was now locked by the fleet defender.
Chiaki waited a bit, just so she could get a sure shot. She learned her lesson from Falcon that it's best when the systems indicate you when to shoot, not when the maximum range is range. Suddenly, around 55 nautical miles away from the bandit, either by pure instinct or accident she pressed the trigger. The light for hot trigger turned off as the Phoenix was dropped. Once it got activated, the terminal phase began. The motor of the missile spew out a burner, causing it to gain massive amounts of acceleration. Phoenix started to climb up, in order to both gain as much speed and altitude as possible. Within seconds, Phoenix reached the speeds of four times the speed of sound without the bandit knowing what was coming to them, since it was launched in Track While Scan mode.
"Already? Odd...since AMRAAMs are fired at shorter ranges, about 35 nautical miles away from a Flanker sized target." commented Chiaki as she watched the trail of the missile above, coming it at target closer with each mile crossed.
As they were about 30 nautical miles away from each other, the radar warning receiver of Tomcat went nuts. That only meant one thing.
"Oh heck!" Chiaki knew exactly what was coming soon to her: a missile.
"Heads up, spike 12 o' clock." warned Jester just seconds away before the radar warning receiver started going even more insane than before. She wanted to evade, but she had to maintain lock up until certain distance.
"Missile! Missile! Missile! 12 o' clock!" Jester started alerting with haste, causing Chiaki to just bank right, just enough so that she won't lose a lock. However, fortunately for her, the seeker of Phoenix activated just about when it was close to the bandit. It was only at that time when Flanker knew that a missile was coming and started doing evasive maneuvers, even if it meant that the R-27ER launched at Chiaki's Tomcat would go dumb. Chiaki was starting to get concerned that her Tomcat was about to go down when suddenly, a pleasant surprise appeared.
"Su-33 damaged".
"Su-33 destroyed".
"Oh my goodness….it hit from that far? This plane….too powerful, it crushes meta." gasped Chiaki, hardly believing that a plane like that could be so powerful and exist in real life at the same time.
"I've lost lock." stated Jester as radar stopped tracking the vaporized bandit. The warhead of Phoenix was so huge, that it could disinigrate within proximity. The Flanker, torn to pieces, fell right into the endless Pacific Sea. After a successful interception, Chiaki then returned to the carrier, performed all the procedures in order to make a proper carrier landing. Upon parking the mighty beast, Chiaki concluded the mission and then leaned on her chair as it were her bed.
"Heck yeah….I'm really liking this plane. Might be my second plane, but I think Falcon is still closer to my heart...and it flies just a little smoother, doesn't shake much…..and Jester is cheeky." smiled Chiaki as she expressed her thoughts on it. It was one of the most fun single player experiences she had and it's going to be even better once she shows the game to her friends. She was especially looking forward to Hajime piloting the plane, but for that day, she had it all planned. "Alright, I think I know what to do for today.".
She played Tomcat for DCS entire day, be it custom missions, pre-made missions or even campaigns. However, the night overtook the day as her energy was starting to wane. Even playing for such long time, she was starting to desire some dreams.
"Ah, I'm getting….sleepy….must have been cuz I woke up so early. This was really really fun. A new experience which I'll always remember. Next month, I'm gonna try out a new plane, it seems like every single plane has their own character. I think I'll go with...Hornet, it looks cool." mumbled Chiaki before she let out a yawn. She shut down the computer as she staggered towards her bed, throwing herself on it once she reached it. Chiaki even took her plushie with herself, just so she could sleep easier. "Now, I must….sleepy….".
But before she could fall into deep slumber, resurfaced thoughts started to bother. A concern that she will have to live through the life before Hope's peak started to appear.
"Wait, it's not gonna be like this now, right? I can't be….all by myself...I can't live like this-" Chiaki's mind started to be invaded with insecurities before she turned to her plushie like she was an actual friend to her. "Hey, Usami? Do you think that…".
"No, Chiaki! Remember, it's just a day. Your friends will come, do not worry about it!" Chiaki, playing as Usami, reminded herself that it was just temporary. Her new life will stay and she will make sure of it.
Chiaki, upon reminding herself that badness won't last forever, hugged Usami as tightly as she could. A feeling of soothe started to overtake any anxiety she had.
"I hope they will….even if...things could have been better...I still quite like it at Hope's peak. Miss Yukizome and my friends make my life so much better than it was before…..I believe in them. I believe that one day, it's gonna be better." Chiaki thought about everyone, wishing them that they could have the happiest lives possible. The resurfaced optimism eased her into sleeping.
"Yeah...it will be….it's nicer….." Chiaki's mind drifted into deep slumber as she had a smile on her face, looking forward to seeing her friends once again, even if she couldn't that week. What awaited her, she did not know, but she was ready to face it.