A/N: Hello everyone! This is my very first fanfic on this site, so I would appreciate any feedback you all have. Please keep your reviews as honest and transparent as possible, as I will be implementing these changes in any future and past chapters. For anyone who has read this before, please note that this is not a new chapter, just an update to the first one. Without further ado, enjoy!
Missing
Chapter 1: Escort Mission
1942, Alternate Dimension, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean...
Akashi was tired. The war had been going badly, and despite her best efforts, she and Vestal just couldn't keep up with the overwhelming casualties. Although the immense profit certainly helped with stocking up on supplies, the base's stockpile was slowly dwindling.
A small Ironblood-Sakura joint fleet had been causing trouble near the base as well. Ordinary supply fleets were easily sunk by enemy shipgirls. Commission schedules were constantly thrown off. Weaker shipgirls couldn't defend themselves from the experienced enemy carriers harrying the base. Sortieing fleets were attacked on their way out; hounded on their way back. After a few weeks, the constant threat was getting under their skin. Morale was low and fights kept breaking out across the base. A weak groan escaped Akashi. She lay back, trying to ease the tension between her shoulder blades.
Another tired moan slipped out of Akashi. There was a fleet returning, and they would certainly need repairs. She stood up from her ledge and started down the path when a loud roaring sound came from behind. With a startled yelp, she jumped to the side, only to see a large and strange-looking plane fly overhead. A few seconds later, a far clumsier thing (there was nothing better to describe it) also soared overhead, nearly clipping Akashi's curl. The duo climbed higher until the transport abruptly jerked down. The sleeker fighter, seeming reluctant to leave the larger plane behind, banked sharply, sharper than any of the fighters on base could, to follow the aircraft down. Akashi jumped up and ran as fast as she could to the commander's office.
1.5 hours ago, over the Southern Pacific Ocean…
"Oi, Jackson, how ya' doing over there?" Ty's voice crackled over the radio, startling the gunner drifting off in the backseat of the F-14D Tomcat flying lead.
"Idiot, we've been flying an escort mission for this big lumbering C-130. That thing can barely maneuver and nothing has happened in the last 200 miles, so let me CATCH UP ON MY SLEEP!" Jackson roared back, startling his pilot, Zhang.
"You know, we've been transporting sensitive materials for the last 200 miles, so maybe you should comply with regulations a little bit and stop sleeping on the job," He glanced over his shoulder, looking at Jackson with a very disapproving face. "If you want action, we've got a big storm up ahead."
"I ain't tryna fly through that… Satellite didn't tell us that this was gonna happen. It didn't predict no big-ass storm in front of us," Shuffling could be heard on the open mic from Michael, the C-130 pilot. "Found it! Well, the briefing says somethin' 'bout clear skies the whole way through. Not a wisp o' cloud. That ain't look like 'not a wisp of' cloud' to me."
"When have you ever trusted the briefings?" Jackson challenged.
"Hey, Jack, you know why I'm flying the plane instead of you?" Zhang twisted to look over his shoulder once more.
"Why? I'm better at shooting things up?"
"No, it's because I actually read the briefings."
"Goody two-shoes,"
Silence fell. Jackson shuffled nervously in the back of the plane, cramped and wanting to move in some way. Ty and her gunner had been strangely absent through the entire conversation. Zhang tapped his mic. "Hello? Ty? Carolyn? If this is a prank, it isn't funny!"
Zhang's voice grew increasingly higher pitched in agitation. It boiled over when he checked the radar. A loud stream of forceful expletives filled the airwaves. "What?" Both Jackson and Michael questioned over mic.
"Ty and Carolyn are gone from scopes." Zhang's panicked reply made it clear that this was not part of anything they had trained for. The mission parameters simply said it was a get in, get out kind of mission. Nothing in there accounted for the absence of a whole two people and a fighter jet.
"Finally got rid of them. Ty was getting kind of annoying." Zhang's frantic scrambling stopped.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU UTTER FOOL?" Jackson, startled once more, barely started a response before yelling overwhelmed him once more. "WE HAVE A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR, somewhat STATE-OF-THE-ART FIGHTER JET, AND TWO FIGHTER PILOTS BOTH MISSING!"
Jackson, shamed into silence, shrank back into his seat. A horrified yell came over the mic before the C-130 started to slow down.
"SHIT, WHAT IS THAT THING?" Zhang slowed down with the cargo plane and looked forward to see a strange, pale-skinned girl, floating with a mess of tentacles around her. A pair of rather large and pointed "ears" were attached to her by some sort of headband. Most interesting, however, were the seven large energy cannon-like protrusions that surrounded her.
"Wow," Jackson remarked lazily, already recovering from the earlier reprimand. "She's barely wearing anything." The world suddenly flashed and the girl disappeared. A light went on in Jackson's eyes. "I would totally screw her." Zhang flashed him a disapproving glare before a sudden thump threw him forward.
"Ughh… Hey, Michael?" A faint "yeah?" could be heard through the mic. It seemed like he had thrown up. "Are your instruments all screwy? Because GPS isn't working and my altimeter is showing we're falling from 50k feet… Wait… WE'RE FALLING FROM 50K FEET!"
Zhang woke up at that and tried to restart engines. He frantically jammed the ignition until the engines spooled up again and a loud roaring sound came out. "Hey, Michael, how're you doing?
"Michael?"
Zhang checked scopes while Jackson looked around, scanning the skies. He tightened his grip on the weapons systems. The giant C-130 was spotted a few moments later.
"ZHANG! Dive for the C-130!" The F-14D swooped around and fell into a steep dive, trying to keep up with the much lower C-130. Moments before the plane hit the sea, it pulled out of its freefall and skimmed the ocean.
"Whoop! I knew Michael would pull out!" Jackson's enthusiasm was contagious, and Zhang's usually stoic face cracked a small smile.
"Michael, how are you doing over there?"
Michael's weak voice came back. "I don't know. Engines went out for a bit and I managed to restart two engines, but one of them's damaged pretty badly. I don't know how far I can make it before it quits. Thank goodness my load isn't very heavy. Do you know where we are?"
Zhang sighed, then replied, "No, the GPS is out. Radar detects a nearby island, do you want to try and land there?"
Michael looked on his scope. "I don't know, the odds ain't in my favor if they don't got a runway. I'm running low on fuel though. We could try."
The two planes banked towards the island. Silence blanketed the group until Jackson spoke out. "That island is no island I've ever seen before. It's far too developed. You can see the lights of civilization there, and there sure are a lot of lights."
Michael peered through the cockpit window before replying. "You sure are right. You know, I always thought that you were empty-headed and shallow. You still are, but just sliiiiightly less so."
"I am not empty-headed!"
"You are so."
"Am not!"
"Are so."
"Stop arguing and listen!" Zhang's voice boomed over the mic, causing both to shut up. "You hear that buzzing, don't you?"
"Those sound like prop planes. We haven't used those for a loooong time. Since the Second Great War. Hey, do you have positive sea contacts?" Michael peered over at his radar. Why did the Army have to give him the job of three people?
"Those 'prop planes' don't seem very peaceful to me. They're coming in on a hostile approach. No communications. Weapons hot?" Jackson knocked on the back of Zhang's seat.
"We don't know their intentions. If I give you weapon permission, do you swear not to fire until they fire on us?" Zhang flipped open the cover for the weapons hot switch.
"I swear." Just as Jackson finished his sentence, a buzz of gunfire came at his plane. They were flying a little ahead of the C-130 because it was unscouted territory. A yelp of surprise came from the front of the jet and the jet flipped over in evasive maneuvers.
"Can I shoot now?" The jet barrel-rolled another time as a burst of gunfire flew through the air. "RETURN FIRE!" came Zhang's hurried reply. Jackson sprayed a burst of gunfire from the mounted cannon and scored a hit. The enemy interceptor didn't explode, rather, it just vanished in a poof of grayish air.
"Oi, did you see where that hostile went?" Zhang seemed concerned. It was probably his obsession to keep track of the minutiae.
"I don't know, it just disappeared in a poof of grayish smoke." Jackson returned his attention to shooting down the planes. After about 30 seconds, he noticed something. There was a small fleet floating on the waves, about 2 miles away. Jackson decided it wasn't important and continued to fire on the endless waves of enemy planes.
About a mile away, the C-130 was circling, waiting for its friendly fighter to clear the skies. Michael, now that he didn't have anything to do, was commenting on the fighter match. "And… Poof! There goes another one of the enemy fighters… Oooh… One of the fighters is on the friendly's tail… A jink, a juke… aaaannnd-"
Another flight of enemy interceptors was approaching. "Hey, Jackson, Zhang, you all got another flight approaching from your 4 o'clock." All he could hear was the buzzing of gunfire.
That wasn't right. There was no way that any carrier or base he knew of could launch so many flights of interceptors in such a small amount of time. He looked over at the small fleet. That was the only thing capable of launching planes other than the island, and the angle was wrong for the planes to be from the island.
He grabbed a pair of binoculars hanging haphazardly on the wall. Focusing and refocusing a few times, he could see the small fleet clearly. It became apparent that the fleet was old. Very old. The design of the flight deck of the carrier he was looking at was straight, not angled, a lot like WW2-era ships.
A woman (Was that a miniature airstrip floating next to her?) stepped out onto the deck of the ship he was looking at and did something with her hands. Out of thin air, a flight of interceptors appeared and zoomed off. Michael was originally on edge after witnessing what had seemed witchcraft from the tentacle-girl, but this truly triggered all his alarms. Planes appearing from nowhere was too much.
Michael scrambled to find his mic, only to realize that he was still wearing it. "Hey! You two! That little fleet over there, it's using magic or somethin' to launch those planes at you!" His only response was the sound of gunfire and thrusters.
"Hey, pay attention to me! I swear all fighter pilots are the same. Cocky, arrogant, disrespectful… You name it, they got it." Michael's ranting continued, distracting them so that a burst of gunfire almost clipped one of their wings. "If you got something useful to say, say it! We don't have all day!"
"You see that little fleet over there? That's where the planes are coming from! Make them go away, boom! All the little gnats are gone too!"
"Alright, if you say so… Jackson! Prep a Paveway to hit that carrier!"
"Roger." He flipped a few switches and leaned over to aim the laser when a stray round suddenly hit the plane, rocking it a little. "Woah! Zhang, watch it. We're far more maneuverable than those props, try to keep them from shooting us!"
"Hey, I'm trying to make your job a little easier! Keeping the plane steady so you can shoot straight." Zhang twisted into another barrel roll to avoid a burst of gunfire to their left.
"You know, I've practiced aiming 'under fire' before, I don't need that much stability."
"I'm still going to keep it stable for you. No more complaining."
A few twitches of a joystick later and Jackson was locked on. Another few moments and an opportunistic fist mashed itself onto the big red button, firing the Paveway. The F-14, after releasing its payload, buckled a little, and gracefully curved upwards in a lazy arc. The following explosion, however, was nothing but the opposite. A huge explosion that could be heard miles away first depressed the water around the ship into a lopsided sphere, then cracked the ship's superstructure in half. The majestic carrier, with its spine broken in two, wracked by secondary explosions, slowly started to make its way to the bottom of the ocean.
"Hey, I think you got them!" Michael exclaimed excitedly when the enemy planes flickered out of existence. "You sent that girl flyin'!"
"Wait, what girl?" Zhang suddenly looked worried, concerned about the enemy even though they had tried to kill him.
"You know, the girl who was usin' her voodoo magic to fly those 'ghost' planes at us." Michael sounded worried. "Ya know, I think we may have been teleported to some World War Two-era world. I bet it was all that tentacle-girl's witchcraft!"
Zhang tapped his mic. "Michael, not the time to be superstitious. You're going to run out of fuel soon. Try to comm that island and request permission to land." The C-130 banked out of its circling and tried to line up an approach to base.