Into the Darkness
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Thanks to
DarkSilver96
PrincessKooh
General Beyak
and many many more
May 2044, this day was greeted by thick milk-like fog in the bay area where the two jets stood in a hangar. Today was a calm day, one of the jets would be transferred over to Japan for demonstration of itself and its capabilities. The other one was to remain in the states for another week or so before being transferred over to Australia. These were the first fully capable jets of their class, the first ones after the prototypes, the first F-36 Flash multirole Fighters. Two hours after sunrise the grey hangar doors opened and one of the ground support cars towed one of the flashes out onto the field. Soon the ground crew swarmed around the small fighter jet which somewhat looked like a smaller crossover between the F-15 and F-22 refueling it, doing the check-ups and generally making sure that the plane will fly as needed. Around that time in a different part of the San Jose Air National Guard's Base the Pilot of the jet went into the pre-flight briefing. This flight was going to be a simple one: Fly the plane from California up the coast to Alaska and turn west at the Aleutian Islands and fly over Hokkaido towards Osaka. The riskiest thing was to fly an armed new fighter jet along the Russian airspace. For the demonstrations and the possibility of an attack during the transfer flight, the jet was armed with its very own new missile system, which was very well able to defend the plane.
The take-off was scheduled for just after 17:00 UTC so that the plane was scheduled to land after 15 hours at 5 pm local time in Japan. Still Sandwich in hand and a Lunchbox as well as the helmet the pilot exited the main building and was being picked up by a service car and being brought to the field in front of Hangar 5, where the jets stayed. The pilot stepped out of the car and thanked the driver of the car and finally noticed the cold and fresh air blowing around her nose as she walked up to the plane. She greeted the ground crew as they finished with the last checks to ensure always right. She will fly beautiful one of the ground crewmen said as the pilot stood in front of the jet. She flipped out the ladder, climbed up, opened the cockpit and stored her backpack behind the pilot's seat. She then disappeared into the hangar, appearing back into the open less than ten minutes later and climbing into the cockpit of the jet plane. She strapped herself with the help of the ground crew into the pilot's seat and put the lunchbox between her legs and mounted it there. The pre-start checklist for the F-36 was almost completed when the pilot enters the cockpit. Everyone said goodbye and she closed the canopy. Two engines started howling as she turned up the throttle and rolled down the field and ramp towards the runway. After the tower gave her the go the engines roared accelerating the plane down the runway and finally taking off three quarters downrange. The mountains to the east of the airfield were wrapped in a thick layer of clouds and the small jet plane, still accelerating, crossed the cloud level. A few minutes later as the jet reached cruising altitude, the pilot typed in the route for the autopilot to follow and popped in some music to pass the time until the first checkpoint in Seattles airspace. Over the period of in total eleven hours, she would fly over 8500 kilometers. Over the arctic circle, the sky was deep blue and clear the seas thirteen kilometers below were quite calm, almost like a blanket of blue velvet. Just before noon, eleven hundred miles off Hokkaido's northern coast a storm arose out of the blue. Within minutes the small jet plane was amid an arctic storm, even though it was still flying at thirteen kilometers altitude. Winds of over one hundred miles per hour smashed into the plane as it tried to maneuver out of the storm, yet it got sucked into the eye of the storm. In the eye of the storm, a giant barrage of bolts of lightning hit the airplane.
About two minutes later, on the other side of the world in Germany a green dot went missing on a world map, however, it would take another ten minutes until the missing of said dot would be noticed. The shift manager for international flights at IRIS was named name redacted Ben. Ben has previously been an ATC (Air traffic controller) near Amsterdam and had collected quite a bit of experience at Schiphol in his five years there. When he noticed that the one dot was missing that could not be missing at all costs he began to panic. "Hey Satcom, yeah this is Ben. Our prototype just went missing", he hastily spoke into the phone that lay on his desk in the large dark room which was only lit by dozens of screens on desks and three giant ones on one wall. He proceeded: "The flight number is PD-33044, can you please send me the final available radar data and any possible images? Good thank you", he laid down the phone and began to write into the protocol file for flight PD-33044 noting when and where it went missing. Fifteen minutes later the General flight manager, the Satcom Intelligence Manager and Ben, our international flights manager were assembled in a meeting room, the SIM and Ben were still in the flight control building, whereas the GFM was in his study visibly tired and wearing a pajama. "Sir, if the Images from the satellite network are right, then a giant arctic storm build up in front of the prototype and disappeared less than ten minutes later", Ben said pointing at the satellite images. "There was also not a single thing to see on the Radar screen" He pointed at another image showing a black circular shape with green lines in it: the last sent Radar image. As anyone could see: there was nothing on the image. "Now we only need to inform the relatives and friends as well as think of an excuse why they died", the GFM said.
The storm arose in front of her in mid-air, then she was hit by lightning and then… and then black. She remembered nothing between being mysteriously knocked out and waking up, still flying. The plane seemed intact, as she was not falling but rather gently flying, just like she did before she was hit by the storm. Looking over the multiple monitors inside the cockpit she asserted her current location: as she was still flying the same curse, she must be roughly 1500km off Hokkaido's Northern Coast, but still flying towards Nagoya Airport. The only thing to do for our Pilot was to wait for another three hours until she came into Nagoyas airspace and request permission to land. On the route planning, it was requested that she flew over the open sea as much as possible so she would fly roughly fifty kilometers off the pacific coast of Japan until she came into the bay of Nagoya where she would fly over to Nagoya Airport. Just south of Tokyo she noticed an aircraft carrier steaming through the sea. It looked like it was from a century ago, so the time of the second world war. Our pilot was only left with one option: Land aboard the carrier parting the gentle waves seven miles below. She brought her plane into a steep dive, pulling up about one kilometer above the water. „To the aircraft carrier currently running a 165 course I am a currently neutral non-hostile aircraft roughly 5000 meters of your port-side. Please refer to me as „Iris ". I am requesting permission to land on deck ", our Pilot sent over all known radio frequencies. The response from the aircraft carrier didn't take long as less than one minute later the radio transmitted the voice of a young male: „This is the Fuso Imperial navy Aircraft carrier, Akagi, we do have a faint visual on you, I will be giving the microphone to somebody with higher authorities in just a second „Iris"", then the radio went silent for a moment in which our pilot switched off most radio frequencies except the one she was talking on. „This is Major Sakamoto calling Iris, you do have permission to land under one condition, that we will talk in person with each other" Olivia eagerly listened and then responded: "Roger and Wilco, I'm heading in for landing "Around one minute later the two jet engines roared as she pulled up almost in a 90-degree-angle. The second the rear wheels touched Akagís flight deck she tuned the engines up a bit more, pushed down the stick and pulled the brakes. A second later the fuel supply was cut to the engines and the aircraft rolled roughly forty meters over the deck before coming to a full stop.
The canopy of the cockpit opened and a person wearing a weird helmet and in full pilot's montage climbed out and over a ladder onto the flight deck. Major Sakamoto headed towards the aircraft as well as the staff-captain of the Akagi. „Thank you for letting me land on board ", the blond-haired pilot said with her helmet under her arm. „Would you mind telling me the date, local time ad the name of the nearest country? ", she hasted out before Sakamoto could even say a thing. „It is the twenty-fifth of May 1944 and it is four o'clock in the afternoon and to the shore side of Akagi you can see a small line on the horizon, which is our home country, Fuso " "Ok, thank you. By now I think I should introduce myself: I'm Olivia, I would be holding the military rank of Captain or Flight Officer and my last name is classified out of private and safety reasons ", Olivia answered. „Olivia, my name is Major Mio Sakamoto and please tell me about that plane over there ", Sakamoto demanded. „That is the newest prototype of the F-36, but I have to note that this is from a different universe and you wouldn't see anything alike for another fifty years or so ", Olivia reluctantly answered. In Sakamotos mind, a puzzle was completed: "So you do come from another universe, and from there even in the future? And have you also heard of the Paradox-Theory?" Olivia nodded, signing her approval. „I cant tell you much more right now, because I think what might be going on in this universe ". So to verify it, I want to ask you a few questions and please answer truthfuly and neutral. The first question is: Where are you sailing to ad what is your objective there? If it is classified tell me as much as you can". Sakamoto told her the route they were going to take would take them to Europe, with stops in Singapore, Mumbai, East London and Cape Town. On Olivias question Sakamoto flinched as she asked if they were in a war, but she answered truthfully that they were, in fact, at war. But they were not at war with a Nation, but with an unknown species: the neuroi. Olivia seemed as if she didnt care about the rest of the answers. „May I call you just Sakamoto? Im not a member of the military per sé but rather a contractor from the enterprise that builds the F-36. But as my country's military has not enough trained pilots, so they lease fighting power with plane and pilot, and for legal reasons the planes that the leasing pilots use have been iven to them from the head of enterprise.", Olivia told her. Sakamoto thought about it for a few seconds: „Im fine with that. But would it even be legal to own an aircraft such as this?" Oliva just nodded: „Yes, it is, but only for military puposes. In this situation one of the very few options is to help you in the war against neuroi. Let me set up a contract to make it official."
A/N: The F-36 is a combnation between the F-22 and -35 and the B-29. Hopefully I write more soon.