"Hitman One, Fox One!" Said the ever enthusiastic AWACS Galaxy as a semi-active missile rolled off Monarch's fuselage, mercilessly tracking its prey on his behalf.
"He's flanking- Slow down and turn into-" This time it was his Weapons System Operator, Robin 'Prez' Kuo, who spoke. Only to be interrupted by that same man behi-
"Hitman One, go for guns!" His piercing grin could be heard through the radio, despite the fact said target was now a burning wreck...
"6 o'clock, cold off our back! Turning right!" Prez spoke with an urgency and clarity matching the needs of her ace pilot, Monarch. She operated the weapons systems, but to truly pull her weight, she needed to assist with timely and accura-
"Monarch, bandit behind you! Evade!"
"I just said that, Galaxy! Cut the chatter!" To add insult to injury- Monarch turned his head to watch for Galaxy's phantom bandit- the same one Prez called out seconds earlier and was now directly off their nose...
With a mix of violence and precision, Monarch turned into the bandit, chasing him in a lead pursuit. Now was the perfect opportunity-
"Hitman One, Fox Two!"
"Hitman One, Fox Two, good separation!"
The two voices synced, making Prez worry for a moment that her voice suddenly turned into that of a washed up male radio host turned-AWACS operator. Her worry was only relieved once the second voice continued past hers, adding a frankly pointless comment.
"Hey Galaxy! Knock it off, will you!" Prez always handled radio communications for Monarch, especially during combat. Specifically right now, when she was pulling some three G's in a superfluous inverted barrel roll to get them closer to sea level.
"Woah there, what gives, Prez?"
"I can handle doing callouts for Monarch myself, Galaxy!"
"Huh? I'm just helping out- That's my job, remember?"
"Well you're not doing anything I'm not. And the last two didn't even make sense!"
"What do you mean, 'didn't make sense'? You had a bogey right off your tail!"
"Yeah, and by the time you noticed, we turned on them already! Also- It's bandit" She paused to quickly resolve a firing solution for four PT boats, sending them to the bottom with one precise MLAG salvo.
"Are you lecturing me on terminology, Miss 'Let 'er rip'?"
"Look- It's just- 3 o'clock high!- You're cluttering the net with redundant traffic!"
"Off your right, Monarch! No I'm not- besiides- Your pal Galaxy can handle it just fiine, thank you."
"Are you getting sassy with me- Ugh, I-" Prez nearly lost her breath as Monarch pulled her into an incredibly sharp turn, pushing her into her seat.
"Slow 'er down and give em' guns, Monarch!"
"HE ALREADY DID, DAMMIT!" She practically cried out after regaining her breath. "The target's dead! It's passed on! It has ceased-to-be!"
She sighed as the G's subsided, Monarch now flying into a distant target she acquired on the radar and was keeping in track. "Why are you even doing this, Galaxy? You can't read the situation as quickly from up there! Why don't you ever do callouts for Dip? He sure as hell needs it more than Monarch does!"
The yuppie hath been summoned. "Hey! What's that supposed to mean!?"
"And hey! Why don't you do that, Galaxy?"
"Oh come on, it's not like you'd hit anything anyway, Dip. And Mick'll tell you if anything tries to kill you."
"No I won't." Comic replied.
"I'm not- I'm not insulting you or anything- Galaxy," Prez now stammered in confusion.
"Hitman One, good for SAA's! Keep it tight!"
"Oh- Right, yeah! Targets in range! Fox One, Fox One! You can hit em' both at this rate!"
"Who's slow now, huh?"
"I'm sorry, it's just-"
"Monarch! Missile on you! Jink!"
"Not yet!" She knew what he wanted. "Missile 7 o'clock low! On my mark, break right."
The missile warning tone beeped ever more quickly as Monarch kept the nose on two enemy aircraft in tight formation.
"Mark!" The HUD flashed a "DESTROYED" message as the enemy missile closed in with a milky-white contrail behind it.
Monarch's aircraft rolled violently to the right, pulling a high G turn that the missile couldn't keep up with. However, below him and Prez, outside their field of vision-
"Hitman One, merged- scissors left!"
Once again he rolled, this time to the left, to catch a lucky bandit who fired the first missile. Monarch's evasive turn almost made the bandit overshoot- but he was smarter than that, and rolled into Monarch, trying to slow down as much as possible to get a good shot.
The two now kept turning into one another, keeping their speed low to get from 'above' one another (in relation to their wings) to behind one another, or at least get a gun strafe in between their split second passes.
"Monarch, first group, flight of two at 098 for 7, hot, additional group, four heavies at 360 for 12!"
Now he's completely lost it! Those were long range intercept callouts, he needed-
DESTROYED
Monarch's aircraft won out as the slower one- getting a clean gun kill. Immediately he made a full turn backward to the east. Before she knew it, she instinctively switched to semi-actives and maintained a lock as the two fighters closed in rapidly.
"Good tone- Fox One! Left one's closer, left one's closer!" As they were closing in too quickly, the angle between the two wingmen increased- and only one could be kept in the boresight for a kill.
Monarch rolled left, pulling up into a barrel roll, keeping the left target on the edges of his boresight as the right target escaped it- one SAA losing track of it. He continued rolling, however, until the lost target was just above his nose.
DESTROYED
Thankfully, the second target was far away enough to not whip past them. Pulling up, Monarch reacquired the target in the boresight, the semi-active missile started tracking again, hitting the target from a nasty angle with devastating precision.
DESTROYED
"Phew. I was saying- I'm sorry if I- I should've used a different tone?" It was difficult to apologize for rudeness while actively engaged in a dogfight.
"Damn right you should've! SPAMRAAMs out!"
She had already acquired, locked, and launched said missiles well before he said that, but oh well.
"With no offense intended, would you please watch your traffic, Galaxy?"
"Good job Hitman team, all hostiles eliminated or retreating- feel free to take them out so long as you don't exit the AO. What was that, Prez?"
"Why do you comment on Monarch's every move, Galaxy? You've already got enough work up there, so why bother?" Comic only now decided to comment on the ongoing radio spat.
"Well, why not? He's the one getting all the action. Just look at him!"
"But half the things you say are redundant- Why are you calling out Fox Two's? The only reason we call them is so that you know!" Prez now spoke freely, since Monarch decided to stop his usual aerobatics for a while.
"In my defense- I think I just do that reflexively by now. What can I say, I like to keep eyes on the action."
A smug grin penetrated the airwaves. "Why do you care so much, Prez? Possessive much?"
"Eat my ass, Galaxy. I'm just trying to keep us alive, and your yapping is getting in the way."
"So much for not insulting me. Come back when you're in the front seat for once, Prez."
"Easy for you to say. Ten minutes with Monarch and I can barely walk by the end of it.'
"...What are you two doing up there?"
"Flying. You?"
"Sitting. Look, Prez, I get your point, but I think I've known Monarch a liiittle longer than you, so if anyone gets to watch out for him, it's me."
"Why don't we ask him ourselves? Hey Monarch, who d'you prefer, me, or Galaxy?"
...
"HE POINTED AT ME! He pointed his thumb at me! Suck it Galaxy!"
"Yeah, right, I call BS."
...
"Look at them, 'Mick. Can you believe they're fighting over him again?"
"Don't act like you haven't too, Dip. I saw the scene you made when bunks were being assigned."
