DISCLAIMER - I do not own Advance Wars or anything copyrightedly relating
to within, which is copyrighted and owned by Nintendo, although I do happen
to like this piece of work I've written and if I ever discover some random
lamer forging it in their name I will be substantially cheesed off, and
nasty letters from me will commence bombardment on said lamer. So don't
even bother stealing it. However, you MAY place this on your website
without my consent should it have an Advance Wars fanfiction section. If
that happened and I discovered such a thing has occured, I'd actually be
quite flattered. Thank you, and enjoy.
______________
The Fighters - Part II
By RustyD
______________
~----~
~Mission Eleven: Ambush at Fog Valley~
~----~
Marcus Madison's funeral had not been pleasant.
Glenn could remember the last funerals he'd been to. They had been for the many pilots killed in the attack on the Clinton Air Base in Green Earth, caused by Blue Moon. The problem was that back then, those funerals had been pleasantly elaborate and lengthy, mainly because when they'd taken place, it turned out Blue Moon was not the true enemy of Green Earth. The officials overseeing the pilots' funerals had been able to provide a pleasant-enough occasion at the time. Now, Marcus Madison had barely been buried before everyone had to go rushing back to what they were doing, since the entire continent was being plagued by war. It just didn't seem fitting to Glenn.
At least the others had enjoyed theirselves as much as they could - It was a funeral, after all. Bubba had literally eaten all the food, and Glenn had been able to let some of the air out of Tux's head and get him to actually converse about something sane.
"Tux," Glenn had asked, merely out of curiosity, "if you weren't in the air force, what would you be doin'?"
Tuxedo had actually gotten serious for a moment as he'd stood there by a tall tree the two of them were under for shade purposes, and had answered it after a good five seconds or so. "I dunno, I sort of always wanted to be a fireman."
"Really?" Glenn hadn't sounded very caught off guard. He could imagine crazy old Tuxedo Ral becoming a daredevil or human bullet shield, something psychotic just so the guy could have his usual death-wishes and thrills. Glenn couldn't imagine the weirdo being without them. But then Tux had asked Glenn something he certainly wasn't prepared for.
"How 'bout you?" the pilot wanted to know.
Glenn stood there. And stood there. Sure, he'd been a teacher just before re-enlisting, but he'd never found the job of providing education to snot- nosed high school punks all too enjoyable.
"I don't know," he eventually stated, causing Tux's eyebrows to shoot up in confusion.
"You don't know? You must have had a childhood dream or something."
The lead Thunderbolt had shrugged his shoulders. "I never gave it much thought. I never found anything I really thought I'd be comfortable doing for the rest of my life."
"And that's why you re-enlisted," Tux assumed.
Glenn hadn't answered.
Now that he had a chance to think about it better since he wasn't around noisy old Tux, up where he was most alone in the cockpit of his Orange Star fighter jet, he gave it some more thought. Sure, it was likely he'd re- enlisted since he had nothing better going for him. But there was also the chance that he'd be here for the rest of his life, however long or short it may be. The thought didn't fill him with as much pleasance as he thought it may have.
His head, covered in the oxygen helmet he wore, craned downwards from the cockpit, towards the convoy they were escorting. It was a long line of APCs, rocket trucks, recon trucks, and the like, all rolling along at maybe thirty to forty miles an hour. The Thunderbolts were escorting the convoy from a base near Krasst farther north, where the enemy Black Hole forces had begun to crumble slightly from the push of Orange Star's main Commanding Officers. Still, there looked to be no end to the onslaught of enemy troops, so Orange Star had to take all the advantages they had.
The convoy and the Thunderbolts would be meeting up with a second convoy & another squadron as well that had gone ahead from another southern-based base at around the same time Glenn and his team had split Reagan.
Glenn sighed. Would he be doing missions like this the rest of his life? He'd never liked escort missions when he'd been employed under the Green Earth flag, and they still had him doing it even in Orange Star.
He already didn't care for these missions very much, but the biggest problem with this one was that the convoy had to roll through a large glen covered completely in a dense fog, appropriately named Fog Valley. If they went around the valley, it would add two days to their journey, and Orange Star felt that was too long to go without reinforcements for their main forces on the front.
Fog of war, Glenn thought.
That's what they liked to refer to it as, for some particular reason the pilot didn't know of. Probably because the worst fog was always in places of major historic battles or something. He didn't know, nor did he necessarily care. All he knew was that fog of war wasn't something to underestimate, especially when one's life was being threatened.
This worried Glenn. They were heading right into the deepest parts of mostly unexplored territory in Orange Star because of the dense fog it was completely covered in, and for all they knew someone unfriendly had taken up residence there. It was very possible that none of them would return from this mission because they couldn't see their attackers.
Since the convoy was far too slow to keep up with the fighters above them, the Thunderbolts had to rotate their positions every so often, usually being forced to circle around the long stretch of Orange Star vehicles on the ground. Glenn found the routine acceptable, but would have preferred it if his squadron were all together. A team taken apart was, after all, a team taken apart.
An hour passed. Glenn checked his fuel gauge. The fighters all had more than enough fuel to make it to their destination and back, but the same couldn't be said for the convoy. They would have to stop somewhere along the way to get gascans out of the APCs and refuel. That would give the enemy just enough time to. . .
Glenn sighed and shook his head rapidly to clear his thoughts. He needed to think positive.
Minutes went by. The area around the convoy and Thunderbolt Squadron was beginning to lessen in their field of view. The fog was obviously close, and they were already in some of it. Glenn strained to see farther ahead and realized they were beginning to head directly into the fog. It would only be maybe a minute or so more before they entered the valley. "Maintain visual scanning. Keep an eye on your radars for the second convoy."
The fog surrounded them. It became incredibly difficult to keep an eye on the first convoy. The squadron above them had to fly closer and closer to the ground in order to keep a bead on them, but Glenn didn't want them flying too close. One of the last things they needed was for the convoy to go deaf and get themselves lost.
I can hardly see the damned ground! Glenn thought angrily. For all he knew, he or one of his flight-mates would go flying smack into the side of a mountain because they couldn't see the blasted thing.
"We've gotta get out of this fog as soon as we can, Glenn!" he heard Tristan say over the radio.
"We can't abandon the second convoy," Glenn sighed. "There's not much we can do until we meet up with them. Just sit tight, and everything will be okay."
The convoy continued on for around twenty more minutes through the fog. Through those twenty minutes, Glenn began to get a very bad feeling about the situation he and his squadron were in. There were too many possible future scenarios for them to get tangled up in. One of them could crash right into the ground or a mountainside without realizing it. He could lose communication with his squadron, his friends. They could all get lost and not know it for perhaps an hour.
But the thing that worried Glenn most was that there was still no sign of the second convoy.
He looked towards the ground as best to his current ability. The convoy they were escorting appeared to have all stopped, and he could see Orange Star troops rushing out of them to refuel all the vehicles. "Okay, 'Bolts, they're refueling. This'll take some time, so just hang on here. Keep your courses steady."
The Thunderbolts all began to circle around the convoy though not without effort, but even still, anxiousness filled Glenn. Something was wrong.
"This is the meeting point, isn't it, Glenn?" Rainey Banker sounded just as concerned as he felt.
"It is," he acknowledged, after a few seconds. Immediately he wanted to know what was going on here. "Tux, take Tristan 'n' Cassie and scout out the area for any sign of the second convoy. They may have gotten lost in this lousy fog."
"You got it, Glenn." The Thunderbolt flight leader watched Tuxedo's plane cautiously take on a western direction as it shot away from what they were escorting. "Follow me, you two."
Glenn kept his eyes on the three fighter jets as best he could until he could no longer get a bead on them, and turned back to the task at hand. "Everyone who's staying with me, keep your eyes peeled, and good. We don't need to blow something up just because we can't see what it is."
Over five more minutes flew by. Glenn's stomach began to attract butterflies. He usually felt this quesy whenever he was especially worried over something. The hideous feeling never really came up when he was in action, most of the time, but right now, Glenn's stomach felt as though it were the inside of a cement mixer. The other convoy should have been here, and the same could be said for the other squadron. Glenn seriously hoped they all were just late.
"Saber Squadron, do you copy?" It was Tux's voice, but it was rather scratchy. He had a better chance of coming in contact with the other escort squadron since the fog was obviously hammering at the Thunderbolts' communication links.
Glenn didn't hear a response. Although it was likely that communication was just bad, he still had the feeling Tux wouldn't be getting one from the Sabers anytime soon.
"Saber Squadron," Tux eventually grumbled again, "do you copy?"
There was obviously still no comeback to the question, since Glenn heard the guy growling to himself over the radio. The search continued on for a bit longer, though certainly too long for Glenn to feel any better about what was going on. The fog was beginning to make him feel claustrophobic. He wanted to get out of it, to see the pleasant blue skies again. He couldn't wait to get this horrible mission over with.
"Glenn," he suddenly heard Tux say, "we've found the second convoy."
"Good," Glenn uttered, a bit of relief flowing through him. It was about time. "And the squadron?"
"Yeah, we've found them, too." There was something in the way Tux spoke that didn't make things seem all too fine for Glenn all of a sudden.
"What happened?" he asked, fearing the answer already. "Did they just get lost or something?"
"No," Tux responded as calmly as he could, "they're gone, Glenn. They got totally blown away. They must have run into trouble."
Glenn Gordon's eyes widened like a pair of dinner plates. "You three, get back here at once! Everyone, keep an eye on your radars!"
His order came just in time. Not a second later, Bubba Boggs' frantic voice came over the radio. "I've got radar confirmation on unknown units! Glenn, are you picking them up?"
"Yeah," Glenn responded when he'd spared a quick look to his own radar. "I've got them on mine, so everyone-"
"LOOK OUT!" an anonymous Thunderbolt yelled.
Glenn's head shot towards the front of his cockpit. Through the fog, he could barely see something coming directly at him, and at perhaps the same speed he was travelling at. "Holy-"
Unconciously his hand shoved his control stick hard towards starboard, causing the sickening, sudden force of gravity to nearly knock him out right there as blood rushed from one side of his body to the other. Whatever was shooting at his own fighter seemed to pull the same maneuver, and the two craft came within merely fifteen feet of each other. The sonic boom from the other fighter resounded against Glenn's thick, powerful canopy, causing him to shudder from both it and what had just happened. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another Thunderbolt and unknown unit missing each other by an even scarier margin.
And almost before he could even realize it, the battle began.
Bright streaks of yellow shot up and around his cockpit, a constant blur beginning from the ground. Thankfully, the anti-air units on the ground weren't aiming at Glenn. Obviously their targets had just blown by he and his comrades, whatever they were. The Thunderbolt leader made it his first priority to find out - up close and personal.
But even before he sent his aircraft into a tight bank around, he suspected he knew what the alliance of these people - or things - was. He only needed maybe two or three seconds to find out, but the answer came to him quickly enough.
His initial assumption was correct. "They're Black Hole fighters!"
It all lasted less than a minute, despite the entire thing feeling as though it took hours to complete in Glenn's view.
A hideous explosion tore through the skies as the first casualty of the fight sounded out like some giant bell making its presence known, and whatever was left of the Black Hole craft slammed into the ground, barely missing the Orange Star convoy.
"How many have we got here?" Glenn asked to no one in particular, not expecting an immediate response. The battle could be over before anyone even got a guesstimated number in their head.
Obviously, it took some time for someone to respond, Fel Banon's less-than- respectful tone sounding in over the radio, instantly causing Glenn to cringe slightly. "I count four left, Gordon."
Five? Banon must have been blind. That was an awful shallow number for a fighter squadron. Something seemed out of place to Glenn, as though the pieces weren't all accounted for yet so the puzzle could come together. In any case, not thinking anything but the combat to be of significant importance at the moment, the Thunderbolt flight leader shoved his control every which way as he attempted to hone in on one of the enemy Black Hole fighters.
One of them shot off from the main pack and careened dowards in a spiral towards the convoy, prompting Glenn to follow suit at once. He didn't want one of these winged buckets of spare car parts trying to mess up their mission before he could realize it. "I'm on the breaker. Keep swarming them, everyone."
The enemy fighter that had broken off from its allies apparently did not notice it had a pursuer until Glenn was able to pop off a few shots from his Orange Star fighter's machineguns. None of the rounds made contact, though - Glenn was simply having trouble keeping the other craft within his sight because of the damned fog.
This stuff is gonna be the death of us, he thought to himself.
In an artificial show of bravery, the enemy fighter Glenn chased suddenly began another twist, inverted towards the ground as it attempted to actually fire a missile at the convoy while flying upside down. This would allow the craft to get a better viewpoint of its targets on the ground, Glenn realized, and he quickly tried to discern the enemy from doing so.
Pulling back on the red trigger situated at his index finger, more gunfire ripped from the powerful machineguns the Orange Star fighter posessed. Glenn wasn't necessarily taking the precious time to check his aiming, though - This was classic stormtrooper material. Some of the rounds from the gun ended up missing by what probably looked to be miles to Glenn. Even still, suppresive fire, the Thunderbolt leader felt, was a good way to take the lead in a fight early on.
It worked, apparently. The Black Hole fighter twisted around again and cut off its desired attack on the convoy and raced upwards again, but Glenn still hung on it like an annoying bee. Just a few more seconds, and he'd be able to send this sucker back to where it belonged - A junkyard.
"I'm hit!"
A cold sweat broke out all over Glenn's body as his attention fully careened from the Black Hole fighter to the panic-stricken voice of his comrade. "Rainey!"
His eyes caught Rainey's plane as it plumetted towards the ground. An enormous, ominous hole had somehow appeared smack in the middle of the fighter's right wing, and the plane was spiraling towards the opposite side, generally seeming out of control. Glenn couldn't take his eyes off it. "Eject!"
As soon as he'd yelled the lone warning, he could see Rainey's canopy falter a moment, then literally dissolve at the pieces as the doomed craft's pilot activated the ejection sequence. A small figure burst out of the top of it, but the fighter was still spiraling badly, and it appeared as though Rainey ended up being taken for quite the unenjoyable-looking spin through the air as she attempted to engage her parachute.
Even before she'd landed on the ground, parachute or not, Glenn was already barking orders to the convoy. "Somebody get over there and help her! Now!"
Gunfire tore at the wings of his own plane and Glenn could clearly see the bright streaks of death blowing past him. In his panic, one of the enemy fighters had been able to come around on him sooner than he could realize, and Glenn immediately threw the control stick hard to starboard, making a note to refrain from cursing loudly this time.
A great sense of urgency overcoming him, he again threw the stick around, this time in the opposite direction when he realized that the enemy aircraft was still with him, and not letting loose anytime soon. Glenn would have been having a much easier time with this had he not been forced to carry the extra worries that the fog naturally instilled in his soul. He had to keep one eye on the canopy and where the plane was headed, the other on his cockpit's instruments, and could only spare bursts of glances around in his seat towards where he thought the enemy fighter was from time to time.
Shoving the throttle forward, Glenn pitched his fighter into a steep dive, then brought it right back up and to port in a spin. This particular action seemed to boggle the pursuing Black Hole craft's sensors or whatever ambiguous instrumentation it may have had for keeping track of its adversaries, and Glenn was able to begin a wide circle around it.
But just as the circling between the two fighters had started, the enemy Black Hole craft made a jerky pitch upwards, attempting to come around on Glenn, inverted towards him.
Glenn refused to let even a smirk occupy his expression. However good artificial intelligence was, it would never be the very same as the instincts of a human being's, as far as Glenn was concerned. He brought his own craft up, and easily bringing the parallel enemy fighter into his sights, let loose a flurry of gunfire.
The Black Hole craft seemed to hesitate for the barest of moments as it absorbed the attacks, then instantly burst into numerous shards of flaming pieces - But Glenn was not immediately devoid of any problems. Now whatever was left of the burning piece of air junk was headed straight towards him. "Crap--!"
The only logical option that would have come to mind provided Glenn wasn't as preoccupied as he was would be to slow his fighter down, shove the stick to the left or right, and hope for the best. He did so.
Only a second later, the flaming wreckage of the former Black Hole fighter was behind him, having taken a one-way trip towards the dirt.
"Phew," the pilot mumbled, not bothering to try and keep his sigh quiet over the radio.
Allowing himself some breathing room, he again ratcheted the throttle up to full and took off towards where the main bunch still fought like a pack of wild hounds, despite the overwhelming odds towards Orange Star's favor. Glenn wanted this over with as soon as possible. For starters, he had no idea what Rainey's current condition was, nor whether or not she was even alive.
This had to end soon, Glenn knew, so he quickly set out to help finish it up. Moving the stick carefully, he began to draw onto the backside of another enemy fighter, switching his weapons mechanism over to missiles. This would be easy enough. Then he and his squadron could get this lousy mission over with. "I've got-"
Suddenly, without warning, another Orange Star jet flashed directly in front of his, apparently trying to get a missile lock on the Black Hole jet Glenn was pursuing. It literally occupied the Thunderbolt leader's entire frontal view, and it startled him so badly he instinctively pulled back on the yoke. Nevermind the fact he cursed out loudly, though he wasn't paying enough attention to realize it. "Who the hell just did that!?"
"I've got this one, Glenn." It was the obvious voice of Fel Banon, as though the man were telling his leader something as orderly as 'go brush your teeth.'
"Son of a jumpin'--!" Glenn yelled, completely forgetting his normal composure. "You could have killed me!"
No real answer came from Banon, with the exception of a humph. If one looked closely enough, it was possible to see the steam emanating from Glenn's ears.
The Thunderbolt leader was right back behind the Black Hole fighter soon enough, but his missile sights were being completely blocked by Fel Banon's craft. The man wanted the enemy kill for himself. Glenn couldn't figure out if that was what made him so angry, but it was probably just that Fel Banon was acting like a real dingbat.
On more than one occasion as the three craft raced around the skies, Glenn knew he would have a wonderful shot that would probably end this hideous fiasco, but he couldn't risk taking it with Fel Banon pursuing the enemy fighter so closely. His trigger finger cried out to be used, but it wouldn't be happening as long as that idiot was there blocking him. Muscles bunched at the corners of Glenn's mouth as he grit his teeth in irritation with the pilot.
Precious seconds passed. Glenn's anger began to reach breaking point. "Get out of the damned way, you bum!"
"Just give me a little more time-"
"You don't HAVE a little more time!" Glenn yelled. "If you're gonna take that thing out, DO IT NOW!"
"Wait-" Fel Banon's craft edgiliy rocked back and forth as its pilot attempted to steadily close in to safe enough distance so that any attempted attack wouldn't miss.
"COME ON, BANON!"
The familiar bright streaks of light crowded Glenn's frontal vision. "Damn it!"
In fury, as he broke off his own pursuit from the Black Hole craft due to enemy gunfire, Glenn watched Fel Banon shoot away in an opposite direction as well for similar reasons. He did his absolute best to contain his anger with both the other man and the situation he'd caused, but it didn't quite work the way he'd have liked it to. "What's wrong with you, Banon!?"
No response came over the radio, with the exception of another agitated mumble sound. Fel was obviously too occupied with something now to respond, or he felt ashamed. Probably the former, Glenn assumed.
Thankfully, Fel Banon's stunt didn't cost the team anything dear, besides some of their precious jet fuel. Tristan blew apart one Black Hole fighter, and Achmed took care of another. Glenn immediately called for a visual scan of the area, but the team didn't spot anymore enemy crafts, nor anything on radar, which wasn't of much use anyway because of the fog.
"I guess that's it, then," Glenn said, not sounding overly amused with what had just happened. "Ground team, I want a report on Rainey Banker."
"She's okay, Gordon. A little dizzy from the ride she took, but she's ay- oh-kay. Don't worry your little blushing face over her." Snickering ensued over the radio.
Glenn's face turned a very red color, but not from embarrassment. He'd had just about enough of this mission and everything that had come along with it, and the last thing he honestly needed was the damned convoy making fun of his 'just-friends' relationship with Rainey Banker.
"Form up, Thunderbolts," he said into the radio as soon as he'd calmed down mentally, "we need to get this mission over with. As soon as we're out of this fog and have gotten the convoy to the new base, we're heading home, and we're taking the scenic route."
His eyes moved towards one plane in particular, causing them to narrow slightly. "And I need to have a talk with one of you as soon as we get back."
---
The Orange Star fighter squadron, while it had mostly cleaned up the scene, had not noticed its blatant mistake in leaving one Black Hole fighter alive.
The craft shimmied this way and that way as it attempted to sort its visual sensors out after the battle while trying to trace its way home through the fog. Eventually, it exited the great cloud-like atmosphere and quickly set a course for its own home, flying at just over ten thousand feet above sea level.
It wouldn't take terribly long to reach its destination. The Fate's Point base of Black Hole alliance loomed in the distance, along with the obvious, familiar structure still apparently under construction in the middle of the military area. The fighter's artificial intelligence paid no attention to the enormous dome building with the even larger, incomplete cannon sticking out of it, though, as its actual flight path was already predetermined.
The craft landed soon enough and a swarm of Black Hole officers overtook it, fiddling and prodding at it with special gizmos and ambiguous machinery. Eventually, they extracted from its inner hull what looked to be some sort of compact disc and the lot of them went marching over to the nearest building, stepping inside at arrival.
Inside, the lead trooper holding the disc plodded right up to the front table and stood there at attention. "Here is the camera recording that you desired."
Kailaff Boldigh swung around in the chair he sat in, eyeing the trooper for a moment before snatching the disc out of the creature's armored, underlyingly moldy hands. "You are dismissed."
The trooper hesitated as though it were expecting some sort of higher gratitude from the pilot. Boldigh only stared at it. Eventually, the trooper felt wise enough to simply leave without getting itself in more trouble than it wanted.
Alone, Boldigh quickly inserted the disc into his computer terminal. A full-screen program consisting of the fighter's camera recordings popped into view on the monitor, prompting Boldigh to sit there and watch the entire battle that had occured with the Thunderbolts from the aircraft's point of view.
If his instincts were correct, then this could be a decisive help in his search for the enemy squadron he mercilessly sought. Black Hole had cameras installed with optional live video feed for ground-based monitors on all of their planes, much like many fighters in Green Earth nowadays, mostly so they could keep track of any rogue jets whose programming had gone off the deep end and bring them back for maintenance. Boldigh had discovered this to be a great asset in his search.
He'd forwarded past the first battle the fighter had been engaged in, presumably with one Saber Squadron, from the Orange Star's craft's squad emblems. The Sabers had all bitten the dust due to to their relative inexperience, and the convoy they were escorting hadn't lasted long.
More of the same filled the screen after the fight had ended. Fog - Nothing but fog.
But then something interesting filled the monitor. Another battle with an Orange Star squadron. Boldigh looked hard at the screen, trying to decipher the look of the emblems on the enemy fighters' wings.
It came all too quickly.
Lightning bolts.
Immediately Boldigh forwarded the battle again, trying to find a conclusion to it. He was able to catch glimpses of explosions here and there, mostly from fellow Black Hole craft, and his eyes thinned ever so slightly. He studied all the information the camera feed gave him very carefully.
Then, not wasting a second to stop and second-guess his own eyes, he rushed over to the map that sat on a table opposite to him.
Scanning it, he quickly pointed out Fog Valley, where the combat had taken place. The first convoy the fighter had engaged had been headed north, from a south-westerly direction, as the omnidirectional navigational system the computer had relayed. Black Hole had not yet delved deep enough into the Macro region of Orange Star to completely know of all of the nation's air bases, but there were little patches of mountains and forests here and there that Boldigh felt would have made good places of hiding. But he was not concerned with this squadrn or its convoy.
His eyes moved to the area south of Fog Valley. The second convoy had apparently been coming from the south, also headed north, so it was a safe bet the squadron that had been accompanying them had come from the same direction. On the map, there seemed to be a pleasant-enough looking cove, surrounding by mountains, just south of the big cloudy glen where the battles had occured. And Krasst wasn't too far from this particular cove itself.
Boldigh stepped away from the table and looked out the window at the dark clouds that were beginning to hang over the Fate's Point base.
I have found you all, he thought to himself.
And now that this game of hide-and-seek has ended, I will destroy you.
--------
Author Notes:
Yep - Another lame old "away-time" from this fic. First they shut off our cable, then days later we get it back. But right now, I can tell you this much: If you ever get one of those AOL free trial things in your mailbox, put it in a garbage bin and burn it. I tried to install one of them and bam, it literally destroys my entire system. Fluggs up EVERYthing. Thank goodness a family friend was able to save everything on the hard drive, so I can continue writing this thing. Anyway, I hope that's the last interruption I get until this thing has ended, which probably isn't too far off. I don't know. In any case, I'm glad you read it, and I hope you R+R.
______________
The Fighters - Part II
By RustyD
______________
~----~
~Mission Eleven: Ambush at Fog Valley~
~----~
Marcus Madison's funeral had not been pleasant.
Glenn could remember the last funerals he'd been to. They had been for the many pilots killed in the attack on the Clinton Air Base in Green Earth, caused by Blue Moon. The problem was that back then, those funerals had been pleasantly elaborate and lengthy, mainly because when they'd taken place, it turned out Blue Moon was not the true enemy of Green Earth. The officials overseeing the pilots' funerals had been able to provide a pleasant-enough occasion at the time. Now, Marcus Madison had barely been buried before everyone had to go rushing back to what they were doing, since the entire continent was being plagued by war. It just didn't seem fitting to Glenn.
At least the others had enjoyed theirselves as much as they could - It was a funeral, after all. Bubba had literally eaten all the food, and Glenn had been able to let some of the air out of Tux's head and get him to actually converse about something sane.
"Tux," Glenn had asked, merely out of curiosity, "if you weren't in the air force, what would you be doin'?"
Tuxedo had actually gotten serious for a moment as he'd stood there by a tall tree the two of them were under for shade purposes, and had answered it after a good five seconds or so. "I dunno, I sort of always wanted to be a fireman."
"Really?" Glenn hadn't sounded very caught off guard. He could imagine crazy old Tuxedo Ral becoming a daredevil or human bullet shield, something psychotic just so the guy could have his usual death-wishes and thrills. Glenn couldn't imagine the weirdo being without them. But then Tux had asked Glenn something he certainly wasn't prepared for.
"How 'bout you?" the pilot wanted to know.
Glenn stood there. And stood there. Sure, he'd been a teacher just before re-enlisting, but he'd never found the job of providing education to snot- nosed high school punks all too enjoyable.
"I don't know," he eventually stated, causing Tux's eyebrows to shoot up in confusion.
"You don't know? You must have had a childhood dream or something."
The lead Thunderbolt had shrugged his shoulders. "I never gave it much thought. I never found anything I really thought I'd be comfortable doing for the rest of my life."
"And that's why you re-enlisted," Tux assumed.
Glenn hadn't answered.
Now that he had a chance to think about it better since he wasn't around noisy old Tux, up where he was most alone in the cockpit of his Orange Star fighter jet, he gave it some more thought. Sure, it was likely he'd re- enlisted since he had nothing better going for him. But there was also the chance that he'd be here for the rest of his life, however long or short it may be. The thought didn't fill him with as much pleasance as he thought it may have.
His head, covered in the oxygen helmet he wore, craned downwards from the cockpit, towards the convoy they were escorting. It was a long line of APCs, rocket trucks, recon trucks, and the like, all rolling along at maybe thirty to forty miles an hour. The Thunderbolts were escorting the convoy from a base near Krasst farther north, where the enemy Black Hole forces had begun to crumble slightly from the push of Orange Star's main Commanding Officers. Still, there looked to be no end to the onslaught of enemy troops, so Orange Star had to take all the advantages they had.
The convoy and the Thunderbolts would be meeting up with a second convoy & another squadron as well that had gone ahead from another southern-based base at around the same time Glenn and his team had split Reagan.
Glenn sighed. Would he be doing missions like this the rest of his life? He'd never liked escort missions when he'd been employed under the Green Earth flag, and they still had him doing it even in Orange Star.
He already didn't care for these missions very much, but the biggest problem with this one was that the convoy had to roll through a large glen covered completely in a dense fog, appropriately named Fog Valley. If they went around the valley, it would add two days to their journey, and Orange Star felt that was too long to go without reinforcements for their main forces on the front.
Fog of war, Glenn thought.
That's what they liked to refer to it as, for some particular reason the pilot didn't know of. Probably because the worst fog was always in places of major historic battles or something. He didn't know, nor did he necessarily care. All he knew was that fog of war wasn't something to underestimate, especially when one's life was being threatened.
This worried Glenn. They were heading right into the deepest parts of mostly unexplored territory in Orange Star because of the dense fog it was completely covered in, and for all they knew someone unfriendly had taken up residence there. It was very possible that none of them would return from this mission because they couldn't see their attackers.
Since the convoy was far too slow to keep up with the fighters above them, the Thunderbolts had to rotate their positions every so often, usually being forced to circle around the long stretch of Orange Star vehicles on the ground. Glenn found the routine acceptable, but would have preferred it if his squadron were all together. A team taken apart was, after all, a team taken apart.
An hour passed. Glenn checked his fuel gauge. The fighters all had more than enough fuel to make it to their destination and back, but the same couldn't be said for the convoy. They would have to stop somewhere along the way to get gascans out of the APCs and refuel. That would give the enemy just enough time to. . .
Glenn sighed and shook his head rapidly to clear his thoughts. He needed to think positive.
Minutes went by. The area around the convoy and Thunderbolt Squadron was beginning to lessen in their field of view. The fog was obviously close, and they were already in some of it. Glenn strained to see farther ahead and realized they were beginning to head directly into the fog. It would only be maybe a minute or so more before they entered the valley. "Maintain visual scanning. Keep an eye on your radars for the second convoy."
The fog surrounded them. It became incredibly difficult to keep an eye on the first convoy. The squadron above them had to fly closer and closer to the ground in order to keep a bead on them, but Glenn didn't want them flying too close. One of the last things they needed was for the convoy to go deaf and get themselves lost.
I can hardly see the damned ground! Glenn thought angrily. For all he knew, he or one of his flight-mates would go flying smack into the side of a mountain because they couldn't see the blasted thing.
"We've gotta get out of this fog as soon as we can, Glenn!" he heard Tristan say over the radio.
"We can't abandon the second convoy," Glenn sighed. "There's not much we can do until we meet up with them. Just sit tight, and everything will be okay."
The convoy continued on for around twenty more minutes through the fog. Through those twenty minutes, Glenn began to get a very bad feeling about the situation he and his squadron were in. There were too many possible future scenarios for them to get tangled up in. One of them could crash right into the ground or a mountainside without realizing it. He could lose communication with his squadron, his friends. They could all get lost and not know it for perhaps an hour.
But the thing that worried Glenn most was that there was still no sign of the second convoy.
He looked towards the ground as best to his current ability. The convoy they were escorting appeared to have all stopped, and he could see Orange Star troops rushing out of them to refuel all the vehicles. "Okay, 'Bolts, they're refueling. This'll take some time, so just hang on here. Keep your courses steady."
The Thunderbolts all began to circle around the convoy though not without effort, but even still, anxiousness filled Glenn. Something was wrong.
"This is the meeting point, isn't it, Glenn?" Rainey Banker sounded just as concerned as he felt.
"It is," he acknowledged, after a few seconds. Immediately he wanted to know what was going on here. "Tux, take Tristan 'n' Cassie and scout out the area for any sign of the second convoy. They may have gotten lost in this lousy fog."
"You got it, Glenn." The Thunderbolt flight leader watched Tuxedo's plane cautiously take on a western direction as it shot away from what they were escorting. "Follow me, you two."
Glenn kept his eyes on the three fighter jets as best he could until he could no longer get a bead on them, and turned back to the task at hand. "Everyone who's staying with me, keep your eyes peeled, and good. We don't need to blow something up just because we can't see what it is."
Over five more minutes flew by. Glenn's stomach began to attract butterflies. He usually felt this quesy whenever he was especially worried over something. The hideous feeling never really came up when he was in action, most of the time, but right now, Glenn's stomach felt as though it were the inside of a cement mixer. The other convoy should have been here, and the same could be said for the other squadron. Glenn seriously hoped they all were just late.
"Saber Squadron, do you copy?" It was Tux's voice, but it was rather scratchy. He had a better chance of coming in contact with the other escort squadron since the fog was obviously hammering at the Thunderbolts' communication links.
Glenn didn't hear a response. Although it was likely that communication was just bad, he still had the feeling Tux wouldn't be getting one from the Sabers anytime soon.
"Saber Squadron," Tux eventually grumbled again, "do you copy?"
There was obviously still no comeback to the question, since Glenn heard the guy growling to himself over the radio. The search continued on for a bit longer, though certainly too long for Glenn to feel any better about what was going on. The fog was beginning to make him feel claustrophobic. He wanted to get out of it, to see the pleasant blue skies again. He couldn't wait to get this horrible mission over with.
"Glenn," he suddenly heard Tux say, "we've found the second convoy."
"Good," Glenn uttered, a bit of relief flowing through him. It was about time. "And the squadron?"
"Yeah, we've found them, too." There was something in the way Tux spoke that didn't make things seem all too fine for Glenn all of a sudden.
"What happened?" he asked, fearing the answer already. "Did they just get lost or something?"
"No," Tux responded as calmly as he could, "they're gone, Glenn. They got totally blown away. They must have run into trouble."
Glenn Gordon's eyes widened like a pair of dinner plates. "You three, get back here at once! Everyone, keep an eye on your radars!"
His order came just in time. Not a second later, Bubba Boggs' frantic voice came over the radio. "I've got radar confirmation on unknown units! Glenn, are you picking them up?"
"Yeah," Glenn responded when he'd spared a quick look to his own radar. "I've got them on mine, so everyone-"
"LOOK OUT!" an anonymous Thunderbolt yelled.
Glenn's head shot towards the front of his cockpit. Through the fog, he could barely see something coming directly at him, and at perhaps the same speed he was travelling at. "Holy-"
Unconciously his hand shoved his control stick hard towards starboard, causing the sickening, sudden force of gravity to nearly knock him out right there as blood rushed from one side of his body to the other. Whatever was shooting at his own fighter seemed to pull the same maneuver, and the two craft came within merely fifteen feet of each other. The sonic boom from the other fighter resounded against Glenn's thick, powerful canopy, causing him to shudder from both it and what had just happened. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted another Thunderbolt and unknown unit missing each other by an even scarier margin.
And almost before he could even realize it, the battle began.
Bright streaks of yellow shot up and around his cockpit, a constant blur beginning from the ground. Thankfully, the anti-air units on the ground weren't aiming at Glenn. Obviously their targets had just blown by he and his comrades, whatever they were. The Thunderbolt leader made it his first priority to find out - up close and personal.
But even before he sent his aircraft into a tight bank around, he suspected he knew what the alliance of these people - or things - was. He only needed maybe two or three seconds to find out, but the answer came to him quickly enough.
His initial assumption was correct. "They're Black Hole fighters!"
It all lasted less than a minute, despite the entire thing feeling as though it took hours to complete in Glenn's view.
A hideous explosion tore through the skies as the first casualty of the fight sounded out like some giant bell making its presence known, and whatever was left of the Black Hole craft slammed into the ground, barely missing the Orange Star convoy.
"How many have we got here?" Glenn asked to no one in particular, not expecting an immediate response. The battle could be over before anyone even got a guesstimated number in their head.
Obviously, it took some time for someone to respond, Fel Banon's less-than- respectful tone sounding in over the radio, instantly causing Glenn to cringe slightly. "I count four left, Gordon."
Five? Banon must have been blind. That was an awful shallow number for a fighter squadron. Something seemed out of place to Glenn, as though the pieces weren't all accounted for yet so the puzzle could come together. In any case, not thinking anything but the combat to be of significant importance at the moment, the Thunderbolt flight leader shoved his control every which way as he attempted to hone in on one of the enemy Black Hole fighters.
One of them shot off from the main pack and careened dowards in a spiral towards the convoy, prompting Glenn to follow suit at once. He didn't want one of these winged buckets of spare car parts trying to mess up their mission before he could realize it. "I'm on the breaker. Keep swarming them, everyone."
The enemy fighter that had broken off from its allies apparently did not notice it had a pursuer until Glenn was able to pop off a few shots from his Orange Star fighter's machineguns. None of the rounds made contact, though - Glenn was simply having trouble keeping the other craft within his sight because of the damned fog.
This stuff is gonna be the death of us, he thought to himself.
In an artificial show of bravery, the enemy fighter Glenn chased suddenly began another twist, inverted towards the ground as it attempted to actually fire a missile at the convoy while flying upside down. This would allow the craft to get a better viewpoint of its targets on the ground, Glenn realized, and he quickly tried to discern the enemy from doing so.
Pulling back on the red trigger situated at his index finger, more gunfire ripped from the powerful machineguns the Orange Star fighter posessed. Glenn wasn't necessarily taking the precious time to check his aiming, though - This was classic stormtrooper material. Some of the rounds from the gun ended up missing by what probably looked to be miles to Glenn. Even still, suppresive fire, the Thunderbolt leader felt, was a good way to take the lead in a fight early on.
It worked, apparently. The Black Hole fighter twisted around again and cut off its desired attack on the convoy and raced upwards again, but Glenn still hung on it like an annoying bee. Just a few more seconds, and he'd be able to send this sucker back to where it belonged - A junkyard.
"I'm hit!"
A cold sweat broke out all over Glenn's body as his attention fully careened from the Black Hole fighter to the panic-stricken voice of his comrade. "Rainey!"
His eyes caught Rainey's plane as it plumetted towards the ground. An enormous, ominous hole had somehow appeared smack in the middle of the fighter's right wing, and the plane was spiraling towards the opposite side, generally seeming out of control. Glenn couldn't take his eyes off it. "Eject!"
As soon as he'd yelled the lone warning, he could see Rainey's canopy falter a moment, then literally dissolve at the pieces as the doomed craft's pilot activated the ejection sequence. A small figure burst out of the top of it, but the fighter was still spiraling badly, and it appeared as though Rainey ended up being taken for quite the unenjoyable-looking spin through the air as she attempted to engage her parachute.
Even before she'd landed on the ground, parachute or not, Glenn was already barking orders to the convoy. "Somebody get over there and help her! Now!"
Gunfire tore at the wings of his own plane and Glenn could clearly see the bright streaks of death blowing past him. In his panic, one of the enemy fighters had been able to come around on him sooner than he could realize, and Glenn immediately threw the control stick hard to starboard, making a note to refrain from cursing loudly this time.
A great sense of urgency overcoming him, he again threw the stick around, this time in the opposite direction when he realized that the enemy aircraft was still with him, and not letting loose anytime soon. Glenn would have been having a much easier time with this had he not been forced to carry the extra worries that the fog naturally instilled in his soul. He had to keep one eye on the canopy and where the plane was headed, the other on his cockpit's instruments, and could only spare bursts of glances around in his seat towards where he thought the enemy fighter was from time to time.
Shoving the throttle forward, Glenn pitched his fighter into a steep dive, then brought it right back up and to port in a spin. This particular action seemed to boggle the pursuing Black Hole craft's sensors or whatever ambiguous instrumentation it may have had for keeping track of its adversaries, and Glenn was able to begin a wide circle around it.
But just as the circling between the two fighters had started, the enemy Black Hole craft made a jerky pitch upwards, attempting to come around on Glenn, inverted towards him.
Glenn refused to let even a smirk occupy his expression. However good artificial intelligence was, it would never be the very same as the instincts of a human being's, as far as Glenn was concerned. He brought his own craft up, and easily bringing the parallel enemy fighter into his sights, let loose a flurry of gunfire.
The Black Hole craft seemed to hesitate for the barest of moments as it absorbed the attacks, then instantly burst into numerous shards of flaming pieces - But Glenn was not immediately devoid of any problems. Now whatever was left of the burning piece of air junk was headed straight towards him. "Crap--!"
The only logical option that would have come to mind provided Glenn wasn't as preoccupied as he was would be to slow his fighter down, shove the stick to the left or right, and hope for the best. He did so.
Only a second later, the flaming wreckage of the former Black Hole fighter was behind him, having taken a one-way trip towards the dirt.
"Phew," the pilot mumbled, not bothering to try and keep his sigh quiet over the radio.
Allowing himself some breathing room, he again ratcheted the throttle up to full and took off towards where the main bunch still fought like a pack of wild hounds, despite the overwhelming odds towards Orange Star's favor. Glenn wanted this over with as soon as possible. For starters, he had no idea what Rainey's current condition was, nor whether or not she was even alive.
This had to end soon, Glenn knew, so he quickly set out to help finish it up. Moving the stick carefully, he began to draw onto the backside of another enemy fighter, switching his weapons mechanism over to missiles. This would be easy enough. Then he and his squadron could get this lousy mission over with. "I've got-"
Suddenly, without warning, another Orange Star jet flashed directly in front of his, apparently trying to get a missile lock on the Black Hole jet Glenn was pursuing. It literally occupied the Thunderbolt leader's entire frontal view, and it startled him so badly he instinctively pulled back on the yoke. Nevermind the fact he cursed out loudly, though he wasn't paying enough attention to realize it. "Who the hell just did that!?"
"I've got this one, Glenn." It was the obvious voice of Fel Banon, as though the man were telling his leader something as orderly as 'go brush your teeth.'
"Son of a jumpin'--!" Glenn yelled, completely forgetting his normal composure. "You could have killed me!"
No real answer came from Banon, with the exception of a humph. If one looked closely enough, it was possible to see the steam emanating from Glenn's ears.
The Thunderbolt leader was right back behind the Black Hole fighter soon enough, but his missile sights were being completely blocked by Fel Banon's craft. The man wanted the enemy kill for himself. Glenn couldn't figure out if that was what made him so angry, but it was probably just that Fel Banon was acting like a real dingbat.
On more than one occasion as the three craft raced around the skies, Glenn knew he would have a wonderful shot that would probably end this hideous fiasco, but he couldn't risk taking it with Fel Banon pursuing the enemy fighter so closely. His trigger finger cried out to be used, but it wouldn't be happening as long as that idiot was there blocking him. Muscles bunched at the corners of Glenn's mouth as he grit his teeth in irritation with the pilot.
Precious seconds passed. Glenn's anger began to reach breaking point. "Get out of the damned way, you bum!"
"Just give me a little more time-"
"You don't HAVE a little more time!" Glenn yelled. "If you're gonna take that thing out, DO IT NOW!"
"Wait-" Fel Banon's craft edgiliy rocked back and forth as its pilot attempted to steadily close in to safe enough distance so that any attempted attack wouldn't miss.
"COME ON, BANON!"
The familiar bright streaks of light crowded Glenn's frontal vision. "Damn it!"
In fury, as he broke off his own pursuit from the Black Hole craft due to enemy gunfire, Glenn watched Fel Banon shoot away in an opposite direction as well for similar reasons. He did his absolute best to contain his anger with both the other man and the situation he'd caused, but it didn't quite work the way he'd have liked it to. "What's wrong with you, Banon!?"
No response came over the radio, with the exception of another agitated mumble sound. Fel was obviously too occupied with something now to respond, or he felt ashamed. Probably the former, Glenn assumed.
Thankfully, Fel Banon's stunt didn't cost the team anything dear, besides some of their precious jet fuel. Tristan blew apart one Black Hole fighter, and Achmed took care of another. Glenn immediately called for a visual scan of the area, but the team didn't spot anymore enemy crafts, nor anything on radar, which wasn't of much use anyway because of the fog.
"I guess that's it, then," Glenn said, not sounding overly amused with what had just happened. "Ground team, I want a report on Rainey Banker."
"She's okay, Gordon. A little dizzy from the ride she took, but she's ay- oh-kay. Don't worry your little blushing face over her." Snickering ensued over the radio.
Glenn's face turned a very red color, but not from embarrassment. He'd had just about enough of this mission and everything that had come along with it, and the last thing he honestly needed was the damned convoy making fun of his 'just-friends' relationship with Rainey Banker.
"Form up, Thunderbolts," he said into the radio as soon as he'd calmed down mentally, "we need to get this mission over with. As soon as we're out of this fog and have gotten the convoy to the new base, we're heading home, and we're taking the scenic route."
His eyes moved towards one plane in particular, causing them to narrow slightly. "And I need to have a talk with one of you as soon as we get back."
---
The Orange Star fighter squadron, while it had mostly cleaned up the scene, had not noticed its blatant mistake in leaving one Black Hole fighter alive.
The craft shimmied this way and that way as it attempted to sort its visual sensors out after the battle while trying to trace its way home through the fog. Eventually, it exited the great cloud-like atmosphere and quickly set a course for its own home, flying at just over ten thousand feet above sea level.
It wouldn't take terribly long to reach its destination. The Fate's Point base of Black Hole alliance loomed in the distance, along with the obvious, familiar structure still apparently under construction in the middle of the military area. The fighter's artificial intelligence paid no attention to the enormous dome building with the even larger, incomplete cannon sticking out of it, though, as its actual flight path was already predetermined.
The craft landed soon enough and a swarm of Black Hole officers overtook it, fiddling and prodding at it with special gizmos and ambiguous machinery. Eventually, they extracted from its inner hull what looked to be some sort of compact disc and the lot of them went marching over to the nearest building, stepping inside at arrival.
Inside, the lead trooper holding the disc plodded right up to the front table and stood there at attention. "Here is the camera recording that you desired."
Kailaff Boldigh swung around in the chair he sat in, eyeing the trooper for a moment before snatching the disc out of the creature's armored, underlyingly moldy hands. "You are dismissed."
The trooper hesitated as though it were expecting some sort of higher gratitude from the pilot. Boldigh only stared at it. Eventually, the trooper felt wise enough to simply leave without getting itself in more trouble than it wanted.
Alone, Boldigh quickly inserted the disc into his computer terminal. A full-screen program consisting of the fighter's camera recordings popped into view on the monitor, prompting Boldigh to sit there and watch the entire battle that had occured with the Thunderbolts from the aircraft's point of view.
If his instincts were correct, then this could be a decisive help in his search for the enemy squadron he mercilessly sought. Black Hole had cameras installed with optional live video feed for ground-based monitors on all of their planes, much like many fighters in Green Earth nowadays, mostly so they could keep track of any rogue jets whose programming had gone off the deep end and bring them back for maintenance. Boldigh had discovered this to be a great asset in his search.
He'd forwarded past the first battle the fighter had been engaged in, presumably with one Saber Squadron, from the Orange Star's craft's squad emblems. The Sabers had all bitten the dust due to to their relative inexperience, and the convoy they were escorting hadn't lasted long.
More of the same filled the screen after the fight had ended. Fog - Nothing but fog.
But then something interesting filled the monitor. Another battle with an Orange Star squadron. Boldigh looked hard at the screen, trying to decipher the look of the emblems on the enemy fighters' wings.
It came all too quickly.
Lightning bolts.
Immediately Boldigh forwarded the battle again, trying to find a conclusion to it. He was able to catch glimpses of explosions here and there, mostly from fellow Black Hole craft, and his eyes thinned ever so slightly. He studied all the information the camera feed gave him very carefully.
Then, not wasting a second to stop and second-guess his own eyes, he rushed over to the map that sat on a table opposite to him.
Scanning it, he quickly pointed out Fog Valley, where the combat had taken place. The first convoy the fighter had engaged had been headed north, from a south-westerly direction, as the omnidirectional navigational system the computer had relayed. Black Hole had not yet delved deep enough into the Macro region of Orange Star to completely know of all of the nation's air bases, but there were little patches of mountains and forests here and there that Boldigh felt would have made good places of hiding. But he was not concerned with this squadrn or its convoy.
His eyes moved to the area south of Fog Valley. The second convoy had apparently been coming from the south, also headed north, so it was a safe bet the squadron that had been accompanying them had come from the same direction. On the map, there seemed to be a pleasant-enough looking cove, surrounding by mountains, just south of the big cloudy glen where the battles had occured. And Krasst wasn't too far from this particular cove itself.
Boldigh stepped away from the table and looked out the window at the dark clouds that were beginning to hang over the Fate's Point base.
I have found you all, he thought to himself.
And now that this game of hide-and-seek has ended, I will destroy you.
--------
Author Notes:
Yep - Another lame old "away-time" from this fic. First they shut off our cable, then days later we get it back. But right now, I can tell you this much: If you ever get one of those AOL free trial things in your mailbox, put it in a garbage bin and burn it. I tried to install one of them and bam, it literally destroys my entire system. Fluggs up EVERYthing. Thank goodness a family friend was able to save everything on the hard drive, so I can continue writing this thing. Anyway, I hope that's the last interruption I get until this thing has ended, which probably isn't too far off. I don't know. In any case, I'm glad you read it, and I hope you R+R.