"Are we all here? Then let's get this briefing underway." Gates didn't even look up as he logged into the terminal.
"What do we need a briefing for? Just send us up to shoot down whatever's heading our way," Magnum said impatiently.
"Just pay attention," Crosswind snapped while sitting next to Gates. "The sooner we're done here, the sooner you'll get to go up."
Gates nodded. "Exactly. Now, here's the situation. It's mainly the usual, bombers and their escorts are closing in on our position. However, it's unlike before, as there seem to be significantly more bombers and escorts than there usually is. I'm not sure why. Your mission is simple though, intercept and destroy all targets while prioritizing the bombers, so hurry up and get to the hangars. Time is of the essence."
Eva and the others stood up rigidly and saluted Gates, which garnered several snickers from Magnum and her group, who simply stood up and walked out. Eva's gaze followed them out the door before she brought up the rear of the group as they all hurried down to the hangars.
After getting her flight gear on, Eva made her way over to the hangar where her Su-35 resided. It had already been refueled and reloaded with missiles by the mechanics since Gates wanted everyone to be ready at a moment's notice in case an attack came. This time she was loaded with 6AAMs. She quickly climbed up the ladder into her cockpit and the canopy closed above her. As she went through her pre-flight checks, she could hear the siren blaring outside, even through the closed hangar door.
"Rogue Squadron, aircraft preparations complete. Stand by at the front."
After being in Nexus Squadron for months, with the exception of briefly flying with Domino and Torch in Meteor Squadron, it felt strange to be under a new squadron, even if Vortex was still leading it. A single loud buzz sounded off and the hangar doors slid open. One by one, each pilot turned their engines on and taxied onto the runway, with Eva bringing up the rear once again. The convicts of the squadron slipped into the line of planes so that they alternated with the others.
"This is the Control Tower. All aircraft, you're clear to take off, commencing interception now."
The pilots all started to take off. First Vortex, then Magnum, Charger, Axe, Poet, Dodger, Magic, Slipstream, and Lucky. Finally, Eva had nothing but a clear runway before her. She spooled up her engines and waited for the Control Tower.
"Diamond, your callsign is Rogue 10. You're cleared for takeoff, so go now," control ordered.
"Roger that, taking off now," Eva replied. She briefly looked over her shoulder and watched Trench's MiG-29 taxi onto the runway before accelerating rapidly. As she picked up speed, she pulled back on the control stick, and she lifted off the ground. She climbed up higher into the sky and retracted her landing gear.
"Rogue 10, takeoff confirmed," control told her.
"Alright, time to see if you all live up the hype," Magnum sneered. She was already flying head-first at a pair of bombers with Axe right behind her.
"I bet we'll be the ones that do all the work," Slipstream added with a snicker.
Eva resisted the urge to make any sort of comeback. She looked around to get a handle on the situation. Gates wasn't exaggerating when he said there were a lot of bombers. She set her sights on the closest group of three bombers. They were a lot higher up than most of the other bombers, so she climbed higher and higher into the sky to deal with them. She switched to her special weapons and set her sights on the Tu-95s, ignoring the escorts for a moment.
"Rogue 1, target down," Crosswind reported.
"Damn, one down already?" Slipstream said, clearly impressed. "We only just started. Maybe Dodger won't run away this time like he usually does."
Snickers came from a few of the other convicts before Dodger defended himself. "It's not my fault that I have a sense of self-preservation and you don't."
"You probably wouldn't even need to run away if you actually helped," Axe shot back.
"Yeah," Slipstream agreed. "You're actually a decent pilot, unlike Trench."
Eva waited for some sort of reply from Trench, but instead, Poet muttered, "He's probably better than you are."
Finally, Eva was in range of the bombers. "Rogue 10, Fox 3," she announced, firing a single salvo as she flew straight at them. However, only one bomber went down. She rolled onto her side and looped around to get behind the bombers.
"Rogue 10, target is in gun range," Crosswind told her.
Since the bombers had little to no maneuverability, they didn't stand a chance as Eva fired two standard missiles at the first bomber and used machine guns to destroy the other one.
"That's three down," she reported.
"Are you convicts napping up there?" Crosswind jested. "It seems like they're doing all the work."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I just splashed two bombers," Magnum said in a clearly irritated tone.
"Hey, Diamond, you've got some escort fighters coming up behind you."
Lucky's warning came just in time, as Eva's missile alert suddenly went off. Not wanting to waste flares, she arced her plane up just as the missile was about to hit her, causing it to sail past her. The missile didn't have the time or capabilities to react properly and simply flew into the distance, where it eventually exploded mid-air. With the immediate threat off of her back, Eva glanced over her shoulder to see who was chasing her. To her surprise, it was a pair of F-4Es. "These pilots are pretty good considering how old the planes they're flying are," she noted.
Slipstream snickered. "They must be running out of planes to throw at us if they're sending Phantoms out."
"Don't underestimate them just because they're flying old planes," Vortex cut in. "That probably means they've had more time to fly with it, meaning they have plenty of experience."
Eva banked left into a high-G turn and looked behind herself to see how well her pursers were keeping up. To Eva's surprise, they actually turned in the opposite direction and were now facing her head-on. With no time to lose, she switched to her special weapons and fired a salvo before pulling up and around into a loop before they could fire at her. "Rogue 10, scratch two hostiles."
"Damn, Diamond. You're on fire today!" Charger said.
Eva shrugged. "Well, what can I say? I'm getting into a groove. Plus, I just feel like I'm better in this Su-35 than I was in my F/A-18," she replied.
"Don't forget, you've still got the bombers to deal with," Crosswind reminded them. "They're still your number one priority."
"Why don't we split up?" Magic suggested. "Have one group deal with the fighters and the other deal with the bombers."
"Dibs on taking out the bombers," Dodger quickly said.
Trench scoffed. "Yeah, go figure you'd want to deal with the easier targets."
"Go figure, the first time Trench opens his mouth since takeoff and it's to act better than us," Slipstream shot back. "Last time I checked, you and Magnum are the only ones with two sin lines."
"Alright, enough," Vortex intervened, clearly annoyed by their bickering. "Magnum, you take point on the bombers, Axe, Slipstream, and Lucky, go with her. Everyone else, run interference on the escorts," he ordered.
Eva didn't quite like the thought of Lucky being alone with the convicts, especially when most of them seemed unstable at best, but at the same time, she didn't have any reason to believe that they would try anything. She just didn't like the thought of not being able to come to Lucky's aid right away. Although she still trusted Vortex with every bone in her body, so she scanned the skies to find a target to take out. Eventually set her sights on a pair of F-15Js that were just breaking off from the bomber they were protecting, Eva kept her finger on top of the trigger as she climbed up higher to match their altitude. As soon as she had a radar lock, she fired two standard missiles at the first plane, which both found their target. The second fighter turned right, trying to face Eva head-on, but she had already flown past them and was coming back around. They made a high-G turn to try and get behind her, but Eva had already made a high-G turn of her own and quickly finished them off with a machine-gun burst.
"Seven bombers remaining," Crosswind informed them. "Hurry up before they get too close to the base."
Eva looked around for her next target. The only ones not being engaged by one of the other pilots was another pair of F-4Es, but they were quite a distance away. With no time to lose, she made a hard turn toward the unsuspecting planes and hit the afterburners. As she flew completely straight at her targets, she briefly looked around and spotted Vortex with a pair of fighters on his tail. She was about to call out to him when suddenly, his plane arced up and around in a circle that was tighter than Eva thought possible. She had never seen an aircraft move like that. "Woah! How'd you do that, Vortex?" she asked.
Vortex laughed a bit. "It's a maneuver called a kulbit. I'll show you how to do it later," he answered. "For now, let's deal with the rest of these fighters."
By that point, Eva was already in range of the enemy fighters, and they were headed right for her. However, they were no match for her 6AAMs, and one salvo was all it took to bring them both down. "Lucky, what's your status?" she asked with a slightly nervous edge in her voice.
"Just fine," Lucky replied in his usual cheery tone. "We just took out the last bomber."
"Not yet you didn't," Crosswind corrected him. "There's still one left. It looks like it's running away."
Suddenly, Gates' voice came over the radio. "Hold on, Rogue Squadron. Don't shoot that plane down. Follow it from a distance," he ordered. "If we can figure out where the airbase that they're staging these attacks from is, we can put a stop to them."
"What? That's crazy," Dodger said.
"And why do you care?" Crosswind asked. "You'll just end up running away anyways, so what does it matter?"
Dodger didn't reply, but rather, Vortex spoke up. "Alright. Let's follow that bomber, but do not shoot it down. Everyone hold your fire until I give the word," he told the squadron.
"Wilco," Eva answered as she took her finger off the trigger and slid into formation, where all eleven planes did their best to discreetly follow the lone Erusean bomber back to whatever base it came from.
After flying west for about half an hour, it still seemed as though the bomber didn't realize that it was being followed, and despite a few itchy trigger fingers from the convicts, nobody had opened fire.
"Jesus, this is so boring," Axe muttered. "I'd prefer a straight-up dogfight to all this sneaking around."
"Crosswind, any idea where the bomber is going?" Charger asked.
"Negative Rogue 3. Maintain your current course," he told them. "Wait a minute," he said suddenly. "Hostile aircraft are approaching at high speeds, bearing 200."
Eva looked down at her radar and quickly spotted the aircraft. She already knew what they were, and she had a feeling that the others did too. As soon as they were in visual range, her suspicions were confirmed as 18 MQ-99s flew right past the Erusean bomber and headed straight for them.
"Well Axe, you did say you wanted a dogfight," Magnum said lightheartedly.
"Rogue Squadron, eliminate all of the drones but do it quickly. We can't let that bomber slip away," Crosswind ordered.
Eva hit the afterburners and headed straight for the drones. The second she had a radar lock, she fired two missiles at two separate drones. One connected, but the other missed as its target made a sharp turn at the last second. As the drones all split up from their tight formation to engage Rogue Squadron, Eva looked around for the nearest target to engage, quickly picking out a drone that she could easily intercept. She banked left and the drone ended up right in front of her, giving her the opportunity to gun it down. Suddenly, her missile alert went off, and she instinctively went straight up into the sky. She heard the missile whiff by, but the drone on her tail was keeping behind her effortlessly.
"Damn it," she grunted. "Can someone get this drone off my tail?" Her tone was more annoyed than anything else. "I can't shake the little shit."
"I'm on it," Lucky quickly said as he turned to help Eva. He tried to take it out with a burst from his machine guns, and he made a few successful hits, but it wasn't enough to deter the drone. He made a tight loop with a high-G turn and came back around, firing two missiles which both hit the drone successfully. "There you go, problem solved."
Eva let out a small sigh of relief. "Thanks, Lucky, I owe you one."
Lucky didn't have time to respond as the somewhat panicked tone of Crosswind's voice caught their attention. "Everyone heads up! Air contact coming in at high speeds," he warned.
Eva froze, getting a case of déjà vu. The thought of having to fight Zero again, or even worse, lose more people to him, scared her tremendously. It seemed the others thought the same thing, as Vortex asked, "What kind of aircraft is it?"
"I don't think it's an aircraft at all. It's moving too fast," Crosswind replied.
"What is it if it's not an aircraft?" Trench wondered.
Eva shot past the exploding frame of another drone and circled around to go for another one. Suddenly, a massive blue explosion went off in the air, rattling her plane. She let out a grunt as she fought to stay in control. "What the hell was that?"
"Is everyone alright?" Vortex asked. "Crosswind, what do you have for us?"
"I don't have anything. I've got no idea what that was, but we know where that bomber is headed, so break off now," Crosswind ordered.
Dodger was already turning back in the direction they came from. "You don't have to tell me twice."
"Charger, form an element," Vortex said. "We'll be the rear guard. Everyone else break off from the UAVs."
"Wilco, forming up on your wing, Vortex," Charger replied.
Together, the two of them started tearing through the remaining drones, including the one that had snuck up on Eva's tail, which gave her a chance to break off that she gladly took. While she was incredibly relieved that she wouldn't have to face off against Zero again, she couldn't help but wonder what the explosion was, or where it came from. She looked over her shoulder to see how Vortex and Charger were doing and saw them destroy the last drone in a pincer attack before rejoining the formation.
"Crosswind, all drones have been splashed," Vortex reported.
"Copy that, good work Rogue Squadron. Return to base," Vortex responded.
After a brief moment of silence as they all flew back, Slipstream was the first to speak up. "Eh, I've seen better flying," he commented.
Eva wanted to respond but decided that it would be best not to fan the flames, so they slipped into an admittedly sloppy formation and headed back to base.
"It's good to see that we didn't lose any planes," Gates observed as he watched Rogue Squadron file into the briefing room and take their seats. "You successfully repelled the enemy counterattack, and you managed to work out where the enemy is staging their attacks. We'll have to launch an operation to clear the airbase of hostiles before we retrieve Major Tillmin, but for now, get some rest. We'll inform you when we're ready to go. Dismissed."
Author's Note: Ok I know I said I wanted to have two chapters done by like, yesterday, but in my defense, I finally got my emulator working so I've been playing through the Holy Trinity for the first time. Now if that's not a valid reason I don't know what is. Plus, it's giving me some new ideas for the story, so I'm excited to see your thoughts when I put those into action.