"Erich!"
Erich nearly fell out of his chair as a live feed with Fiona's face from outside his door suddenly appeared on the screen of his computer, accompanied by her energetic shouting. The wheels of his small office chair rocked back and forth until he finally managed to set them all back on the floor again, letting a tiny sigh of relief.
Turning his attention toward Fiona, he cocked an eyebrow in the direction of his webcam. "Sheesh, what's all the yelling for, Fi?"
"Park's called all hands on deck. It's an emergency!" she replied.
Without another word, Erich hung up, rushing over to his closet and haphazardly throwing his flight suit on, along with his vest. Commander Park was not a man to be kept waiting, especially in the face of an emergency. Both pilots knew this well, so the moment Erich left his room, he and Fiona, who was waiting just outside, began sprinting toward the briefing room.
"You got any idea what this is all about?" Erich asked as they ran.
Fiona shook her head. "No clue, just that it was an emergency. I think Rena's already there."
That gave Erich some measure of comfort, at least. Rena was easily the best pilot in SARF, and he had no problems admitting this- nor did Fiona. The knowledge that she was already standing by, ready to lead the two of them into whatever danger awaited them, eased his worries to a certain degree. At the very least, it helped him focus on getting to the briefing room as fast as possible, so down the halls they ran, making one turn after another, sliding past other personnel who were undoubtedly headed to the briefing as well. Eventually, the air raid sirens started blaring across the base, only hastening everyone's pace as they converged on the briefing room.
As Erich and Fiona squeezed through the crowd, they looked around. Sure enough, Rena was already seated, with an empty chair on either side of her. They quickly sat down before anyone else could take the seats. After confirming that Rena was just as much in the dark as they were, the three of them, along with everyone else in the room, began speculating what this emergency was as they waited for Commander Park.
"It's gotta be some kind of conflict between General and Neucom," Fiona insisted. "Everyone knows they've been wanting this for years- decades, even."
"Why would they be attacking us, though?" Erich asked. "The sirens going off means it's gotta be something headed for us- or for Expo City at least."
"Maybe they want us out of the way? Both sides know we'll intervene if they start anything, so maybe they'll try to stop us first," Fiona speculated, raising a hand to her chin as she thought. "Besides, I can't think of anything else it'd be."
"Who knows, maybe it's some kind of terrorist attack?" Erich suggested with a shrug. He turned his gaze toward their squadron leader. "What do you think, Rena?"
This was usually how their discussions went. Erich and Fiona would reach some sort of impasse after arguing for a while, and eventually, they'd both ask Rena to jump in. As usual, Rena took her time to respond. "I suppose… it's hard to truly tell what we're going to be going up against," she finally said. "I just feel some kind of unease deep down- like I have butterflies in my stomach- and I have no idea why."
Fiona frowned at the young pilot. Once again, Rena had ended their discussion in a draw. "So what you're saying is; basically, you have no idea, but you've got a bad feeling about this?"
Rena opened her mouth to reply but quickly shut it as Commander Park finally arrived, making his way to the front of the room. "Attention, everyone. Listen up!" he called out, gathering the attention of everyone that was tightly cramped into the briefing room. "A few minutes ago, we began experiencing something totally unprecedented, and it could result in catastrophe. All of our COFFIN aircraft began to suddenly activate on their own and take off without any pilots inside. As of now, they're currently laying waste to Expo City."
Erich's eyes widened in disbelief. How was it even possible for their planes to suddenly start moving on their own? He looked over to his right to try and gauge Rena and Fiona's reactions, but it seemed they were feeling the same way, confused, stunned, and left with far more questions than answers. In fact, the whole room erupted into a wave of concerned murmurs and whispers.
Commander Park made the room silent once more with a simple raising of his fist. "We're still trying to determine what's causing this, but one thing's for certain, we need to defend the city," he carried on, pacing around the front of the room. "We need SAM and AA crews to get to their stations immediately. As for our pilots, we still have some manually-operated planes in the hangars. Get up into the air and take down every last aircraft!" he ordered.
"Great, it's 2045, and we're stuck using manual planes?" Erich muttered under his breath. "I can't say I like our chances."
"Forget our chances. People are dying as we speak!" Fiona insisted. "We've gotta get up there, now!" She jumped to her feet and started running down to the hangar. Erich and Rena followed after her, and the other pilots were close behind.
"For our planes to be remotely operated…" Rena mused as they sprinted. "How is it even possible, and why are they trying to destroy the city?"
Erich began getting ideas in his head, but he tried his best to shake them away. Eventually, though, they forced their way out of his mouth. "This is all starting to remind me of the stories my dad would tell me from his time in the Lighthouse War. When things were starting to come to an end, the drones being used by the enemy started taking out everyone they could. The only allies they considered were other drones."
"You think drones might be responsible for this?" Fiona asked.
The three of them rushed out the doors from the main base toward the hangars, and Erich shrugged. "It's probably too early to tell. Like you said, people are dying right now. That needs to be our priority. We can focus on everything else later."
Fiona nodded, and all three pilots came to a stop inside the closest hangar. Sure enough, all the COFFIN aircraft were gone, and all that remained were planes with glass canopies and conventional controls. Erich, Rena, and Fiona start circling around the hangar, inspecting each aircraft before deciding which one to fly. It didn't take Rena very long to settle into the cockpit of an Su-37, while Fiona and Erich each climbed into an F/A-18E. Other UPEO pilots scrambled into whatever manually controlled planes that were available, and one by one, they taxied onto the runway, pulling up into the sky and toward the swarm of their own hijacked fighters.
Erich glanced at the other two planes flying in formation with him. "Good thing Rena's still flying a Flanker, eh?"
"Cut the chatter," Fiona replied, clearly in no mood for idle conversation.
"Commencing attack," Rena reported. She lit her afterburners and sped toward the hostile fighters. Erich and Fiona followed after her, and the fight was on.
Erich jerked his plane to the left and dove after a pair of EF-2000Es. He launched a volley of HCAAs at one and a pair of STDMs at the other. Both evaded with ease, but in doing so, they broke off from their formation, allowing Erich to chase one without having to worry about the other. He cut back on the throttle, giving him more maneuverability to keep up with the COFFIN aircraft. Staying on its tail was no small feat, though. COFFIN aircraft had always been more maneuverable than manual planes, but without a pilot having to watch how many Gs they were pulling, it was like the laws of physics were merely a suggestion. Erich couldn't even keep a solid lock on the plane long enough to get a shot off.
Suddenly, the blaring screech of a missile alert in his cockpit forced Erich to take evasive maneuvers. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the MiG-33 coming after him. The missile barely missed its target, but the MiG had already fired another one toward him. Erich rolled his plane over and pitched into an inverted dive. The incessant beeping in his cockpit got faster and faster as the missile approached, and as he straightened his plane back out and went full throttle again, he managed to deploy flares just in time. Fortunately, his evasive maneuvers put him behind an unsuspecting EF-2000E that was chasing another UPEO pilot. The second he had a solid missile tone, two STDMs shot out from the wingtips of his Hornet. They sent the bandit hurtling to the ground only seconds after it had done the same to its target.
"There's too many!" Fiona exclaimed with a grunt as she jerked her plane away from an incoming missile. "For every plane of theirs we shoot down, they shoot down three of ours."
"Where did they learn to fly like this?" Rena wondered aloud. "I've never seen planes move like this."
"This isn't a fight we can win. Commander Park, we need to withdraw!" Erich insisted. It was better, he thought, to live and fight another day than to all die here.
"This is Commander Gilbert Park, broadcasting across all UPEO frequencies. Expo City has been overrun by an unknown force hijacking our COFFIN aircraft. I repeat; Expo City has fallen. If you're able, withdraw to Tyler Island, and bring any and all conventional aircraft with you. Out."
Erich had never much cared for Commander Park, in truth. He always thought he was somewhat weasely. Still, he followed the man's orders and didn't question them. Despite his reservations, though, Erich found himself admiring Park for seemingly stepping up, even as he was in the midst of an intense dogfight. Sure, he was more or less just doing what was expected of him, but for Erich, it was a start.
"All UPEO aircraft, keep the hostile forces occupied while we get as many personnel onto our transport planes as possible," Park ordered. "Once everyone is airborne, we can fall back to Tyler Island together."
"Just gotta hang on for a few minutes more," Erich murmured. "We can do this."
He pulled his Hornet straight up, evading a pair of incoming missiles from a pursuing Super Flanker. His adversary followed, but Erich was already looping back around. Hoping to utilize its superior maneuverability against him, the Super Flanker began drifting through the sky as its nozzles twisted and shifted to allow the plane to make the fastest turn it could possibly make. Fortunately for Erich, though, he had a lock on the Super Flanker before it had a lock on him, and a pair of HCAAs sealed its fate. With his tail cleared, he sped off to help Fiona get a MiG off her tail, and while he managed to save her, he was all but helpless to watch as more and more UPEO pilots went down. It was a massacre. When they first scrambled, all 50 pilots had gone up. Now, as the transports were finally taking off, there were only 10.
"All aircraft, transports are in the air- designated Exodus one through five. SARF 2, take half our remaining fighters and form a rearguard so the transports can escape. Everyone else, escort the transports."
"Copy that," Fiona replied as she and four other planes broke off and turned back around to face the pursuing COFFIN aircraft.
"H- hang on, are we really gonna send just five aircraft alone against all those hostiles?" Erich asked in disbelief. "They already shredded the majority of our forces. What do we hope to gain by just sending five planes?"
"It's all we can do," Rena said softly. "One way or another, we have to get away to fight another day."
It took all the willpower Erich could muster, but he managed not to look back at the planes that Fiona led to buy them some more time- those few precious seconds they needed to escape. Even if he had yet to fully accept it, a part of himself deep down already knew what happened- Fiona's fate was sealed, along with the other four pilots that went with her. As far as Erich knew, he, Rena, and the other three pilots escorting Exodus were the last pilots UPEO had left, and so they carried on, with the COFFIN aircraft barely out of range but slowly closing in.
"Hey, isn't that an airport below us? Why don't we just land there?" One of the other pilots asked.
"That's Los Canas. Aside from the fact that we're actively being pursued, it's where a decent number of our newer COFFIN aircraft are built," Park explained. "We can't take that chance. Tyler Island is, for the most part, used for training. The only aircraft there are the trainers that pilots in training fly before getting acquainted with COFFINs."
"Hey, something's got a lock on me!" another pilot shouted.
Erich frantically looked down at his radar as he took evasive maneuvers. "The aircraft trailing us still aren't in range. Who's shooting."
"Below us!" Rena pointed out. "Su-43s taking off from the airport."
"Missiles! Missiles! Mo-"
Erich watched in disbelief as two of the five transports exploded, hurtling to the ground below. By the time that he, Rena, and the others had begun the fight anew, the only two transports still flying were Exodus 1 and 3. This time around, Erich was more aggressive. He dumped flares behind him as he rushed straight at the flight of Berkuts targeting Exodus. He managed to bring one down on his first pass with a pair of STDMs and a quick machine gun burst, but the kill ultimately meant nothing. Another fight of Su-43s took off from below, and the planes tailing them from Expo City had finally caught up.
"There's too many! I can't- gah!" was all the last UPEO pilot could say before he died, leaving Erich and Rena alone to fend off the horde of unmanned fighters.
"Exodus, look out!" Erich shouted, helpless to do anything but maneuver away from the missiles and gunfire surging toward him as a dozen planes converged on the last two transports. They were like a swarm of vultures. When they were done, all that remained were the scattered remains of the two planes carrying all of their commanding personnel, including Commander Park.
Everything had happened so fast, and Erich didn't even know how to process it all. Within the span of a few minutes, the battered remains of UPEO's forces had been crushed. Now, all that he and Rena could do was survive, but with too many bandits for Erich to keep track of, that was beginning to look harder and harder. Eventually, a Berkut he couldn't see flew up behind him and strafed his plane with gunfire. He heard a loud crash followed by several beeping warnings in his cockpit.
"Dammit, I'm hit!" he growled, trying to keep control of the Hornet. "Rena, you have to get out of here! They probably won't be able to move fast enough to catch just one plane. Go!"
"We weren't… we weren't strong enough," Rena muttered, seemingly ignoring her wingman. "I won't let them take this- my wings from me. I need… I need," she trailed off as she dove down to just a few hundred meters above the ground, giving her just enough speed to slip away from the COFFIN aircraft.
Once Erich was sure Rena was putting more distance between herself and her pursuers, he let out a slight sigh of relief. At least she would keep the fight going- although for how long, he didn't care to think about. Regardless, he had done all he could, and he was getting dangerously close to the ground, so with all the strength he could muster, Erich yanked on the ejection handle and shot up out of his plane. The parachute deployed, and as he began floating down to the ground, he heard a low rumbling in the distance, gradually getting louder. Suddenly, a pair of fighter jets shrieked overhead. Erich barely had enough time to identify them as an F-16XF and an F-15S/MT- General Resource aircraft, and they were flying straight toward the swarm of COFFIN aircraft.
