Lt. Annabeth Chase, USAF, (Callsign Catch), VF-84
"Dagger flight, set Master Arm safe. This is an exercise," the AWACS operator suddenly announced and Annabeth found herself rolling her eyes.
Why did they always announce these things well within missile range?
Though Annabeth paid extra attention down as she consciously flicked the Master Arm switch from On to Off. "Dagger two is Master Arm Safe," she announced, a moment later Luke mirrored the announcement.
Then added over her frequency, "Idle Throttle, decent ten degrees in three...two...one..mark"
"Dagger flight, switch to Frequency 250.000," the AWACS announced.
They did as they were tolled, going off the tactical frequency to one that had clearly been called in.
Suddenly another voice called out. "Skymaster calling general report on frequency. Vagabond one?"
"Vagabond one. I've got you Five by five," the all too familiar voice of Queen snapped sharply over the radio.
Annabeth paused, this was Percy's squadron...
"Vagabond two?"
"Vagabond two, on frequency," came another familiar voice. That could only be Piper Mclean's voice, and that meant Percy was likely within fox one range. Her heart made a minor summersault at the realization.
"Dagger one?"
"Dagger one present and motivated," Luke announced.
"Dagger two?"
"Dagger two has you loud and clear," Annabeth replied.
"Ms Chase, Mr Jackson. Someone wishes to speak with you," the AWACS operator announced.
"Ahm okay," the voice had she had missed so much suddenly announced. Of course, staying true to radio protocol. Even distorted by the radio, she would recognize that voice anywhere.
"Hey Seaweed Brain," Annabeth greeted her fiancee, simply not caring how much flack he would be getting afterward from everyone else on frequency and RWS locked the radar contact that she assumed would be Percy.
Sure enough, when Percy keyed his mic again she could hear the Radar Warning Receiver beeping frantically in the background. "Screw you too Wise Girl," Percy greeted her back drily.
Annabeth grinned, she had guessed correctly.
Suddenly a new voice appeared on Frequency. It was her squadrons Chaplain, Captain Brunner, a former aviator in his own right.
"Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Our two services appreciate the sacrifices both you Ms Chase, and Mr Jackson have made for your respective services. I have received grim Intelligence by both Twenty-Fifth Air Force and the ONI that a wedding is long overdue," the voice announced.
"Yes, sir," Annabeth confirmed.
"Unfortunately Uncle Sam hates unfinished business. So, here we are. Do you, Percy Jackson take Annabeth Chase as your lawfully wedded wife?"
Hadn't she been wearing an O2 mask her jaw might have just dropped? However, Percy being very good at thinking on his feet and reacting to changing tactical situations answered within a heartbeat and gabe the only right answer. "I do," he said, and it sounded to Annabeth as if his usually relaxed radio drawl voice was cracking. Despite her spreading smile, her eyes suddenly felt rather wet.
Knowing what would follow next Annabeth rested the front of her helmet against the dashboard of her jet. "Ms Chase, do you take Percy Jackson as your lawfully wedded husband."
Annabeth looked over at her flight lead and saw Luke flash her the peace sign.
She opened her mouth it took her a long moment to regain her voice. "I do," she gasped, suddenly feeling breathless.
"Very well, then I now hereby pronounce you husband and wife. You may now merrily shoot each other."
Suddenly Piper's voice cut in on frequency. "Understood, weapons hot. TWS lock acquired. Fox three."
"Shut up, Charmer," Percy snapped and Annabeth fought back a snigger.
"For the record. There is no missile in the air?" Luke suddenly asked. His paranoia was very much warranted. With a TWS lock, the only warning they would get of an incoming missile would be mere moments before impact as the supersonics missile's internal radar took over terminal guidance. At this short-range, their reaction time would be next to nothing.
"No," Reyna replied firmly. "No missiles in the air."
"Everyone, shut up!" Brunner suddenly announced. "Vagabond one and Dagger one, break off. Dagger two, Vagabond two, you may merge. Guns only. The first dance in this party is yours."
At this, her tearful smile turned into a grin. "Breaking left," Luke suddenly announced, laid his Viper on its left-wing, and broke away hard. "Give em Hell," he added for good measure and pulled away.
"I'll smoke him," Annabeth promised.
Annabeth sure would. The good thing with these surprise exercises was the lack of briefings that solely existed to take the fun out of things. They always declared unreasonable restrictions to the exercise, like distance limitations between two aircraft, an unreasonable ground level of ten thousand feet, or G-force limitations. So far, no one had set any of those. Maybe it was because the assumption was that neither of them wished to be widowed mere minutes into their marriage.
Despite all her trash-talking, Annabeth knew that Percy was a superb dogfighter. Probably better than she was. He had that air killer's instinct and probably spent a lot more time honing the craft than she, the pilot of a multi-role aircraft did. The Tomcat B was also a fearsome fighter.
That being said, her husband was in the Navy and there was no way she was going into this marriage just giving Percy this win. Her squadron's pride demanded it.
One radar she could see Vagabond Lead doing the same thing and suddenly it was only her, her now-husband, and that pesky, much to pretty RIO of his. He was straight ahead, only thirty nautical miles away, his position displayed on her HUD by a glowing green square. However, even her keen eyes couldn't make him out at this distance.
Annabeth idled her throttle, she was much too fast for an effective merge and no dogfight in the world would stay at forty thousand feet for long.
Annabeth looked around one last time. The specific airspace around their intercept was clear. She had just crossed past Rehoboth Beach and some small town with a name she did not know.
A minute later she finally made the dark spot out in the distance and switched her F16 into dogfight mode. Percy was now only ten miles out, it would take a few more seconds until he was in range for the radar in ACM mode to auto-lock her opponent.
She knew that with Piper in the mix Percy would very much have an edge on situation awareness, seeing as the RIO would be constantly keeping an eye on her position and calling it out if Percy lost her.
Having slowed down to an airspeed of three hundred forty knots Annabeth finally pushed the throttle back forward. They quickly closed the distance and finally, she could see the sleek shape of the F14, her wings swept back halfway. "Tally one!" she called out.
Twenty seconds or so later the tomcat shot past only a few dozen feet right of her.
Annabeth banked her right until her viper was lying on its wing and pulled the stick back, jammed the throttle into full afterburner, while putting her into a six G turn. As the afterburner came to life with a deafening roar, gravity seemed to increase greatly, she felt that the bladders in her G-suits legs filling up with air and her breath came in short gasps.
Annabeth craned her neck and after a moment she spotted the Tomcat chasing her into a one-circle fight and gaining.
Annabeth pulled the stick back further up into an almost seven G turn. In her HMD she could see her speed decreasing rapidly, despite the roaring afterburner, and kicked the right rudder peddle groundwards and began to gain a few degrees on Percy. The mighty Viper really didn't do that well at low-speed maneuvering and there was nothing more dangerous than losing too much energy in a rate fight and then just being rolled up from behind.
The Tomcat's wings were now spread wide and moments later Percy was dumping his nose. Moments later both jets were locked in a descending spiral, fighting for every degree, and pulling harder and harder turns.
At thirty-eight thousand feet both their planes began to draw long golden contrails. From the ground, it probably looked quite impressive.
With a fuel tanks and missiles, she was heavily and had considerably higher drag than she normally would and she soon found herself forced to dump the nose even further into a forty five degree turn. It was about at thirty thousand feet that she noticed the losing factors, mainly her husband steadily gaining on her. With her now widespread wings, he could comfortably go much slower than her. The air too was growing thicker, now that they had descended to almost thirty thousand feet.
Annabeth countered sharply and yanked the yoke back hard, pulling into a climb and imminently reversing the turn and looking back to keep her eyes on her opponent, hoping that Percy would make a mistake.
Sadly he too followed her in and before long their death spiral was continued in the horizontal rather than vertical. Fortunately, it was Percy this time who ran out of energy first and wasn't capable of keeping it up so he broke the engagement.
At the next merge Annabeth straight up went vertical left, while Percy turned his Tomcat onto a two circle fight, with a descending trajectory.
Annabeth held off almost seventy knots with Percy and tried to use the lower airspeed to vertically role into her Percy and gain nose authority. However, when she did she found herself staring into the Tomcat's air intakes, and jerked groundwards hard to escape Percy's HUD. She had forgotten how good the Tomcat could be at very high angles of attack.
"Did you get me Blackjack?" Annabeth asked, and caught sight of the Tomcat almost cartwheeling before thundering after her in a steep descent. A moment later her RWR began beeping, he had her locked on. If this was a Fox 2 fight, she would have lost now. She knew that. But it wasn't.
"Looks like pulled out in the last moment, we can review gun cam later," Percy replied as Annabeth pulled out of the dive and back into a rate fight with maybe a bit too much energy.
Instead of following her too her level Percy joined the one circle fight three or four hundred feet above her, with a nose angled down in a twenty-degree descent. The beginning of the rate fight Annabeth gained on Percy well but slowly, the advantage Percy had in tradable altitude, pulling back into a rough neutral.
"Stop hiding up there, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth chided him.
When Percy turned hard into the circle Annabeth dumped her nose again to gain some speed in the turn, not that pleased that she was stuck in a rate fight again. They lost more and more altitude, finally reaching down to twenty thousand feet.
This time Annabeth let Percy keep up with her, the large Tomcat sliding in behind her like an overgrown shark. Annabeth knew that Percy was pulling lead on her for a gun kill when she could make out the air intakes. At that moment she threw her yoke to the right and yanked back hard into an eight g turn. Vaporous clouds appeared sliding back over her wings as Annabeth reversed her turn, forcing an overshoot on Percy's side. Immediately she went into a vertical and rolled back right, sliding in on a more advantageous position to Percy's tomcat. Percy banked around back and she could see him now. It was the first time in months that she had laid eyes on the man she loved but she knew that at that moment, their gazes were meeting. The Tomcat sped past below her as Annabeth rolled over on top, keeping the top of her place facing the opponent and continuously turning into him, fighting hard to maintain the advantage.
She did have him through, if that there could be little doubt. Every single time they circled each other Annabeth gained another degree or so and just about she was about to get a firing solution Percy kicked his rudder left hard, yawing his way out of her target ridicule. By the time she managed to follow him Percy was already banking right into a dive, his afterburners flaring up brightly in the evening sky.
It was a dangerous maneuver through, Annabeth knew how happy the F14 was to go into a Flaspin and then helicopter its way down to a firy or in this case watery grave.
Lt.1st class. Percy Jackson (callsign Blackjack), USS Nimitz, VF-84
Percy countered his turn and banked away into a hard into a dive, drawing a 40 mark angle of attack. Simultaneously he pulled the throttle out of the afterburner all the way into idle.
Percy locked the wings in the forward position and pulled as hard as he could, the seven G turn forcing both him and Piper into pressed breathing.
"Eight O'clock, high," she suddenly warned.
Percy took a moment to find her. With the sun behind her, the Viper was almost invisible.
With the right bound turn bank and these slow speeds, Percy could feel the Tomcat wanting to go into a right flat spin. Percy kicked his rudder right and turned the stick left and managed to pull out of it, immediately slamming the throttle back into full afterburner.
While their turn was in a neutral, Annabeth very much had an altitude advantage.
"Planning to take this down to the deck?" Piper asked, knowing that the F14 was better suited to a very low altitude, low velocity, rate fight than the Viper was.
"Not if I can help it, I don't want them to end this because we are getting too close to the deck," Percy announced and glanced at steam gauges at the altitude, steadily bleeding off altitude to keep up the speed. The thing was, Annabeth had more to trade into energy at this point, and if she did she could just smoothly slide in behind him and his best bet would be to force an overshoot.
The airframe groaned under the aerodynamic stress of the maneuvers she was being put through and Percy kept a close eye on the angle of attack indicator.
Finally, Annabeth came in for the kill, dumping her nose and using the few extra knots to gain a few degrees on Percy as she descended to his level. Percy tightened his own turn, and even with the afterburner roaring in defiant fury, Percy watched as his Mach indicator slowly decreased. He was slow, too slow.
The viper had a larger turn circle but also had the energy to make up for it now and as Annabeth began to draw lead Piper shouted out a warning. Percy reversed the turn and went vertical for what it was worth, mirroring the maneuver that had brought him into this mess, to stay out of the Viper's firing solution.
Annabeth's Viper thundered past his canopy, trailing a white cloud of contrails as she went. The viper was less than thirty feet away, the sun glinting in the canopy.
Percy rolled bottoms up and pulled back hard, screwing in behind the descending Viper.
Again, this would have been a perfect rear aspect short for a Fox 2 but sadly, only guns, and Annabeth had a big advantage on energy. While Annabeth turned away to the right, vapor tearing up over the wings as she brought her around.
Percy broke away in the other direction, dumping the nose again to help gain some energy.
"Passing three o'clock high," Piper called Annabeth's position out. "Now, four!"
Percy pulled back hard, bringing him down close to stalling speed just to get the nose around.
Somehow he got around first, his radar immediately locking onto to the Viper that was about to pass in front of him.
With considerable effort, he fought the Tomcat's desire to dump the nose due to the slow speed and watched as Annabeth's entered his Heads UP Display. "Guns! Guns! Guns!" Percy warned over radio and pulled the trigger, knowing that this would activate the gunsight camera. A moment later the Viper's lead indicator zipped through his Target ridicule.
"Did you get me Blackjack?" Annabeth came in over radio as Percy finally let the nose drop down and gained a few knots, careful to deny the Tomcat her subconscious desire to become a Helicopter.
"I am quite sure you're viper just got sawed in half," Percy replied, feeling rather pleased with himself. The moment he was back in stable flight he eased out of the afterburner and banked into a wide circle to follow his wife.
"Okay, good fight," the AWACs controller announced.
"Dagger 2, Vagabond 2, head west for ten nautical miles and increase altitude to Angels 30. Hold there. Dagger 1, Vagabond 1, get ready to merge. They did as they were told and Percy followed Annabeth Westword, slowly gaining on her in their climb.
"Well, that was gun. Hope Jason does well, too," Piper mused from the backseat. The concern was warranted, Jason was by heart a Tornado pilot, and did his best work carting bombs deep into heavily defended enemy airspace at very low altitudes.
Fortunately, Annabeth had slowed down enough to let Percy close the distance and fall in position of her right-wing. Piper, for once, seemed to have nothing to say and Percy met his wife's gaze for the first time in months. They both wore their helmets with sun shields lowered, but he still couldn't look away.
"You doing alright Seaweed Brain?" Annabeth asked.
In response, Percy barrel-rolled and earned a laugh.
"Merging," Reyna's sharp voice suddenly snapped through on frequency, announcing the beginning of the dogfight.
Even miles away Percy could see the contrails off two jets weaving in and out of each other in the distance and turned his attention back to Annabeth.
He waved her and Annabeth waved back with her viper's wings. "Battle damage inspection, Dagger 2?" Percy asked.
"Sure, I'll go first," Annabeth replied and dropped back a few feet and rose above him. Then she shifted to his right, sank below him, shifted to the left, before returning to her earlier position.
"All clear," she reported.
This time it was Percy who pulled back the throttle until he was a few feet behind Annabeth and then pulled up. Percy craned his neck to look down at Annabeth's F16. He shifted to the left and dipped his nose just a tad and then shifted back to the right, keeping his eyes trained at Annabeth's bird. Even without live ordinance, warbirds could receive damage. He was looking from any pannels that had slipped open as the aircraft flexed and bent under aerodynamic stress or any hydraulic fluid leaking. There were none as far as he could tell and Percy fell in right back next to Annabeth and waved his long, fully outstretched wings back and forth a few times.
"All clear," Percy replied.
Percy knew he had a plane to monitor so one might imagine how hard it was to tear away from his gaze from his beautiful wife in her almost as beautiful airplane.
Just then Annabeth banked towards them slightly and pulled back the stick, shooting over them in a single smooth role before rolling out on the other side.
"Guns! Guns! Guns!" Luke suddenly calls out on frequency.
"You got us," Reyna added drily.
"That went about as well as expected," Piper muttered from the rear seat.
"Exercise over," AWACs suddenly announced. "Dagger flight, Vagabond flight, rejoin and turn to heading two eight zero, and RTB. Angels forty-two. Call in with ZDC Traffic Control."
"Vagabond Lead Overwatch, we are not to head back to the Nimitz?" Reyna cut in, confusion in her voice.
"No...," the operator on the other side replied. "As I understand it all aircraft involved in this exercise are to land at Andrew..."
"Do that Vagabond Lead."
"I will need to verify that with Nimitz actual," Reyna announced and fell silent as she changed frequencies.
Percy looked over at Annabeth, realizing that he might be able to embrace her a few hours earlier than anticipated.
A minute or so later Reyna returned. "Vagabond 2, I just verified with Nimitz Actual, we are to land at Andrews. Our private belongings will be brought in on a Grayhound tomorrow. Apparently, this was planned beforehand," she explained.
"Affirmative," Piper replied.
Both two-ships formed up in a loose formation, Percy forming upright of his lead, while Annabeth left of her's.
"Fuck, I left my Tampons on Nimitz," Piper complained about their private comms. "I'll be you some at the base Pharmacy or something, I brought my Wallet," Percy replied in exasperation.
Well then, I trust you to enjoyed yourself. This will still get some editing down the line. I will add a Technical summary as I did the last chapter if any questions turn up. Google should also be helpful at answering most questions. Percy and Annabeth are now married, so who else saw this happening?
Let me know if you would like to see more of this AU. I have a few ideas, like Percy's Mig kill, Percabeth first meeting, or perhaps a few years in the future with 9/11.
Leave a few Reviews, those do brighten my day.
Henry Locker over and out.