Hey, everybody. Back with another chapter.

Let's get to it.

Chapter 4- Hijacked

(TAS Repulse, 9:21 AM Eastern Time)

In the hangar bay of the battlecruiser TAS Repulse, it is absolute chaos. Less than ten minutes ago, the ship's captain had received a transmission from the Pentagon informing him of the terrorist attacks in New York, and informing him that the Terran Joint Command wanted all of the fighters of the 352nd Starfighter Wing scrambled down to American airspace immediately.

In the hangar, pilots are conducting their pre-flight checks as crews race to get them armed and fueled. The transmission from Terran Joint Command gave them a time limit. They had to begin scrambling at 9:22 AM.

In the cockpit of his brand new SF-23 Black Widow, Lieutenant Colonel Cesar Rodriguez, the commanding officer of the 486th Fighter Squadron, checks the last few systems, making sure his fighter is ready. The SF-23 is brand new, having only entered service with the Starfleet three months earlier. As of the moment, the 352nd is the only operational unit to use the SF-23, and it only has 10 of the new fighter. The other 30 pilots of the wing still fly the Su-36.

As he looks up from his systems, he sees that his crew chief is giving him the thumbs up, indicating the fighter is ready to go. Unfortunately, Rodriguez, known by his callsign Rico, will be flying only with his laser cannons. The short time given to them meant that the ground crews didn't have time to load any missiles onto the fighter. However, his laser cannons are still powerful enough to take down an airliner if necessary.

Rico powers up the engines. He then lifts the fighter off the floor of the hangar and turns towards the exit. He throttles up, and the Black Widow streaks out of the hangar.

As soon as Rico's wingman flies up beside him, Rico calls over the radio to him, "Alright, Major. We've been assigned to protect Washington DC. We have reports of an American Airlines flight heading in that direction. No aircraft gets near the Capitol or the White House."

"Understood," his wingman responds. Together, the two throttle up and streak down towards the United States.

(United 93, 9:26 AM Eastern Time)

Rommel looks up as one of the flight attendants approaches him. "Can I get you anything else, sir?" she asks.

"No, thank you. Breakfast was wonderful," Rommel says with a smile.

"Good to hear. Let us know if you need anything," she says before she walks away.

Rommel smiles as he takes the final bite of his omelet. Airplane food is not always the best, but this was a pretty good omelet.

He hears the lavatory door open ahead of him and sees motion. He looks up to see the Middle Eastern man, al Haznawi he remembers one of the flight attendants calling him, sitting on the other side of the aisle from him walking back to his seat. He nods respectfully to the man before returning his attention to the last few bites of fruit left from breakfast. He slowly eats the last few pieces of pears before turning to his mug of coffee.

He looks out the window as he slowly raises the mug to his lips and takes a sip. It's a really beautiful day today. Not too many clouds. You can see for miles and miles.

Rommel sees some movement out of the corner of his eye but doesn't really take notice of it as he takes another drink from his coffee. Then, he suddenly hears the sound of something hitting the wall of the plane, and a voice scream, "Allahu akbar!"

Rommel freezes as he hears that. Then, he hears the same scream come from across the aisle. He snaps his head to the left, and sees Haznawi across the aisle from him stab his knife into the throat of a man in the seat in front of him. The man then charges towards the front, ripping his jacket off to reveal something with wires coming out of it strapped around his waist. He rushes towards the front, where two more Middle Eastern looking men have grabbed the head flight attendant and are threatening her with knives.

Rommel sits there, stunned, not really sure how to react. One of the other passengers ahead of him tries to go to the man who was stabbed, trying to help. But, as Rommel watches, it's clear that the man is dead.

Rommel then sees two of the men, including al Haznawi and another one, who he vaguely remembers one of the flight attendants calling Nami, rushing towards them, yelling at him and the four other passengers left in first class to move. For a split second, Rommel considers taking them on, knowing he could probably handle them even without his sabers. But, also recognizing that hijackers usually hijack a plane to win a bargaining position or demand ransom, Rommel recognizes he could possibly make things worse if he tries to intervene. Deciding for now that the best thing to do is to avoid confrontation, Rommel stands up from his seat, keeps his hands in the air, and hurries back into the main cabin.

"Everyone, back! They're hijacking the plane, and they have a bomb! Everybody back!" Rommel shouts to all the passengers in the main cabin. Everyone stares in shock at him before they see al Haznawi with the bomb around his waist, and everyone starts rushing towards the back and crowding all into the rear rows.

Rommel sits down near the front of the crowd of passengers, watching as Haznawi stands at the curtain between first class and the main cabin. He stares at the man, focusing his eyes on the bomb around his waist. While it's conceivable that a bomb could be that small, he does think it would be difficult for the materials to make a bomb to be smuggled onto the plane. Not only that, but just scanning the minute details, Rommel begins to suspect that this may just be a fake bomb that is being used for crowd control purposes.

Rommel keeps his eyes on Haznawi, wondering what to do. While hijackings usually end benignly, he can't shake the bad feeling that has settled over him.

(Washington DC, 9:37 AM)

Rico curses to himself as he pushes the throttles forward and zooms down towards Washington DC. Given that the Repulse was over Canada in orbit, it was taking a little while to get to DC. Too long for his taste.

"Reagan International Airport, this is Colonel Cesar Rodriguez, callsign Rapier 1. My two ship flight is closing in on Washington DC. We have orders to establish defensive patrol and defend the capitol," Rico says.

"Colonel Rodriguez. We have an unidentified aircraft approaching from the west at a high rate of speed. We are not in contact," the tower at Reagan responds.

"Understood," Rico says. He looks down at his scanners, and sure enough, he sees an aircraft moving at a high rate of speed, heading straight for the area around the Capitol building.

"Unidentified aircraft over Washington DC on course 080, this is Colonel Cesar Rodriguez. You are approaching restricted airspace. If you do not turn around immediately, you will be considered hostile and shot down," Rico says.

There is no response. Rico repeats the message once to ensure the aircraft heard it. Again, no response.

"Rapier 2. Fox, come in," he calls.

"Copy you, Rico," Major Erwin Schmidt, callsign Fox, responds.

"Move in. We have to take down that airliner," Rico says.

"Understood," Schmidt says.

The two wing over into a slight bank. Scanning the air below them, they see a large airliner painted in American Airlines livery, turning right directly over the Capitol. Rico turns right towards the airliner, Schmidt following him.

Rico watches as the airliner stops turning and noses down. Looking in its path, he sees the Pentagon.

Rico shoves the throttles forward into full power as he sees the airliner closing in on the Pentagon. If he can just manage to shoot it down within the next few moments, the wreckage will crash in an area where it won't cause many casualties.

But the airliner is approaching the Pentagon too quickly. Seeing he's running out of time, he tries to pull lead, even though he knows he's beyond the range of his laser cannons. He hopes against hope that maybe he get a stay bolt to connect with the airliner. But it's too late.

Finally realizing its useless, Rico cuts back on the throttles and deploys the speed brakes, and pulls out of his dive, just 1000 yards away from the airliner, at the exact moment the aircraft slams into the Pentagon.

Rico watches in horror as the fireball expands, sending smoke hundreds of feet into the air, and watching as the hole now in the side of the Pentagon comes into view.

It takes him several moments before he says, "Major, set up a defensive patrol above DC. Get any aircraft you see out of DC airspace. No civilian aircraft within ten miles of the Capitol."

He then gets on the ATC frequency and says, "Reagan Air Traffic Control, this is Colonel Cesar Rodriguez. An American Airlines aircraft, probably a Boeing 757, has just hit the Pentagon. I repeat. An American Airlines Boeing 757 has just hit the Pentagon. We are establishing a perimeter around the Capitol. No civilian aircraft will be allowed within ten miles of the Capitol building."

"Understood, Colonel," comes the solemn response.

And, I'll end there. Next chapter will be up very soon. Stay tuned.