The young F/A-18 awoke to the sound of her alarm next to her sleeping form. The blaring noise waking Tabeth-Lily so quickly she almost blindly hurled one of the three cushioning pillows in it's direction in an attempt to get just a few more minutes of peaceful rest.
Groaning loudly in annoyance, she pulled the blankets over her head. But once she was awake there wasn't much of a chance of her being able to fall back asleep with ease.
Shaking any feeling of sleep out of her head, Lily had found herself nearly trapped in the velvet blankets surrounding her. Trying to the best of her ability to untangle her landing gear and stabilizers from the blanketing. Lily slowly lifted her light frame off the matress and glanced up slightly. The sun's rays pooling through the barely open curtain to her left, leaving the small jet to bask in its warmth. Yellow glow reflecting off her light grey, metallic body.
Even from across the hangar, Lily caught scent of some enticing aroma wafting through the home. It smelt like... pancakes. Doused in fruits and whatever other sugary topping her father, Gerald, could find. He always made the BEST pancakes.
Making her way out of her small 'bedroom', Lily dove into eating the food served out for her far faster than was necessary. She liked- no... absolutely loved pancakes. Quite obviously the hornet had a sweet tooth for stuff like that. Though sugar highs probably weren't the best thing for an already energetic aircraft of her breed.
Tabeth-Lily turned her front after hearing her mothers soft humming from behind her. The pancakes sugary topping of a 'whipped cream' like substance still stuck stubbornly to her upper lip as Lily quickly licked it off.
"I just can't believe it. You're 21 Lily. I remember when you were only little." Joyce's cheery smile would never get old. It always managed to light up the room like a ray of sunlight in a stormy sky.
Tabeth-Lily couldn't not send a smile back in her mother's direction. Still stuffing her face with the contents of food in front of her, the blue eyed Super Hornet took a fleeting glance up at the clock resting slightly lopsided on the wall and felt her jaw slacken.
It was 8:34am. Now that wouldn't really mean a whole heap in most cases except Lily was on a relatively tight schedule to fly off to her 'work and new home put into one'.
She WAS meant to be leaving at 8:50am. The earlier the better they said on the note they sent her. Training starts early for new recruits.
Veering back from the low wooden table in a hurry. The female jet dashed around the hangar in a blur of grey, trying to find and put together any essentials she needed for her long flight and arrival to the ship she was stationed on with her new squadron. The Jolly Wrenches.
"The roughtest, toughest, meanest fliers in the Navy." Her grandfather had once said. The older legacy hornet had worked alongside the squdron as a flight instructor for their young and hot-blooded F-18 recruits before retiring to live out in California somewhere. He said she'd easily fit in with her determined spirit and sheer speed. Though Lily thought a bit differently...
She was probably going to be the ONLY female there besides maybe a few tugs here and there and some older officers. But no jets. Not one. She didn't HATE that completely as she'd probably get along quite well with them, but she'd be stuck with these guys out in the middle of quite literally nowhere for most likely a couple of years.
Trying not to sent her mind back to those thoughts, Lily took one last glance at her room. The decorative posters, the blue walls, the bed. She'd lived in this place since her earliest days and knew the sting of homesickness would come soon after.
Leaving the room, she only then realised just how big of a deal this was for her and her family... they'd never had anyone leave for a job somewhere out of the small, secluded town. Let alone join the armed forces.
Joyce was on the verge of tearing up as she clung to her only daughter in a sort of embrace that lasted the length of a few minutes. Gerald doing the same. Even Reece, the lazy 14 year old who wouldn't get off his SkyPad without a decent fight 'hugged' her as much as two planes could.
"Happy travels. Oh! And make sure you remember to call us sometime! We'll be looking forward to hearing how everything is going!" Her mother called out as Lily rolled out the hangars front door.
The cool breeze blew against her fuselage as she rolled along past rows of hangars and stores, all of which differed in size and shape. Cars were opening up shops along the road in front of her and a kind white sudan even said hi as she passed him fixing a pot of bright red flowers.
It was a little more busy once she reached the towns main airport in under 10 minutes. Tugs pulling heavy cargo to and from buildings to aircraft. Cars waiting up in the terminals for their flights to who knows where. And huge passenger planes glancing down at her in interest as they taxiied along the dusty runway or awaited their time to take off.
It was chaotic. But a controlled type of chaotic. Everyone had a job they were suppost to do and they got it done precisely.
The little Super Hornet weaved around a big airliner in an attempt to quickly reach the airports single runway.
"Tabeth-Lily requesting permission to take off." She spoke to the 3 tugs up in the control tower.
"Permission granted, Tabeth-Lily. Have a nice day." One replied back. His name was Andre, also known by the youngsters as 'the kind old tug who gives out lollies on his days off'. He was quite well known between the townsfolk. Funny thing was, everyone was pretty much well acquainted with others around them, even Lily for that matter (for good and not so good reasons). Most knew her as the dare-devil jet as her family was pretty much the only group of fighters to live there.
After completing a quick pre-check of all her flight systems and equipment, Lily unfolded her wings and started her engines.
In a split second she was off down the runway with a roar of her afterburners.
She felt the ground quickly disappear from under her landing gear as she acended into the cool morning air. A while ago the jet had been given the coordinates of a ship out in what was supposedly the Pacific Ocean.
Tabeth-Lily loved flying (though being a plane it was kind of obvious). The sensation of the wind against her wings. As well as being so high up and being able to get away from all the struggles on the ground. But most importantly, she loved flying for the speed and adrenaline.
As she reached a suitable cruising altitude, Lily glanced down at the fast moving world below her. The buildings were now only specks in the rough, earthy landscape.
After about an hour of flying at a relatively fast pace in a western direction, the dry landscape began making way for one of huge buildings and urban areas. Cars moved around in the hustle and bustle of city life below her.
She'd reached a city. Probably Los Angeles.
Lily had never left her home state before, let alone visited a city besides Las Vegas. So the sight was a rather interesting one for the F/A-18 zooming over all the towering buildings.
Before long, all that was visible was blue water in every direction...
2 hours.
3 hours.
4 hours.
5 hours of flying.
The time dragged on and on. Tabeth-Lily had next to nothing to rid her of her boredom besides singing to herself. Which she did without a second thought.
Being honest with herself, she knew she wasn't the best at singing. But she didn't care, nobody else was out flying to hear her besides herself.
Going through the lyrics of a song Sara had shown her a few weeks ago on FlewTube. One that seemed to be on the radio every 5 minutes but nobody really bothered to interpret the lyrics of. The only sounds now were of her voice, the waves below her, the wind and...
...thunder...
Tabeth-Lily had no reason to check the weather forecast before leaving but now so wished she had done so. Being out in the middle of the ocean there weren't any visible areas to land if the weather decided to knock her around for the hell of it.
She glanced around as heavy storm clouds were already blocking out almost all the light from the once bright sun.
Picking up speed, Lily quickly checked her coordinates again. She was still quite a few kilometres off from where they were leading her.
Busy trying to follow the coordinates, the bright flash of lightning near her sent Lily into complete shock. But she flinched and yelped suddenly when a deafening crack of thunder boomed in close proximity directly after. She had no choice but to try and fly through the clouds to cruise above them and not be able to see the ship she was looking for or fly under them and risk being zapped by lightning or crashing into the waves getting bigger by the minute.
So in split second decision-making, Lily pitched hard upwards and flew into the layer of black clouding.
Complete darkness surrounded her entirely for a few seconds and she could sense all the electricity in the air until she burst through the clouds.
A sense of relief washed over her as she shook a bit before steadying her wings. Now to try and find that ship somehow...
The storm clouds were thick. Impossible to look through. The jet's light blue eyes darted around for even a small opening but none were in sight.
She huffed loudly, watching as the many water droplets quickly dried off her light grey fuselage after flying through the rain.
"Oh come on! My first day and I can't even find the goddamn ship!?" Lily grumbled to herself with a long roll of her eyes, "There just HAD to be a thunder stor-"
Halting her little rant, Tabeth-Lily swore she heard a noise off in the distance. It sounded like thunder but had a distinct sound to it, almost like another plane...
Looking around for any airliners in sight. The sky above the storm was empty except for a few small clouds far above her. She flew around rather confused before gasping in surprise when a relatively large jet came down on her right side.
"Unknown aircraft. You are flying in restricted airspace. I advise you reroute now."
Tabeth-Lily glanced back at the plane. He was a F/A-18/E Super Hornet like her except was covered nose to tail in military decals and badges. And held actual weapons under his wings.
"Uh... I'm Tabeth-Lily. I'm meant to be on a boat, the Flysenhower right now but... I'm kinda lost." Lily laughed a tad bit nervously under her breath. To make the situation worse, she hadn't even been taught proper military lingo yet in her training prior to joining.
The other jet just looked at her slightly puzzled from behind his tinted visor before responding, "Very well. I guess you're one of the newbies they're talking about? Follow me to the boat."
Tabeth-Lily nodded, watching as the Super Hornet rolled to the left and flew off with her following in suit. The flight lasted not even a minute before he started speaking to someone. Most likely the captain of the ship.
Before long, the grey outline of an impressively big Nimitz aircraft carrier came into view on the horizon. Aircraft and helicopters circling the giant warship like flies.
"Alright. You know how to land, right?"
Lily glanced over at the fighter jet flying beside her.
Landing. The worst thing she was at doing... especially on a boat rocking wildly in the gale force winds and big waves. Well, what was the worst she could do?