On the Job Training

An Ace Combat 5 story

And there he was, the CO of the Sand Island detachment of the 108th Tactical Fighter squadron. Captain Jack Bartlett. The scruffy-chinned old veteran had walked out to look us over as we left the transport behind and let our boots touch the tarmac of our new home. Not to greet us though, to evaluate us.

Nor was he being formal about things. He was simply walking about the crowd of his new nuggets, his flight suit unzipped to about the bottom of his sternum, revealing a simple white undershirt. Nagase and I seemed to catch his eye as we exited the plane, but that was likely just a matter of the fact that we had exited with Pops, and that marked us as the ones that had helped to fly the plane in.

My first impression of Captain Bartlett? A fighter pilot's fighter pilot. His record from the last Belkan war spoke for itself, as did his reputation as a trainer. But more so, it was his presence, and the way he held himself. He might have been the same height as me, but he seemed a good six inches taller. He was imposing enough to seem as if he was more than roughly ten pounds heavier than me, as he was, more like twenty. And one look at his face would convince you that this was a man who KNEW the art of air combat.

There was awe in my mind when I watched as he strode over to Pops and exchanged a few friendly words…gruff, but friendly. Was I looking at where I would be? Or was the peace to last for Osea? Would I never have to ascend in anger, never to have the blade of my soul tempered in the way that only the fires of battle can provide?

I know now, that it was neither. But such is for later.

My thoughts were roughly ripped away from their contemplation of my new trainer by my body's automatic reflex to the approach of a cleanly uniformed superior officer. Almost as one, we nuggets all snapped to attention and saluted the approaching man. It seemed appropriate for him, even though it hadn't for Bartlett. Even on the breezy tarmac, he was wearing the uniform hat, despite the sea breeze and jet wash from a pair of F-4Es from the 596th Fighter Squadron. His visible hair, though it was cut short, was blonde and he had a build not unlike mine, a little bulkier perhaps.

"At ease, cadets. I am Captain Allen Hamilton, Adjutant Base Commander and leader of the detachment of the 596th Fighter Squadron that is assigned to Sand Island. I would like to apologize for Lieutenant Colonel Perrault not being able to greet you, but his duties as Sand Island AFB's CO take precedence, as I'm sure you understand. Now, the grizzled old war dog that's been walking among you is Captain Jack Bartlett, CO of Sand Island's detachment of the 108th Tactical Fighter Squadron. He's also your primary trainer, so listen to him. He can make you into a pilot with the skills of an ace, so long as you follow his orders and accept deep down that he knows, and you do not." He stopped, as if to collect his thoughts. "A few last items before I hand you over to Captain Bartlett. Though we do have trainers on base, you will all be assigned an F-5E Tiger as your training craft. It's a fully outfitted fighter, loaded out like any other front-line craft Also, your squadron callsign is appropriately enough, Wardog. All yours, Bartlett." He turned and started walking off.

"Alright nuggets. You'll be staying at the BOQ. You'll have to submit callsigns to control before your first flight, but I'm going to be nice and let you all have a day to settle in before you have your first briefing, and for some of you, your first flight."

And so it was for me…my first flight in Wardog Squadron, I mean. Having followed Alvin's…well, Chopper by then, suggestion and registered my callsign as Blaze for the apparent fire in my eyes that some people said I got whenever I suited up or practiced my martial arts that gave me so much of my focus, I was assigned to Captain Bartlett himself for the first evaluatory flight. My buddy, Chopper, got First Lieutenant Baker as his instructor, and the rather annoying Mustang…who showed up as Mostang on the radar due to an amusing clerical error, got First Lieutenant Svenson.

I've flow many times since that ascent, and a good number of times before it. The F-5E with the number 016 on its nose wasn't even my favorite of the planes that I've flown. But still, even with all I've done, that plane and that flight will always hold a certain place in my heart. Strapping in to that sleek little jet, dogging down the canopy, hearing her turbines come alive behind me…ecstasy. Fully armed, I smiled to hear the voice from the control tower…Nagase's actually. It wasn't so much that it was her at that time, but what she called me.

"Wardog 16, this is Sand Island Control. You are cleared to follow Wardog 1 into the air and carry out his flight orders."

"Wardog 16, Roger," I replied, pushing my mask up against my face so as the microphone in it would more easily pick up my voice then from where it hung by one side off of the helmet. Letting the mask fall again, I pushed the power slightly forward and disengaged the brakes, using my rudder pedals to taxi my way onto the runway. Throttling back to zero and engaging the brakes again, I pushed my mask back up against my face. "Control, this is Wardog 16. Requesting permission to take off."

"Wardog 16, Control. You are cleared to take off. Good luck." Nagase's voice almost sounded jealous of me, but sitting where I was, I really couldn't blame her.

Mumbling "Thanks," I affixed my mask so that it sat snugly against my face, and lowered my sun visor, as the day was clear and the sun was high. Then I released the brakes and smoothly throttled up, waiting till my airspeed was up to a reasonable level before rotating and climbing, taking my gear up as I went feet wet. Moving my head about, I searched the sky, the integrated partial HUD in my helmet telling me all I needed to know.

Ah…there he was. A black speck surrounded by a pale blue box and the lettering HRTBREAK 1 alongside it. Captain Bartlett's F-4G, the only plane in Wardog that was anything but an F-5E. Manipulating the stick and throttle, I rose in a smooth curving arc to form up on his wing. "Captain Bartlett, this is Wardog 16. I'm ready to receive orders."

"Up here I'm Heartbreak One, Captain, or Wardog 1, nugget. Don't you forget that. You got it?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Good answer, boy. Now, what's your callsign…Blaze, huh? Where'd that come from?"

"I'm told I've got a fire in my eyes when I fly, Heartbreak One. I might have like the callsign Fate, but that seemed a bit presumptuous."

"A bit, nugget. I think you might have potential, though. We'll see. You might just be getting a nickname from me soon enough. Now we're going to do some pretty basic maneuvers as our first test, then we'll…"

A number of 'bogey' signatures had me breaking in on the Captain's speech. "Heartbreak One, I have four bogeys closing at a rate of four hundred knots from my seven o'clock! Please advise!" Even as I said this, I whipped my head over my left shoulder to search that sector of sky. Sure enough, there were four green Xs with a small break in the middle, but I didn't see any black dots against the clear sky. Still, they were a ways out, and though my eyes are sharp, air combat is fought in such a way that eyes find themselves at a handicap. I could feel the energy flowing through my body, linking me to that little fighter, ready to pull off into an evasive maneuver and perhaps engage the contacts in battle.

But Bartlett's laugh and the four broken Xs disappearing from the helmet HUD snapped me from that moment of what was almost transcendence. "That's good, Blaze, you've got some real potential. Not many pilots at your stage can even think about having the kind of situational awareness that you've got. Your plane handling seems pretty good too. I thought you had what it took. Looks like we get to skip to the fun stuff. Let's see how well you handle single-ship ACM. We'll be engaging the training program on the flight computer. Set it to GUNS, then I'll peel off and set up for engagement. Pipper on for two seconds equals a win. Don't worry, I'll go easy on you. I've got Genette as GIB, so I've gotta be nice to him. It's not any sympathy for you."

I reached forward and toggled on the training program, which targeted the Captain, then relaxed a bit as I waited for him to get ready, though I did keep up a watch of my search radar, as well as scanning the sky. I wasn't going to lose my SA. That was too high of a compliment to be given to screw it up. After all, it's said that if you keep your SA stuffed in your lunchbox, your remains will likely fit in the same. Much like a skilled duel between a pair of martial artists, air combat is a fast paced cerebral clash, both parties jockeying for position and angle, as well as the all-important energy.

I suppose you could liken it to chess as well…but I think that does it a disservice. "Alright Blaze. One head to head pass, then we go at it."

"Sir!" I lined up my fighter to head for that little speck that was outlined by the green box and shoved my throttle forward, outboard, then forward again, engaging my afterburners. I could see from the glow on the underside of the rapidly advancing Phantom that Bartlett had also lit his burners. My mind started to run through options…but it was too late. There was a wooshing roar and suddenly, thinking had become a liability.

Snapping my head over so that I could see the seven o'clock as I took the burners off, I spotted Bartlett's Phantom coming in at me in a tight turn that I knew I could match and pull another head to head with him. The trouble was, I knew that I wasn't likely to get two seconds of pipper time on him like that, and he might just havebeen able to pull it off.

Banking about thirty degrees towards Bartlett, I hauled back on the stick and entered a sort of diagonal loop that I hoped would let me gain altitude while not sacrificing position, indeed, hopefully improving it. It didn't work so well. Bartlett traded lift for a tighter turn, then leveled his wings out some and hit afterburners, climbing and pulling in behind me into lead pursuit. Having lost sight of him during my maneuver, I only got a split second's worth of warning before I found myself spiraling to the right and towards the sea, desperately trying to keep that pipper off of my little plane for more than two seconds at a time. It worked, but Bartlett stayed on my tail as if welded there, rolling his plane and pulling back on the stick, diving inverted after me to maximize his pitch rate.

He was having trouble keeping the pipper on me though, as I could tell from his grunted expletives as I jinked about his target picture. Genette seemed to be getting a bit sick, but was speaking excitedly about how great of footage this was. I seem to remember being a little resentful of that, but considering how my head was spinning with multi-lingual curses and evasion routines, neither of which category seemed to do anything to get Bartlett's big plane off of my slender one's tail, I could very easily be mistaken.

Our routine of evasion and targeting eventually leveled out, after say, five seconds, and we inscribed a serpentine tangle of contrails across the sky, crossing Sand Island not more than a few times.

Nagase later told me that she made encouraging comments to me during this. I believe her, but I've got no memory whatsoever of it. I was far too wrapped up trying to get Bartlett off of my tail and in front of my guns. It wasn't the transcendant feeling I had gotten when I prepared to do what I had to against the false bogies, rather, it was an overload of synaptic function.

A bright idea popped into my head as Bartlett moved extremely close to me. Pitching my nose up, I gave it half a second of burner, then chopped throttle and pitched my nose down, before kicking in engines at something above idle again. Just as I had hoped, Bartlett's F-4G filled my windscreen, and my pipper was on him…for a half-second or so, as he zoom-climbed, burners roaring. "Nice, Blaze. Now let's see if you can follow this!"

Kicking in my own, I followed him, doing my best to keep the pipper on him. Not an easy task, I assure you. His jinking couldn't have been pleasant for Genette, but I didn't hear vomiting for the reporter's channel, forcing me to upgrade my opinion of his constitution. But then, I thought I had Bartlett. For some reason or another, he was going straight up, though his engines weren't on burner. As quickly as I could, I swung the pipper over to him.

To no avail, as I should have known. My Tiger and I flashed by him as he ruddered over into an intentional hammerhead stall that he dove out of into aclimb that brought his fighter's nose up into a perfect lead pursuit on my quick evasion, placing his pipper on me for a good three seconds. "Bang, Kid, you're dead. Nice job. Form up on my wing and we'll head for home. We've been burning fuel pretty fast."

"Complying, Heartbreak One. Will do." I did so, then unstrapped my mask and swore softly, too quietly for the microphone to pick it up. It was a somewhat depressing flight back to base.

Come to think of it, that was the first time he called me Kid. I didn't like it then…but that was before I knew what it meant.

A/N: And a first review speeds things along. Well, I've gotten a decent number of hits, as well as a nice review, so I suppose I'll keep this up. Besides, it's fun to write first person, and ACM, so this is pretty self-indulgent for me. Anyway, I'm sorry this isn't the more action-packed war yet, but this is supposed to focus more on the characters than did the game. The war will start soon enough, though, and hopefully that training guns duel whetted your appetites at least a bit. Now...please do review. Reviews are the way that I can make a story better for you, and keep me from abandoning it. Till next time.