On the Job Training

An Ace Combat 5 story

"I'm going."

I don't remember exactly how long it took me to get from the control room to the tarmac, or even how. I remember a mad rushing blur, nothing more. Chopper once told me that I moved through the hallways at the flat-out sprint of a hot scramble, actually throwing a tech out of the way at one point. The impressive parts, he said, were that I did it without breaking stride, and that the tech was deposited into a couch. The tech corroborated the story, but it always seemed a bit unreal to me. Of course, people say that about my flying.

Anyway, however I got there, I was standing on the tarmac as the three planes, one trailing a long streamer of thick, black smoke, entered the landing pattern. Lt. Svenson must have thought that he could hold his Tiger II in the air for a while longer, so Bartlett and Nagase landed first, Kei's flying visibly shaken. But despite her landing's flawed nature, she got onto the ground safely, as did Bartlett and Genette.

As everyone knows, Svenson was not so lucky.

I once heard some stand-up comedian ranting about the airlines. He spoke about the announcements at the end of the flight, where the captain says something along the lines of: "We'll be on the ground shortly." He then went on to note that 'on the ground' could mean any number of things, few of them good. I just couldn't find the humor in that joke after I watched Svenson crash.

Despite his damage, Svenson was doing an admirable job of flying a passable landing. He was passing through 1,000 feet when something went wrong, though. No one in the world is exactly sure what made his fighter roll roughly 130 degrees and had the engines throttling randomly and independently. It took a miracle to put his wings level with the ground, and his cockpit facing towards the sky. But by that time, he was less than 200 feet from the ground, and not even close to on line with the runway.

The 'zero-zero' ejection seat installed in modern fighters as a matter of course is an amazing piece of machinery. A pilot can eject in relative safety from a plane parked on the tarmac. Unfortunately for Lt. Svenson, the F-5E is not a modern fighter. In retrospect, Svenson should have bailed over the shoals. But he didn't, and so he died in a rolling fireball as his plane hit the ground, twisting and spinning as it skipped across an unused part of the island before finally coming to a rest in the sea.

Ego's a bitch.

I knew full well what was going to happen when we were called to the briefing room the next day. Captain Bartlett's resigned slump in his chair only threw it into sharper focus. I slid into my chair slowly and quietly. Chopper was chatting with a pilot from the 596th, but even that was quiet and subdued.

Though I felt a calm acceptance as I waited for him to speak, Nagase was the only outwardly confident pilot, her back ramrod-straight as she sat in the front row. But the fixed immobility of her expression belied her confidence. Yesterday's event had affected her heavily…more so than anyone else. She was the only combat virgin who had been the air that day. Bartlett had been heavily affected by the slaughter of his squadron…who couldn't have been…but he knew death from the previous war.

Kei didn't. And she had been in the air, a factor when the furball erupted. And despite her best efforts, she had saved no one. That's a hard, hard position, one that I thank the Fates that I have never had to share. I found myself without any way to do something while people I knew died. Kei, bless her soul, found herself with the power to intervene…and failed.

Bartlett pulled himself to sitting upright in his seat and sighed. "Alright…I know you don't like this, but yesterday's incident has given us no choice. Starting tomorrow, all of you nuggets are sitting combat alert."

We all knew it was going to happen, but now it was official. 2nd Lts Alvin Davenport, Kei Nagase, and Jack Veras were combat pilots in the 108th Tactical Fighter Squadron, callsign Wardog.

"Nagase!" called the Captain sharply.

"Yes sir?" came the clipped answering question.

"You're flying number two on my wing. Gotta keep an eye on you, or who knows what kind of trouble you'll get into out there." Honestly, that was an insult. Kei should have been flying the number three slot. No one could dispute Bartlett's claim to the lead, but Kei was the most experienced pilot in the squadron after him. Therefore, she should have had the number three. Number two was habitually assigned to the pilot who needed the most protection. That, sorry to say, was Chopper. But Bartlett, for some reason or another, did not respect Nagase's skills behind the stick. I couldn't say why. Maybe it was his way of making sure he didn't feel any attraction to her. Maybe it was a symptom of attraction to her. I don't know. We've never discussed it.

"Yes sir," her response was even tighter than the last one, if that was possible.

Bartlett didn't even acknowledge her tone. He looked at Chopper and me. "Davenport, you're three, Veras, four. Make sure your planes are ready to fly. We cannot afford to have a downchecked plane. Minor gripes are to be ignored if there's even a single major on any of the planes. I don't care if they're almost unflyable, just so long as they are."

My mouth tightened at the assignment, then even more at the order on plane readiness. If Nagase wasn't flying three, it certainly should have been me. I was hands down, the best pilot trainee, and we all knew it. Kei was second, but she lagged behind. Still, she had combat experience, something which I lacked, for all my skill. But why were WE in the wingman slots? It felt like another slight to me, and as I later learned, Kei. Not that I shouldn't have been able to tell on her part.

The second order could have been one straight out of whatever underworld you believe in, or its equivalent. But there, at least, Pops came to the rescue. I have absolutely no idea how he could work the magic he did on our planes, but he had shorter full maintence cycles than each plane had flying hours in between the cycles. That, as any tech will tell you, is IMPOSSIBLE. He did it though. I never flew a plane that came out of a hangar Pops was responsible for that was in anything but perfect condition. More unsung heroism from an unsung war.

Bartlett then launched into a description of our operations area, and what we were going to be doing. To put it bluntly, and pardon the pun, we were out on the sharp end. Sand Island was the first line of defense for the Osean continent, and guess where any possible counterstrikes would be staged through, if it came to that? That's right, Sand Island.

So it was with that understanding that Wardog flight took off into the skies of an idyllic island day on a mission to intercept a SR-71 Blackbird that some unknown force had sent to spy on our mainland, and had received a hypervelocity SAM for their trouble. Our mission was to force a surrender and to make it put down at a costal airfield.

As might be expected…things didn't go so smoothly.

Well, the takeoff and flight to our ops area was actually pretty smooth, to be honest. I've got to admit that. It was right when we got there and Sand Island control handed us off to the on-station AEWACS that things started getting eventful.

"Wardog squadron, this is AEWACS Thunderhead. I will be providing you with command and control for the duration of this operation," came what was to become a very familiar voice over the radio. He would actually become our C and C for FAR longer than that, but none of us knew that at the time. For all we knew the incident was just the work of some crackpot squadron commander who wanted to watch a war.

Funny…that doesn't seem so far off from the truth behind it all.

In any case, Thunderhead had more information for us. "Your target will be crossing the coast in two minutes. Maintain current course and airspeed to intercept."

"This is Wardog 1. Roger. Wardog Squad, give me a readiness check and follow me."

"Wardog 2, roger." Nagase's voice had lost some of its tightness, but had gotten a big shot of determination. She wanted to prove her flying skill to Bartlett, and no question.

"Wardog 3, a-okay, here." Chopper had some of his trademark jauntiness back. My bet is that it probably had something to do with the fact that he had his butt plunked down in a fighter. There's nothing like flying a jet made for combat.

I was still making my extremely thorough check when Bartlett became impatient with me. "Wardog 4? Hello! Can you hear me, Kid? You ready or not?"

I gritted my teeth. I HATED that callsign. What was more, my squad IFF clearly was broadcasting Blaze. But dammed if I was going to give Bartlett the satisfaction of another victory over me. I composed myself and flicked my eyes over the last items on the checklist. "Wardog 4. All green. Ready for operations."

Bartlett actually laughed. Apparently, my composure was pretty impressive, as his reply was: "Glad to see you're confident, at least. Right. You're not to fire on the target without my permission, got that?"

"Yes sir." It was kind of one of the salient points in our briefing, in fact. Perhaps even the main one. We were not to even think about releasing the safety interlocks on our weapons unless we got explicit permission. The brass really didn't want us touching off a war because our warmongering pilot natures led us to blow that recon plane out of the sky, then riddle the pilot with shots from our cannons as he floated down in his parachute.

In case there's any wonder in your mind, dear reader, I am being rather bitterly ironic. But enough of that.

Apparently, my annoyance about being reminded about one of the key mission parameters got through the distortion that comes hand in hand with radio traffic. Of course…Bartlett interpreted it as kill-happiness, maybe nerves. "Just stay in formation and don't worry. Everything will turn out just fine."

I sighed behind my mask.

Thunderhead's voice came over the radio again. "Captain Bartlett, keep in mind that we are under diplomatic peacetime conditions."

I imagine that the dark look that crossed my face was mirrored on Bartlett's. Diplomatic peacetime conditions are a jet fighter pilot's bane. Normally, under peacetime conditions if an enemy maneuvers three times for an advantageous position, we are allowed to go weapons free, because of the fact that the first shot can easily be the last when you're in a jet fighter. But under diplomatic conditions, the one and only thing that spells weapons free is getting fired upon.

To the layman, it's often confusing as to why a fighter is so fragile, so I'll explain. The trouble in understanding the fragility of a fighter is that a military aircraft is actually an extremely strongly built vehicle. They have to be, to stay together at such high speeds and at such high G-loads. The stresses are enormous upon an airframe, so they are built to withstand them.

But fighters are stressed to the limit by combat flying. So even a single cannon round can spell disaster if it hits the wrong way. It normally doesn't happen that way, but a missile's detonation and shrapnel puts a great deal more kinetic energy into the plane than a cannon round, and shrapnel's irregular shape does damage that often becomes highly exacerbated by the stresses of combat flying.

Bad things all around, as Alvin might have said.

Thankfully, all that we were intercepting was a SR-71 recon craft. Fast as hell, able to fly extremely high, but weaponless and, in this case, tagged by a SAM. It couldn't fly high or fast. All we would have to do would be to provide a threat the Blackbird would have to honor, and he should comply. It would be very possible to accomplish the mission without ever arming our weapons.

Well…in theory, anyway.