"Blaze, this is tower, you are clear to begin your landing approach, runway 1 Right. Wind is pushing one-eight-zero."
"Acknowledged. Running in."
Sand Island Air Force Base
Osean-controlled territory, Ceres Ocean
Despite feeling like her nerves were racked, Ashley managed to bring her Strike Eagle to a smooth landing on the primary runway of her station: Sand Island Air Force Base. Formerly a large tri-service base back at the height of the Cold War, the demilitarisation of forces in the Ceres and Pacific Oceans had seen the Osean Maritime Defense Force and the Osean Federation Marine Corps both withdrawing their forces from the island. Now Sand Island was a hollow shell, a shadow of what it used to be. The base used to house several hundred aircraft. Now it barely housed thirty.
"Well… the AAR's gonna be spicy." Samurai commented from the back seat. Blaze nodded as if to agree.
"Mmm, and the big boss is probably going to lose his shit." Blaze replied. She taxied the aircraft all the way to the opposite end of the runway, taking the off-ramp that faced in the direction of the hangars. Trailing not far behind them were Bartlett and Ghost in their Strike Eagle. They passed by a lot of empty and unused hangars before arriving at the section of the base that was still in active use: a series of hardened aircraft shelters. Bomb-proof hangars. Rolling past, Blaze saw a mix of F-15Es and F-16C Fighting Falcons in the hangars. The hangar she was aiming for was at the far end of the flight line. A ground director guided Blaze with signal lights to get her properly aligned, into the hangar and into the arms of the ground crew who would prepare for maintenance of the bird. Blaze gently rolled the bird in until she felt the front wheel jam against something. The chocks were in. With the Strike Eagle's momentum halted, Blaze began the process of powering down the aircraft while Samurai popped open the canopy.
"See you at AAR." Samurai bid Blaze farewell before practically leaping out of the cockpit.
"Oi, where are you-" Too late, Samurai was already on the deck and striding along. Blaze sighed and watched her wizzo travel along. She got… a bit distracted watching Samurai walk off. Distracted for long enough that a member of the ground crew climbed up the ladder to check on the pilot.
"Ma'am, you alright in here?" The avionic technician asked. Blaze didn't reply at first.
"Lieutenant?"
Blaze whipped her head to look at the technician, like a deer stuck in the headlights. "Huh?"
"Thought there might have been something wrong up here, since your wizzo bailed." The technician explained.
"Oh." Blaze nervously chucked. Fuck. "No, I'm fine. I was daydreaming."
"Fair. That was all." The technician slid down the ladder and back to the deck. Blaze removed her helmet, wiped the sweat off her forehead and steadily climbed down the ladder. With her helmet swinging at her side, Blaze carried on to the nearby building, where, when she opened a door to go inside, Blaze realised that she had been "daydreaming" for so long that Major Barlett and First Lieutenant Gammon were already inside waiting for her.
"What took you so long?" Gammon asked mockingly. Gammon, callsign "Ghost", was, somehow, Bartlett's WSO. He was a massive spectacle of a man, built like a brick shithouse and coming in at just under six-foot-six. He was topped by crew-cut light brown hair and a goatee of the same colour.
"Uh…" For a moment Blaze forgot what she was even doing. "...daydreaming."
Bartlett raised his eyebrows. By comparison, Bartlett was a fair bit shorter at only six-foot, but he was just as strongly-built if not bigger.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you were on something." Bartlett commented on Blaze's airheaded-ness. Blaze grinned and reached back to untie her hair.
"Adrenaline is a hell of a drug." Blaze shot back wittily.
"Touche, kid. Touche." Bartlett replied. As a trio of aircrew, Blaze, Bartlett and Ghost walked through a short series of hallways until they were at their destination; Wardog's squadron room. The room was decorated with tables, chairs, a whiteboard at the front of the room and posters and images of all kinds plastered around the walls. Samurai had already packed away all of her flight equipment and was sitting at a table waiting for her fellow squadmates. Standing at the front of the room were a pair of faces that Blaze hadn't been expecting to see first thing at the after-action reports: the obese, micro-managing piece of shit base commander and the younger, much more chill, adjutant base commander. Respectively the Officer Commanding and Second in Command of Sand Island Air Force Base.
"Well. Well. Fucking. Well." Major Allen Hamilton, Sand Island's 2IC, drawled. "It would appear we've got a sticky situation at our hands."
"You can say that again." Blaze muttered under her breath, heading over to her locker to stow her gear.
"Bloody situation would describe it better, sir." Ghost said to Hamilton.
"Maybe not bloody. That thing kinda looked like a UAV." Bartlett added as he moved past Ghost. "Either way, I don't think the Yukes are gonna be happy about us splashing one of their very expensive-looking prototypes.
The conversation became muffled and then muted to Blaze as she arrived at her locker in the room opposite from where the conversation was taking place. Blaze reached for and fumbled with the lock keeping her locker shut. Her hands were shaking. Blaze leant back away from the locker and took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself. She felt a little better. This time, she managed to get the right number combination to her lock. Off came the flight vest, g-suit, kneeboard and helmet. For a moment after dressing down to her pilot greens, Blaze stood there and considered what she was going to say for the report.
"Y'know-" Samurai spoke from the edge of the room, scaring the ever-living jesus out of Blaze.
"Fucking christ, Kita!" Blaze physically jolted. "Scare the shit out of me, why don't ya?!"
Samurai had a shit-eating grin on her face. "Y'know, sometimes I wish I could see you dress down past your equipment."
Blaze blushed, scoffed, and turned on the balls of her feet towards Samurai. "Well, if you ever came over to my dorm, maybe you'd get the chance!" Blaze said in a high-pitched, mocking tone. She giggled briefly. "Anyway whatchu want?"
"You're taking longer than usual so I figured I'd check in." Samurai explained. She leant back against a row of lockers and crossed her arms.
"Kita, it's been a total of twenty-" Blaze began to explain.
"You're trembling." Samurai interjected before Blaze could finish.
"It's cold." Blaze lied through her teeth.
Samurai tilted her head forward in disbelief. "We're on the equator, it's never cold here."
Blaze groaned quietly. "It's just an adrenaline surge, Kita. I'll be fine."
Samurai didn't seem convinced, but she didn't push the matter. She flicked some of her jet-black hair out of her face. "Fair enough. C'mon, let's not drag this AAR out more."
"Yeah, I'm comin'." Blaze followed on Samurai's six. They passed by Ghost and Barlett as the latter two went to stow their gear.
"Blaze, Samurai." Hamilton greeted the crew of Wardog 2. "So I hear you downed the prototype."
"Yes, sir." Blaze answered for them, moving to her seat. She couldn't help but stand in the at-ease posture. "One bandit. Some kind of… forward-swept wing aircraft with canards. Yuktobanian markings. Almost like a Berkut crossed with a Rafale."
Hamilton and Perrault glanced at each other. Perrault took the conversation. "So why did you shoot it down?"
"The bandit fired its cannon at Wardog 1 when they crossed its nose." Samurai carried the discussion on from Blaze. "We engaged and destroyed the bandit in accordance with the rules of engagement."
At that moment, Bartlett and Ghost joined the discussion, both moving to take seats at their respective positions in the room.
"Major Barlett," Colonel Perrault spoke to Bartlett. "What were you doing prior to and during the intercept?"
Bartlett leant back in his chair and put his hands behind his head as if to sit in a resting position. "Myself, Lieutenant Gammon, Lieutenant Paige and Lieutenant Isha were on a two-ship strike exercise at the Cape Landers Missile Range. We had just passed through Stage Two of the exercise when I received a transmission from air traffic control alerting us to the presence of a single bogey north-west of the range." Bartlett took a breath through his explanation. "Myself and Gammon as Wardog 1, and Paige and Isha as Wardog 2, took the intercept and arrived on station about five minutes later. At first we thought it was a Felon based on its radar signature, but no, definitely wasn't a Felon."
"Wait, so it possessed low-observable characteristics?" Hamilton interjected.
"We spotted it ourselves on radar at about seventy klicks." Gammon explained what he remembered. "So a bit further out than what I'm accustomed to seeing on clean Felons. What got me is that the IFF couldn't identify it."
"I see. Major, go on." Hamilton let Barlett continue.
"Oh, right. Yeah, so we made visual contact at twelve clicks and attempted to raise the horn with them, get them back to their side of the sea. Lieutenant Paige made the call to get their attention, to no reply. I then crossed the bogey's nose and dumped flares to get the pilot's attention. It was at that point that the bogey fired at me. Wardog 2 was already on their tail and splashed the bandit before it could chase me down." Bartlett finished his recollection of the event. "And… now we're here."
"Did the pilot eject?" Perrault inquired.
"With respect sir, I don't think it was a manned aircraft. No visible cockpit area." Bartlett mentioned.
Blaze nodded as if to agree. "I damn near cut that thing in half. Even if there was a pilot physically flying it, I doubt he would have survived that gun run."
"I didn't see a chute." Gammon added.
"Neither did I." Samurai added on top of Gammon's testimony.
"Were either of your aircraft damaged?" Hamilton asked. Everybody involved from Wardog collectively shook their heads.
"Nearly shit myself, but the bandit's shots were off by a long margin." Bartlett said of damage to his aircraft.
"Might have copped some fragments, but nothing serious." Blaze replied, not recalling feeling any vibrations from flying into the debris cloud of the bandit.
"One more question for you specifically, Blaze." Hamilton pointed his entire hand at Blaze. "Did you feel that either you or Wardog 1 were at risk of being shot down."
Blaze tilted her head, slightly confused. "I'm not sure that I understand the question."
"Okay, did you feel that you had to shoot down the bandit?" Hamilton clarified.
"Oh." Blaze suddenly understood and straightened up. "I was up against a bandit with unknown capabilities, that had shown clearly lethal intent by shooting at a friendly aircraft. I did not want to take the risk of that aircraft intercepting and shooting down Wardog 1. I believe I was justified in shooting the bandit down."
Hamilton seemed satisfied by Blaze's answer. "That's good enough for me. Colonel Perrault?"
"Nothing from me." Perrault muttered.
"Alright." Hamilton changed his pose to address the entire room. "Major Bartlett, you're required to fill out a formal report from your point of view regarding the incident. The rest of you are dismissed, with one tidbit: details of this mess are not to leave this room until approved by myself or Colonel Perrault."
"'Course I have to." Bartlett shook his head. Blaze, Samurai and Gammon all stood up, prepared to leave.
"Lieutenants, you're dismissed, get out of here." Perrault let the junior officers leave. Blaze was the first to push out of the Wardog squadron room, practically running out. Samurai wasn't far behind her. The pair waited until they were down a flight of stairs before initiating a conversation.
"Well, that went by faster than I was expecting." Samurai commented.
"Wait up, jesus christ." Gammon caught up with the pair. "Safe bet the major's not gonna be happy about having to fill that incident report."
Samurai snickered. "The mind of a lieutenant in the body of a lieutenant-colonel."
"You can say that again. Honestly, fuck paperwork." Blaze started on her hatred of endlessly signing forms.
"Bureaucracy. The OADF fucking runs on it." Gammon replied snarkily, earning a scoff from Blaze.
"The entire Defense Forces, more like. Even the goddamn marines." Blaze offered an alternative view.
"Nah. I hear the army gets off on it pretty well all things considered. Their officers aren't anywhere near as fucky as ours." Gammon added some perspective.
"I'd bet Wolf would have something to say about that if you asked him." Samurai butted into the conversation, referring to another of their squadron mates.
"Okay but he's from SOCOM, they're an entirely different breed." Gammon countered.
"Well, it's not any better in the SSDF. We've been crippled by a top-heavy command structure for decades." Samurai made a comment on the armed forces that she came from, the Sotoan Self Defense Forces.
"On the upside, when was the last time Sotoa was involved in a war?" Blaze asked, almost sarcastically.
"48, 49, thereabouts?" Samurai tried to remember the date of that particular war, over thirty years before she had even been born.
"Close enough." Gammon added. They arrived at the dormitories, the facilities where all the officers on Sand Island slept and lived in. "Either of you two reckon I should tell Lammy about this?"
"And get skull-fucked by the boss? I wouldn't risk it." Blaze answered that question. She yawned. "Fuck, that took it out of me. I think I'm gonna try and get some sleep."
Samurai chuckled. "You're soft, Ash."
"You're goddamn right I am." Blaze yawned again. She parted from the group. "See ya two later."
"Sweet dreams!" Gammon said mockingly to Blaze as she departed the group. Samurai said nothing. Blaze entered one building, went through the central hallway and climbed up a flight of stairs. Her dormitory room was close to the stairwell, the first room opposite of the stairs. Hers and her roommate's nameplate was on the door. 1LT ASHLEY PAIGE and 2LT KEI NAGASE, respectively. A quick entrance revealed to Blaze that her roommate was not currently here. Taking that as a sign that she could get to sleep quickly without drawing out a conversation, Blaze flopped on her bed without bothering to take her boots off or get changed, and before she knew it she was passed out on the bed.