"...okay?" Hamilton seemed confused. "Straight from Commander, West Coast Forces. All information regarding today's hostile encounter is to be classified."
"Eh?" Bartlett took the letter that Hamilton was reading from. "Media blackout again? Genette's not gonna like that."
"I don't think he minds." Pops chimed in. "I saw him talking with some of the pilots earlier. Had a notepad in hand."
"He knows ODF laws on leaking information as well as we do. As long as he's willing to comply with them, I see no harm done in letting him collect information for his work." Hamilton seemed happy to leave the journalist free.
September 24, 2010
Sand Island Air Force Base
Up in the Wardog crew room, the remnants of the squadron plus a singular ginger-haired pilot from Vampire Squadron were conversing with the aforementioned journalist.
"God, pilots are just getting younger!" Genette sounded surprised. "I was twenty-five when I joined the fleet.
"Mmm." Second Lieutenant Hans Grimm was sipping from a cup of cola. "I got my studies differed in high school so I could go to uni. After that, a year of OCS and Heierlark later…"
"If it makes you feel any better sir, I got into a cockpit at thirty-three." Wolf offered his own experience. In one corner of the room, Chopper and Nagase were playing pool with the provided table. Chopper was currently getting his ass kicked.
"I heard you were prior Navy, Taylor. What rating?" Genette was curious about Wolf's story.
"Aviation ordnanceman from '94 to '96, frogman from the tail end of '97 to 2006." Wolf replied.
"A SEAL, huh? Why'd you transfer from the teams to aviation, in a new branch no less?" Genette further enquired.
Wolf shrugged. "Needed a change of scenery."
Outside on the flight line, Ash was sitting in the pilot's seat of her Mudhen, passing the time by reading a book. Kitagawa was asleep on a bench near the aircraft, fully dressed in all her kit. Along with Pops, they were on the alert 5 rotation. If the alarm sounded, they would be in the air in less than five minutes. All Ash needed to do to get airborne was start the aircraft's twin turbofans and disconnect from the ground power rig and she would be good to go.
"Still awake, Blaze?" Pop's voice rang over Ash's headset.
"Unfortunately." Ash replied.
"Just checking. I can see your wizzo on the bench from over here." Pops explained. Ash looked over the side of the cockpit and saw the Sotoan weapon systems officer asleep on that bench. She smiled softly.
"Long day." Ash replied sarcastically to explain Kitagawa's drowsiness.
"No doubt." Pops was wholly unconvinced but didn't pursue further. Ash finished the final few pages of the book she was reading. Sighing, she stowed the book and checked her watch. Another couple of hours until they were due to be relieved. Ash leant back, pressed her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the alarm was ringing. Kitagawa had bolted to her feet and was climbing up into the cockpit. Ash inhaled loudly through her nose and kicked off the engine startup process.
"Control, Blaze, SITREP?" Ash asked for a situation report while they were on the ground.
"Corvus, Blaze, this is control, we have two groups of six unidentified aircraft approaching from 210 and 320, inbound at high speed. Range four hundred and closing!" Sand Island control informed them of the situation.
"Pops, I'll go after the western group." Blaze said to Corvus. "Canopy!"
"Clear." Kitagawa's limbs were within the cockpit. Ash closed and sealed the canopy before stepping off.
"You sure, kid? I don't fancy our odds of taking on six fighters individually." Pops sounded uncertain.
"Ground radar's picking them up that far out. They're probably bombers." Ash reasoned.
"I take your point. If they're fighters, give me a call and I'll be over." Pops reassured.
"Yeah wilco." Ash was on the runway now. "Wardog 1, taking off from main."
WARDOG1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
VAMPIRE 1 / CORVUS / F-16C
Once they were airborne, Blaze turned the Mudhen bearing 210 and accelerated to Mach 2 down that bearing. The engine noise outside the aircraft would have been deafening if anybody in the ocean had been around to hear it.
"Sam, EMCON alpha." Blaze relayed to her WSO. EMCON stood for Emissions Control, wherein EMCON Alpha stood for no electronic transmissions of any kind. No radar, no radio, no lasers. All they could do was watch the data link, the radar warning receiver and listen to the radio. On the RWR there were no emitters. If there was a fighter escort for these bombers, they were remaining dark.
"Too fast to be Bears." Samurai gathered from what the data link was telling her. "Blackjacks?"
"They would have launched their payload already." Blaze didn't think they were Tu-160s. "Fullbacks?"
"Could be." Samurai conceded that Blaze had a point with the approaching bogeys potentially being Su-34 tactical bombers. An odd choice to lead a point attack… unless there were already cruise missiles in the air. Blaze gulped upon thinking of it and hoped that the men and women of the air defence group stationed at Sand Island were switched on.
Beep-beep. New contact on the radar warning receiver. A50. A Yuktobanian control and command aircraft, their equivalent of the E-3 Sentry.
"That's not good." Samurai pointed out the obvious.
Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Beep-beep. Three more contacts, their radar signatures much stronger than the distant A-50. These contacts read S34 on the RWR.
"That's really not good." Blaze clenched up. She lit up the F-15E's radar in kind and cued the AMRAAMs she was carrying to her trigger. If the Fullbacks so much as thought of locking them up, Blaze was shooting. She saw six aircraft on the radar in formation at a hundred klicks.
Samurai could see what Blaze had selected. "I don't fancy our odds."
"Six shots. Almost like a classic western." Blaze did her best to sound confident.
"You're going to be the death of us." Samurai said bluntly.
"Probably." Blaze admitted. Beep-woo-beep-woo-beep-woo! "Fuck. Wardog 1, locked by Fullbacks."
"Countermeasures ready." Samurai braced for Blaze to commit to evasive manoeuvres. Blaze started selecting targets for her AMRAAMs. The aircraft closest to her were marked with green boxes on the HUD. Come on you fuckers, test me.
BEEPNEEBEEPNEEBEEPNEEBEEPNEEBEEPNEEBEEPNEE!
"Wardog 1, engaged defensive! Wardog 1, fox 3, fox 3!" The moment the Fullbacks put missiles in the air, Blaze fired back with all four AMRAAMs before notching to the north against the incoming missiles. She wasn't optimistic of her chances while facing an enemy that had an AWACS, but all the effort was better than none. The missile warning had stopped which meant that the Fullbacks had lost their tracks and the missiles hadn't pitbulled - gone terminal - on them.
"Sam, you see anything?!" Blaze asked as she focused on flying away from the incoming R-77s.
"Nothing yet." Samurai replied, cool as a rock. Under the night sky, the glow from missile boosters would have been easy to spot. Blaze started climbing to gain altitude on the Fullbacks who were no doubt diving towards the sea floor to gain energy and distance. Blaze decided to turn in and commit against the Fullbacks.
"Tally three Fullbacks." Samurai called what she saw on radar. There had been six before. Either three of them had done the Houdini, or Blaze had splashed three in one salvo. Unfortunately, that presented the issue of having to fight three aircraft with only two missiles, but this time Blaze was confident she was up to the task.
"Going in." Blaze declared, throwing the throttle all the way forward. She cued Sidewinders to her trigger and ripped west towards the now-retreating strike fighters. For an attacker, the Fullback was certainly fast, able to do Mach 1.2 in a straight line at sea level. Blaze was using the thinner air at altitude to push the Mudhen towards its upper max speed at Mach 2.5. She was closing on the attackers, fast.
"Tally three, ten-o-clock on the floor." Samurai spotted the glow of afterburners close to the sea floor looking out the canopy.
"I see them. Hold on!" Blaze gave Samurai the briefest of warnings before pushing the stick forward and diving on the Fullbacks. She uncaged the seekers on the AIM-9Xs and quickly gained a lock. At night time, the temperature difference between a lit afterburner and the ocean was like day and night.
"Wardog 1, fox 2!" Blaze let off one Sidewinder at her first target. She uncaged the second seeker and got a second lot. "Fox 2!"
Two AIM-9Xs were in the air. The lack of flaring and manoeuvring from the pilots of the Fullbacks told Blaze that they were unaware that they were being fired upon, which worked in her favour as the Sidewinders descended. Splash one, splash two. The last Fullback in the group spotted that his two wingmen had just been blasted out of the skies and began swinging around to avoid copping a missile. Luckily for him, Blaze was out of missiles, but she still had lead to sling. She dived on the hapless Fullback. The Fullback's pilot and WSO didn't see them coming. Blaze depressed the gun trigger and shit out twenty-mike cannon shells up and down the spine of the attacker.
"Wardog 1, splash six Fullbacks!" Blaze called. All of the bandits in her group had been dealt with.
"One AWACS directly west for two hundred, angels ten. Wanna go after him?" Samurai pointed out a potential target to Blaze. Blaze checked their fuel count. As it turned out, running the afterburner constantly was hell for the Mudhen's fuel mileage.
"I don't want to get caught out with no fuel." Blaze replied. "Control, Wardog 1, we are bingo fuel."
"Wardog 1, control, acknowledged. Get back here and refuel, the squadron will be airborne in five to cover you." Ground Control back at Sand Island gave Blaze the go-ahead to return to base, rearm and refuel.
"Wilco, out." Blaze got off the radio and turned the aircraft back for the three hundred kilometre run back to Sand Island. While on the return trip, Blaze looked at the datalink for her Alert 5 buddy's location. Corvus was north-east of Blaze's location in a closer proximity to Sand Island. She spotted four of the six aircraft that were with the second group of aircraft. Pops had gotten some shots off, she presumed.
"Wardog 1, redesignate as Wardog 4. Acknowledge, over." Control was giving Blaze a new TAC name.
"Wardog 4, roger." Blaze confirmed the change. In the back, Samurai changed their identity friend or foe beacon to reflect the change.
"Wardog 4, prepare to receive new tasking, over." Control had a new mission for them. Blaze raised an eyebrow before looking at her kneeboard.
"Ready to receive." Blaze was listening.
"Tasking as follows. RTB to rearm and refuel. Regroup with Wardog and link up with Vampire. Move to Lane One and proceed along bearing 280. Your mission is to get within firing range of Objective Fortress. Target data is being uploaded to you now." Control started with the briefing.
"Murska?" Samurai muttered to herself.
Blaze was scribbling down notes in shorthand. "Wardog 4, acknowledged. Actions on an intercept?"
"This attack is time-sensitive. Push through. End of tasking. Control, out." Ground Control concluded the in-air briefing.
"Time sensitive? The fuck?" Blaze was bamboozled. "Sam, what's the target data for?"
"Murska Air Force Base. Hangars and fuel depots." Samurai explained.
"On mainland fucking Yuktobania?"
"Chopper, feet wet." Chopper reported as they left the Sand Island runway for the open skies. They were armed to the teeth with fuel and munitions. According to the pylon data Zoomer was looking at in the rear, they had no less than five cruise missiles. Six. Whatever the target was, OSEACOM - Osea Command - wanted it dead. A package of fiveAGM-158s was unheard of in peacetime. This was serious.
"Fuck me dude." Zoomer was looking at the target data. "Are we at war?"
"What's the target?" Chopper asked as they flew towards the rendezvous point.
"The Murska airbase. Like, the Yuke one." Zoomer answered. Chopper looked back and stared at his WSO.
"That ain't good." Chopper summarised what both of them were thinking.
"You know what's really not good? The fact that if we get bumped, we're gonna have to ditch in Yuke territory." Zoomer further realised.
"It costed you nothing to not say that." Chopper didn't like the sound of running out of fuel over the ocean or in enemy territory. Zoomer was grinning like an idiot.
The turnaround time to get Blaze and Samurai back in the air was hardly five minutes. The ordnancemen on the ground were ruthlessly efficient at their job. Samurai watched them load weapon after weapon onto their wings. Blaze could have sworn she heard something start groaning at the rear of the Mudhen.
"Oh my." Samurai sounded surprised, a rarity for her. "How do you feel about cruise missiles?"
"I'd prefer those over JDAMs and GBUs." Blaze replied. She glanced over her shoulders. They had the Joint Surface Standoff Missile on each wing pylon, she could see the edges of two more on the rear conformal fuel tank pylons, and she assumed that there was one more on the centreline pylon. Shit was going down. After the fuel hose was disconnected from its port, Blaze was given the go-ahead to return to the runway and get back into the fight.
On the other side of the fence, the Fighting Falcons of Vampire Squadron were nowhere near as laden with only two JASSMs per aircraft. With that said, they had to carry external fuel tanks - drop tanks - to keep up with the longer-ranged Mudhens, and if anyone bumped them, Vampire would be the group taking the brunt of the fight. Nevertheless, Grimm felt confident as he merged with the leader of his flight. The night sky was lit up with a green glow under night vision.
The 151st might have been a Viper squadron, but with Wardog at less than half-strength, they composed the majority of the aircraft stationed at Sand Island with eleven active aircraft.
"Archer, formed up." Grimm informed his flight lead.
"Ack that. Gold Flight is green and ready to go." Gold Flight leader, Captain Hayley 'Goth' Shapiro, rang in. Archer followed along.
On the other side of the fifteen ship attack group, the Wardogs were chugging along with their strike packages. The Strike Eagle could be a manoeuvrable bird, and it certainly was when it was running a light load, but when it was carrying more than half of its rated payload weight, the old Mudhen handled like a brick with a pair of engines strapped to it. The skies were cloudy over the Ceres Ocean. Looking through night vision goggles, Blaze could just barely see Bartlett and Nagase off to her left in a dark green haze. At the speed they were going, the strike package was in for an hour long flight to their launching point.
"All flights, this is AWACS Thunderhead, check in." Thunderhead was accompanying the group.
"Wardog flight, all accounted for." Bartlett.
"Red Flight, present." Corvus.
"Gold Flight, all accounted for." Goth.
"Blue Flight, here." First Lieutenant Adam 'Hex' Hexane of Vampire Squadron.
"Strike package is a go. All flights, turn bearing 280 at Angels 15." Thunderhead gave the strike package their final bearing. Blaze started climbing to fifteen thousand feet above sea level: in other words a long way up. According to the datalink there was a limited amount of aerial activity in the region either civil or military. The A-50 AWACS was somewhere out there, presumably tracking their progress, and to the far south there were two flights of OMDF Hornets. Closer by, four Su-34s were making a hasty retreat. Nothing on the RWR indicated the distant presence of SAM sites. Yet.
On the way to the launch point, Major Hamilton was tuning into various radio frequencies listening for anything that stood out across the rest of the coast. Nothing on the emergency or guard frequencies, nothing on the encrypted air zone net and no major aircraft or ship movements to indicate a major assault on any other front. Hell, minus a couple of patrolling P-3 Orions, their strike package was the western-most Osean force in the region.
"I don't see any S-400 radars." Nagase said something to break the silence in the cockpit.
"We're too far out to pick up their electronic signature. Don't worry, we'll be seeing them soon." Hamilton was certain the Yuktobanians had their anti-air network prepared for such an event.
"You'd think we'd have a Wild Weasel group with us." Nagase pondered out loud.
"Ten years too late. The last Raven squadron was withdrawn from the base in 2000." Hamilton replied. "We shouldn't have to worry about SAMs for very long anyway."
"Cruise missiles are harder to spot than planes." Nagase pointed out the obvious.
"That they are, lieutenant, that they are." Hamilton agreed.
The strike package was halfway to their firing position. The A-50 still had its radar on and was obviously tracking them, but so far there was no evidence to support that the Yuktobanians were mounting any kind of intercept sorties. No signs of Foxhounds, Flankers or god forbid Felons.
"Thunderhead, Wardog 4, bogey dope." Blaze wanted to know if there was anything that Thunderhead could see from the console of his E-2C that the F-15Es and F-16Cs couldn't.
"Wardog 1, one A-50 bearing 150 at 15 for 300." Thunderhead listed off the one contact he saw. The skies were suspiciously empty.
"Acknowledged, out." Blaze leant back and sighed. There was no way in hell the enemy didn't know they were coming.
"This has gotta be a joke, right?" Chopper said what everybody was thinking. "Where the hell are their interceptors?"
"Consider it a lucky grace, Chopper." Corvus put his two cents in.
Blaze giggled softly.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Archer's foaming at the mouth for the first sign of a bandit." Goth joked.
"You're not too far off." Archer admitted.
"Comms, people." Bartlett reminded everyone that they were very much on a mission. The radio was silent after that.
"Spoke too soon." Thunderhead spoke up. "New group of bogies, bearing 280. They're coming from Murska."
"Uh-oh." Samurai stated the obvious.
"What kind of aircraft?" Goth asked.
"Most likely Fulcrums. Just get to the attack point, fire and withdraw." Thunderhead advised against an engagement.
"Three hundred away and closing. We might not have a choice." Archer chimed in.
"Ah fuck. Wardog, pick up the pace!" Bartlett urged his squadron to haul ass. The F-15Es all ripped forward as fast as they could go with their weapons package.
"We're running out of time, Ash." Samurai uttered Blaze's name.
"I know Sam, I know!" Blaze was stressed. They could fire their JASSMs, turn and run, but with the fuel they had available they'd run out of gas long before reaching Sand Island. "Major, either we get bumped or we go bingo fuel."
"I-" Bartlett said something.
"Gold flight, Red flight, execute, execute." Corvus cut Bartlett off. Blaze frowned. She noticed Red and Gold flights from Vampire Squadron slow down followed by glowing objects passing through the formation. Many glowing objects. Fourteen glowing objects. The F-16s of those two flights had fired their JASSMs early.
"Are those-" Nagase spoke.
"Gold, Red, intercept and destroy." Corvus issued a command to two of the flights under his command. "Blue, cover for Wardog."
"You've got balls, Pops." Zoomer remarked from the backseat of Chopper's F-15E as seven F-16Cs overtook the formation with their afterburners lit. They were moving to engage the MiG-29s ingressing towards the two squadrons. Vipers versus Fulcrums. If it weren't for the number disparity, it would have been the perfect fight.
Archer turned on his radar and started scanning the skies. The datalink showed that four Fulcrums were pushing their position, two hundred klicks out and closing fast. Both sides would be in range of each other within the next minute. Archer selected the AIM-120C from amongst the weapons on his Viper and made the radar scan forward at their current altitude. The Fulcrums went live with their own radar systems. At least one of them decided to lock onto Archer with the RWR beeping at him indicating an enemy radar lock. Archer returned the favour by locking onto the rear-most fighter in their formation.
"Gold 2, defending!" One of Archer's wingmen was actively being shot at. The fight was on now.
"Gold 4, fox 3!" Archer loosed off an AMRAAM, shortly before he himself was fired at. "Gold 4 defending!"
"Red 1, fox 3!"
"Red 3, fox 3!"
"Gold 1, fox 3!"
"Red 2, fox 3, fox 3."
"Gold 3, fox 3."
The Fulcrums were getting volley-fired by the Vipers. There were no less than eight missiles out against the four fighters, providing terrible odds at survival. Archer was diving to build up speed while notching against the missile locked on him. The missile was yet to pitbull on him, but the R-77-1, the Yuktobanian equivalent of the AIM-120C-7, was no slouch when it came to hitting its target.
The missile pitbulled on him. Archer puckered his lips, turned away and started climbing. His only chance now was to waste the missile's energy or force it to overshoot him without detonating.
Further back, Blaze was waiting for Samurai to enter the target data into the GPS guidance system of the JASSMs they were carrying. Compared to earlier generations of cruise missiles, inputting targeting data was simple. The pilot or WSO uploaded a target profile that would be constructed prior to a sortie to the missiles, and then the missiles would datalink with each other and assign individual targets to each other.
"We're live." Samurai said. Blaze put her thumb on the weapon release button.
"Wardog, execute." Bartlett's order was issued calmly. Blaze pressed the trigger. She felt her airframe get lighter as the five cruise missiles fell from their pylons, deployed their wings, ignited their small turbofan engines and pulled away from their launch platforms.
"Wardog 4, greyhound." Blaze uttered the brevity code for the launch of a cruise missile.
"Wardog 2, greyhound." Nagase said the same.
"Wardog 1, greyhound!" Bartlett.
"Wardog 3, greyhound, greyhound!" Chopper.
"Weapons away, Wardog, withdraw!" Bartlett ordered his squadron to get away from the area of operations. Suddenly able to turn harder without the risk of tearing her wings off, Blaze put her nose in the general direction of Sand Island.
Archer heard the woosh of air associated with a missile passing to his rear. The R-77 with his lucky number on it had gone for the virtual clouds of chaff that he had left behind, thank christ. Archer turned in against the Fulcrums and let loose another AMRAAM.
"Gold 4, fox 3!" Archer said as his missile left the rail. Truth be told, there wans't much point to lobbing that last AMRAAM since there were only two Fulcrums left in the air and there were at least three other AMRAAMs chasing them down.
"I think we got the message across, they're on the run." Corvus spotted the retreat of the surviving Fulcrum pair. "Vampire, withdraw."
"Wilco, roger." Archer was disappointed, but he complied with the order nevertheless. Gold and Red Flights pulled back to merge with Blue Flight before heading east to return to base. Archer risked a look at the datalink. Nothing. All four Fulcrums had been splashed. He settled in for the flight home.
At the rear of Wardog's formation, Blaze lifted her night vision goggles and visor and popped her mask off. She let go of the stick and rubbed her eyes. Looking at the world through two narrow green tubes at their highest gain setting was giving Blaze a headache. She left those goggles up all the way up to the landing approach. Blaze could see a faint blue on the horizon.