Ash bobbed up and down in the waves as green and yellow dye stained the waters surrounding her. The situation she was in could be better, but it also could have been a hell of a lot worse. The one-man emergency life raft deployed from its canister. Ash pulled herself up into it and laid down on her back, thoroughly drenched. She ensured her recovery beacon was active before settling in to see if she would become a foreign rescue or a prisoner of war.
"Are you sure it's not a technical issue?" Hamilton asked a radar and systems operator as they walked into the command and control centre.
"Her tracker went offline over the Fuscum Sea and troubleshooting's pointing us to a dead transmitter." The operator took a seat. "It could be a case of battle damage, but if there was an Osean aircraft over Emmeria you'd be hearing about it before me sir."
"Goddamnit." Hamilton muttered to himself. "Send somebody out for me if you get a fix on her position."
Wolf, Kitagawa and Danica sat in Wardog's room as the sun drew closer to setting. Kitagawa was staring idly out the window at the flight line, Danica sitting opposite of her. Wolf was eating and sorting out some personal administration on a laptop.
"Solo flying a Strike Eagle deep into the Yuke's ADIZ. That was a suicide mission from the start." Danica was saying. Kitagawa shot her a hostile eye.
"You're not very good at the whole subtlety thing, are you Macer?" Kitagawa harshly shot back at Danica.
"Blaze is a good pilot, that much I'm sure of." Danica stood her ground. "But one good pilot against an entire nation. That was never going to work."
"Oi." Wolf glanced at the two. "Knock off the horseplay."
Kitagawa wanted to reach across the seats and strangle the Viper pilot, but she knew the Oseans were right. In the corner of the room, the phone started ringing. Although only a First Lieutenant, Wolf was still the most senior officer in the room and as such answered the call, putting down his food tray to pick up the phone.
"Lieutenant Taylor, Wardog Squadron." Wolf answered the phone. His normal face of ease slowly changed to him biting the corner of his lip in angst. "Roger. I'll let the others know. Get back to me if you get an update on her loc."
Wolf put down the phone and sighed. He approached Danica and Kitagawa, falling into a seat.
"The captain's signal was lost over the Fuscum Sea. Either she was shot down or she ran out of fuel." Wolf broke the bad news.
While Wardog was getting the bad news, Ash continued to bop up and down in the sea. Her recovery beacon was flashing a green LED to indicate that it was active. She held a radio in her hand while she laid down in the raft. Her body heat combined with the climate had already begun to dry out her uniform. The radio crackled to life.
"Wardog 1, SOCAG, do you read, over?" The same radio controller that Ash had been conversing with not thirty minutes ago was still on the air. Ash pressed the transmit button.
"I read." Ash replied, bobbing up and down in the waves.
"We've got a track on your signal beacon. A search and rescue helicopter will be on scene in ten minutes." SOCAG control reported.
"Rog, I'll pop a flare and some markers." Ash told the Coast Guard signaller. She grabbed a dye sachet from a pocket in the raft, ripped it open and threw its contents into the water. The water turned a bright shade of green and yellow as the chemicals disseminated into the sea. Five minutes later, Ash picked up a flare gun and fired a bright red flare straight up into the air.
Over the sloshing of waves and a calm southerly breeze, Ash heard a quiet thrumming breaking through the sounds of Mother Nature. She laid up in the raft and looked at her compass. It sounded like the noise was coming from the north. She didn't get her hopes up immediately. For all she knew, it could have been the helicopter from a Yuktobanian Navy warship. Ash was therefore pleasantly surprised to see a white and orange helicopter approaching at speed. Not a moment later Ash also heard the distinct roar of turbofans at high altitude. She looked up but didn't see shit owing to the sun. Ash broke out the final tool in her visibility aids, reflective markers. Ash flashed them in the direction of the approaching helicopter to get its attention. The helicopter, now clearly identifiable as a Blackhawk variant, saw the signal flashes and turned to head towards Ash.
"SOCAG, Vulture 3, eyes on downed pilot, moving into position for recovery." The pilot of the HH-60J Jayhawk called in on the radio.
"Roger Vulture 3. Recover and return to base." SOCAG control ordered. Observing Vulture 3 from fifteen thousand feet overhead, two Typhoons were both monitoring the situation and flying out to meet a pair of Yuktobanian Su-35s.
"Vulture 3, Warlock 1, make haste north. Flankers are in a hurry." Warlock 1, the leader of the Typhoon flight, instructed the helicopter many altitude blocks below.
"Moving as fast as we can." Vulture 3 responded. In the meantime, Warlock 1 and Warlock 2 edged on towards the Flankers.
"Fighters in the vicinity of Archer Cape, this is Warlock Flight of the Emmerian Air Force. Squawk ID and intent or you may be subject to lethal action." Warlock 1 transmitted to the Flankers. The two Su-35s seemed to maintain their course despite the threat of lethal force. In spite of that statement, the lead Flanker lit up his radar, followed shortly by his buddy. Both of them locked up the Emmerian Typhoons.
"Talisman!" Warlock 2 spoke up. "Radar warning!"
"I got it too." Talisman, Warlock 1, was also getting the radar pings. Talisman chose to paint the lead Flanker with her own radar. "Kessler, Warlock 1, we're being locked up by Yuktobanian fighters."
BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP-
"Scratch that, Warlock 1 engaged defensive!" Talisman damn near shit himself when he got the missile launch warning, but composed himself quick enough to fire a Meteor off in retaliation. "Warlock 1, fox 3!"
"Warlock 2, fox 3!" Warlock 2 returned fire. The two parties had a separation of eighty kilometres and there was no terrain to hide behind. Talisman dived down towards the ocean surface while turning cold against the incoming missile and dumping chaff. He continued to dive for a minute straight before cranking up and trading altitude for speed to strip the approaching R-77 of its energy. Missiles like the AMRAAM or R-77 were fast and had good radars, but they were limited in their capacity to engage targets at long range by their powerplants, essentially rocket boosters. By contrast, the Meteor missile was powered by a ramjet which provided power throughout most of the missile's flight time. It provided a very high probability of a kill against manoeuvring targets at distance, such as the Su-35s who had rather boldly decided to engage a pair of neutral fighters. The two radars of the Flanker went dark and their signatures disappeared from radar
"Warlock Flight, splash two Flankers!" Talisman declared, levelling out and turning south in case the two fighters had backup in the area.
As the fight between the Emmerian Typhoons and the Yuktobanian Flankers was taking place, Ash was being hoisted up from her raft and into the waiting arms of an Emmerian Coast Guard medical officer.
"Welcome to Emmeria, ma'am!" The medic shouted above the noise of the main rotor spinning overhead. "Are you injured or otherwise feeling ill?!"
"No!" Ash shouted back. She could hear what the medic was saying, but only barely. One of the other members of the flight crew slapped home the door and suddenly the interior of the helicopter was a lot less deafening.
"Osea, eh?" The medic picked up on the details of the woman they had just rescued by taking a look at the patches on her uniform. "Funny seeing you in our corner of the woods. Were you the only person downed?"
"Yes sir." Ash replied. "One man ship, just myself. No WSO."
"Fair play." The medic put a pulse oximeter on Ash's ungloved hands and wrapped a blood pressure monitor around her other arm. "Just doing a basic check, ma'am."
"Thanks." Ash hung her head low while the medic did her thing. Being in foreign hands felt weird, but at the very least she found reconciliation in the fact that she was in Emmerian hands and not Yuktobanian hands. Ash glanced over at her vital stats. Good oxygen saturation, normal blood pressure, slightly above average heart rate. All green.
"Alright ma'am, we're gonna be taking you to Portsville Coast Guard Station. We'll figure out the admin side of things from there." The medic explained the situation to Ash. "It's about a twenty minute flight, so don't get too comfortable."
"Ah, it's fine, only been in a cockpit for…" Ash checked her watch. "Three hours, give or take one."