"Wardog, two bandits at 310 for 350, Angels 30, flanking north. Turn 335 to intercept."
"Wardog copies, burner at 335 to intercept bandits."
18 OCT 2010
Patrolling to the west of Sand Island, Blaze and Nagase lit their afterburners and banked north. A plenitude of Sidewinders and AMRAAMs hung from their pylons. With the twin engines of their Mudhens roaring, the two broke the sound barrier and headed on towards the bandits. Sitting in the pilot's seat of a freshly painted F-15E, Blaze flipped down the tinted visor mounted on her helmet.
"Thunderhead, do we have an ID on the bandits?" Nagase asked from the trail position of the two-ship formation.
"Standby." A pause from Thunderhead. "Most likely Su-35s."
"What a surprise." Samurai muttered sarcastically.
"Wardog, caution, bandits are turning hot towards you and increasing speed." Thunderhead informed the two Wardog aircraft that the enemy aircraft were pushing towards them.
"The fuck?" Blaze looked at her RWR. The bandits were cold and there was no sign of an A-50 anywhere in the area. "We're way too far away to be picked up on FLIR."
"Want to go live?" Nagase asked.
"Neg." Blaze replied. "Might be random. Wait until they go hot."
"Ack."
Blaze was perplexed. She and Nagase weren't emitting with any active sensors, relying purely on Thunderhead's over-the-horizon radar guidance. Her radar warning receiver wasn't picking up any hostile or unknown radar signatures. And yet the two Flankers were undeniably pushing their position. As the two parties closed to within a hundred and fifty kilometres of each other, the Flankers went live. Thunderhead was right, they were up against a pair of Su-35s.
"Fuck it, light up." Blaze ordered. Samurai switched on their radar. Nagase did the same. Now both parties were definitely aware of each other's positions. Blaze locked up the lead bandit and continued to close the distance until she was within weapon employment range.
"Wardog 1, fox 3." Blaze let off a missile. An AMRAAM fell off its pylon and shot up and ahead.
"Wardog, fox 3!" Nagase engaged the other bandit.
Blaze flew towards the bandits and into the employment range of the R-77, partly to give a follow up shot a higher chance of hitting its target, but mostly to give her AMRAAM mid-course guidance as it streaked through the air. She estimated that she had thirty seconds until the Flankers lobbed an R-77 in her direction. Thirty seconds turned into a minute. A minute turned into two minutes. Both Flankers disappeared from radar.
"Wardog, splash two." Blaze made the kill report. "Thunderhead, bogey dope."
"Picture clean." Thunderhead replied. "Return to pattern."
"Exciting morning." Samurai mused as Blaze and Nagase brought their aircraft back to the combat air patrol pattern that they had been frequenting all morning.
"Edge, fuel stat?" Blaze asked her wingman.
"Enough to get us through the rest of the patrol." Pops, Nagase's WSO, replied for her.
"Ack. Carry on."
The remaining hour of their CAP rotation was unfortunately nowhere near as exciting as the fight they had just gotten into. Two F-15Cs from a different squadron relieved them and the two returned to Sand Island. After waiting for a cargo flight to clear the runway, Blaze and Nagase touched town, taxied over to the flight line and powered down. They let the maintenance squadron do their thing while they went back to the squadron room and stowed their kit. Blaze filled in the relevant AAR form and sent it forward to the wing's commanding officer.
20 OCT 2010
A couple of days after the shootdown, while Ash was casually reading through documents on her laptop and the rest of the squadron was watching TV, the phone in their squad room started ringing. Knowing where the phone was by instinct now, Ash took the call with one hand.
"Captain Paige, Wardog Squadron."
"Major Hamilton. Get everyone down to Brief 1."
"Wilco, be down in two." Ash put the phone down. "Wardog! Kit, Briefing 1!"
"They say what the occasion was?" Chopper asked, standing up and moving to the lockers room. All of Wardog was doing the same.
"In typical fashion, no." Ash replied, fitting through the doorframe, going to her locker and withdrawing her helmet, g-suit, gloves and kneeboard. Once everyone had their shit, the seven members of the squadron made their way downstairs and into the air conditioned dimly lit room that was Briefing Room 1. Hamilton and Chaeny were prepared and waiting for Wardog.
"All hands accounted for." Ash stated as she, the last person in the column of pilots and WSOs, walked in. Once they had all taken a seat and were ready to listen, Chaeny began the mission briefing.
"Yuktobanian aerial activity has seen an uptick in the past two days. Previously this was believed to have been a random coincidence, but intelligence has found out that the Yuktobanians have been using a series of imaging satellites to find, track and intercept both Air Force and Navy assets." Chaeny started. "Two of these satellites are due to pass over the ocean in three hours. To that end, you'll be deploying in pairs. One shooter, one escort."
"Chopper, Grimm, you're the second pair." Ash delegated buddies almost immediately. "Nagase, you're with me."
"Oh yeah, send the two retards out on their own." Chopper quipped. Kitagawa snickered. Ash bit her lip to stop herself from laughing.
"As I was saying… Shooters, you will be armed with a new ASAT weapon. I'm told it's a massive upgrade over the 135." Chaeny continued with the briefing. "In one hour, your pairs will be flying out north and south respectively. The north firing point is four hundred kilometres away. The south point is six hundred kilometres that way."
Ash was writing all of this down on her kneeboard. "Chopper, you're going north."
"Rog." Chopper was writing all of this down as the second element leader.
"Be cautious out there. With the satellites coming overhead, intelligence suspects that fighters and interceptors will be in the air." Chaeny gave the threat assessment for the operation. "Any questions?"
No questions.
"Very well. Get out there."
Walking down the flight line and passing by her aircraft, she noticed that her Mudhen looked a lot cleaner and less worn down than the other aircraft under her command. The benefits of abandoning her old aircraft in the ocean and picking up a Mudhen fresh out of storage, Ash figured. As she and Kitagawa walked up to the Mudhen, Ash noticed an unfamiliar weapon being loaded onto the centreline pylon where a drop tank normally went. It was painted a shade of dark grey, seamlessly blending in with the gunship grey of their F-15E's belly.
"That must be the new ASAT." Kitagawa figured. The two mounted up.
"Smaller than the 135." Ash commented on the new weapon.
"And we're only carrying one." Kitagawa added her own observations. "Outboard pylons are fuel tanks."
Ash looked to each side at their wings. She saw two drop tanks and four Sidewinders. Ash also saw AMRAAMs sitting on the weapon trolleys outside that were being mounted to the aircraft's underbelly pylons. Making sure that an external power supply was connected and that there weren't any airmen lingering around the rear of the aircraft or fixing panels inside the intakes, Ash powered up the Mudhen's electricals. Her displays and lights flashed to life.
"Four Sidewinders, four AMRAAMs. I take it we're expecting a fight." Kitagawa reported their weapons status.
"Enough to give us space from a patrol." Ash said. She checked her radios. "Wardog, radio check."
"Chopper, lima charlie."
"Edge, loud and clear."
"Archer, reading you loud and clear."
"All loud and clear. Blaze out." Ash released the radio push-to-talk. Once they were fully fueled and loaded, Ash spooled up the engines. "Canopy!"
"Clear." Kitagawa called back, making sure her arms were clear as the canopy dropped down and sealed around them, drowning out the high-pitched whine of their twin turbofans. As soon as the rest of Wardog was ready to depart, the ground crews pulled the chocks from under the wheels and they were off.
WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / EDGE, CORVUS / F-15E
WARDOG 4 / ARCHER / F-16C
Once they were in the air, the two pairs split. Chopper and Grimm went to their designated firing point up north, while Blaze and Nagase flew south. Blaze's reasoning for sending Chopper and Grimm north was two-fold. The first reason was that since Grimm was flying a Viper, he couldn't go as far as the CFT and drop tank equipped Mudhens. The second was the fact that Grimm was simply one of, if not the best pilot in the squadron. With the young Second Lieutenant's track record, Blaze was confident that Grimm could handle just about anything the Yukes could throw at them.
"Wardog 1 and 3, outbound heading 190, Angels 40, four hundred knots." Blaze stated her flight characteristics. Settling at forty thousand feet above sea level, she and Nagase got as comfortable as they could for the hour-long flight to their firing station.
"Huh, neat." Samurai spoke up. "ASM-141. That's new."
"The fuck is an ASM-141?" Blaze asked. "Is that our ASAT?"
"Uh…" Samurai hit a couple of buttons. "It would appear to be."
"Did they give us a manual of arms at the very least?" Blaze asked a second question. "It'd be nice to know how to use the thing."
"How hard could it be?" Samurai said rhetorically. "Looks like it uses the same profiles as a 135."
Saying nothing more on the matter, Blaze steadily pushed the throttle forward until they were moving at a cruisy four hundred knots. Heading south away from Sand Island, the weather over the boundary between the Pacific and Ceres Oceans was the usual. Cloud formations, light crosswind, bright yellow sun casting its light across the ocean. With an hour to kill and nobody else around to overhear them, Samurai popped her oxygen mask off.
"Hey Ash." Samurai beckoned her pilot.
"Ya?" Blaze replied.
"How did your dad pass away?" Samurai asked, completely out of left field.
Blaze chuckled nervously. "I'd rather not talk about that while we're in the air."
"Okay, well, do you want to talk about how you're the female equivalent of a virgin when it comes to women?" Samurai found something just as touchy to talk about. Blaze snorted and burst into laughter.
"Get fucked." Blaze managed in a fit of laughter. Samurai giggled.'
"Fuck me yourself, coward." Samurai retorted, making Blaze laugh even harder.
"We're not on CAP rotation tonight, and there's nothing big coming up." Blaze thought about it. "Dorms, in the shower, tonight?"
"I-" Samurai chuckled, caught off guard. "Do you have a thing for being railed in the shower?"
"I mean, it's steamy, it's warm, I get to watch you undress. It's a good place to bang." Blaze justified her choice of room.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you're into missionary for the purpose of breeding." Samurai muttered.
"Purpose of procreation. Procreation, Kita." Blaze corrected her WSO on the saying.
"Same thing." Samurai retorted. "By the way, I'm holding you to that promise."
"What, did you think I was kidding?" Blaze turned in her seat to look Samurai in the eyes. "I wasn't fucking joking."
"Good!" Samurai said loudly. "I'll make you orgasm again!"
"You better-" Blaze yelled back but then paused, realising the absurdity of what they were saying while in the middle of an operation. "We'll talk about this later. Mission first."
"Yes, ma'am." Samurai was suddenly all serious, putting her mask back on. Blaze flipped her visor down and focused on maintaining their current heading.
While the Sotoan-Osean lesbian duo were bickering, Chopper and Grimm were pushing towards their mission objective. Chopper was sitting at a cool forty thousand feet, with Grimm situated a good twenty thousand feet below his element lead. The Viper had stubby wings compared to the Mudhen and struggled to move and turn at very high altitudes.
"Hey Grimm, still marking my tail?" Chopper asked from his high perch.
Grimm looked up. Chopper was a small grey dot above and ahead of him. "Tracking on you, sir."
"Cool. Once we're done with this shoot, I'm dropping down to you." Chopper stated.
"Copy." Grimm replied. He was constantly looking around both at the horizon and at his datalink display. If any Yuke fighters were out there, Grimm wanted to know about it as soon as possible. Chopper was carrying the new ASATs they had been given as well as missiles for self-defence. By comparison, Grimm had a drop tank, six AMRAAMs and two Sidewinders. Not the upper limit of what he could carry, but he was still fitted out for a fight.
"Thunderhead, this is Chopper, we're in position, how copy?" Chopper made a call to the AWACS. They were in the designated place to fire.
"Roger Wardog. Satellite will be passing overhead in five mikes. Standby for my mark." Thunderhead replied. Grimm started circling around, waiting. He looked up. Chopper was orbiting overhead, waiting for the order to come over the radio so he could fire.
"How are the other two going?" Grimm asked in reference to Blaze and Nagase.
"They'll be on point in five minutes." Thunderhead replied. The radio went quiet. What was five minutes in reality felt like an eternity sitting in the cockpit, being battered by the sun. "All Wardog elements, satellites are passing overhead. Execute, execute, execute."
Grimm looked up once more. Chopper had put his Mudhen into a near-vertical climb, his afterburners roaring trying to keep the pig of an aircraft flying up.
"Wardog 2, darkstar, darkstar!" Zoomer rattled off. A smoke trail rocketed off into the sky from underneath Chopper's aircraft. The new anti-satellite weapon that he had been carrying. "Weapon is tracking."
"Wardog 2, Wardog 4, standby for new tasking." Thunderhead had a new mission for the two. Grimm frowned.
"Thunderhead, Wardog 2… roger? Ready for tasking." Chopper was just as confused as Grimm. Neither of them had been expecting a secondary mission out of the blue.
"Tasking as follows. A cargo aircraft is claiming to have a politician onboard seeking Osean asylum." Thunderhead gave them their mission. "Turn heading 210, get eyes on and verify the situation."
"A defector? Fun." Grimm mused.
"Roger. Archer, turn 210, Angels 20, burners." Chopper ordered, dropping from fifty thousand feet to twenty thousand feet to form up on Grimm's left forequarter. "Wardog is burner to intercept."
Grimm put his throttle all the way to toggle the afterburner and zoomed forward, breaking the sound barrier. He checked the datalink. There were two aircraft that would interdict their heading. An Il-76, presumably the aforementioned aircraft in their tasking, and what appeared to be an Su-35, which Thunderhead hadn't mentioned.
"I've got eyes on a Flanker on radar." Chopper said something about it before Grimm did. "Thunderhead, bullseye 210 for 400, is that our guy?"
"Affirmative, Wardog 2." Thunderhead replied dryly.
"Alright. What are the chances they're on emergency net at this range?" Chopper asked.
"Want to give it a shot?" Grimm suggested.
"Am doing." Chopper cleared this throat. "Attention unknown aircraft in the vicinity four hundred klicks north-west of Sand Island, this is Osean Air Defense Forces flight Wardog bearing on you from your north-east. State your ID and intentions or you will be met with lethal force."
Silence over the air.
"Wardog Flight, this is Flora 2-2, the Su-35 to your south-west." A younger-sounding woman sounded off over the radio. "I am escorting a VIP flight carrying politicians and officers seeking asylum in Osea."
"Uh… Roger that Flora 2-2. Stand down your radar and disengage your masterarm." Chopper instructed. "My flight is approaching to make a visual inspection."
"Copy, Wardog." The woman answered.
"Today just took a turn." Grimm remarked. They were talking with a Yuktobanian fighter pilot on an open channel.
"Thunderhead, entering visual range now. Eyes on what appears to be a Candid in official Yuktobanian colours and a Naval Avation Flanker." Chopper reported the situation back to the AWACS. Grimm and Chopper slowed down and turned into the formation. The Flanker switched sides and merged ahead of the two Osean fighters, keeping forward of their noses. To Grimm that seemed like a good sign. If this was bait, Grimm would have positioned himself behind his pursuers. Grimm looked at the Flanker's weapons carriage. Two R-73s and one R-77.
"Flora 2-2, does the transport have a functioning radio?" Chopper asked the Yuktobanian Flanker pilot.
"Yes, but I don't think they speak your language. If you need to ask anything, I'll translate." Flora 2-2 replied.
"Right. How many people are onboard?" Chopper started asking a series of questions. A brief period of silence as Flora 2-2 contacted the Candid pilot and information was relayed back and forward between the two Yuktobanian pilots.
"Two aircrew, six military officers, one civilian. Nine souls total." Flora 2-2 relayed.
"Copy. Standby." Chopper switched from emergency net to their radio. "Thunderhead, Wardog 2, the Yukes are claiming to have nine heads onboard the transport, mostly Yuke officers."
"Standby Wardog." Thunderhead was relaying the situation up the chain of command. Grimm, Chopper, Zoomer and the Yuktobanian fighter pilot cruised closer and closer to Osean territory. It took a few minutes for the situation to get to somebody with authority and for that person to relay orders back to the AWACS. "Wardog, escort both aircraft to Sand Island."
"Copy." Chopper confirmed his new orders. "Flora 2-2, maintain current bearing, speed and altitude. We'll escort you to our base."
The pilot let loose an audible sigh of relief. "Roger that Wardog. Thank you. We'll maintain this bearing."
"We letting them in?" Grimm asked his element lead.
"Guess so." Chopper replied. "Wonder who this civvie guy is?"
"What are the chances it's the Yuktobanian president and we're kickstarting some kind of movie plot?" Grimm joked. Chopper laughed.
"God, I hope so." Chopper said. "Alright, let's go home."