"New contact, bearing 020, designated Track 03." On the coast of the Cape Landers region, a man operating the radar station of a MIM-104 Patriot battery spotted a blip on the radar horizon. One contact, high in the sky and flying at a touch above Mach 3. Definitely not a civilian aircraft.
"Classification?" Another member of the battery asked over the internal comms net.
"Standby." The radar operator waited for the system to spit out a string. He got one. SR-71. "Yuktobanian Blackbird."
An officer entered the radar den. He looked at the radar intently.
"Contact's inside the no fly zone." The officer noticed.
"Yes sir." The radar operator agreed.
"You think his GPS is being jammed and leading him into the NFZ?" The officer posed a question.
"You think they're part of some Tomorrow Never Dies scenario, captain?" The radar operator reflected the question back at his battery commander. The officer chuckled and tapped his radio push-to-talk.
"All hands to stations. Standby to engage." The officer declared. The radar operator grinned and leant forward into his station with his headset on. The battery's personnel were scrambling to their various positions within the many vehicles and stations that formed the hardware used by the battery.
"Data link is live." The radar operator reported.
"Very well." The officer pressed his push to talk. "Kill Track 03 with birds."
"Kill track 03 with birds, aye sir."
Outside, the Patriot transport erector launcher that was closest to the target swivelled up on its mount and traversed forty degrees to the right to get the launcher pointing in the right direction.
"No IFF tag, no friendly aircraft in the area. Confirm."
"Confirmed, target is not squawking IFF, there are no friendly callsigns in the area." The control centre was suddenly busy.
"We're go for launch." The battery commander patted the radar operator on the shoulder. "Your trigger."
"My trigger." The radar operator acknowledged. "Killing track 03. Missile away."
September 24, 2010
Sand Island Air Force Base
Bartlett was sitting in his chair at the front of the squadron room staring up at the ceiling. He could hear the few pilots and WSOs he had left under his command chatting amongst themselves, but truthfully Bartlett was in his own world thinking about the events that had transpired yesterday. Of the twenty-four men and women originally assigned to Wardog Squadron, only seven remained.
Functionally however, they had eight. Major Hamilton, the handsome bastard that he was, had volunteered to act as Nagase's WSO until they could get a replacement. With any luck, new bodies from the mainland would arrive to cover Wardog's losses within the week. Or so Bartlett hoped.
There was a total media blackout in place on the island. All personnel were to hand in their personal devices to the security squadron on the base until further notice. There was to be no communication of yesterday's events to anybody not stationed at Sand Island. Hell, there hadn't been anything on the Osean Broadcasting Corporation news channel about the incident.
Bartlett inhaled to compose himself, uncrossed his legs and sat up to face his squadron. Hamilton was in a chair on his own who had noticed Bartlett and was paying attention to him.
"Quiet up!" Hamilton raised his voice to get above the chatter. The squadron all shut up and turned to face Bartlett. Bartlett gave them a couple of seconds to adjust. He sighed.
"I know you don't like this, but we're short on people. Starting today, we're all gonna be sitting Alert 15. If we launch, stay glued to me up there." Bartlett explained the situation. This was nothing new, every fighter pilot on the base had been on alert since yesterday afternoon, but now it was official.
Bartlett glanced at a certain second lieutenant. "Nagase."
"Sir?" Nagase answered.
"You're flying number two on my wing." Bartlett told her. "Gotta keep an eye on you or who knows what you'll get yourself into."
"Understood, sir." Nagase replied while nodding to confirm that she understood the order.
"Svenson, Hazard, number three. Keep an eye on the other nuggets." Bartlett was giving the rest of the squadron their assignments.
"Naturally." Svenson wasn't in the slightest surprised by being put into the Wardog 3 spot.
"Motormouth, Zoomer, let's see what you two can do in the spotlight. You're taking number four."
Chopper and Wolf fist-bumped each other.
"The kid and our resident exchange student. I think you've had enough fun at the tip. You'll be taking number five in the rear." Bartlett assigned Blaze and Samurai to Wardog's rear guard.
"Sounds like fun-" Samurai said before the door to the room opened. A member of the base's security squadron judging by his uniform and body armour.
"Apologies to interrupt. Major Bartlett, you and your squadron are needed in Briefing." The runner relayed information to Bartlett.
"Who's calling?" Bartlett rose to his feet, intrigued.
"Colonel Perrault, sir." The airman replied. Bartlett and Hamilton swapped glances at each other.
"Everyone, grab your stuff and get down there. If Perrault's calling it, it's something serious." Hamilton summarised.
"You heard him, stand to." Bartlett relayed the order. Ash, Kita, Nagase, Chopper, Wolf and Ghost all stood up and went to the lockers to retrieve their gear. Ash put her g-suit on followed by her vest. Kitagawa was doing the same.
"At least we're getting a briefing before we fly into a shitstorm this time." Kita joked to Ash. The latter smiled faintly.
"Knowing about it beforehand definitely makes it better." Ash retorted.
"Nah, Kita's got a point." Wolf stated as he zipped up his vest. "You know you've got to keep an eye out."
"I thought the technique was to always be paying attention." Hamilton mentioned. Minus his helmet, the acting WSO was ready to fly.
"You can't tell me you haven't slacked off at least once on a CAP rotation." Wolf sent Hamilton's point right back at him. Hamilton thought about it and conceded that Wolf had a point.
"No knocking off, not at this point in time." Bartlett warned his squadron.
"Aye sir." Ash replied in Wolf's tone of voice. The latter scrunched up a paper ball and tossed it at the back of Ash's head. "Ow."
The briefing room was on the ground floor directly below Wardog's squadron room and was essentially a small conference room. There were rows of chairs that led all the way to the back of the room. At the front was a massive whiteboard, a table with a computer, a server rack and a projector setup. The room was mostly dark save for blue battle lights towards the front of the room. Three people were present: Colonel Perrault, Major Kyle Edwins and Master Sergeant Tim Chaeny.
Major Edwins, callsign Thunderhead, was the third of the three OADF majors stationed at Sand Island. Like Bartlett and Hamilton, Thunderhead was a squadron leader, but his squadron was composed of a single aircraft, an E-2 Hawkeye. He was the crew chief and communications officer of the AWACS assigned to the base.
On the other hand, Master Sergeant Chaeny had a much more important job as the head of the electrician group of the engineering and ground maintenance group on the base. Computers were one of the many electrical appliances he serviced, but Perrault liked to keep Chaeny around to voice briefings.
"You're late." Perrault stated as Wardog entered the room and filled into the closest seats.
Hamilton checked his watch. "According to my clock, sir, we're an hour early."
Ash smiled hearing Hamilton's rhetoric. The squadron was seated. Ash unclipped her kneeboard and pen, ready to take notes.
"At ease people, but don't get too comfortable." Perrault started the briefing as he booted up the program the OADF used to formulate battle plans and briefings. "It's a grave situation for all of us right now. Let's get this briefing started."
On the screen was a map of the Cape Landers region, with significant cities, military bases, units and squadrons marked. At the far left corner of the map was Sand Island.
Chaeny took over the briefing.
"Another aircraft of Yuktobanian origin has entered Osean Federation airspace. We have confirmed the target type as a strategic recon plane flying at very high altitude. Despite our repeated warnings, it continued to penetrate our ADEZ and was fired upon by Osean Ground Defense Force SAMs."
Ash was scribbling notes in quickhand. CAPE LANDERS. YUKE RECON PLANE. HIT BY SAM. The remainder of the squadron were doing the same, Bartlett and Wolf the two exceptions.
The screen switched from a map to a 3D battlespace. Green triangles had their approach vector set as following the coast. A red triangle marked the recon aircraft.
"We believe one of our SAMs damaged the plane, but did not destroy it. Radar shows that the aircraft is currently losing altitude and is attempting to egress feet wet towards the ocean. Intercept this aircraft, bring it back to Sand Island and force it to land for identification. Do not fire upon this aircraft until further orders are transmitted." Chaeny concluded the briefing. "Any questions?"
Kitagawa raised her hand.
"Does the aircraft have any nearby escorts?" Her question was straightforward.
"None that are within range to respond in a timely fashion." Chaeny's answer was straightforward.
"Where's Vampire on this?" Bartlett asked.
"Holding the CAP line." Hamilton answered for Chaeny. "If anything serious pops off, they'll be around to assist."
Ash did a final checkover of her notes. CAPE LANDERS. YUKE RECON PLANE. HIT BY SAM. APPROACH FROM THE TIP. INTERCEPT. BRING BACK TO SAND ISLAND. NO QRF. VAMPIRE NEARBY.
Everything was in order. All Ash needed was her helmet, her WSO and her aircraft and she was good to go.
"I believe that's all. Get out there, you're dismissed." Perrault concluded the briefing. Ash strapped her kneeboard back on and stood up. Kitagawa was already at the end of the row of chairs waiting for her. Moving out into the main hallway of the building and out onto the space behind the flight line, Ash was tapping her fingers anxiously. The sudden absence of virtually the entire squadron hadn't gone unnoticed, even if Ash hadn't been there for the fight, and she could tell that it was weighing on everyone's minds through the silence as they made it to their Strike Eagles.
"Let's get this fucker." Kitagawa muttered climbing up into the cockpit. Ordanancemen were wheeling racks with Sidewinders and AMRAAMs and jacking them up onto pylons.
"Would be awfully fucking nice if they gave us an ordnance list beforehand." Ash said, initiating the engine startup process. The various instruments and multifunction displays flickered to life. Kitagawa looked over her shoulder at the wings.
"Four AMRAAMs, two Sidewinders." Kitagawa spotted. "Plus the gun, probably."
"What, are they expecting us to run away from whoever shoots at us first?" Ash joked. She chuckled a little at her own joke.
"We are faster than pretty much everything on this side of the world." Kitagawa took that joke a little too literally.
"Foxhounds notwithstanding." Ash replied. The MiG-31 Foxhound - and the MiG-25 Foxbat that preceded it - was a notable exception.
"Shaddup." Kitagawa dismissed the fact.
"Blaze, you're green, ready to go." The plane captain reported via a radio.
"Ack." Blaze answered. "Canopy!"
"Clear." Kitagawa made sure her limbs weren't outside of the confines of the cockpit as the plexiglass canopy lowered and sealed around them.
"Wardog 5, ready to step." Blaze reported.
"Wardog 3, good to go." Svenson reported a couple of seconds later.
"Wardog 2, ready to step." Nagase followed a minute later.
"Wardog 4, we're green." Wolf replied a moment after Nagase.
"Wardog Leader, ready. All Wardog callsigns, fall in, taxi on my tail." Bartlett was the last to be ready to step off. Ash watched as the nose of his aircraft became visible followed by the tail swinging out. Nagase pulled out of her hangar to follow, with Svenson and then Chopper in close succession. Ash briefly looked at her kneeboard and flipped pages before moving the throttle forward the tiniest bit and tacking to the rear of the squadron.
WARDOG 1 / HEARTBREAK ONE, GHOST / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / EDGE, HUNTER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / SVENSON, HAZARD / F-15E
WARDOG 4 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 5 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
Wardog Squadron's sortie was not the only such deployment at that time, on that side of the Osean Federation.
There was a joke spouted towards the end of the Cold War that the Osean Air Defense Force was the largest air force on Earth, while the second largest was the Osean Maritime Defense Force. By numbers of aircraft this was a false truth, with the Royal Erusean Air Force and the Yuktobanian Aerospace Forces taking the second and third spots. However, the OMDF did possess the world's largest carrier fleet, with twenty-two supercarriers.
One of these ships was the OFS Kestrel. The seventh ship of the Hubert-class supercarriers, her hull pennant carried the number 30, marking her as Osea's thirtieth nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Capable of carrying and sustaining constant flight operations for ninety aircraft, the Kestrel formed the core of Carrier Strike Group Taipan and served as the flagship of the Third Fleet, responsible for the Ceres Ocean region and stationed at Naval Station Saint Hewlett.
Nominally capable of carrying ninety aircraft, Carrier Air Wing Ten, the airwing assigned to the Kestrel, had sixty aircraft under its command. Strike Fighter Squadron 206, or VFA-206, was one of these squadrons.
The flight deck of an aircraft carrier, especially on a Hubert-class ship, was always busy. For Commander Marcus Snow, callsign Swordsman, it was another day in the office. A dark-skinned man of taller than average stature, he was the squadron leader of the Super Hornet equipped 'Snowbirds'. Swordsman was a no-nonsense man, both as a person and as a leader. To his credit, such an attitude worked: under his command, the Snowbirds had earnt the Battle Effectiveness Award, or the Battle "E", three years in a row.
Swordsman and his wingman sat on the Kestrel's forward catapults, catapults one and two. On the flight deck below them, the flight crews were busy refuelling and rearming the pair of Super Hornets. Such an occurrence was anything but irregular, but what made this flight special was the occasion behind it.
In the early hours of the morning, a civilian oil tanker, the Ginomi Saracen, went dark. No transponder, no replies to radio calls. Other civilian vessels in the area had failed to find the ship. As the sun came up over the horizon, one of the Kestrel's E-2 Hawkeye AWACS got a hit on two radar contacts to the west of the carrier. The first was determined to be a merchant ship. The second was a warship, most likely a Krivak-class frigate. The Krivak appeared to be leading the merchant west towards mainland Yuktobania. As the Saracen was an Osean-flagged merchant, this was cause for concern.
"Big Bird 102, airborne." Snow muttered as his landing gear departed the deck of the Kestrel.
"Swordsman, this is Owl Hunter, reading you louuuuuud and clear." The AWACS up this morning ringed in Swordsman's ears. Owl Hunter had a west coast accent, quickly spoken and high-pitched. With that said, he was more than capable of doing his job, which was why he was one of the two AWACS control officers assigned to CVW-10.
"Big Bird 106, feet wet." Swordsman's wingman was in the air. He looked over his shoulder as he banked around the carrier, nose up, gaining altitude.
"Big Bird, pushing 250 for 100. Angels 2." Swordsman was straight to business.
"Forming up." Big Bird 106 merged with Swordsman off his right wing.
"Contact is moving as fragged. Objectives… as fragged." Owl Hunter gave Swordsman the gist of target information. A glance at his pylons were all Swordsman needed to understand. Bombs and Harpoons were more than enough to deter any kind of surface threat. A hundred kilometres wasn't a long distance to cover in the air, especially at sub-Mach 1 speeds.
"Tally smokestack, eleven-o-clock far!" Big Bird 106 called out. Swordsman sat up in the cockpit. He saw it too. A fat billow of black smoke was rising from something. A ship. Not the kind of smoke that you'd see from a coal-fired ship's smokestack, no, it was smoke you'd see from a major oil fire.
"Owl Hunter, Big Bird 102, prepare for sitrep." Snow looked through the MFD display that showed what his targeting pod was looking at. The burning ship appeared to be a civilian vessel. He couldn't see a flag or name from that distance. What he could see was a military vessel ahead of the burning ship slowly towing her.
"Big Bird 102, patched in to the carrier, ready for SITREP." Owl Hunter was feeding their radio directly to the carrier's combat information centre.
"Sitrep as follows. Eyes on two ships, steaming west at ten knots. First ship is believed to be the Ginomi Saracen undergoing a catastrophic fire. Second ship is a frigate-sized vessel towing the Saracen-" Swordsman was reporting his findings when Big Bird 106 interrupted.
"Break break break, frigate identified as a Krivak III. Yuke flag." Big Bird 106 added to the situation report. "Wait, is that- 106 DEFENDING!"
A bit closer to home, an Air Force squadron was bearing down on their target. The five F-15Es were following the coast at an altitude of three thousand feet, maintaining an arrowhead formation. Blaze was at the very back of the squadron, zoned out and in a world of her own. She hadn't really been paying attention to the radio.
"This is Wardog Squadron, approaching the target." Bartlett said on the radio as they inched closer and closer to the Yuktobanian Blackbird.
"This is AWACS Thunderhead, acknowledged. Bring the target to the ground. Do not fire at the target, I say again, do not fire at the target." Their AWACS, a deep-voiced man going by the callsign Thunderhead advised.
"You got that, nuggets?" Bartlett checked with his pilots to double-check they understood the rules of engagement.
"Wardog 2, roger." Edge understood.
"Wardog 3, ack." Svenson acknowledged.
"Wardog 4, roger." Chopper got it.
There was silence from the air-headed Blaze. Samurai giggled.
"Wardog 5, hellooo? Can you hear me kid? You better be marking our tail!" Bartlett called out Blaze. It only then clicked in Blaze's mind that Wardog 5 was her callsign.
"Oh." Blaze cleared her throat. "Wardog 5, acknowledged."
"Sounds like you're confident, at least. Don't get separated from us." Bartlett was happy enough with the answer he got.
"Wilco." Blaze replied. She looked around the area. To her right was the ocean. To her left were the plains and forests that stretched along the entire Cape Landers peninsula. And according to the datalink, their target, the Blackbird, was to their north-west over the ocean. Wardog would close the distance between them and the Blackbird before pulling out to sea to conduct the intercept.
"Man, I'm glad you drew the short straw instead of us!" Chopper commented on Blaze's narrow avoidance of being chewed out.
"Motormouth, zip it! You need a new nickname, too?" Bartlett barked at Chopper.
"I respectfully ask to be called Chopper, sir." Chopper shot Bartlett's wit right back at him. "I'm afraid I may not be able to respond to any other moniker."
"Hmm. That does fit you well. Carry on." Bartlett conceded the win to Chopper.
The Blackbird came into view across their nose. A smoke trail followed it, and it was on a shallow dive down into thicker air.
"Tally-ho, we've got company. Let's go." Bartlett directed their focus towards the recon aircraft, turning in order to approach the aircraft. The rest of Wardog turned in suite to follow their flight lead. Blaze noticed that the Blackbird had a slight tilt against its direction of travel. One of its engines must have been damaged by SAM fire. Wardog closed with the Blackbird until they were practically on top of it.
"Alright, where's Motormouth Chopper?" Bartlett asked. "You've got a knack for comic dialogue. You mind sending the surrender request for me?"
"Oh no, please, age before beauty." Chopper rebuked Bartlett's request, despite the fact that it was an order.
"I'm real shy around strangers, you know…" Bartlett dragged on. Blaze smiled and rolled her eyes listening to them banter.
"Awww. Ahem." Chopper worked a voice crack out of his system. "Attention unidentified aircraft, set your course for our beacon immediately. We will direct you to the nearest airfield. Pop a flare if you understand."
"Warning!" AWACS Thunderhead chimed in. "We have four high-speed bogeys inbound. Approaching unknown aircraft bearing 280, altitude six thousand."
"Uh-oh." Samurai muttered. Blaze checked the datalink. Four aircraft, 280, approaching at high speed.
"So much for no fighters within QRF range." Hamilton said in a sarcastic tone.
"Crossing the pond to fly cover for their spy plane, huh? Now there's a fighter pilot worth his wings." Bartlett almost sounded cynical. "Enemy inbound bearing 280! Head on!"
"Sir, what about the-" Blaze began asking a question.
"The Blackbird can wait, let's go!" Bartlett wasn't worried about losing the spy plane.
"Yes, sir." Blaze followed along. They went from forming an arrowhead to forming a line abreast. As it turned out, the approaching fighters weren't very far away, only twenty kilometres and closing fast. Blaze looked out on the HUD for the approaching bogies.
"Tally four bogies on the nose." Samurai saw them before Blaze did.
"I see them." Bartlett spotted the approaching bogies. "Are those Yaks?"
In front of Wardog's five F-15Es were four unmarked Yak-141s, a Yuktobanian-designed supersonic interceptor with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. Fielded in the eighties to be flown from Yuktobania's old Kiev-class aircraft-carrying cruisers, they were in no way as capable as the Su-33s and Su-35Ks fielded by the Yuktobanian Navy, but their VTOL ability meant that they were the only fighters in their arsenal capable of flying from ships without catapults or ramps.
"Definitely Yaks. Weird fucking paintscheme." Svenson added his two cents.
"They're coming right at us." Samurai noticed. Blaze tensed up and keyed a Sidewinder. Just in case.
"Loosen up, don't hit them." Bartlett told the squadron to loosen their formation. Blaze banked out to the right. At least one fighter looked like it was going to pass off to her side. Ash had a bad feeling about the merge, a hunch that was proved right. She saw a flash from the underside of the Yak-141 ahead of her.
"Wardog 5, defending!" Blaze blurted out, rolling and popping chaff and flares. The missile fired by the Yak passed over her shoulder and detonated on the flares harmlessly.
"Heads up, they're firing at us!" Chopper sounded off. Wardog Squadron merged into the Yaks.
"Wardog Squadron, weapons safe! Hold your fire until further orders!" Thunderhead attempted to order the squadron, albeit far too late as Blaze had already gotten an AIM-9X off at the Yak-141 that had engaged her first. A fireball ensued.
"Wardog 5, splash one!" Blaze called, turning around looking for other targets. She saw flare cartridges in the air and the fireballs of two destroyed aircraft. One was a Yak, the other was an F-15E. Somebody had been hit and was going in.
"Shit, who is that?" Zoomer asked with an urgent tone in his voice. "One Wardog is down!"
"Need help, I've got one on my tail!" Nagase called for assistance. Blaze saw the problem, a single Yak-141 on Nagase's six. Nagase popped flares to evade a missile successfully. Blaze turned in and uncaged the seeker of her Sidewinder.
"Fox 2!" Blaze called, firing a missile at the bandit on Nagase's tail. Boom. Splash one Freestyle. "Splash two. You're clear, Edge."
"Thanks."
"Gimme a target, Sam!" Blaze asked from Samurai as she banked around again looking for another target.
"Heartbreak, splash one!" Bartlett declared his shootdown of another bandit. Having heard everyone, Blaze gathered that Svenson and Hazard had been shot down. She cursed and hoped that they had ejected in time before putting her mind to the task at hand, chasing down the last bandit. With liberal use of their vertical lift jets, a Yak had forced Chopper to overshoot and put him in the defensive. Blaze helped out by lining up a shot with guns and firing. The twenty-mike shells tore off the last Yak's wing which sent it into a death spiral down into the ocean.
"Wardog 5, splash three!" Three Yaks down.
"Goddang, thanks for the assist!" Chopper sounded relieved.
Beep-beep. Blaze's RWR sounded. A new group of aircraft were making their presence known.
"Popup group, bearing 280. Yak-141s!" Samurai was quick to call the new group. "They're locking us!"
"Two can play that game." Blaze exhaled and turned towards the approaching enemy fighters. Using the track-while-scan capability of the Mudhen's radar, Blaze locked all four aircraft before firing off a salvo of four AMRAAMs.
"Wardog 5, fox 3, fox 3!" Blaze called before remembering that she only had four AMRAAMs. She was out. "Wardog 5, winchester."
"Keep the nose on them!" Samurai requested. "Missiles are tracking… all four bandits are defensive."
"No Adders in the air?" Blaze was worried that the Yaks had gotten at least one missile off in their direction.
"Not that I can tell." Samurai replied. Blaze trusted her WSO but remained tight on the stick regardless. She started notching just in case there was an angry pipe with her name on it. Even as targets started dropping off the radar coinciding with faint flashes of black smoke in the distance, no missiles went pitbull on them. If the Yaks had gotten off anything, they had missed.
"Wardog 5, slash six." Samurai made the final contact call. "Thunderhead, bogey dope."
"No aircraft in the vicinity. Scope is clear." Thunderhead reported the absence of any supporting aircraft.
"Wait, no aircraft? What about that Blackbird?" Blaze recalled the presence of a recon plane they had been deployed to intercept.
"He probably hit the ocean floor. Either way he's not our problem anymore." Bartlett figured. "Control, Wardog 1, picture is clear, recon plane has splashed down. Got anything else for us?"
"Fuckin' hope not." Blaze mused to herself as the only aircraft in the squadron with no missiles left. Samurai chuckled.
"Wardog Squadron, remain on station, a SAR helicopter is being deployed to search for Wardog 3." Ground control back at Sand Island gave them the verdict.
"Understood, Wardog 1 out. You heard him nuggets, hold station. Scan the ocean surface while we're here. If they bailed, they couldn't have gotten far."
Concurrently with Wardog's encounter with a Yak-141 squadron, Commander Snow and his wingman were having an encounter with a hostile Krivak-III class frigate. Swordsman was notching and dropping chaff to evade the SAM coming after him. It was a risky play, but while the Osa's radar was set on him, it allowed Big Bird 106 to come around the bow of the frigate with laser-guided bombs.
"C'mon Monster, c'mon!" Swordsman almost shit himself when he heard the whistle of a SAM pass not an inch too close to his rear. "That was close!"
"Monster, pickle, pickle!" Big Bird 106 got his bombs off at the frigate and pulled away from the warship. Not a moment too soon, for the frigate had fired another Osa SAM at Swordsman. Fortunately, the dual impact of two-thousand pound bombs smashed into the Krivak-III like a sledgehammer. The missile lost its track with the loss of the radar guiding it and it went off into the open skies, doomed to a fate of self-destruction.
"Did you get it?" Swordsman asked. He couldn't see the frigate through the smoke of the oiler it was towing.
"Oh yeah, she's going up like a fucking firecracker!" Big Bird 106 responded. "Owl Hunter, scratch one frigate."
"You got it? Nice." Owl Hunter replied with his drawl. "Rough Rider 304 and 311 are on their way to assist you, the Excalibur's moving in to assist the Saracen."
"Ack that. We got anything else on the scope?" Swordsman asked. Surely the ship had some kind of reinforcement nearby.
"Nothing that can respond within the next couple of hours. We're in the clear for now." Owl Hunter answered with a concise bogey dope.
"Yeah…" Swordsman flew over the burning Saracen. Ahead of it, the frigate was keeling over hard to starboard. "How far away is the Excalibur? The Saracen's topside is almost completely on fire- oh shit. Owl Hunter, I think the oiler's leaking oil."