BDA's in. Word is that we really fucked up their runway.
Hopefully no sorties from there for a couple of weeks. Sucks that the media blackout's still in effect, though.
Aye. And the rotations. I mean, shit, the way she's sleeping there, Ash makes it look like she lives here.
Should we wake her up?
I'll go get coffee, give me a few minutes.
Alrighty Ash, I hope you're in the mood for caffeine.
"Hmm?" Ash muttered drowsily. She rolled over so that she was facing her F-15. Grimm was standing in front of her, wearing everything minus his helmet. Ash checked her watch. 8AM. "I'd almost say hard concrete is a good enough substitute for a hammock.
"The way you make it look, it might as well be." Grimm seemed to agree. "Taylor just went to go get coffee."
"Thank god, I need a caffeine hit." Ash sat up and propped herself up against the hangar wall. She yawned loudly. Grimm took a seat next to her.
"According to the guys over in intelligence, our strike did a number on Murska's runway." Grimm informed Ash of the bomb damage assessment outcome.
"So your missiles actually made it to the target?" Ash was subtly impressed if it was true.
"Dunno. Point is, we completed the mission." Grimm didn't know for sure.
"Fair point." Ash rubbed her eyes. "Did you know that pilots in the Osean War were issued amphetamines as part of their ration kits?"
"I did not." Grimm admitted. "I know there were cases of pilots overdosing in flight in the Wellow War, though."
"I was about to get to that." Blaze carried on. "They got pulled from inventory after the war."
"Is there a reason why you're bringing this up?" Grimm was curious.
"I don't condone using drugs, but, heh…" Ash giggled. "I could fucking use a few right about now."
"Fair." Grimm conceded that Ash had a point. "Have you ever tried that stuff?"
Ash shook her head. "I've tried weed and ecstasy, but none of the hard stuff."
"Uni?" Grimm wagered a guess.
"Uni." Ash replied honestly.
Right on cue, Wolf arrived with a tray of four styrofoam coffee cups.
"Look who woke up." Wolf knelt down next to the pair and passed them a mug each. "Black, double shot, none of that soft shit."
"Perfect." Ash practically inhaled the caffeine. It was bitter as all hell, but she needed the boost of energy to get her through the rest of the day. "You on rotation, Zoomer?"
Wolf shook his head. "Nah, I was just keeping Grimm's spirits up."
Ash giggled once more. "Shining example of morale, you."
"Wouldn't have it any other way." Wolf sat down alongside them and sipped gradually at his cup. Ash wrapped her hands around the coffee cup while slowly consuming the last few sips worth of caffeine-filled bitterness.
Wolf had already finished his coffee. Grimm had noticed.
"You haven't even been back for a minute." Grimm pointed out.
"I run on caffeine and spite, what can I say?" Wolf retorted Grimm's statement, his correct statement no less. Ash put her cup down and laid her head against the hangar wall. She heard footsteps, followed by a shadow, followed by her WSO. Kitagawa had her g-suit and vest on, but she was wearing a black tee shirt instead of the usual olive green aviator's top.
"Where's your top, Sam?" Ash asked when she noticed.
"Wouldn't you like to know." Kitagawa winked at her. "No. If we're sitting here all day, I'm doing so comfortably."
"Fair, honestly." Wolf agreed with that sentiment, himself wearing his multicam working uniform, something you didn't see pilots wearing often. Kitagawa sat down next to Ash.
"You're still-" Grimm began to speak.
WHEEER-WHEEER-WHEEER-WHEEER-WHEEER-WHEEER-WHEEER!
"INCOMING, INCOMING, INCOMING!" A voice blared loudly over the alarm.
"Is that the fucking incoming alarm?" Wolf asked with a flat tone of no-fucks-given. Ash, Grimm and Kitagawa were much more panicked by the alarm. Grimm was virtually gliding away from their hangar towards his F-16. Ash and Kitagawa had leaped up into their seats in the Mudhen. As had been standard for the past couple of weeks, the loadout of choice for today was four AIM-120Cs, two AIM-9Xs, two GBU-12s and two AGM-84 Harpoons. Ash started rolling the aircraft up the taxiway before she had even closed the canopy.
As the canopy was coming down, Ash heard the very distinctive noise of a gatling gun firing up into the sky. At what looked to be a kilometre or two away, she spotted a flash and then a stream of black smoke. A downed missile.
"Tower, Blaze, taking off runway main!" Ash announced as she reached the runway, pushing the throttle all the way to afterburner. Ash looked over her shoulder. Grimm wasn't far behind them.
"Blaze, Control, we've got a massive influx of cruise missiles bearing 280! Follow that bearing and eliminate the launch platforms!"
WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
VAMPIRE 1 / ARCHER / F-16C
"Nothing on datalink." Samurai was searching for a target. Blaze pulled back on the stick and climbed. "What? Nothing on radar either."
"Might be below the radar horizon, just give it a minute." Blaze brought the Mudhen up almost ten thousand feet and levelled out towards the bearing that control had given them. Archer was doing his best to keep up in the slower Viper. Blaze occasionally eyed the radar display. Plenty of cruise missile sized targets, but nothing else was visible or registering as a contact. It occurred to Ash that the launch platform could have been a regiment of bombers that were already running like hell back for their airbase, but she pressed on towards the source of the missiles. There was a virtual river of them coming from that bearing. Fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty…
"Fuck me..." Blaze was amazed by the sheer number of missiles in the air. "Control, I've got eyes on over a hundred birds inbound on this bearing."
"Acknowledged, carry-" Control had been answering when the transmission was suddenly cut off. Blaze didn't have to guess why. Blaze bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood in her mouth. "Ah fuck, fuck!"
"Steel yourself." Samurai's ever-so-calm voice rang in Blaze's head.
"Yeah I know, I know." Blaze took a deep breath and tried not to think about it.
"Blaze, tally smoke trails, ten-o-clock low!" Samurai called out something she spotted. Blaze rolled slightly to the left and looked down. There were white smoke trails above the ocean surface ten thousand feet below. Blaze brought the throttle back and descended.
"Get the pod on that." Blaze ordered, referring to the target guidance pod their Mudhen had fitted for self-lasing and observation. Samurai swivled the TGP around and locked it on the point at which she had seen the smoke trail, not a moment too soon for she had seen something.
"Plumes of water. It's a sub." Samurai extrapolated. The one thing they couldn't counter. Blaze cursed once more.
"Wardog 1 to ALCON, Sand Island is under attack from a submerged missile carrier, reference my location on BLUFORCE, two hundred clicks due 280 from the base! I say again, a submarine is attacking Sand Island with missiles!"
Blaze's desperate requests for help would not be heeded, not least because of Sand Island's remoteness from other Osean Defense Force bases. By the time anyone responded, the damage had already been done.
"Get that hose on the bombs!"
"We don't have nearly enough water to cover the entire depot, we need to get out!"
"There's still guys in the armoury shop!"
"Oh for fuck's sake! I'm going for them!"
"Taylor, wait!"
Bearing a respirator mask, a flash hood and a SCBA apparatus, Wolf dashed through fire, smog and smoke inside one of the base's ammunition dumps. He found an unconscious airman in the doorway to one of the weapon maintenance shops. Wolf grabbed him by the torso and hoisted him over his back, bringing the casualty out of the ammunition dump and moving him to the casualty collection point outside. Wolf rushed back inside. The heat was close to unbearable but Wolf soldiered through, fireman carrying another casualty to the CCP. Once more he went into the burning ammo dump. An explosion rocked the building. The fires inside the depot had become hot enough to start cooking off some of the more volatile explosives. Despite that, Wolf found one more casualty. With every exposed skin surface feeling like it was burning, Wolf fireman-carried the last unconscious soul out.
"Last man, get out, get out!" Wolf shouted as he passed the firefighter crew. Himself, the hosemen and the fire extinguisher carriers appeared from the smoke billowing out of the ammo dump. The CCP had been moved further away from the dump in anticipation of the impending explosion. Wolf dropped the final casualty and tore off the SCBA and respirator he had been wearing. He was sweating like there was no tomorrow and his forearms looked like they had been under the sun for a few hours with no sunscreen.
"Taylor." Somebody called out Wolf's name. He turned in the direction of the call. A medic passed him a chilled bottle of water.
"Thanks." Wolf popped the bottle cap off and dumped most of the contents over his head.
Colonel Perrault looked upon the fires engulfing the older, unoccupied buildings and facilities on the island from his office space. Major Edwins was standing next to him, looking out the same window. Perrault didn't seem incredibly concerned.
"The air defence attachment did a good job." Perrault calmly observed.
"We need another battery and more ammunition." Edwin added his thoughts. "They're not going to miss twice."
"Isn't that the truth." Perrault agreed. "Looks like we've weathered the storm. Get up there while you've got the chance."
"Yes, sir." Edwin left Perrault's office. Not long after him, Perrault sighed, collected his cap and left the office to survey the damage.
Blaze felt sick to her stomach returning to Sand Island. She had no contact with control or the air traffic control tower and there was a massive billow of smoke visible from beyond the horizon. With that said, there was at least some kind of friendly presence left because a glance at the BLUFORCE tracker told Blaze that the Patriot battery and C-RAM systems were up, as well as some Vampire Squadron Vipers making their way into the air.
"Goth, this is Blaze, do you read?" Blaze hoped that the senior of the two F-16 pilots could hear her on the radio.
"I read you kid." Captain Shapiro - Goth - responded. "Don't worry about the base, they hit everything but the shit we use."
Ash sighed a breath of relief. "Ack. Forming up on you, ma'am."
"I'll come to you. Let's make sure nothing else gets through."
Three dead. Thirteen wounded. Two of the ammunition storage depots, the majority of the old piers and shipyards and the old runway had been utterly destroyed or damaged beyond reasonable repair. Wireless communications array damaged. For a salvo of two hundred cruise missiles, the occupied portion of Sand Island had gotten off incredibly lucky but now the stakes were real. This was the first time Yuktobania had laid hands on Sand Island proper.
Eight people were awarded the Bronze Star for containing the spread of fires. Amongst them was First Lieutenant Wolf Taylor.
"In the big leagues now, Zoomer." Bartlett patted Wolf on the back.
"Into the shadow box it'll go, never to be seen again." Wolf was fidgeting with the medal in his hands, lying down on one of the lounges in the squadron room.
"You rushed in there real quick, goddamn." Gammon commented on Wolf's mad dash into the centre of the firefighting centre.
"Force of habit, no doubt." Nagase said aloud, leaning back in a chair reading some biography about an old Osean admiral.
"Two hundred fucking missiles." Ash steered the topic of discussion elsewhere. "All from one platform. That's gotta be the Scinfaxi, yeah?"
"Or the other one that starts with a H." Wolf added.
"Had to have been the Scinfaxi. The Hrimfaxi's in the Spring Sea fleet." Nagase added her two cents.
"And still with the media blackout. I want to know what the fuck's going on elsewhere across the seaboard." Bartlett pointed out that the information blackout on the base was still in effect.
The door to the squadron room opened. Hamilton poked his blonde head through the opening.
"Jack, you're needed in the conference room." Hamilton grabbed Bartlett's attention.
"What for?" Bartlett asked.
Hamilton shrugged. "Perrault's reigning in all the captains and majors. It's something important."
"Well shit. Yeah I'm comin'." Bartlett left the room with Hamilton without as much as a word to his subordinates. There was silence in the room for a moment.
"All of the company-grade officers?" Nagase pondered. "Something's going down."
"In all fairness, we did just get pounded with an entire strike group's worth of missiles." Wolf didn't seem surprised, as per usual. Ash laid down on the lounge that Wolf wasn't occupying. Kitagawa came from the locker room and took a seat near Nagase.
"What's the topic of discussion?" Kitagawa asked drowsily.
"Bartlett got abducted for some senior officer's meeting." Wolf replied, still fidgeting with the bronze star medal in his hands.
"Go figure." Kitagawa wasn't surprised. "Subs. Fun."
"What are the odds we see Galaxies and Orions start showing up bringing in supplies and personnel tomorrow?" Nagase pondered aloud.
"I bet twenty that we'll see a pair of C-5s with another Patriot battery before midnight." Wolf wagered.
"Agree." Kitagawa agreed with Wolf's estimate.
"What about you Ash, what do you think?" Wolf asked from his seated position. He got no reply. "Ash?"
"Ah." Kitagawa chuckled. "She's asleep."