"Come on, we have to fly into that." I heard Brownie say as I leveled us off after the most recent bout of turbulence.
"Yeah not the most fun of things to do." I said looking at the wall of rain and lightning that was ahead of us obscuring the towering spires of rock that make up Yinshi Valley. "At least we don't have to hit the SAM sites like the others."
"Yeah well we have to try and dogfight in that mess so, either way this is gonna suck." she shot back and I had to give her the point it was going to suck if there were any fighters in this mess. We were originally going to help the rest of Spare until an hour before take off, when the prisoners that act as the ground crew replaced our UGBs with AiM-132s which are air burst missiles. There was no time to swap again so we were now completely useless for most ground attacking,
"So want to tell me again how they managed to swap our payload without you noticing."
"Um no commit.
"That's what I thought."
"Ah shut it Trigger at least I never lost an entire gunpod."
Turning to look back at Brownie I said " I thought we were never going to talk about that again,"
"Yeah but you wont shut up about the bombs."
With a deadpan look I flipped my visor down and turned away looking out at the rest of Spare squadron. I had originally been flying alongside the bulk of the squadron but as visibility got worse the closer to the storm we got I let us fall back away from the others. Watching the clouds for a second longer I keyed up the mic "Hey Bandog are you sure you don't need an escort today do you?"
Coughing to hide a chuckle he replied. "Negative Spare 15 these lovely Raptors look like they got it, besides it's not much prettier up here just less lightning."
"Well I tried on another note we just passed the last waypoint and im assuming that our objective is in the storm just ahead?"
"Spare 15's correct that valley ahead is your destination, remember take out those SAMs and clear the area for the recon team."
"Copy that Bandog I'll lead the way fellas." Count replied already moving his bird ahead and starting to line up for his first dive into the columns.
"Don't forget to call out any VTOLs or Helicopters you spot and we'll deal with them." I tacked on after Count."
"What about regular birds?" a random Spare asked.
Ignoring the urge to give a sarcastic answer I said. "Bandog will see those before us. He can't see the ones hiding on the ground though, so call them out and I'll deal with them."
"Oh ok then."
Before anyone else could say anything Champ called out some choppers. "Hey there four choppers over here,"
Checking my IFF momentarily to find Champ I pointed us in his direction, once I got within range to lock on I noticed they were AH-64Ds. "Where the hell are they getting all these Apaches from did the Osean Army have a bargain sale on them." I said as I fired off two missiles at two of them and gunned down the third pulling up and over the pillars to line up on the last one.
"Hey Trigger try the 132s I'm not quite sure how they fly and this is a relatively low risk chance to find out."
"Copy that Brownie." I said, making my run and waiting to get the lock on the AH-64, "Spare 15 Missile out."
The 132 apparently flew very similarly to the AiM-9 if just a little slower but I still thought it was a missed shot as the Helicopter seemed to dodge the missile, I even heard Brownie key up to call a missed shot when the missile suddenly detonated and caused just enough damage to cause the chopper to slam into the cliffside.
"Well I guess they do pretty good for the more agile foes."
"Yeah I guess so." Brownie replied as we made to climb above the pillars as we looked for more threats. In the end there was only two other foes both where Harriers and they ended up running instead of engaging. Once Bandog declared all radar and SAM sites were destroyed the Osean recon team arrived bringing MQ-99s along with them.
"Well shit this could be going better." I said banking hard to dodge a missile while also lobbing off an 132 and hitting a drone that was on one of the recon members. The second they were clear I dived down after another in trouble F-15 Brownie called out. "And fox two fox two, you should be clear to get out of here."
"Thank you for that I'm pulling off."
"Alright that's all Strider craft out it's just me and two others." their flight lead said.
"Hey Trigger bad news it looks like we're going to have to get up close and personal with those storm clouds, the drones are dragging the last three toward the clouds."
Seeing what she saw I replied. " yeah you still have those spare fuses right?"
"Uh yeah I got a few, why?"
"If we do get hit and stay flying we might need them, but only use them for important systems like coms and radar."
"That's a lot of assumptions there."
"Eh it what I do best, anyway are there any other Spare with us over here?"
"Negative there all fucking off with two drones at the edge of the AO."
"Of course they are, alright we are about to hit the clouds so hang on and help me look for pillars visibilities about to tank." I said right as we punched into the thunderheads and grabbed onto the first drone I saw.
"Holy shit Trigger just went into the thundercloud."
"Fox two." Brownie called out as we splashed another drone and I lined up on the next. I was trying to get a good lock but it just kept ducking behind pillars and not even the 132s could hit it. Just when I was about to break off and try another approach the drone suddenly got hit with lightning. Once I could see clearly after the flash I could see it drunkenly flying just barely staying in a straight line, not wasting the chance I had. I quickly knocked it the rest of the way out of the air with a burst from the guns.
"Ha ha the fuckers cant take a little zap apparently." I said to Brownie but of course our luck wouldn't hold out as since the drone was no longer in the air there was only one very big brick of metal in the area for mother nature to show her displeasure at.
"Oh Fuck Spare 15 just got hit with lightning."
"Is he going down?"
"Calm down, you Idiots, pull up and check your systems Spare 15." Bandog called out, cutting off the slowly building panic in Spare.
"Yeah yeah we're still in the air HUDs rebooting and Brownies doing system checks, but we still have FCS and control of the craft." I called out. "Think we can take the last drone once the HUD resets?" I asked Brownie
"I think so everything other than the compass and a few non critical systems we look good, it must have been just a close call instead of a direct hit cause this bird is not insulated very well."
"Good enough for me, let's do it." the last drone was fairly easy to down since the pilot that it was chasing worked with us to line up the shot.`
"Nice teamwork there, all my guys are free and I'm grateful."
"Copy that Cyclops 1, all Spares, the airspace is clear, return to base."
"About time lets-."
"Wait alert Champ you got incoming, all Spares help Spare 8." Bandog cut in, unfortunately everyone was too far away to help and the unknown to Champ down with no problems. "Shit Spare 8 is down and there's three more incoming there targeting the recon team."
"Fuck lets go." I said throttling up to get to the recon team.
"Damnit Spare 10 lost and two recon craft are down, what the hell is with this guy that's an Su-30."
By that time we had just made it. "Trigger look at the lead 30, it's got orange wing tips.
"It's the asshole from Chopinburg, you good back there Brownie?"
"Yeah I'm good , let's bag this bastard."
"Spare 15 I'm engaging the lead." I said letting off a burst of gunfire getting him to break off from the recon team and dive toward the pillars bellow.`
"Triggers taking the beast head on Tabloid, Count you two form an element and take the escorts." Bandog ordered
"Fuck copy that."
"No way in hell I'm breaking off and getting out of here."
I just barely heard Counts reply as I was trying to keep up with who the recon team was calling Mr. X. "Mother fucker Count of all the bullshit you could pull this is the worst fucking coward." cutting off my coms I said to Brownie " if anything important happens let me know I'm gonna focus on this guy."
"Copy that Trigger I'll keep up callouts as well."
The longer we kept following Mr. X the harder it was to get clean shots on him, he was constantly going between spires and doing that stupid Kulbit and tried to get me with it but I had learned since our last fight. "Ha dumbass that won't work on me twice." I said out loud as Brownie popped flares and I pulled us out from his missile lock.
"Shit I lost him do you see him Brownie?" I said looking around, having a slight sense of Deja Va.
"Negative, I lost him in the clouds."
Before she could even finish her sentence I dived into the spires away from a burst of gunfire that came from the clouds directly above us. "Oh fuck you good Browine?"
"Holy shit… yeah good job any later and he would have hit the cockpit."
He once again got behind us and started our cat and mouse game through the spires with us both launching missiles and gunfire. We got a few hits into him but he also got a few hits in on us but it was in non-critical areas so we kept on. We had just got him to overshoot and give us a clear shot when suddenly all the hair on my body stood up straight and BANG. even louder than the one before lightning had just hit our bird. "Fuck status Browine."
"Shit HUDs not resetting and radars fubar I'm changing the fuse for coms now." She said after a minute as I blindly wove through the spires unable to see where Mr. X had went.
"Bandog, this is Brownie, that last strike took out our radar and other systems. Where did he go?"
"I lost him on radar shortly after that he got away somehow, All Spares return to base, recon team follow Spare 15 hopefully you lot have enough fuel."
"Hey Trigger kindness will get you killed."
"Yeah maybe so Count but at least I can look at myself in the mirror."
Flipping coms off again I turned to look at Brownie." So think we can limp home?"
"Yeah we'll have to follow the others cause I've got no navigation instruments working back here, you?"
"Nothing but my altimeter and IAS (Indicated Airspeed), you might as well get comfy back there, it's gonna be a long flight back."