"Ten armed assailants led a mass shooting at Bana City University-"
"-two hundred fatalities with three hundred people in critical condition-"
"-attack is believed to have been orchestrated by Yuktobania as respite for Dresden College, which was by Osean Air Defense Force fighters-"
Hamilton sighed and muted the TV as he finished off the last of his plate. The major wasn't entirely surprised that Yuktobania had decided to react given how many people had died in the Dresden bombing, but he was still bitter about it. No matter if the attack was proportionate or not, attacking civilians was a dirty move no matter which way it was cut.
"Major Hamilton, sir?" A voice rang out from the entrance. Hamilton spun around in his chair. An enlisted airman was standing in the doorway.
"Yes, Airman?" Hamilton replied.
"Wardog Squadron has returned, sir." The junior airman informed him.
"Very well, thank you." Hamilton put his tray away in the dirty pile and walked from the officer's mess and through the accommodation block to get to the administrative block. Hamilton climbed the stairs and walked into Wardog's squadron room. Sure enough, six familiar faces. Wolf was the first of them to notice Hamilton's presence.
"Hamilton." The ex-sailor called out Hamilton's presence. All of Wardog spun to face him all at once.
"I take it the hearing went well." Hamilton observed by the fact that most of Wardog was back at base.
"Yeah!" Chopper piped up. "Massive waste of time, but it went well."
Hamilton winced. "We did what we could, but orders were orders."
"Look at it this way, at least we were only gone for a day and a half." Ash said from the doorway to the lockers, her hair fresh and damp from a shower. "Can I help you, sir?"
"Just checking up on your squadron." Hamilton replied. "That was all."
"Well, I'll see you around, Major."
"Likewise, Captain." Hamilton backed away and closed the door behind him.
4 November 2010
The following day, Wardog was leaping back into the fire and flames. As they received their briefing, as it turned out, they were almost literally leaping into the fire. Chaeny was annotating the briefing.
"The Yuktobanian Army has been stockpiling artillery shells and rockets at warehouses behind the lines and out of range of conventional artillery range. The largest of these warehouses on the front is located at Big Brother Mountain, some one hundred kilometres behind the lines. The warehouse itself is located within a cave system in the mountain backed by a dense layer of bedrock and is defended by an umbrella of ground based air defences. We assess that to properly destroy the warehouse, you will need to attack the entrance at low level and make a sharp turn to avoid hitting the mountain."
Blaze was studying the topography intently. The mountain sharply peaked at one thousand five hundred metres above the ground. Warehouses, roads, barracks and other infrastructure surrounded the cave entrance at the southern end of the mountain. Other mountains dotted the general region, none of them anywhere near as tall as Big Brother.
Nagase raised her hand. "How much resistance should we be expecting?"
"Yuktobanian air assets have been busy running counter-air operations along the frontline. Expect to be bumped within five to ten minutes of being detected." Chaeny replied. Blaze raised her hand next to ask a question.
"Are we being supported by other assets or are we on our own?" Blaze asked.
"EW assets are completely saturated with other operations. Other fighter squadrons may be on station to provide air support, but aside from that you'll be on your own." Chaeny clarified. Blaze nodded and leant back to ponder about how they'd go around executing the mission. Strictly speaking, their only target was the warehouse inside the mountain and they'd only need a handful of explosives to deal with that. The more pressing issue was the anti-air threat.
"Grimm, Nagase, you'll be taking a package of HARMs to suppress enemy anti-air." Blaze decided. "Chopper… how good is your rocket tossing?"
"Get me close enough and I can hit anything." Chopper said confidently.
"Alright. We're going to refuel at Bastok before approaching the base at low altitude. Nagase, Grimm, at fifteen klicks you're going to pop up and launch HARMs at anything close to the base. Chopper, you and I are going to line up the tunnel and lob rockets into the cave. Watch the mountain wall." Blaze gave her squadron the mission plan. "Clear?"
"Crystal." Grimm.
"Clear." Chopper.
"Understood." Nagase.
"Let's go and get this done." Blaze.
WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / EDGE, CORVUS / F-15E
WARDOG 4 / ARCHER / F-16C
As was standard by this point, the flight from Sand Island to the Yuktobanian mainland was long, arduous and boring. The only thing of even minor interest that Blaze observed as she led Wardog into battle was noticing a large storm cloud formation rolling east towards Osea. It had been non-stop raining over the coast for the past week. Finally, it looked like the weather was clearing up.
Stopping over at the forward air base on the Bastok Peninsula, Nagase saw enough air defence systems, sandbag barriers and improvised structures around the runway to make Sand Island look like a small base in comparison. Many of the dedicated hangars had been destroyed at some point during the invasion, so Wardog was directed to a set of tent hangars to refuel.
"I was expecting this place to be less… intact." Nagase said to Pops, her WSO.
"Means the big bad air defenders are doing their job." Pops mused. Deciding that was a good thing, Nagase murmured something in agreement and waited for her fuel gauge to read that it was full before taxiing out of the tent hangars behind Blaze and lifting back up into the humid skies.
Almost immediately after leaving Bastok, Wardog Squadron lowered their altitude to better mask their radar signatures with ground clutter. Passing through a section of the front line that was uncontested by ground forces, the seven Oseans found themselves in enemy airspace. Blaze looked at her RWR and winced slightly. There were a lot of radar emitters in the area, everything from SAM sites to fighters to AWACS from both the OADF and the YAF.
"Wardog, hit the deck." Blaze ordered. "Turn heading 235, five hundred knots."
They were now on their way towards the mission objective. Occasionally having to adjust course to avoid hitting a hill, Blaze looked around at the surrounding terrain. Grasslands, highways, small towns and forests. Plenty of places for man portable anti-air teams with Iglas to hide.
"Keep an eye out for smoke trails." Blaze said to Samurai.
"Rog." Samurai replied, scanning the surrounding environment. If somebody launched a missile at them, she'd see the smoke trail from the rocket booster of any incoming SAMs. Fortunately that scenario never played out, even as they closed in on Big Brother.
"Wardog, caution." Thunderhead called out from their rear. "Picking up four Su-35s, 350 for 200, Angels 23. Looks like they're heading in your general direction."
"Wardog, light burners and haul ass." Blaze ordered, throwing her engines into afterburner and accelerating forward. The target was a scant fifty klicks away. Chopper, Nagase and Grimm followed Blaze's example. Grimm started falling behind due to the lesser thrust output of his single engined F-16.
"Don't wait for me, I'll catch up." Grimm said to his squadmates, encouraging them to carry on without him. Bracing herself for a high gee turn, Blaze turned out to the south to get to the correct aspect she'd need to take the shot. Nagase and Grimm headed straight on and Chopper followed Blaze's tail.
"Picking up Tors and Shilkas." Nagase called out. Short and medium range self-propelled anti air in the vicinity of the target.
"Target the Shilkas on my command." Blaze ordered.
"Copy." Grimm and Nagase both echoed Blaze's command. Blaze looked over to Big Brother Mountain. It dominated the landscape with its aggressive height relative to its circumference. Undeterred, Blaze and Chopper flanked around until they were almost dead south relative to the target facility.
"Alright Chopper, here we go, turn in and follow my tail." Blaze ordered, leaning back into the seat and squeezing her abdomen and thighs to power through the turn without being hit by G-LOC.
"On you." Chopper grunted, strained by the sudden turn.
"Thunderhead, where are those Flankers?" Blaze asked the AWACS about the position of the group of Flankers.
"004 for 140, still Angels 23." Thunderhead pointed out their position.
"Wardog, execute, execute, execute!" Blaze called out. In the distance she saw Nagase and Grimm pop up from the deck in formation, facing the facility.
"Edge, Magnum, Magnum!" Nagase fired her pair of AGM-88 HARMs.
"Archer, Magnum." Grimm fired his two HARMs in turn a couple of seconds after his wingman. Behind Blaze, Samurai was lining up their targeting pod with the entrance to the cave system
"We're lined up." Samurai told her pilot.
"Blaze, in." Blaze put her Zuni rockets onto her trigger. The HUD displayed the relevant terminology, including a marker where it was predicted the Zunis would land. She and Chopper made like hell for the tunnel, hoping to get within weapons range just after Grimm and Nagase's HARMs impacted their targets. Big Brother Mountain very quickly got closer and closer until it took up most of Blaze's forward vision. In the boundaries of the warehouse facility, there were four explosions from the defending Tors and Shilkas catching anti-radiation missiles.
"Come on, come on, come on…" Blaze muttered to herself. She could see the tunnel entrance and she was in the process of lining up the gunsight with it when she noticed a quick flash and a smoke trail heading towards her at speed.
"MANPADS, Wardog 1 defending!" Blaze yelled, yanking back violently on the stick and popping flares to defend against the incoming missile. As she pulled through ninety degrees in a vertical climb, Blaze felt like an elephant was sitting on her chest. She had gone from level flight to a nine gee turn in an instant. The MANPADS tracked onto the flares and detonated safely away from both Blaze and Chopper. "Fuck!"
"Engaging target! Chopper was fortunately still on target. "Chopper, rocket, rocket, rocket!"
Levelling out and turning away to avoid hitting Big Brother, Blaze watched Chopper make his attack run. Zuni rockets launched out from their belly mounted pods underneath his Mudhen and streaked out with bright white trails straight into the tunnel leading into the cave system. Chopper fired all sixteen of his rockets into the tunnel before pulling up violently to avoid hitting the mountain. Initially Blaze didn't see anything that indicated they had actually hit their target, but then out of nowhere a massive orange flame violently flared out of the tunnel.
"Shack on the target." Blaze reported. "Good effect, good effect."
"Captain, heads up!" Grimm called out. "Four Su-35s heading right for us!"
"Take them out. Wardog, head on!" Blaze ordered, turning around and heading on towards the incoming Flankers. She pressed a button in the stores management system. There was a clunk as the Zuni rocket pods slowing Blaze's Mudhen down were jettisoned. Chopper got away from the mountain and formed up on Blaze as Grimm and Nagase flew to meet the enemy.
"Edge, Fox 3, Fox 3! Defending!" Nagase fired at the Flankers, in turn being locked onto and fired at. Blaze was surprised, the Flankers were closer than what she had expected.
"Archer, Fox 3, defending." Grimm was in the same boat as Nagase, quickly firing AMRAAMs before chaffing and notching away to spoof the incoming R-77s. Blaze and Chopper were just barely out of weapons range. Surprised by a sudden wave of missiles coming right back at them, the Flankers made a sharp dive towards the ground, such a sharp dive that they broke radar line of sight by hiding behind a hill and disappearing from Wardog's radar sets.
Not willing to let the offending Flankers get away, Blaze let her engines rip and sped up to chase them down, Chopper on her wing flying as support. Overtaking Nagase and Grimm, Blaze and Chopper broke the sound barrier and approached the area where the Flankers had last been seen.
"Tally two, right below us!" Samurai saw two of the four.
"Brace." Blaze said a split second before throwing the stock, rolling over and pulling hard to get her nose over the two fighters. "Blaze, Fox 2, Fox 2!"
Blaze fired Sidewinders at both Flankers, hoping to get two kills without the pilots realising that they were being fired upon. Boom. Boom. Both fighters were splashed, one after the other. "Blaze, splash two!"
"Watch out kid, other two are behind and below!" Chopper had found the other two. Blaze banked and turned around a hundred and eighty degrees to get after the remaining two. Chopper got his nose on the two Flankers well before Blaze could.
"Chopper, Fox 3, Fox 3!" Chopper fired AMRAAMs at near point blank towards the Flankers. At what should have reasonably been Sidewinder employment range, it was almost impossible to evade a radar guided missile like the AMRAAM. Both missiles found their targets. "Chopper, splash two!"
Blaze checked the datalink to make sure there weren't any extra air contacts before popping her mask off and taking a deep breath.
"Alright." She sighed. "Thunderhead, Wardog 1, target objective destroyed and all enemy aircraft have been splashed."
"Copy that, Wardog. Form up and withdraw east from the AO." Thunderhead ordered.
"Roger, wilco." Blaze put her mask back on and turned east towards Bastok. The squadron formed a wedge formation around her and the four aircraft withdrew from the active combat area.
The flight back to Sand Island was much the same as the flight to Yuktobania. Touch and go at Bastok Forward Air Base to refuel and then an hour and a half of boredom until they got home. By the time Wardog Squadron returned, the sun was dipping below the horizon. The lights set up along the flight line provided more light than the sun did by the time Blaze stepped onto the tarmac.
Walking upstairs and stowing their gear, Wardog dispersed into the squadron room to eat dinner and decompress before knocking off to bed. Ash grabbed a laptop and started working on some of her paperwork backlog while the rest of the squadron watched the evening news. Ash drowned out the noise and focused on what she was doing until she heard an expletive muttered by Nagase. She looked up at the TV.
"The Osean Department of Defense released a statement at 5PM Capital time, stating that explosives planted aboard an SSTO spacecraft have damaged the Arkbird. The DOD states that nobody was injured in the explosion, but the Arkbird suffered significant damage and will be out of action for some time. They further stated that they suspect Yuktobanian saboteurs were responsible for the attack."
Samurai whistled. "So about the Hrimfaxi threat…"