"Grabacr 1, Mother Goose, we are making our landing approach. It is the base commander's request that you remain airborne until we're on the deck."
"Roger Mother Goose, Grabacr Squadron is entering racetrack formation west of the island."
Four F/A-18E Super Hornets broke away from the white and blue painted Airbus A380 they were escorting. The airbus flew the Osean flag and today it was carrying a very special passenger: the President of the Osean Federation. Inversely, the Super Hornets were also of a special origin. They were not Rhinos flown by the OMDF. They were flagged as OADF fighters, painted in a dark grey scheme and with a snake adorning their tail fins.
"You know the drill." Grabacr 1 stated with a bored voice. "Line up and keep an eye out."
Behind the stick of the lead Rhino was an aged and weary soul. Despite her age, Ashley Bernitz was as switched on and as deadly as ever. A Lieutenant Colonel in the OADF, she was the leader of an aggressor squadron, the 8492nd Aggressor Squadron, better known as Grabacr Squadron. Her experience was not limited to the OADF. Some fifteen years prior, Bernitz and her wingmen flew under the iron cross of the Belkan Luftwaffe. These days they trained young Osean pilots in air-to-air combat.
"Grabacr Squadron, Sand Island Tower. You've been approved for landing. Approach runway 1-3 right." Sand Island's air traffic controller gave Grabacr permission to land.
"Roger." Bernitz replied, taking herself and her wingmen east to line up for their landing approach. The Super Hornet landed with a rough thud, its bulky landing gear taking up the shock from the impact as the aircraft slowed to taxi speeds. They were directed to park alongside one of the large aircraft shelters being used to hide the President's A380 from overhead observation. Once in position, Bernitz punched out and slid down the aircraft's ladder to the ground. The morning breeze blew her light brown hair around like a fritz.
8 OCT 2010
Sand Island
Having virtually the entire base on parade duty felt weird in the middle of a war, but as it turned out, tradition prevailed even in war. At the very least none of the aviation department were being forced to wear their dress blues. Within the aviation department, Ash was ahead of Wardog as their commanding officer. Their squadron was noticeably smaller compared to the rest of the air wing, with only six in their numbers as opposed to the ten or twelve personnel within the next largest squadrons.
From the A380 airliner repurposed as the official transport of the head of state of the Osean Federation came out a respectable number of armed members of the Secret Service, the President's personal detail. They surrounded the stairwell of the A380 and kept an eye on the crowd as the President himself made his appearance. Vincent Harling.
"Here he is." Chopper whispered from the back of the squadron.
"Quiet up, Chopper." Ash quietly reprimanded her second in command. Chopper tightened up and shut his mouth. Near the aircraft, President Harling was speaking with the base's command staff. Perrault, Hamilton, the head of department officers and the base's chief master sergeant. They started walking Harling around the formation of troops and airmen. It clicked in Ash's head. Perrault had formed them up for a troop inspection. They went around the different sections of the personnel on-bae, occasionally stopping for Harling to talk to the men. They came around to the pilots and other kinds of aircrew. Just out of earshot Ash heard Harling talking to Thunderhead and the crew within his Hawkeye AWACS. Harling, the base commanders and the OSS escort entered their line and stopped in front of Wardog Squadron. Ash puckered up.
"These are the ladies and gentlemen. The Four Wings of Sand Island." Perrault introduced Harling to Wardog Squadron. For a politician, Harling was deceptively big, standing at five-eleven and broad enough to bend somebody in half. Sharp blue eyes analysed Wardog's composition. Ash almost forgot to salute the commander-in-chief of the Defense Forces. Harling returned the salute.
"And you are?" Harling asked Ash.
"Captain Paige, sir." Ash replied in a heartbeat.
"I hear your squadron's been at the forefront of this mess from the start." Harling stated. Ash wasn't sure where he was going with this.
"Yes sir." Ash replied.
"My congratulations and my condolences for pushing through this far." Harling said.
"Don't thank me sir, thank them." Ash nodded to her squadmates. "I'm just the person picking up the mess."
"Fair enough." Harling shook Ash's hand and then Chopper, Grimm, Wolf, Nagase and Kitagawa's hands in order before moving on with the command staff. After an awkward ten minutes of standing at attention for the President, the massed formation was relieved and sent back to their stations.
As Wardog was on the way back to their building, they bumped into a handful of older pilots. A bald ageing man and a woman who seemed ten years too old to be wearing an aviator's uniform. Wardog bypassed them.
"Wait on." The woman paused and spun around. Ash stopped at the same time and turned around to face the presumably more senior of the two. The lady had a Colonel pin on her uniform. Definitely the more senior officer.
"Can I help you, ma'am?" Ash asked. The lady looked at the name tag and squadron patch on Ash's chest.
"Ah, you must be those Wardog fellows." The lady was analysing Ash up and down. "You look a touch too young to be a Captain."
"And you look twenty years too old to touch a stick." Ash retorted. She expected hellfire for that comment, but what she got was a mischievous little giggle.
"Ah, now I see." The lady approached closer. "Colonel Ashley Bernitz, 8492nd Aggressors."
"Captain Ashley Paige, 108th Fighter Squadron." Ash replied. She sensed a feeling of mild uneasiness talking to a field-grade officer.
"Well met, captain. I trust you're keeping the enemy warm for us." Bernitz said.
"Always." Ash replied.
"Good, good." Bernitz smirked. She had a wolf-like grin. "Anyway. I don't suppose you'd know where the nearest restroom is?"
Ash pointed to the nearby hangar complex. "As you go through the doors in the hangar, it'll be a couple of doors to the left in the main corridor."
"Thank you, Captain. I am dying." Bernitz left Ash to her own devices, dragging her own wingman along with her. Ash watched until they were out of her line of sight before returning to Wardog's room where she found her guys and gals.
"Jesus christ." Ash muttered as she walked in. "Full birds talk too much."
"How do you think they got their rank?" Kitagawa retorted from a lounge. "Great talkers. Awful at everything else."
"Isn't that the truth." Ash thought to herself, thinking specifically of Colonel Perrault. Ash flopped onto a chair and leant back. With President Harling on the base, even the most remote threat would get half the base sortied to respond. The phone started ringing. Ash muttered an expletive before answering. "Captain Paige, Wardog Squadron."
"Major Hall, Coyote Squadron. Short notice deployment. You're needed in Briefing 1." Jack, the Raptor squadron leader, was on the other end.
"Be down in a minute. Wardog!" Ash put the phone down. "Kit, Brief 1, now!"
"What's the occasion?" Chopper asked as he stood to.
"They didn't say." Ash replied, moving to the locker room to grab her kit. Wardog's six members found their way downstairs and to the briefing room. Inside was Master Sergeant Chaeny, Major Hamilton and two of Coyote Squadron's members, Jack and Reaper.
"Take a seat." Chaeny instructed. He loaded a diagram of the general area west of Sand Island. A pair of targets some few hundred kilometres west of the base were displayed as red icons, their displays reading BUYAN. Yuktobanian missile corvettes. "NAVSAT detected a pair of missile ships heading towards Sand Island. Given the POTOF's visit, this most likely isn't a coincidence. Wardog, you are to sortie west armed with Harpoons to attack and sink or cripple the ships before they fire their missiles. Coyote Squadron will be providing air cover for your attack."
"Any chance of enemy air?" Nagase asked.
"Foxhound activity has picked up dramatically in the past few days. Be cautious." Hamilton advised.
"R-37 galore." Kitagawa whispered to Ash. Ash snickered.
"Well Jack, I hope you can tank a few missiles for us." Ash joked, much to the Raptor pilot's chagrin as they concluded the briefing and moved out to the flight line. Predictably they were armed with enough Harpoons to blot out the sun. Wardog was fuelled and then they were cleared to fly out.
WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / EDGE, HUNTER / F-15E
WARDOG 4 / ARCHER / F-16C
COYOTE 1 / JACK / F-22A
COYOTE 2 / REAPER / F-22A
"Maintain 260 bearing, Angels 30, four hundred knots." Blaze dictated the parameters of their flight. Thirty thousand feet at a cruising speed of four hundred knots, or about seven hundred kilometres per hour. The weather over the ocean was calm and clear, no signs of clouds as far as the eye could see. The Mudhen-equipped Wardog Squadron flew in an arrowhead formation with the Raptors forming a line ahead of them.
"Radar warning contact. A-50 dead west, Buyan bearing west-south-west." Jack called out. A second later the same signals appeared on Blaze's RWR. The Yuktobanians had an AWACS vaguely in the area.
"Continue on current bearing. Let's hope that AWACS doesn't see us." Blaze ordered. Wardog and Coyote remained on their course moving east-north-east towards the Buyan. From memory the radar complex on the Buyan-class had an air detection radius of only a hundred kilometres. They were still at least five hundred klicks away.
"'Poons set to narrow search cone, sea skimming approach." Samurai was setting up the targeting data for their missiles.
"Ack." Blaze confirmed that she had heard her WSO.
"Wardog Leader, Sand Island Control." The command centre back at base rang in. "NAVSAT reports a squadron of MiG-31s lifting from Murska Air Force Base. Currently to your west-north-west, heading east."
"Control, Wardog 1, roger." Blaze acknowledged. "Jack, Foxhound squadron taking off from Murska, heading east."
"Ack that, we'll keep an eye out." Jack replied. For now they continued their current course and closed in on the missile corvettes. In the time it took for Wardog to close the distance to the ships, the Buyans had made it a further fifty kilometres towards Sand Island.
"Corvettes on the scope." Samurai spotted the two target ships on the Mudhen's radar from two hundred kilometres out. The radar complexes of the two corvettes were appearing on the radar warning receiver. The A-50 was still present in the AO, but it was anybody's guess as to if they saw the attacking Oseans or not.
"Wardog, line up for approach, drop on my mark." Blaze looked over her shoulder. "We good?"
Samurai gave Blaze the thumbs up. Blaze disengaged the master safe.
"Drop. Drop. Drop. Blaze, bruiser."
"Edge, bruiser four."
"Archer, bruiser, bruiser!"
"Chopper, bruiser."
Fourteen Harpoons packing a total of three tons worth of explosive throttled off their rails and began tracking towards their targets. The hunt for the missile corvettes was on. Blaze pulled her guys away from the scene of the launch and waited for any sign of confirmation that the missiles had hit their mark. It took ten minutes just for the missiles to enter their terminal phase and lock onto any radar signature they saw.
"Ships are defending." Samurai watched the progress of the missiles from her side of the cockpit. "One, two, three down. Fourth hit!"
Boom. One of their missiles had hit. It was to be seen if any of the others had managed to land hits on the ships.
"Ship one is slowing. Ship two is turning due west." Samurai tracked their movements. Most likely they had crippled the first and at least forced the second to turn away to avoid the threat of air attack. Blaze had a feeling that if they hadn't taken out the power or comms array of both of the two ships, they were going to alert the nearby MiG-31s to their presence.
"Wardog, Coyote, this is Sand Island command!" The radio went berserk with the radio man back at Sand Island. "Return to base, we're under attack!"
"Oh for the love of fuck-" Samurai cursed.
"Pause, Sam." Blaze took a second to collect herself. "Wardog, on me, RTB!"
As the air raid siren blared endlessly, Colonel Bernitz and her lackeys were making their way into the air in their Super Hornets.
"Cobra airborne." Bernitz was in the air. "Give me a bearing, command."
"Grabacr, turn bearing 131, missiles incoming from that bearing." Sand Island command ordered. Bernitz and her three wingmen turned south-east to intercept whatever was slinging missiles. Truth be told, she knew she couldn't do anything against the launch platform, but she could make an effort against the missiles being fired by the damn thing.
"Tally. Cruise missiles on the deck." Grabacr 2 spotted their targets, tiny little things hiding in the ocean clutter.
"Seen." Bernitz pitched her nose down at the missiles. "Cobra, fox 2."
She sighed as she fired, knocking one missile out of the air in a ball of fire. The second missile in the stack suffered the same fate before she let Grabacr 2 take over from her. More Sidewinders resulted in more shootdowns until the skies were clear and Grabacr Squadron was out of AIM-9s.
"Skies clear, control. No sign of air or surface launch platforms. I suspect it may be a submarine. Over." Bernitz submitted her report to the command and control centre.
"Copy that Grabacr 1. Return to base. Bluehound and Wardog Squadrons will take your place." The air traffic control guy called back, ordering Grabacr to RTB.
"Ack, we're RTB." Bernitz took her guys out of the killzone and back to Sand Island. As Bernitz came in to land, she spotted a pair of P-3 Orions leaving the base. Bluehound was on the way out to find a submarine, but Bernitz failed to spot Wardog on the ground or in the air. Figuring that they had already passed by and were providing air cover, Bernitz brought her F/A-18E back to where she had last parked it and disembarked.
What had originally been an anti-shipping mission had now turned into an escort mission, looking after the Orions of Bluehound Squadron. From what Blaze had gathered, the corvettes had been a distraction for a submarine missile attack. None of the missiles had made it through thanks to the fighters that had escorted President Harling in, but now everyone was on high alert. So far Bluehound hadn't turned a lead. Blaze and Nagase were positioned to Bluehound's north-west, while Chopper and Grimm were dead north of them.
A thunderstorm was rolling in from the east over the Osean mainland. If they didn't find the submarine soon, they were going to have to RTB and let the storm pass over.
"Bluehound 1, Wardog 1, any joy?" Blaze asked for a status update.
"No joy, Wardog. There's two of us and a helluva lot of ocean." Bluehound 1's plane commander replied.
"Rog." Blaze looked to her right, towards the east. While the thunderstorm wasn't over their heads yet, it was fast approaching based on the dark grey clouds cresting over the horizon. "I'd say you've got about fifteen mikes before we have to pull in for this storm."
"We see it. We're doing what we can."
Blaze sat back and popped her mask off. Today had been somewhat eventful.
"Are presidential visits always this eventful?" Samurai asked, looking to spark conversation.
"They're usually boring as fuck if that's what you're asking." Blaze replied earnestly. "When I was stationed in Alaska in 2008, we had the Vice President visit. Somebody in a Cessna tried to fly over the base."
"Tried?" Samurai pointed out that keyword. "What happened to him?"
"Directed away by Raptors and that was the last I heard of it." Blaze finished. "That's about the most interesting political visit I've seen."
"That's the most interesting politician visit I've heard of." Samurai admitted. "Too much parading and administration for a bunch of people who don't give a damn."
"Well, I'll tell you what. In some cases it beats being on course." Blaze joked. Samurai snickered.
"Workplace health and safety seminars. Christ." Samurai knew exactly what Blaze meant.
The thunder, lightning and rain closed in at an alarming pace. Ten minutes later it was almost on top of them. The Bluehounds concluded their fruitless search and made all haste for Sand Island, Wardog right on their heels. The six aircraft task force made it back to Sand Island and landed before the storm rolled over the base. What had been a sunny Pacific day a mere couple of hours ago had suddenly turned into a storm, pissing down rain. Trying not to get soaked, Blaze ran across the swatch of land that was in between the flight line and the squadron room. She made it upstairs only partially wet, stowing her gear and calling it quits for today.
Later that night, Ash was scrolling through a page of the squadron that the colonel from earlier had mentioned. The 8942nd Aggressor Squadron. Established in 1996 under the command of one Ashley Bernitz, flying F/A-18C Hornets and then F/A-18E Super Hornets. Stationed out of Fort Kalla Air Force Base, a small base south of Oured. Squadron name, Grabacr.
"Whatcha looking at?" Chopper asked, startling Ash momentarily.
"The aggressor guys that flew in with Harling." Ash stated once she had collected herself.
"I heard them speaking Belkan in the DFAC earlier." Chopper stated one of his observations. "Sounds like a Paperclip squadron."
"Formed in '96, so yeah, probably." Ash agreed with Chopper's diagnosis.
"Oh, yeah, I brought this up for you." Chopper placed a food tray on Ash's lap. The latter looked up at her second in command, perplexed. "You haven't eaten all day, kid."
"In case you haven't noticed, we were in the air all morning." Ash retorted.
"And in case you didn't notice, we've been on base since noon." Chopper counter-retorted. "The war's not going anywhere, you've got time to eat and rest."
Ash put the laptop down next to her and ate what Chopper had given her. "...Thanks."
Chopper gave her a shit-eating grin before leaving the room, presumably to go to the gym while they were off the alert roster. Taking Chopper's words at face value, Ash decided to eat a decent meal instead of continuing to endlessly click through links on the OADF portal.