15 November 2010

Sand Island

"Wardog 1, airborne."

"Wardog 2, airborne!"

"Wardog Squadron, approximately fifty cruise missiles approaching from bearing 320 to 330. Turn heading 325 for 300 at Angels 10 to assist Coyote Squadron." Sand Island Control gave Blaze and Chopper a heading to follow, an altitude to stick to and a range to their target. There was a faint blue glow in the sky, an indication that the sun was just below the horizon. Somewhere over that horizon were two F-22 Raptors of Coyote Squadron and between forty to fifty missiles to shoot down.

"Wardog copies all, outbound 325 at Angels 10 to intercept." Blaze confirmed their receipt of ground control's orders as the two Mudhens departed from Sand Island, afterburners fully lit and lighting up the early morning sky. Ordinarily Blaze left the radar work to Samurai as she was the weapon systems officer, but since Samurai wasn't in the back seat for once, Blaze set her aircraft's radar to air search and track mode and let it scan in front of her.

"Jack, this is Blaze, we'll be on station in two minutes." Blaze informed the squadron lead of Coyote Squadron.

"Rogie, take a number and get ready, lotta missiles out here." Jack replied over the radio. "Coyote 1, Fox 2!"

"Coyote 2, Fox 2."

"Coyote 1, winchester on missiles."

"Coyote 2, winchester, air to air." The two Raptors had expended all of their missiles. Wardog was now within missile range, all they needed now was for Coyote Squadron to get out of the way lest they cause a blue on blue accident.

"Hey Jack, mind getting out of the fucking way?" Blaze asked in a less than formal tone.

"I'm moving, I'm moving, hold your fuckin' horses." Jack retorted as he and his wingman climbed up and away from the approaching missiles. As soon as they were out of the way, Blaze started locking up cruise missiles on her radar. She had eight missiles for eight targets.

"Blaze, Fox 3." Blaze rattled off, dumping all of her AMRAAMs into the air, the radar guided missiles dropping off their pylons and rocketing off into the night sky.

"Chopper, Fox 3, Fox 3!" Chopper followed Blaze's lead in dump firing missiles against the wave of cruise missiles. From what Blaze could see, there were forty of the big lumbering Kh-55SEs in the air. Assuming all of Blaze and Chopper's AMRAAMs hit their targets, that would leave slightly less than thirty, and as both of them were carrying four Sidewinders per aircraft, they could knock out an additional eight, which would leave twenty missiles for the Patriot and C-RAM systems on Sand Island to deal with. On the upside, judging by the missiles they were shooting at, chances were they didn't have to engage a fighter escort.

As the sky continued to brighten with the rising of the sun, briefly aided by the large fireballs of missiles hitting targets heavily laden with fuel, Blaze and Chopper slipped in between the Kh-55s, slotting in behind the remaining missiles. Compared to an aircraft, the missiles were small, but the seeker head of their AIM-9Xs could easily distinguish them from the surrounding cold air.

"Blaze, Fox 2." Blaze declared, locking onto missiles at random and firing into the swarm. One, two, three, four explosions resulted as each Sidewinder found their targets.

"Chopper, Fox 2!" Chopper followed a similar process, picking a missile, firing and repeating the process until he ran out of missiles.

"Wardog, winchester on air to air munitions." Blaze reported to ground control. She and Chopper had done what they could to thin the herd. Shooting down the rest of them was now up to the Patriots.

"All friendly callsigns currently airborne, stay outside two hundred klicks of the base." Ground control warned. "SAM sites are engaging."

Sand Island had a dedicated Osean Army air defence battalion spread across the island, composed of five Patriot batteries for surface to air work and a single THAAD battery for anti-ballistic missile duties. The Patriots were the system best suited to the task at hand, and of the five batteries on the island, the battery located on the western-most stretch of the island was the battery designated to engage.

As the first of the Kh-55s closed to within two hundred kilometres of the base, the Patriots opened fire. Six individual launchers, each with four interceptors, enough to intercept all of the incoming bandits with enough interceptors in reserve to go after any missed targets. The large rocket boosters lit up the sky as they burned and roared away from their launchers to go after their targets - being much larger in both diameter and length compared to the air-launched AMRAAM, the light from their boosters lasting for much longer than their air-launched contemporaries.

Gaining altitude and separating away from their launchers, the Patriot missiles received targeting information from the ground based radars and started manoeuvring towards them. The twenty Kh-55s started entering a one hundred kilometre radius of the base, which was when the first of the interceptors reached their targets. Long ugly trails of fire streaked across the sky as, one by one, each Patriot met and destroyed a Kh-55. As the flames died down, the shrapnel from what remained of each successful interception splashed harmlessly into the ocean.

The engagement was over just as quick as it had begun, with the successful interception of all twenty cruise missiles. Blaze, Chopper and Coyote Flight were sitting just outside the two hundred kilometre exclusion zone around Sand Island.

"Wardog Squadron, Coyote Squadron, return to base for refuelling and rearming. You have a new mission, you will be briefed on the ground. Acknowledge, over." Ground Control reeled in the four aircraft.

"Coyote Squadron acknowledges all." Jack confirmed his receipt of the aforementioned information.

"Wardog Squadron, copy all." Blaze did the same, turning back for Sand Island and dragging Chopper with her. An orange glow was now visible on the horizon, indicating that sunrise wasn't far away. She wondered what kind of mission they were being tasked with. Given the circumstances she figured it was something serious.

By the time Blaze and Chopper got back to Sand Island, landed and taxied over to the flight line, the remainder of Wardog Squadron had been dragged out to the flight line with all their gear. Ushered into her hangar, Blaze saw Samurai leaning against the hanger's back wall with her arms crossed, waiting for Blaze to open the canopy. Munitions and fuel personnel were also in the hangar with trollies bearing missiles. Both air to air and cruise missiles.

Slowly piecing things together, Blaze opened the canopy so that Samurai could mount up. A ladder was brought up alongside the cockpit and a couple of seconds later Samurai virtually came flying into the back seat.

"Busy morning?" Samurai greeted Ash as she strapped herself into the seat.

"You could say that." Blaze replied, hitting the canopy release button. "Canopy!"

Samurai plugged in her intercom. "Clear."

The plexiglass canopy sealed around them. Blaze looked over the lip of the cockpit to see what the ground guys were doing. They were connecting fuel hoses and loading weapons onto the Mudhen's many pylons.

"JASSMs and missiles for self-defence." Samurai read what the stores management system reported. "Nani… huh. Five JASSMs."

"Five?" Blaze opened the pylon display to see for herself. Samurai was telling the truth, they had five JASSM cruise missiles, four Sidewinders and four AMRAAMs, a heavy loadout that essentially turned the Mudhen into a flying truck.

"Any targeting data inputted?" Blaze asked her WSO. Samurai pressed a few buttons to see.

"Looks like an airbase in northern Yuktobania." Samurai answered. "The fuck did the Yukes sling at us earlier?"

"Whole bunch of Kh-55s." Blaze replied. "Must be a forward staging post for bombers."

WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E

WARDOG 2 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E

WARDOG 3 / EDGE, CORVUS / F-15E

WARDOG 4 / ARCHER / F-16C

COYOTE 1 / JACK / F-22A

COYOTE 2 / REAPER / F-22A

SHARK 1 / BLITZ / EF-111A

SHARK 2 / BURNER / EF-111A

SCYTHE 1 / COWBOY / F-16C

SCYTHE 2 / REDCOAT / F-16C

SCYTHE 3 / TRIGGER, TWINK / F-16D

SCYTHE 4 / INK / F-16C

As Wardog sortied out to the runway, Blaze noticed other fully loaded aircraft taking off in sequence from the very same runway. First a pair of EF-111 Ravens, electronic warfare aircraft, and then four F-16s, each very heavily laden with fuel and munitions. As soon as the squadron of Vipers were out of the way, Wardog rolled down the runway and flew into the air, using up much of the runway's length in the process.

"Strike package, turn heading 270 for 30 at Angels 15 to arrive at Waypoint One. AWACS Thunderhead will give the mission briefing en-route." Ground Control advised. The strike package of twelve aircraft headed out along the designated bearing to a series of waypoints marked on the navigation display.

"All aircraft, this is AWACS Thunderhead, listen up." Thunderhead made his presence known. "The mission today is to attack an airbase known to be hosting both Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers. Wardog and Scythe Squadrons, you'll be conducting the main attack with long range cruise missiles. Coyote Squadron, you'll be providing air cover and protection for the strike package. Shark Squadron, you will blind any enemy sensors in the area, as well as providing general radar jamming for the strike group. All squad leaders, acknowledge."

"Wardog 1, acknowledged all." Blaze.

"Scythe, copy all. "

"Coyote, acknowledged."

"Shark, acknowledging all."

"All squadrons, form wedge and proceed 300 to Waypoint 2, speed four hundred knots, altitude twenty thousand feet."

And thus the attack group of twelve aircraft went to follow the navigation waypoints up the Ceres Ocean and towards the target airfield some two hundred kilometres inland from the Yuktobanian coastline. The sun was now peeking up over the horizon, lighting up the sky in a beautiful orange glow. Blaze didn't have anything better to do over the course of their trans-oceanic voyage, so she spent much of it watching the sunrise in between occasionally checking her spacing and her sensor screens.

"Hey Ash." Samurai spoke up, using Blaze's name, catching her attention. "Can we talk about what you said over the straits?"

Blaze winced, knowing full well what Samurai was referring to.

"Now probably isn't the best time." Blaze deflected Samurai's question.

"Y'see, you'll fall asleep or bury yourself in work before I can ask you back at base, so the way I see it, if I ask up here you can't back away from answering." Samurai retorted.

"Tsssh. Doesn't mean I can't ignore you." Blaze shot back with a cheeky grin.

"ろくでなし- (Bastard-)" Samurai swallowed her pride. "Did you mean what you said?"

"Of course I meant it." Blaze let out. She felt her cheeks flush pink. "But I don't want to commit properly to anything until we get out of this war alive?"

Samurai's grin could practically be heard. "Cute. You think we'll both make it?"

"Didn't get this far to die now." Blaze replied, her tone indicating a high degree of confidence. "We'll make it."

Satisfied with Blaze's answer, Samurai remained silent for the rest of the trip to their launch point, as was the rest of Wardog. The only radio transmissions across the strike package were occasional bearing changes from Thunderhead to direct them to their target. Blaze took the chance to triple check the launch parameters on her payload of JASSMs. Each missile had a list of targets, one of which would be assigned to each missile when the time came to fire.

As the group got closer and closer to the launch point, isolated radar contacts started appearing. Blaze looked down at her RWR. S400. A single S-400 SAM site was in the vicinity of their target, protecting it from air attack.

"Shark Flight, initiating radar jamming." Blitz, the leader of Shark Squadron, declared, he and his wingman commencing barrage jamming against the S-400's radar sets to prevent both its search and fire control radar from targeting the flight. They were a scant one hundred klicks away from the launch point, four hundred kilometres away from the base. A minute later, two aerial contacts, Su-35s, were detected to Wardog's south, most likely vectored on by a local Yuktobanian command post.

"Coyote, two bandits, 190 for 400, Angels 30, hot." Thunderhead gave Coyote Flight an exact direction and altitude. "Turn to intercept."

"Wilco, Coyote 1 and 2 splitting to intercept bandits." Jack took his wingman and broke away from the body of the strike package to intercept the Flankers before they got into missile range. As Wardog approached the launch point, Blaze put her JASSMs on her trigger and waited for the shoot indicator to pop up in her HUD. After a couple of minutes of flight, the indicator flickered to life.

"Passing final phase line." Blaze declared, launching her aircraft's cruise missiles. "Wardog 1, Greyhound."

"Wardog 3, Greyhound!"

"Wardog 2, Greyhound!"

"Wardog 4, Greyhound, Greyhound."

All of their missiles fired, Wardog broke low and away from the line of fire to allow the F-16 flying Scythe Squadron to fire their own payloads of JASSMs.

"Scythe 1, Greyhound!"

"Scythe 2, Greyhound."

"Scythe 3, Greyhound."

"Scythe 4, Greyhound."

Thirty five AGM-158 JASSMs representing more than thirty five tons of throw weight towards one target. In short, a lot of boom. Now that the shooters had gotten their missiles away, the aircraft themselves were not needed for guidance. Wardog and Scythe Squadrons pulled away from the launch point and immediately started heading straight back for Sand Island.

"Coyote Squadron, splash two bandits." Jack declared, he and Reaper having shot down both enemy Flankers. "Would advise hauling ass and getting the hell out of the AO, somebody definitely knows we're here."

"Roger, Coyote." Thunderhead replied. "All squadrons in the active combat area, RTB. I say again, return to base."