When he had been given the briefing for his mission, Andrew Cole found it fitting in a strange kind of way. It was true that the main mission of the OADF's 56th Pararescue Squadron was the recovery and aid of downed pilots and other Osean troops trapped in sticky situations. Usually that role was performed by jumping out of planes or operating out of helicopters to collect individual casualties. Usually. Today was a special day.
"Goblin 2, making entry through the eastern gate."
"Copy." Andrew replied on the radio, intently looking at CCTV displays which showed a courtyard surrounded by tall barbed wire fences absolutely covered in white snow. Andrew saw a gate swing open, followed by a team of ten men wearing white camo fatigues and rifles barging through. A door to a barracks building open and out came two green camo wearing men with AKs. Yuke soldiers.
"Goblin 2, two hostiles to your left, crossing into the courtyard." Andrew advised the team leader of the entering team.
"Seen." Goblin 2 replied. Andrew watched on the CCTV as the two soldiers were peppered with bullets, crumpling into the snow like sacks of meat. Members of the newly arrived ten man squad immediately started dragging the bodies out of sight and into the building under which one of the cameras was mounted.
"Lieutenant." Andrew's second in command, Jacob Truman, called out from the doorway behind him. "We have full control of this building. Guys are cutting loose the POWs and holding overwatch."
"Copy." Andrew replied. "Our backup in the area yet?"
"Hartmann says they're about ten minutes out."
Andrew adjusted his balaclava to keep the cold out. "Let's hope the Yukes don't figure out we're here before they get here."
Similarly to Andrew, Blaze hoped nobody had spotted them as they crossed from moderate tundra into snow-ridden alpine. Behind her, Chopper, Nagase and Grimm followed through the snowstorm raging throughout the area, accompanied by eight transport helicopters; four CH-47 Chinook heavy lift helicopters, two HH-60G Pavehawk combat search and rescue helicopters and two AH-64D Apache attack helicopters.
WARDOG 1 / BLAZE, SAMURAI / F-15E
WARDOG 2 / CHOPPER, ZOOMER / F-15E
WARDOG 3 / EDGE, CORVUS / F-15E
WARDOG 4 / ARCHER / F-16C
17 November 2010
Glubina Oblast
Wardog Squadron had done more complicated missions in the past, but the operation they were on now was still up there in terms of things that could go wrong and undo the entire operation. Earlier in the week, a prisoner of war camp had been discovered in the frigid wastelands of Glubina. As such, the objective of the mission at hand was to raid the camp and recover the Osean captives. Wardog's task was to protect the helicopter extraction force and to knock out any AA in the vicinity of the camp.
"Above, below, left, right. It's all white. Man, my sense of direction is cooked. Where are we?" Chopper was complaining about the less than subtle blizzard considerably reducing visibility in all directions. Blaze could still see the ground, but if the weather report given at the briefing was anything to go by, that was going to change at some point in the next few hours.
"Be thankful you can see at all, Chopper." Samurai said to the Mudhen pilot off their right wing. "In Sotoa, this is tame for a snowstorm."
"You grew up and trained in this kind of environment." Chopper retorted. "I'm from the country, I never saw snow until I went to Heierlark."
"Hey, Captain." Grimm spoke up to interrupt Chopper's bitching about the weather. "Do you think Major Bartlett and Lieutenant Gammon are down there? In the POW camp, I mean."
"Almost certainly." Zoomer replied. "I'd be willing to bet Bartlett's chewing people out and taking command, and Ghost is getting bullied for his height."
Nagase weakly laughed over the radio. Blaze giggled to herself.
"Rich coming from me, but we might want to pause the laughter." Chopper suddenly had a serious tone. "Picking up something airborne up ahead, about a hundred and fifty out."
"Seen." Blaze said, looking at her radar. There were a pair of airborne targets ahead through the clouds. They weren't emitting any radar energy but from the speed at which they were approaching, they were most likely fighters.
"Chopper, Archer, stay with Sea Goblin and protect them." Blaze ordered. "Edge, follow me, engage these aircraft."
"Roger." Nagase replied. She and Blaze put the throttle against the stopper and accelerated towards the two fighters. In reply to the two Mudhens pushing them, the two unknown fighters lit up their radars, identifying themselves as MiG-35 Fulcrums. Now knowing what they were up against, Blaze was confident in taking the engagement, closing the distance to within a hundred kilometres and firing.
"Blaze, Fox 3."
"Edge, Fox 3!"
Blaze and Nagase fired a missile each at both Fulcrums. As was per usual for BVR engagements at this point, the Fulcrums pushed forward to get off their R-77s before defending against the AIM-120Cs. Blaze cranked to the side and slowed down to make the tracking solution more difficult for the incoming missiles while providing the most effective guidance for her own AMRAAM. She knew from experience by this point that the R-77 struggled against manoeuvring targets at range. Nagase mimicked her flight lead's flight path, pulling up slightly to get out of Blaze's way.
Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Blaze looked down. Two new RWR contacts, an SA-15 and an SA-19, a Tor missile system and a Tunguska self propelled gun and missile vehicle, both very lethal threats against helicopters. Fortunately, Wardog Squadron had brought a counter for this kind of threat.
"Archer, can you take out those AA pieces?" Blaze asked the youngest member of the squadron.
"Can do." Grimm replied, pulling away from formation with the helicopters to gain some altitude. "Archer, Magnum, Magnum!"
While Grimm moved to deal with the AA threat using anti-radiation missiles, Blaze continued to track the Yuke fighters. Both of the missiles the Fulcrums fired ran out of juice and fell out of the sky well before getting to either Blaze or Nagase, while their own missiles got a perfect track on the Fulcrums. The first fighter disappeared from radar, the second fighter following a few seconds later.
"Blaze, splash one." Blaze declared.
"Edge, splash one." Nagase rattled off her own kill. The airspace was clear. For now.
"Wardog Squadron, this is Goblin Actual." Andrew called in on the radio. "Was that you who just made something explode in the distance?"
Blaze smirked. "Affirmative Goblin, that was us. How's the situation on the ground?"
"We've got the command centre and one of the prisoner blocks under control." Andrew reported. "Preparing to raid the second prisoner block and rescue the rest of our guys now. Our extract on the way?"
Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Beep, beep. Blaze's RWR alerted her to the presence of at least four more fighters, another flight of Fulcrums.
"Yes, but it might be delayed by ten minutes, we've got enemy fast air we need to deal with." Blaze replied as she turned and burned towards the new flight of Fulcrums. "Edge, follow me heading 257."
"Wilco." Nagase formed up with Blaze, hastily turning and burning.
"Roger… hey, you're that squadron from Sand Island, right?" Andrew asked. Blaze felt herself grin and roll her eyes at the same time.
"Might be." Blaze replied cryptically.
"I've heard of you guys. Can't wait to see you do your stuff." Andrew stated enthusiastically.
"We'll do what we can." Blaze replied. "Wardog, out. Chopper, Grimm, move to my position and swap out with us once we've fired on the bandits."
"Copy." Chopper.
"Roger." Grimm.
"I've got the bandits on the right side, captain." Nagase informed Blaze. Blaze nodded to herself, gaining a lock on the left two bandits at a hundred and ten klicks. Given the closure rate between the two parties, thirty seconds later the two Mudhen pilots were within firing distance.
"Blaze, Fox 3, Fox 3!" Blaze declared, firing two missiles at long range and banking away. "Breaking left!"
"Edge, Fox 3!" Nagase fired a couple of missiles a second after Blaze. "Edge, breaking right!"
As soon as Blaze and Nagase had fired their missiles, they turned away from the fight a hundred and eighty degrees to fly in the opposite direction, giving the Fulcrums two choices, chase down the retreating Mudhens and make themselves more susceptible to getting hit by AMRAAMs or defend against the AMRAAMs and make themselves more susceptible to Chopper and Grimm, who were flying through the gap in between Nagase and Blaze to give chase to the MiG-35s. Ultimately the Fulcrums split into pairs, one pair defending, one pair pushing towards Wardog.
"Archer, Fox 3, Fox 3." Grimm, the most aggressive pilot in Wardog, fired upon the Fulcrum pair aggressively pushing them.
"Chopper, Fox 3!" Meanwhile, Chopper fired at the retreating Fulcrum duo, forcing the two interceptors to remain evasive lest they both catch missiles to the teeth. The aggressive pair of fighters continued the push long enough to fire on Chopper and Grimm before finally turning to defend against no less than four missiles. The Mudhen-Viper pilot duo turned cold a hundred and eighty degrees away to force the incoming missiles to waste their energy closing the distance. Further along and further away from the fight, Blaze watched as two of the four Fulcrums disappeared from RWR, presumably shot down by the first wave of AMRAAMs. A minute later, the remaining two Fulcrums copped missiles and were turned into fireballs trailing ugly black smoke that contrasted against the stark white background.
"Picture clean, we got them." Samurai observed the splash of the four enemy aircraft.
"Wardog, slow down, form up on Sea Goblin." Blaze ordered as she and Nagase merged back with the squadron of helicopters, Chopper and Grimm following not long afterwards.
"We're back!" Chopper called out, forming up on Blaze's right wing while Grimm slotted into the trail position. The helicopters they were escorting were flying in a double wedge formation, the Apaches and Pavehawks leading, the Chinooks following along in a wedge behind the attack helicopters.
"Wardog, Goblin Actual, we're recovering the rest of the captives now."
"Идите к сторожевой башне! (Get to the watchtower!)"
"Я двигаюсь, я, блядь, двигаюсь! (I'm moving, I'm fucking moving!)"
Corporal Ryan Hawksly had been lying down on his bunk decompressing in the heated interior of the southern prison building when he heard commotion from armed guards running through the hallways. The Marine aviation crewmember hopped out of his bunk and walked over to the barred door of his cell.
"Fuck's going on out here?" Hawksly asked aloud, leaning on the cell door and doing his best to get a line of sight down the concrete hallway.
"Осеан - (Osean-)" One of the guards yelled out before a wave of suppressed gunfire cut the guard's life short. Hawksly covered his ears to protect his hearing; suppressed gunshots could still cause hearing damage, especially in a concrete echo chamber like the building they were all interred in.
"Shit!" The man who Hawksly was bunked with, First Lieutenant Adam Derrick, rolled out of his bunk and laid prone on the floor, his hands covering his ears. Hawksly mimicked Derrick, throwing himself to the ground. Outside the cell in the hallway there was an exchange of gunfire between Yuktobanian guard personnel with AK-12s and pistols on one side and a second party who Hawksly guessed were some Osean special forces unit with suppressed M4 platforms. The battle was brutally one-sided. One final defiant guard sprayed down the hallway with automatic AK fire before being put down by a hail of automatic M4 fire in return.
"Hallway clear!" Somebody called out in English.
"Red, clear the catwalks and the guardhouse!" A second man yelled. "Blue, down the middle, on me!"
Once he was sure the gunfire had stopped, Hawksly unplugged his ears, jumped up to his feet and rushed to the cell door. To his left he just barely saw the still-warm corpse of a dead Yuktobanian guard. To his right, he heard heavy footsteps getting closer and closer until the identity of the prisoner's saviours became known, Osean-flagged special forces operatives wearing winter camouflage and custom rifles. There was a wave of commotion and cheering from the many Oseans trapped in the cells.
"Everybody sit tight until we find the door controls!" A man who Hawksly assumed was the team leader of this SOF squad rang out across the cell block. "We're here to get you out! We have an extraction team to get you back home! Just sit tight!"
Hawksly stood back from the cell door and sat down on his bunk, a wave of relief washing over his body. It had taken a week, but somebody had finally sent a rescue force for the prisoners.
"Actual, Goblin 2, south prison block is under control." The leader of Goblin 2 reported to Goblin Actual, Andrew.
"Copy, 2. Advise when you've got everybody ready to move." Andrew said to Goblin 2.
"Wilco, out here."
Andrew picked up his M4 from the table in front of him and walked out towards the lobby where other members of his team, Goblin 1, were keeping a keen eye for contact out the windows of the main control building.
"Actual, Vixen, seeing activity at the motor pool." The Army Ranger team assigned to the operation, callsign Vixen, reported to Andrew. "Looks like they're spinning up BMPs and trucks."
"Shit." Andrew cursed to himself. "Hold tight, I'll get close air support on it."
Wardog Squadron was orbiting around the helicopters, a scant five minutes away from the POW camp when a call for close air support was submitted over the radio.
"Wardog, Goblin Actual, we have armed vehicles gearing up at the motor pool north of the main camp. Request you engage with Mavericks and guns, over." Andrew made the CAS request. Blaze looked at her map. The POW camp had an attached motor pool about a kilometre north of the main facility, staffed with a variety of BMP infantry fighting vehicles, Tigr armoured cars and Ural trucks.
"Goblin Actual, Wardog, wilco, moving to engage enemy ground targets." Blaze answered the call for support. "Grimm, on me. Chopper, Nagase, stay with Sea Goblin."
"Roger, rolling." Grimm broke away from the helicopters to attach to Blaze. The two zoomed away from Chopper, Nagase and Sea Goblin to go attack some armoured vehicles with AGM-65 Mavericks and their M61 Vulcan cannons. After a minute of uninterrupted afterburning, Blaze and Grimm came up on the POW camp. Given the remoteness of the location, Blaze was surprised that the camp was as big as it was, but she shook off that surprise to focus on the impending armour threat. Samurai was working the targeting pod from the WSO seat.
"Tally vehicle pool." Samurai called out. "I see BMP-2s and trucks forming a column near the gate."
"Lase it." Blaze ordered, bringing the F-15E into a gentle orbiting manoeuvre above the motor pool. "Archer, we're lasing the convoy down in the vehicle depot. On my command, start lobbing Mavericks."
"Copy, just give me the laser code." Grimm replied, setting himself up for a high sweeping pass over the motor pool. Blaze looked back to her WSO.
"Sam?" She asked Samurai for the aforementioned laser code.
"2-2-0-1." Samurai gave Grimm the specific laser code for his missiles to track Wardog 1's buddy lase.
"2-2-0-1." Grimm sounded like he was punching in the code. "Set. On your command, captain."
"Lase the lead vehicle first." Blaze ordered.
"I know how to engage a vehicle column." Samurai retorted, swivelling the laser onto the lead vehicle, a BMP-2 infantry fighting vehicle. "On."
"Archer, weapons free." Blaze told Grimm. Grimm dipped his nose down and fired a single AGM-65E Maverick.
"Archer, rifle." Archer rattled off the brevity codeword for an air-to-ground missile launch, pulling out of his shallow dive and circling around to come in for a second pass. Blaze watched the targeting pod display on one of her MFD displays with intent while orbiting around the depot to keep the laser on target. There was an explosion and a change in brightness on the display as the heat from the explosion washed out the thermal imager on the targeting pod.
"Boom." Samurai chuckled mischievously. "Rear vehicle lased."
"Archer, weapons free." Blaze relayed this information to the Viper pilot.
"Archer, rifle!" Grimm fired a second Maverick. The large anti-tank and anti-structure missile acquired a track on Wardog 1's laser and started tracking towards the rear vehicle in the column, a Ural five ton truck with what looked like a full platoon of troops. On the targeting pod display it looked like the troops embarked on the trucks were disembarking and running away, but there was nowhere near enough time to get to a safe distance before the Maverick hit, blowing the truck to pieces and pasting everyone within a twenty metre radius of the vehicle.
"Good hit." Blaze said. Once the fire from the explosion died down, it was clear that the crews and embarked soldiers were abandoning their vehicles, not wishing to die in an intense fireball with the destruction of each individual truck, car or IFV.
"Oh yeah, they're on the run." Samurai pointed out this information directly.
"Goblin Actual, Wardog 1, armoured vehicles have been destroyed and the survivors are abandoning the counterattack, over." Blaze reported the results of their attack to the commanding officer on the ground.
"Copy Wardog, thanks for the cover." Andrew thanked Wardog for their efforts in halting the Yuktobanian advance. "Goblin Actual, out."
Back in the south prison block, all the Osean captives had been released from their cells and were being sorted into groups for the extraction helicopters that were on their way. Hawksly and Derrick were in one of the front groups, a group of captives about twenty people strong. On the catwalks and outside the cell block proper, their rescuers, men of the OADF's 56th Pararescue Squadron and the OGDF's 75th Ranger Regiment, were setting security around the block waiting for the helicopters. Amongst all the commotion, Hawksly overheard the team leader of Goblin 2 talking on the radio.
"Actual, Goblin 2, I count forty-two POWs in my possession, over." A pause while the person on the other end of the radio gave the TL instructions. "Acknowledged, load POWs into the two eastern-most Chinooks. Roger, Goblin 2 out."
Derrick bumped Hawksly's elbow and leaned into his ear.
"Chinooks, eh? Must be a big rescue op." Derrick remarked.
"And yet they're still smaller than our Stallions." Hawksly said with a smirk as Goblin 2's team leader walked around to the front of the group.
"Listen up!" The TL shouted. "In five minutes, four helicopters will touch down in the courtyard! Front group, you will be loading into the right-most chopper! The right-most helicopter!"
Right-most Chinook. Hawksly committed the statement to memory.
"Back group, you'll be loading into the second helicopter from the right! The second helicopter from the right!" The TL continued. "Understood!"
"SIR YES SIR!" A roar of affirming shouts roared through the building.
"Sit tight, my men will direct you out when the helicopters arrive!"
Hawksly felt all of his muscles tensing as one minute became two, then three. The anticipation was making him sweat, which wouldn't be pleasant once they ran out into the snow to board the Chinooks. As three minutes turned into four, the Marine felt a faint rumbling that progressively got louder and louder until it was apparent that there were four heavy lift helicopters landing outside of the prison building. Hawksly saw the team leader receiving radio communications. He muttered something in reply over the radio and came around to the front of the building.
"Dobie, Morgan, take the first group to the chopper!" The TL shouted.
"Copy, sergeant!" The man called Morgan, an Army Ranger with an M4 in his arms, came running down from the catwalk. "Front group, with me, let's get you home!"
Hawksly, Derrick and the rest of the twenty strong captive group were ushered out of the cell block, through the nicely decorated lobby of the prison building and out into the freezing cold air. In between the southern and northern prison blocks was a courtyard, and slap bam in the middle of that courtyard were four CH-47F Chinooks, large twin-bladed helicopters with the capacity to carry thirty people or ten tons of cargo. The freezing cold stung Hawksly's face, and judging by the almost total lack of visibility on the ground, he was surprised that there were aerial operations happening at all.
"Can't see fuckall!" Hawksly shouted to get over the noise of eight rotors operating in tandem. An exercise in futility, nobody would hear him without a headset and radio.
Morgan and Dobie ushered the POWs into the Chinook's cargo bay, where the crew chief and the loadmaster assigned seats for the POWs being loaded up. Hawksly was assigned his seat, which he collapsed into in relief. They weren't quite out of the woods yet, but they were more than halfway to the finish line.
Hawksly wasn't the only one pondering the danger of aerial operations given the weather conditions. From a few thousand feet up in the air Blaze couldn't see the camp at all, the fog caused by the snowstorm had reduced visibility that badly. Relying on the Mudhen's altitude and speed readings and knowing that there wasn't any topography in the area that stretched up more than a few hundred feet, Blaze dived down to a bare thousand feet above the ground to get eyes on the camp again.
"Bloody hell Wardog 1." The pilot of one of the AH-64s that was part of the rescue group chuckled. "Trying to cosplay as an attack helicopter?"
"Something like that." Blaze giggled. "No, trying to get eyes on the camp."
"Aye, fair enough." Satisfied with Blaze's answer, the helicopter pilot remained quiet.
"Goblin, Wardog 2." Nagase called for the ground element commander. "Can you see if there's a POW by the name of Major Jack Bartlett? I say again, Major Jack Bartlett."
"I'll check now, wait two." Andrew replied, going off the radio while he presumably made a call through all of the units under his command to look for Bartlett.
"Couldn't wait for the surprise, could you?" Chopper mocked Nagase's need for closure.
"No." Nagase said in a deadpan tone. Blaze scoffed, turning around to go for a low pass over the camp. The radio was quiet for a few minutes while Andrew went around the POWs looking for Bartlett.
"Wardog 2, Goblin Actual." Andrew sounded off on the radio. "Sure you got the name and rank right? Can't find any Bartlett around here. Nobody here's ever heard of him either."
"What?" Nagase asked in disbelief. "No, that can't be right-"
"Wardog 1, missile, six o'clock!" One of the Apache pilots yelled.
"What-"
BANG!
Blaze didn't have time to evade or sound out her surprise before something hit the Mudhen square up the tailpipe. Blaze and Samurai were thrown around in the cockpit, Blaze smacking her head off the canopy so hard that if she hadn't been wearing a helmet she would have split her skull open.
"Right engine fire." The Mudhen's onboard warning computer, Bitching Betty, started speaking. "Left engine fire. APU failure. Hydraulic failure."
Blaze tried manipulating the stick to pull the aircraft out of the dive they were being forced into. No joy, the control surfaces weren't responding to Blaze pulling back on the yolk. They were going down hard.
"Wardog 1, mayday, mayday, mayday!" Blaze started yelling a mayday call on the radio before the aircraft ran out of battery power. "Shit, stick's dead, we're going in!"
"Engines are burning!" Samurai, fortunately still conscious, looked over her shoulder to find that the rear end of their aircraft had been blown wide open. They had maybe a few seconds until the aircraft hit the ground.
"Eject, eject, eject!" Blaze shouted, leaning back, reaching for the ejection handle in between her legs and hoping to dear god that she didn't break her neck. In milliseconds, the canopy blew off the stricken Mudhen, exposing Blaze and Samurai to the ripping cold wind. As soon as the canopy cleared the aircraft, Blaze's ejection seat fired and she was violently ripped out of the aircraft. The impact of the wind from being forced into the slipstream knocked the air out of Blaze's lungs. Her F-15E, the entire back end of the aircraft shattered by a missile impact, burned in towards the landscape a few hundred feet below, smashing into the ground and exploding in a large fireball. Blaze's parachute deployed, bringing her to a halt in mid-air.
"Fuck!" Blaze cursed as soon as she had the capacity to breathe. "Fuck, fuck, FUCK!"
"Verified, Wardog 1 is down!" One of the Apache pilots called out. "Sea Goblin 1, guns guns guns!"
"Sea Goblin 2, do you see any chutes?!" Chopper asked the second Apache if either of the helicopter's crew saw Blaze and Samurai eject.
"Standby, Wardog." The pilot of the second Apache replied, flying towards the crashsite of Blaze's Mudhen. "Affirmative, I see two chutes. I say again, pilot and WSO ejected safely."
"MANPADS team eliminated." The first Apache reported. A Yuke MANPADS team with an Igla had gotten the drop on Blaze and had shot her out of the sky. Fortunately, they were eliminated not long after by a long burst of thirty millimetre cannon fire.
"Wardog 2, Goblin Actual." Andrew called on the radio to Chopper. "We're picking up your flight lead's emergency transponder. We'll pick them up for ya, don't sweat it. Just make sure the rest of the squadron gets out of here in one piece."
"Will do, Goblin." Chopper replied. He growled and punched the side of the canopy angrily. "Goddamnit! Fuck!"
Riding on one of the two HH-60G search and rescue birds and accompanied by one of the Apaches, Andrew peered out the open cabin door of the Pavehawk towards the ground. He could faintly see the smoke trail from the downed aircraft rising into the sky, but he couldn't see the ground itself, the visibility had cratered hard.
"Fucking hell." Andrew muttered to himself. "Pilot, please don't pile us into a tree."
"I don't make any promises." The pilot retorted. "Almost total whiteout conditions out here-"
SNAP!
As the Pavehawk approached to make a landing near the crash site, the rotor clipped a tree that wasn't even visible and shattered into two pieces. The Pavehawk bucked over to one side and fell like a brick towards the ground, the side of the helicopter scraping up against the tree and landing with a violent bang on the ground. Andrew was thrown around in the cabin, landing hard on his back.
One of the door gunners, a crew member of the Pavehawk, had considerably less luck. He was yanked out of the port where one of the miniguns on the helicopter was, yanked back into the cabin and thrown against the cockpit bulkhead. Andrew heard the nasty snap of somebody's tibia before the Pavehawk hit the dirt.
As the rotor came to a halt and the engines cut off, Andrew groaned in pain, as did much of the cabin crew.. He felt a bruise already forming on his back but fortunately it didn't feel like he had any broken bones, lacerations or puncture wounds. Letting the pain wear off, Andrew slowly forced himself up onto his knees and looked around so he could evaluate the situation. One of the door gunners was screaming in pain from a broken bone. The crew chief and the three PJs accompanying Andrew were bruised and slightly bloodied but alive, and both the pilot and co-pilot were waving around in the cockpit, so at the very least they were alive.
Andrew opened the sliding cabin door on the opposite side of the aircraft and stepped outside. It was snowing hard and there was about zero visibility.
He sighed.
"Fuck."