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Chapter 4: Mirage 911

In a nightclub there was a man sitting by himself at the back of the place. Bryan was a good-looking guy but hadn't hooked up with anyone yet. He was blond, fairly muscular and was always a hit with the ladies. He possessed an irresistible charm that made it hard to refuse him anything. It was a strange sight to see people on their own in places like these. It was actually a place he shouldn't have been in, but he was on a mission and work, after all, is work. And besides, it was hardly unpleasant what with the gorgeous barmaids, the good cocktails and the great music. Not only that, but it was one of the places that the person he was after might spend their evenings. He had volunteered himself to search for Angela, not just because he knew her personally; more than a teammate, she was a friend. He wanted to tell her what he hadn't been able to tell her before. He wanted to thank her for what she had done for him and his brother, but the last time he had seen her, she had been laid out on a hospital bed. He had not had the courage to talk to her, had been afraid to tell her the truth. She had always stood by him in his time of need and he regretted now not having been up front with her at the time. They had been through so much together; so many high-risk missions that they had escaped unscathed until that terrible accident. She was the best pilot he had ever seen. Nobody could have bailed out after such a rapid descent. It was hellish, the plane was spinning ceaselessly, she had managed to put herself slap bang in the middle of trouble. Whatever may have happened, they came out of it alive, but that was not thanks to him.And now the bird's wings are broken and she'll never fly again.He could not stop thinking 'what if'. what if he had been in another fighter? Would I still be alive? Then, all of a sudden, he thought he could see her furtive shadow. He looked insistently but it had disappeared. Was she really there? Was it possible?Or was it just another dream brought on by excessive alcohol consumption? These were questions to which he would find no answer.

He stood up, paid without waiting for his change and got out of the club, which had long since lost its appeal. He had overdone it slightly on the cocktails and now his head was spinning and paying the price. He wanted to drop his investigation for that evening. It didn't matter much, reinforcements were on their way to help. And then he would finally be able to tell all; that it, the accident, had not been his fault. Tomorrow would be even more rough than today as his investigation would become yet more arduous. He hoped the Airforce had not sent him a bunch of amateurs and that they had read the file. He had no desire to waste his time explaining its contents to them. Truth be told, he really hoped that these people were not going to turn out to be mindless grunts who would have no qualms about using force to accomplish their mission as quickly as possible.

He had been investigating for three days and wanted to find his mark so that he could protect her and, perhaps more importantly, to be to her the guardian angel that she had been to him.

He entered his hotel room. His instincts had led him to this small town in the Paris Metro Area. Famished, he took out a can of tuna and collapsed onto the bed, exhausted. Meanwhile, he again looked at all the documents he had been able to put together. He knew his friend was around here somewhere; she had told him often how much she wanted to come to Paris and dreamt of studying there.

Watching a plane through the window, he remembered the promise she had made him before their last mission. Her words still echoed through his head:

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on your little brother. I'll protect him then let him fly on his own wings."

Jason, his brother, was also in the special TOP GUN unit but he had been assigned another co-pilot. The shock Bryan had felt when he learned that his co-pilot was a woman had been terrible, but he soon learned to respect her, despite the gender difference. It also didn't hurt that she was nice and pretty to look at, which had greatly aided their relationship. And his brother was not far away from him. That was one of the last discussions they had had and she had kept her word. She always did, smiling as he remembered the time she poured a glass of water on his head, just as she promised. Now that was horrible. His vision was beginning to cloud, he was weary and he decided to go to bed. He immediately fell into a deep sleep, but it was not to be an entirely restful one:

He was seeing himself again on board the Mirage 911, his combat aircraft, ready for battle. The sky was dark. His pilot, Angela, asked him for the enemy's position: "where are they, Bryan?" But his vision was clouding over and was not able to locate the enemy craft. She was screaming at him to get a reaction, but he couldn't. The on-board instruments were in bad shape; he could see flashing lights everywhere on the dashboard. He still showed no sign of reacting. The system failures were being caused by an enemy missile impact suffered when they swept in to protect his brother so he could land without damage. Looking at the radar readout, there were only two allied aircraft remaining: one exploded before his eyes and the other was requesting assistance. Angela signalled that they would cover him despite the damage to their own plane. The damaged aircraft managed to land safely and Angela regained altitude. They were all alone now; no help would come to their rescue nor protect their six. They had two missiles left to fire. They had to see this through and protect the large vessel with the strange light emanating from it. Suddenly, the radio crackled : "This is Mitchell on Dove 3, respond."

"This is Angela on Mirage 911."

"A woman?!"

"Is that a problem?"

"No, not at all, I'm just surprised."

"Are we going to keep on chatting like this, Mitchell?"

"No, I lost my co-pilot. We're not from the same unit, but we can form up together." "This is Sheppard onboard Comet 13, we require assistance."

"Okay, I have two large missiles left, I'll cover you, Sheppard and Mitchell."

The other two planes had a hard time landing. Dove 3 had been forced to make a crash landing but Mirage 911 had protected her descent. Hopefully he would still be alive. Now they had to take care of Comet 13. He was in trouble. An enemy vessel had fired a missile at him and the impact would have been fatal if Mirage 911 had not intercepted and taken the hit to her wing. The situation thereafter was critical: the left reactor was in flames and the right wing was half hanging off. The plane started to nosedive just at the moment they heard that Comet 13 had landed. Bryan was still unresponsive, paralysed by his own fear, the slowly blacking out despite his efforts to stay conscious. He needed to help his co-pilot. He heard screaming, screaming that sent a chill through him like a cold shower, screaming that woke him up somewhat. It was the kind of screaming that spoke to untold suffering, of torture mixed with fear. He wanted to help her, soothe her suffering. But his eyes betrayed him and closed slowly despite his efforts. The light took control of both the aircraft and his body. He knew that the battle had ended, but...

He bolted up in bed, sweating, his muscular torso soaking wet. He wore only pants in the place of pyjamas. His chest moved up and down with a worrying rhythm, his heart beating hard from the shock. This vision still terrified him, but why?He buried his face in his hands. He didn't know what had happened following that memory, he had passed out. How had he ended up in hospital?He had spent weeks having the same dream, starting from when he learnt that his friend would no longer be able to fly due to health complications, nor would she be able to go back to the Airforce. He had asked his superior about her condition several times. At first, he was reticent, but Bryan refused to let the matter drop. The news had shocked him so greatly that his superior had hidden the truth from Bryan for more than two months. At the start he told him she would probably die, then he said she was recovering but not enough to leave hospital and in the latest news he had given him, he said that she had been irradiated, discharged from the Airforce and was no longer authorised to see her former colleagues for one last goodbye. Now he wanted nothing more than to track her down for the army, now that they had washed their hands of her. How ironic!He also had not spoken about his problems. Ever since, he had been this same nightmare. He went to wash his face and take his headache pills. He looked at himself in the mirror: he wasn't the same anymore, no longer that attractive man. He made a promise to take better care of himself as soon as this was behind him. He was looking ill.

Why had she fallen ill? I was there too, in the same situation. Was it because she was exposed to that light? But I was exposed to that blinding light as well. She had no serious scarring after four months in hospital. But despite that, she was still sick. Is it because she fought so hard to land with minimal damage so she could save both our lives?

What happened while I was passed out? I should have fought it, should have helped her. Would that have changed what happened? Had she already been ill before then?

Flashbacks

He had learnt that the doctors had discovered a number of things following the many tests they had subjected him to. After the accident, he had allowed himself to be subjected to very precise and complex examinations so as to arrive at an explication for his condition. They had then extended their research as the tests he had taken had not given them sufficient results to explain his condition, they simply didn't understand. He had been allowed a visit. He had seen her spread out motionless on a hospital bed, covered by a white sheet and surrounded by doctors discussing her obs. According to the doctors, she had fallen into a deep coma but was technically alright and could eventually be woken up. She was laid out and covered in tubes and bandaging. The doctors and concerned nurses were working ceaselessly around her bed. According to them, when she arrived, she had been in a sorry state. They believed she had been propelled out of the cockpit at high speed. The safety belts had broken under the force of that shock.

The soldiers sent to look for the wreckage of Angela and Bryan's craft had been stunned to find both pilots still alive after such a bad crash. Only Angela was deemed to warrant special attention for transport out of the crash zone, given her condition. When help arrived, her condition had improved slightly after having been attended for two hours at the crash site. But on arrival at the hospital, her heart had stopped beating and her body went into seizure. They had been able to successfully revive her after fifteen minutes, but her heart had been stopped long enough to cause brain damage and she slipped into a deep coma.

Three weeks later the pilots' CO, General McDonald, had told Bryan that the accident had been life-threatening and they were lucky to still be alive. When he had sent out search and rescue parties, he had not expected to find the wreckage of the plane, much less its pilots alive. He had asked Bryan a lot of questions as he and Angela were the last pilots still engaged at the end of the battle. As well as that, they had lost radio contact and with it the pilots' position. He wanted to know how they had managed to land without excessive damage. Bryan explained how the ejector seats had malfunctioned, how one of their two engines had been hit and how they had had to make an emergency landing after coming to the aid of Comet 13 and Dove 3 and had eventually got back on course but then they were hit by a second missile to the wing and thereafter began to approach the ground at a dangerous speed and he had blacked out shortly after the appearance of the yellow light, leaving his co-pilot to face the situation alone. He did not mention the screaming. The only thing that he remembered was that dazzling light and the rapidly approaching ground below them.

"Do you remember anything else?" the general had asked him.

No, he remembered nothing except the craft shaking around him and the fatigue which was taking him over. He also remembered that the dashboard had been covered with electric waves. Had he touched it, he would have been electrocuted, so he understood his friend's screams. She had forced herself to fight the pain so that she could land the craft. McDonald had consoled him :"there was nothing you could've done, if you had you could have died too and she was the only one who could regain control of the situation, being the best pilot in the unit. Besides, that wasn't the first time she had successfully escaped from a bad situation, even in times of mortal danger."

A solider, an expert in comms, interrupted this consoling talk . He whispered a few words in the general's ear, so that Bryan would not be able to hear. The general, whose demeanour suddenly changed to one of urgency, told Bryan to follow him. They made their way towards an almost empty room. The little that was filled was taken up by screens on the walls and a few computers. He said to Bryan:

"I asked the best specialists we have to find me some satellite images of your aircraft from the Battle of Antarctica. Our satellite was out of range, so they used others in orbit. In the end, they found some images. I'd like for us to look at them together. This will of course stay strictly between us."

Bryan nodded his consent. He was eager to review the scene and find out what had really happened. The expert in question launched a program on the screen:

"I've put together the images from all the different satellites in chronological order in order to form a video. Okay, here's what we have, Sirs."

They saw the Mirage 911 surrounded by both friends and foes, after which everything played out quickly: a first missile barely missing the craft, carrying on to hit an enemy vessel. On the screens, they saw the planes that had abandoned the fight, then the interception of a second missile fired at an allied vessel, that of his brother. Thanks to a well-targeted missile from Mirage 911, the bogey's missile was hit before it found its mark and exploded before causing any serious damage. The Mirage followed the allied plane until it reached the secure zone, allowing it to land safely. After this, the Mirage re-established course to hook up with Angela's boyfriend's aircraft. A torpedo was getting dangerously close to her plane, which was already in trouble and so she decided to head towards the missile so as to stop it in its tracks. Her boyfriend had taken advantage of the situation to get out of the line of fire and land his craft safely. The impact was unavoidable; she had made the decision, the impact had been to one of her engines. This damage however was not enough to stop the Mirage. It was the last allied craft still engaged in the battle. Bryan looked at the general and saw two more enemy vessels disappear from the screen. Suddenly, two other vessels were seen to approach Mirage 911. They were not coloured in red, which usually signified enemy combatants. The general, surprised, asked for an explanation. Bryan told him that the aircraft were from other allied units who had formed up with them for mutual assistance but he no longer remembered their names.

One of these two faded from the monitor and the second was in clear difficulty as a missile was trailing it. Once again, Mirage 911 intercepted the missile, damaging a wing in the process. That was the last straw. The plane began to dive towards the ground below, the plane started flashing on one of the screens, indicating that it was experiencing technical problems and on the others it was noticeable due to the smoke caused by the reactor that was in the process of breaching. Gradually, the plane began to pull horizontal, but it was still moving far too fast and it was too late to slow it down. The vessel was headed for the surface and nothing else could be seen apart from the ground. This was the end of the video. The general visibly moved, decided to sit down, shocked as he was by what he had seen in the video. The Mirage 911 had saved numerous lives and was in its own way partly responsible for their victory. From what? And against whom? The general did not know, as it had been deemed classified State Secret information. He had sent his men into almost certain slaughter without knowing the reason. Many in his unit had lost their lives without knowing why. He had been left with very few pilots: Bryan, his brother Jason and his co-pilot, Angela, her boyfriend David and his co-pilot.

Bryan and General McDonald went to visit Angela. She was awake, well almost. She still had a way to go. The doctors informed them that she had made remarkable progress since she had come out of the coma. She seemed to be regaining her strength. They even joked that she could probably run a marathon, to lighten the mood. But no-one present was in the mood for laughter. Bryan went to visit her often after that. And then one day he arrived in her room as usual only to find that she was gone. All of a sudden, he started to panic: "did she have a relapse, did something else happen to her?"He stepped out into the corridor panicking and then he saw her, walking towards him with a big smile on her face : "she's so beautiful, radiant. Do I have feelings for her, or am I just worried for my co-pilot?The thought of having lost her had undoubtedly brought them closer. There was plenty for them to talk about while avoiding the subject of the accident.

Shortly thereafter, he went back to her room and saw that somebody else was now occupying it. He went to look for a doctor who informed him that she was no longer receiving visitors and had changed service. Seeing the worried look on Bryan's face, the doctor explained to him that she now had to follow specialised re-education sessions and a training regimen to recover her physical fitness.

End of flashback

He hadn't seen her since.

Thousands of miles away from Bryan, at the SGC, in Jack's office, Mitchell entered.

"You wanted to see me, General?"

Jack handed him a form. He was busy selecting the team which was due to depart on the new vessel.

"Why do you want me to sign this?"

"Oh, yeah, you're not up to speed, are you?"

"Up to speed with what?"

"Sign it, I'll explain everything. Oh, by the way, how was your leave?"

"Good, thanks. Okay, I'm listening," he said, signing the form.

"You're aware that we've decided to go to the planet in the Dragon Galaxy?"

"Yes sir. About that, I think we oughtta give it a name."

"We've chosen our pilot and now we need to go look for them," seeing that Mitchell was listening attentively, he continued, "which is why I had you sign that confidentiality agreement because the file concerning this individual is classified top secret and I need you to study it down to the smallest detail to help you find this person, do you understand?"

"Yes, but this person isn't in the military, so why do they need to be found?"

"They're no longer in the military and are now in hiding."

Mitchell handed the form back.

"Okay, I you to find those details in that file as soon as possible," Jack continued.

"Ok, I'll go find the file."

At that moment, Daniel arrived in a triumphant air:

"I think I've found something that we should all find interesting."

"I hope so Daniel. Could you hand the file to Mitchell?"

Daniel did as he was requested and Mitchell opened it and began to read.

"There it is, it says in the files that she wanted to follow science studies in Paris, so we should be able to narrow down our search a little."

"Good idea and a good start. Get prepped with Carter and take Teal'c along with you, if you need brawn and muscle, he's your guy."

Jack looked at Mitchell, he had a worried look on his face. Mitchell knew that face, that girl, he knew her. There was a flash and he understood. He had seen her at the hospital after the accident in the battle over Antarctica, but he had also had contact with her during her stay and during the battle. It all came back in just a few seconds, the moments they had shared in the same room. They had both been in critical condition. She had left and he remembered her departure well, she had given him a lingering kiss. He hadn't understood her gesture. What was her name again? "It was Angela, I think. How can that be, I knew she was a pilot, but why did they choose her?" He had heard all the rumours that she was able to handle all sorts of fighters with great ability. Why not? What happened to her?"He wanted to see her again to see how she was getting on. He wasn't surprised to learn she had overcome her injuries. She was a fighter.

"General, I think I should join them."

"Why" they both looked at him surprised, "is there something wrong?"

"Because I know Angela, General, and according to her file, they could use all the help they can get given her impressive mission record, I don't think they made her a secret agent for nothing."

"How do you know her, then?"

We were in the same hospital ward, she was in the bed next to mine and I was a lot luckier than her. I'm sure it was Angela. I spent a few months with her in the serious injuries section, we got close."

"Ah, yeah, I remember but with all those bandages and tubes I hadn't recognised her. What kind of close?" Mitchell had no idea why Jack was looking so insistently at Daniel as he asked that question.

"Let's just say we helped one another to overcome testing times. She was a great help in getting me to walk again; she gave me back my courage and I think I know where she might have gone, she mentioned a few places she'd have liked to go," he said, without mentioning the kiss.

"That's all? Ah, ok, I thought...never mind, forget it."

"I don't get it, what do you mean 'that's all'?"

"Forget about it, it's one of Jack's bad jokes," Daniel said.

"He's gonna have to find out sooner or later, he has to know everything if this investigation is going to succeed," he said smiling. "Ok, it's settled then, you fly out at noon."

"Two hours!" they both exclaimed at the same time.

"Well yes, the clock is ticking and the Ori are approaching."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about them," Mitchell said.

"Speaking of forgetting things, you'll be accompanied by a team for this expedition, a little mix of everything. Some of them will be there to help you track down this precious pilot. Well, you'll have plenty of time to get to know each other," Jack gave them a file.

"This is the mission team you picked?" Daniel read the list.

"Yes, some of them aren't available yet and I still haven't chosen, so if you can help me out I wouldn't object. You have four days to find her."

"What, that's it? Yeah, I know, the clock's ticking," Daniel said, seeing Jack eye his watch.

Daniel and Mitchell headed out of Jack's office in silence and each one went their separate way to get ready.

Jack was worried. Mitchell was right, it was going to be a tall order tracking her down. She was a masterful escape artist. They had been warned and they had accepted the challenge.

End of chapter

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