THREE

BANG

Cyclops rubbed his eyes at the sudden noise. Bleary eyed, he reached for his watch lying next to him in his bunk.

0625 was across the green backlit digital face, the first flight ops of the day.

It had been over a month since he had arrived with the Vikings. On top of regular pre-deployment workups, he had spent hours in the simulators and back in the jet proving to the squadron's IP's – and the navy – he still knew how to fly the jet and employ it in combat. While he was annoyed at the idea behind it, he couldn't help but be grateful for the extra hours to shake off the rust going to the older airframe. Blinking a few times, he sighed and slid the privacy curtain open before swinging his legs out and jumping to the deck below. He took a glance at the other bunks, seeing them empty he turned on the light for the small stateroom. Thanks to his higher rank, he was only sharing a room with two other pilots instead of the eight or more that younger junior officers had to endure with. His stay on land had been brief, and once again Cyclops found himself deployed, and in the dichotomy that was living within the tight confines of the carrier, while being onboard to fly potentially thousands of miles from it.

Finding a clean looking flight suit, he quickly got dressed and meandered his way to the aircrew's wardroom. Stepping inside there was a gaggle of men and women from various parts of the airwing in various stages of their meal. A Handful of Junior Officers were huddled nursing cups of coffee while older senior crews sat at their respective tables reading on their tablets. Cyclops found a clean coffee mug and poured himself a glass, on another table was a setting of various breakfast foods. Once he was satisfied with the small breakfast sandwich, he had concocted for himself Cyclops looked out across the wardroom and found his RIO.

Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Nguyen stared into a bowl of cereal, not noticing Cyclops sit down across from him.

"Ya know, they say if you stare into it long enough, it's going to stare back at some point" Cyclops commented taking a bite from his sandwich. The remark catching the younger officer off guard, before he chuckled and shrugged.

"Still not used to this I guess." He replied, motioning around with a spoon in one hand.

"The wardroom food? I mean I've had better but this stuff isn't bad" Cyclops said not taking regard for the food he was currently chewing.

"No, I mean deployment. Cramped quarters, just a bit different than what we had at the FRS."

"Oh, that." Cyclops pondered for a second, "What did you expect joining the Navy? I'm pretty sure I saw this stuff in the ROTC brochure."

Nguyen rubbed his eyes "yeah that sounds about right. This is the cost of free college I guess." He groaned.

"bah" Cyclops said dismissively, wiping his face with a napkin. "You still get to fly in the back seat of cool jets. That's worth something."

"About that. I think I'm still extracting my seat cushion from your last landing."

"I'm a bit out of practice, OK? Stop being such a whiny ass." Cyclops replied dismissively. The younger pilot raised his hands in mock surrender before the two changed the subject.

Midway through their conversation and Cyclops' second cup of coffee, the Wing's deputy airwing commander walked into the room and made a beeline directly to Cyclops and Nguyen's table. Cyclops wasn't sure what to make of Captain Derek Forrester. From the brief bio he found on the airwing's website, he saw the man came up through the S-3 Viking community until making the transition to the Strike Fighters with the F/A-18C Hornet. Beyond those basics, he was still unsure what to make of the man. "Commander Campbell and Lieutenant… Tran?" He spoke up taking a seat next to Cyclops. Forrester was only slightly shorter than himself and had just the hint of age showing on his face and hair.

"Nguyen sir. Tran is over in the Seahawks squadron." Nguyen corrected politely.

The DCAG made an exaggerated grimace at the faux pas, snapping his fingers. "Dang, I should've known that."

Before the older man could continue to make social mistakes, Cyclops spoke up. "So, what can we do you for sir?"

Forrester snapped his fingers again "That's right. What do you two think of a recce sortie today?" he asked rhetorically, not waiting for a response he continued "Intel got passed down and they want some more recent pictures. We're getting a bird set up with the TARPS pod, but I need a crew. You two are already on the docket anyways." Forrester explained.

Nguyen looked to Cyclops as the senior of their duo, who shrugged noncommittedly. "Not like we have much of a choice." He said taking a sip of his coffee. Forrester grinned clapping his hands together "That's what I like to hear, that's what I like to hear." He repeated himself.

"Expect briefing at ten-hundred and step off around fourteen." Forrester added, before standing up and walking off.

When Nguyen was confident the DCAG was out of earshot he leaned in over the table. "What is that guys deal?"

Cyclops again shrugged noncommittedly. "Needs decaf I suspect."

the briefing room was fairly empty, with only a handful of seats at the front being occupied. Cyclops gauged the room and recognized some of the other pilot's squadron patches from the other attached F/A-18E squadrons in the airwing, but he didn't personally know anyone else besides his own Squadron Commander, Wyatt "DAG" Calvert who was leading the briefing. DAG, as Cyclops had come to learn over his short time in the squadron, stood for 'Doom and Gloom', which matched the permanent scowl affixed to the mans face.

Standing behind his podium he raised his eyes as the last few needed personnel entered the room.

"Alright, I suppose we can now get started" he began motioning for one of the junior officer's to hit the lights in the back of the room. The briefing always began with the weather. Outside the carrier and all the way enroute it was almost perfect flying weather, with broken clouds that was expected to clear up the closer they got to the mission target. Cyclops jotted down notes as DAG spoke, until his ears perked up at 'damaging dust storms', Cyclops' raised his hand. "Can you repeat that?"

DAG sighed, backing up on his presentation. "As I was saying –" he hissed "- Local intel on weather patterns suggests that mega dust storms can and will pop up. From what NOAA has passed along, they had three storms in the last week. As long as you stay over the secondary crater of the main city you should be fine." He explained.

"How high can these storms even go?" This time the interruption came from Nguyen.

DAG Sighed again "they've been recording dust walls up to 15,000 feet."

There was some murmur in the room at that. Cyclops chuckled with some of the comments he could hear muttered between them. Not my fault you guys didn't watch the Nat Geo special.

DAG, unwilling to wait for the room to quiet on its own let out a sharp whistle to grab the attention in the room. "Regardless, Weather intel suggests we shouldn't have a mega event, and if a storm does pop up it should be well below 5,000'. Keep an eye out into the desert and holler if you see something." He continued with the rest of the expected weather and NOTAMs that would be relevant to the mission. The Ingress and egress were also something Cyclops took note of. From what he knew, the Pelican was still over five-hundred miles off the closest part South Sotoa's south shores, and this mission would take them along the coast for another three hundred miles to their target. Doing the math in his head, it was the very edge of the F-14's ferry range, and well beyond a standard combat range, though instead of bringing up his concerns at that moment Cyclops elected to keep his mouth shut to not continue incurring his squadron commander's wrath.

Finally, DAG got to the meat of the mission. He clicked the slide deck to a larger map of South Sotoa, various regions were highlighted in red.

"Twenty-five years ago, a fragment of the Ulysses Asteroid hit South Sotoa, and the resulting destruction has functionally cut this country into two. Thanks to the increased heat on an already unstable fault-line, we've been looking at massive storms that make this exclusion zone almost unpassable." He paused to wave a laser pointer around the large red region in the core of the map. A small notation was made for various impact craters that covered the region, with the largest being labelled the Herbet Crater.
DAG clicked the presentation again, this time to an intelligence photo of an older man, with a weathered face and a visibly distressed service cap.

"One of the few zones largely unaffected by the impact and its consequences has been Melville, and for the past twenty years it was under the military dictatorship of this guy." He paused for effect. "Major Jaun Baptiste, formerly of the South Sotoan army. Started life as an idealist looking to see his country through, ended his life dead in a ditch six months ago at the hands of the insurgents he once ruled his domain with. Believe me, no one in Jamesonburg lost any tears with him out of the picture." A few of the pilots chuckled at the attempt at humor. "Ever since, what had been keeping these insurgent gangs in check has vanished and now they're reaching further into the Gulf looking for ships to take."

The slide deck clicked to a still image of an Osean Maritime Defense Force Replenishment Oiler. It had multiple scars along its hull and smoke was still billowing from uncontrolled fires below its deck.

"This was two months ago. OFS Reliant. Eighteen sailors dead in this attack."

The slide clicked again, two more cargo vessels with signs of battle damage. "The MV Horizon Star and MV Astraea. Six crew killed in the attempted taking of the first, the Astraea was taken with another three killed and the rest abandoning the ship to get picked up by Yuke Coastguard two weeks ago. Gentlemen, I don't need to be the one to say that Oured wants these attacks to stop, and we will be the ones to do it."

Another click of the slide provided their targets.

"Intel believes these locations to be the most strategically valuable to the Insurgents running Melville at this time, your job is to fly over at ten-thousand feet. It's going to be risky but, one aircraft is just a waste of a missile. Threat environment is your standard, Sotoa left behind a few SA-2s and SA-3's that the Yukes gave them, we have reason to believe that they may have added a SA-6 within the past decade. It is unclear however how many of these systems work, and even if the local forces know how to operate them properly."

Cyclops furrowed his brow, any one of those could easily track and kill a tomcat, and he wasn't keen on relying on enemy incompetence to keep him safe.

"Air Threats are minimal. At some point they had a handful of MiG-21 and L-39 fighters, but we have no reason to believe that they are still operating today. We do know Baptiste's forces were flying UH-1's until recently but no evidence of air-to-air weaponry on them. It is the opinion of myself and our Intelligence officer that this mission and frankly the entire operation shouldn't be much in the way of air-to-air combat for once." DAG said nodding to the squadron's intelligence officer, Lieutenant Commander Sam Schneider. DAG motioned for her to take the podium and continue the briefing.

"As Commander Calvert said, we do not have reason to believe the threat environment to be any greater than what has been stated. MANPADs of course will always be a threat with these groups, but at 10,000 you should be well outside a SA-7's range. As for recent intel that's all we currently have, this mission will be testing the waters to see what's there up close, and you can expect that we will have more of these recce sorties as we get closer to the AO. Unfortunate nature of these insurgent held environments is that they can shift from hour-to-hour, let alone day to day."

Nguyen raised his hand. "In that case Ma'am, what do we do if we get shot down?" It was a valid concern, but not one Cyclops wanted to think about. He could see on her face that she was formulating a diplomatic answer beyond 'you're screwed' or 'just don't'.

"We have been informed that there are friendly forces in the area, but at this time the Pelican does not have contact with them, and we cannot assume that they will be a QRF To your rescue. In the event you are shot down, expect that within two-hundred miles of the carrier to be the maximum for our Search and Rescue assets to pick you up. You may have to escape and evade a few days before the Carrier can come to your rescue."

The silence filled the room as each man and woman thought on the information, before long Schneider continued.

"Beyond that, today you will be the only friendly sortie in the area. Cyclops and Nguyen, you'll be in Viking one-oh-six flying the main recce package. Elvis and Street Rat, you'll be in Playboy three-oh-four flight running top-cover. Controlling aircraft will be Watcher six-oh-one by Lieutenant Commander Tucker and crew."

The briefing concluded with information on refueling aircraft tracks that could be sent in support of the mission, and other minutia relevant to mission success in the odd edge-cases that the package may find itself in.

After going to the bathroom one final time, Cyclops made his way to the flight deck where he found Nguyen busy conducting his part of the pre-flight. Cyclops put on his helmet and conducted his own pre-flight, meeting with the plane captain, verifying pins were removed and then doing a walk around verifying stuff that should be secure, was, and parts that should move, did. Eventually the time came, and the two crew climbed the ladder into the cockpit.

"So, over-under on us getting shot at today?" Nguyen yelled from the back seat as Cyclops ran his checklist from the front.

"I think the odds are that you still don't know what 'over under' means" Cyclops replied non-committedly, still focusing on the task at hand. "Canopy clear" Cyclops called out "Clear" Ngueyn replied, the Aircrafts hydraulics hissed as it latched into place. With a few flicks of switches the cockpit came to life, and within minutes the Tomcat's engines were roaring to life. Cyclops followed the plane directors hand signals until he was aligned with the forward catapult. In his mirrors he could see the escort fighters hooking up to the waist catapults on the carrier. Going through the final control checks he got the thumbs up from the catapult crews as he swept the tomcat's wing forward.

"Viking one-oh-six up and ready, one" Cyclops called over the radio.

"Viking one-oh-six, check harnesses, standby for launch." The Airboss called.

The next voice was the carrier shooter "Viking one-oh-six, ten knots down the angle, launch when ready."

"Viking One-oh-six ready" Cyclops replied, giving a salute to the shooter and pushing the throttles to the stop. The catapult fired thrusting Cyclops back into his seat with three G's of force as the aircraft was thrown to over 150 knots, after the three seconds of acceleration the jet was clear of the deck and climbing under its own power, retracting the gear, he could hear Nguyen confirm it over the aircraft's ICS.

"Mother, Viking One-oh-six, airborne, climbing through one thousand, gear and flaps are up" Cyclops reported.

"Viking, Mother, Radar contact, switch to Raptor-three, proceed on departure." The Carrier's controllers replied.

As the F-14 climbed to its pre-briefed altitude, Nguyen made another call out. "Tally two-off our seven o'clock."

The RWR indicated it was their escort of F/A-18E's "Friendlies, just going the same place we are." Cyclops reassured his RIO.

After a few minutes the Carrier's controllers called out to the aircraft.

"Viking one-oh-six, Playboy flight, proceed on course, contact Watcher, switch to Raider one-five."

Without needing prompting, Nguyen switched the radio over to the pre-loaded frequency.

"Watcher, Viking one-oh-six, checking in. Angels 25, fuel state sixteen-five, enroute as fragged."

"Viking, Watcher, Picture clean, recommend Viking continue." The E-2 replied.

For the next two hours, the flight of three aircraft flew with little discussion up the coast. From their altitude Cyclops could see the remnants of the country, blown asunder by twenty years of constant disaster, as the sunset, only a few settlements appeared to have continued to eke out an existence amongst the sand, Cyclops observed them as nothing more than stars against a rapidly darkening void.

As the flight approached their target, Nguyen spoke up again. "What's that off our nose, about 11 o'clock?"

Cyclops squinted until he saw on the horizon. "At this altitude, probably Oasis; a Mega city built after the war. If I understand it right, most of what got used to build the space elevator in Usea got coopted to make that place." He explained.

"Hey, looks like we're getting close to the AO" Nguyen reported, pushing the idle chat out of both of their minds.

"Concur, get that pod ready" Cyclops said clicking on his mask.

"Watcher, Viking One-oh-six, on station angels twenty, descending to ten, Fuel state eight and feet dry in sixty. Beginning TARPS run" Cyclops reported.

"Viking, Watcher, picture clean, Proceed with recon, call when feet wet."

"We're hot." Nguyen replied, Cyclops pulled up the pre-loaded flight plan into the tomcat's navigation display, he increased the throttle to pre-briefed airspeed and began to follow the line.

"Watcher, Viking, TARPS is online, rolling in for pass one." Cyclops reported. In the background he could hear the F/A-18 escort begin their orbit above the city to stay out of Cyclops' way.

The Tactical Airborne Reconnaissance Pod System, otherwise known as TARPS, had evolved significantly in the forty years since its adoption. Long gone were the days of film and dark rooms, now the cameras and sensors were digital, and through Datalink between the F-14 and the E-2 could send back images live to the carrier. Its addition made the F-14 another valuable asset in the OMDF's naval arsenal.

The sun had just set as the F-14 crossed over its first target, a power station. The crew worked silently as Cyclops guided the jet over each location, and Nguyen maneuvered the cameras to take the pictures needed. Within minutes the first pass was completed with Cyclops climbing back to the holding altitude.

"Watcher, Viking, first pass completed, resetting for second run." Cyclops reported.

"Watcher copies. Driftwood reports clean imagery" the E-2 replied.

By the second pass, the city was entirely engulfed in darkness. The Second pass was conducted with IR imagery, picking up other details that could otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. Cyclops, still focused on flying the profile, took notice when the Radar-Warning-receiver began to pick up tracking radars from SA-2 sites below. He hoped for a moment that their foe actually was incompetent before pushing the thought out of his mind to focus on the task at hand. Completing his run, Cyclops climbed the Tomcat back to the holding area.

"Watcher, Viking, Feet wet, Miller-time, Fuel state 6.5 RTB to Mother."

Nothing. Cyclops verified the radio Frequency and called again, nothing, He switched to the inter-flight frequency. "Playboy, Viking, how do you hear?"

"Loud and clear, You guys lose Watcher too?" the flight lead, Elvis, asked.

"Yeah, no luck raising them on our end. Must be some interference or they didn't report the handoff. Join on me and let's get out of here." Cyclops responded.

"Watcher, Viking in the blind, we're RTB, flowing southbound." Cyclops said before turning the F-14 back toward the carrier group. The flight south was annoyingly quiet, while the air-to-air threat was non-existent, he still wasn't happy not having all the assets at his disposal when flying over a hostile country. Approaching the Carrier group, Cyclops switched to the fragged frequency.

"Mother, Viking one-oh-six, fuel state two, recon complete." Cyclops reported.

"Viking one-oh-six, Mother Copies. Red Crown sweet-sweet. Contact Marshall on Raptor eight." The Carrier replied.

Following the marshalling instructions, Cyclops configured the Tomcat for landing behind the dimly lit postage stamp that was the carriers deck.

"Viking One-oh-Six, call the ball." The carrier LSO reported.

"Viking One-oh-six, Hornet ball, one-eight." Cyclops responded.

"Uhh, Confirm ball Viking?" the LSO replied quickly, Cyclops wasn't sure but he could swear he heard laughter in the background. Rolling his eyes he quickly corrected himself. "That's Tomcat ball for Viking."

"You're on glide slope, left of center, adjust right." The LSO guided. Cyclops added right pressure on the stick, easing the lumbering jet back towards the imaginary centerline from the deck.

"Maintain speed, looking good." The LSO replied.

"Power, Power." The LSO's voice could be heard. Instinctively Cyclops eased the throttles forward, he could hear the twin GE Engines spool up and within a second the extra thrust bringing him back onto the glide slope.

The carriers deck came into view, He could feel the main gear touch the deck as he slammed the throttle forward into military power as the jet's arresting hook caught one of the cables on deck. He felt the forward force as the jet began to slow, coming to a stop he pulled the throttles back to idle, allowing the jet to ease back.

"Viking one-oh-one, trap confirmed, welcome aboard." The LSO reported.

Cyclops went through his after landing checklist, sweeping the wings back and clearing the runway. Before his RIO could say anything, Cyclops got on the ICS "I don't want to hear it."

"Hey man, I wasn't gonna say a thing -" Nguyen replied, feigning ignorance. "-But you know, after a certain age memory does tend to be an issue." He added.

"Zip It." Cyclops hissed as he looked for the bright yellow jacket of his plane director. As he taxied into the parking spot the first of the escort Hornets landed. Cutting the engine Cyclops was eager to put the jet away and get into the briefing. He had been flying for six hours and felt every bit of it. Finishing his part of the checklist minutes later, Cyclops unfastened his harness from the seat and stood up, throwing his leg over the side of the cockpit to climb down and meet his awaiting RIO, groaning slightly as he made the final hop onto the deck.

"God, I hope I don't get like that when I'm your age" the young RIO joked. Cyclops rolled his eyes. "I just turned thirty-five." "Really? Could've fooled me old man."

Cyclops shook his fist at his lieutenant. Though he was reluctant to show it, he was exhausted and just wanted to sleep and yell at the E-2 pilots for leaving them in the dark.

The two F-14 pilots were the first to reach the ready room for the debriefing followed by Elvis and Street Rat. After an inordinate amount of waiting, one of the LSOs from the Hornet squadron gave his grades. All Pass, though they debriefed Cylops' faux pas on aircraft identification. After more waiting, the CAG Walked in followed by Captain Forrester and DAG.

"Gentlemen," Comet began, "Unless you haven't heard already, Watcher Five-oh-one is currently missing. What we know is at eighteen fifty-three we lost radar contact with the E-2 and its crew, did any of you see or hear anything on that mission, a distress call, anything?"

The four aircrew glanced at each other. "Ma'am, that was about when we lost contact with them too." Street Rat reported.

CAG looked at Cyclops, he shrugged "We had contact for our first pass but couldn't raise them on our second." He reported.

Comet furrowed her brow. "I understand. Search and Rescue is underway but we're currently not confident given the time and sea-state in the area it went down in."

"Are we thinking enemy action?" Elvis asked.

Comet shook her head. "At this time, no. Nothing was on either the E-2 feed we got or the shipboard radars. Its currently looking like a mishap."

The mood was muted for the rest of the debriefing. Elvis volunteered to go back out but was rejected by the CAG and his own commander, and Cyclops could see the concern painted across the younger officer's faces. They knew some of the guys on Watcher and now didn't know if their friends were alive or dead.

It was a feeling Cyclops knew all too well.

[Initialized]
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[Core: Active]
[Self-Diagnostics complete]
[Time 2145 Zulu]
[Subsystems: Functional]
[Preflight: Complete]

Awaiting Command….