“Eagle Zero-One to all birds, approaching coast; expect visual within five Mikes. All Eagle Flight leads report status. How copy?”
“Eagle Two is on your wing, Captain; over,” Runner reported from his post next to the squadron leader’s plane.
“One-One copies; all aircraft in Alpha Flight running as needed, over,” Firebird reported.
The Captain looked back over his shoulder. Runner’s jet was stationed on his right side, at about 5 o’clock, a short distance away. Further back was Firebird’s Alpha Flight of five, organized in their own V formation a good ways behind them. He turned his attention back to the front and waited for the rest of the squadron to report in from their unseen positions. He did not have to wait very long.
“Two-One, Bravo Flight copies; all Eagles flying fine, over.”
“Three-One, Charlie Flight solid copy; all fighters are green, over.”
There was a short, but unexpected, period of silence.
“Eagle Four-One, you still trailing the squadron, over?” the Captain called through the radio, not getting an immediate response. “Dart, report, over.”
“Sorry, Sir; took a bit longer than usual to sound off,” Dart, the flight lead, finally replied. “All jets of Delta Flight are good Eagle One.”
“You sure, Dart? Everything look good?”
“We’re good, Captain.”
It had been 5 years since the Arcaian continent had abruptly dropped into the Pacific; 5 long years that did not feel near as long as they should have been. Yet those five had been filled with enough events and to make them real; militarization, tensions, and general war being at the forefront of it. In the complex, convoluted maze that made up the political motions of the past years, the end result had roughly come out to the two sides of the giants standing on the opposite sides of the Pacific, or three as Equestria still saw it.
For Cole, those 5 years had come with only one major motion in his personal position as a fighter pilot. The Captain had retired on schedule, shortly after the landfall position, leaving the leadership position vacant. Cole had been chosen to fill the position; actually, he had volunteered, being the only one to do so. Others decided not to put in their own recommendations for their own reasons, and the squad ended up with another Captain in command, rather than the usual higher-ranking Major that runs a normal squadron; but, then again, this was not a normal squadron.
Over the past years, the 1st Tac’s primary mission became one of a sort of ‘first line’ unit, still being stationed on Midway and ready to react to any kind of immediate threat from the Bloc. More recently, that had come in the specific mission of interception scrambles; taking off upon the notice of a Bloc bombing raid on the hapless Equestrians, usually from the Changelings, as they were the closest. Cole found it somewhat ironic that the virtual ‘fat’ of the Air Force had come to such a big role; though, at the same time, the ‘fat’ was the most expendable part of any system.
“Ok, keep in reserve Delta. And watch over the AWACS, out,” Cole ordered before turning his focus to the AWACS Sentry far behind them. “Casino, Eagle Flights are nearing the coastline. Time to target is ten Mikes. Anything on long range radar, over?”
“No major contacts moving in your direction, Eagle Actual,” the radar operator replied in an unsatisfied tone from the long tube that was the aircraft’s body. “Large formations of bogeys are on radar, but far off to the west and moving faster. Looks like another empty net, over.”
Officially, the Eagles could not fire on the Bloc formation unless fired upon, but there were a few tricks. Sometimes showing up next to the formation in strength, or better yet in front of it, could possibly deter them. Also, since the entire Arcaian continent was an official warzone, the U.S. stated that any major combat force that ventured far enough into international waters would be intercepted by a U.S. unit and escorted back to the battle zone to prevent civilians from getting caught in the crossfire. Only if they violated U.S. territory, or shot first, could the American pilots shoot back.
“Copy, but we still need to check the area. We’ll proceed to the coast and look over the damage, copy?”
“Copy, Eagle Actual; we’ll notify if anything else shows up, out.”
The first three flights were spread out in a long line parallel to the Equestrian coast, with each being positioned at a certain point. The fourth flight in the squadron, Delta, drew the job of hanging back as reinforcement and guarding the AWACS today. Each flight was spread out with several miles between them, in order to catch any loose units or stand a better chance of catching the formation, so there was no visual on the rest of the squadron for Cole beyond Runner and Alpha Flight.
The minutes passed quickly, and soon they could see the Equestrian coast, devoid of any kind of aircraft. Smoke plumes were rising into the air, and some pegasi could clearly be seen flying at different altitudes, but there were no machines in the sky. It was the final confirmation of what the AWACS, and Cole’s own radar, had predicted earlier; the Changeling bombers had already retreated.
“Sky is clear over here, no bogeys in sight,” Cole reported. “Anyone else have anything new to report, over?”
“Bravo is clear, over,” the second flight reported further down the line.
“Charlie’s A.O. is cold, over.”
“Eagle one copies; wait one, out,” Cole replied, going back to the AWACS. “Casino, Eagle One can visually confirm zero contacts in the area. Do we have any new orders, over?”
“See if you can get close enough to the Equestrian coast to take a damage assessment. But don’t risk anything if Equestrian units attempt to intercept, and don’t fly over their ground,” the commander in the AWACS ordered sternly. “And don’t stick around too long. If things get too hot, you evac out; we don’t need an international incident with these guys, too. How copy, over?”
This was nothing new to Cole, or the squadron, either. Periodically, after trying to catch a raid, they would be requested to survey the damage done to the target for intelligence. Usually, it would be after a heavy raid, such as this one had been. Only two times before had they been intercepted by pegasi of the Equestrian Air Force and actually turned back, and that was when they were just starting the mock-counters to the Changeling bombers; now, they were almost as un-apposed as the Bloc raiders.
“Solid copy, Casino; we’ll report when we’ve made contact. Let us know if anything appears on the radar, over,” Cole replied.
“Copy, Eagle; Casino out.”
With that, Cole returned to the squadron to inform them of the new set of orders.
“Alright, Eagle One to all flights; continue to the coast and report on damage and other findings. Delta, stay with the AWACS and remain on standby, understood?”
Just as before, each of the four flight leads sounded off, indicating that they understood.
“Alpha copies.”
“Bravo copies.”
“Charlie copies.”
“Delta copies, on standby.”
With everyone following their orders, it was now reduced to passing the time between flying to the coast and observing the destruction. As with all long flights, there could be moments of boredom, but Cole could not afford to day-dream. He had to keep his eyes open for any contacts that may come up, pegasi or otherwise. Usually, Cole’s active imagination would help ease the pain in a taxi flight, but risks could not be taken for this.
“Captain, how much longer do you think it’ll take until the Equestrians let us start helping them?”
Runner’s voice surprised Cole a tad, but he was still able to respond immediately.
“What makes you think they’ll accept it at all, Eagle Two?” Cole asked in return.
“We can’t really believe someone’s this hard-headed, right?” the wingman replied. “Maybe once a ground invasion’s started or if they’re at the gates of the capital. Then they’ll start calling for help.”
“By that time it might be too late.”
“Not for us,” Firebird interjected, still at the head of his flight, and still hanging back behind their planes. “We’re the fastest around; easily faster than any of those cats with wings!”
“I doubt they’d send average fliers against us, Lieutenant,” Runner replied in a much more official tone now. “They’d probably send jets against us.”
There was a shallow sigh before the Alpha Flight leader responded. Firebird, First Lieutenant Desser, never did like being corrected in that manner; it was not so much the response he got, but more at his own wording, making it sound like he overlooked the obvious. It was not that he was dim, or forgot that the Bloc had aircraft; he just had a bad way of putting things that made it seem like that, to him at least.
“Yea, I realize that Lieutenant,” he replied, trying not to sound sarcastic. “I meant that even with fighters, we’d beat ‘em to hell and back with ours. This baby’s got a hundred-to-nothin’ kill rate. You can’t argue with those numbers.”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy this time-”
“Cut the chatter,” Cole interrupted tiredly.
He did not immediately use a stern tone to correct them, as he did not think it was necessary; his men were wise enough to know to stop after he ordered them once, thankfully.
“You all keep your eyes open, I don’t want anything getting the drop on us,” Cole reminded the pilots. “Remember that it should always be the other way around.”
“Understood, Captain,” Runner replied.
Silence followed, unbroken by any kind of report or comment, as the planes flew closer to the Equestrian coast. Each of the pilots must have been wondering what they would find; whatever it was, it would not surprise them. Each had been on enough patrols, and observed enough bombing sites, to develop a resistance to shock. Whatever they saw would be slightly new, but the same overall picture.
Soon, a small sliver appeared on the horizon, which began to expand in size. Coming closer, they saw crooked lines of black moving into the sky; smoke plumes. Large ones bellowed into the sky, flowing west with the breeze, while smaller ones entered their view. The radar, like a crystal ball, had been right, as it usually was. A truly massive raid had taken place, easily one of the largest.
Things gained more detail as the pilots closed in. The bomber’s target had been a town, not a large one, but well-sized. From the number of collapsed houses that could be spotted, it had been much larger about an hour ago. Black holes and random glowing fires dotted the landscape in an around the town, making it looked like someone had spilt paint on a painting. Just why the Changelings targeted this town was unknown to the U.S. intelligence, but more than likely it was a terror attack, similar to those reported in the months before.
There was not much to tell other than a good deal of the town destroyed. They were too high to spot any ponies on the ground itself, for which Cole was secretly thankful, as he was not in the mood for seeing a shattered body in a pool of blood, even from 10,000 feet. What they were able to see were small groups of pegasi watching them from the clouds a short ways off, almost as if they were studying the fighters. Though Cole and the others knew they were probably there to wade off any American jets that came over Equestria proper.
“Pegasi spotted, twelve and ten o’clock,” Cole reported. “Let’s not provoke them. Flight; follow me, eighty degrees turn west. Straddle the coast, copy?”
“Understood, lead,” Desser reported. “Guess they don’t want us here.”
“No, they want us; we’re just not allowed,” Runner replied, threatening to start the conversation again. “I bet they’d love some help, but they can’t have any.”
“Bravo flight, Charlie flight; anything on your end?” Cole called over the radio, keeping to his mission.
“Nothing to report from Bravo’s sector, over.”
“Charlie’s area is clean sir, over.”
“Actual to Casino, large sections of nearby town damaged from bombing,” Cole reported to the AWACS. “Damage to specific structures is unknown. Unable to move closer due to guarding Echos. How copy, over?”
“Copy, Eagle One, no further actions required for now,” the air commander in the long tube that made up the Sentry’s body replied. “Your squad is cleared to RTB; report in if anything else comes up along the way. Casino, out.”
“Alright, all Eagles RTB, copy?”
Even as each flight lead reported in the affirmative again, Cole simply turned his jet around and commenced the journey back to the southeast, with the rest of his group following in suit. This one mission had tipped him over the edge a bit. It was one of the largest raids Midway had picked up, and they had succeeded in hitting their target, from the looks of it. His squadron was not even fast enough to intercept them, much less turn them back. Only four times over the years had the squad actually caught the attack force, all of which were made up of the older and slower Tu-16 ‘Badger’ bombers, and only once did the bombers actually turn around, mainly because it was a few days after the MV Cape Ray had been attacked, during which the Bloc lost aircraft.
It was in the irony of Firebird’s claim of being the fastest that the squad was, on the overwhelming majority of times, too slow to catch their possible targets. It was not necessarily the squad’s fault, nor did Cole or the higher-ups blame them, it was that the actual probability of interception was incredibly low. None ever truly expected to make it to the Bloc force in time; only on the luckiest of days would they actually visually spot one of their aircraft.
Even though they had to keep trying, Cole felt it was somewhat pointless, and jokingly imagined strapping one of the booster rockets that launched the space shuttles on to his Eagle to make it there in time; or rather, the plane would be strapped to the rocket. Regardless, it made him grin a bit, though not enough to kick out the feeling. He did not outwardly show his dismay beyond a few unhappy grunts, keeping every word on it internal, but covering it up did not mean it was not there. And it remained for another ten minutes until the AWACS operator called in again.
“Eagle One be advised, radar shows a single contact moving west-to-east along the Equestrian coastline. Small and low speed; can’t be a jet. Can you get eyes on, over?”
Cole was amazed by the turn-around he had with his luck. It already seemed like another failed interception, and now there was a bogey moving to where they had been, still quite close to where they were now. Why the contact was flying in that direction, though, was unclear. Still, he was now looking forward to finding out.
“Copy, Casino. We’ll move to intercept right now,” Cole replied quickly, his tone holding a small dash of happiness. “We’ll be a low on fuel, though. Can you get a tanker over to us, over?”
“Affirmative, Eagle One. We’ll have them waiting. Report back when you make contact, out.”
“Ok, we got a chance to catch a bogey, but we’re low on fuel,” Cole declared firmly to his squadron. “Bravo and Charlie flights are to continue to base. Delta, stay with the AWACS. Alpha is to maintain position right here for backup. Eagle lead and Eagle Two will go after this one.”
“Getting the fangs out, Captain?” Runner quipped. “Or talons in our case.”
The little comment brought Cole out of his mental luck-induced euphoria and back to what reality, and what the rules of combat stated. ‘Fangs out’, the pilot’s slang for getting excited for combat, explained just how he felt, and he knew it was not right as of yet. This was not a war yet; it was close to it, but not just yet.
“No, not yet Jack,” he responded quickly, breaking the radio formality a bit. “Like I said, we’re not looking for international incidents.”
“It feels like we are,” Runner replied in a somewhat matter-of-fact tone, though not enough to be disrespectful.
“I know it’s a tight line to walk, but we don’t have many options. Let’s just follow orders and respond to the situation as needed. There’s nothing we can’t deal with.”
“Copy that, Actual; I’m with you.”
The two lead jets did an immediate turn-around and headed back towards the coastline. The F-15s of Alpha Flight halted their southern drive and began flying in a wide circle, waiting to be called to action. Cole increased the Eagle from its cruising speed of 570 miles-per-hour into 920, breaking into Mach One and entering the supersonic state. Runner did not notice at first, and had to fly a bit faster to catch up to his leader; it was clear the Captain really wanted to catch this bogey.
“Alright, we’re closing in. Keep your eyes open, Two; he’s right in front of us,” Cole stated rather confidently.
“Understood sir, I’m tracking,” Walker acknowledged. “Contact maintaining current speed and heading, altitude is Angels Five. It probably doesn’t know we’re in the area.”
Angels Five, the code wording for an altitude level of 5,000 feet; it was unlikely to be a fighter or a heavy bomber.
“Let’s get this guy, Runner; now we can show what we’re capable of!” the Captain boasted determinedly. “We’ve got a second chance; we’re not blowing it this time!”
Far above the ground, the Changeling flew at a comfortable pace through the sky, his black outer shell contrasting against the blue and white. He moved along the coast, using it as a guideline, to move to his target. His job was to come in after the bombing raid to asses just how much damage it had done, and if the necessary objectives had been complete. It had only been employed recently, as the Equestrian Air Force had been not only grounded, but forced into virtual hiding by the fighters of the Arcaian Defense Bloc.
It had been scary the first few times, as he was unprotected; a few other assessors had been jumped and killed by pegasi who were hiding and got lucky, but those had been reduced greatly. Now on missions it would be a comfy, uneventful sailing to the target area, give it a good look-over, and return home. It had almost become boring, though seeing the broken ruins of Equestrian cities was a satisfying part of it.
The smoke from the raid’s target started to appear over the horizon. The Changeling wished now and then that he had gotten a position to a bomber; it would have been a wonderful time to fly a TU-160 in formation to a target, especially if that 160 were built in the Empire and not imported. But, he understood, or rather the hive helped him understand, that each mission was important in a war. He might not be able to actively kill the enemy, but at least his reports helped his allies to kill more. It would be a lie to claim that such war was not personal; but, at the same time, not much in the world was impersonal either.
The dark, boredom-induced thought and dreaming got to him too much. The Changeling quickly lost attention, and for far too long, until a noise caught his attention and dragged it from the daydream pool. Nor was it the notice of a noise that was slowly getting louder, the noise was right on top of him. With a light, short gasp and widening of his eyes, the Changeling’s dark head began to dart in every which way to find what was obviously a jet aircraft. He quickly found the culprit.
“There’s a Charlie!” John Cole jumped a bit in his seat on seeing the little black dot. “AWACS Casino, Eagle One; we’ve visually I.D. the bogey as a Charlie. Naked, no aircraft; doesn’t seem to be armed, how copy?”
“Copy, Eagle One. You are allowed to attempt to turn back the bogey and close the distance if you have to. But be advised that you are not authorized to fire,” the AWACS ordered. “Do you understand that, Captain? Do not fire, copy?”
The emphasis put on the last order led Cole to assume that they had noticed how happy he was on receiving the orders to turn around.
“Uh, c-copy Casino; we’ll hold our fire,” he said, stuttering a tad at the start. “Moving to intercept Charlie and turn it around; we’ll notify with an update on the situation in a bit, over.”
He then shifted his focus to his wingman.
“Runner, you stay here and keep an eye out if anything else appears; watch my back. I’m going to buzz him to shake him up a bit, over.”
“Copy that, Eagle One; on overwatch, over,” Walker replied.
Cole was actually in a very favorable position for this, being a good ways above and ahead of the Changeling. All he had to do was nose his craft to the left until he was going in the opposite direction of his target, then angle it down until he was set to just miss the Changeling. As he began to move down he noticed the Changeling had sped up and started to climb, and was now coming directly at him.
“Oh, so you want a game of chicken, Charlie?” Cole thought to himself. “You wanna joust? Well, let’s see if you’re a knight.”
The unexpected turn of events had shaken the Changeling badly. Running into a pegasi would have been bad, but running into an American fighter jet was even worse. For a minute, he had hoped they had not spotted him, but it became quite clear they had. Then the idea popped up that the Americans would leave him be and not attack him; however, that seemed to be crushed as one of them began to dive directly towards him. He had to do something, but he did not know what, nor did he have time to think of what to do. So, he instinctively rose to meet his opponent until he could think of a better plan; it had not occurred to him that said plan would not come, like looking for a nonexistent piece of bread before starving to death.
Being a Changeling, he was linked into a sort of hive mind; he could not directly communicate telepathically, or anything that drastic. The but there was a feeling connection; others could somewhat feel what he did, similar to what the humans called ‘I’ve got a feeling’ or ‘I’ve got a hunch’ based on nothing but what they feel, so they knew he was scared. And likewise, the connection to him began to order his own train of actions and thoughts from the control. The mind served to influence his instinct and his hive instinct told him to charge. On the other hand, his survival instinct told him to run.
Time slowed slightly for him, but not enough to make it easier. The distance closed, the jet screamed loudly and did not pull up, his own body did not deviate from the course, and his eyes were locked on the plane. Inside of his head, the civil war continued; with the ideas of staying and moving making no ground. While that happened, another part of his brain continued searching for a better solution.
Finally, the moment came to make the final decision. It was clear that he could not defeat the jet; perhaps by ramming it, but that would take his own life as well. At last, he broke, and decided to dodge, trying his best to angle down to fly under the plane. He decided only a millisecond too late.
“Shit!”
Cole had expected the Changeling to break away, and was caught off guard by its determination. The Eagle, too, had attempted to dodge late in the charge via a left bank. The Changeling still struck the craft, and in the unluckiest way possible. Striking the nose would have hurt the plane, but this had outright disabled, possibly even killed, the plane. Its body had flown directly into the air intake opening to the left engine, and thoroughly jammed up the works. The intake, as the name implies, allows air to be fed into the jet engine; the engine itself is usually strong enough to take expected impacts, such as birds or dust, but something of this size was not stoppable.
There was a sickening grinding sound and the left engine slowly stopped altogether. The craft was still banking hard when it happened, and the bank turned into a full spin. Cole was fazed from the hit, and did not fully know what was happening. It was only after a few seconds of theorizing that he looked back and noticed that his Eagle had lost about half its power.
“Of all the damned places to hit, I get that unlucky weakspot!? You bastard!”
He quickly reserved his angry rant towards the Changeling’s mangled corpse and began to try and right the plane. He was spinning left and going down in a steep angle, and applied the opposite force needed. He pulled the flight stick back and to the right as far and hard as he could; it did slow the spin significantly, but did not stop it or the dive. He followed it up but pushing down on the right pedal at his feet, adding the yaw to help, which finally stopped the aircraft’s role at an odd, leaning form. The fall, however, was not letting up.
“There’s got to be a way to fix this,” he thought. “No way can I let this thing go down.”
“Eagle One, what’s happening!?” Runner’s nervous voice called in his helmet. “Captain, SITREP!”
Cole did not respond immediately, he was too focused on trying to find out how to save the aircraft. A pilot does not bail unless he’s absolutely sure the expensive bird cannot be saved; to many, that realization did not come in time, and many a time the Captain had gone down with the ship. If he bailed without even trying to fly back, he would not be looked at the same by anyone.
“Eagle One, Casino; give us an update, over.”
Again Cole kept to himself, looking over his options. There were not many possibilities. The Eagle could make it home with one engine, but things did not fall in place properly for that. The dive continued, unchanged, and at such a low altitude. To add to that, his fuel state was near zero; even if he did pull out by some miracle, he would have an even harder time trying to re-fuel from a tanker.
“Nothing,” he said to himself.
“Eagle One, please repeat. Please acknowledge, over,” the AWACS called again.
Cole realized suddenly that this would not end well in either way. He could not pull out with such low fuel and at such a low altitude. If he bailed, the only land he could go to was Equestria, where the likelihood of capture was rather high; and if he was, God knew what kind of treatment he’d get. Internment, probably, but who knew what else. It came down to this; punch out or get his ticket punched.
“One is punching out!” he called through the radio before preparing himself.
The water below was coming close, but he had to make sure the aircraft was level; shooting out to the left or right, rather than straight up, ran some risks. He applied all the remaining pressure on the yaw pedal, but it only made the aircraft drift right, rather than turn. Letting off a bit, he pushed the flight stick up so it went from bottom-left to middle-left, and pushed against it with both hands. Sluggishly, the plane responded, and rolled slowly until it was straight.
Now Cole could, regretfully, leave. All at once he brought his feet close in as his hands shot from the stick to the handle right in front of his seat. Pulling out, the canopy of the aircraft blew off entirely, exposing the pilot to the blasting wind outside. Moments later, with the ceiling out of the way, the small rockets under the ACES II ejection seat fired him straight upwards, and out of the aircraft.
Everything after that handle pull was automatic. He hung in the air a bit until the chute automatically deployed with a satisfying tug. The force of being shot out, at an altitude of nearly 1,000 feet, left Cole in a small daze. He recovered in time to see the plane hit the water hard, and begin to sink to the bottom. It saddened him, and he looked for the positives to it.
“Well, at least the bad guys won’t get it; not at the bottom of the ocean,” he said to himself. “At least… I hope they can’t.”
Cole continued to float down, and attempted to adjust his fall so he would not hit the water. After a short ride, he impacted the soft sand on the edge of the beach, with the chute following right after. As soon as he got up and on his feet, the training kicked into gear like instinct.
“No doubt someone saw that,” he said to himself. “If they did, they probably saw me, too; gotta get moving either way. Last thing I need is to get dived on from the air by a pegasus like some hawk's coming at me.”
He unhooked himself from the chute, and did a quick look over of his suit to make sure he had everything. Satisfied, he did a quick look around to make sure that he was alone for the time being. There was at least one part of the situation that benefitted him; a large forest that spanned along the coast for a ways, just behind the small, narrow beach.
“That’ll make hiding easier; guess I’ve still got a little luck left in me,” he said, staring at it. “Let’s see how long it holds out.”
With that, he left the beach and ran into the sanctuary of the thicket.