Chapter Text
Chapter 19 – Operation Diamond, pt.1
The days leading up to the 23rd of June 1969 were nothing short of hectic.
Aircraft were readied for service at a pace they had yet to see, and pilots were rushed through extra training to make use of the new weapons that many of them had unlocked in the days, weeks and months previously.
As for new aircraft, Kirito and Argo found themselves constantly studying the manuals for their new F-14A, whilst Asuna studied the manual for her new F-15A that had replaced Wind Fleuret II almost two months ago – after Liz had declared that her Lightning had completely had it, the wings cracked from violent maneuvers, and the electrical system about one bad day away from giving up the ghost entirely, given all the additions she had installed…
It had been slightly concerning that Liz hadn’t noticed all that a little bit earlier, especially considering that she had been the one to install all those modifications in the first place, but she had bigger concerns: getting them all back to flight status.
In between the learning curve that had been learning to operate a completely different generation of aircraft and breaking the habits she had picked up from her time flying the Lightning, all of them had to go through the myriad of hurdles placed in front of them to reinstate their commissions.
That process had been far from painless, and even involved mandatory therapy with a therapist bought in to check they were “of sound mind”. Exactly what that meant, she didn’t know, and if she was honest, the woman they bought in didn’t seem to know either.
Not that she was complaining about that – Strea was far more amicable and pleasant than she had been expecting, and surprisingly easy to open up to about their issues, most of which weren’t related to the current situation at all. She reckoned she wasn’t the only one who thought that either; even Alice had seemed a little bit less uptight, which was an achievement in her eyes.
That hadn’t been the only part of the process that she had found counter-intuitive though. One of the results of their records and the failed raid on Telos Major was to have a number of squadrons disbanded, and reformed into newer squadrons, and that happened to include all of the 23rd, 24th and 25th, to be replaced by what Commander Bercouli had called “the Eagle Wing”.
Those three squadrons, as well as Philia’s old squadron, the 312th Reconnaissance Squadron and an electronic warfare unit, the 890th Special Squadron, would go onto make the bare bones of the 1st Eagle Wing; their squadrons being reformed as the 301st Fighter Squadron, 302nd Fighter-Bomber Squadron and 303rd Fighter Squadron, whilst the 312th became the 305th, and the 890th became the 307th Electronic Squadron. She reckoned they would not be the only ones in time, as she had overheard a conversation between Diavel and the Commander about bringing in pilots and squadrons from other allied forces once this operation was over.
All of that meant that the 23rd Fighter Squadron was no more though; the Black Blades, Twilight and Fuurinkazen would make up the backbone of the 303rd Fighter Squadron now. Despite the name change, very little had really changed – even the squadron’s coat of arms had remained the same, bar replacing the 23 on there with 303!
In reality, she believed the change was simply so as Command could distance them from their previous exploits, and to give them a longer leash, something she was really quite happy about!
Especially given preparations for operations above Adamas were planned for less than a week from now. She had to wonder what witchcraft of politicking had been involved to cause the two otherwise bitter enemies that were Osea and Yuktobania to work together, but if it meant they had the numbers advantage going in, then she really wasn’t complaining.
No, what concerned her was the level of secrecy involved – no one really knew more than a quarter of what was going on. Even Diavel, who was realistically in charge of their contribution to the air campaign, had practically admitted he only knew what they were doing. The rest of it was on a need-to-know basis, and apparently… they didn’t need to know.
Which filled her with a sense of dread, as she had taken some time to read up on the politics involved on Adamas – though calling it politics was probably being generous. In actuality, it had been a succession of madmen, lunatics, drug addicts and would-be despots who had rarely managed a month in charge of the country, before the people made their discontent very known.
Known in the way that angry mobs were so often want to do.
The cabal currently in charge of the island had been considerably less arrogant than those though, they had been cunning in letting the state of the island reach such a fever pitch that anything seemed better by comparison. The man in charge was one Francois Mboa, and to say he had any power was probably being generous too. He was never seen without his advisor, a former Estovakian mercenary going by the name of Chudelkin, and this had led many to believe that Chudelkin was the real power in the Administration.
Not that it had stopped Mboa from indulging in his vices though; drugs, alcohol and women were all a very common sight, according to Philia, and there had even been rumours of a squadron of MIG-25s manned solely by the most attractive pilots they had, hand-picked by the “President” himself… not that those rumours were taken too seriously.
Still, they had managed to piece together most parts of the plan before the end of the week – though the land assault was still a very unknown quantity, and if she believed what Sierra said, possibly the stupidest idea in a long time.
He wasn’t wrong though – it would be urban warfare across the entire island, through towns and a city, with civilians in the crossfire at every turn, almost the definition of unrestricted warfare.
As for the air assault, it was likely that the 303rd would be split by flights – Black Blade providing fighter cover across the southern beach, whilst Twilight and Samurai attacked ground units on the northern beaches. The 301st, the former 25th, would be given the task to secure air superiority over Tulau, the capital city, whilst the 302nd, the former 24th, were to disable the airbase to the southern side of the island, codenamed X-2, using anti-runway munitions.
She didn’t envy their job at all – dashing in low at near the speed of sound, decelerating over a field of triple-A in order to deploy the munitions, then running away very fast, and preferably before every air defence system in the south lit them up…
/-/
If Asuna had thought the run up to Operation Diamond was hectic, then she really hadn’t seen anything yet.
The evening of the 31st of May 1969 was spent waiting around, sat in their cockpits, the fuel bowsers and electrical generators plugged into their aircraft like umbilical cords to keep them ready to go at a moment’s notice, whilst other aircraft were moved in and out of position on the apron at Bana City.
The civilian airport had been taken over by the military for the past few days, something she couldn’t say she imagined would be acceptable in their world at all, and every kind of aircraft she’d seen up to this point had gone past her canopy at some point in the evening – fighters, bombers, tankers, electronic warfare types, transports, helicopters… if it was in the Osean arsenal, then it had likely been there that evening.
Still, that left the Eagle squadrons sat around with nothing to do, and nowhere to go…
“Solitaire Two here. You reckon there’s a traffic jam up there yet?” Kureha asked, and she could understand the boredom in her counterpart’s voice.
“Hey Cap, you’re British… reckon that’s a traffic jam or not?” Sierra asked, clearly trying to get a rise from his PIC.
“Says the guy from L.A.” Jet answered without much amusement in his voice.
“Handbags at dawn, ladies…” Itsuki interjected before any more barbs could be exchanged. Despite the insults, she’d come to learn that it was a strange form of endearment between those two – if they were insulting each other, everything was probably fine.
If they weren’t… then trouble was usually brewing.
“Nah, we’re just that good that we’re being kept in reserve for now. They don’t want us saving the day again!” Klein joked, earning a mix of laughs and groans from all of the squadrons. “Mind ya, it wouldn’t be us saving the day, it’d be the Angels.”
“Angels?” asked Alice.
“You haven’t heard? You guys are being called the Angels of Oured now.” Klein explained, not that it clarified anything.
“What a ridiculous name.” Alice groaned. “Besides, what did we do to deserve such a name?”
“Apparently, you appeared from nowhere when all was lost at the bay and turned the tide of battle into an Osean victory.” Klein summarised.
“Err, we lost that battle. Quite conclusively, actually.” Ronye answered, pointing out the glaring error in that particular story.
A glaring error that apparently left a few of the former naval pilots less than happy at its existence. “Charming, we get painted as feckless idiots, and they get the victory for a battle they didn’t even win…” Sierra grumbled, clearly unaware that he was broadcasting…
“Your microphone is still on; in case you happen to be unaware.” Alice reminded him, a completely false sense of sweetness in her voice.
“Oh for-Cap, you bastard! You left the mic on!”
“You leant on the button, not me.”
“Getting back to the subject…” Kureha, ignoring the squabble going on in the static behind her, pulled them back to the original topic of conversation. “I’m guessing someone made you guys the heroes because it made a good story.” Whilst she may not have been as openly angry as Sierra had been, Asuna hadn’t missed the intonations in her voice that told her she was just as angry, but better at keeping it bottled up.
Understandably so, in her opinion, as it did completely downplay the efforts that the eight naval pilots had gone to, in order to defend their carrier group against impossible odds and not to mention ignoring that they had exposed themselves to more fire in order to launch a search for Koharu, one that was admittedly in vain, but those were not the actions of cowards or the actions of an incompetent defence…
“No idea, but apparently you girls are the poster girls for the Air Force now. There’s even pinups going around…” Klein told them, before immediately realising what he had just told them. “I’ve not seen them though! Just heard about them!”
“Wow, you’re really bad at lying.” Tiese told him bluntly.
“He is, especially as I know he has seen them.” Liena said nonchalantly. “I saw your walls the other night. Along with the ceiling, but I can’t say there was one up there.”
The fact that even Argo had audibly done a spit-take at that one, let alone everyone else in the group, told her a lot about the context of that statement.
Eydis, on the other hand, just laughed hysterically at that. “Wow, Liena, and you say I’m a perv… at least I don’t go broadcasting my exploits to everyone… at least tell me they got our good sides?”
“Eydis!” Alice shrieked.
“What? You can’t tell me you’re not a bit curious, Ali?”
“No! No I am not!” Alice stated definitively. “I am not curious at all what some oversexed artist thinks I look like in very little clothing!”
“I am though!” Eydis replied cheerfully. “Klein, when we get back, can I see them?”
“Edmondson, control your girlfriend!” Alice shrieked at Jet, who seemed to be knocking his helmet against his control panel, either in laughter or in frustration…
Whichever it was, it was admittedly quite funny to see Alice lose her cool over something. Even if what it was over was rather less amusing…
“Alice, you’ve had 18 years of trying to corral her. What makes you think I’ll do any better?” He pointed out. “Eydis, knock it off. Tease her when we aren’t waiting for clearance to go.”
“I meant stop her permanently, not delay it!”
“That’s on you, Blondie. Should’ve said that then.” Sierra quipped back, and Asuna could see exactly where this was going – those two were experts at winding each other up, it had transpired.
During the month of grounding, the “prank war” that everyone else had found themselves in the middle of had gradually become more mean spirited, until a mix of Liz threatening Alice if she continued to mess up the paperwork to mess with Sierra, and Eydis reminding Sierra that the next time she wound up with red hair would see a very different kind of red mess in the shower, had created a cease-fire between those two.
A cease-fire that was now being threatened at the worst possible moment…
Luckily though, Sierra’s mic cut out before he had any more chance to do any damage on that front. “Ahh, the joys of being PIC. I can do that.” Jet sighed, though she could hear Sierra commenting angrily in the back seat about adding an r in there.
“Thank you, Captain, I was getting rather fed up of listening to that dispute.” Fanatio told them, her MIG-21 parked somewhere further down the flightline, having only come out of repaint that day. Given the fact that both sides were using MIG-21s out here, it had been decided that any aircraft known to be in the Adamasian inventory, as well as a partner force’s, would be painted with invasion stripes, to distinguish allied MIG-21s from enemy MIG-21s and prevent friendly fire incidents…
“No problem, ma’am.”
Returning her scanning from over the direction of Fanatio’s MIG, she had noticed that the apron had started to clear somewhat quicker now, and with only two hours to go until commencement of the operation, she imagined they would be soon to go up and await their instructions at 01:00 hours.
“Black Blade Flight, proceed to taxiway Oscar-6 and await further instructions.” The tower called them, and Asuna began to set the switches into the correct positions in order to disable the ground ancillaries and switch the F-15 into a mode that meant it could rely on its onboard electronics and fuel system.
“Kirito to all Black Blade aircraft, you heard them. Head to the taxiway, and we’ll form up in the air.”
“What he meant is “get ya game faces on, guys and gals, cus’ this is gonna be a long night.”.” Argo told them, and she really did have no idea just how right she would turn out to be on that one…
/-/
By the time Black Blade had had climbed to their assigned altitude and track, it had been time for the flight to rendezvous with a tanker circling not far from Bana, in order to top up their tanks, and by the time they had returned from that, mission launch was less than ten minutes away.
At time 00:52, t-minus eight minutes, they had been given their new course and directed to fly south over Skerries Island, to meet up with a Yuktobanian flight, and to escort the landing ships to the south beach, codenamed “Point Rain”, with an expectation that they would arrive around 00:58.
“Black Blades to Molot, how copy?” Kirito called out as they approached the RP.
“Molot Leader, reading you loud and clear. Good to have you with us tonight, we have heard many stories!” The Yuktobanian flight leader called. “Our flight will handle ground targets along the approach, we will need you to provide air cover though. Adamasian fighters are no joke…”
“Tell me ‘bout it. Nearly got took out by a MIG-25 last week…” Argo told them.
“Consider it done, Molot.”
Alice was the first to break the silence that had fell over Black Blade Flight as they reached the RP at 10,000 feet and turned onto a heading of 027 degrees. “I don’t understand, we’re at the staging point; should the allied forces not be-holy mother of God!”
Asuna looked down from her cockpit, and spotted what she assumed was the allied forces. Vast waves of wash kicked up from the sea below, long white streaks cut into the jet-black water below and moving far faster than any boat she had ever seen, even faster than the quickest of speedboats.
“Oh my…” Ronye gasped.
If she didn’t know any better, she’d have almost assumed they were planes, but at that low of a level?
“That ain’t a sight ya see e’rry day now, is it?” Argo chuckled to herself.
“Are those…” Tiese asked.
“Ekranoplans. A lot of them too!” Kirito answered.
Closing the gap, she was able to gain a better view of the craft below them:
A veritable force of fast-moving objects, somewhere between boats and aircraft, though seemingly neither at the same time – far too fast to be boats but skimming the waves far too closely to be planes – of really odd configurations for either type of craft.
The larger ones appeared to have their engines positioned in large pods besides the cockpit, and positioned ahead of the stubby main wings that skimmed across the water below them, whilst the tail surfaces were absolutely monstrous; the vertical stabiliser towering above the craft, whilst the horizontal stabiliser dwarfed the wings, almost making it look like a staggered biplane of sorts…
The “smaller” ones – though in this case, smaller was a relative term, they were still larger than most transport aircraft she had ever seen, bar the rare times a Galaxy arrived at the base – lacked the engine pods on the larger craft, though they instead had a massive contra-rotating propeller mounted in a pod atop the highly swept tailplane.
Exactly how these things worked, she genuinely had no idea (though she did make a note to read up on it when she got chance), but whatever the case was with these “ekranoplans”, they were certainly a sight to behold!
“I am aware that I should be at peak performance right now… but there is currently a part of my soul weeping with joy at that sight.” Alice told them, her voice clearly showing how awestruck she was.
“Err… she means she thinks ekranoplans are cool.” Eugeo translated from “Alice”. “I think, anyway.”
“Yeah, well, looks like the Adamasians don’t think quite so highly of ‘em! Coastal batteries openin’ fire!” Argo pointed out, as shells began to splash down around the ekranoplans, missing them, but only barely.
“Commander, the coastal batteries are opening fire! Molot is requesting permission to commence the assault.”
“Molot, permission is granted. All forces, commence Operation Diamond!” The commander answered, and in that moment, the rules of the night had changed. They were the hunters, and the Adamasian Air Forces were the prey now…
“Black Blades, Constellation. Looks like their fighters are scrambling. Four fighter bombers taking off from X-2, targets are the landing craft.”
“Batcat here, we see them. Four Kfirs, on a direct vector for the ekranoplans.”
“Molot Two, I am spiked! Going eva-” Below, she saw as one of the Su-17s escorting the ekranoplans disappeared into a cloud of fire and smoke, the fireball lighting up the force against the early morning darkness and the black void of the sea…
“Black Blade Five, I have two Foxbats prowling the east of the island at 50 miles. Your call, Kirito.”
“Take them out, Sinon.” Kirito responded, and from well above them, a flash of light lit up the blanketing darkness of the night sky – the trail of an AIM-47 launching high into the atmosphere to rain down fire on a very unlucky Foxbat…
“Black Blade Five, Fox Three.” Sinon called out.
“Four Kfirs on radar-what the bloody hell?!”
“Argo?” Kirito asked.
“No way’s that right!” Argo called out. “16 aircraft on radar now. No, wait, 32!”
“Argo, I have 16 on my scope. Looks like they’re using a jamming craft over the island.” Sinon corroborated.
“Well, ain’t that charming!” Argo shouted. “Batcat, you have a visual on that jammer?”
“Roger, Black Blade One, aircraft is circling to the west at this time. Do you need vectors to it?”
“Tiese, Ronye, reckon you can handle the jammer?” Kirito asked.
“We’re on it!” Ronye responded, and from her nine o’clock, the two Mirage 2000Cs peeled away to the west, leaving just four aircraft in their flight out here: herself, Kirito & Argo, Eugeo and Alice.
“Molot Leader, we are approaching the target, more fighters are climbing out!”
“Understood Molot, we currently have active jamming, so we’re moving into visual range of the fighters.”
In the briefest moment before they turned to face the incoming fighters, she sighed to herself. This really was going to be a long night, wasn’t it?
/-/
Heading north (again), Ronye found herself wishing that she had had a little bit more time to familiarise herself with the complex new systems on the Mirage 2000C, understandably so, given that she had skipped from a very early third generation fighter like the Draken, straight to the Mirage 2000, a fourth-generation fighter with full fly-by-wire controls… and apparently no long range AAMs.
Lisbeth had promised she would work on incorporating them when they arrived, but short of hastily allowing them to use the massive stockpile of R530s that had once been used by Alice and Eugeo with a radar mode that certainly wasn’t in the manual, she would have to wait, and rely on the R.550 Magics instead for now.
Oddly, that was proving to be less of a problem at the moment, as herself and Tiese began to hunt down the jamming aircraft; those Magic missiles were heat-seeking after all, not radar guided, and so, the jamming wouldn’t affect them as badly.
“Black Blade Six, Batcat. We’re approaching the last known position of the jammer, but it isn’t here?” Tiese called, though to no answer. “Batcat, how copy?”
Looking around the night sky, she spotted something; something she wished wasn’t there – a flight of MIGs, four of them. “Tiese, four MIG-21s, straight ahead!”
She didn’t have time to give a more detailed picture of the situation before her RWR went crazy, and she threw the Mirage into a tight defensive turn, letting off chaff as she did. Of course this was a trap, she thought to herself, why would they have left a transport sized jammer out here on its own… now that would have been crazy!
“Hah, the Oseans actually fell for it…” Their radios burst into life, though not with any voice she recognised.
“Get off our frequency!” Tiese told the new voice angrily.
“I don’t think I shall. After all, you are the ones invading us, are you not?”
“Black Blade Seven, the jamming craft was a trap! We’re under attack by-” She called, only to realise her call wasn’t going through at all. Radio jamming, just like they’d used at Saint Calippo…
“You think we didn’t watch your little exploits? These jammers are really quite useful!”
Notte and Rano, that had to be how they knew about that!
“Yo, Medina, how about we level the playing field again?” Ronye craned her head around to spot two MIG-21s approaching fast – one bright pink, and the other only faintly visible in the night sky… how had they known they were in trouble if-
She chided herself for the disruption; do now, think later!
Pulling her nose around, she looked for Tiese’s Mirage, and the two MIGs, though failed to notice either. Her radar told them there was one coming around behind her, but her own eyes told her otherwise. Trusting her instruments in the dark, she turned the Mirage towards the blip, and spotted one of the hostile MIGs, mostly silver in colour, though with a dark pink spine. In their haste to engage the jammer, she hadn’t readied her Magics, only her cannons and so she closed the distance to the MIG, itself chasing after someone…
One burst from the DEFA 554s was all it took for her first kill of the night – 30mm fire tore straight into the MIG along its wing roots, tearing both wings clean off with a spectacular fireball, as fuel poured out into the stream of fire…
“Ronye, splash one MIG-21!” She called, briefly forgetting that the call wasn’t going out to anyone now. “Oh, yeah.”
Scanning between her Agave radar, and outside the cockpit, she tried to get her head back into the fight and work out the best course of action to win this engagement – the current situation was a 4:3 advantage to them, having downed one MIG-21 herself, but other than that, she couldn’t tell what else was going on.
“Ah ha!” She cried, spotting another MIG-21 closing fast on LLENN’s MIG. With no radio, she couldn’t tell her to break, so it was up to her to handle the MIG before this became a 3 on 3. Quickly, she readied her Magics, and the characteristic growl of the heat-seeker came through her headset. “Ronye, Fox Two!”
Before she’d had chance to say anything else, the missile had dropped away, and launched straight at the MIG, though it failed to impact; the MIG’s pilot having spotted her pursuing it, braking sharply to the left and letting off flares to throw off the seeker.
Deciding in that moment that she was getting that second kill; she gave chase again and lit her afterburner to keep up. For a brief moment, she spotted a small silver dot in the distance, and assumed it was another of the hostile MIGs.
That dot swiftly became recognisable as an aircraft from the front…
Then she could see just how close it was, and that it was coming head on with her. Jerking the stick to the left, she snapped the Mirage inverted, before feeling the aircraft buffet violently. Violently enough that had thrown the stick and throttle from her hands and sent the Mirage into an unplanned spin, leaving her to fight the errant fighter for control…
After about one and a half rotations, she had managed to get the Mirage back under control, though now with a lot of warning lights and horns blaring in the cockpit; the most notable of them being that the fuel supply was low.
She knew the Mirage was no long-range attacker, but to be running out of fuel this fast? That meant that either she’d taken a serious hit to the fuel tanks, and was leaking at an alarming rate, or that the centreline drop tank had been ripped off the aircraft in the spin. Neither were good news, but one was survivable, the other, not so much…
Taking a calculated risk, she set the fuel supply to the Mirage’s internal tanks, and breathed a sigh of relief when the low fuel pressure light was extinguished.
Scanning the sky again, she looked out and spotted an Antonov-12 – their target before they were ambushed – and no MIGs in close proximity. Pulling the Mirage’s nose around to intercept the Antonov, and advancing the throttle, the now lightened delta shot off in pursuit of the Cub and soon, she found herself closing onto the jammer’s six o’clock.
Switching to cannons, she let off two bursts – one that scored only a glancing blow but allowed her to zero in her aim for the second, the rounds slamming straight against the wing root of the converted airlifter. The Antonov shuddered under 30mm fire but stayed airborne briefly as the crew attempted to turn away from her, and she checked her aim for the final burst she would fire against the jammer.
Before she had even finished lining up the shot, an explosion rocked the sky ahead of her and the burning An-12 plummeted towards the Southern Sea, now missing its left wing, which had continued on briefly, as if it were flying on cartoon physics…
“Black Blade Six, we’ve been ambushed, can anyone read us?!”
“Pito, LLENN, where the hell are you?”
“Ronye to all aircraft, radar and radio jamming is down! Confirm one An-12 destroyed!”
“Atta girl!” Argo called out. “Just in time too, looks like more of ‘em getting airborne!”
“Oh, you will pay for that, you insolent brat!”
“Oh shut that gob of yours, Medina, or we’ll shut it for ya!” Pito told her angrily. “Looks like she’s coming for ya though, Ronny.”
She did her best not to correct Pito on her name, and instead focus on fighting the ace of the pack. The months of flying with the 23rd; being taught by Kirito and Asuna, her own learning, the battles they’d all fought…
It came down to this now.
Without any more hesitation, she readied her last Magic for the moment that “Medina” slipped up. On paper, this should’ve been an easy win for her – the Mirage 2000 was a whole generation newer, and just as manoeuvrable as the MIG-21, if not more so with the relaxed stability of the craft – but she’d realised it came down to pilots in the cockpit, just as often as it had-
Explosions lit up the skies around her, completely snapping her out of it, and forcing her to look around for the source of the explosions… flak batteries on the ground. “Batcat to Black Blades Six and Seven, I’d advise falling back until those cannons are dealt with. Looks like they’ve just managed to hit one of their own planes with them too…”
“Understood. Kirito, we’re running close to bingo fuel and almost out of ammunition.” She explained.
“Alright. Ronye, Tiese, return to Bana City to refuel and rearm. We’ll see you later.”
“Thank you, sir.”
And with that, she turned the Mirage back to the north, and waited as Tiese reformed on her wing. It wasn’t quite the spectacular battle she had imagined in her head, but it was certainly just as ferocious as the battles over Avalon, the Bay and St Calippo, even if there were fewer aircraft involved…
/-/
In the cockpit of the Eagle, the battle raged on, and Adamas’s air force had come out swinging! MIG-21s, MIG-23s and MIG-25s all attempted to seize control of the sky towards the south, whilst Kfirs, Hunters and MIG-17s attempted to attack the landing forces as they approached the shore…
In the time since they’d split up the flight, she reckoned she had scored at least three kills (well, three aircraft that she had targeted with missiles had exploded, anyway, and that was pretty good confirmation in her eyes), with a further three probables (aircraft she had definitely hit, and not seen again, but she had no idea whether they had gone down or just run away), but in that same time, an extra ten aircraft had joined the fight…
“We could’ve really done with our own attackers! Those coastal guns are keeping the ground troops way back!”
“Molot, if we clear a path through the fighters, reckon you still have the firepower to take out those guns?”
“Negative, unless you happen to have bought bunker busters, those guns are cased in concrete!”
“Commander, we’ve got a situation down here. Those forts are preventing the troops from getting off the beach, and we’ve got no way of killing them from up here.”
“Damn it…” Bercouli sighed. “Open to suggestions here, people!”
“Solitaire Three, you bought bigger bombs – rragh! - right?”
“Yes, four Mk84s. Not bunker busters though.” Zeliska answered.
“Good enough to lay the hurt on them. Zel, head south and rendezvous with the Black Blades. Between us and Kureha, we should be able to handle the runway. Itsuki, escort her down to Point Rain. Idol Two, shift support further south so we don’t make it too easy for them!”
“Understood.”
“Moving further south, sir.”
“Black Blades, this is Solitaire Three. ETA is six minutes.”
“Acknowledged, Zeliska. Black Blades, we’ve got six minutes to clear the airspace of fighters!”
In theory, that sounded a lot easier than it was in practice – it sounded like an obvious reminder of the video game heritage of ACES, more so than a reasonable mission objective – but that assumed that how many aircraft were up here were the only aircraft that would be up here and that Adamas wouldn’t be able to send up any more…
Scanning the AN/APG-63 radar in her Eagle, she spotted her next target – a pair of Kfirs going for the landing zone. If her experience so far was anything to go by, those Kfirs would be armed with rocket pods and their twin DEFA cannons, a nasty punch against ground targets, but not a match for an F-15…
“Asuna, Fox Two.” She let off her last Sidewinder at the first of the Kfirs, and in the middle distance, lit up by searchlights, explosions and gunfire, she saw her prey explode into pieces, whilst the other turned frantically, unsure of whether it was also being targeted…
It was, and she wasn’t going to let the chance to become an ace in a day go this easily! Snap rolling the Eagle onto a head on vector with the second Kfir, she readied a Sparrow to fire, gaining a radar lock easily.
“Asuna, Fox One!” The AIM-7 dropped away, and covered the few miles to the target within seconds before it obliterated the target with extreme prejudice. “That’s two more Kfirs down. How many more to go?”
“No more aircraft reported to be taking off, Black Blades. That’s all of them for the time being.”
“Understood Batcat. Black Blades, report in?”
“Asuna, still here. Ten minutes of fuel left, and three Sparrows, plus whatever’s in my gun.” She answered, glad for the weapons computer on her new aircraft.
“Eugeo, we’ll be bingo fuel in two minutes. Down to my guns too.”
“Alice, a similar situation here.”
“Sinon, fuel’s not a problem, but I’m having to move closer to use Sparrows now.”
“Damn it. Commander, we’re nearly on fumes out here.” Kirito called.
“I read ya, Black Blades. We’re comin’ to relieve ya.” Bercouli answered. “ETA’s 8 minutes though.”
“We understand sir, we can hold out that long.” Kirito told him. “Alice, Eugeo, break away if you’re getting low on fuel. We’ll cover you as you leave the AO.”
Argo would soon break the tactical meeting, as she kept watch on the picture developing over Point Rain. “Nice as this team talk is… we’ve got more of ‘em! MIG-23s this time!”
“Why did we sell planes to them?!” One of the Yuktobanian pilots cried out, and Asuna found herself agreeing with the sentiment. She could only imagine Yuktobania hadn’t really thought it through, and assumed that they wouldn’t be fighting against the aircraft they had sold them…
A fatally flawed assumption, as it turned out.
Still, with the jamming dealt with, they could make use of their longer-range weapons now, and so, she worked to lock up the first MIG-23 at 25 miles to their east, and without much hassle, she had managed it. “Asuna, Fox One.”
An AIM-7 dropped away into the darkness, and flew straight for the unlucky MIG; the only sign of its existence ending being the bright flash in the distance and the disappearance of its radar blip…
Two missiles left.
Scanning her radar again, she didn’t spot any blips heading their way – only allied aircraft were now showing up on her radar, and it looked like the Adamasians were starting to run short of aircraft to oppose them anymore…
/-/
Onboard the A-7, Zeliska found herself working out an optimum attack run to engage the coastal batteries. She knew that they were still defended by triple A, which made any shallow attack angle dangerous, and although the SAMs on the beach and hills surrounding them had mostly been neutralised by the Yuktobanian flights, there was still a non-zero chance some were still operational…
“Batcat, this is Zeliska. What am I going up against?” She asked the EC-121 circling the island.
“Looks like previous strikes have done a number on their triple A, but ground fire is still high enough that it’s holding the Yuke forces back. Watch yourself.” The operator on the Warning Star told her. “Your best shot is probably to approach from behind the landing site – their coverage is worst there.”
“Understood Batcat. I’ll try to swing it from behind and take out the roofs on those casemates.” She told them, despite her own hesitance on the subject. Mark 84s weren’t the most accurate of weapons, but they were effective area denial she’d learned whilst undertaking some training passes on tanks.
Not quite a wave of Snakeeyes, but they’d do for this. She needed penetrative power anyway, not mass, and without having a pair of bunker busters under the wings of the Corsair, they were the closest thing available…
“Zeliska to Black Blades and Molot, approaching from the west. I’ll try to take out the guns in two passes, just keep the fighters off me.” She asked, looking at the fire lit battleground beneath her.
“We’re getting’ it in hand, Zeliska. Just a few of ‘em left now!” Argo called out. “Looks like they’re readyin’ for a big push, guys and gals!”
Pushing the throttle as far forward as it would go, she dived towards the deck to avoid any marauding fighters and pressed forward. One minute to go, she readied the switches to release two of the four Mk84s and lined up her attack approach on the first casemate.
Double checking everything before she released her bombs, she felt the Corsair shudder under the ground fire and vibrations from the firing of the naval guns…
“Solitaire Three, release!” She felt another thud – this time as 4000 pounds of ordnance dropped off the wing pylons of the A-7 and pulled up briefly in order to swing her aircraft around for the second attack, as well as to confirm effect on target. The bombs hadn’t completely torn through the casemate, but it looked as if they’d done some serious damage to the structure as the barrel of the naval gun was almost warped at the end… “Good effect on that one. Coming back around for the second now.”
“Now that is what we are talking about!” One of the Yuktobanian pilots called out. “Tell him we owe him a drink after this!”
“Her.” She corrected them.
Exactly what was said afterwards, she wasn’t sure – she didn’t understand Russian or Yuktobanian, after all – but she imagined it was probably surprise at their saviour being a woman…
“Well then ma’am, we all owe you a drink!”
“Save it till the other one’s destroyed, could you?” She told them, swinging the Corsair down into a diving attack on the last casemate. Releasing the last pair of Mk84s, she pulled the A-7 up into a climbing turn and pulled around to escape the ground fire and backblast from below.
“Thank you, Osean lady! We are moving up now. Forward!” Shouted a commander on the ground as the troops charged up the beach, unimpeded by the artillery fire that had pinned them down…
“Solitaire Three, Winchester.” She informed them. She still had a pair of Sidewinders mounted, and her guns, but those were essentially last-ditch weapons to keep her alive rather than for use in most situations.
“Got it, Zel. Head back to Bana, and we’ll see you on the ground. Itsuki, you still with her?”
“I am engaged with a pair of fighters at the moment. Hold please.” She always wondered how he could remain quite so calm in the face of a two-on-one duel, but right now, she had only one question…
“So I had no cover then?”
“Zel, have this debate back at base.” Jet told her sternly, a tone that almost dared her to go against him in that moment…
Sometimes, people did wonder why the youngest member of the squadron had been made the flight lead, but it was moments like that that solidified his status as captain in her eyes, even if he didn’t act like it sometimes…
“Understood. I’ll head back to Bana. See you all later.” She called back and turned out to the coast for the return flight to the north.
“Black Blades, this is Liberator Lead. Head back with her, we’ve got this up here now.” She heard the call and took a glance over her shoulder to the left, making visual contact with a flight of four aircraft - four F-106 Delta Darts.
“Understood Diavel, good hunting.” Kirito told the field commander, as the trails of the 303rd aircraft followed her own path…
As she flew back though, and minutes passed by, she couldn’t help but think how her flight were faring as they attacked X-2, the mission she was supposed to be a part of. It was a ballsy raid, she had to admit, and one that even Jet had seemed hesitant on, before accepting that there weren’t many better options available to them…
She’d just have to ask them when they got back, she supposed…