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Elena Michaels
Ural Mountains Airspace
1243 Hours Local
“Hey, Elena,” I heard Sarah say over the radio. “I’ll take down the first two, to show you how it’s
done, okay? After that… well, let’s have a competition for kill scores!”
I grinned behind my oxygen mask and said: “You’re on, Sarah. What are the stakes?”
“Winner’s choice,”
I was grinning when I saw the first batch of four enemy planes. Clay triggered the radar lock on all of them, and just before
I fired the Long-Range Missiles, I heard: “Rot 1 to all craft, time to hunt some wild dogs! Down ‘em all!”
Wild dogs? I thought. Well, I’d show them! Even if they where a bit right… anyways, Sarah got ahead of me, and
fired off two sets of missiles from short range. One of the two planes tried to turn away, but he was too slow and the missile
went right into his front air intake before exploding INSIDE his engine.
“Ohh,” Clay said from the backseat. “That CAN’T be good for you.”
I watched as Sarah took on another plane, and fired off another missile, followed by a burst of the machine gun. The missile
missed completely, but because of the way the enemy plane had turned, he had unwittingly put himself square-on in Sarah’s
gun sights. The machine gun ripped through the enemy fighter like a hot knife through butter, and sent it spiralling out of
control towards the ground.
I now joined in the fray, and Clay picked out one of the two remaining enemy planes. I launched a Long-Range Missile at him,
and held him in my radar lock. He tried to twist away, and lose my lock, but kept with his turns, and a few seconds later,
my missile impacted the target, and he started to dip down, losing altitude, but not completely dive-bombing.
“I’ve been hit!” the enemy captain called out. “That low-life DOG!!” I went onto the next enemy
plane, got onto his tail, and kept with his turns until I had the perfect position. When I had that, I fired! The two short-range
missiles blasted away from my plane like a weapon possessed and steered straight into the enemy plane’s twin tailpipes.
The explosion was so fast; I almost missed it when I blinked. When the fire and smoke from the missile cleared, I saw that
my target was trailing fire, NOT a good sign for an aircraft. The ejector seat fired a few seconds before the plane disintegrated
in a black and orange fireball.
Well, that was one squadron down, one to go, not including that ‘Mobius 1’ guy. I checked my radar to see how
Bird Dog was doing against him anyways.
Captain ‘Bird Dog’ Roy
Mobius 1 had a slightly annoying habit: when you where coming head-on with him, he NEVER gave you a break. He kept launching
his Raptors’ Long-Range Missiles and he NEVER let up on you even after you passed him.
I activated the slight radar jamming that my SU-37 had, and started pulling a few hard manoeuvres to break the missile’s
radar lock. It worked, but he fired off another salvo of missiles at me.
“Oh, screw this!” I yelled and I launched all of my Long-Range missiles, and then evaded his salvo. I looked at
my radar as soon as I was clear of his missiles to see that none of my missiles had hit him.
That was good: I wanted a challenge. I wanted the chance to push the very limits of my personal skill, and still have an enemy
that can stand up to that. I never had that before, and, aside from the almost mock dogfights that Air Force pilots and Navel
aviators participate in on almost daily bases, I thought I would never get that chance.
We now closed on each other, and I pulled hard up, standing the Terminator on its tail, then bringing its nose down sharply
in a manoeuvre known as the ‘Cobra’. Mobius, unprepared for the move, flashed past and I did a full 180 degree
turn that brought me right back in the direction I came, and right behind the Raptor.
Mobius 1 however was not stupid. He realised his mistake, and started turning hard to correct it, but I was staying glued
in tight. As he pulled extremely sharp turns, I followed him, in perfect synchronization, not even being thrown off for a
single second. The G-Force reading was spiking now, well outside the maximum a human body could take, and the warning alarms
started going off inside the cockpit, but I didn’t feel them as much as I should have.
Now, being from a version of Earth that has higher gravity, it’s only natural that I was able to take more G-Forces
then almost everybody else in that universe, and the same was true with Mobius, so we had the G-Force alarms set to the point
where WE’D black out, (Roughly around eight to ten Gs.) and then warn us when we approached that limit.
However, being a werewolf seemed to INCREASE my tolerance to G-Forces, and thus allow me to make tighter and faster turns
without blacking out, so long as the plane could pull off those manoeuvres.
I knew exactly how much stress the Su-37 could take, as well as how much stress the Raptor could take. Both were about equal
as they had been developed at roughly the same time, and were designed to be the counter to the other one. Both planes were
State-of-the-art, and as such had incredible performance characteristics, but the Raptor tended to favour more along the lines
or firepower, and stability while the Terminator focused more on Speed, manoeuvrability, and defence.
I reviewed all this in my head in under two milliseconds, and I got fired on Mobius 1!
Sarah ‘Tomboy’ Nakano
Once the four members of Rot Squadron were shot down, eight more radar contacts showed up on my radar. This was Swarche Squadron,
one of the most feared squadrons around for their tactics: Assassination with high speed, and good cover. Often times, the
poor bastard on the receiving end of this squadron never knew what hit him.
Wanting more clarification, I said: “That lead plane… is that The Vulture?”
The AWACS answered my question. “All planes, be advised, Swarche Squadron has entered the local Airspace, repeat: Swarche
Squadron has entered the local airspace. Engage, and destroy.”
Oh, just shut up… I thought. The AWACS Sky Eye just NEVER shut up! Personally, I preferred Thunderhead, but there was
nothing I could do.
Elena and I merged together and we both launched out Long Range missiles at the approaching enemy planes. Or, well, I launched
mine, and Clay fired off the missiles on Elena’s plane. Two-seater planes are like that: the pilot does most of the
work, but sometimes the backseater can fire off a few missiles.
Anyways, the missiles blasted off our wings, and steered themselves head-on to the approaching enemy planes. Four of the
eight missiles hit and lightly damaged the approaching enemy planes, and I let out a curse. I had forgotten that the MiG-31
was a ruggedly built fighter, as it had to be to withstand the speeds it flew at, and because of that, the missiles only did
moderate damage to the enemy interceptors.
Then, they were within firing range for their own short-range missiles! DAMN! I had also forgotten about the 31’s incredibly
speed as one of the fastest planes in the world. As soon as I had a lock on one of the enemy planes, I launched my missiles,
but he failed to launch his.
That was a downside to the MiG-31: because of its extremely high speed and relatively low manoeuvrability, it was almost impossible
to use it in a dogfight unless you had extremely good reaction times and A LOT of experience in that plane.
The fighters flashed past us, and started to come around for a pass behind us, trying to line up a shot before we could turn
around and fight them. It almost worked for Elena because she was new, and as such had no idea how to counter manoeuvres,
and because she was in an F-14.
I finished turning around, and when I did, I fired off two missiles and pulled hard to the right. An enemy plane pulled left,
and I found myself almost about to crash into the maniac! I corrected my turn to avoid a mid-air collision, but in doing so,
I presented another enemy plane with a perfect shot.
Pulling hard left to avoid the enemy, I was about to fire on another enemy plane when suddenly the enemy plane behind me suddenly
exploded in a fireball! I looked behind me, and I saw that Elena had managed to pull off a shot on the plane that was tailing
me. I must have been, unknowingly, pulling the enemy pilot into the perfect firing position for Elena while he searched for
that position on me.
Saying nothing about it, Elena turned her plane to engage another enemy that was trying to attack her. I did the same thing,
making a mental note to myself to buy her and Clay a drink when we got back.
Captain ‘Bird Dog’ Roy
Mobius 1 was not letting himself get shot down. He kept pulling hard turns and even harder manoeuvres trying to throw me off,
but I anticipated each one of his breaks. I couldn’t fire though. Because of his hard turns, I couldn’t launch
my missiles and hope for a hit because they’d simply lose their target and I’d have to lock on again.
About three minuets since the one-on-one dogfight started, I suddenly lost sight of Mobius, and I heard the high-pitched tone
of a missile alert shrieking over the radio. DAMN! Now I was the one in a disadvantage! He must have done some sort of thrust
vectoring that put me in the front position!
I tried to copy that, but the problem was that I had no idea what he did! Grimly, I hit the manual override and swung my twin
thrust vectoring engine nozzles as far as they would go, mimicking the Harrier’s tactic known as ‘VIFFing’
the acronym stood for ‘Vectoring In Forward Flight’ and it was one of the hardest manoeuvres in the book to pull
off in anything other then planes that had V/STOL (Vertical/Short Takeoff and Landing) capabilities.
Somehow, it worked, and I almost seemed to stop in mid-air, then I started to actually fly backwards and up! Mobius flashed
past me, and I fired everything I had. His plane for a moment took the hailstorm of bullets and missiles I sent out, but eventually
I saw the ejection seat fire and then the Raptor exploded into debris, shrapnel and fire. The weapons he was carrying exploded
a few milliseconds later, in a far more powerful secondary explosion that rocked my aircraft wildly as I flew right through
it.
The shrapnel pinged and rattled the skin of my aircraft, and then seconds later, I was through the world of flame and smoke
into the open blue sky. I checked for a parachute, and I saw one with the ISAF logo on it. As he descended, I heard: “Wow,
Bird Dog, you’ve gotten better. You gotta teach me how to do that sometime.”
Elena Michaels
The air battle was short, hard and almost anticlimactic when Bird Dog came in after shooting down Mobius 1. Swarche Squadron
never really had a chance as one by one, we shot them all down.
I had managed to get three of them. Sarah got four, and Bird Dog got one. I suspected that he was mostly pulling the enemy
planes into position, but for now, my ego was happy with believing that he just didn’t get that many kills.
We landed back at the base, and we all took a rest. If this was how an air battle ALWAYS was, then really wanted to be on
the front lines of it. When I asked Bird Dog about it, he said: “Being a fighter pilot in combat is probably one of
the best jobs in the world. The pure rush that comes from the adrenalin and the speed has no equivalent in civilian life…
other then possibly bungee jumping.”
Supreme Commander Romanov
The Kremlin, Moscow
2134 Hours Local
The various paper work forms had been pilling up in my office for the entire day, and I had filled them all out, all except
one. This form was essentially a report of the gains and losses from the Otherworld Universe.
We were almost finished mopping up the Yeerk activity there, so it was a perfect time to fill out the form. Tapping the pen
I was holding on the desk, I thought of what we had lost, other then a few pieces of hardware, and money, nothing that I could
think of offhand. I went on to what we had gained: new pilots, potential new allies, and some kind of artefact fragment.
After filling out the form, I went into one of the KGB’s Archives, and looked at the new piece of… whatever it
was that we had bought off Jeremy Danvers. It was a dark green colour and it had several obscure markings on it. It also seemed
to be made of a lightweight rock-like substance that had the same hardness as diamond. The KGB tried to translate it, but
without all of the fragments, we couldn’t be sure.
Holding the newly acquired piece with the one we had in our archives, I noticed something interesting: when I put the two
of them together, it seemed like they formed the handle for a sword of some kind. But what kind of sword would be made out
of rock?
Another strange thing about the two artefacts was that they were both extremely lightweight, almost weightless, that and when
I held them, I felt as though they were MINE, but in more ways then just mere ownership. I can’t put what exactly I
was feeling into words, but what I DID know was that I had to find the other pieces of this and figure out what it was.
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