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Operation: Backhaul
Author’s note: I’ll TRY to have less dialogue in this one, but this mission pretty boring.
“Our ground offensive is continuing its fast paced push into Yuktobanian soils. A POW internment camp was discovered
during the offensive and a team of marines has attacked and captured the camp. The marines have secured the camp's radio room
and a flight of helicopters is on route to retrieve the prisoners. Your mission is to provide close air support for this rescue
and retrieval operation. The radio room could be retaken by the enemy at any moment. If it is, the enemy will report the attack,
and the rescue will end in failure. Find and shoot down all enemy aircraft in the local airspace and secure air superiority
across the entire area.”
I headed northwest and got a look at the first planes of the mission, F-16XLs. A delta-wing version of the regular F-16 to
make them more manoeuvrable and a little faster, as well as adding a little more room to stick weapons on.
I locked onto both of them with the F-15s AWG-9 radar, and fired two Phoenix missiles. The first missile hit, but it didn’t
go off. Phoenix missiles sometimes have that problem, but then again, a one ton missile traveling at Mach 7 can do serious
damage, even if it fails to detonate. I went onto the six of the other plane, and fired a sidewinder into his engine. The
missile detonated with a savage blast, and I had to turn to avoid shrapnel coming into my engines.
Strangely, the enemy fighters didn’t know we where here. I went after the next pair, a trio of Tornado IDS/ADV, The
F3 type. I locked onto them with another set of Phoenix missiles, and fired. The missiles went blasted off the Tomcat’s
rails, and sped for the two planes. The missiles went off with a tiny flash of light about 89 miles away.
“This is Sea Goblin. Does it seem like the enemy craft have noticed our infiltration?”
“I don’t know. They haven’t noticed US yet…” I said.
“There’s no way of knowing just by lookin’ at ‘um weather they’ve noticed you or not.”
Chopper said.
“Yeah, you're right. This snowstorm is making me anxious. Sorry.”
I then changed bearings to the south, looking for enemy fighters. I found what I was looking for over the camp. A full fleet
of TWENTY Su-27 “Flankers”.
Author’s note: I added this in, because this mission is pretty dull.
“HOLY SHIT!” I yelled as I saw the radar contacts.
“Umm… Captain, what do we do now?” Grimm asked.
I heard some gunfire over the radio, then “THIS IS SEA GOBLIN! COMBAT HAS BROKEN OUT IN THE CAMP! YOU’VE GOT CONTROL
OF THE AIRSPACE NOW, RIGHT?”
“That’s a negative, Sea Goblin. We have 20 flankers up here to deal with!”
“Good, I like a pilot who's realistic about the situation.”
I locked onto a whole group of them with my Phoenix missiles, and then ordered my wingmen to do the same. They all locked
on with there four missiles, and we all aimed at different targets.
“Blaze to all, release your missiles!”
“FOX ONE! FOX ONE!” they shouted in unison, as sixteen missiles blasted off our rails, and headed for the onrushing
flankers. The first two hit, the third missed, then in rapid succession, the fourth, fifth, and sixth missiles all struck
home. The next three missiles only damaged the flankers, and the remaining few missed completely.
After that, they smartened up a bit, and came at us, hard and fast. I fired another set of Phoenix missiles at close range,
hoping to put them on the defensive, it worked , and I fired two sidewinders into the lead plane. There was an explosion,
but not on the intended plane. Some other moron flew right into the path of my missiles, and blew up him! Edge took a defensive
formation with me, while Chopper and Grimm went to engage on there own. I fired off another pair of sidewinders, but they
missed. Evaded by some spectacular manoeuvres by the target, and a timely burst of chaff.
Something hit me. a turned in my seat to figure out what it was, but I couldn’t see it. I kept fighting, but eventually,
I just decided to take down the ground forces as my turns where now a little sluggish. In fact, with all the fighting that
was going on now, I could probably call in the rescue chopper, and the enemy wouldn’t even notice.
So that’s what I did. The chopper came in low, almost grazing the treetops and set down in the POW camp after I cleared
out all the AA defences. The helicopter gunship took care of the Yuke infantry, while I took down the other SAMS and AA guns
that just seemed to pop up from nowhere.
Nagase asked if Captain Bartlett was in with the POWs, but the pilot said that the other POWs said that they never heard of
them.
Eventually, all the flankers where shot down, but my plane was still sluggish at turning. I sent Chopper and Grimm to escort
the rescue helo to base, while I kept Nagase to make sure the area was clear of enemy fighters.
Suddenly, warning alerts started going off, and a SAM was launched from out of nowhere. Nagase dove straight into it in an
attempt to save me, I guess, and was hit.
I saw a parachute a few seconds later, and then the plane exploded.
“You all right!” chopper demanded.
“I'm fine. My plane's trashed, but those are always replaceable.” She responded.
The rescue helos where full, so they asked the gunship to pick her up. There was just one problem, the storm was getting worse
by the second and visibility was dropping fast.
“The gunship crashed!”
“Dammit! The storm's too strong!”
“We can't just leave her behind!”
“Look, I hate it too, but we have to wait for conditions to get better before we can do anything.”
“Dammit, is there nothing we can do!”
“sorry, Chopper,” we’ll just have to come back tomorrow.” I said, trying not to let my own anger show.
“DAMMIT!”
“You said it.” The rescue helo said, angrily.
After I got back to base, I got out of my F-15 and looked at what had happened to it. The entire left wing was GONE. I don’t
mean ‘gone’ as in not useable anymore, I LITERALLY mean ‘Gone’ as in ‘not there anymore.’
Ending note: that, I hope had more action then some of the other chapters, but one of the main reasons I included the flankers
was because this mission is SOOO boring! Also, since I do this by vote, what mission would be in the second coin flip? The
air-to-air mission or the air-to-ground mission, which would you like to see more?
more to come soon!
Operation: desert arrow
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