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Operation: Game Bird
After we got back from Yuktobania, we waited for the next transmission from whoever was sending them out, although I had a
pretty fair guess as to who that was. Only two people had ever called me ‘Kid’. One was Captain Jack Bartlett;
the other was Captain Alvin H. Davenport. AKA, Chopper. Chopper, I knew was dead. I had seen his plane trail fire until he
crashed into November International Stadium, while Bartlett, I didn’t know what happened to him.
Anyways, once we got a new transmission, the briefing started.
“The intelligence vessel Andromeda has picked up another encrypted transmission in Belkan. They have changed the code,
so it took a little longer to decipher the message. The content is as follows: "N attack by ASat on Okchabursk to commence
at 1400 hours". Apparently, efforts to secretly repair the sabotaged Arkbird are now complete. We confirmed this by observing
its orbit from the ground. We believe that a Belkan nuke has already been loaded onto the Arkbird. In order for the Arkbird
to attack the city of Okchabursk in Yuktobania at 1400 hours, it must make one major correction to its orbital projection.
To do this, it must first drop into the upper atmosphere and use air friction to lower its speed. We have already calculated
the time and location in which this manoeuvre will occur. Your mission is to destroy the Arkbird. You will only have one chance
to stop it. Destroy it before it withdraws from the battle zone.
This time, we needed speed and altitude for our attack, so we took off in the fastest planes in the world: MiG 25 ‘Foxbats’
with Long Range missiles, just in case something went wrong.
We took off, and I was amazed at the acceleration of this jet. Every fact they told me about this little jet was true. I spent
a few seconds marvelling at the speed of Foxbat, then, we went to start our mission.
“We are so close... I feel like the Belkans are always one step ahead. Don't you, Captain?” Grimm asked.
“Yeah, but we can’t give up yet Grimm.” I said.
“I know, Captain, I haven't given up, either.”
I then saw the Arkbird. It looked so tiny from where I was, but that was because it was so high up. It really did look beautiful;
a white bird of peace. Yeah, right. This thing had loaded a nuclear bomb on board it, and as far as I was concerned, it was
just a weapon.
I went to full afterburner, and gave the weapons free command. I locked on with one of my long-range missiles and fired, and
then I was practically at the Arkbird. Just before the missile hit, I saw something fire out.
“It just jettisoned something.” Nagase said, as she saw it too.
Swordsman went in and intercepted it, and said: “its escape capsule.”
Then I heard: “Adler to Schenze. He got away.”
“The Osean astronaut?” another voice said, I guessed this one was the Belkans on the ground controlling it.
“Yeah. It's alright, we don't need him anymore... Oh, dammit! He must've done something to the control system before
he got away!” it started descending, and I heard: “Turn off that switch! Damn, we’re slowing down! We’re
going to dive deep into the atmosphere!”
The missile I fired a few seconds ago finally hit, and I heard: “Adler to Schenze. We're under attack!” I seriously
doubted that. The Arkbird was HUGE. To anyone inside, it must have seemed like someone had kicked the fuselage of an aircraft.
“What?! The Osean Army's supposed to be wrapped around our finger! Who the hell...?!”
“Black bodies, that emblem, it’s them, the Ghosts of Razgriz!”
“Launch the Vogels! Get rid of them!”
Then I saw six enemy planes shoot downwards out of the underside of the Arkbird. They plummeted down towards the ground, recovered
sharply, and then started closing in on us.
“Multiple unmanned fighters! They're coming this way!” Grimm yelled.
“That launch port wasn't in the original design!” Nagase cried.
“The Belkans modified it!?”
I then had to get the hell out of its way, because it started firing its heavy laser cannon. I managed to get above it, where
it couldn’t target me. I started dipping below my safety net of being above it to attack the laser cannon.
“Schenze to Adler. Do whatever it takes to gain altitude!”
“Counting down to ignition of boosters!” the Arkbird hijacker said shortly afterwards.
“I know all about the Arkbird. I was in love with it... I used to stare at the blueprints all the time. That big engine
in the middle is a booster designed to give it enough speed to escape the atmosphere. If we destroy that, it'll never make
it into space again.” Nagase said.
I followed Nagase’s advice, and waited for it to activate its engines. Once it did, I let lose with a salvo of long
and short range missiles. I managed to blow up both of them fairly quickly. When I did, I heard: “Dammit, we're falling
again!”
“Adler, you ARE aware of the backup plan, right?” the ground base said.
“I know. We'll head for nearby Osean territory and set off the nuke.” The hijacker replied.
“Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.”
Then, the Arkbird started changing course, as well as still descending. That was a good thing, because now we could easily
start shooting at it. The UCAVs that the Arkbird launched where now all destroyed and I had damaged the laser barrel so it
couldn’t fire without it risking an overload.
But that little victory I had was short-lived because I got locked up by a missile alert. I frantically looked a round and
saw that the Arkbird was now shooting missiles as well as a small laser near the top at me! Cursing, I yanked my Foxbat into
a sharp turn to the left, killed my forward speed, and dumped clouds of radar-confusing chaff behind me. The missiles, fooled
by the false targets, nosed over as they simple-mindedly followed those points of light.
I went up close again, and fired off another salvo of missiles, and I also used my guns for better effect. The AAMs, or Air-to-Air
missiles on the Arkbird where easily destroyed by my short range missiles, while the laser stood up to a fair pounding from
my guns, but eventually, I saw it start to overload, and finally fry itself from feedback.
It then fired up it’s secondary engines, but we quickly destroyed those long before it could have any hope of escaping
us.
“Carrying out the backup plan may be impossible under these conditions! Altitude dropping. Controls malfunctioning.”
“Everyone!” I yelled. “We’re almost there! Bring this thing down!”
“We must regroup. We can still do this. We're seeing this through to the end! Switch to auxiliary engines!”
I saw it, barely above the water now, firing its last engine. It simply couldn’t get enough altitude to escape us; it
didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of carrying out its mission either. We destroyed the last engine, and
I heard: “Damn you, Razgriz…”
And then, it fell into the ocean with tremendous because of its size and weight. When the water finally flooded it, there
was a tremendous explosion, as the whole ship blew up.
Operation: Crossroads
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