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Captain “Bird Dog” Roy
4 kilometres West of Moscow
1900 Hours Local
The sun was beginning to set over Moscow, and I was out for a run. Now by a run, I don’t mean a jog; I had Changed a
few minutes ago and was now running through the forest.
Normally, runs anywhere other then Stonehaven are dangerous, and should be avoided, although, I wanted to get that rush I
once had going into combat before I had gotten my ass blown right out of the sky.
I started running again, going at full speed through a path that wasn’t used very often by humans, but I was a wolf,
so I had a slightly easier time. Branches crashed against my head and a few threatened to trip me as I ran, but I still kept
running until I came to a stop because I thought I smelled something.
Even though I knew that it wasn’t a natural scent, I decided to peruse it anyways. Curiosity is natural for werewolves,
so I started to follow that trail. Following a scent trail is not as easy as it sounds; either that or it was because I was
still a fairly new werewolf.
Eventually, I got to where the scent was the strongest, but I still for some reason, couldn’t place it. Something, a
branch I guess, snapped behind me, and several things happened before I could think. Someone jumped out of the bush behind
me, and made a run for it. The wolf instincts took over and I chased. I jumped with a growl, the person turned, aware now
that they where trapped, I recognized who it was and I tried to stop, but it was too late.
My teeth sank into the person’s lower right arm, I let go, but I was too slow. Too little to late, as they say. I thought
I saw a flash of recognition in the person’s eyes, but I dismissed that as a trick of light.
I ran as fast as I could towards where I had stashed my uniform, found it, Changed back, donned it, and made a beeline for
Vladimir Air Force Base.
I knew that I had to get some medical personnel there immediately. If it was anyone else, I would have regrettably killed
them as soon as I realized what had happened…
Elena Michaels
B7R Airspace
1935 Hours Local
Falcon 305
We where flying above a mountain chain that the other pilots in the squadron called “The Round Table” it was pretty
dark and mysterious, but I kept my formation just like Captain Jack “Heartbreak 1” Bartlett told me to. The AWACS
plane for this mission had the Callsign of Eagle Eye, and the crew of that plane had apparently seen some action in The Belkan
War.
I could see five bright red points of light coming from the other planes. Two of those belonged to Bartlett, the rest where
the three other F-16 Falcons that Silber Squadron flew. We where on a routine training mission, and Second Lieutenant Steve
“Slider” Aaronburger and I shouldn’t have been there, but their regular squadron members apparently got
appendicitis.
“Warning! Warning!” the AWACS suddenly announced. “radar shows enemy aircraft approaching Area B7R, Silber
Squadron, we cannot authorize a retreat. Commence intercept!”
“Gimmie a break! I’m babysittn’ nuggets up here!” Bartlett complained.
“Silber Squadron, engage.” The AWACS said calmly.
“Baker, Sphenson! Go trail and stay close, the three of us’ll go high and engage the bandits. All other aircraft
stay low and outta the fight!”
despite their best efforts, the two planes down onto me and Slider like hawks with talons extended.
(Author’s note: cue the song ‘Zero’ from Ace Combat Zero. Here’s a link if you don’t already
have it: http://jeff.ali213.net/ACZero/music/25_mission_18.mp3 )
I fired my medium-range missiles. Two of them blasted away with a ‘whoosh!’ and I saw out of the corner of my
eye on the Heads-up-Display that my missiles where more or less reloading. Bird Dog had said that all Soviet aircraft now
employed that system, but it was still weird to see it.
The missile on the right hit the target, but didn’t destroy it, while the missile on the left missed the target completely.
Baker slid in behind the enemy plane’s rear and fired at close range. The chased plane tried to… well, it looked
like it was trying to fire backwards, but he evaded it, and killed the plane I had damaged.
“Whooooeeeee!” Baker called, “Bandit down!” he called.
“This is Gelb two! I’m hit!” the enemy called out to his buddy.
“Bail out, that’s an order!” the second one said.
A second later, I saw an ejection seat fire. The second plane was destroyed by a combined attack by Slider and Sphenson. The
enemy plane tumbled flaming in the sky end over end in an expanding globe of destruction. I saw that plane’s canopy
blow too and the ejection seat fired. The pilot was barely clear of his plane before it exploded.
“All right, nice work, nuggets!” Heartbreak 1 said. “We might get another serving soon, so stay--”
“More bandits on radar! Shoot them down and secure air superiority!” the AWACS said.
I looked, and I had them on my radar as well. Four blips with the identification as “Grun.”
“Report,” said a British-accented voice a few seconds later.
“This is Grun 2; there are five of them; all nuggets.” A second British-accented voice replied.
“Well then,” the first voice said, “let’s have some fun!”
They were coming head-on for us. I went to full afterburners and I was surprised at how fast this little jet could go. The
enemy plane was now within range of my shorter range heat-seeking missiles. I got a lock, fired off two missiles, and pulled
hard to the right turn that crushing me into my seat and drained the blood from my brain.
My vision went grey around the edges, and I tensed all my muscles up and grunted.
“One plane down!” one of the enemy pilots said. “Looks like we underestimated them!”
“All Grun units, Set ejection handles to green!” the enemy squadron leader said.
I went to attack another plane with my medium range missiles; I got the radar lock and fired.
“Fox… uh, what do I call this thing again?” I didn’t know very many terms for air combat then.
The missile blasted ahead of my fighter, and for a second, I found myself staring briefly right up its tailpipe.
“Shit!” I said, blinking. My night vision was gone, shattered by the missile’s cone of fire.
“Next time,” Bartlett said, “don’t look!”
I blinked hard several times, I could still read the fighter’s instruments well enough, and that was really all that
mattered.
The targeted plane deployed some bright light or something in its wake, and I watched helplessly as my missile hit the ball
of light and not the enemy plane.
“You nailed a flare, Silber 5!” Sphenson said.
“These are Round Table fighters! Stay sharp!” Baker called.
“The Round Table’s nothing special!” Slider yelled. “I’ll take care of things!”
Seconds later, Sphenson brought down another of the enemy planes.
“Those bastards!” Grun 1 said. “Grun 2, it’s time to get serious!”
Slider laughed and said: “hey, Silber 5, now things are nice and even. One for you, and one for me!”
He went off to engage the second last plane, and I went started to attack Grun 1. As I was chasing him through the sky, the
backside of his plane exploded with startling abruptness. I saw the ejection seat fire as his plane fell away trailing fire.
That was MY kill! I thought angrily. Who the hell-?
“Thanks for dragging him into position for me, Silber 5!” Sphenson said.
I looked back, and saw his plane twisting away. Slider managed to bring down his target as well, and like all the other enemy
planes, his ejection seat fired.
It seemed calm for a few seconds, then I heard: “Targets are in firing range. Shcnee 1 to all units; release your missiles.”
I looked at the radar screen, and I saw five small, fast-moving blips coming in on all of us. I dove for the deck, picking
up speed and I levelled out after the missile warning alarm stopped shrieking at me. the rest of the squadron did the same.
My aircraft’s computer got a lock, and I fired my radar-guided missiles, although due to something, my missiles twisted
away after a few seconds of flight.
“there’s an escort craft mixed in with that squadron that’s equipped with ECM pods. It’s interfering
with the radar!” the AWACS said, after my shot missed.
“Dammit!” Baker said. “Jamming! Radar response dropping!”
“we’ll deal with the jammer later, just shoot down those fighters!” Heartbreak 1 said.
“roger that sir!” we all said.
I kept dodging the long-range missiles that this new batch of enemy planes kept firing out, until I was within range of my
short range heat seeker missiles. My aircraft’s computer identified this group of fighters as “F-14D ‘Tomcats’”.
They didn’t look like a very good plane from where I was. They where big, bulky, and they didn’t look very agile.
I launched the missiles almost at the same time as the enemy plane did. I didn’t have time to react as the missiles,
somehow through a mechanical failure passed above my canopy barely missing my aircraft. My missiles though where dead on target,
going right down the left air intake of the plane before exploding that sent the other plane spiralling downward as the left
engine exploded. I pulled away from the plane as its ejection seat fired sending yet another pilot to a safe landing.
Baker slid onto the rear of another plane, but his target was trying not to get hit. He kept turning hard, but Baker was more
manuverible then he was, and flew into a stream of machine gun fire and it’s backside was pumped full of 20 millimetre
holes. A fireball erupted from the stricken aircraft fell.
“Bagged another one! Score tie, Sphenson, Four and four!”
“Hey guys!” Slider called, “I’ll bet you guys the drinks that we can rack up more kills then you two
can!”
“Well, well, well.” Baker said, “What have we here? Insulting from the nuggets? Definitely a problem there,
how’d you juniors do?”
“We ‘juniors’ did just fine, Baker.” I said “two for three, and another probable. How ‘bout
you?”
“Four up, four down. Hardly seems fair though. Poor bastards never knew what hit them.”
“Actually,” Sphenson interrupted, “we’re only being credited with three kills each. Two of our shots
couldn’t be confirmed.”
“Hey, Sphenson, whose side are you on, anyways?” Baker said, sounding hurt.
“All in the interest of fair play, honesty and all that shit, dude.”
“I make it five to four then,” I said. “You guys buy the beer.”
“This engagement isn’t over yet, Silber 5,” Baker said. “We’ll see who buys the beer.”
“You’ve got yourself a bet, only let’s make it interesting: beer and dinner when we land. Me and Slider,
Vs you two, deal?”
“This is Eagle Eye,” the AWACS interrupted. “Cut the chatter!”
We did, and we kept engaging the two remaining fighters. I shot another one down, while slider shot down the last one.
“The radar is still jammed! Find that jammer aircraft!”
“This is Baker; I’ve got it in my sights! Locked on, tone, fox two! Fox two!”
I looked to my right, and saw a tiny flicker of light.
I did a mental tally on all the planes that had been shot down.
I had three kills, the same as Slider; Baker had two as well as Sphenson. Although, this is just what I had personally experienced.
Apparently, Baker already had five kills and Sphenson had three.
“Espada 1 to Espada 2,” a Hispanic-accented voice said. “These flyboys have downed too many of our allies,
we must stop them here!”
“This is Espada 2,” a Hispanic woman said. “Roger! Lead the way!”
These two planes where different. One flew a plane that my computer identified as “J 35 ‘Draken’”
while the other one showed up simply as ‘Rafale’. I closed in on the Draken, but once I got within firing range,
he somehow seemed to stop in midair and started to fly backwards and up! I flashed past and I found myself staring briefly
into the other pilots face, only a few deadly meters away. He was on my tail a few seconds later, he fired a pair of missiles
at me, but I anticipated that, and was already turning hard right to evade them.
Again, someone was there to bail me out. I looked, and saw that while my pursuer was busy flying backwards, he failed to realize
that that had turned him into a sitting duck, and gave Slider a perfect shot. His plane didn’t explode, or trail fire.
In fact, because it was dark, I couldn’t tell if anything actually DID happen at all. On my radar, his plane turned
from a red triangle into a yellow triangle, and he started to retreat back in the direction he had come from, but slower.
Almost too slowly to remain airborne.
“Espada 1,” the woman said “pull out!”
“I’ll head back to base first. I’ll see you in the usual spot.” The first pilot said his transmission
choppy due to static.
I guess that the rest of the squadron had decided to let me handle the remaining plane on my own. The two of us went into
a deadly manoeuvre known as a ‘rolling vertical scissors’. Each plane trying to line up and fire a shot, only
to have the target evade and do the same to you. Each repeat of the manoeuvre cost both pilots airspeed and altitude, and
neither plane is able to disengage without giving the other guy an immediate advantage.
Of course, I didn’t know that, and as such, I didn’t see the danger. Eventually, after my plane started to shake,
the other plane broke off, and tried to win back the altitude and airspeed it had lost, but it was too low and to slow. I
fired off a pair of heat seeking missiles and watched as the pilot ejected.
This time, I readied myself for an attack, and I heard: “This is Wizard 1; Silber Squadron has entered the net.”
“This is Wizard 5, roger- SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK!? MISSILE LAUCH! MISSILE LAUNCH!!”
I looked at the direction that these new enemy planes where coming in, and I saw two white trails that I had now associated
with missiles, then suddenly, the missiles exploded into a fireball that shouldn’t have been possible. Me and Slider
each took down a survivor of the attack, and I then heard: “So, have you all found a reason to fight yet… buddies?”
Chapter Five
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