Azur Lane: Dragon Rising

Ch37: Hijackers (1)

It's only been twenty minutes but already everyone's hard at work. The survivors from the submarine have already been transferred to Nanchang who has pulled up alongside Dalian's own ship nearby. Enterprise's ship is also out and acting as a support carrier for Jiangsu and I by taking all our helicopters aboard. As for our bombers, my own have already taken off for the mainland and my sister's are about to launch.

Jiangsu: So I should send them straight there?

Me: Yes. I've already informed everyone that they'll be arriving so they'll take care of them until we get there.

Jiangsu: Kay!

As her last H-12 takes off, I move my carrier into place behind hers. We'll need to put them right up against one another for this to work. In truth, we could use the nets to catch them but I have my doubts as to whether the aircraft would survive such and if even one gets disabled on one of our decks it'll compromise the entire mission. Hence, we'll instead simply create a makeshift runway.

Enterprise: Are you sure I can't help out?

Me: Apart from the height difference between our carriers, the exhaust from the engines would send your carrier up in flames.

Enterprise: I know, but-

Me: No buts. Our carriers are big enough to store all the aircraft below the deck and then keep our own aircraft on the flight deck. All you need to do is keep our helicopters and all the various equipment we have to get rid of to make space for these larger aircraft.

She sighs but doesn't argue further. 

It takes another few minutes but eventually we get both carriers perfectly aligned. Despite the sea being relatively calm, however, I can immediately see a major problem. With nothing locking the carriers together, even the tiniest wave changes the height difference between our carriers ever so slightly. 

Me: Seems we'll need to-

Jiangsu: I've found something!

Me: Hmm?

Jiangsu: My Y-11s have located their tankers! They are close by but attempting to flee!

It takes a while for me to pick up on what she's saying but when I do I have one of my aircraft land. The minute it comes to a halt, I am inside and after a brief taxi, I'm being launched from my carrier on the only catapult not pointing straight at Jiangsu's rear. 

Once I'm clear of both carriers, I tell Enterprise to get into the next aircraft that lands before banking hard to the right then entering a vertical climb. Using the afterburner, I continue gaining speed at a rapid rate, even as I head straight up and before long I'm cruising at 36,000 feet whilst travelling at Mach 1-6. 

Enterprise unsurprisingly gets into the aircraft without much questioning but as it blasts through the sky in an effort to catch up to me she's nothing but a sack of screams. 

Me: [Hahahaha. Calm down. We haven't even gotten to the fun part as yet!]

Enterprise: [The-the...aaaahhhhh!]

Giggling, I wait on her to catch up before speeding up and together we chase after the tankers but we're far from the first to reach them. Two of Jiangsu's J-31s arrive there first and with them she establishes contact and tries getting them to agree to refuel our aircraft but to no avail. As we arrive behind them, however, I make no attempt to establish contact.

Me: [Jiangsu, force them to go down to a lower altitude.]

Jiangsu: [How low?]

Me: [Just a few thousand feet or more specifically, 12,500 feet.]

She acknowledges and immediately, her aircraft begin buzzing the four aircraft in such a dangerous manner that they are forced to divert to avoid a collision. As they head down, I have both my aircraft manoeuvre to the front of their formation.

Me: [Enterprise, how comfortable are you with skydiving?]

Enterprise: [What?]

Me: [We are going to board-]

Enterprise: [No...no-no-no-no]

She all but begins to whimper and when I mention that my aircraft could still just eject her from it forcibly she starts to cry and I can't quite blame her. Despite our speed decreasing so as to match the tankers, we're still travelling faster than she's used to.

Me: [It won't be bad. You just need to aim for their cockpit.]

Enterprise: [Wait, what are you-]

Me: [We are going to hijack their planes.]