Skylar's Wish • Rooster

Chapter 9: Eject

I turn to Maverick and see that he's already looking over at me. His eyes move to each of us, looking at us for a few seconds before moving to the others. Hondo walks over to Maverick and hands him a piece of paper. "Teams are Skylar, Phoenix, and Bob. Rooster, Fritz, and Omaha. Hangman, Payback, and Fanboy. And Coyote, Harvard, and Yale. We will mix up the teams as we go. Dismissed."

I lean down to grab my helmet before standing up and walking with Phoenix and Bob out to the tarmac. I reach my plane, Phoenix, and I do our handshake before I start my pre-flight checklist. I hear behind me someone yelling my name. I turn slightly, it's the one person I wanted to avoid talking to today. "Skylar!" Rooster yells over the sound of plane engines. I whip around, "What?" 
"Can we talk?" I roll my eyes. "Oh, now you want to talk. You had last night to talk, but you choose now. I can't right now, Rooster.  Phoenix and I are up first." I place my helmet on my head as I climb the ladder and lower myself into the box. Making sure Rooster is far enough away, I start my engines. The crew taxi's me to the runway. "Skylar to Command. Am I cleared for take off?" I ask into my mask. "Skylar, you are cleared for takeoff."
"Roger that." I push my control stick forward, increasing speed. My plane flies down the runway. I feel my plane leave the runway, and I click a button that pulls my wheels back into my plane.

No longer after I'm up in the air, Phoenix and Bob are up next to me. "Alright guys, Nav system set?" I ask into my mask as I strap it onto my helmet. "Roger that, Skylar," Bob tells me. "Alright. Phoenix, let's do some pilot shit." Phoenix laughs before telling Bob to start the Nav system. We start our Nav systems and start practicing. We start in the middle of the straightaway from Phase 1, going 720 knots. "Base of the mountain is 500 ft, Sky!"
"Relax, Bob. We want to be right next to the mountain. Let me know in 100ft," I calmly tell him. A few seconds later, I hear Bob yell 100ft, and I slowly start to move my plane towards the sky. "75ft!" I move the top of my nose closer to the sky. "50ft" The top of my plane is pointing at the sky. I look at my Nav system, and we are almost at the top. "Phoenix, ready to invert in 3... 2... 1!" We invert over the top of the first mountain. A few seconds later, we reverted to our plane's right position and continued down the mountain. "Ready the laser, Bob!" He soon yells that the laser is ready. I use the laser and my radar to drop the bomb. I pull up on my plane right after releasing the bomb to avoid hitting the 'mountain'. "That's a miss, Sky." Phoenix tells me. "How far away?"
"50ft behind the box" Bob tells us. "Damnit!" I mumble. We head back to the runway to regas and get ready for our next try.

After a few hours of trying and missing. No one has hit the target yet. So, I'm in the air with Payback and Fanboy on our last run of the day. "Fanboy, how are we doing back there?" Payback asks. "We are 1 second ahead of schedule." I let out a sigh and nodded to myself. The relief doesn't last long when I hear Fanboy curse. "Talk to me, Fanboy!" I yell. "It's Maverick!"
"Great."
"White team, you've been found. What are you going to do?" I pause for a second, "Fanboy, how closer are we?" He says we're about 90 seconds away, so I make my decision. "Stay the course. We're too close." We head up the mountain. Increasing speed as we invert over the top. We revert and continue down the mountain. "Where's my laser Fanboy?!"
"Almost there! Got it laser lock!" Fanboy yells.

I lock the missile radar on the box, "Bombs away," I mumble to myself. I quickly point the nose of my plane to the sky and race up the side of the mountain. "That's a hit!" Fanboy yells. We cheered for a second until, "Where's Maverick?" I hear Payback ask. I make it past the coffin corner. I start looking around for Maverick, I go above the cloud cover and see him to the left. "Above the cloud cover and to the left," Payback and Fanboy appear next to me. "What do we do?" Payback asks.

I pause for a second, "Have you guys ever played Cat and Mouse?" I ask. They look over at me through the plane canopy like I'm crazy. I laugh and explain, "It's where one plane is the bait, they draw the enemy plane away. The bait, of course, doesn't make it easy. They fly up and down, bank left and right, anything and everything else except a straight line. While the bait distracts the enemy, the other plane secretly follows. The goal is for the other pilots to lock on to the enemy plane before the enemy plane locks on the bait." There is a silence in comms, "And why is it called Cat and Mouse?"
"Well, the bait is being chased by the enemy plane. Mouse being chased by a cat." I tell them. "We're in!" They both yell at the same time.