✔ᵉⁿᵍˡⁱˢʰ Starscream [Top Gun Maverick]✔

19

Kim would not like this idea, and the pilot was right about that.

With the 'break-in', which was less like a burglary, but much more like an unwanted entry by two people who had no authorization, Kim coped wonderfully, as well as with the fact that Mitchell wanted to fly the route himself, which meant borrowing an F-18. No problem at all. Not at all. At that point, she hadn't known that two F-18s were on his list.

"Yours," Mitchell would have said to Kim as they prepared, thrusting a black helmet into her hands, "We'll get it."

"Did you take anything?", Kim wanted to know, for sure was for sure, because so slowly, the Pete really snapped, "I'm not one of your fighter pilots."

"Air racing isn't much different, Kimmie," Pete replied unconcernedly, taking a pen out of his pocket and writing something else on the paint, "Different machine, no weapons, no time limit, and there's no danger of coming under fire. Well, it's different, but essentially it's about being fast and accurate."

"It's worlds apart," Kim corrected the man, glancing at the scribble after Mitchell finished, "Your serious? Second."

"You started with Hell," the pilot reminded her, pointing the pencil at Kim's face, "I thought of Hades at first, but there's that dog."

"Thanks," Kim replied dryly, "Really nice. So to you, I'm a three-headed dog guarding the realm of the dead. Thank you very much."

•●•

This was a little different than what Kim flew from time to time. Flying close, a few meters, above the ground, in most cases over water, she knew, navigating through narrow obstacles as well. The big difference, however, was that her plane, was a single-engine propeller plane that, with its three hundred and fifty horsepower, 'just barely' got to four hundred kilometers an hour. The Hornet possessed scarcely, four times the speed. The obstacle, the canyon, may be imaginary now, but in a few days, would be quite real. Their obstacles were twenty-five meter high pylons to inflate. A mixture of racing and aerobatics. Accidents happened there too, as with everything, but where didn't they?

Yes, the difference was not great.

Kim did know one thing, though. G-forces. From ten to a very short twelve Gs, thanks to tight turns that had to be flown.

The navigation system in the windshield showed that the takeoff point was about to be reached, and a glance ahead at Mitchell, let Kim know that she had to accelerate. In the next second, the Hornets were tilted to the left in succession and it was down to the initial altitude of one hundred feet. No sooner had this happened than the timer began to run.

Again and again the Hornets were tilted from right to left and back into straight and sideways again, which at this speed, was anything but easy, thanks to holding position and the fact that the canyon did not run straight, but had curves.

One hundred feet, thirty and a half feet. Tilting to the side, Kim once again realized, because of this speed alone, that this flight, could go wrong really fast. Once the control stick pushed too far forward, just a little bit, and over. With almost two thousand one hundred K/m in the ground.

It took one minute and thirty-three to pass the canyon.

"Steep in three, two, one," Pete counted down, which was extremely convenient for Kim to adjust to.

Three seconds behind Maverick was Kim, which was not good, but not the worst. As a result, Mitchell had long been in a steep dive and was about to go into an inverted dive when she pulled the stick of her F/A-18 toward her.

One thing that people always like to forget to tell you about was, the volume. It was loud. Incredibly loud, despite the helmet and the fact of being in the aircraft.

Just before reaching the top of the mountain, Kim did the same to Pete, turned the plane on its back and saw the pilot, heading straight for the target and turned her plane back on its belly.

"Bombs are out," Mitchell could be heard saying, and the bang occurred before the timer expired.

Two seconds after they passed, the bang was heard and the timer thereby stopped at 00:00:16.

The last steep flight, up the second and higher mountain, ended with ten G. That was the moment when breathing stopped and Kim was glad to have already experienced this feeling, that or the other time. Although not with ten G, just below. The pressure, which is additionally applied to the head, is terrible and it is no wonder why a person so quickly, lost consciousness.

"You're such a show-off," Kim chortled with a gasp, shaking her head as she caught her breath and found her words, "For a two, well done.

"We should have stayed with Frost, huh?" retorted Pete, amused, who didn't even need to see Kim's face to know she was grimacing in disdain.

What made Maverick tick was not thinking about the consequences of his actions.