"Attention on deck!" Commander orders and we all stand up. "Good morning, welcome to your special training detachment." He continues. "Be seated." He orders once again. He quickly introduced himself, although he familiar with most, before beginning. "Your all top gun graduates, the elite, the best of the best." I could see small smiles growing on everyone's faces, knowing he was right, but the smiles quickly fall at his next comment.
"That was yesterday. The enemies new 5th generation fighter has levelled the plane field." He proceeds explaining. He then continued to finish explaining to us what this mission was about and it was now time to find out who our instructor is, which is the question that's been playing on everyone's mind. "Your instructor is a top gun graduate with real world experience, in every mission aspect you will be expected to master. His exploits are legendary, he is considered to be one of the finest pilots this program has ever produced." I turn back hearing footsteps. Shit. No. Not him, it can't be. Maverick. I huff in annoyance put my head down so I don't make eye contact with him. "What he has to teach you, may well be the difference between life and death, I give you captain Pete Mitchelle, call sign Maverick." Wow still captain I thought he would of atleast be at Second Sergeant by now.
"Morning, the F.A.T Nay-tops." He holds the big file. "Contains everything they want you to know about your aircraft. I'm assuming you know the book inside out." We all either nod or verbally agree. He then chucks it in the Trash Can beside him, and we all share looks of confusion, even the commanders do. "So does you enemy." He does make a true point. "But what the enemy doesn't know, is your limits." He tells us. "I intend to find them, test them, push beyond." I look around the room to see everyone else doing the same thing.
"Today we'll start with what you only think you know. You show me what your made of." He's right, I will show him, normally I fly in a single but for this mission I'll be be flying in a double but I don't know who with yet.
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"I know, can you believe it out of everyone-" Me and Rooster are walking towards our jets on the runway, until I'm interrupted by the man himself. "Hey Eagle, Rooster!" We just ignore him and continue to walk. "Britney, Bradley." We still ignore him. "Lieutenant Bradshaw!" This finally grabs our attention. "Which one?" I shrug. "Both of you!"
"Yes sir." We say in unison. "So we're gonna do it like this then huh?" Maverick sighs.
"You gonna wash us out?" I sarcastically say while keeping a straight face. "That will be up to you guys not me." He shrugs. "Are we dismissed." I roll my eyes. "Yeah."
"Great." I fake smile at him making my way to my Jett.
As I get there I find Fanboy checking the front wheels of the plane. "Hey so your my backseater then?" I question smiling. "Sure am." He gets up to get in the back seat of the Jett setting all his controls up followed by me getting the front putting on my customised yellow, brown and white eagle helmet on. "Ready?" I ask turning on all the controls. "Yeah more than I'll ever be." He chuckles as I start both plane engines.
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"Good morning aviators, this is your captain speaking, welcome to basic fighter manoeuvres." Maverick tunes in. "As briefed, todays exercise is dog fighting. Guns only, no missals. We don't go below the hard deck of 5,000 feet. Working as a team you have to shoot me down or else." He explains. "Or else what?" I challenged his 'threat'. "Or else I shoot back." He replies. "If I shoot either one of you down, you both loose."
"Sir what about if we put some skin in the game? Who ever gets shot down first has to do 200 push-ups." Payback suggests from ground. "Guys that's a lot of push-ups." Maverick states the obvious. "Well they don't call it an exercise for nothing sir." Fanboy chuckles. "You got yourself a deal guys. Fights on." He confirms then jetting of in front of us, meaning the game had began.
"Fanboy, you see him?" I ask starting to speed up. "Nothing on the radar ahead, he tells me and I almost have this instinct that's he's below, so I start to slow down to lower my altitude and get behind him. "I think he must be somewhere behind us." Fanboy tells me but soon realised my call was right he was below us but he hadn't noticed us on his radar yet because we were behind him. We soon watching him shoot up giving rooster a surprise. "Holy shit." Rooster huffs. I'm pretty sure he noticed us soon after and he was officially on to us. "Tally! Tally! Tally! Mavericks coming in!" Fanboy screams behind me causing me to immediately turn upwards since he was coming down. "Shit, shit, shit." "Eagle, were is your wingman?" Maverick was now directly behind us now."Rooster where are you?" My voice filled with panic because I'm not about to be doing these push-ups. "I got you eagle I'm coming." Rooster reassured. "Hurry up man, hurry up." Fanboy said why taking a quick glimpse on the raider again to see where maverick was.
"Rooster just saved your live there, you two." Maverick points out. "But it's gonna cost him." He mutters. Maverick had now turned his attention to rooster now chasing after him.
"Rooster your too low, pull up you in the deck." I informed him. "Oh shit." He pulls up but it wasn't fast enough therefore getting shot down. "That's a kill." Maverick seemed proud of himself knowing that he had taken out rooster making him have to do 200 push-ups. In the end I was relieved that I didn't have to do them. As me and Fanboy landed we were met by one of the commanders.
"We'll done out there, you made some good calls especially at the start." Commander congratulated. "Thank you sir." We both say clutching our helmets about to leave. "Lieutenants wait I have something else to say," He stops us in our tracks. "As I said I'm really impressed how well you guys work together having only met each other yesterday, so imagine how great you would be if you got to know each other?" He states a rhetorical question. "Are you saying that we are going to take bonding sessions?" Fanboy questions. "Bingo! Yes starting tomorrow be here at 0800 tomorrow." He ordered and me and Fanboy shared a look of mixed thoughts but I could see a smile forming on his lips. "Well fanboy, looks like it's just you and me for tomorrow." I say entering the pilot lounge to watch the next group fly, as well as enjoying the sight of seeing my brother in agony doing push-ups. "Should be us down there." Fanboy said with a look of guilt in his eyes, referring to how my brother took the bullet. "But it's not and now you know a little something about my brother." A smirk playing on my face.
It was actually quite entertaining watching Phoenix, Bob and hangman get a quick surprise from Maverick. Eventually Phoenix and Bob got out all due to hangman being a shit wingman. As Maverick turned his attention to hangman, we could hear that hangman was trying to ask Phoenix where maverick was but a classic Phoenix replied "I'm dead dickhead." Making be burst out laughing along with Fanboy. "See you in the afterlife man." Bob adds chuckling. Not to my surprise hangman eventually gets caught also having to do push-ups, which I'm pretty sure after this will damage his ego majorly.
This was followed by coyote getting caught along with Omaha.
As it got later it was time for the singles to battle it out again with maverick but only the ones who lost which consisted of both hangman and rooster. As we were listening in, hangman had asked rooster what it was about maverick that rattled me and him so much earlier, of course my brother wasn't going to tell him but before he could even say anything else the man himself once again appeared saying he heard all of that. There was definitely tension between maverick and him so maverick told him to get it over with, with a 1v1 battle. They started descending in a rotation circle formation and this made me wonder what is really up with these two in particular, yeah don't get me wrong I hate maverick, but whose stupid enough to challenge him to a 1v1. My brother of course. As they continued to get lower I was getting really worried for both of them at this point. When we're they gonna pull up and by now they were definitely below the hard deck altitude of 5,000.
As we were all listening in to their intense conversation as they were getting lower, all I was wishing for was them to just pull up.
"Pull up! Pull up!" I tell them and thankfully they listened to me a wave of relief flowing through me, but this still wasn't over. "Take your shot rooster!" Maverick ordered him but know his stubborn self he believed he could get a better position to shoot since it was too low. "Too late, had your chance." Maverick pulls back getting behind him in a matter of seconds making rooster an easy target, and it was later confirmed to be a kill.
"Same old rooster." Maverick stated as rooster cursed in anger. This meant once again more push ups for him. God does he ever learn.
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As he started to finish up him second round of push-ups I went to go find him on the runway. I was quite annoyed to be honest because he can never get over the fact of loosing or being the underdog.
"Breaking the hard deck, insubordination, are you trying to get kicked out?" I ask with anger filling my voice as well as concern. "Don't worry about it." He looks down ashamed. "Look, I'm going on this mission, but if you get kicked out you leave us flying with hangman. Talk to me. What the hell was that?" I sigh in frustration. "My papers. You know what happened." He finally looked up at me.
"I know rooster but you need to move past that now, bickering about it with him is only going to get you kicked out and set back even more than you already are." I tell him. For once he actually understands where I'm coming from and nods looking back down again. "Even though we both have a dislike to him you can't take it out while flying because that's just gonna end up a in disaster your lucky this time but I have a felling next time won't turn out as good." I give him a quick hug before getting up and leaving.