"The uranium enrichment plant that is your target will be operational earlier than expected." Warlock explained. "Raw uranium will be delivered to the plant in ten days' time. As a result, your mission had been moved up one week, in order to avoid contaminating the target valley with radiation." Snow-white slumped into her chair in defeat, there was no way she could complete the mission with such little training, nobody could.
"Sir, no one here has successfully flown a low-lever course." She said reluctantly.
"Nevertheless, you've been ordered to move on." She simply lowered her head in response.
"Captain." He turned to maverick and they soon swapped places, now Maverick was at the centre of the class.
"We have one week left to focus on phase two. It's the most difficult stage of the mission." He was now pacing around the room. "It's a pop-up strike with a steep dive, requiring nothing less than two consecutive miracles." He said putting two fingers in the air. "Two pairs of F-18s will fly in a welded wing formation. Teamwork. Precise coordination of these aircraft is essential to both the mission's success and your survival." Then the trajectory showed up on the screen. "As you know, the plant rests between two mountains. On final approach, you'll invert directly into a steep dive. This allows you to maintain the lowest possible altitude and the only possible attack angle. Your target is an impact point less than three meters widetwo-seato seat aircraft will paint the target with a laser bull's eye. The first pair will breach the reactor by dropping a laser-guided bomb on an exposed ventilation hatch. This will create an opening for the second pair. That's miracle number one." He finished the sentence pointing one finger up and looking at us. The cadets all looked more scared than ever.
"The second team will deliver the kill shot and destroy the target." The screen showed the bunker underground and the missile flying into it, destroyng it . "That's miracle number two." And the two fingers in the air again. "If either team misses the target...the mission is a failure. Egress is a steep high-G climb out to avoid hitting this mountain-"
"A steep climb at that speed, you're pulling at least eight G's." Hangman interrupted.
"Nine, minimum." Maverick corrected him
"The stress limit on the F-18's airframe is 7.5" Rooster interjected.
"That's the accepted limit" Snow intervened. Maverick nodded at her with a small, proud smile and then continued.
"To survive this mission, you'll pull beyond that, even if it means breaking your airframe. You'll be pulling so hard, you'll weigh close to 2,000 pounds. Your skull crushing your spine, your lungs imploding like an elephant's sitting on your chest." Snow-white couldn't help but cringe and squirm at the thought of that. "Fighting with everything you have just to keep from blacking out. And this is where you'll be at your most vulnerable. This is Coffin Corner. Assuming you avoid crashing into this mountain, you'll climb straight up into enemy radar while losing all of your airspeed." And there is the very, very accurate representation of what's gonna happen to them. "Within seconds, you'll be fired upon by enemy SAMs. You've all faced sustained G's before, but this...this is gonna take you and your aircraft to the breaking point."
"Sir, is this even achievable?" Phoenix asked what everyone was secretly wondering.
"The answer to that question will come down to the pilot in the box." He answered
╚»★«╝
Training had started. Snow was flying with Phoenix and Bob.
"Talk to me, Bob!"
"We are 12 seconds late on target. We gotta move! We gotta move!"
"Copy that Bob! Try to stay with me." She said back and started to speed up.
"Wait, who's that?" Bob asked confused, they were not meant to have anyone else here and yet something showed up on the radar.
"I bet it's Maverick." Snow rolled her eyes.
"Blue team, you've been spotted." There it was, the voice that haunted Snow-white.
"Knew it!" She muttered.
"What the hell is he doing here?" Phoenix asked them but Maverick answered for them.
"I'm a bandit on course to intercept. Blue Team, what are you gonna do?"
"He's 20 miles left. Ten O'clock. 700 knots closure." Bob shouted at them.
"Your call Phoenix, what's it gonna be?" Snow asked her.
"Continue. We're close. Stay on target."
"Yes, m' am!"
"He's swinging around to the north!" Bob informed us.
"Stand by for pop-up!"
"Be ready on that laser, Bob!" Phoenix ordered.
"Copy. I'm on it."
"Blue Team, bandit is still closing" Maverick reminded us.
"Yeah, we know Mav!" Snow shouted back at him. "Popping now." She started to fly upwards. "Talk to me, Bob. Where's Maverick?" She couldn't see him anywhere.
"He's five miles out. He's coming fast."
"Target's in sight." Phoenix exclaimed as they spun the plane back in position to shoot.
"Where's my laser, Bob?" Time was running out.
"Deadeye! Deadeye! It's no good. Sorry, I can't get a lock."
"Son of a bitch!" Snow-white quietly cursed under her breath "I'm dropping blind."
She dropped the missiles, hoping they would hit the target...
"Damn it! missed!" It was so close, but not close enough to hit the bullseye. "Watch out for Mav!" She began to fly upwards again towards what would be 'coffin corner'. She could feel the weight crushing her down, her vision was getting blurry, and she was about to pass out when she heard Bob shout.
"Maverick's got a missile lock on us."
"Shit! we're dead." Phoenix stopped flying upwards and redirected her aircraft.
"Blue Team, that's a fail. Level out, Snow-white." Maverick instructed her. She tried to move the plane but she couldn't keep her eyes open. She could hear Maverick "Snow white? Do you copy?" It was faint, distant. She felt her body go limp.
"Snow-white, come in." She couldn't answer back. "Snow-white, level wings." Still no answer. "Oh, God. She's in G-LOC."
"She's gonna burn in!" Phoenix felt powerless at that moment.
"I'm going after her." He flew towards Snow-white. "Come on give me tone, give me tone, give me tone!"
She heard the beeping going off in the plane but her eyes were still almost shut. She was starting to open them again slowly but it felt like an impossible task.
"Snap out of it, Snow. Come on! Come on! EMILY!"
She finally managed to regain consciousness when she heard the panic in Maverick's voice as he was screaming her name. She pulled up just in time, avoiding crashing into the ground.
"Snow, are you ok?" Mav asked her, she was still lightheaded and dizzy.
"I'm...I'm ok. I'm alright." She managed to muster out.
Maverick let out a sigh of relief "Good. Good. That's enough for today."
"That was close, Snow." Phoenix complained.
"Too close." Maverick responded to her. Snow felt so embarrassed, she felt like she let him down by not being strong enough to handle that climb and for some reason, even though she despised him, the thought of him being disappointed in her made her heart sink. But that thought was abruptly interrupted when birds hit the cockpit.
"Bird strike! Bird strike!"
"Phoenix, left engine's on fire!" Bob cried out in panic.
"Climbing. Throttling back. Shutting off fuel to left engine. Extinguishing fire."
"Right engine is out!"
"It's still spinning. Trying to restart it."
"No, don't do it." Snow cried out.
"Phoenix, it's on fire. Don't start it." Maverick tried to warn them as well.
"Throttling up."
The plane went down. Snow-white and Maverick were right on her tail.
"We're on fire! We're on fire!" Bob cried out in terror.
"Damn it! Extinguishing right engine."
The plane started to spin, out of control.
"Phoenix, Bob, Punch out! Punch out!" Maverick shouted.
"Warning lights everywhere! Hydraulic Failure!"
"I can't control it!" Phoenix was starting to panic.
"We're going down, Phoenix!"
"You can't save it. Eject, Eject!" Maverick kept on shouting
"For Christ' sake! EJECT!" Snow-white screamed, almost begging.
"Eject! Eject!" Phoenix finally said and proceeded to eject with Bob. The plane exploded as it crashed into the ground
╚»★«╝
"They're gonna get them to the hospital, get them checked out." Maverick informed Snow but she just nodded, still overwhelmed about today's events. "Go home, get some rest, you need it." He put a hand on my shoulder.
"I napped on the aircraft today, I'm good." She joked.
"Emily-" He stopped himself from saying whatever it was. "I'll keep you updated."
"Yeah ok, thank you." She offered a tired smile to him to which he smiled back at. She then left, heading to the changing rooms. She changed into her casual clothes and headed out. While she was walking towards her motorcycle, she saw Rooster making his way towards her, practically jogging.
"They're bringing Phoenix and Bob to the hospital-" He enveloped her into a tight hug.
"Don't ever scare me like that again, you hear me? I thought I lost you for a second." His voice muffled as he buried his face in her neck.
"You can't get rid of me that easily." She scoffed.
He scoffed as well and pulled away, keeping his hands on her shoulders. "I'm sorry. You're right, I was acting stupid." Emily smiled at that, it was a step forward to improvement and how she loved being right.
"So what do you say? Shall we kiss and make up, Mr Bradshaw?"
He started to laugh "If you insist...Ms Kazansky" he then pulled her into a kiss. It was passionate, his hands travelling on her back, pulling her in so tightly that there was no distance in between. The moment was sadly interrupted when she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. She looked to see who it was. Sarah.
"Sorry I gotta get this ." She quickly told him before picking up the phone.
"Sarah! hey-"
"Emily I need you to get here as soon as possible!" she was sobbing.
"Woah easy, what happened?" Emily's heart was now racing in her chest.
"It's Iceman...he's- he's-" Sarah couldn't even finish a sentence.
"Ok. Calm down, I'm on my way." She hang up and got ready to leave immediately.
"Hey, is everything ok?" Rooster's voice filled with concern. Emily looked at him with a worried look and put on her helmet.
"I'll call you later." She told him and left, riding as fast as she could to her father's house.