Song- I hate myself for loving you / Joan Jett
"Time is your greatest enemy." Mavericks voice filled the small room. Yesterday we sat right next to the runway. An American flag hung down from the ceiling until it lightly scraped the bottom of the dirty floor.
Today, a modern touchscreen was placed behind Maverick. The chairs were a dark blue leather with the Navy symbol embroidered at the top. Large windows covered two of the walls, and the meeting table was behind us, waiting to be used.
"Phase one of the mission will be a low-level ingress attacking in two plane teams and one single plane out front." Maverick turned back towards the touchscreen.
"You'll fly along this narrow canyon to your target. Radar Guided surface-to-air missiles defend the area, These SAMs.
They're lethal." Hangman wasn't kicking the back of my chair anymore and Rooster looked rather concerned. "But they were designed to protect the skies above, Not the canyon below." Maverick studied the image of the landscape.
"That's because the enemy knows no one is insane enough to try and fly below them." Rooster called out from next to me, Maverick turning to face us almost instantly.
"That's exactly what I'm going to train you to do." He quickly turned back around. "On this day, Your altitude will be 100 feet maximum."
Everyone looked around, their eyes flicking between one another. "Is he insane?" I questioned, looking at Rooster with wide eyes. "Criminally Insane, Yeah." Rooster exchanged my glance, slowly turning to look back at Maverick.
"You exceed this altitude, radar will spot you and you're dead." a small 3D plane labeled F-18 went out of the altitude limit, a few rockets flew at the model, stopping just seconds before hitting it.
Before I agreed to come back to Top Gun, I had heard many rumors about how dangerous this mission was, sure all missions were dangerous. They all had their own risks. But this mission was different. And now I could finally see why that was.
"Your airspeed will be 660 knots." The glances continued. Coyote and Fanboy looked at eachother with terror in their eyes. "minimum. Time to target: two and a half minutes. That's because 5th generation fighters wait at an air base nearby." The room fell silent as a photo of an Su-57 came up onto the screen.
"Only one of you knows how to pilot one of these. That doesn't matter though because in a head-to-head with one of these while in an F-18, you're dead."
Maverick looked at me, the memories of having to fly a Su-57 flooding my mind.
"That's why you need to get in, hit your target and be gone before these planes even have a chance of catching you."
Maverick skimmed his eyes over us once more before turning back around to the touch screen. He swiped across the screen and a tightly winded route came up.
"You'll fly this route in your nav system that stimulates the canyon. Time is your greatest adversary. The faster you navigate this canyon, the harder it will be to stay under the radar of these SAMs. The tighter the turns, the more intensely the force of gravity on your body multiplies."
Everyone knew what would happen when your lungs were compressed to the max and all the blood came rushing to your brain. Reaction time and judgment are the most important things when piloting aircrafts. All of these would be severely impaired.
"So today we're gonna take it easy on you." Maverick smiled, "Max ceiling; 300 feet. Time to target: 3 minutes. Good Luck." He walked off, The admiral at the back following behind him.
"If that's meant to be easy then I don't know what world he's been living in." Bob groaned as he got up and began walking not far behind Maverick and the Admiral.
"The man needs to retire, I tell you." Hangman laughed. Placing down his pen and notebook atop the chair he was previously sat on.
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I moved the stick into a hard right, the aircraft quickly swerved to follow the canyon route.
"Time to target is One Minute 30. We are two seconds behind, increase to 480 knots" Bobs voice came through my radio, "Come on Alora, We gotta move." Phoenix spoke, their plane close behind me.
"Copy, increasing speed." I pushed the throttle forward by a few inches, before moving the stick once more to avoid going off route and potentially hitting into the imaginary canyon.
"AH SHIT!" Phoenix shouted as her plane went off route and into the wall. "Fuck!" I slammed my hand into my thigh before turning my plane around and back towards base.
"Fanboy, Payback and Hangman are coming up. Clear the route and look at your nav system for the new way to base." Mavericks voice came through as I followed the new route on my nav system.
"Our asses are toast. Rooster was the only one to actually complete it minus the time, he ignored that." Phoenix scoffed,
The sun was at its highest point of the day. No clouds could be seen, blue for miles and miles. "Yale and Harvard couldn't do it either. Who are they going to send on this god forbidden mission?" I laughed, watching Hangman's plane fly over ours.
"You land first Alora." Bob spoke as Nat turned their plane to do a few more laps around in the air. "Copy that Bob." I shifted in my seat a little, moving the throttle back to slow my speed and land.
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"Hey, Vanessa!" Bradley came running next to me, "Hey Bradshaw. What's up?" I smiled, squinting as I turned to look at him, sun coming straight into my eyes.
"I thought I should get this over with before Maverick gives us a bunch of shit and we're all in bad moods. You free tomorrow?" He smiled back, taking the helmet off the top of his head.
"Are you asking me on a date, Bradshaw?" I smirked, looking back at him "I- well it's just us hanging out if you want, I mean it can be a date if you- If you would like that?" He stuttered, his eyes darting to the floor.
"Lets hang out Bradshaw, How's 10 tomorrow?" I laughed as we walked through the doors to the training room.
"Message me your address tonight." He smiled, placing his helmet in his lap as we sat down again. Hangman and Phoenix sneaked glances at each other, or should i say that they tried to at least because turning around every few minutes isn't very inconspicuous.
"Alora." Mavericks spoke loudly, "Yes sir." I replied, making eye contact with him. "Why are they dead?" He had put on that serious tone from before, The one from when he was telling us the terrain.
"We broke the 300 foot ceiling and hit the wall before a SAM could take us out."
Phoenix covered, trying to take the
blame for my mistake. "No, Why are they dead?" He looked back at me, "I slowed down and I didnt give them a warning, It was my fault."
"Was there a reason you didn't communicate with your team?" He snapped back quickly, "I was focusing on-"
"One that their family will accept at the funeral."
"None, Sir." Maverick turned to Phoenix and Bob, "Why didn't you anticipate the turn? You were briefed on the terrain."
Phoenix opened her mouth to say something, "Don't tell me, Tell it to his family." He nodded towards Bob whose head was down, his eyes fixed onto the ground.
"Hangman, What happened?" His eyes darted towards Hangman, "Well I flew as Fast as I could. You know, kind of like my ass depended on it." He smirked at Maverick. "And you put your team in danger, and your wingmans dead." Rooster joined in.
"Well they couldn't keep up." He smiled, turning to look at Rooster.
"Don't even get me started on you Rooster. Your team leader up there. Why are you, Why is your team dead?" Maverick scoffed, trying to keep his composure as he threw his hands in the air.
"Sir, he's the only one who made it to the target." I looked up at Maverick. "A minute late. He gave enemy aircraft time to shoot him down, He is dead." His eyes flicked between me and Rooster
"You don't know that." Rooster replied, "You're not flying fast enough. You don't have a second to waste." Hangman chipped in. "We made it to the target."
"And superior enemy aircraft intercepted you on your way out." Maverick bawled up his fists by his sides, trying not to shout. "Then it's a dogfight."
"Against fifth generation fighters?" Maverick scoffed, turning around as he ran both hands through his hair. "Yeah, we still have a chance." Rooster raised his voice to Mavericks level, "In an F-18!?" Maverick shouted back,
"It's not the plane Sir, it's the Pilot." Rooster lowered his voice, a small smile appearing on his face.
"Exactly!" Maverick shouted once more. Phoenix, Coyote and a few others shook their heads at the heated argument growing between the two.
Rooster frowned, the smile wiping completely off his face.
"You really don't get it do you? On a mission, a man flies like Maverick here. Or he doesn't come back." Hangman laughed as Rooster pushed himself out of the seat and began walking off.
Others followed him out of the building and into the showers, Maverick stood by the screen shaking his head. "You're such an asshat sometimes you know that?" Phoenix shot Hangman a look of disapproval before walking off with me.