Nova rolled over in the thick comforter, stirring awake after hearing the loud blare of a military style alarm. She tried to reach the nightstand and turn the alarm off, but couldn't move due to a strong pair of arms gripping her waist. She quickly came to her senses and realized she had waken up with Bradley, and now had to go to work.
"Bradley!" She shakes him awake after recollecting her thoughts, wondering how he slept through the loud noise.
"Hmm?" He tilts his head up.
"I have to run home and get ready for work." She tells him, prying his hands off of her.
"You can get ready here." He mumbles half coherently and fails to pull her closer.
"I don't have clothes." She tells him as he's getting out of bed.
"Just wear that." He shrugs.
"I can't just wear this." She argues, gathering her things.
"Why not? You look great." He sits up and rubs his eyes to wake himself up.
"I can't look like I spent the night here! I gotta go now or I'll be late."
"Alright, Nov. At least gimme a hug or something." He laughs lightly and stretches his arms out towards her.
Nova returns the hug, wrapping her arms around his neck and shoulders while he wraps his around her waist. He pulls her closely to him, resting his head against her chest for a moment and just enjoying being with her like this, without any jets flying over their heads.
"K, Bradhsaw, I'll see you in a few." She ruffles his hair and lets go of him.
"See you on base, Mitchell." He releases her from his grip and and walks out the door.
Nova power walks through the house vastly, pausing for a second when Bob walks out of his room. He looks at her suspiciously as if he's seeing something he shouldn't. She knows he probably assumes she hooked up with Bradley, but she doesn't really have time to explain herself. The two awkwardly nod to each other from across the living room and she continues walking out the door. The sun isn't up yet, giving her hope for making it on time. Luckily, there's no traffic at the ass crack of dawn.
Nova rushes to get ready, throwing on her usual jeans and Top Gun tee shirt and leaving her hair down. She zooms out of the house and makes it to work just in time for the official briefing of the mission. Luckily, she didn't have to do inspections this morning, or she would be screwed.
The girl speed walks Inter he classroom, joining her father and Hondo in the corner as the aviators take their seats.
"You were almost late." Her dad tells her in his fatherly tone.
He's never been the most parental parent, so even this mini-lecture is odd for Nova.
"Key word, almost." She states through a smirk.
"Normally you feen for the free coffee. What took so long, Mitchell?" Hondo pushes on, joining forces with Maverick.
"I just was a little tired this morning, nothing big." She lies, not wanting her dad to know she stayed with Bradley.
At the very moment Nova said that, Bradley walks right past them into the classroom.
"Ah look at that! Bradshaw's usually early too. Now what the hell are you two up to this morning?" Maverick remark, pointing a finger at them accusingly.
"Nothing, sir. Just tired after that intense football game." Bradley says sarcastically as he lightly pats Nova's back.
"Ha! The kids are teaming up on you, how's that feel, Mav?" Hondo says.
"They're not a team. No way Bradshaw would go that low."
"This actually is not about you." Bradley smiles before heading to his seat.
Nova smiles at him, but is quickly elbowed by Maverick.
"What?" She snaps her head at him.
"You better not be dating him, Nov. I'm serious, Bradshaw is off limits." Maverick tells his daughter.
"I don't know why you try and tell me what to do. I think we both know I'm not gonna listen to you." She says to her father, knowing if anyone else spoke to him like that they'd be in for it.
"Oh lord." He sighs in defeat.
He knows he can't win with her. She'll always do what she wants to do, even if it's a terrible idea. Maverick doesn't argue with it cause he knows she gets it from him. She gets mostly everything from him, especially her quick comebacks. Sometimes she wished she was a little less like him, they both did, but Nova was a Mitchell through and through.
"Attention on deck!" Admiral Simpson enters the room.
Nova and Maverick walk to the front of the small classroom where the two admirals stand, and Mav prepares to explain the mission.
"The uranium enrichment plant will be operational earlier than expected. Raw uranium will be delivered to the plant in ten days time. As a result, your mission has been moved up one week, in order to avoid contaminating the target valley with radiation." Warlock announces.
The classroom of pilots stares at the admiral in shock. Nova looks more afraid than shocked. She doesn't know why they hadn't been told this yesterday, or at least why her dad didn't warn her when she first got here. They've seen so many setbacks over the past few days that they're starting to lose hope of surviving this mission at all.
"Sir, no one here has successfully completed the low level course." Nova says with concern.
"Nevertheless, we've been ordered to move on."
"We have one week left to focus on phase two. It's the most difficult stage of the mission." Maverick continues the briefing that Warlock started.
All eyes are on him, and everyone is listening closely on what he has to say. Their lives do depend on it after all.
"It's a pop up strike with a steep dive, requiring nothing less than two consecutive miracles. Two pairs of F-18s will fly in a welded wing formation. Precise coordination of these aircraft is essential to both the mission's success and your survival."
The group of aviators stare at the big screen, giving Maverick their full attention. Rooster swallows nervously and looks at Nova, who's just as anxious.
"Your target is an impact point less than three meters wide. Two two-seater aircraft will paint the target with a laser. The first pair will breech 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."
"The second team will deliver the kill shot and destroy the target. That's miracle number two. If either team misses the target, the mission fails. 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 comments, slightly taken aback by the danger of this mission.
"Nine, minimum." Nova corrects.
"The stress limit on the F-18's airframe is 7.5." Rooster reminds everyone, wondering what these crazy ass people are thinking, and if the Navy truly is sending them on a death mission.
"That's the accepted limit." Nova informs. "To survive this mission, you'll pull beyond that, even if it means bending your airframe. You'll be pulling so hard, you'll weight close to 2,000 pounds." She gives them a more realistic description of the steep G incline. Her voice shudders and slightly cracks as she tries to describe what these pilots are about to go through.
"This is where you'll be most vulnerable, fighting with everything you have just to keep from blacking out. This is coffin corner." Maverick says.
"Assuming that you avoid crashing into this mountain, you'll climb straight up into enemy radar while losing all of your airspeed. Within seconds, you'll be fired upon by enemy SAM's. You've all faced sustained G's before, but this is gonna take you and your aircraft to the breaking point."
Nova catches Payback and Fanboy look at each other in shock, like they just found out they're about to die. Death starts to become a little more of a realistic subject in everyone's minds, including Nova's, and she does not like that idea.
"Sir...is this even achievable?" Phoenix asks, half in doubt and half in complete and utter fear.
"The answer to that question will depend on the pilot in the box." Maverick answers her seriously.
The room goes quiet, way too quiet for Nova's comfort. The pilots look at each other intently and with suspense. Bradley wishes there were something to say to cut the tension, but he can't think of anything. He doesn't have the nerve to be his usual funny self at such a serious time.
"Good luck with that!" Nova gives two thumbs up awkwardly, making Rooster and the rest of the aviators laugh.
Phoenix, Bob, and Coyote are up first, and Maverick decides to have a little fun and add a bogie to their course. They stay on course, but Maverick goes after them. Coyote struggles with the air pressure as Maverick's laser shoots him. Nova watches the scene unfold from the tower, and notices Coyote's jet descending towards the ground.
He's pulled somewhere around 10 G's from the incline, and is not used to this level of speed at this steep of a climb.
"Coyote, come in." Another woman says through the intercom.
"Oh god. He's in G-Loc." Maverick says, making Nova jump out of her skin and press her body against the glass of the tower.
"He's gonna burn in!"
"I'm going after him!"
Nova grows even more worried, and she's surprised to see Rooster and Hangman burst through the control room doors together. The classroom doesn't exactly have a good view of the terrain, and everyone down there was extremely worried. Coyote is Hangman's best friend, and Phoenix is like a sister to Rooster. Even these guys could come together when they're desperate enough.
"What's going on?" Rooster rushes toward the window to be able to see the planes.
"The G's got Coyote." Nova releases a shaky breath.
Hangman and Rooster's faces drop as they stare out the tower window at the falling plane. All three of them are full of fear for their pilot, but Nova's the only one mentally able to do anything.
"Pull up! Pull up!" Nova shouts into the intercom microphone.
Finally, Coyote's jet shoots back towards the clouds, and he levels out successfully. The entire squadron exhales with relief and Hangman shakes his head at how close of a call that was. Everything is fine for a moment, until they hear the words "bird strike" through the radio. The trio is back against the window in a second, watching Phoenix's plane shake as she tries to fix her plane.
"Phoenix, the left engine's on fire!" Bob shouts, pushing all kinds of buttons in the backseat.
"Climbing." She announces.
Phoenix tries to remain calm, and also not let her multimillion dollar aircraft burn to the ground. This is what she's good at, doing well under pressure. Because when you're an aviator, even training is a life or death situation.
"It's still spinning!"
"We're on fire!"
"Phoenix, Bob! Punch out!" Maverick orders them.
"You can't save it! Eject! Eject!"
Finally, Phoenix and Bob give in and pull their ejection handles, flying out of their plane and watching it fall to the sandy desert floor.
"God dammit!" Bradley grunts, running his hands through his hair.
Nova watches their parachutes inflate, allowing them to slowly inch towards the ground. Seeing them eject like that reminded Nova of her father telling her the story of Goose, and how he died ejecting. It was here that he died, training at Top Gun. Knowing that's how her dad lost his best friend, Nova has always felt a pit in her stomach when pilots have had to eject during training. She's even worked hard on designs for planes that have safer ejection methods, so that nobody else would end up like Goose.
She can't imagine how Bradley is feeling right now, seeing that happen to two of his friends and knowing how similar the situation is to his father's death.
"They're good, they're good." Hangman says, trying to calm Bradley down.
He may have been an asshole about it, but he knows now that Goose is a sensitive topic.
The group rushes down to the tarmac to make sure Phoenix and Bob are okay. Everyone is relived to see them arrive back on base in a military style truck, glad to not have been injured.
"That was close." Bradley murmurs to Nova with a sigh.
"Too close." She shakes her head.
"This fucking mission..." He's not sure what to even think of the odds that we're given.
"Wait, where are they going?" Nova looks at the truck passing the base, wondering why it's not dropping the pilots off.
"Hospital." Maverick answers her as he walks by in his full flight suit. "They're gonna be okay, they just want to keep them overnight for observation."
"That's good." Bradley looks at the floor. Nova nods in agreement.
"Hey, uh, Rooster I gotta talk to you." Maverick says.
Nova raises an eyebrow, wondering if it's gonna be that talk, the one both of them have been avoiding.
"About what?" Rooster asks, partly wanting to bring the subject up, and partly not wanting to speak to Maverick at all.
"The mission. I know you're doubting it, and I know that whole ordeal just now didn't help. You and Phoenix seem close, I just want to you know she'll be okay."
"Are you saying that because she's my friend, or because that was how my dad died?" Bradley says with no hesitation.
Nova's jaw drops, and she turns away from them, trying to avoid being around at this time. She sees Admiral Bates from a few yards away, and wonders where him and Simpson have been this whole flight sequence.
"Let's talk?"
"Yeah, let's talk."
The two men walk back inside tensely.
"Hey, Bates, where have you been? Why weren't you and Cyclone in the tower?" Nova asks, walking up to Warlock.
"Nova, I need to talk to you." He says seriously.
Novas face drops in worry.
"Where did your father go?" He then asks.
"Uhh, he went inside to talk to Rooster. I would wait a minute, though, it's a heavy conversation." She says.
"Talk to Rooster about..." Bates insituates.
"Yeah...what did you need to talk to me about?" She changes the subject.
"Mitchell, Bates, my office, now." Admiral Simpson joins them, and they all start walking inside.
"What's going on?" Nova asks the two admirals.
"Something...happened. We'll talk about it inside, honey." Bates tells her in a rather parental way.
They walk through the short hallway quickly, and Nova anticipates what they could have to say to her.
"Honey? Nobody ever calls me that except my dad...and Sarah and Icema-"
Nova freezes as they reach the office door, stopping in her tracks while Simpson opens it. The girl walks inside, looking between the two men's eyes as if she's trying to read their minds. She has a feeling that her worse fear came true, and she really hopes she's wrong.
"Nova..." Simpson starts, but doesn't say anything else.
"Please don't tell me..." She only receives looks of sorrow and pity.
"Admiral-Commander Kazanksy-"
"N-no! Please! It can't b-he can't be-"
This is part of Admiral Simpson's job, but he can't bring himself to let the words fall from his mouth. Nova wasn't just a colleague, she was still so young. She was like a daughter to everyone working in Miramar, and it broke the two admiral's hearts that she would be so crushed by this.
"He's gone, Nov. I'm sorry."
Iceman was gone. Nova had seen him the day before and just like that, there was no more of him. She barely got to say goodbye. Nobody could understand how someone so influential and important at Top Gun could be gone just like that, and nobody could understand why it had to happen. Especially not Nova.