In the few minutes between the end of the briefing and us heading over to our quarters, we had been invited to a celebration that was going to be hosted by the Island's squadrons. Of course, we accepted the invitation. Well, almost all of us. I elected to stay behind. I wanted to get ready for the sortie tomorrow, and we had many of them scheduled. Our first was in the middle of the day, a two-ship recce run followed by a night sortie. Of course, everyone was telling me that I was coming anyways.
"Is that an order, Christopher?" I asked. Bucky and Chip both glanced at me in shock, but Candid kept his cool.
"As a matter of fact, yes. So, you better have packed something nice to wear." He then turned and continued on his way. Chip and Ash both had their mouths agape, but Bucky was smirking.
"There's the pilot I know." He said nudging me on the shoulder. I just chuckled and shook my head. It was going to be a long night.
The room I was assigned was all the way down at the end of the hall, which overlooked the courtyard down below. These buildings were reminiscent of the apartment complexes of the early 2000s, and it looked as such. I tossed my duffel onto the floor next to the couch, walked over to said couch and plopped down. Luckily the air conditioning was working just fine and kept the room at a nice cool temperature. Lazily, I dug through my bag and found a simple pair of jeans and a shirt to wear. One shower and a bottle of water later, I was making my way to the building the party was being held in. I met up with my squad and we made our way over to the venue.
The atmosphere was lively, to say the least. Music was blasting out the hangar doors, and flocks of people were making their way into the building. That building, however, is one of the large hangars. In the center of the building stood a B-1 bomber, and people were using it as a place to rest. Some were sitting on the landing gear; one person was even sitting on the ladder leading up to the flight deck. But the real life of the party was the large crowd dancing on the other side of the aircraft.
"Well, well, well! The photographers made it!" I heard a voice yell. Bucky, Candid and I all turned to the guy, which was the same pilot who had started something earlier. "Well, seems like you forgot your camera."
"And you seemed to have forgotten you brains back home." Candid retorted. The two seemed like they were going to go at it once again, and that's when Chip stepped in.
"Alright, we all came to have a good time. Whatever this beef is, lets just put it aside and enjoy the party." The two of them looked at each other for a moment and nodded, as if she was their mother. "Good, now to the dance floor!" she said, grabbing Candid by the hand and dragging him off into the crowd. Bucky and I just stood there in disbelief.
"Did that just happen?" He asked me.
"Yep. Well, are you going to dance?" I asked back.
"Nope, are you?"
"Nope." We both stood in the silence, wondering what to do next. "Let's say we bounce outta here in a couple hours." He nodded and disappeared into the crowd. I did the same. I walked over to the snack table to grab a drink, which to my surprise, was a bit diverse. Everything from punch to soda and even sweet tea and lemonade. Back on Eagle Island, we'd be lucky to even get a few gallons of sweet tea. I grabbed a cup and sort of migrated over to a bench along the wall. The B-1 was washed with lighting, and the subtle crowd cheering to the beat of the music was oddly relaxing.
"Mind if I take this seat here?" I looked up to see one of the pilots holding a cup of soda standing over me. I shook my head and he gladly took the seat. "Merci. You must be an American pilot, no?"
"Not surprising, that's the majority pilots here. Pretty good chance you'd run into one of us." I stated, taking a sip of my tea.
"Of course. But may I ask, why are you out here and not in there?" He inquired. "I've been here many times and I've rarely seen you Americans sitting out here. Not dancing the night away." His accent was thick, I figured he must be French, or at least come from a French speaking nation. "Whatever the reason, I hope you do not fly as timidly as you treat a party."
"I can assure you; my flying is nothing like this." I said, puffing my chest out a bit.
"Then I believe we will get along just fine." He extended his hand out to me. "My name is Georgio. Most know me as Falco." I shook his hand.
"Nice to meet ya. Names Jerome, although you may hear me go by Lightning in the air." We both began chatting, and I learned he's from Greece originally, and found his way into the program much the same as I did.
"Wait, why not the Hellenic force?" I asked, a bit curious.
"Because I didn't want to get stuck flying something I didn't want. Like an F-16 or even an F-4." I scoffed a little when I heard that. "What?"
"Nothing, nothing. Just know a Viper would thrash a Mirage in a fight." I finished off my lemonade, tossed the cup and looked over at the now stunned Mirage pilot. "Did I say something?"
"And I've thrashed your precious vipers many times, cowboy." He retorted.
"Same here with the Mirage." He raised an eyebrow to that. I knew I was talking out my rear, but I couldn't let him say what he said about the viper slide. "You'll see soon enough."
"Ah, Jerome, this is where you're hiding! Who's your friend here?" I recognized the voice. "I'm glad to see you can still socialize." There stood Steven, who was being tailed by a woman. She stood tall next to him; hands interlaced with a bright smile. Even in the low light, one could tell she seemed to be in good mood.
"Oh, it's you..." Steven looked bit hurt at the greeting he got from Gerogio. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm just here to make sure my wingman here wasn't spoiling his chances tonight." I chuckled at that.
"Seems like you work pretty fast." I said. I had to say, I was a bit jealous he had managed to catch someone so fast, but I couldn't let that bother me too much. I turned to face the girl and extended a hand.
"Name's Jerome, pleasure to meet ya." She shook it gingerly.
"Khatia. The pleasure is mine. Your friend here talked about how you and he took down a bomber raid heading for your base. Pretty impressive." I gave a look to Steven, and his eyes spoke volumes. The low light couldn't hide that he had exaggerated the sortie a bit.
"Yeah, it was a tricky situation. But we made it through." I said, much to his relief. "Anyways, I think I'm gonna bounce, I wanna be well rested for tomorrow."
"I'll catch up with you." Steven said, giving me a wink. I nodded at the two of them and made my way out of the building.
It was just past midnight, which meant that the first sorties were just taking off. As I was walking, I could hear the whining engines of an AWACS aircraft spooling up in the distance. By the time I was reaching the first of the common areas, it had gone airborne. I checked my watch to see the time, 0030 hours, I had made some good progress towards the quarters I was assigned. Some cars rocketed down the road, heading for the hangars. I honestly felt bad for them, knowing they had to be up at this hour to fly. But sometimes, that's what it took. I was lucky to catch a ride with some of the other pilots staying near our building, but they only took me as far as they were going.
The building I was in wasn't too far, fortunately. As I walked, my mind began to wander. Mostly it was about the mission later in the day. I didn't know what our mission yet, but I guessed it could be one of two things. A standing combat air patrol, or a reconnaissance strike sortie. Either way, just the thought of it somewhat excited me.
I guess I was too caught in my thoughts to hear someone sneaking up behind me, because when I felt a tap on my shoulder, I let out a yelp and spun on a dime to see who had just scared me half to death. There, standing before me was that same pilot I had met during the initial briefing. She just started laughing, I'd assume at my reaction.
"I never thought you'd be such an easy scare!" She stated. "Man, that was worth it."
"Ha Ha, very funny. I don't usually jump like that. I'm a swing first, ask questions later type guy." I was lying through my teeth, mostly just to try and save face. But Kinue wasn't buying it and she just continued laughing. "What are you doing out so late anyways?"
"I could ask the same thing, big guy."
"Well, there was a party, and I was kinda...dragged into it." She shook her head, almost in disappointment.
"Never took you for one who'd bend so easily. Or a party guy." I shrugged.
"Still had a good time though." She leaned back against the wall of the building I assumed she had come out of Even in the dim light of the building, I could tell she was tired. "I guess you couldn't sleep, huh?"
"Kinda hard, knowing you might be flying with a target on your back." She said. "I can't say too much regarding our sortie tomorrow, but I think we're going all out. Either that, or we're just gonna be stuck on the ground again." I kinda understood how she felt, especially if our sortie is going to be spearheading the initial strike. "We'll be briefed fully tomorrow."
"You should get back to bed, Kinue." I stood close in case she was going to fall asleep right there and then. She muttered something under her breath, gave me a shove and began walking back towards the door to the building.
"You should get some rest too, Jerome. We're both gonna need it." She gave a wave and disappeared into the building.
"Goodnight to you too, I guess." I said. The rest of the walk to my building was silent, with the occasional jet flying overhead. The next thing I knew, I was in my room. I fell asleep before my head even hit the pillow.
The next morning, the base was a hive of activity. Ground crews were and pilots were buzzing around the main building. I was again, lucky enough to get a ride there. I was surprised to see Ash waiting in front of the building for us.
"Good morning Jerome, glad to see you're up." She said. I could tell she wasn't in the best of moods, and her eyes were practically glued to her phone.
"Good morning to you too." I said, taking a seat on the steps leading up to the building. The rest of our little group of five showed up in due time, and from the looks of it they were still recovering from the previous night. Steven and Candid both looked tired, as well as Chip. Ash was the only other person who was somewhat as rested as I was. Despite being tired, Steven seemed to be in high spirits. I wanted to ask what kept him up, but before I could, Chip herded us into the building. Once we got into the large briefing room, we all sat quietly, waiting for the briefing to begin. More pilots trickled in, and eventually, the room was buzzing. Not nearly as much as the initial briefing, but that was mainly just due to the number of pilots and crew in attendance. As soon as our air boss took the floor, however, the briefing began.
"Good morning, aviators, welcome to day one of Olympic Thunder." The room went dark, and the screen lit up, showing a detailed map of the surrounding airspace. "I will be your air boss for this exercise representing the OPFOR." The guy in charge, Zeta, from what I heard was an ace four times over. He was also one of the best strategists around. "Today, we'll be taking it easy on you, and will be attacking the base outright." Almost every pilot in the room reacted the same.
"Already? We don't even know what defenses the base is packing!" Someone shouted.
"This is just flat-out suicide. How and why are going all in right out the gate?" To my shock, it was Kinue who had said that. Zeta kept his composure and continued like no one had interrupted.
"We want to test their response. Group Alpha will oversee the attack. Eagle will provide forward recon as well as initiating a SEAD strike to disable any surface to air missile systems." The far right of the screen showed a list of the pilots, I saw my name along with Candid's. The two of us made eye contact and gave a nod. Steven and Chip's names came later, having been listed as our air cover. A few other names I recognized as the briefing went along. The mission was poised to be a long one, at the bare minimum 4 hours.
"Pilots, you know your roles, you know what you gotta do. Good luck, wheels off the ground in 30." We all stood up and saluted him, then made our way to the ramp. Our group didn't really talk much on the ride over to the ready rooms. Mostly we were just getting focused on the mission ahead, knowing that it was going to be grueling. Most sorties had flown previously were no longer than a couple of hours, so this would be a test of endurance. Once I had changed into my flight suit, I took a seat on the bench in front of the locker and tried to hype myself up for the mission. I checked my watch, and saw I still had a bit of time before we had to get moving. Soon the room went silent.
"You alright there, buddy?" I heard Steven ask.
"Yeah, just trying to ready myself."
"Hey man, you know I got your back. So why even worry?"
"You know why, Steven. This ain't like our last sortie. This is completely new territory for us, and I can't lie, I'm still a bit scared."
"Well, this is an exercise, we're meant to have a couple of fuck ups to learn from them. That way, we can be ready for a mission like this if its necessary." I looked up at my friend. He was right. He extended a hand to help me up and I took it. It was reassuring, knowing he was going to be up there with me. "Come on now. The others are waiting." He walked off, and I followed close behind. Once we got out to the tarmac, The sound of jet engines was deafening. Ground crew were busy scrambling around, getting the jets armed up and ready to fly, pilots were performing their walk around checks and climbing into their machines. Bucky and I gave each other a fist bump and went to our respective jets.
The Viper was heavily loaded, two Anti-Radiation missiles, a training sidewinder on one wingtip and training AAMRAM on the other. Two external fuel tanks and an ECM pod made up the three main pylons.
"Any heavier and that pod would be dragging across the ground!" I heard Candid shout over to me. I laughed a little as I climbed into my fighter. I looked over at his jet, and to my shock his jet seemed more heavily loaded than my own. The Recce pod was more than enough on its own, as there had to be no more than a foot of clearance from the tarmac. I climbed up and into my jet, strapping myself in and going over the checklist I had done so many times before. Within minutes, the engine and avionics were online, and I awaited the order to taxi out. A line of aircraft were rolling down the main taxiway a few hundred feet away, of all types. Soon we were given permission to join the conga line of jets. One by one, we taxied out of the ramp. Chip's F-4 led the way, followed by Bucky, then Candid and myself. As we taxied out, I looked to see the line of fighters waiting for us to join. Before we knew it, we were in the air.
The flight plan called for us to fly southwest for about three hundred miles, link up with a tanker, and fly back to set up for our respective attacks. Our jets were in a loose formation, cruising at 35,000 feet. We were lucky the plane had an autopilot, but even still the anticipation of the sortie kept me alert. We were some of the first aircraft in the air, which meant we were tanking up first. As we orbited with our tanker, I looked down. The sky was clear in this area, and down on the water I could just make out the wake of a small fleet of ships. I wouldn't be able to view it long as the last jet in our group finished fueling up and we had to start our ingress.
"Eagle flight, switch over to channel three. Let's get in touch with our eyes in the sky." I did as I was told, and the chatter was miniscule. Other aircraft who were also calling in chimed up every now and then, but it was mainly silent. "Archangel, this is Eagle flight, with you at angels 30."
"Radar contact acknowledged, as of now your picture is clean, no bandits." I was a bit relieved to hear that. Even still, if there were fighters in the airspace, my concern was the ground assets. We orbited the airspace for what felt like hours, watching out for the other aircraft in this now crowded airspace. Once the last aircraft checked in, we were given the call. "Attention all aircraft on frequency, mission begins now, Eagle flight, fly heading zero-two-zero and maintain that heading for the base. Altitude is at pilots' discretion."
"Copy Archangel, Chip, Bucky, spread out and give us some good top cover. Lightning, lets get down low." I looked back at Bucky's eagle for a brief second, and I could see him giving me a wave. I gave one back, rolled my jet and started chasing after Candid.
"Good luck, Lightning."
"You too, buddy."