Lenn

 

“Bandit locked, twenty klicks,” Ying whispered.

They had lost track for a little while as the bandit hid behind a valley.

“Fox three.”

Another missile darted forward, leaving a thin trail of smoke behind it.

Then, the radar warning receiver sounded.

“Missile, four O’clock low,” Ying whispered over the warbling alarm.

“Defending,” said Lenn, rolling their fighter on its side violently and pulling back hard on the stick.

“Missile is ten klicks and closing. Defense matrix ready. Missile is mach one-point-three and slowing,” reported Rei.

“Where is this guy?” Lenn asked, keeping his cool as much as possible.

“Chasing on our six, can’t find him on infrared, and it’s too dark for optical,” Ying replied.

A shockwave thumped the plane as the defense matrix engaged and detonated the closing missile.

“Ninety-two percent energy remaining,” Rei reported.

Although the defense matrix is a miraculous piece of technology, it ate up immense amounts of energy, so it was best to conserve it as much as possible. A slower approaching missile would take much less energy to destroy than a fast-moving one, and no approaching missile would take no energy at all.

Even with the defense matrix, they cannot charge forward blindly, as it would only be a matter of time before incoming missiles drained the lasers of energy.

“RWR is clean,” Ying said.

“Engage all generators. I’m turning back in. Weapons free,” Lenn commanded, pulling a tight U-turn. The immense g-forces pressed him down, and he felt his suit contract around his body to press more blood toward his head.

The generators sapped energy from the engines to feed into the onboard batteries. During cruise, only one or two are engaged to provide sufficient power while not taking away too much thrust from the engines. When all eight generators are engaged, thrust from the engines is effectively cut down by almost twenty percent, but it allows the batteries to charge much faster.

Lenn expected that another missile would come at them as soon as they began to turn since the change in direction would put them within range of the pursuing aircraft.

They were taught this early in flight school. The range of a missile depended on the closure rate between two aircraft. If the closure rate is high, the missile would get an extra boost at launch and wouldn’t need to travel as far since the approaching aircraft is speeding towards it.

On the other hand, when the bandit is fleeing from you, the missile would need to catch up to the bandit, covering the initial distance and the additional distance that the speeding bandit will travel.

When going head-on, their missiles can strike targets up to 200 kilometers away. But when in pursuit, their missiles can only go 30 or so kilometers relative to their plane before they run out of energy and fall out of the sky.

As Lenn swung the nose of his aircraft around, a radar contact appeared on his display. A green box appeared on his helmet display, marking out a little dot speeding through the valleys below.

“Got him,” Ying called out. “Ten clicks and closing. Fox-three,” She said as she let loose another missile.

In the dim light of morning, Lenn saw a faint puff of smoke as a bright dot shot out in front of him.

It curved upwards, then down, then left, then down again, and into the ground with an explosion of earth.

“Missed,” Ying whispered. “Target is behind terrain. I’ve lost him on radar.”

“Chasing.”

Lenn maneuvered his plane over the valley, coming over the ridge roughly where he expected the bandit to be. As he crested the hill, a silvery shape flashed by them.

“Woah!” Exclaimed Kang. “Merged! Six O’clock.”

Lenn yanked back on the stick, pulling the nose of his aircraft up into the air. Dogfighting is the most dangerous situation in aerial combat because there will always be a loser.

The turn pressed Lenn down into his seat with such force he couldn’t lift his hand off of the controls. The airframe popped and groaned in protest, bending and flexing to distribute the huge aerodynamic loads.

Lenn watched as the G-meter on his display climbed steadily until it settled at 10.5, the absolute maximum allowed by the flight computers. Anything more, and the plane would tear itself apart.

As they ripped around the turn, the advanced sensor suite aboard the JF-200 quickly marked out the position of the enemy fighter.

They were close. Lenn could see the golden canopy of the bandit glistening in the morning sun.

“Missile!” Kang shouted, seeing a glowing dot zipping away from the bandit and towards them.

As the missile approached, the defense matrix quickly identified and destroyed it before it could pose a threat.

“Eighty-five percent energy,” Rei reported. “Taking four generators offline for extra thrust.”

“Fox-two,” whispered Ying, launching a missile of her own in retaliation.

With uncanny agility, the short-range missile darted through the air, closing in on the enemy fighter before it too was zapped down by the defense matrix.

“Missed.”

The two planes danced in the air, circling and twirling around each other. Missiles flew and cannons boomed, but they were both skilled dancers.

“They’re out of gimbal range,” Ying told Lenn as she tried to line up the hostile fighter in her cannon sights.

Lenn tried to get his plane to spin around faster, but the JF-200 was already on the edge of performance.

The thrusters wiggled and twisted as the control surfaces snapped up and down, powering the massive fighter through the air with more grace than something that large should ever have. Yet the bandit always seemed to be a step faster, always keeping just out of their reach.

The lighter F-51 is just too nimble for the larger JF-200. Slowly but surely, the fight was turning against them.

“Energy is low,” reported Rei, flipping two switches. “Adding two more generators.”

“No, forget it, take all the generators offline,” Lenn told Rei. “They’re down to guns too.”

Neither of the fighters had any more missiles, so it was time to fight with old-fashioned guns like their distant ancestors once did in their wood and fabric planes.

As they passed side-by-side again, Lenn cashed in their speed, pulling a final, aggressive turn into the bandit, hoping to give Ying a firing solution with the cannons.

But the bandit had the same idea, so as Lenn swung his plane around, he was met with the frontal profile of the F-51, closing in on them rapidly.

“Watch the closure!” Shouted Rei as the hostile fighter came towards them.

Two streams of cannon tracers blazed towards the bandit as Ying depressed the trigger but missed just low, the bright yellow tracer flames glinting off of the belly of the F-51.

“Watch it watch it!” Shouted Kang as the fighter came straight towards them, directly on a collision course.

Lenn cursed under his breath, snapped his stick to the right, and kicked the rudder hard, rolling the JF-200 back and to the right, passing just below the F-51, their wingtips meters from colliding.

He turned around in his seat and watched out of the very edge of the canopy as the F-51 slowly slid around behind them, swinging out to their right side. Like a falling leaf, it rotated slowly about its vertical axis, the pointed nose swinging towards him.

His aircraft spun around quickly too, ready to meet the F-51 head-on again. But just as the F-51 got within the gimbal limit of their cannons, there was a loud clank, followed by the master caution light.

“Thrust vector control fault,” reported Rei. “Troubleshooting.”

With the engines no longer swiveling, their plane seemed to freeze in the air. The intensity of their maneuvering meant aerodynamic surfaces no longer had much authority, and without thrust vectoring, their aircraft was now simply too sluggish to fight.

Lenn watched as the F-51 effortlessly slid around them.

“Avoid that nose!” Kang shouted.

Lenn kicked the rudder hard again and pulled back on the stick, hoping to dodge the cannons of the F-51. But without the engines swiveling, it was too little, too late.

Time slowed as he stared down the black muzzle of the cannons.

He saw it light up with flames as it fired, tracers arcing towards them.

There was a deafening boom, and the world went bright white.

Then, just as quickly, it went dark.

Completely dark.

 

*****

 

 

*****

 

One-six

 

“Splash one,” One-five reported as cannon rounds tore through the bandit.

The JF-200 sailed through the air with flames and smoke trailing behind, still slow from the intense maneuvering. Then it started falling, the nose pointed downwards, faster and faster.

“They’re going down,” muttered Two-six. “No ejection yet.”

Then it leveled out somewhat, still descending but much more slowly. Though badly damaged, none of their rounds have hit vital flight controls or engines.

The engines swung downwards again as the ground drew near, the forest seeming to open up to consume the burning fighter whole.

“Why aren’t they ejecting,” One-six whispered to himself, a strange sense of anxiety welling up inside of him. “Don’t try to land it. Just eject…”

He watched as the JF-200 skimmed the tops of the trees, rapidly bleeding off its forward momentum. Visions of his earlier shoot-down flashed through his mind.

The way it hit the trees, the way it rolled over, and the way the black smoke rose from the wreckage.

Trees shattered and branches buckled as the flaming JF-200 crashed through the tree cover, its massive weight helping it rip through the forest with little difficulty. Then it disappeared into the forest, only black smoke against the rising sun.

“Let’s go, One-six,” said One-five, seeing that the bandit had been destroyed.

“We should help them,” said Two-six.

“No. We go home. We’ve done our mission. Now we head back before they find out what we’ve been up to,” One-five argued.

One-six was listening to none of this, his eyes still focused on the column of smoke rising from the forest below, which he was now circling above.

The mangled wreckage of their first shoot-down flashed before his eyes.

Then the face of the commander.

The way he cried and begged.

Then the bodies of the crewmen and the pistol in his hands.

“One-six,” One-five called. “One-six?”

He still heard nothing.

What if they had shot down the four men they met in New Asia?

No, no, it can’t be.

But what if.

But why should he care?

They’re his enemies.

“Hey,” One-five reached over and shook him. “Let’s go.”

One-six looked over at One-five, then back at the rising smoke.

Without speaking, he yanked the throttles back, pulled a sharp turn to bleed off speed, and flew low over the forest towards the smoke.

“What are you doing?” One-five shouted.

“Helping.”

One-five stared at One-six in disbelief, sighed, and decided not to protest further.

“One hundred knots,” Two-five reported as they arrived above the burning wreckage.

“There’s a clearing about two hundred meters of off our two O’clock,” said Two-six, marking out a landing zone on their visors.

One-six maneuvered their plane over and descended as fast as the flight computer allowed him to.

“Oh!” Two-six yelped in surprise as they hit the ground, the landing gears and airframe creaking as it absorbed the much harder than usual landing.

“Come on, let’s go,” said One-six, unbuckling and getting out of his seat.

He ran out of the side door, grabbing an emergency fire extinguisher along the way, his crew following close behind.

As he exited his plane, the engines of which were still winding down, he could see the flickering fire through the forest.

“Come on!” He shouted to his crew again as he sprinted towards the wreckage.

When he got close, he could see three of the New Asian crew crowded around the open cockpit, the flames kept still somewhat distant by the wing and fuselage structure.

He looked down to arm his fire extinguisher. But as he did so, a warm orange glow clouded his vision.

“What out!” Two-six, who was following close behind, shouted.

The shockwave hit him with enough force to knock him to the ground, the warmth of the fire tickling at his flesh. His ears rang and his eyes watered as a choking smell consumed him.

When he collected his wits enough to look back up, the JF-200 was now engulfed in flames, the leaking fuel tanks having detonated in the heat of the fire.

Without a second thought, he grabbed his fire extinguisher and ran towards the fire, charging forward into harm’s way to save his enemies.

When I caused the fire last night, I ran away. He thought.

So why am I running in to help this time?