Bird At Sea

Chap 4

Having my Harrier all prepped up, I was given a landing platform on a jetty dock. It was now time to show the capabilities of this bird. Sitting in the cockpit, I take some time to think in retrospect. I'm in another world, there are essentially aliens, oh, and lets not forget about the anthropomorphic ww2 warships. Rubbing my eyes and letting out a yawn, definitely tired, in some way a bit stressed, do I even know what I'm actually doing? Getting my head back at the task in hand. Activating the engine, the familiar noise of the engine soothes me somewhat. Turning the thrust vectors to vertical, the jet rises to the air, as I then head to where I've been told to meet at. Arriving , I could see many dummy ships, varying from sizes of a corvette to a frigate. From the coms, Prince of Wales contacted me, "Is it all good for you up there?" "Affirm." "Alright then, fighting against Sirens is no easy task, start with these so we can get an idea on how you perform, is your aircraft able to engage in air to air?" "It is." "Well send some planes for you to fight against, don't worry, no one is in them, aircraft carriers control them." "Copy that, engaging now."

Having accumulated 10,000 ft (3,048 m) in altitude, I flip the jet upside down and dive, experiencing a spike in Gz. Choosing a frigate sized dummy ship, a volley of unguided missiles were fired upon. Yanking back on the stick, once more did I experience some Gz. As I was about to pass another target, I released a bomb, turning around, it over shot. I went for another pass and released a bomb earlier, hit! A corvette laid ahead and with a pull of a trigger it was strafed. Pulling loops to bomb another ship from behind, another volley of missiles to another as I pilot the Harrier with agility. "Now how do you fare in dogfighting?" The Prince of Wales communicated. Out of nowhere there was the sudden overpass of a buzzing noise as I became startled for a moment. Taking a look to the side, the aircraft in question were Brewster F2A Buffalo, four of them. The Buffalos broke off and turned, making this a Furball. The sad thing is that these early 20th century monoplanes were up against a mid 21st century V/STOL jet. The Buffalo that headed straight for me became a fireball after a short burst from my guns. While these aircraft would have been more maneuverable for their slow speed, the vectored thrusting helps me to turn on a dime against the aircraft, out maneuvering two of them and gunning them down. Looking all around for the final target, just out of the corner of my eye I spot it from a high angle as it attempts to take a shot at me, though, as this is a train, I won't have to worry about being shot at. Executing a high G-maneuver, I also do an anti-g straining maneuver to prevent from passing out, clenching the bottom half of my body as I struggle a little to breath. Finally getting on its tail, I finish it off. Wales then spoke, "Good, you far exceeded our expectations, granted we underestimated and went easy on you, we'll tweak the difficulty next time." Pouting, I feel a little insulted, locating where Prince of Wales and the other, I did a very low pass as fast as possible, casting a strong gust of wind to them. "Oi, Watch it!" Wales yelled through the coms.

After the trial Wales spoke to Ark Royal. "I... I have never seen anything like that." Wales says in astonishment. "Someone with something like that willing to help us? Doesn't quite add up." Says Ark Royal. "We most certainly would need to keep him on our side, if it is true what he says, we need to gain his trust." "And I thought it was ours he needed to gain." Ark replied. After landing and having a more in depth discussion with Wales, my position here is going to be tricky, more or less I'm going to be a last resort should the need arise, covering any ships in danger by doing quick strikes and dropping smokescreen. My presence is to be as concealed as possible with the possible enemy here, that is, the Sakura Empire, Imperial Japan in this world. Iron Blood, Nazi Germany, has already engaged in warfare with the Azur Lane, the Allies, having Vichya Dominion, Vichy France, in its pocket. For the time being I'm grounded at the harbor, spending the night in the Harrier, which was more comfortable than I thought it would, there was really nothing for me to do at the time being.