ACES Online

Chapter 2 - The First Days

(November 6th, 2022)

Kazuto Kirigiya, or as he now went by, Kirito, had a plan. It wasn't a brilliant plan, but it was a plan nonetheless. The chaos that had engulfed the airfield was nothing short of horrendous, and he had no doubts that staying put was a bad idea, given their current circumstances. Why had Kayaba done this, he wondered, as he walked over to the flight line, and picked an aircraft.

In the beta, Kirito had flown a customised F-16C, that he'd had fine tuned to his style of flying by the closest thing to a master mechanic that a month long beta had produced. He'd upgraded the aircraft to the highest he could, allowing him to equip every weapon fit for the aircraft, and was not far off obtaining the next aircraft up - the F-2A.

That was then though, and now, he found himself a newbie like the rest of the players. The highest level aircraft he could see was an F-104J, painted in the Japanese colours, and by that, he meant the closest approximation that Strangereal had to Japanese colours... in other words, it had the Hinomarus, but that was about it.

A few aircraft down the line stood an F-5E, the Tiger II. The F-5 had been developed as a lightweight fighter for the US to supply to allied nations in the 1950s and 1960s IRL, and as a result, the aircraft was the polar opposite to aircraft then in development, being a small, light and agile fighter, with no radar of any kind in the single seat version, only the twin cannons on the nose. That had been the F-5A, which was soon developed into the F-5E, which had significant aerodynamic improvements, more powerful engines, a longer range, a wider variety of weapons, and an, admittedly poor, air-to-air radar. It wasn't much, but it was certainly better than the other options available...

Kirito jumped into the cockpit, and began flicking switches in a well rehearsed routine from his first days in the beta...

(Day One of the ACES Online beta...)

Kirito was a gamer through and through. It was the reason he'd chosen to sign up for the ACES Online beta, and more importantly, it was for that reason he didn't back down from a challenge, and would find a way to power through it when one came his way...

He certainly hadn't been expecting that challenge to be pre flight checks, in a VR environment though. Having launched ACES Online, and developed his avatar to fit him perfectly, he'd immediately chosen the highest level aircraft available at the Reserve level. That had been the F-5A, and now the gamer had found himself walking around an aircraft that looked similar to his F-5A, but not identical. For one thing, the aircraft was longer due to the addition of a second cockpit, which told him the aircraft was either an F-5B, the twin seat version of his F-5A, or a T-38 Talon, an aircraft developed from the same airframe, but for the purpose of an advanced fighter trainer.

A small red decal near the front, of three claw marks, with the characters ''T-38 Talon'' told him it was not an F-5B, and confirmed it to be the training aircraft. Whilst Kirito was busy performing what he hoped were pre-flight checks, a man was now stood by the ladder into the Talon's cockpit.

The man's features were all obscured by the helmet and visor he wore, and the only skin he could see on the man was that around his neck, which suggested he was Caucasian. The man spoke, ''You must be the new recruit. I am Major Zeal.'' his voice confirming another detail - he was American, or at least, his accent was. ''The aircraft in front of you is the T-38A Talon. It's a supersonic jet trainer, and a very agile aircraft. Get in the plane, and I'll walk you through the technical specs of the plane, and its limits, whilst we set it up for the flight.''

Kirito was a guy who'd spent most of his, admittedly short, life so far in front of a computer. Which made the aircraft in front of him a very different creature, as there were very little on the T-38 in regards to computers. Every part of the instrumentation was analogue, and relied on an intricate system of gyros and other mechanical methods, and as a result, Kirito certainly hadn't had an easy time getting the hang of the start up system.