Back to You // Bradley Bradshaw

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The Pacific Ocean

The journey to the stranded carrier did not take long. Both Blaze and Bob were monitoring the radar for bandits. They had seen one on the radar. Haley suspected there were others that were flying so they wouldn't show up on the radar system. She knew the enemy had to have more fighters inbound.

    "Carrier in sight." Haley said as the ship came into view.

    "Roger that, Hurricane." Phoenix responded.

    "Radar?" Haley asked Blaze as they entered enemy territory. She was looking around herself, but the radar showed more. "Blaze?" He wasn't saying anything from the pit. "Bob?" Both WSO's were silent.

    "There's nothing on radar." Blaze finally said, "Which is-" He was cut off by gun fire. They had been ambushed.

    "Fire!" Haley shouted. All four planes broke formation and began to shoot back at the bandits. They were the fifth generation fighters too. They had managed to slip past radars. It was extremely loud and the goal was to take out the enemy. The carrier so far had not been hit, and they needed to keep it that way.

    Haley had a bandit on her tail and kept getting into missile lock with them. "Tell me when you see smoke in the air," Haley instructed Blaze. There was a brief pause before Blaze yelled back, "Smoke in the air!" At that Haley fired flares, stopping the missile from hitting her jet. She steered upward so they were flying at an angle, with the bandit still on their tail.

    "Tell me you have a plan." Blaze said, clearly not sure where she was going with this. They were flying directly into sunlight and it was hard to see.

    At the last second, Haley flipped their jet so they were inverted. They flew over the enemy plane and landed behind them. Haley fired her missile immediately. The bandit plane did not have time to escape and exploded upon impact. Blaze cheered, Haley was still focused. "How many?" She asked him. She thought she saw three more.

    "One down, three left. None others on radar." Blaze answered. "Not that the radar did any good before." He mumbled.

    Haley maneuvered back to where the dog fighting was happening with the rest of their team. Another explosion came and Haley saw her brother fly by, having shot another one down.

    "Dagger four, move to protect the carrier." Haley announced. She saw Jake fly toward the carrier to defend it. There were two more bandits and three of them now that she sent him to defend the carrier. The final two enemy aircrafts proved harder to be taken down than the other two. Phoenix and Bob were hit, but their jet was not taken down. One of the bandits broke away to attack the carrier, Phoenix shot the missile before it could make impact with the carrier.

    Haley fired back at the bandit that attempted to hit the carrier. She was out of missiles now and down to her last rounds with the guns. Come on, come on. She thought as she fired at the aircraft. She managed to hit their engine and the plane began to go down into the water.

    "Dagger two, what's your status?" Phoenix asked over the radio.

    "Bandit on my tail. I'm out of ammo and flares," Rooster answered.

    "Daggers one and three inbound." Haley announced. Both Phoenix and Haley moved in that direction. Rooster was managing to keep from getting hit, but Haley knew it was only a matter of time. These enemy aircraft were no joke. Haley fired again and was now out. "Fuck!" She said.