Aces High

Chapter 2

            The final evaluation, essentially our graduation to the fighters we chose, started off as it always had. We sat in the briefing room waiting to turn in the flight plan Bucky and I had so intently prepared. Both of us were ready for this, as the instructors had paired us up together on purpose. Once we had those filed, the two of us, having already had our G-suits on, made our way out to the waiting planes.

"So, this is what it comes down to, eh Jerome?" Steven asked. "A couple of dogs like us, duking it out."

"If I'm a dog, then you, my friend, are a shark with the way you fly," I replied. The walk out on the tarmac was usually pretty warm, temperature-wise, but today was even hotter. We knew what the weather was going to be like over our area, so we took some solace that this was the only sun we would get for a while. "Anything interesting going down between you and Jupiter?"

"Nah, that ship has sailed." He replied as we arrived at our aircraft. The black and silver jets, along with the flight crew almost seemed to beckon us to climb in. Knowing this was the final ride in these aircraft, we took our time enjoying the moment for the most part. The minute we climbed into those cockpits; it was all business.

Soon, we were airborne and on our way to the target area. We were following the navaids given by some buoys thousands of feet below, simulating a run through various types of terrain. We ran through valleys, cutting through tight corners, to just full-on sprints across rolling hills. Once we got to the end of the last course, we formed up and prepared ourselves for the next phase of the sortie. Flying wingtip to wingtip, we looked each other in the eye. We both knew what was about to happen.

"So, who's the better pilot Talon 2?" He asked me.

"I think it's time we find out." I banked the aircraft into a hard right turn, catching Bucky off guard. He pulled up so I wouldn't fly into him, and he started to come back down right on my six. I shoved my engines into afterburner and dove for the hard deck. I kept checking my tail, and through the clouds, I could see he was still hot on my tail. I decided to use the clouds to try and evade the shark hunting me. I cut the burners once I hit another cloud layer and reversed the turn. I came streaking out of the cloud to see I had crossed his tail.

"Jesus Christ! Where the hell did you come from?!" he exclaimed. We were now in a flat scissor fight, each of us trying to force the other to shoot out in front. Our airspeed began to drop with every turn. I then decided to try something. It was a dangerous move, but I couldn't think of anything else. I extended everything I could. Airbrakes and flaps even pulled the throttle back to around half. For a brief moment, Steven's jet shot out ahead of me and allowed me to increase throttle and attempt for me to get my nose on target. Unfortunately, like a shark, he sensed I had given up a lot of my airspeed. His jet quickly went from in the center of my HUD to quickly leaving it and his jet was ripping around towards me. I had no choice but to ditch out and try to force some sort of nose-to-nose fight. In short, I was not successful.

"That's what I like to call a dead bird," Steven said. I watched his jet soar skyward, and I couldn't help but chuckle.

"Yeah. I had you there for a second, I just couldn't keep my speed up." I said, leveling off my jet. I checked my fuel and saw it was way lower than what it should be. "Oh shit... I'm Bingo fuel buddy."

"I'm getting to that point too, let's RTB." We formed back up with each other and made our way back to base at supersonic speed. The flight back was quick, seeing as we were under the constraint of fuel, but what a flight it was. Down below, the clouds were rushing by, slightly obscuring the beautiful reefs thousands of feet below them. Up high, we saw the contrails of a large aircraft. It was a tanker cruising about 12,000 feet above us, and it was being tailed by two fighters. Most likely returning from a long-range sortie.