Aces High

Chapter 4

From the time I was laying in bed to climbing into the cockpit of my jet must've been about thirty seconds. Right on cue, the shelter doors began to open, followed by ground crew members running around the jet to make sure everything was operational.

"Get clear, I'm starting 'er up!" It was all muscle memory. My fingers moved swiftly from switch to switch, following the startup procedure I had done so many times before. Only now I was working against the clock. The engine began spooling up, and seeing as I had done everything I could, I focused on the RPM gauge. I pushed the throttle up to idle, bringing the engine fully online. As I was closing the canopy, they got into position to marshal me out. The ground crew had already armed my jet up. The wingtip and outer wing pylons sported AIM-9 sidewinder missiles, while the inner wing pylons had two AAMRAM missiles respectively. Hopefully I'll return with all weapons onboard. There were also two external wing tanks that had been filled, ensuring I wouldn't have to worry about fuel too much. I looked over at the lead ground crew member, who gave me the thumbs up and began directing me forwards. Upon entering the taxiway, I could just make out Bucky's Eagle a couple hundred feet in front of me.

The taxi was short, as we didn't need any more clearance than what was already given. I glanced over my shoulder a couple of times to see more ground crew members rushing for the hangars, ready to receive the pilots who were no doubt sprinting to the airfield. Bucky and I were on the runway soon enough. Although we hadn't said any words to each other, I knew it must've been a bit nerve racking to be scrambling this late into the night.

"Bucky rolling." His voice came calmly into my helmet. I looked over to see the afterburner cans on his jet glow and grow smaller as his jet thundered down the runway. I watched for a moment, almost awestruck by the sight.

"Lightning rolling." I called. I pushed the throttle as far as it could go. I both heard and felt the afterburner kick in as I began my takeoff roll. Pushed back in my seat from the acceleration, I kept my eyes on the airspeed. Eventually my jet became airborne on it own, and I merely pulled back on the stick pitch even further. "QRF is airborne, switching over." I called. Almost on cue we had switched over to the ground controller in charge of the airspace around the island.

"Lightning, let's get up to angels 20 and form up." I heard Bucky call. "Do you have me in sight?" I looked around for the Eagle, and spotted two burners to my front, around two o'clock.

"Roger, I have you." I kept the burner plugged in as I tried to catch up to him.

"Shepard, you have two bogeys BRA 297 for sixty-five miles. They're at angels 30." We both processed the information as quickly as we could and turned our aircraft accordingly.

"Roger, we're looking." I replied. Once the both of us knew where to look, we began sweeping the radar across that particular part of the sky. "Nothing like fishing for a couple of bombers in the middle of the night."

"Aint that the truth." Bucky replied. "I got em! Wait, there's more than the two. I'm counting at least double that." I looked down at my radar, and sure enough, I was getting the same reading. "Lightning spread out; they may have escorts." Bucky and I continued our climb at slightly different angles, allowing us to have that crucial separation. We both eventually settled about two miles apart from each other, leveling off at thirty-five thousand feet.

"Weapons safe you two, unless you're fired upon." Lawndart's voice chimed in. "We don't need you two causing any trouble for us." I hoped that maybe this was just an exercise or a cargo flight that had gone off course. There was just absolutely no way a Russian or Chinese fighter could get this far out, at least that's what I had though. All my hopes were squashed when I heard the telltale beeping from my RWR. I looked to see what it could possibly have been, and when I did, my heart skipped a beat. It was a bomber. A couple of bombers. And two attackers. I ran through my mind what kind of attacker could act as an escort. Lucky for me, Bucky knew exactly what it was.