Fangs Out & Hair Afire

"Alright. Scan for ground targets; you'll be buddy-lasing for the flight. I'll keep eyes out so if we get splashed, it at least won't be a surprise."

You note her brief acknowledgement as you bring the radar up on your left MFD, hitting the transmit button. "Two, Three, Ghost will be lasing targets for you; coordinate on this freq. Four, self-lase and see if you can't find a FAC with eyes on the frontline; One will run CAP as best able. Queries?"

Negatives roll in, and shortly thereafter Ghost is chattering away, guiding the flight's two targeting pod-less aircraft onto whatever it is she's found to shoot at. You focus your attentions on the radar display, glancing up intermittently to scan the sky as you run north-south racetracks over the city; flicking an eye towards your watch every couple of minutes.

The sense of foreboding hanging over you only intensifies as your self-imposed timer on-station ticks down, the steady back-and-forth of the scan line only displaying the three pips of the flight making their runs; Nand, his bombs depleted, tucks in on your right some ten minutes in; Tallboy and MacDowell linking up shortly before the thirty-minute mark, their own air-to-mud expended (and most of Tallboy's gun rounds besides).

One eye still glued to the suspiciously-blank radar display, you prod the radio panel, bringing up the airfield controller (such as he is). "Albany tower, Knight five-one, off-station. Exiting north as fragged. Sorry to leave you hanging."

A few moments' pause, and the radioman's voice comes back; "Knight five-one, Albany, copy all. We'll give the bad guys a kick in the teeth for you, out."

Leading your not-so-merry band northwards, you can't shake the (increasingly pressing) sense that something is about to go Very Wrong - but the threat receiver is clear, save for the intermittent pings off Citadel's monster radar and infrequent ground-based search sets. Your constant glances to your six reveal nothing - which only ratchets the tension up.

In retrospect, it was probably the fact that you were riding a knife edge that let you respond more or less instantly to Ghost's sudden shout of "Break left!", yanking your Superbug into a sharp turn; flickers of light dancing across the console as Ghost punches out flares. A quick glance shows Tallboy somehow still with you, trailing; Nand and McDowell nowhere to be seen.

The tell-tale glow of afterburners above indicates the source of the threat; swearing internally, you pull the nose up - the airframe shaking alarmingly as you haul some 40 degrees alpha, punching off a 'winder with a clipped "Fox two!", and watching without surprise as it chases a flare - detonating close enough to, you hope, convince the bad guy to kindly fuck off.

Now out of airspeed, the nose dumps itself downwards, leaving you to punch the throttles up to the stops as you crane your neck, scanning for - and finding - Tallboy's Fulcrum as he tangles with another hostile, flares erupting from the plane's tail as he snap-rolls away from an incoming 'winder - some of your luck apparently rubbing off, as it whiffs cleanly. Glancing at the RWR - still clear, the assholes have their radars off - you pull into a power climb, trusting Ghost to be the eyes in the back of your head as you angle in towards Tallboy's playmate. "Two, come left and I'll have a shot." you call, feeling detached.

Tallboy doesn't reply, merely swinging his bird around and dropping his dance partner neatly into your sights - your "Fox two!" chases your remaining AIM-9 into the night - the target apparently not spotting it, given the lack of flares or evasive as the missile plows into the F-16 and reduces it to a fireball.

"Splash one." you note, rolling into a gentle turn to scan your surroundings. "Three, Four, sitrep?"

"Four here, tangling with a Viper, low over the river." McDowell grunts back - inverting, it takes you a brief moment to spot the afterburner trails below.

Pulling into a dive, you bore-sight the trailing aircraft, achieving lock impressively quickly. "Raygun raygun."

"Clean!" Four responds, a brace of flares dropping from his plane; target thus confirmed, you punch off an AMRAAM, the missile tracking cleanly - if the F-16 below launches any chaff, you don't spot it, and a few moments later the distinctive flash of an ejection seat shortly precedes the fireball of a second Viper disintegrating.

"Splash two. Echo three, sitrep?"

A few long moments of silence until Tallboy returns; "Lead, Two, no contacts. Can't raise Three on Guard or backup channels. Four, did he pack his survival radio?"

"Uncertain." McDowell responds shortly. "I put one with everyone's kit but didn't see if he grabbed it before we scrambled."

You wing around in a large circle, alternating your gaze between the radar display and outside the canopy - no contacts, visual or sensor, make themselves known. Switching to Citadel's channel, you hit your transmitter. "Citadel, Knight five-one, friendly aircraft down just west of-" you glance at the map "-Queensbury. Are any CSAR assets available to assist?"

A long pause fills the airwaves before the controller responds. "Knight five-one, Citadel, negative on CSAR. Will pass the location to friendly ground assets. Is the location under threat?"

"Negative to the best of our knowledge, Citadel. Should Knight five hold CAP over this location?"

Another pause. "Negative, Knight five-one. Take heading one-zero-two for Manchester - a flight of friendly whirlybirds have volunteered to search for your downed pilot."

You consider this briefly - without his radio, the chances of your own flight finding Nand are significantly less than the chances of a pack of helos finding him - which aren't good chances in the first place. Sighing mentally, you key your radio. "Affirm, one-zero-two for Manchester."

You silently lead the flight onto the specified heading, the sky just barely starting to lighten as you touch down at Manchester's (formerly-civil) airport; too distracted to really ponder the sheer number of aircraft present, most with the distinctive roundel indicating mercenary units.


You're more resigned than anything to discover that nobody present has the faintest clue where Bunny or Ambassador are - to say nothing of the two wayward members of Foxtrot flight. Beaker is turned up in fairly short order, indicating the evacuees from Northampton were indeed brought here - which raises alarming questions about the rest of your little detachment, questions you reflexively shove into the 'for later' bin.

"They're briefing group leaders as they arrive - building next to the tower, there." a harried Beaker explains, standing next to Bunny's fighter - having apparently taken it along during evacuation. "Some big Thing they were planning for a couple months down the road, which got accelerated due to… events."

"Events, indeed." you grouse, nodding your thanks as you make your way towards the ad-hoc briefing room, ruminating.

[] Include Beaker in the next op - you're less than happy about being down to three, and with most of the group MIA, you'd rather keep the remainder somewhat coherent and organized.
[] Ask Beaker to remain here - her ability to fly from point A to point B isn't necessarily indicative of combat prowess, after all.

Additional;

[] Ask around - there's a whole blob of merc units here, and twinning your flight with another small unit will help everyone's survival chances.
[] Hold off - you'd rather not risk a tangled chain of command in the middle of any fight, nevermind a 'big Thing'.

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>this thread is more than 8 months old
[screaming begins again]

but yeah the Encounter Dice kinda have it out for you lot, Tallboy came within Way Too Close of getting splashed as well on this one

[screaming begins again]

Totally not just swanning in after two godsdamn years and posting an update that resumes like nothing happened ha ha ha yeah anyways on with the show-

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[X] Include Beaker in the next op - you're less than happy about being down to three, and with most of the group MIA, you'd rather keep the remainder somewhat coherent and organized.
[X] Ask around - there's a whole blob of merc units here, and twinning your flight with another small unit will help everyone's survival chances.

You sigh, running a hand over your face. "Alright. I'll go see what they want. Until further notice, congrats - you're now Echo Three. I'm not running into the next clusterfuck with a three-ship."

Beaker nods - evidently as happy to be receiving this order as you are to be giving it. Gesturing a hold on a tick to Tallboy, you wave Ghost after you and make tracks for the specified building. A glance about shows a plethora of liveries - Arbalest, Skywatch, Black Flag, some others - a handful of NEAF Vipers present, but by and large the majority of the planes on the apron are mercenary units.

Holding open the door for your WSO, you're directed to a briefing room by a silent infantryman. Stepping inside reveals a double-handful of other pilots poring over maps and folders of paper; a Major in an NEAF uniform waves you over, handing you a folder of your own. "Sorry for the mess. We're pulling this op together about two months early, what with the big push." Leading you to a map table, he gestures at the notes scrawled on it in grease pencil. "Cliff's Notes version: big raid on Norfolk's navy yard. All the merc units we can spare following a wave of every Tomahawk we own - more or less - with instructions to break everything military. We'd cut our own aircraft for this, but, well." he shrugs.

"Big push." you agree idly, eyeing the map. "Offshore route?"

The Major - whose nametag reads Merrill - nods. "Too much crap overland. No promises you won't meet ships at sea, either, but we're reasonably confident there's none along the planned route. We can't guarantee a refuelling hitch - we'll try, but we don't have many tankers. So, externals probably a good idea." Someone else waves him over, and he leaves you to it with a nod.

"Externals a required idea." you note, pointing to the route. "We'll need two bags, even. And be stingy on gas over the target."

"Can McDowell's bird even make this run?" Ghost queries quietly, skimming the briefing folder. You frown, doing some mental math, and sigh.

"With externals, just about. Bit less combat endurance than we'd have, I think? Unless he loads real light, at least. Speaking of load…"

"Mavericks. And HARMs. Mostly Mavericks." Ghost opines. "Going to be lots of bombs among the rest of this lot, we'll want something to smack SAMs and the like with, or hit point targets."

You ponder this. She's not wrong - if nothing else, with at least twenty-odd other planes in the mix, bombs (big ones) aren't likely to be in short supply. Conversely, a few LGBs or JDAMs of your own might not go amiss.

"Talk it over with the flight, I think." you say. "In the meantime… make friends and see about teaming up with someone?"

"How about some fellow Knights?" queries a voice behind you. Turning, you find yourself face-to-face with Daishi, he of the Alpha Flight. Grinning he extends a hand for you to clasp. "We'd been thinking of re-signing with the Cali gang, but heard things were going down out here."

"Damn good to see you." you return, smiling. Alpha weren't just first-in, as far as Silver Knight is concerned; they were the most experienced, too. "Any of the rest of SK, or just the eight of us?"

He blinks, frowning. "Eight? What happened?"

You sigh, and Ghost pipes up to answer. "A mess. Had to scramble from Northampton - two of ours and two of Foxtrot went missing; word is everyone got out of there with the evac - well, save the local infantry sweeping the place, but we haven't any word where they are. A third from Foxtrot went down - bailed or dead, we don't know yet - on our way here. Five-four's backseat is flying Five-one's plane, now, and Six-four is flying as Five-four. It's…" she shakes her head. "Yeah. Not been great."

Daishi exhales slowly, eyes distant. "We heard it was a full-court offensive, but nothing about deep raids like that."

"Fresh news." you return ruefully. "We were pulling CAS over Albany when we got pulled back here - wasn't looking so hot, I won't lie." Pausing, you glance down at the briefing packet. "Where you parked up? Need to get these back to the flight, but-"

"-Two flights is better than one." Daishi agrees. "North end of the field, just look for the blue-and-white Eagles. And speaking of getting briefings to flights…"

You nod, saluting with your folder as he makes tracks for the door. Swiping a spare map, you glance about briefly, before tapping Ghost on the shoulder and doing likewise.


"So, pushing range pretty hard, without even one refuelling hitch, a vague-at-best target selection list, and the implicit understanding that this is an all-merc op because we're expendable." Tallboy informs the world at large, eyes on the briefing material. "Thanks, I hate it."

"Can't say I'm overly fond of this myself." McDowell agreed, glaring at his load sheet like it's personally offended him. You shrug, watching Ghost ponder your own load sheet.

"It's not great by any stretch. Even absent my own feeling that we should stick with it, though, I doubt you'd have an argument about this hitting the unfulfillable clause."

Beaker snorts, glancing up. "Probably come close, though. How many Tomahawks they throwing at this, anyway?"

You shrug. "No hard number I've seen yet. Realistically? I'm counting on those madmen-" you gesture to the eight-ship of Tornadoes on the far side of the runway, HARMs evident under their fuselages and ECM pods on their wings "-and the Fencers over yonder to at least tell us where the SAM sites are. Packet's detail-light on it, but I'm also, say," you wave a hand "about sixty percent sure they're either baiting as much of the USN out of Norfolk as possible before we go in, or otherwise have reason to believe we won't just get ganked by a deluge of SM-2s."

"It's a moronic use of resources to throw away every merc they have on this op, too." Ghost chips in. "Not like they're hugely flush with integral air assets."

The flight make unhappy faces at the prospect of the aforementioned deluge of heavy SAMs, but decline to voice further objections. You lean over, eyeing the load chart as Ghost draws a pencil from some pocket, tapping it on the clipboard.

[] How load? Vote by plan.