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Phase 15: The Wakanda affair
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Part 3
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Is this WW3? Wakandian air strikes confirmed in India and China! Japan and South Korea are expecting attacks within the hour!
CNN
A Second Battle of Britain? After minutes long engagement above Paris, Wakanda aircraft strike targets on British soil!
BBC
"We have an incredible video from the battle over the Camelot fusion reactor in construction near London!"
A shacking camera showed glimpses of a construction site before rising. It caught a black aircraft rising straight up in the air, followed by a couple of Harriers. A few helicopters could be seen in the distance, launching missiles. A pulse of energy erupted from the Wakanda fighter. Approaching missiles blew up in mid-flight, followed by the Harriers. The first one crumpled as if hitting a brick wall, then blew up in a spectacular fireball. The same happened with the side of the second, which appeared to bounce off the sphere of expanding energy. It's left-wing shredded, quickly followed by the back of the fighter breaking. It was already falling to pieces before its fuel ignited, immolating the fragments in an oddly shaped fireball.
At the same time, the Talon apparently lost power and fell like a brick. Missiles streaking from the ground, side, and above struck its tumbling form, shrouding it in fire and shrapnel.
The Wakandian craft regained power but not complete control. It managed to turn at the last moment so its belly hit the ground, and it sheared through construction equipment until coming to a stop at the far end of the construction site.
The video blinked, showing a recording from a soldier's helmet camera. Muffled voices shouted and cursed. A Challenger tank came rolling from the left, and its cannon thundered, shaking the camera just as the Talon tried to lift. The black aircraft rotated in place, trying to turn, when the round hit at a wrong angle, glancing off and shearing a burning streak of metal. An Apache roared overhead and unleashed a barrage of rockets at the Talon, slamming it back into the ground when it attempted to rise.
The tank cannon spoke again, and this time it struck true. The round slammed into the cockpit and broke through the armored glass. Fire and smoke blasted out of the aircraft as it swiveled to the right and skidded to a stop by crashing into the side of a crane.
BBC News
Cambridge University was just hit hard. The defensive force deployed there proved to lack sufficient firepower to stop the Wakandian onslaught. Emergency services are swarming the area looking for survivors from the Grenadier Guards who were deployed to the site earlier today.
BBC News
Wakanda strikes targets within India with a vengeance, taking advantage of less effective resistance. Casualties mount as Wakanda changes tactics and attacks with entire squadrons, aiming to eliminate ground defenses first.
Associated Press
XINHUA reports heavy fighting in the air in Western China.
CNN
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Razor flight
Somali airspace
Six Rafale fighters flew in pairs, forming a loose protective triangle around a full strike of twelve Super-Etentard strike craft. They all flew heavy with anti-tank missiles and fuel tanks, carrying only a couple of air-to-air missiles. Each fighter had a reconnaissance pod attached, both recording and streaming back to the carrier.
Every pilot knew they very well might be going on a one-way mission. They all volunteered anyway. France was under attack, and from what they got through briefing, watching the news, and the ever-persisting rumors, stopping the attacks proved futile. The only saving grace was the target selection, which was generally idiotic.
Command suspected that the enemy had committed practically their whole air force on the offensive, which in theory, was foolish. It was also foolish to declare war on the entire world, but there they were.
The purpose of the exercise, no matter how suicidal it might be, was simple. Test the enemy's air defense network, find targets to hit with cruise missiles, and if at all possible, force them to recall at least a part of their air force and deploy it into a defensive posture.
That was easier said than done because satellite images showed only a third-world hellhole with nothing hinting at advanced technology, much less the capability to build the kind of futuristic fighters that were busy rampaging across many parts of the world.
If it weren't for the prudent radio silence, the pilots would be discussing the persistent rumor that hostile aliens were involved and that they were using Wakanda as a proxy to test and cripple Earth. That theory certainly made more sense than a hidden technologically advanced civilization in central Africa of all places. A society that was more advanced than the rest of the world by a large margin, no less! Just being black didn't make you an idiot or incapable of being an accomplished scientist or engineer, for example, unless you asked a racist anyway. A third of the pilots were, in fact, black, and their buddies didn't have a problem with them.
Well, no problem with their skin color anyway.
No, the issue with the whole concept the pilots had, was different. By necessity, every one of them was a highly trained specialist intimately familiar with advanced technology and engineering. They were all reasonably aware of what it took to design and build one of the fighters they were flying and even more acutely familiar with all the work that went down in ensuring their Rafales and Strike Fighters didn't break down.
It wasn't the concept of an advanced African civilization that bothered them. A hidden one, on the other hand? That was much harder to accept in the age of Google Maps. Hell, they all consulted both satellite images and maps provided by intelligence and Google Maps, too, if for no other reason than to compare them and look for inconsistencies that could mark possible targets.
A small city with a smaller airport was the supposed capital, and primitive villages were dotted around the border. Most of the country was a wilderness with no valuable resources to make invading the place worth it. That was obviously false. You couldn't build an advanced civilization without tons and tons of resources.
Razor flight crossed the invisible line dividing Somalian air space with that of Kenya, relying on ECM pods to avoid detection by the few radars that lazily illuminated the skies. Yesterday, this would and could be considered an act of war that France would have thought long and hard about committing. Doing so would have been a political disaster.
Today? Razor Flight had orders to shoot down and neutralize any aircraft or SAM system that proved to be hostile, then proceeded to test Wakanda's air defense network.
Frankly, none of the pilots particularly liked the implication of those orders. The world changed in the past week, and they were sure it wasn't for the better.
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General Dynamics Research facility
Outside of New York City
SWORD One, usually stationed at Fort Drum, was the flagship unit of the organization, tasked with testing and developing doctrine for the use of all the experimental weapons SI and others could create and evaluate if they would make a practical addition to SWORDs arsenal.
Virtually every soldier serving as infantry in the unit wore a passive exoskeleton. Back at the base, they had the first powered prototype undergoing preliminary testing. They also had armor plates of titanium-gold allow protecting their chests, with more mundane and cheap secondary armor providing excellent protection compared to what regular infantry had available.
After SWORD Two's encounter with the Destroyer, no one bothered with regular small arms or sidearms. Instead, they went for more ammo, grenades, and explosives in the hope that such firepower could make a dent in the next crazy alien thing that came to kill them. SAWs with AP ammo and HMGs with the same, meant to deal with light vehicles, were the lightest firepower anyone except for a few of Stark's bodyguards bothered to carry.
The latter, including SWORD personnel attached to the Councilor, was in the basement of the building. Outside, SWORD One was busy digging in and setting up what hopefully might be a useful ambush for the expected Wakanda onslaught. There were whole squadrons of fighters and interceptors in the air, and a mechanized battalion of the National Guard was on its way.
That should have been more than enough concentrated firepower to make anyone sane think twice before jumping in its teeth.
Whoever ran Wakanda after usurping the Royal Family was anything but sane; everyone in the military with a vague idea of the strategic situation agreed.
The skies rumbled with the sound of jet engines, and if you had good enough hearing, you could hear helicopters approaching in the distance.
Wakanda's squadron dedicated to taking out Tony Stark didn't care. Six Dragons de-cloaked and moved in pairs, strafing any ground targets they could detect. At the same time, two Talon fighters hovered above the building. Their cloaks rippled when the Warriors jumped out to land on the roof and opened fire with vibranium weapons on the SWORD personnel stationed there.
Missiles rose to meet the onslaught, and US Air Force aircraft dove to clash with the Wakandian squadron.
