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Phase 15: The Wakanda affair
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Part 6
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Razor flight
Wakanda airspace
The French pilots were surprised no one and nothing had intercepted them yet ten minutes after entering Wakanda's airspace. They kept flying and recording what their recon pods could glean – which was the expected small village herds of goats and the people keeping an eye on them. One of the pilots was quite sure he gleaned a small group galloping on horseback. Yet, there was no trace of an advanced civilization capable of striking across Europe and beyond with stealth craft that blew the American bombers and F-22s out of the water.
One thing command thought obvious, and the pilots agreed – modern cities were hotter than the surrounding areas. One of the best places to hide one was where no one would think twice about seeing hot spots on thermal. Even if you somehow concealed a city, what about the heat it produced?
Wakanda conveniently had such places near its border with Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Kongo. That region contained more than a few volcanoes, which have been partially active for centuries.
They could detect no tracking radars, a trace of modern civilization, or even towns and cities resembling those they flew over while passing through Kenya before reaching Lake Victoria.
Half of Razor Flight flew high, just below the cloud cover. At the same time, the rest went low in the hope of avoiding effective detection by any SAM emplacements.
On the ground, surprised people looked with confusion at the unfamiliar aircraft flying above them. Here and there, members of the Border Tribe who weren't deployed in the cities to keep the peace reported the intrusion. However, while noted, those first reports were dismissed as distraction attempts by units that obviously were not loyal to the new regime. Orders went down the chain of command to detain and interrogate the warriors who raised a false alarm.
By the time more and more reports reached the new leadership, which was stretched thin trying to keep the country together and maintain an illusion of strength and legitimacy, it was too late. Wakanda was a small country, and the French fighters flew quickly. In ten minutes, the air raid could cover almost two hundred kilometers, moving at the maximum subsonic speed of the Strike Fighters. That was fast enough to cover a good chunk of the country's length. More importantly, it was just enough to get from the border near Lake Victoria to the holographic field surrounding the Golden City.
After the coup, the people responsible for Wakanda's air defense were either dead or in custody, awaiting the military government's decision about their final disposition. The warriors of the Border Tribe crewing their stations were unfamiliar with their equipment. Their first reflex upon receiving a warning about intruding foreign aircraft was to run a diagnostic. Indeed, no outsider would dare attack Wakanda or know to do so!
When people comprehended their new reality and began to react appropriately, the first French Strike Fighter was less than a minute from flying above the Golden City. Of the Dragon and Talon squadrons that should have been Wakanda's first line of defense, there were literally a handful of aircraft left in the country, with a few designated as transport for the new leadership and not meant to engage in combat. That left only a few Dragons that had returned from delivering weapons and were being loaded with their next batch of cargo while their crews rested.
A ring of automated concealed energy cannons was meant to provide a second line of defense and back up the Air Force in case of an attack. When they were activated, the French aircraft were out of range, leaving only the Golden City's defenses to meet them. Several weapon emplacements were built into the hills, cradling Wakanda's real capital. The only issue with them was that opening fire would disrupt the holographic field covering the city, exposing its location to outsiders. The same was true for activating the shield.
Ultimately, the order to activate those defenses came only after two Rafales, followed by six Strike Fighters, entered the holo field, believing they were about to overfly a smoking volcano with its sides covered by lush forests.
The French pilots' exclamation of surprise broke the radio silence, followed by excited reports to the rest of the flight and the Carrier Battle Group, sailing off the Somalian coast and heading for the Persian Gulf at maximum speed. The Holyfield distorted and deflected their calls. If it wasn't for the rest of the flight flying right above the city acting as stations to transmit data to the Charles de Gaule, the fighters that found themselves above the Golden City would have seemingly vanished without a trace.
The automated cannons came online, and their armored hangars opened. Radars and more exotic sensors awoke, painting the airspace above the Golden City.
However distorted their transmissions were, they were understandable. Warning icons and targets appeared on target computers. Three Rafales and six Strike Fighters went evasive. Their plane's computers could detect the threats. In many cases, the pilots could see the cannons unlimber and begin tracking on the mountainsides beside them.
In the city below, thousands, then tens of thousands, looked up with stunned disbelief. The cannons opened fire, throwing blue streaks of energy calibrated to avoid the tallest buildings in the city. Missiles answered them and six more Strike Fighters descended like ravenous birds of prey. The remaining three Rafales stayed on station above the city, looking for threats and transmitting priceless information about Wakanda.
Some cannons rotated to aim up and went to rapid fire, bracketing the descending Strike Fighters with energy bolts. Missiles and rockets slammed into the mountainsides, engulfing cannon emplacements in fire. A Super Etendard blew up, touched by an energy bolt. A second one followed, proving not agile enough to break the targeting lock. A missile struck true, yet its warhead failed to detonate due to the too-short distance it was launched from before impact.
In the sky, two then three Strike Fighters died while racing to fly through the holographic field, but not before one unleashed its rockets and two gravity bombs in the general direction of the incoming fire. A fourth blew up as it flew through the hologram of a tree. The remaining two Strike Fighters lived long enough for their targeting pods to lase targets and launch missiles, followed by rockets and bombs. More explosions shook the cannons shooting up, throwing off their aim for precious moments.
Seconds later, two more Super Etendards blew up, spreading debris and burning fuel all over the Golden City. In response, the mountain range to the west of the capital turned into an inferno when the bomb and missiles struck true. Capacitors burst, and energy cannons blew up, turning into burning beacons. A single Super Etendard and two Rafales were still alive below the holographic dome, and only because they were flying too low for the automated cannons to target without hitting the city itself. Three, then a fourth Dragon finally rose to meet them, resulting in a short, one-sided air battle.
At the same time, a Wakandan fighter shot down the last surviving Rafale within the city limits; the remaining French aircraft hit their afterburners and split, heading towards US bases in Saudi Arabia.
Their mission was an unmitigated success, despite the heavy losses. NATO now knew the location of one of Wakanda's modern cities, as well as the area of some of its defenses and their capabilities. Now the Carrier Battle Group had targets for cruise missiles, and they would launch them soon, matching the timing to ensure that NATO satellites would be above Wakanda the whole time the strike flew above the country. That, in turn, would reveal more targets for a follow-up strike that would be launched hours later from US bases across the Middle East and US Navy elements in the Persian Gulf.
The following day, there would be no doubt that an unexpected and unwanted war came to Wakanda. Hundreds of thousands of angry and confused citizens would be demanding answers from their new government.