The Erie Campaign
Down But Not Out
General Daria Franks never expected to command her forces in a conventional war.
The head of the Chicagoan Air Patrol has always known her position to be something of a fig leaf.
Officially, her job has always been search-and-rescue operations and scouting work for the Navy.
Unofficially, her forces are a counter-insurgency unit meant to support the navy in pirate suppression missions.
Right up until the frenzied, desperate race to arm up for the war with Victoria, Franks only commanded piston aircraft which Victoria would dismiss as simple observer planes. No self-respecting Victorian actually pays attention to air craft; none of them looked closely enough to find that the planes were armed. Press reports on piracy operations could regularly be relied upon to talk up the Chicagoan Navy's contributions to operations and minimize the Air Patrol's -- after all, having a true navy, and so formidable a navy, was a matter of considerable prestige abroad. However, that does not change the Patrol's achievements.
Scouting, yes, support of SAR missions when necessary, but the missions playbook was COIN operations from cover to cover. Every plane was armed with cannons for ground attack. All the pilots trained extensively for that role. And they dealt death from the skies reliably and precisely. It was not an air force to contest the skies. It was not a truly formidable force. However, more than once, it made the difference between a hard fight and the Navy looking
really fucking good. That job went on without a blip once the Commonwealth was incorporated, the Chicagoan Air Patrol becoming the Commonwealth Air Force and eating the tiny forces of other signatories in the process. Normal operations continued. If anything, they intensified.
And now, in less than a day of dogfighting with
jet fighters, it's dead.
Franks goes over the casualty report again. It's not doing any good. She knows it isn't. But it makes her feel...not
better, but it makes her feel
not worse. She'll take it.
It's not that she didn't know it was a suicide mission. She knew. Her pilots knew. Turboprops, at best, going up against F-16s flown by pilots specialized in air combat? It was never going to end any other way. They all went up anyway.
So very few of them came back down in one piece.
Franks leans back in her chair. It could be worse. It could always be worse. Some of the actual
planes from the old Patrol survived. Most of them went up with the sortie, but a fair few stayed back. A lot of what went up was the restored old jets, never useful to the Patrol and too provocative to fly until open war was on their doorstep. The Patrol craft that
did fly for the engagement over Erie were only up there because they could not find another functioning air frame, no matter how creaky, for any cost. The rest are back in Chicago as insurance. But every
pilot from the Patrol flew.
Optimistically, once all of the recoveries are done, less than half of them will be coming home. That's assuming that
every single pilot on the books as MIA is alive and free to return to friendly lines.
It's not going to be that good. There were too many reports of Vees strafing parachuting pilots. It's not going to be anywhere
near that good.
But she has to hope.
Seven planes returned intact enough that at least one of their pilots survived. Ten pilots in total, most wounded. Four planes came down just fine, returning four pilots alive and uninjured. One of those, Second Lieutenant Harrelson, flying a
Skyraider of all things, is actually claiming gun kills. Amazingly, her camera footage is bearing her out. That's one to watch, there. Finally, the search-and-recovery efforts have brought back five downed pilots.
Out of an air force comprising seventy-three pilots with combat wings -- most of them veterans, albeit with precious little experience or training in air-to-air combat -- General Franks can currently account for
nineteen.
And this, over the past few days, as the army fights and dies and the navy waits to once more cover itself in glory, is what Daria Franks has been doing -- coordinating endless SAR efforts in the hopes that she can get the number of pilots brought back just a little bit higher. At least she doesn't need to coordinate another sortie. It would be her air force's last.
Instead, she can focus on that number. Nineteen. Nineteen.
Oh, hey. Twenty.
He'll never walk again, but twenty.
* * *
"-General?"
Franks blinks, looking up from her reports. "Twenty-seven," she croaks, eyes bloodshot.
The Lieutenant in the door leans back. "Er...ma'am?"
Franks stares at him for a moment. "What?" Then she shakes herself. "Hang on. You said something. What?"
"General Burns has sent a request for you to come to the command center, ma'am," says the young man. "We expect the Victorians to launch strafing runs in the near future. He wants your advice on how best to counter them."
Franks looks down at the papers in front of her.
Twenty-seven.
She looks back up. "Send word back that I'm on my way," she says, standing up and reaching for her coat.
* * *
When the Victorians come, it is slow and steady, flying perfectly level and straight, and in radar signatures that appear to denote absolutely
massive airplanes. Twelve of them.
General Burns's jaw drops slightly. "I don't believe it."
"Victorian doctrine calls for this for AA evasion," says Franks, eyes fixed on the radar display. "Four or more planes fly in diamond or box formation, close enough that they return as one radar signature. The idea is that radar-guided missiles seek the center of the formation and miss the planes." She snorts. "It's stupid, makes them sitting ducks. They're right on top of one another in order to
keep this effect, so a single missile is going to knock
several of them out of the air. And wouldn't you know it, it was Rumford's idea in the first place." She scowls. "Really tells you that they never fight anybody who can make them pay. Nobody whose job actually
prepares them to interface with the ground would have this dumbfuck idea."
"Of course," growls Burns.
"I'm guessing you never really dealt with Vees while you were on the run?" asks Franks.
"Russian jets," replies Burns, his tone clipped. "Vicks never stooped to ground runs."
Franks lets the topic go. Instead, she turns to the radar. "And now we wait."
"
I don't feel good about letting them get this close to my ships," snaps Admiral Romano over the radio.
"Don't worry about it, Admiral," sighs Franks. "When we spring this, the Vicks will have
other things on their mind than bothering your ships. Trust me."
He doesn't respond to that, and Franks returns to watching the displays.
The Victorian jets close, slow and steady, lining up into their approach corridors for the strafing runs. Franks waits as they get nearer and nearer, slowly drifting down to their starting altitudes for the actual attack runs. She knows what the attack profile on an F-16V is. She's studied their performance characteristics until they're now seared into her eyelids. She knows
exactly when the jets will start their dive.
A little over a minute before the first jets reach that point, when they're all roped well into range of the Army and Navy's SAM network, flying slow and increasingly low Franks leans forward. "Now. Send out the command; all batteries need to fire
now."
Orders go out; radio officers chant instructions into their headsets. Orders go out to gun crew leaders who've been waiting for just this command.
And, over the course of a minute, all of the SAM launchers embedded in your ground and naval forces launch their missiles.
The Victorians stutter. Some of the radar signatures on the screen briefly resolve into multiple returns before the pilots tighten back up. They abort their attack runs, continuing to fly straight in their formations. This, after all, is their doctrine. Fly tight, in a box, and the missile
will miss. This is simply how reality works.
Missiles burst in the center of four different formations, knocking several planes out of the sky and leaving a bare handful intact enough to still be limping through the air, before the Victorians realize that their doctrine is
wrong.
The gigantic contacts on the screen break up into a swarm of rapidly-dispersing dots as the pilots panic and scatter in every direction. Missiles start homing in on individual planes, but for many, it's far too late. More planes fall. Several shudder and jerk, almost certainly mortally wounded. The Victorian strike dissolves, and their pilots sprint home.
Franks grins, a feral thing that looks hungrier than it looks pleased.
Burns huffs in laughter and slaps her on the back. "Nicely done. You were right."
She shakes her head, still grinning. "It won't work again. Even Vicks aren't that stupid. But this? This is all we needed." She leans on a table, sighing. "I needed that. Shoot down my planes, fuckers.
I'll get yours, too."
Raising a hand, she flips off the ceiling, and through it, the sky.
She studiously ignores Burns's laughter.
So, that's what went down. Franks studied her opponent in detail.
In addition to the votes from the previous update, I have one more for you.
Some of the detained foreigners in Detroit have come forward as either journalists or foreign observers from other governments. They are requesting that you allow them access to information on the battle for the purposes of their reports. Please add the following items to any plans currently under consideration:
-[ ] Deny them all. They may remain in lockup and look at the aftermath, just like everybody else.
-[ ] Allow the journalists to observe. You want your side of the story out there, and the press is one way of doing that. You'd still have central security restricting them to
good things, after all.
-[ ] Allow the foreign observers to observe. You want to set up lines of communication with the outside world; extending a friendly hand here, and making a positive impression, could yield dividends.
-[ ] Allow them both to observe.
MORATORIUM REMAINS; WILL OPEN TOMORROW. APPROVAL VOTING REMAINS.
And there you go. Half-update for you. Hope you enjoyed.
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