>>2184271
>>Fly your standard patrol route, if anything interesting comes up then AWACs will inform you about it.

>>2184271
>Fly your standard patrol route, if anything interesting comes up then AWACs will inform you about it.

>>2184271
>>Fly your standard patrol route, if anything interesting comes up then AWACs will inform you about it.

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"We'll fly our standard patrol route. If something interesting comes up we'll be told by AWACs." You decided as you reached 20,000 feet. Scorpion having kept just off your wing all through the ascent thus far.

"Yeah, you've blown your load." Scorpion huffed sarcastically as you banked Northwards, heading back towards your patrol route.

"If you really want my load then you'll have to wait until we get back to base." You lightly jabbed, your sarcastic offer made only in jest. Neither of you fancied running the risk of a fraternisation charge.

Or maybe Scorpion did. You could never really tell with her.

Regardless, you continued up and along the patrol route, flying north towards Izu Ōshima. Both of your jets loaded for bear to replace the Hornets and Kate IIs that had been lost or damaged during the earlier furball. You continued to chat about your actions during the dogfight earlier, and from the sounds of it both of you had earned around the same number of kills. You were both proud and disappointed at how close both you and your wingmate were when it came to kills. On the one hand, you were happy that she was able to keep up with you, and still manage a respectable kill count. It was only a testament to her skill with her jet. On the other hand however, you utterly despised how close she was to having more kills than you. It was an unspoken rule of combat flying that the lead aircraft in a combat pair must have more kills than his assisting wingmate.

Then again, nothing about Freelancer squadron could be held to normal rules. No other squadron had close to a 40/60 split between men and women in it's ranks. No other US navy combat squadron flew the echo 'cat. And very few squadrons in the entire US armed forces had access to either the AMRAAM or the Agile, both of which having been key to your current kill count. And no unit had a Soviet defector in their ranks.

Well, maybe VX-4. That Zuyev guy who defected a month or so before the start of the war was probably with them. If not with a USAF test flight.

>Talk with Scorpion about something (write in)
>Keep quiet and wait until AWACs gives you something, or your patrol ends.
>Other (write in)

>>2184558
>Talk with Scorpion about something (write in)
>"Have you heard anything about what happened to Zuyev?"

>>2184558
>>Keep quiet and wait until AWACs gives you something, or your patrol ends.

>>2184558
Keep quiet.

File: Zeus has been ''productive''.jpg (52 KB, 703x463)

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Eventually, the pair of you slipped into silence. Even on such long patrols, you would often run out of things to talk about. You understood why Zeus read those Japanese comics of his, it gave him something to offset the mind numbing boredom. Unlike some kid in the back of a car, you couldn't just imagine some guy running alongside the car and jumping over obstacles and shit. As such, you mind began to wander. As you began to round the northern coastline of Izu Ōshima to reach the southern leg of your journey, you though back to a Christmas ago. Not the one that had just passed, but the one before that. Back when the wounds from Lauren's breakdown were still fresh in everybody's minds. And back when you were first assigned to the aggressor posting.

You never did find out what exactly had happened at the corner shop after you had left. Unfortunately, some young by getting killed in gang violence wasn't worthy of more than a token slot at the end of a news broadcast. It occupied a window of nothingness between the headlines and the sports results, usually around the time where people would go and quickly make a cup of coffee or take a piss before the sports results came on. It was sad really, but at the same time, you didn't care much for it at the time.

Of course, you did find out that the driver of that fucking Lincoln town car had in fact been following you. Or at least you assumed so. That one you encountered at the beach was the same make and colour, though it did look in better shape. Maybe they actually got it fixed up?

After a few months, Ares had been moved from the local hospital to the King County VA Hospital. The hospital that he now resided at. You hadn't wrote for him for over a year! So much for keeping promises and all that. Then again... getting a letter wrote up between training flights, getting bitched at by various officers and looking over your shoulder for a knife welding blonde was a bit of a tall order. Fuck knew that you were paranoid as hell after you found out that Lauren had been spared prison time. But looking back on it, maybe you were being too paranoid? For all you knew, she had avoided jail by the grace of the judge. Or her daddy had leveraged that huge wealth of his to buy off the jury. You didn't know, you weren't exactly being given time off base to go to trials that you weren't a defendant in. Or any time off base for that matter, not that it bothered you much when all of the guys who mattered for keeping you on base were in Mac's pocket.

As you reached the Bayonnaise Rocks, your radio crackeled to life.

"All aircraft near to Sōfu Iwa are to vector towards where the Soviet fleet was sunk! Hornets performing CAP are being engaged by enemy fighters!" AWACs Siren demanded as you passed over the rocks.

>CONT

>>2184785

"What kind of fighters are we facing Siren?" You asked as you considered the offer on the table. If you were correct, there would be at least 2 other patrol flights nearby who could answer the call if you didn't want to.

"Unknown classification! Single engine, around as fast as a Hornet, very well armed and protected by ECM." Siren reported back, his voice strained. And part of you wondered if it was strained because the situation was so dire, or if fatigue was starting to set in.

>Sprint back and engage the fighters! You have to clear the airspace for the SAR aircraft!
>Try and find the enemy carrier! Those jets have to have a carrier, and if you can put it in danger, then they will have to fall back to cover it!
>Leave it to the Hornets, they must have this.
>Other (write in)

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>>2184792
>>Sprint back and engage the fighters! You have to clear the airspace for the SAR aircraft!

>>2184792
Try and find the enemy carrier.

Need a tiebreaker...

>>2184792
>Sprint back and engage the fighters! You have to clear the airspace for the SAR aircraft!

"Advanced enemy fighters that are kicking the ass of the regular joes? That sounds oddly familiar." You idly remarked as you gently brought your jet around towards the dogfight, you waited until your wingmate was ready and lined up with you before you eased the throttle forwards to the stops, your jet's afterburner kicking on as you pushed for maximum speed.

"Yeah, sounds like the reds have their own version of our squadron..." Scorpion mused sarcastically as your jets broke mach 1, the speed dial craning further up as you pushed for your limits.

"Well I hear that imitation is the best form of flattery." You mused as your jet's speed began to level off at around mach 1.8. A bit too low for your liking, you wondered if the jet's computer was limiting you to a safe speed or not.

"Razor, two things before we get started." Zeus called for your attention before your conversation could go any further. "Firstly, are we ditching the harpoons? And do you want me to try and hit the enemy fighters with our Sparrows? There's a lot of ECM up there, so I can't really get a clear picture on who's who."

>Ditch the Harpoons. They're heavy and will weigh you down in the dogfight. Better to get rid of them now and let other fighters deal with any ships out there.
>Keep the Harpoons, if your theory is correct, you won't be facing actual fighters anyway. And you can hunt down their carrier once you're done.
+++++++++
>"Try and get us a lock, we can't be waiting around for an invitation."
>"Leave it, the Hornets are in too close. We'll go in close and take them out the usual way."
>Other (write in)

>>2185058
>>Ditch the Harpoons. They're heavy and will weigh you down in the dogfight. Better to get rid of them now and let other fighters deal with any ships out there.
>>"Leave it, the Hornets are in too close. We'll go in close and take them out the usual way."

>>2185058
>Ditch the Harpoons. They're heavy and will weigh you down in the dogfight. Better to get rid of them now and let other fighters deal with any ships out there
>"Leave it, the Hornets are in too close. We'll go in close and take them out the usual way."

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"Leave it, the Hornets are in too close. We'll go in close and take them out the usual way." You decreed, flipping from your radar to your IRST, and only accomplishing to go from a hazy scope to an almost empty one.

"And the Harpoons?" Scorpion asked, having heard Zeus's question.

"We'll ditch the Harpoons. They're too heavy and will weigh us down in the dogfight. Better to get rid of them now and let other fighters deal with any ships out there." You decided, before slowing down to eject your harpoons. You could definitely eject them at speed, but if you had a bad ejection then you would be absolutely fucked. Any kind of skin damage to a jet at mach speeds was deadly, you weren't going to risk it. As such, you dropped below mach 1 for just a few seconds to ditch your harpoons. Scorpion dropping her missiles at almost exactly the same time. The 4 anti ship missiles dropping away from you by a good distance before the recently installed scuttling routines activated. The warship killing weapons exploding in your wake as you sped up to make up for lost time.

It didn't take you long to reach the battle zone, your radar already showing a number of contacts in the water, and you didn't need to look down to see that they were the remains of the Soviet fleet that had been massacred. What you were more interested in was the dogfight that was taking place. 6 Hornets were facing off against 6 Soviet fighters. You had seen them before in a previous briefing packet, they were the fighters from the Soviet submarine aircraft carrier that had attacked the Panama canal. You knew that they were good at ship killing, but you didn't know about how good they were at killing fighters. You honestly wondered just why the Hornets were having such a hard time, surely they had the agility advantage?

>It does't matter, get stuck in! You can waste these guys with no problems!
>Hold off for a second, how the hell are those little jets causing trouble for the hornets?
>Other (write in)

>>2185387
>>Hold off for a second, how the hell are those little jets causing trouble for the hornets?

>>2185387
>It does't matter, get stuck in! You can waste these guys with no problems!

>>2185387
>Hold off for a second, how the hell are those little jets causing trouble for the hornets?

"Hold up, something's up. Those light fighters can't be holding up the Hornets like this." You warned, slowing down as you approached to maximise the amount of time you had to watch.

"Really? It's not like you to go soft on them." Scorpion wondered, confused. Before her voice settled into a more playful tone. "Is it because you want to give someone else something hard when you get back?"

"Scorpion, shut it and get to watching." You ordered, your voice firm and uncompromising. You didn't want to play games with the enemy so close.

Looking down, you tracked one of the little fighters as it passed around a Hornet. The aircraft were fairly well matched, if only because the Hornets weren't able to exercise their advantages due to the Soviets preempting them. Every time a Hornet would try to out turn or outrun a Soviet, they would be herded back into the dogfight by the Soviets. However, after a few seconds, one of the Hornets managed to gain positioning on one of the mystery soviet fighters. The Hornet fired a burst of 20mm rounds just above and behind the Soviet, forcing it to jink off the tail of his wingmate. However, before the Hornet could fire another burst, a passing Soviet fighter slapped the Hornet out of the sky with a missile. Said missile executing a brutal turn to slam directly into the American fighter jet.

A missile that could turn almost as well as the Agile. A scary thought indeed.

"Scorpion, they have agile equivalent missiles." You immediately radioed your wingmate as the dogfight began to change more in the Soviet's favour. The Hornets moving closer together to cover each other while the Soviets tried to kill them quickly.

"How do want to play this boss? We don't have the missiles to match them." Scorpion responded, her voice having changed from happy and playful to flat and serious.

>Boom and Zoom! Hopefully you can get out of their sights before they can launch their missiles!
>Climb up into their blindspots! They can't hit what they can't see!
>Wait until the Hornets whittle them out! Isn't that the whole purpose of light fighters?
>Other (write in)

While we wait for more votes, I'm gonna call tonight's run here, we'll restart the thread tomorrow at around the same time. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to ask them and I'll answer them as soon as I am able.

>>2185627
>>Climb up into their blindspots! They can't hit what they can't see!

>>2185627
>Boom and Zoom! Hopefully you can get out of their sights before they can launch their missiles!
remove yak

>>2185627
>>>Climb up into their blindspots! They can't hit what they can't see!

We should've never carried harpoons or sparrows IMO. I think that we should've tried out staggering phoenixes to keep the reds dodging while we close in for sidewinders. But we don't have phoenixes now.

Anyone know how those Iranians managed to get phoenix kills IRL?

"Dive down and come up from beneath their formation. We should be covered when coming in, and once we're there we'll have to work fast to break them up for the Hornets. Set your countermeasures to deploy automatically, we can't take any chances." You explained as you checked your countermeasures. As usual, they were set to automatically deploy. But as always you could override that by simply pressing a button. You gently brought your jet into a dive, before speaking again.

"Take spacing." You ordered, looking over at Scorpion for a few seconds to watch as she began to drift away by 200 meters.

"Two-two confirms. Spacing at two-hundred meters." Scorpion confirmed as she arrested her drift away from you, staying just far enough away that she could help you, but not so close that you both risked hitting each other.

Levelling off, you waited and watched for a few seconds as you approached the dogfight. The few enemy fighters that remained seemed to be holding their own fairly well, The hornets had been forced back by the loss of one of their fighters, but they were still keeping the Soviets contained. The two sides were both so engrossed in keeping the fight so even that nobody seemed to notice your approach. A mistake that somebody would pay for.

"Engage! Engage!" You crowed to Scorpion as you pulled up, your sidewinders already on your trigger. You locked up one of the Soviet fighters with a sidewinder and fired, taking a more conservative approach with your missile use this time. As soon as the missile left it's launching rail, you had to stomp hard on the rudder peddle to chase your gun pipper over the tail of an enemy fighter. Your shot wasn't a good one, and you only just managed a few parting shots into your second target as you passed them.

"Splash one! Sidewinder got him!" Zeus called out as you rolled and dived down towards one of the other fighters in the formation. Your thumb darted to the fire button for your cued missiles, but never finished the journey as you swerved your jet to the right as your missile warning system screamed in alarm. You didn't know who had locked you, and you quickly passed out of the enemy formation in response. You knew your cue to exit stage left when told.

As you made to turn back towards the fight, you watched as the battle began to shift. The Hornets taking the advantage offered and quickly pushing into the fight. The Soviets had a mixed response to say the least. Your pass had scattered them, with one shot down and another trailing smoke. However they did not seem ready to give up just yet., as they fought the Hornets in a fighting retreat. One of their number even straying deep into the Hornet's formation to hunt for targets. Meanwhile, the smoking jet looked to be trying to break away from the fight with another plane flying escort for it.

>Keep taking out targets one by one.
>Prioritise the aggressive one.
>Go after the damaged jet.
>Cut off their escape, leave no survivors.
>Other (write in)

>>2187990
Keep taking out targets one by one.

>>2187990
>>Keep taking out targets one by one.

>>2187990
>Prioritise the aggressive one.
remove wrench

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While the idea of taking out the fleeing jet was certainly a nice one, you decided against it. While the enemy jet no doubt contained a a bounty of advanced -and expensive- technology, there was no point in killing a foe that was fleeing the field of battle. Especially when his comrades continued to fight on. You didn't need to add to the mess of shattered ships and birds that littered the ocean below. As such, you rolled back into the fight and set to work targeting the enemy jets one by one. And already you had a target picked out.

One of the Soviet jets was trying to get on Scorpion's tail. A pipe dream for the enemy pilot, considering that your wingmate could fly rings around him in her jet. You knew that his intention was to simply line up a shot for one of his missiles. It's what you would do if you were in his boots. You couldn't let him get that missile off, so you preempted his launch by loosing a sidewinder on him. You were thankful that the sidewinders were the one thing that never really seemed to massively fail you. What they lacked in agility they more than made up for in sheer numbers. They couldn't do off-boresight shots like the Agile, and you were pretty sure that they were more susceptible to flares. But in the end, it didn't matter too much as you carried 4 of the damn things. Something that the Agile couldn't hope to match right now, though you would be a fool to assume that China Lake wasn't trying to get the Agile fitted to those adaptors. The Soviets would fear for the day that you would get such an upgrade for your jet, but for now they would have to put up with the barrage of Sidewinders.

Though it wasn't as if the Sidewinder wasn't a good missile. It was better than the slop that the Soviets were giving their frontline units, and this was a textbook example. As soon as the missile began to home in on the Soviet fighter, the victim began to fire off flares in an attempt to shake the missile. Yet these did nothing as the missile flew straight and true, smashing straight into the middle of the Soviet jet. The enemy jet blowing apart into around a thousand different pieces of burning debris. The titanium rain falling towards the shattered and smoking fleet below. The bunker fires from the slowly sinking Soviet carrier pumping out the greatest share of the black smoke.

Your next target was the fighter that you had glanced with your gun during your first pass. You failed your 2nd pass on him as well, again due to poor positioning. But this time you were able to spook him off the tail of a fleeing Hornet. You thundered just above him, and tried to bring your jet around for a pass on him. He tried to turn into you, trying to make you work for your kill, and hopefully to open you up to one of his wingmates. However, this was not to be. Before you could even finish your turn, a Hornet raked his jet with fire. 20mm shells tearing the Soviet apart.

>CONT

>>2188288

"Thanks for the help, those were some slippery fuckers!" One of the Hornet drivers thanked you while you tried to scan for targets. However, you saw nothing but a few parachutes. "Once you scattered them, we could take them out with no issues."

"Yeah, though carrying those didn't seem to help you much." You replied as you leveled off, noting with some dismay that the Hornet pilots were still carrying both their external fuel tanks, and their ship-killing Harpoon missiles.

"AWACs wouldn't let us ditch the harpoons, and the tanks have IRST built into them." Your fellow navy pilot replied, his voice sullen as he recalled why his squadron had been so lethally hindered. "We're gonna go and try and find the enemy ship that they launched from. It's gotta be close by."

>leave the Hornets and kill the fighters that got away.
>Escort the Hornets as they try to find the Soviet carrier.
>Head back to your patrol route, you may be needed elsewhere.
>Other (write in)

>>2188305
>Escort the Hornets as they try to find the Soviet carrier.

>>2188305
Leave the hornets and kill the fighters that got away.

>>2188305
>>Escort the Hornets as they try to find the Soviet carrier.

"Understood, we'll escort you out in case of Soviet BARCAP." You assured the Hornet pilot as his squadron began to form up into an arrow formation.

"Are you sure? You seem like you're loaded a little light." The Hornet pilot asked, you assumed that he was the squadron leader for the flight you had just joined up with.

"I've got a pair of sidewinders and 4 sparrows. I'd wager that it's a better load than what you've currently got." You explained, making sure to roll slightly to show your still loaded underbelly to the Hornets.

"That it is..." The Hornet driver agreed, before the changing subjects. "So, we have a few options for how we can do this. We can stay together as one large group and follow along that route that the one surviving Soviet jet took out of the fight. We could spilt up into two groups to cover more water while still having adequate cover from you and your wingmate. Or we could break apart into combat pairs and try to cover as much water as possible, only calling for support if we are either engaged by the remaining soviet fighter or when we find the Soviet ship."

>Have everybody stay together, you can muster all of your strength into one blow.
>Break up into 2 groups, you can cover more water while keeping watch over the Hornets.
>Break apart into pairs, you will cover the most water this way.
>Other (write in)

>>2188574
>>Break up into 2 groups, you can cover more water while keeping watch over the Hornets.

>>2188574
>Break up into 2 groups, you can cover more water while keeping watch over the Hornets.

"I think that we should break into two groups." You agreed with the Hornet commander's 2nd suggestion, and just a few seconds later, the flight broke into a group of 2 aircraft and another of 3 aircraft.

"Scorpion, the Hornets are breaking up into groups to hunt for the Soviet carrier that launched those fighters. You'll escort the flight of 3 aircraft." You detailed to your wingmate as you moved to take up position just above the flight of 2 aircraft. You noted that both of these Hornets seemed to have moderately intact weapons loads of 2 sidewinders and 2 sparrows each.

"Understood, two-two breaking off." Weiss replied calmly, before leaving her place by your side to join up with the flight of 3 Hornets. She mimicked your positioning by flying just above and behind her charges. Less than a minute later, both you and the Hornet commander radioed to Siren that you were heading off to find the Soviet carrier.

You spent an hour on the prowl for the enemy carrier. All 7 radars across the 2 groups searching far and wide for your foe. And you searched in zigzagging patterns across a good few hundred miles of open ocean. And you had no doubt that if there was something out there, then you would find it. And you did find some things out there, some fishing trawlers and a Philippine Navy LST that had gotten lost. However, none of those things were in any way large enough to launch so many aircraft. The LST could probably hold them all given how big it was, but there was no way it could launch them. So after around an hour or 2 of flying around and staring either at your radar screen or at the great blue expanse of the ocean below, you were forced to pack it in.

When you reported no joy back to Siren, the pompous AWACs controller seemed almost smug about your failure.

Either way, he soon directed you all to head for a flight of tanker aircraft so that you could get enough fuel to fly directly back to your home based. The Hornet drivers being based out of Hachijō-jima while you were to head back to Tokyo. You were coming up to the end of your patrol time, and you guessed that they wanted to cycle you back to base so that you could be ready to go just in case some new attack was launched by the Soviets. At least there you would be able to launch with a full weapons load. Either way, as the 2 groups formed back up to begin the journey back home, you began to get bored.

>Talk with Scorpion, she's always fun.
>Talk with Zeus, he's smart and knows stuff about your bird.
>Talk with the Hornet leader, he's new enough.
>Other (write in)

>>2188763
>>Talk with the Hornet leader, he's new enough.

>>2188763
>Talk with Zeus, he's smart and knows stuff about your bird.

>>2188763
>Talk with the Hornet leader, he's new enough.

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"Freelancer two-one to Cowboy three-one. You still awake?" You asked over the radio, you had learned the squadron's name soon after you had broken up into the hunting groups.

"Of course I'm still awake squid. What do you want?" The pilot snapped back. As it turned out, Cowboy squadron was also a marine corps squadron. so you were starting to reach towards your quota of being called squid for the day.

"Just checking in to see how you're doing. I saw that you had lost a man during the fight." You explained as you looked over towards the Hornets, the spiritedly little fighters had recently been overhauled with new radars, internal systems and the AMRAAM surprisingly enough. Though from the looks of it, either this squadron wasn't being issued the AMRAAMs, or they hadn't received that part of the upgrade package.

"Three... we lost three." The marine corrected you, his tone sombre.

"Oh... well I'm sorry for your loss. Do you want some time?" You replied, deciding to at least offer to leave him alone rather than just cutting the connection to kill the awkwardness right then and there.

"Yeah... that'd be great squid." The marine accepted your offered leave, giving you your way out.

"Understood. Freelancer two-" You began to speak, only for the marine to interrupt you.

"Wait a second... you're from that freelancer squadron. VF twenty-one!" The marine realised, his voice changing from sombre to curious.

"What other freelancer squadron flies tomcats?" You asked, genuinely confused now at if there was another Freelancer squadron in the theatre.

"Pretty sure VF sixty four is also called freelancer squadron..." The marine pilot pointed out before trailing off. A few seconds later however, he asked a question.

"What's it like... flying in VF twenty one? Is it like what the rumours say?"

>Answer... (write in)

While we wait for more votes, I'm gonna call tonight's run here. Sorry for the late start, there was some family things to wait through. We'll restart the thread tomorrow at around the normal time, and we'll probably run into the week in order to make up for the poor showing this run and the fact that I won't be able to run next week. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to ask them and I'll answer them as soon as I am able.

>>2188905
>"Honestly, it's- Wait, rumors? What rumors?"

>>2188905
>>2189004
I thought long and hard but this is funnier.

"Honestly, it's- Wait, rumours? What rumours?" You lost your train of thought as the implication began to sprout in your mind.

"You haven't heard the rumours? Well, your squadron is one of the few squadrons in the USN with a high number of women, and we all know that-" The Marine pilot began to explain slowly, probably because he believed that you were an idiot. You already saw where he was going with this.

"The rumours are about me bonking my squad mates." You brutally summarised where he was going with this.

"Well, it's more like a squadron wide thing. But that's the gist of it." The marine confirmed.

"Are you kidding? He wouldn't know what a pussy looked like, even if he fell face first into one!" Your wingmate spoke up, a mock sneer in her voice.

"As expected of a squid... though if he's not treating you right-" The marine joined in on insulting you, only to be interupted again.

"Sorry, but I like men who don't eat crayons." Weiss dismissed the marine's advances, her tone not changing in the slightest.

"Scorpion, I have a girlfriend." You pointed out to your wingmate, reminding her of your current state.

"Do you though?" Weiss questioned, the doubt in her voice mirroring the doubt you felt about your choice to restart your flame with Lauren.

>Ask the Marine about the rumours. All of them.
>Tell the marine what it's like to be in VF-21
>Other (write in)

>>2189990
>Ask the Marine about the rumours. All of them.
>"Tell me. How silly do these rumors get?"

Need another vote...

>>2190041
second this

"Tell me. How silly do these rumours get?" You asked the marine aviator as the search and rescue flight for the survivors of the Soviet fleet entered your radar picture. It wasn't enough to rescue everybody that was down there, and wasn't geared towards that task. Instead, the flight of C-130s were probably just going to drop a bunch of inflatable rafts into the ocean and some other assorted survival gear. All the things that the surviving Soviets would need until ships arrived to pick them up.

"Very. It ranges from fraternisation being overlooked as a matter of course, all the way up to one of your guys having a relationship with a member of the Japanese Royal Family." The marine answered, his voice having slipped from the careful and regimented tone that most marines seemed to have and into a more conversational one.

"I heard about the last one before. Not sure why it got so much traction." You mused , you remembered being pulled aside by one of the Royal Guards assigned to protect Sakamoto just before your recon flight over the Soviet fleet. The issue itself had vanished from your mind after a short amount of time, the worries of war taking it's place.

"Some Japanese magazine rang up an article about one of you guys apparently spending so much time with one of their princesses. It sold for a bit and was eventually deconstructed by a couple of larger networks. But you know what they say, it only takes one idiot with a big mouth for a lie to spread." The marine explained, helping to fill in the blanks that you hadn't paid attention to.

"So pretty much the same shit that happens in the tabloids back home." You likened the situation to home. Something that you knew both you and the marine cared deeply about.

"Yeah. Some dipshit makes an outrageous claim with a very appealing headline, dumb asses buy it in droves and the whole thing dies after a week or so." The marine rambled, obviously not a fan of the practice. You weren't either, you believed that trying to frame some story as factual news was paramount to lying.

>Ask the Marine something else (write in)
>Talk with Scorpion
>Talk with Zeus
>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.
>Other (write in)

>>2190526
>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.

>>2190526
>Talk with Scorpion

Need a tiebreaker...

>>2190597
I'll switch over.

"I'll leave you to it then." You said your farewell to the marine aviator, holding for just a few seconds.

"See you around Freelancer. Cowboy three-one signing off." The marine gave his passing words, before disconnecting from the channel. You did the same and switched over to your network with your wingmate.

"Freelancer two-one to Freelancer two-two, how copy?" You asked your normal confirming question. Making sure that Scorpion knew that you were both talking to her, and that there was no interference.

"I can hear you Razor." Scorpion confirmed, before sighing. "You do realise that you don't have to do that every time you want to talk."

"Sorry, force of habit and all that." You brushed off her request. You'd keep it in mind for later, but right now it was a little late to take it back.

"It's fine. What did you want to talk about?" Scorpion asked, asking for what you were driving at. You didn't need to be a prophet to tell that she was worrying about something.

"I just wanted to see how you're doing. You sound a bit worried." You gave her the brass tacks, and pointed out that you knew what she was feeling.

"I'm fine as always, but I am a bit worried. We don't know where those fighters came from, and even with the disadvantage to the Hornets they still managed a decent enough number of kills." She began, before pausing for a second. You took this chance to speak.

"If we encounter them again, we won't have any issues with them. They may be able to match us with short range missiles, but they can't match us at BVR or in a dogfight." You pointed out bluntly, you were concerned that she was worrying about those jets. But worrying about them was like worrying about some MiG-21s, like comparing some ancient hot-rod to a race car. They may be fast or have some other single good point. But your tomcats were still leagues above them.

"I'm not worried about those aircraft specifically, it's the missiles. Missiles can be fitted to any aircraft with a bit of work, what if the Soviets start fitting those missiles to their Flankers?" Weiss corrected you about her worries. And she did have a good reason for her worries too. Just as you had a good reason not to worry about it.

>"It might be that the missiles are in limited production. Sort of like how our unit is the only one in the theatre with the Agile."
>"By the time that happens, we'll have the countermeasures to defeat them. And the rest of the fleet will be better armed too."
>"They have those missiles because they're a special missions unit. We do actually know a bit about them."
>Other (write in)

>>2190748
>"They have those missiles because they're a special missions unit. We do actually know a bit about them."
R-right?

>>2190748
>"They have those missiles because they're a special missions unit. We do actually know a bit about them."

>>2190748
>"They have those missiles because they're a special missions unit. We do actually know a bit about them."

"They have those missiles because they're a special missions unit. Don't worry about every damn flanker we encounter having them." You answered your wingmate's nagging question in the manner you knew she preferred the most in this situation. Blunt and to the point.

"And how do you know that?" She asked, her voice a mix of doubt and confusion. ever more proof that she didn't know how you were suddenly an apparent expert on this Soviet unit.

"Because we do actually know a bit about them. They attacked the Panama canal and killed a Brooke class frigate. Almost got a Spurance too. Just going off that, they're a long range harassment unit. Pretty much the embodiment of the Deep Operation strategy." You explained further as another flight entered your radar scope, this one flying well behind the SAR flight and in a different direction. It didn't take a genius to tell that they were your tankers.

"But even then, there's no guarantee that other Soviet units don't have those weapons!" Weiss brought up, attempting to amend her original worry.

"And? If we ever encounter them they'll have to run the gauntlet of BVR missiles in order to use them. We have Phoenixes and AMRAAMs to hit them with before they can use those missiles. By then we'll surely outnumber them, making the missiles a moot point." You reasoned in return. One of the great things you supposed about the Tomcat was it's ability to have a layered defence at long, medium and short range. Even if the Phoenixes were very heavy.

"But-" Weiss began, only for you to cut her off.

"Minna. Stop worrying about it. Even if there is another unit like that, they won't directly attack us. The Soviets won't waste their best by trying to take us out in a direct fight." You pushed on, calling your wingmate by her first name in order to emphasize your order not to worry about the issue.

>Talk more with Scorpion (any particular topics?)
>Talk with Zeus
>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.
>Other (write in)

While we wait for more votes I'm gonna call tonight's run here, we'll restart the thread tomorrow at around the normal time. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to ask them and I'll answer them as soon as I am able.

>>2190942
>Talk with Zeus

>>2190942
>Talk with Zeus

"We can talk more about this when we're back on solid ground if you like." You offered to your wingmate. You doubted that she would actually take you up on it, but it was always polite to offer.

"I think that we will. If not, then I might be able to talk with the boss about it." Scorpion replied, her voice level and calm. "Thank you for the offer Razor. I'll keep you in mind."

"I'll be looking forwards to it. Two-one out." You made your goodbye before switching back to the internal channel.

"So, you're bored with talking with everybody else. Right?" Zeus asked sarcastically almost as soon as the line was clear. His distracted tone telling you that he was engrossed in one of his magazines.

"Hardly, you're the most interesting one of the lot." You mimicked your RIO's tone as you spoke. A few small specks on the horizon appeared as you talked, the SAR flight coming into view.

"You flatter me. Well, what do you want?" Zeus asked, throwing the ball back into your court.

>"I wanted to see how you're doing."
>"How's the family?"
>"Anything to do with the jet that I should know about?"
>"What's got that rod shoved up your damn ass?"
>Other (write in)

>>2191887
>"I wanted to see how you're doing."
FYI the URL on your twitter is goofed.

>>2191909
Well fuck me with a rake. Thanks for telling me though.

Need another vote...

>>2191887
>"I wanted to see how you're doing."

"I wanted to see how you're doing." You asked simply, before then specifying. "Weiss was worried about the missiles that those Soviet fighters were carrying, and I wanted to see if you were worried about them as well."

"I'm not worried. I'm fine." Zeus replied simply enough, and you waited for a few seconds for him to follow up after it.

"Really? Because you don't sound fine at all." You asked rhetorically after a few seconds, when it became evident that Zeus was willing to let the conversation end there and then. Thankfully, you didn't have to wait long for him to respond. A strained sigh telling you that he was about to speak again.

"I'm not worried about the Soviets. It's common sense that eventually they would design a missile to match the Agile. If not by their own initiative, then by simply taking debris from the missiles that we've shot at them. Pretty much the same thing as we did in Operation Ivy Bells. If you get enough breadcrumbs, you'll eventually have enough for a loaf and all that." Zeus explained. His strained tone telling you that now was probably the best time to either stop and give your RIO some space, or to try and push his buttons.

So being a pilot, you decided to do the latter.

"Then why are you being so crabby?" You asked, starting by mixing a simple insult into your question.

"Because we've been on a single damn patrol flight and have gotten into three damn fights. THREE! I mean sure, shooting down those Foxbats wasn't much of a fight for you. But god damn was it a pain in the ass for me. Right now I'm cold, tired, hungry and want to go to fucking bed." Zeus went off, his voice level, but still containing a mix of both anger and tiredness. At least you had found why he was acting this way at the very least.

"Well there's my answer." You stated fairly neutrally. And in the rear-looking mirror installed just above and in front of you, you watched as Zeus shook his head dismissively.

>Ask Zeus something (what?)
>Ask Scorpion something (what?)
>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.
>Other (write in)

>>2192877
>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.

>>2192877
>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.

>>2192877
>>Keep quiet until you arrive back at base.

File: F-14 refueling (4).jpg (64 KB, 500x357)

64 KB JPG

You decided to leave things at that, generally speaking, it was not good for crew relations to try and bug your RIO while he was tired and stressed. As such, you instead kept yourself busy by going through your jet's systems up until you reached the tanker aircraft. A pair of old KC-135s were flying with a pair of Hornets flying escort for them. Zeus remained awake long enough to get you through refuelling all he had to do was deploy and retract your refuelling probe after you had refuelled. However almost as soon as you broke away from the tanker, the sound of soft snoring began to waft over the radio. You looked back to find your RIO slumped back in his seat, the gentle rise and fall of his chest telling you that he was fast asleep.

A devilish part of you briefly entertained the idea of snap rolling to wake him up. But you let the idea pass into the back of your mind like all of the other bad ideas. You knew a bad idea when you heard it.

As such, the flight back was quiet and lonely. With Scorpion probably talking with her RIO and Zeus fast asleep, you did the best thing that came to mind. You started singing to yourself between reporting to different AWACs, ground radar controllers and other such annoying people. Your songs were mostly just the few British rock stars and musicians that Slider loved to listen to. The best of David Bowie and Queen, but also some American talent and a couple of sea shanties that your father had taught you. Including one about pirates trying to find redemption at magnetic north.

The unspoken implication was that none would survive that trip.

Thankfully, while this was absolute murder on your voice it also helped to keep your from boredom while you made your flight back. And you only stopped when your wheels hit the tarmac at Chitose. The force of the knocking your RIO awake with a start, and he soon connected back to the internal channel.

"How long was I asleep for?" Zeus asked wearily as you slowed your landing roll. Your engines chopped to idle and your airbrakes extended to bring you to a gentle stop.

"Since the tankers." You responded simply as soon as you switched back onto the channel after talking with the ATC controller. You watched Weiss brake just a bit so that she could quickly follow you off the runway.

"Jesus, and that did nothing for me too!" Zeus yawned as you taxied off the runway, still using the speed retained from your landing to keep you going with minimal thrust form the jet's powerful engines. You laughed freely as you went at your RIO's suffering, only stopping when it was time to deplane.

>Head back to the dorms and talk to Dredd, he's going to want to know that you faced off with the Soviet intruder squadron.
>Head over to the hospital, Svetlana is going to want to see you.
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!
>Fuck all of the above and go to sleep. Right fucking there. They can carry you to your rack.
>Other (write in)

>>2193201
>Head back to the dorms and talk to Dredd, he's going to want to know that you faced off with the Soviet intruder squadron.

>>2193201
>Head back to the dorms and talk to Dredd, he's going to want to know that you faced off with the Soviet intruder squadron.

>>2193201
>Head back to the dorms and talk to Dredd, he's going to want to know that you faced off with the Soviet intruder squadron.

File: the duke boys get conscripted.jpg (2.48 MB, 3000x2334)

2.48 MB JPG

As you climbed down the boarding ladder of your Tomcat, you had to fight t keep balance. One of the few things that you enjoyed about your occupation was that your legs would eventually go to sleep. And rousing them from their slumber enough to not walk like a drunk took time. So you had to battle to assert full control over your legs while also being tired. It was a fight that you were a veteran of, but so was every fighter pilot.

"So, should we break out the paintbrushes boss?" Your crew chief asked as he walked over with a pair of steaming coffee cups. You gladly accepted one with a nod and took a long drag of the burning hot liquid, wincing only slightly as the sheer heat burned your mouth.

"Yeah, though pay attention to mine and two-two's gun cameras. We got into a fight with some unknown birds, so you're probably gonna have to make up some new profiles for them." You cautioned the man in charge of keeping your bird in working order. And most recently, painting on your kill markings. Though at this point, they had stopped hand-painting them on as was tradition, and instead used a stencil to spray paint on broken profiles to mark your kills. Each kill marked out by a broken aircraft.

"Should be fun sir. I'll have my boys run off a copy before the ONI guys come down here to confiscate it. One of my boys will drive you and your RIO back to the base proper." Your chief informed you as he passed the other cup to Zeus, who was just coming down the ladder.

"So, what's the plan?" Zeus asked as the pair of you made your way out of the hanger, the ground crew behind you working to pull the Tomcat's computer out to snatch a copy of it's recorded information.

"We're going to report to the boss. He needs to know what we saw." You decided as you looked over to your German wingmate's hanger. The two had just climbed out of their bird, and were quickly jogging to catch up with you before you got into the waiting jeep. Both of your wingmates jogging over sans coffee.

"Fair enough I suppose." Zeus remarked casually as you reached the jeep, and old WW2 vehicle. You were sure that this kind of jeep had been driven around at airfields since the 70s, and this one looked about as old.

Your driver waited for you to get in, and then waited a bit longer for your wingmates to get in before starting to drive. The ride out was a quiet one, but only by nature of being on an active airbase. You would have needed to yell if you wanted to be heard over the nearby jet engines, and the painfully low speed limit only made things worse. However it wasn't all bad. Your driver had promised both you and Zeus that you could leave the cups with him, he'd take them back to the hanger. As such, you had ample time to sit back and drink your coffee slowly as you rode through the base, soaking up both the hot caffeine and the jealous stares of your comrades.

As it turned out, your wingmates seemed a bit less attractive when they were trying to kill you with a glare.

>CONT

>>2193460

You had around a quarter of an hour to soak it all up before you arrived at your dorms. The jeep coming to a slow stop in spite of the driver stomping on the peddle. You tried to play it off as if you hadn't noticed as you stepped out of the jeep, leaving the empty coffee cup in your seat as you got to your feet. You thanked the young enlisted man and gave a casual salute, while your comrades got out, and soon after entered the building. Unsurprisingly, while there was nobody in the rec room, you were able to find the squadron office occupied. You opened the door and barged in to find Dredd and his RIO sat at their desks, your commanding officer looking up with a nonplussed expression as you entered.

"Razor, Zeus, Scorpion, Vampire. What's the occasion?" The man with the uncanny resemblance to a certain comic book character greeted all of you in turn as you entered the room, Vampire closing the door behind her as her pilot looked longingly at the steaming coffee pot on the far side of the room.

>"Oh nothing much, just shot down an important Soviet squadron."
>"We encountered the squadron that attacked Panama. They've been dealt with."
>Other (write in)

>>2193463
>"Oh nothing much, just shot down an important Soviet squadron."

>>2193463
>"We encountered the squadron that attacked Panama. They've been dealt with."

>>2193463
>"We encountered the squadron that attacked Panama. They've been dealt with."

>>2193463
>>"We encountered the squadron that attacked Panama. They've been dealt with."

"We encountered the squadron that attacked Panama. They've been dealt with." You announced, your simple proclamation sounding a bit like some henchman in a spy movie telling his boss that the hero has been killed. usually just before said hero made his returning appearance to rescue some damsel in distress.

Of course, that wasn't the case here. You knew that you weren't evil, and there was no way that those Soviets would be coming back any time soon.

"Where did you encounter them?" Dredd asked, now fully engrossed in what you had to say.

"Over the Soviet fleet that was attacked and destroyed a couple of hours ago. They engaged a larger flight of Hornets and shot a number of them down before we arrived." You answered as Vampire slowly made her way towards the coffee pot. The slight plodding of her boots against the thin carpet telling you of the movement behind you.

"Describe them, their manoeuvrability, their weapons, everything." Dredd ordered without looking up, instead shoving his form aside and snatching up a clean sheet of paper to jot down your information.

"I'm not too sure about manoeuvrability, the dogfight was going on for a long time before we arrived. But they're about as manoeuvrable as a Hornet that's been weighted down with fuel and a pair of harpoons. They have advanced missiles and ECM, including a Soviet equivalent to the Agile. They were also very well coordinated, suggesting that they were an elite team. But as soon as we entered the fight they went down quickly enough." You explained, watching as the officer jotted down your info as bullet points. Behind and to the right of you, you heard the sound of the coffee pot being removed from it's cradle to pour a drink.

"Alright. We're going to have to get as much info on this to ONI. Get up to your rooms and get started on writing after-action reports. Pour in as much detail as you can on them. Mail call arrived while you were out, so you can go through that either before or after you've done the reports. I'm going to head down to your hangers after I've called Agent Cotton to dog your gun camera recordings." Dredd paused for a second to watch something behind you, before continuing. "And any copies they've ran off. Once you're done, it's crew rest until twenty-hundred hours. At that point you're going to have to spend the night in the alert shack down by your hangers. CINPAC doesn't like that all of us have to ride across base in order to get wheels up, so the new shack will cut down our takeoff time in half."

"Is that everything sir?" You asked, only for Dredd to shake his head.

"It is, you're all dismissed." Dredd gestured for you to leave with a wave of his hand. You nodded and turned to leave, being the first in and out of the room.

>Head up to your room and do... (paperwork, open mail, sleep)
>Head down to the Head over to the hospital, Svetlana will want to see you.
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!
>Other (write in)

>>2193665
>>Head up to your room and do... (paperwork, open mail, sleep)

Paperwork

>>2193665
>>Head up to your room and do... (paperwork, open mail, sleep)
Gotta write those reports. We should probably take a look at our mail too.

>>2193665
>Get that paperwork done before you forget anything

File: Weiss coffee.png (688 KB, 622x1000)

688 KB PNG

Walking out of the office, you made your way down the hall until you heard the door shut, a few paces into your journey. As soon as the door stopped, you slowed your pace to a stop,giving your comrades some time to come to a stop without slamming into each other. And once you were sure that they had came to a stop, you did the same and turned to face them. Your reminder on what to include forming on your lips. And it died on your lips as you noticed that Weiss was standing there with the entire damn coffee pot from the office.

"Weiss. Put that back." You ordered, pointing at the coffee pot in her hand.

Weiss simply stared back at you for a couple of seconds, before giving you a cute smile, and sipping straight from the pot. She took a long and hardy swig from the pot, before finally coming up for air.

"I don't thing anybody will want it now." She stated sweetly, her voice thick with happiness.

"No shit. We don't want a taste of whatever it is that you've been shoving down your throat." Vampire scolded her pilot, before taking a sip of her coffee. Said coffee being safe within a mug.

"And you'd know all about that, wouldn't you?" Weiss asked sweetly, not matching her RIO's tone as she began her verbal duel.

You turned and left the Germans to their banter with a disappointed sigh. You'd have better luck trying to kill the Soviets with words rather than breaking them out of their coffee induced insult match. They'd grow bored eventually though, so at least you wouldn't have to worry about them for long. Zeus followed you up as you climbed the stairs to the 2nd floor, the both of you only stopping for a second to nod to Kenji and Tatsuko as they both walked past on their way out. Soon after you opened the door and entered your room, finding it in almost the same way you had left it. The only discrepancy being that someone had pouted some letters and some parcels over your beds. You didn't bother to stop to count them as you made your way over to the desk at the end of your bed. The pens and paper were already set out on the table, with a small pile of paperwork on the left side of the desk. You ignored this pile for now, and began to write up your AAR in full. Starting at when you were given the directions from Siren, you explained the event in full. Following the event as you best recollected it, you also wrote up a few notes on how the Soviets fought, the rough strengths and weaknesses of their aircraft, and things for the spooks to look out for.

All in all, it took you around an hour or so to finish up the report. The full 2 page report taking you neatly to lunchtime.

>You might as well go through the last few pieces of paperwork while you're here...
>The letters and parcels are interesting enough...
>Screw it, it's time to sleep. You've earned it now...
>Head down to the Head over to the hospital, Svetlana will want to see you.
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!
>Other (write in)

While we wait for more votes I'm gonna call tonight's run here, we'll restart the thread tomorrow at around the normal time. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to ask them and I'll answer them as soon as I am able.

>>2193803
>>Head down to the Head over to the hospital, Svetlana will want to see you.
But take our mail with us. And grab some food on the way, for us and Svetlana.

>>2193803
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!

>>2193803
>The letters and parcels are interesting enough...

>>2193803
>>You might as well go through the last few pieces of paperwork while you're here...
>>The letters and parcels are interesting enough...

Sighing as you put your pen down after adding a few more lines and some corrections, you read through the report one last time to make sure that everything was proper and correct. After a few minuites of checking everything, you nodded to yourself and turned to face your RIO.

"Hey Zeus, have you finished your report?"

"Yeah, just checking through it now." Zeus replied as he tossed his pen into the mug that he was using to store his various pens and pencils.

"Could you take my report down to Dredd once you're done?"

"Sure, just give me a bit to finish going through my report. Put in on my desk." Zeus agreed as he read through his report, you silently got up and leant over to drop your report onto his desk. Zeus stopped for a second to look at your report, and picked it up to compare with his own. "Double-sided?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?" You asked as you walked over your bed, making to collect the assorted letters and few packages.

"Because it seems a bit thin. It doesn't matter though." Zeus shrugged as he put the report down on the desk and went back to reading his own as you gathered the assorted letters and parcels.

Going though the assorted pile, you came up to a total of 7 letters and 2 packages. Those broke down into 1 letter from grumman, 1 letter and a package from home, a letter and package from Lauren, and 4 other assorted letters from people that you didn't really know.

>Read the letter from your family
>Read the letter from Lauren
>Read the letter from Grumman
>Read through the other assorted letters
>Other (write in)

>>2195164
>Read the letter from Lauren
PANIC

>>2195164
>>Read the letter from Lauren

>>2195164
>Read the letter from Lauren

File: Lauren is also a decent m(...).jpg (87 KB, 1500x866)

87 KB JPG

Stopping for a second, you stared down at the letter from your estranged lover. The last time you had received a letter and package from her had been smothered with her perfume, so this time you instead picked up the letter and made for the window. However, your plans were thwarted when the window refused to open. The latch remaining firmly in place in spite of how far you turned the handle.

"Oh yeah, the window's busted. You'll have to do that outside." Zeus informed you, having guessed at what you were doing. You simply grunted back at him in return and left the room, only to return a few minutes later with the open letter and the picture that was contained within. You dropped down into your seat and opened the letter bare, starting to read through it.

The letter was obviously old. That fact was laid bare to you in the first line. "By the time you get this letter, I will have joined the US Navy." And from there, it went over her feelings of horror and terror when the news came on that war had been declared. Her fears of you putting yourself into mortal danger almost every day, and with no way for her to help you. This fear had only been escalated when she saw the news footage of you rescuing that Soviet pilot, Svetlana. Following that, and the loss of her position in the echo 'cat upgrade program, she came to the decision to join the navy in order to help you. You frowned at this, especially at the part when she said that Zeus was inferior to her. From there she explained that she had a falling out with her Father and Nicoleta, the head maid and her surrogate mother figure. Neither of them wanted her to join up, and eventually it lead to her storming out. She knew that it would take her a few months to go through training, and that was with basic training being accelerated in order to get people into combat quicker. However, she believed that she was making the best decision.

She only hoped that you would not hate her for it.

The picture that was included in the photograph was a shot of her at the range with her grandfather's old Kar 98k rifle. A German sniper rifle from the second world war, which he had apparently taken as a trophy from an SS sniper who he killed in close combat. She was stood in a shirt and jeans, with a few random others in the background. The package she had sent was a simple affair too, but inside were a few things that you would enjoy. A bottle of whisky from a local brewery in Iowa, some well keeping but fancy biscuits that were obviously designed to be packaged up and sent on month-long trips across seas to serving military men, without loosing their flavor. And a high quality cleaning kit for a pistol, specifically for an M1911.

Setting aside the assorted bounty from your first letter, and the assorted feelings that had been generated from reading through it. You looked over at the remaining pile of letters.

>CONT

>>2195556

>Read the letter from your family
>Read the letter from Grumman
>Read through the other assorted letters
>You might as well go through the last few pieces of paperwork while you're here...
>Screw it, it's time to sleep. You've earned it now...
>Head down to the hospital, Svetlana will want to see you.
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!
>Other (write in)

>>2195559
>>Read the letter from your family

>>2195559
>Read the letter from your family

>a nice M1911 cleaning kit
It's almost enough to make me forget the potential terror approaching us at mach speeds.

>>2195559
>>Read the letter from your family
Lets get the mail out of the way

File: A-4 with target drones.png (1016 KB, 1024x792)

1016 KB PNG

You moved swiftly on to opening the parcel from home, the round nature of the package telling you of what it contained. You swiftly ripped off the packing paper, and opened the tin to find your bounty. Inside lay something that you prised very much, some of your mom's homemade cookies. You had no idea how she was able to get them to keep so well, and for them to keep their great taste, but you loved them either way. You quickly opened the letter from home and began to read it as you tucked into one of the delicious cookies.

The letter had been penned by your father, that was obvious at how the letter constantly mentioned how the A-4 was going. And unsurprisingly, it wasn't going well. All of the spare parts that had been earmarked for sale to him had been witheld by the Navy in order to help maintain the current reactivated A-4 fleet. However as more parts were required for the fleet of aircraft being puled out of AMARG boneyard, the need for new parts rose too. And there was only so far that the navy could get by pulling old aircraft apart for spares. Apparently the Navy was contracting McDonnell Douglas to make new parts and to refurbish airframes, as such your father was looking to buy new parts from them, straight off the line. The restoration crew that he was working with to get his jet back up and running was apparently rather happy to find out that you had made ace, along with most people in your home town. According to him, a local newspaper had dedicated an entire page to the goings-on in Japan, and it wasn't uncommon for your unit's antics to take up more than half of the page.

Unfortunatley, the requirements of the war hand not spared your parents from their duties. Your mother had rejoined military intelligence as an annalist, and was apparently helping to figure out Soviet submarine patrol and attack routes in the Atlantic. Your father on the other hand was occasionally taking time to help advise new A-4 pilots on how to fly strike missions in contested aerospace. He was too old to fly, but his notes and advice was still more than helpful in such trying times. Aside from that, the only real issue they had since the war was the news that your neighbour's son had been killed during the disastrous siege of West Berlin. The navy hadn't tried to buy back his A-4, even though he was trying to actively refurbish it for flight. This was apparently good news for your father, as due to most military units being thrown into the fray, there were many openings for military jets at various airshows around the country. So he could start making money fairly soon assuming that he got his jet rebuilt soon.

>CONT

>>2195794

When the subject of your unit came up, the letter started to take a bit more of a dour turn. Apparently your mother didn't like that you had risked your life to save Svetlana, and didn't believe the story in the papers about Svetlana's jet being rigged with explosives. Your father on the other hand felt that while it was indeed a brave move, it was incredibly risky and could very well have killed her had your RIO messed up. Messing around with explosives was a risky idea, even with one of the most advanced jets in US service to aid you. Additionally, he didn't approve of having so many foreign pilots flying around in the USN's most advanced fighter jet. Not that he doubted their loyalty, or at least he claimed that he didn't doubt their loyalty. Instead, he felt that showing off the most advanced tech you had to even your closest allies wasn't a good idea as it presented more options for the Soviets to snoop in on. Aside from that, he was glad that your unit was flying so well.

He finished the letter by saying that both him and your mother missed you, and that they both wished you the best luck possible for the war ahead.

>Read the letter from Grumman
>Read through the other assorted letters
>You might as well go through the last few pieces of paperwork while you're here...
>Screw it, it's time to sleep. You've earned it now...
>Head down to the hospital, Svetlana will want to see you.
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!
>Other (write in)

>>2195799
>Read the letter from Grumman

>>2195799
>Read the letter from Grumman

So many choices

Thunderhead pls

>>2195799
>>Read the letter from Grumman
>Start in on the cookies immediately, because they WILL eat themselves if you hesitate.

Picking out another cookie as Zeus got up to leave behind you, you put the letter from home atop the letter from your distant ex and retrieved the one of more formal nature. The letter from Grumman sure to be one typed out on some distant company typewriter rather than by the hand of someone who cared.

Inside the envelope, you actually found 2 letters folded with one within the other. The first letter being straight from the head of Grumman itself, and the second being from Mrs Baker -the head of the F-14 ENCAP program.

The letter from the head of the company was actually hand written, which was surprising all things considered. You would have assumed that he would use a typewriter when writing to people outside of the company, but your answer was soon provided when you read through the frankly informal nature of the letter. The man on the other end of the letter thanked you for your service first and foremost, before then going over just how much you had helped the company that he described as his child. Your combat performance with the upgraded Tomcat was apparently the deciding factor for the Navy choosing the F-14E to replace the A-6 in low-level strike. While he didn't like the fact that numbers of A-6s in the fleet were going to be reduced as a result, he felt confident that the Intruder-F was going to have the same success as the Echo 'cat program. He assured you that you were to be apprised and earmarked for any future upgrades to the Tomcat that took it beyond what it was, a subtle mention to China Lake telling you more about your future toys than what his words did. And with a final thanks and bidding good fortune with your hunting he signed off his letter with a flourishing signature.

You put this letter aside, smiling a bit to yourself at the recognition of your actions. And after quickly fishing around for the bottle of water that you stashed in the drawers of your desk, you began to read through the 2nd letter.

This letter from Mrs Baker was marked for your eyes only, and was typed out in a very formal matter. Along with a notice to burn the letter once you had finished reading it. The only thanks you got for your help with the project was a little line in the first paragraph, but from then on it was little more than a technical brief. The brief was a list and technical update on everything that was planned for the next "block upgrade" for the echo 'cat. It was divided up into 4 sections, weapons, electronics, propulsion and airframe.

>CONT

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>>2196225

Under the weapons section, you were to receive numerous new and old weapons. That included the latest AMRAAM version, with improved range over the A model. The new AIM-152 and AIM-155, both of which having stemmed from a project to replace the Phoenix. Additionally, the Agile was going to be integrated into your twin adaptors, giving you the ability to carry 4 of the deadly little things. Your ground attack suite was upgraded with the addition of the AGM-124 WASP missile pod, the AGM-130 heavyweight bomb, the BLU-109 bunker buster and the AGM-142 Have Nap standoff missile. Electronics had been upgraded significantly with upgrades across the board for your radar, targeting pods and EW systems. Your rear-facing radar and spin recovery parachute had been moved to the tops of your engine nacelles to declutter the tail. All allowing for more room for your ECM systems. Your engines were having new fan blades installed to reduce the chance of stress fractures, and the engine bay armour was being swapped out for a new light-weight material. The airframe was also slated for upgrades, most significant of which being the replacement of your current wing-glove hardpoints with new ones derived from the F-14 IMI project. This was actually fairly significant as the upgraded IMI-style hardpoints were capable of carrying increased loads, and were plummed for fuel tanks on stores 1B and 8B. Meanwhile, 1A and 8A would be able to mount some limited BVR missiles with the correct adaptor.

"Hey, you want to go get some food?" Zeus asked as he walked back in." It's been around an hour plus."

>Read through the other assorted letters
>You might as well go through the last few pieces of paperwork while you're here...
>Screw it, it's time to sleep. You've earned it now...
>Head down to the hospital, Svetlana will want to see you.
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!
>Other (write in)

>>2196227
>>Read through the other assorted letters

While we wait for more votes I'm gonna call tonight's run here, we'll restart the thread tomorrow at around the normal time. If you have any questions in the meantime, feel free to ask them and I'll answer them as soon as I am able.

>>2196227
>Burn the letter as instructed
>Head to the mess hall, or the PX, or wherever there's food. You're starving!

>googling what the fuck any of this is
Neat.

Need another tiebreaker...

>>2196251
Supporting.

>>2196251
thirding

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"Sure. Mess hall or PX?" You asked as you folded the restricted letter in your hands. Zeus seemed to notice this, but said nothing.

"Mess hall. We might run into some people." Zeus decided for you as you shoved the note into your pocket. "We'll make a stop off at the smoking pit so you can burn that."

"Good, we'll have to talk about it's contents later. Just in the off chance that one of us is lacking a bit of info." You nodded as you stood up and followed Zeus out of the door. The rest of the building was quiet, aside from the sound of keys being pressed inside the squadron office as Dredd used the unit computer. Or one of the typewriters, you couldn't really tell. You soon made your way out of the dorms, and began to make your way out to the smoking pit. Thankfully, the base had multiple smoking pits, designated smoking areas so that people could get their fix without dropping cigarette butts on the flight line.

And unsuprisingly, there was a smoking pit almost right next to mess hall. And while it took you and Zeus a few minutes to get there, you still found a few assorted pilots and enlisted soldiers of various roles were standing around the pit where the spent butts were thrown.

"Hey, could I borrow a lighter from any of you?" You asked the group as you walked over, a couple of them glanced over a you, and one of them seemed to recognise you and reach into his pocket.

"Sure thing chief." The man said as he offered you his lighter, a cheap plastic one that was always hard to light.

"Thanks." You nodded at the man as you pulled the folded letter from your pocket, and after a couple of attempts you finally got the lighter to catch. The illusive flame catching the letter well after a few seconds, as soon as you were sure the flame wouldn't go out, you tossed it into the pit.

"Bad letter sir?" The man asked as you handed the lighter back to him.

"Something like that..." You sidestepped the question as you watched the letter burn. The secrets within going up in smoke, ensuring that the secrets within would not be read again.

You watched the letter for a few seconds, close to a minute more to ensure that the letter burned completely and irrecoverably, before thanking the man again for his help and taking your leave inside.

The mess hall was still reasonably packed, in spite of the time of day. It was still fairly late in the day, with most of the people having come and gone. And even though the cleaners were starting to go around cleaning up tables, and the chefs were starting with the preparations for the evening meals, there was still some leftovers for those late in, like you. You didn't have to wait in line long, and in that short amount of time, you picked out where you would sit.

>Sit alone with Zeus, you need to discuss the contents of the letter.
>Sit with the French girls, you wonder what they've been up too.
>Take a seat with the other assorted pilots, hear what the current scuttlebutt is.
>Other (write in)

>>2197480
>Sit with the French girls, you wonder what they've been up too.
Time to make Scorpion jealous.

>>2197480
>Sit with the French girls, you wonder what they've been up too.

>>2197480
>Sit with the French girls, you wonder what they've been up too.

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You paused for a few seconds for Zeus to finish getting his food, before then making your way towards the table that Durendal and Bats were both sat at. The French aviators sat on the same side of the table at one of the ends, a group of enlisted engineers sat at the other. Neither group really acknowledging each other aside from a quick glance from one of the engineers. For their part the French girls were busy engrossed in a conversation of their own, in French of course.

"Afternoon." You greeted them as you sat down opposite to them. Both of your wingmates immediately stopped the conversation and looked over at you.

"Ah, Razor! How was your patrol?" Durendal asked as you sat down, a tired sigh being your first response to her question.

"Not good. We got into around three different fights, we had to make a stop off at the Shinano to rearm and refuel after taking some prisoners in the second fight." You explained as you looked down a just what the chef had served you. And it was a leftovers meal indeed, plain rice and noodles with some chicken in sauce and some dark meat. Thankfully, a doughnut rounded it off.

"So would you say that the Soviets were..." The French RIO began, a deviant smile spreading across her face. "...in a bind?"

"Boo... bad joke." Zeus replied simply as he sat down next to you.

>Tell Durendal more about your patrol, she did ask after all.
>Ask the girls about how their families are doing.
>Ask the girls something else (write in)
>Idly chat and eat.
>Other (write in)

>>2197773
>Ask the girls about how their families are doing.

>>2197773
>>Ask the girls something else (write in)
ask 'em about how they spent the day

Need a tiebreaker...

>>2197919
Supporting.

>>2198065
Guess I'll switch.

>>2197919
this

"What about you two? Been in any dogfights?" You asked as you poked around your meat, pushing it into the sauce before taking a tentative mouthful of the mystery meat and sauce. The peppered taste of the meat, coupled with the sweet and sour sauce was fairly good, certainly more edible than usual.

"Not really, We were assigned to fly a short patrol over Shikoku to fill in for some Air Force Eagles that were grounded for AMRAAM integration. We had a bit of a scare when a call came out for reinforcements to intercept an incoming bomber formation, but by the time we got clearance to do anything, the fight was over." Durendal told you as she poked some chicken around her plate. Apparently she wasn't a fan of the sauce that it was soaked in.

"We would have passed you on kills if we had been allowed to head in. Reports said that they were facing old fighters, Fishbeds and worse." Bats jutted in, speaking around her food. Unlike her pilot, she had no reservations about her food.

"Why were you delayed? Usually AWACs is on the ball with that sort of stuff." Zeus asked in your place as you stuffed your face. Thankfully, the chef had been kind enough to give you a large serving.

"That's the issue, we were being directed by ground controllers. They stalled us from going due to some attack on a Soviet fleet, there was nobody to fill the gap that we left, so if the Soviets took that time to pay a visit then everybody on the ground would be pretty screwed." Durendal explained, her expression darkening

"Ah, that makes sense. Who were you flying with?" You asked after washing down your food with 3 large gulps of coke. Actual coke, if slightly watered down. Not the knock-off Japanese stuff that they usually had in it's place.

"Slider, same as always." Durendal replied out of instinct, before looking up at you. "Was she not meant to fly?"

"No, she's cleared for flight, I just thought that you would be flying with either Kay or Kenji." You gave the reason for your question, before then going back to your food.

"Oh no, they are not cleared for flight until eighteen hundred hours. They're getting the last of the required upgrades for their jets." Durendal explained, actually giving you the reason why Kay and Kenji needed you to fill in for them.

"Speaking of which, does anybody know what the next upgrades for the 'cats come in?" Bats asked, her meal almost finished aside from her doughnut.

>Tell her now, you might as well let her know.
>Tell her later, the mess hall isn't the best place to talk about this.
>Don't tell her, she probably has a letter waiting for her at the dorms.
>Other (write in)

>>2198364
>Tell her later, the mess hall isn't the best place to talk about this.

>>2198364
>Don't tell her, she probably has a letter waiting for her at the dorms.

Need another tiebreaker...

>>2198364
>>Tell her later, the mess hall isn't the best place to talk about this.

"I'm not too sure, pretty sure we have a briefing packet for it back in the dorms though." You shrugged, before taking another swipe at your food.

"Opsec?" Bats asked, prompting you to nod with your mouth full of beef. "Figured as much."

"Do you know if the mail has arrived yet?" Durendal asked, her voice filled with intrigue at the prospect of word from home.

"Yeah, it came in while we were out." Zeus responded for you, having almost polished off his food.

"Bon, it will be good to hear from home." Durendal smiled warmly at the news, a smile so fully of happiness that the warmed the hearts of those who saw it.

So it was such a shame that the mood was shattered by the sound of the base's sirens screaming into left. As it turned out, Ivan didn't want you to have any time to rest.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm gonna call the thread here folks. Unfortunately, we aren't going to be able to have a run this coming weekend, hence why this thread has lasted for so long. We'll aim for a thread the weekend after but that is also up in the air. Keep an eye on my twitter for updates as they come.

Anyways, if you you have any questions then do feel free to ask them while the thread is still up. If I don't manage to answer you question before the thread falls off the board then I'll answer it either on my twitter account or next week.

>>2198867
What timing.

See you next time, Thunderhead!