Post by legios on Nov 28, 2007 22:19:46 GMT
“Red Flag”
by Karl Thurgood
Location: Somewhere over the Continental United States of America
The evening sun was high on Thundercracker's port wing-tip. He turned to starboard one more time, back into his holding pattern. 'I'll give it one more circuit. Then he's on his own,' he thought. He had half-expected Skywarp would be late. It was supposed to be a simple target survey mission, but somehow Thundercracker hadn't been surprised when Skywarp hadn't managed to get to their rendezvous point in time. He completed his turn and settled back into the next leg of his figure-of-eight. Thundercracker's wings had barely levelled out when, out of nowhere, an object appeared directly in his flightpath. He pulled up sharply, feeling his wings bite into the air and the stresses of the climb on his outer skin. Even with Cybertronian technology beneath his surface appearance this airframe had limits to its performance, it could stall, and Thundercracker's sudden evasive action pushed him very close to those limits. Bleeding off speed in the climb Thundercracker rolled out and into level flight once more. He transmitted over a short-range com-channel,
“Skywarp, you ever think to look where you're teleporting?”
“Heh Heh,” Skywarp responded, “just keeping your wits sharp T'cracker.”
“Where have you been? Megatron gave us a very clear timeframe for this mission. He isn't going to be happy that we're overdue,” Thundercracker paused as he noticed a series of dents and abrasions marring the purple finish of Skywarp's vertical stabilisers, “or if you've managed to stir up the humans. This was supposed to be a quiet recon mission.”
“What makes you think I stirred anything up?”
“You want to tell me where you got the damage to your tail fins then?”
“Lighten up, no-one said we couldn't have some fun while we were looking around. You're going to love this.....”
*****
Location: Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, United States of America
The room was extremely small. Small enough that when the door opened it only narrowly avoided hitting the edge of the table which, along with two uncomfortable chairs, made up the only furnishing in the room. The foot of the person who had opened the door hooked around it's bottom corner, averting the collision. He stepped into the room, putting the two styrofoam cups of coffee he was carrying down on the table before closing the door. He pushed one of the cups across the table as he sat down in the empty chair.
“Coffee, Flight Lieutenant Johnson? It's only vending machine coffee. But I'll say one thing for it, it's still better than what I had on the flight down here. Word of advice, if you fly TWA then don't drink the coffee.” Johnson took the coffee. The other man was quite correct. It was only vending machine coffee, flavourless and overly bitter, but at this time of night anything warm and caffinated was welcome. The other man sipped at his coffee, he seemed to be waiting for something.
“Sir, can I ask...”
“I'm not from the Foreign Office or anything it that's what you are wondering about. Just think of me as....,” the other waved his hand vaguely in the air, “the man from the Ministry.”
“I was actually wondering if you could tell me what this is about sir?” Johnson put his coffee down, “I've already had one debriefing.”
“Yes indeed, and I read it on the way over here. This isn't really a proper debriefing as such. Just think of this as a little conversation. Just you, me and the tape recorder over there.” There was a momentary silence,
“Where would you like me to start?”
“May as well start at the beginning don't you think Flight Lieutenant?”
*****
Skywarp settled into position off Thundercracker's port wing, putting them in line-abreast formation,
“So there I was flying over one of the fleshling's little cities..”
“Why do I get the feeling that this isn't going to have much to do with the job we were supposed to be doing?”
“Well actually,” Skywarp harrumphed, “I was on my way to check out my second target area at the time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Anyway, I started noticing that there were quite a lot of human fighter craft flying about .At first I thought that maybe they had spotted me and were coming out to try and fight me. They never learn right?” Skywarp chuckled, “but then I realised that it looked almost like they were fighting each other, so I figured I would stick around and watch. Might get a good laugh out of them lobbing their primitive weapons at each other.”
“So you figured you'd just hang around and watch the show. Because Megatron'll be happier with that than you actually going on to eyeball the targets you were supposed to.”
“You going to let me finish the story?”
“Sure, whatever, go on.”
“So anyway, after a while I figure out that while they are going through all the moves of throwing missiles at each other and stuff there aren't actually any missiles in the air or anything. I figure out that it's some sort of training exercise, only without any actual ammunition being used.”
“Figures. I mean they don't seem to actually get much opportunity to learn from real war – at least not on this part of their planet.”
“Yeah, but I figured maybe it might be fun to show them what a real warrior's reflexes were like. So, what I did.....”
*****
“We'd deployed four Jaguar Mark Ones here as part of the 'Red Flag' exercises,” Johnson explained, “you know what 'Red Flag' is I take it?”
“Air force exercise, mock air war between Blue and Red forces. Closest thing to real warfare available, excellent opportunity to train alongside US and other allied forces, etcetera, etcetera,” the other man replied.
“That's right sir, the scenario for this year is that the Red forces have launched an invasion of the nation of Bluedonia, and a multinational task force has been sent to halt the invasion and turn them back.”
“So you were, what, flying Combat Air Patrols?”
“No sir, we were scheduled for the live bombing range today. Simulating an attack on a Red army logistics base behind their lines. We were supposed to execute a low level approach and attack armed with a mix of 1,000lb bombs and rockets.”
“So you were flying on your own?”
“Not initially sir, I took off leading a two ship formation with Flying Officer Jacobs flying the number two position. He was with me up until we started the penultimate leg of our run in to the target.”
The other consulted a small notebook,
“That'd be Flying Officer Darren Jacobs?” Johnson nodded. “You don't have to call me sir by the way Flight Lieutenant. As I said, I'm just the Man from the Ministry. Name's Mark.”
“Thank you sir, er, Mark,” Johnson replied, “as I was saying, Jacobs was with me up until we were setting up for our run in on the target. The range controllers warmed up a simulated Surface to Air Missile site at that stage and the exercise controller declared that Darren had been 'killed', so he turned back to base and I carried on with the attack by myself.”
“How did that go?”
“I made my initial attack run and dropped my 1,000lb bombs on my primary target in my first run. I turned as planned on exit, coming back for a second pass from roughly 175 degrees from my initial entry vector. I unloaded the rocket pods on my secondary targets and executed my second turn to exit the target area.”
“So everything was going pretty smoothly up to then?”
“Pretty much, I exited the target area at low level and, as per the mission brief, climbed back to one thousand feet when I was out of the target area. I was clear of the briefed threat area in terms of simulated ground fire, and under exercise rules there wasn't supposed to be any interception by Red air.”
“For safety reasons I take it?”
“Yes si...Mark, we were carrying live ammunition so range protocol is set up to ensure safe operations.”
“So you weren't expecting to be intercepted by anything once you were passed the simulated air defence belt?”
“I didn't relax my vigilance if that is what you mean sir.”
“There's no accusations being made Flight Lieutenant. Just trying to get a clear picture of the situation.
“Sorry,” Johnson paused for a moment, “no, I wasn't expecting anything so it came as a bit of a surprise when my Radar Warning Receiver started sounding the alarm that I was being scanned by a hostile airborne search radar.”
*****
“... I had a look around to see if I could see a suitable victim. There was a big one flying around, with this big sort of rotating hub-cap shape on its back. But in honesty I didn't figure that would've been much fun. Much too easy. So I kept looking to see if I could spot another one out on their own.”
“Not easy,” Thundercracker observed, “maybe it's me but the humans always seem come in swarms.”
“Yeah, they were all in pairs and stuff, except then I noticed one of them sneaking about on his own. He was flying quite close to the ground, as if he didn't want anyone to notice him but he seemed to be the only one of the humans who wasn't flying around as part of a pair or a mob. So I figured he would do. I started to lose altitude and head down towards him, trying to come up behind him and to his left.”
“So did he spot you?”
“Don't think so. Between the primitive radar that the human aircraft have and their pathetic squishy little optics I'm amazed he could see well enough to avoid the ground, let alone notice me. He was probably thinking the same thing – about the ground anyway – because he started climbing. Got a better look at him as he was coming up. He was really funny looking, much squarer than the other human aircraft I've seen with a nose that looked like someone had sharpened it with an Energo-sword. Anyway, so I stooged in behind him, still trying to work out the best way to scare him enough to make him strip his bearings. Then I had an idea, so I throttled back to match his speed so that I could stay behind him and I downtuned my radar a bit.”
“Why would you want to do that, wouldn't that make your radar less effective?” Thundercracker asked
“Yeah, but by down-tuning it and playing about with the frequency I could make it sound a lot like one of their radars. So, once I thought I'd got as good a match as I was going to get I cut loose giving him a nice loud yell with the radar. Heh heh. It was great.”
“Uh huh.”
“You're not getting bored already are ya? This is the good bit coming up.”
“No, you're alright,” Thundercracker replied, “I mean, you're going to tell me anyway right?”
“Sure. This is too good a story not to tell,” Skywarp laughed, “so, there I was shouting out with the radar as loud as I could and waiting to see how he reacted. I figured it'd take a while for his slow little human brain to work out what was going on. He got the picture a lot quicker than I thought he would. He must have been scared enough to strip a gear too, 'cause he pitched forward and started running for the ground as fast as his primitive little human engines could manage. I figured he was planning on hiding behind a hill or landing down there or something in the hope that I would go away and leave him alone. I followed him down of course, I was only getting started with having fun with him.”
*****
“My RWR was suggesting that whoever had locked me up was somewhere astern of me and off to port. I immediately dived for the deck in the hope of making it harder for them to track me, starting a slight turn to port in the hope of acquiring the other aircraft visually.”
“It wasn't showing up on your own radar?” Mark tapped his pen against the top of his pad.
“Jaguar doesn't have an air intercept radar, “Johnson explained, “it's not built as a superiority aircraft. She's strictly a bomb truck.”
“Good reason not to have him on radar then, not having any.”
“Yes, so I was looking around in the turn to try and get a better picture on where he was,” Johnson continued, “I was still losing height when the controller on-board the AWACS informed me that they didn't have a track on any other aircraft in my vicinity. I asked him to confirm because my RWR was still indicating I was being tracked on a search radar. At about the same moment I visually acquired what I believed to be the hostile. It was trailing me, clearly trying to stay in my aft port quarter.”
“How far back was it?”
“I'd say about a mile, maybe two.”
“Would you call that unusual.”
“Not particularly. This years Red Flag was being run under visual engagement rules. No-one was allowed to call the start of an engagement unless they were close enough to verify their target visually. So it made sense for them to be closing to visual engagement range if it was a variation to the briefed exercise plan.”
“Ok, go on.”
“I was only able to take a quick glance at the other aircraft because my altitude was decreasing rapidly and most of my attention was on flying my aircraft but I initially figured it to be an F-15, which was odd because as far as I was aware the only F-15s at Red Flag were with Blue Force. Red Air was mostly Tigersharks and F-16s.”
“So it struck you as odd? Could it be you might have misidentified the aircraft?”
“It did strike me as odd, but at that point in time the specific aircraft type wasn't terribly important. Besides, later on there was no way I could have mistaken it because..”
“We'll get to that in due course, let's take this through in order,” Mark suggested, “you were diving in a slight turn to port?”
“Yes. I pulled the nose up and levelled out of the turn at about three hundred feet. I was hoping that being down in the weeds like that would make it harder for him to keep a radar lock on me. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped. My RWR picked up his radar changing from search mode to engagement mode as if he was locking on a missile. I opened the throttle to try to increase the separation. At the same time the AWACS controller came back on. He told me that they had confirmed they were tracking no other Red or Blue force aircraft in my vicinity.”
“So, they couldn't see the other aircraft at all?”
“That was what they said. At the time I didn't give it much thought.”
“High speed, low level, I can see how your attention might have been elsewhere.”
“It could have been an unannounced change to the exercise scenario, they do that every now and then. I asked the AWACS controller if he could attempt to confirm my contact again and whether there was any Blue air available to cover me.”
“I believe what you actually said was more along the lines that,” Mark paged back in his notebook, “he should consider seeing an optician and that a little help would be appreciated. Although not in quite those words.”
“That... may be the case sir,” Johnson shifted in his seat.
“It's Mark remember, and I think I can understand where you were coming from,” he grimaced as he took a swig from his coffee cup, “to summarise, you had concluded that the other aircraft was a Red Air fighter and you were expecting a simulated missile launch from it at any moment?”
“That is pretty much it, yes. But I didn't get the launch call.”
“Would I be right in saying that things started to diverge from the exercise rules a lot at about this time?”
“That would be a fair assessment.”
*****
With a snickering laugh Skywarp carried on with his story,
“so what I did was, firstly, up-shifted my radar again and kicked in a little bit more speed. Not too much, I mean he wasn't going that fast. All the human aircraft are really slow and clunky anyway.”
“Yeah, but with the way they swarm even slow and clunky enemies can be a bit of a pain,” Thundercracker observed.
“True, but he was all on his own so I could play a bit,” Skywarp replied, “I opened up the throttle for a short dash to catch him, dropping down so I was at pretty much the same height off the ground. I had been thinking about passing him and doing a couple of orbits around him, ya'know show him how pathetic he really was. But it occurred to me that there was a better way to really grind his gears.”
“I think I know where this is going.”
“Yeah? Well, you know what they say. The old ones are the best ones,” Skywarp started chuckling hollowly and coldly as he thought back to what he had done. It took almost a half-minute or so before he had the laughter under control and was able to carry on telling his story, “so I figured rather than just blind him with science I would go with the old-fashioned methods. A little game of breakaway is always good for livening up the day. So I caught up with him and slowed down till we were doing pretty much the same airspeed but I was a bit higher than he was.”
“I take it he got into the spirit of things?”
“He was playing along nicely, zig-zagging back and forth like a Turbo-fox caught in a canyon. Mind you, there were only so many places he could go, 'cause he had to try and keep an optic out so as not to run into the ground. So with my speed matched to him I started to unspool my altitude real fast. Dropped right down at him, staying above him all the way.”
“Uh huh?”
“He starts jumping around like a rust-louse on a microwave grid, darting back and forth to try and get rid of me. Course there is no way he's going to shake me. So I drop right down, forcing him to lose even more altitude. He started to run out of room real quick and you could just taste the panic.”
“Which is when either his friends showed up or he took a shot at you, right?”
“Not even close,” Skywarp's grin would have been broad if he wasn't in his alt-mode, “it had all been much to easy so far , so I figured I'd make things interesting. I rolled upside down and lost even more altitude. He was really running out of places to go now and I wanted to give him a real good scare. So I got close enough to give him a good look into the cockpit...”
“So he could see for certain that there was no-one home.”
“Ex-actly!”
