Chapter Two
Into The Storm
“Hey Allen, you see what I see?”
Allen looked at the radar, and noticed a very large disturbance directly in their flight path.
“What do you suppose it is?” Charles asked.
“Don’t know, looks like some sort of storm.”
“Should we turn back?” he asked.
“You think the F-35E, the most technologically advanced fighter in the world, can’t handle some weather?”
a long silence sank in as the “Storm” drew near.
“Major, just look at it, that isn’t a normal storm. My Doppler radar is totally blank, but the AESA is showing a massive several mile wide object. Like some sort of circle.”
Allen had been staring into the blue and violet swirling clouds. The lightning was what made him curious. Not only was it seemingly coming from a circular point, it was black. He also noticed the clouds seemed to be circulating into each other, creating strange patterns.
“Have you ever seen black lightning before Allen?! This isn’t good man!”
Allen’s controls began to respond sluggishly. He looked to his wing man, fuel gauge, and back at the strange clouds.
“Were going in. We don’t have a choice. Look at your fuel.”
Charles glanced at his gauge, and to his radar.
"There is a base in Florida where we can land until this passes. LOOK at it, that isn’t normal! Permission to break formation.”
He wasn’t kidding this time, and he was going to break even if Allen said no.
“Permission granted. I’ll see you at Ramstein tomorrow.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing Allen.”
With that, he aileron rolled to the left, and pulled a very sharp horizontal Split-S. As Allen watched his wing man pull away, a violent bout of turbulence rocked him back and forth in the cockpit. He looked into the massive storm looming before him.
“Alright, remember your training.” He said to himself.
He lit the afterburner and felt the aircraft lurch forward. Gripping the stick, He slowly rolled the F-35 left and right, creating perfect wingtip vortices. He smiled and watched the glass display as the rear cameras picked up the atmospheric slices. He pulled up while sliding the throttle forward slightly. The wings covered themselves with paper thin walls of white air as he increased altitude, attempting to climb over the storm. Outside, the canopy, the sky began to darken. Even though the sun was unobstructed, everything around the clouds began to turn an unnatural dark. Once again, the black lightning cracked the sky, lighting up the cockpit with it's unnatural glow. Well, this should be interesting..
Warning, outside air oxygen level dropping, unable to sustain combustion. Lowering of altitude is advised.
Glancing at his altimeter, he saw through the static that he was indeed well over 65,000 feet, and would soon stall. He immediately rolled the F-35E on it's back, pulling down back into the enormous storm. He didn't have a choice really, his fuel was getting lower by the second and so was his distance from the Florida base Charles mentioned. A threat alarm from the AESA blared in his helmet, indicating the presence of multiple enemy fighters. However, the "storm" seemed to be messing with all the F-35E's functions, including the radar. Why his Doppler radar was completely blank was still a mystery. If the Doppler is blank, that means there is no abnormal weather away from clear skies. But WHY am I staring at a massive storm right in front of me?
Another violent bout of turbulence rocked the plane, making his arm fettle the stick. Since the Fly-By-Wire system was so accurate, every movement of the stick resulted in unsettling tips of the plane's balance. It was really making him sick. The lightning again flashed, but this time it was massive, almost solid looking as it literally cut one of the swirling clouds before him in half.
"Whoa shit!"
He slammed the stick to the right and back, throwing the F-35E into a hard right turn to avoid any more strikes. This move put him in the path of another bolt, and he reversed the motion. Several twists and turns later, he seemed to be out of the lightning core, but the turbulence only increased.
What's that...?
Allen eyed something, pulsating with light through the thick cloud cover. Curious, he angled his plane toward it. Before he could blink, the strange object increased in size tenfold, and blew all surrounding clouds away. Revealed, it looked like a spiraling whirlpool of liquid.
Allen was shocked. The HMD's scanners locked on the enormous disc, unable to identify it.
Alert, compressor stall, compressor stall...
Allen felt the engine begin to sputter, and completely die altogether. He pulled the stick to the right, left, back and forward, but he only kept moving toward the hole in the sky.
"C'MON, DAMMIT!" He yelled, trying to restart the engine.
Panic was settling in with extreme prejudice as the disc drew nearer, and nearer, until finally they were less than a thousand feet away. The engine sputtered to life, allowing Allen to maneuver. He pulled back on the stick as hard as he could, but due to his speed, the action only resulted in a crushing maneuver known as the Pugachev's Cobra. The F-35E stood on it's elevators, but did not gain or lose altitude. In all the times he had attempted this maneuver, this was the first (and most inconvenient) time he had accomplished it. His head would have been forced into his lap had it not been for the restraining belts keeping his back against the ejection seat. He looked through the floor of the F-35 at the large green square, the extreme G force was enough to make Allen begin to black out. The last things he saw were a bright flash of light, and a prism of color flash by the F-35E's nose.