//------------------------------// // Knife Fight in the Capitol // Story: Nearing the Edge // by Eagle //------------------------------// April 19th, 2006 1600 Hours Canterlot, Equestria In the brief interlude between attacks, the squadrons based near Canterlot for its defense were reassigned, with some other units coming to take the place of those that had been exhausted and crippled. However, there would be no reprieve for the city. Those stationed squadrons that needed to be were retreated, and as the first of the reinforcements came in another attack arrived, this time from the Changeling Air Force. Ulrich did not know what the situation was like or how widespread the damage was, only that the call had been put out to his squadron scramble. A short briefing during the flight said that there was an expansive dogfight occurring over the city and that their mission was to support the struggling locals and drive back the enemy. That left him and his Alpha Flight of F-22 Raptors from the 94th, along with another flight from a separate squadron, to clean up whatever mess was in motion. “Whiskey, have we got any idea on how many bandits are over the capitol?” his wingman asked. “No exact number but it sounds like a lot,” he replied. “Don’t worry Soda, we’ll take care of them no problem.” “Who said I was worried?” “Just some extra work for you, huh?” “Just some extra targets, lead.” “That’s the mentality I want to hear,” Ulrich complimented. “Alright we’re coming up on Canterlot. It’s a big furball so we have to get in close and get them off any friendly aircraft. Ready? Let’s get going!” The Raptors arrived over the city to see multiple aircraft engaged in a tight air battle over the urban sectors. Changeling Flankers chased groups of American and Equestrian fighters as the air filled with explosions from impacting missiles. The 94th would have to move in close, rescue their allies, and gain control of the situation and the sky over Canterlot. It would negate the stealth and surprise, the Raptor’s greatest strength, but it was the kind of fight Ulrich relished. Naturally he dived in first, followed by his wingman and several other Raptors. His first target was an Su-27, painted in blue and white and flying amongst the skyscrapers. Ulrich was conscious of his fire missing and striking civilians in the buildings, perhaps the reason for the Changeling’s flying tactic, but as the Flanker fired a cannon burst into one of the buildings this fear seemed to evaporate. The Raptor closed onto the tail of it’s prey, firing a burst from it’s own cannon and striking the Changeling. The enemy pilot, now keenly aware he was under attack, dared to fly closer to the buildings. Ulrich fired again and, as feared before, a few of the rounds hit the corner of a building as well as his target. The Flanker began to smoke and lurched up, turning to its side in a change of course. Ulrich saw another Raptor chasing another enemy as the Changelings banked hard. “Whiskey watch it! He’s going to hit that building!” Seeing it first as a danger to the skyscraper and the civilians inside before a threat to himself, Ulrich continued his pursuit and fired another long burst at the struggling Flanker, causing an explosion of it’s right wing ordinance. The eruption sent the remains off in the opposite direction away from the building while Ulrich saw bits of metal and drops of oil and fuel hit his nose. The accompanying F-22 did the same, daring to fire a missile and sending his target upwards as it crashed through a billboard and struck the radio tower at the top, spraying the pursuer’s belly with fragments in the process. “Shit is that plane alright?” he asked. “Warwolf One are you okay? What’s your status?” “I took some shrapnel. Engines are good but the stick feels a little sluggish,” the pilot answered. “I’m going to run a flight check. Guts, watch my rudder.” “Magic to Spad, Thunder squadron is engaged with multiple bandits near you. Move to assist them first.” “That’s us Soda! We’ll take the ones tailing the lead, Alpha Flight pick your targets from the ones going after Thunder Squadron, and make sure you kill it!” In the chaos of the dogfight it was difficult to pick out friend from foe at a mere glance, and without the IFF giving off friendly identification signals it would be nearly impossible. The Equestrian F-16s brawling with the Changeling fighters did their best to stay alive, though their numbers dwindled. The arrival of the Raptors finally gave them a respite as they attracted the enemy’s attention by plucking their craft from the sky in a swift manner. Ulrich picked out the Falcon being pursued by two Flankers that was designated as Thunder team’s leader and directed his focus to them. “Thunder One, Spad One. Break to your right and we can get those bandits off you.” “Copy!” The Falcon did as instructed as Ulrich turned his plane over, dropping behind the two Flankers as one of them peeled off. “Go after that one Soda, I’ll get the leader!” Refusing to be shaken off his target, the Changeling Flanker continued on in spite of the danger. This only made him easier to kill, allowing Ulrich to lock on with one of his heat-seeking missiles easily, firing and striking the jet. The aircraft lurched and careened before falling apart completely in a jagged mess of metal and fire. The wingman died in similar fashion, falling to Spad Two’s missile shortly after breaking away. “You good Thunder lead?” “Yeah, thanks. Continuing to engage,” Thunderlane acknowledged. “There’s no shortage of bad guys lining up to strike Canterlot,” Soda observed. “What’d you guys do back on your world to piss everyone off so much?” “Switch over to one of their channels and you can ask them yourself. They’re fond of arguing over the radio.” “Later Two,” Ulrich cut in. “Thunder, there any other units we need to help out?” “Compass squadron got scattered all to the North and East.” “Alright they’re next. Reorganize your team and keep the this airspace secure. Spad Squadron, shift focus to the Northeast and assist Compass Squadron,” he ordered. “Magic, most of Thunder is clear. Spad is shifting to assist Compass, over.” “Understood. Warwolf is helping Tiger flight and engaging enemy aircraft over the central sector of the city. Hurry and clear out any remaining hostiles before the next wave arrives.” “Will do, out!” The Raptors of the 94th redirected their focus again, charging off individually to the rescue. The air battle continued to rage overhead even as the number of Changeling fighters was dropping sharply. Canterlot, having already suffered from two previous raids, was suffering additional damage from the falling planes and missing shots hitting the buildings. The city itself was suffering greatly in the first days of the war. Still, some inhabitants were able to catch glimpses of the Raptors flying through the sky, each marked on the tail and sporting a ringed top hat in red, white, and blue. The sudden appearance of the F-22s overhead made for a dazzling powerful sight. Long championed as the best fighter jet the Americans had, it was quickly showing it’s worth. Every target one latched onto seemed doomed, and any Raptor that was itself hit was only done with an extraordinary amount of luck and effort on the part of several Changelings. Ulrich pulled behind the Flanker tailing Compass’ team leader, this time without announcement. This enemy was more reactive than the previous one, however, and broke off almost as soon as he had latched on. Making some extreme turns, the Flanker led him back towards the towers, lowering the altitude as usual, and attempting to shake away the American. “You need some help Whiskey?” asked his wingman. “I’ll get him, you break off and hunt down another one! Stay offensive!” As Soda left to do so, the Changeling dove off among the buildings, very nearly clipping one of the skyscrapers as he passed and turned around it. Ulrich edges outward to give himself a wide berth and reduce the risk of striking the building. As he passed, he noticed the Flanker, still in a sharper turn, had dropped speed greatly. Seconds later the Raptor passed the Changeling, handing over the advantage as well. “Damn!” Ulrich swore, immediately increasing the throttle and pulling the nose up. “Alright not bad. Let’s see how you do higher up.” The Raptor pulled higher into the open sky, away from the dangers of the lower level, with the Changeling pursuing dedicatedly. Ulrich saw some tracers fly past his plane, but none were close enough to present a danger. Wasting no time, the F-22 began to turn and bob back and forth, making it difficult for the Changeling to hit him. Ulrich continued the Rolling Scissors and, after two more turn-reversals, gave a final barrel roll that caused the Flanker to overshoot him in turn, meandering over and past the Raptor. With nothing to hide behind, Ulrich easily gained a lock with one of his missiles and fired, killing the jet without giving it time to react. “Magic, Spad One. Can I get a SITREP? I don’t see any other bandits in my area.” “Affirmative Spad One. Still some on the outlying areas but the city center is clean.” “Soda, area is secured. I think we’ve rallied most of our people. Does Compass team still look combat effective? I can’t tell from here,” Ulrich asked as he leveled his plane. “Affirmative, looks like they took some losses but but we just need to reorganize them.” “Compass One this is Spad One, are you alright over?” “Yeah, I think I’m alright,” Star responder shakily. “Well are you hit? Low on fuel or ammo? The fight is still going on we need everyone in the game, now can you fight?” “No! No I’m not hit I mean. I can still fly I guess.” “Well then get the rest of your squadron back into formation,” the human ordered. “Magic, what’s the ETA on those bombers?” “Unknown but more fast movers are approaching, all fighters. There’s still a number of bandits in the surrounding area but we’ve secured a circular airspace in the area above the governmental and more urban areas of the city,” Magic reported. “Focus on keeping that area secured, don’t get spread out. If we can do that for a little longer we can get more reinforcements to you and we might turn the incoming bomber formation back before it even gets here.” “Spad One! The enemy fighters are still flying close to the ground and over the densest areas of Canterlot,” Thunderlane warned. “Even if they’re shot down the wreckage will cause more damage and casualties! We can’t even let them get inside our perimeter!” “Okay, everybody calm down!” Ulrich demanded. “Here’s what we’ll do. My team will take the rest of the USAF units out and engage them early. All REAF units will hang back here and finish any that slip through. Got it? Good! Soda on me, Alpha Flight get going.” “Spad One be advised Warwolf and Tiger flights are already engaging bandits on the southern edge of the city. You push out that far you’re on your own,” the AWACS warned. “Noted, we’ll be fine,” Ulrich brushed off, returning to focus on his own squadron’s fight. Now away from the close-in dogfight, the Raptors were able to utilize the stealth that made them so difficult to detect over the radar. The approaching enemy fighters were allowed to come closer and closer to the city as the F-22s hid high and low in ambush, unseen by the enemy. Finally, at Whiskey’s word, the remaining five fighters assailed their foes all at once. The Changeling Flankers, flying fast to finish off their foes in what seemed to be a winning battle, suddenly found themselves under fire from multiple directions. They received the warnings of incoming radar-guided missiles well before seeing the jets that fired them. With AMRAAMs coming from in front and both sides, both up and down, the formation quickly fell apart. First one Flanker fell, then another, then two more, and then a fifth. Though outnumbered, the shock and confusion the Americans implemented easily degraded the Changeling squadron’s numerical advantage. The 94th’s fighters now moved in to pick off the scattered stragglers, giving some the only real look at their deadly ambushers. Some of the remaining Changelings, not sure of where the enemy was, simply continued towards the city in hopes of finding them. Instead they would be met by the surviving Equestrian F-16s, engaging them as they penetrated the city’s airspace. The 94th’s fight devolved into another, smaller short-ranged dogfight, and once the Changelings realized what was happening they proved more difficult to kill as they tried to fight back. For about eight minutes the ‘knife fight’ played out as the pilots on both sides tried to outlast each-other. Ulrich himself spent most of the time tailing a single Flanker that somehow, through countermeasures, hard maneuvers, and luck, managed to dodge his last three missiles, leaving him only with his guns. The American suddenly saw his opponent turn and dive, afterburners leaving marks of fire, running back to the west as fast as he could. Ulrich pursued before his wingman informed him that the remaining Su-27s were doing the same. “Magic, this is Spad One. Bandits are breaking off the fight and retreating. Have we got anymore incoming? What’s the ETA on those bombers?” “Bombers have turned around Spad. Rest of the bandits are on the run, too,” the AWACS operator informed him. “Nickel Squadron has arrived on station, they’ll take up guard duties from here. You’re free to RTB.” “That’s it? Just like that? I was expecting more,” Ulrich said to himself before checking on his pilots. “Alpha Flight lead, status report. How many did we lose, over?” “We lost two in the fight over the city earlier lead. One-Four and One-Five got hit, I don’t think they had time to punch out either.” “It hurts to lose them, but we hurt the enemy much worse. Everyone back to base; we need to refuel and rearm. We might be needed somewhere else.” After a short and uneventful patrol, Captain Keith found himself slinking quietly into a local sports bar frequented by many Navy personnel once the sun had set into another warm Hawaiian evening. It was relatively uncrowded on this night, and most of the noise came from the news on the television reporting on the war and matters concerning continental America. He had not had a drink since the war started, and it was starting to get to him, but he could relax just a bit tonight as he took a seat at the bar across from the normal bartender, a thirty-year old man named Matt with long, black hair that ran all the way down his back. Two other Navy officers were next to him, already well into their drinks and conversing in a rather jovial manner. “Evening Captain Keith. How'd the patrol go?” the bartender asked. “Pretty well all things considered. Had to pick up a Hornet pilot that bailed from a malfunction but he came off okay. Thought we were tracking an enemy sub for a while but it turned out to be one of our own.” “Well that's good to hear. Ah, sorry, let me introduce you to the guys I was talking to,” the bartender remembered. “Guys this is Captain Raleigh Keith of the Audie Murphy. Keith the guy next to you is Captain Whitfield from the Rickenbacker. The short one next to him is Lieutenant Commander Cox from the Laboon.” “Nice to meet you,” greeted Whitfield. “Stop calling me short you dick!” Cox shot back, getting only a laugh from the civilian. “Just want your usual beer Keith?” he asked. “Yeah, please,” Raleigh said, turning back to Whitfield. “How’s the war been treating you guys so far? “Not bad actually.” “Have your ships gone out?” “Yeah, the Ricky was out of the harbor the night the war started. We got lucky and caught a Foxtrot prowling around about forty miles south of Pearl,” Whitfield said proudly. “We were out in the south when the war started. About twenty miles near Howland Island,” the Laboon’s Commander added. “Got told to get back here quick, but we haven’t run into anything yet. Some of us aren’t as lucky as Whitfield.” “Seeing action is lucky?” Keith asked. “Hey don’t think of giving me the whole ‘don’t know how bad action is’ speech. He’s lucky cause as soon as the war broke out he got the jump on an enemy sub and killed it without any trouble. That’s lucky.” “We were keeping eyes on her for a while,” Whitfield admitted. “Probably didn’t think we’d noticed her. But as soon as we heard about the attack and got the clearance we put an ASROC right on top of her. Textbook stuff.” “I had a Looney from the Chung-Hoon in here earlier,” the bartender added, returning with Keith’s bottle. “Said they'd gotten jumped by a sub that shot a torpedo at them and escaped while they were trying to dodge it. It didn't hit but Christ, poor dude looked scared as Hell, all shaky and pale looking. I thought he was going to drink himself to death.” “The war’s just started and it's doing some really weird things. Some really fucked up things,” Cox pointed out as he started on his third bottle. “We’re all going to be alcoholics if we survive this.” “You get a lot of officers in here, huh?” Keith asked the bartender. “You all are to blame. I guess one day everyone in the Navy got together and decided to turn this place into the officer’s club, because I haven't seen a regular grunt in a while. Least not one that was in uniform.” “Don’t worry, I’m sure they’ve got their own hole-in-the-wall,” Whitfield assured his fellow officer. “I know I did when I was a young enlisted boy. So here’s to us for now.” Keith took his first long, bitter drink in silent agreement; it would be the first of many for the evening.