//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: Operation: 'Arc-Light' // Story: Heat // by TLP //------------------------------// June 18, 1965, over North Vietnam.. Flying out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, twenty-seven B-52F Stratofortress' are about to conduct a bombing operation on a Viet Cong stronghold. The B-52F's were a upgraded version of the B-52E, the only real major difference were the engines, the famous Pratt & Whitney J57-P-43W turbojets were used on these new bombers, but what the pilots and crew really cared about was that it could carry more ordinance. About 43,000 pounds of both 750-1,000 pounds bombs on each B-52, enough to make Charlie stay hidden in the rat caves for the rest of this damned war. "Approaching stronghold. Fly in 'cell' formation and get ready. We're about to drop a helluva payload on those fucking gooks down there." Said the co-pilot of Arc-Light 1, Keith Norton "Understood, radar isn't picking anything up. And refueling is just west from here. So we should be able to level the stronghold, refuel, and fly back before the day's done." Spoke the radar-navigator, Trent Stryker said. The B-52's got into 'cell' formation, three planes on a loose formation, waiting to approach the top of the stronghold. The only real bad thing about this operation, is that half of the pilots of the B-52's barley have any experience on real missions, but regardless of what the more experienced pilots said, they higher ups didn't want to hear it. They had no choice but to get the mission done. And hope that these F.N.G's don't fuck anything up, since they were flying high in the stratosphere, so that the gooks wouldn't hear or see the planes that were holding their fates in thousand-pound metal cylinders. "Hey, gunner! Make sure you got that M-61 Vulcan ready to go, the command has been reporting several 'Fishbeds' from the gooks flying all around this place." Said the pilot over the radio to the gunner, Ezekial Wyare. Ezekial Wyare was the only black airman in the entire squadron of the B-52's, but they all treated him as an equal, despite the fact that most of the pilots and gunners were from the South. The gooks, however, didn't care. They still saw him as an American. Their enemy. Regardless of his skin color, race, or religion. "Gook, gook, gook.." He thought as he checked the ammo on the M-61, which was armed with armor-piercing rounds. Hearing and saying it made him part of the majority. The Vietnamese were gooks. Like the Italians had been 'wops', the Germans 'krauts', and the Japanese 'nips'. Regardless, the entire squadron all had a common enemy, and that brought them all closer. Like brothers. And Ezekial liked that. "The M-3 is good. Those fucking gooks won't know what hit 'em!" He shouted in the radio, getting a thumbs-up from the bombardier, and the electronic warfare officer, Ryan Jones. "Alright, ladies! We're over the stronghold! All B-52's, report in!" Said the pilot, Mark Suarez said over the radio. "Arc-Light pattern two. Wilco." "Arc-Light pattern three, at the ready." "Arc-Light pattern four, ready." "This is Arc-Light pattern five, let's rock it!" "Arc-Light pattern six, let's get this show on the road." "Arc-Light pattern seven, bearing over the east side of the stronghold. Just say when." "Arc-Light pattern eight, standing by." "Arc-Light pattern nine. Let's rock it." All Arc-Light patterns were made up of three B-52F's, all loaded up with 43-75,000 pounds of ordinance. Arc-Light pattern one was flying straight over the stronghold, slowing down to a cruising speed of 300 miles per hour. The radar-navigator confirmed that they were flying over, and gave the thumbs up to the bombardier, Johnathan Kross. He gave a thumbs up back and prepared the ordinance that was soon gonna be dropping down on Charlie. "Alright. All Arc-Light patterns, you're clear for Rolling Thunder. I say again, you're clear for Rolling Thunder." Said Suarez. "Wilco." The other pilots said in unison. Kross opened the bombing bay, but then heard a panicked voice over the radio. "ARC-LIGHT FIVE, ONE OF YOUR B-52'S IS ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH ONE OF THE B-52'S FROM ARC-LIGHT FOUR!! EVADE! EVADE!" Suarez shouted. Johnathan ran to the cockpit and looked around, seeing that what he said was right, one of the B-52's from Arc-Light five were swerving to the right Before he could speak, one of the pilots from Arc-Light pattern four shouted on the radio. "WE CAN'T SWERVE AWAY! THE FUCKING SYSTEM I-" The frantic voice was replaced by a loud explosion and static. The B-52 had already collided with the other. A huge fireball arose as flaming fragments of what was left of the B-52's fell down towards the stronghold they were suppose to bomb. Suarez just looked at the fireball in shock. He knew that the pilots of those B-52's were highly experienced, but anything can happen during a mission. Johnathan shook his head and spoke quietly. "Fucking hell, man.. let's just bomb those fuckers before they know we're here." He said as he walked back to the bombing bay. "Be advised, all Arc-Light patterns. We'll mourn them later. We're still here, and we still got a mission to do. Let's finish it and head back, over?" Suarez waited for an answer from the patterns. "Copy that, Arc-Light One." The rest said in unison. Then, Trent Stryker spoke in worry over the radio. "Suarez, we got three unknown objects on the radar, and another one right in front of us." He said, then a pilot from Arc-Light pattern six spoke out. "Be advised, we got thre- Oh shit! WE'RE LOCKED! FLARES, FLARES!" He shouted. Suarez looked to his left, and saw one of the B-52's deploy flares, effectively making a streaking missile chase a flare and avoid the B-52. Then a jet flew below the B-52 and banked left to get behind it. "SHOOT THAT MiG DOWN!" Shouted the pilot. In the background, Suarez heard heavy gunfire from the M-61 machine gun that was on the tail side of every B-52 to engage enemy aircraft, but it was rare to even get a hit on a supersonic jet, especially a MiG-21. Then the entire crew heard a siren-like sound as the cockpit lit up in a bright red, warning Suarez that the B-52 was locked onto "KEITH, DEPLOY FLARES!" He shouted. Keith nodded and pressed a button, Suarez looked behind him and saw that the flares have successfully distracted an R-77 missile, then looked at the back of the plane, and saw that Ezekial was shooting away at the MiG behind them with the M-61 Vulcan, somehow landing a couple good shots in the front of it. The MiG broke off and halted its pursuit, until the cockpit glowed a bright red. Suarez turned to Keith to deploy more flares, but he had already done so, distracting another R-77. Then Trent shouted on the radio. "I GOT AN UNKNOWN TARGET ON THE RADAR IN FRONT OF US! EVADE IT!" He shouted. Suarez complied, but turned to see a massive, purple and black hole soaring at them. He was too shocked as the black hole engulfed him and the other B-52's with ease. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, SUAREZ?!" Shouted Keith, but Suarez was awe-struck at the outside. It seemed that they were in some sort of portal, and that they were in space. "Oh my.. God.." He whispered in shock at the scenery. He had never seen space in this much detail, and neither have others. But he was one of the millions of people to watch the moon landing. But this moment was quickly short lived, as the area outside changed back to a blue sky. He looked around more and noticed that the other B-52's from the other Arc-Light patterns were in the same position they were before. He then got his bearings straight when Trent spoke up. "Hey, Suarez! Got bad news, radar and comms are down.." He said while examining the equipment "How the hell.. you have any idea where we are? I mean, we just went through some sort of weird, space, black-hole thing!" Ezekial was shaken a bit by what had happened and what he just saw. They were ACTUALLY in space for the duration of the time! And even more, they lived! He shook his head and grabbed hold of the M-61 Vulcan. "I don't know, but I don't even think we're on fucking Earth anymore.." Suarez said as Ezekial reloaded the Vulcan. "Why do ya' say that?" Said Johnathan with a slight accent. Suarez then looked below him "Well for starters, we were flying over a jungle in the stratosphere.. now it looks like we're flying over a weird forest at less than half the height. And I see that the sky is dark-purple with sky blue in the distance.. and those clouds have spikes on them..." "Okay, okay, ah get it!" Said Johnathan, annoyed "But what about the MiG's? Ya think they made it through?" Ezekial and the others chuckled, until they heard a whistling sound "You may have spoken too soon.." He said, then looked outside. The sound got louder as a stream of white soared towards one of the B-52's from Arc-Light nine. He looked closer, and saw that it was another R-77 missile. The other B-52 tried deploying flares, but it was too late. The missile impacted with the right wing of the B-52, making the plane tilt heavily to the right as its wing seemingly melted off like butter, before falling and crashing to the forest below. Ezekial then noticed that the other B-52's were dropping their payload over the forest as another MiG was shooting away with it's GSh-23 cannon, pounding the right side of another B-52. He wondered why for a second as he saw the thousand pound bombs pound the forest floor below, blowing away trees and vegetation. His mind put two and two together as he shouted at Ryan. "RYAN! OPEN THE BOMBING BAY AND DROP OUR PAYLOAD BEFORE ONE OF THOSE MIG'S PUT THEIR SIGHTS ON US!!" He shouted. Ryan also thought for a second before opening the doors and complying. Suarez shouted at them. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS DOING!?" He shouted, clearly pissed and confused. "THINK ABOUT IT FOR A SECOND! IF ONE OF THOSE MIG'S TARGET US AND SHOOT US WHILE WE STILL GOT OUR PAYLOADS, WE MIGHT AS WELL DO A FUCKING KAMIKAZE!!" Ezekial shouted. Suarez sighed and shook his head in understanding. The other B-52's must've had the same idea, as they too, dropped their bombs over the forest. They almost felt bad for doing so. Almost. Keith then turned to Suarez and spoke "That B-52 is gonna crash into that village! See that?" He pointed at the village in front of them. Suarez noticed that it was covered in large, black, point branches and the dark clouds were covering it from above "And it still has its payload! Fuck!" Suarez shook his head "Nothing we can do. Let's just hope that the village was evacuate-" He stopped mid-sentance as he saw a MiG appear in front of his B-52 and soar towards the falling plane. But before the MiG could even finish it off, it turned into a flaming fireball of metal and fuel. Suarez looked up in suprise, as he saw four planes, two on the left, and two on the right, soar towards them and bank left and right, avoiding them. He immediately recognized what those jets were. "F-4 Phantoms..." He whispered as he looked behind them, the Phantoms giving chase to the retreating MiG's "... I'll be damned." Meanwhile in Ponyville.... Discord was sitting on a lawn chair, sipping on chocolate milk and wearing sunglasses, enjoying the chaos that soared around him. Even though he was 'reborn', that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy a bit of chaos now and then. He put down his glass, streched his limbs, and lays back, sighing in relief. "Now THIS is harmony!" He said out loud, snickering. But before he could drift off into a nap, he heard a faint whistling sound. "Ugh.. what in the name o-" Discord's thoughts dropped dead as he looked up into the sky, noticing about two dozen huge, metal-looking birds appear out of nowhere, below its wings were huge, horizontal cylinders. He lifted up his sunglasses and looked closely, noticing that they were dropping hundreds of small, metal canisters from the belly of the flying birds. "Are those things dropping ro-" Discord was cut off as he saw huge fireballs appear from behind the treeline of the Everfree. The ground shook heavily, so much that it would rival the strongest earthquake. He then looked up into the sky and saw three smaller metal birds attack the bigger ones. One smaller birds launched a small tube that soared to one of the big birds, exploded and its right wing was taken off as it soared towards the forest below. "Oh no.. the Elements! The girls! FLUTTERSHY! MY SEEDS!!!!" He mentally shouted, but he couldn't move, since he was in pure awe and shock. Even he could never cause THIS much chaos. Discord kept looking up in the sky as he saw that the huge metal bird with the missing wing fell towards Ponyville in a very slow spiral, the area where its wing once was was smoking and covered in a blazing fire. His eyes widened as it got closer and closer, at the same time noticing that the thing WAS made of metal and was much larger than what he thought it would be. "Thank Celestia this town is deprived of all ponies." He said as he snapped his fingers and teleported to a hill a quarter a mile away. He then magically made a pair of binoculars appear in his hands as he looked through them and saw Ponyville. "I wonder how bi-" Discord was cut off as the plane collided in the middle of town, the explosion being about seven times stronger and bigger than a Rain-Nuke. He could, barley however, feel the heat and felt the shockwave as the town exploded. Discord let go of his binoculars, since he was in utter shock and horror at the decimated town. He slowly looked up to the sky and saw that the smaller metal birds were being chased by four other small birds. "How friendly.." He said quietly as he fainted.