Sitting Duck
Sitting Duck
After traveling northwest for about five minutes in afterburner, Rainbow Dash and her WSO Twilight arrived at the combat airspace with the rest of the fighters from the 118th that had managed to make it off the carrier.
Along with Rainbow, Storm Surge had made it and his wingmate Omega 9. Rapier 4, leader of the remnants of Rapier squadron, and his wingmate Rapier 6 had also made it. The other members of the 118th had not been prepared in time to make the intercept, so they were left behind.
As the fighters slowed down to a cruising speed, they tightened up their formation and awaited contact from the AWACS that would be joining them. Rainbow took this moment to admire the view.
A deep blue ocean extended from beneath here to horizon, only broken up by the occasion island. The sky was similar to the ocean, in that it was also a vast expanse of a lighter blue, which was only interrupted by the occasional cloud. It seemed that even the clouds had a blueish hue.
Blue must be the color of the day, Rainbow thought absent mindedly. Off in the distance, Rainbow could just barely make out the silhouette of Newfield Island.
Newfield Island was a relatively small island with a mountain on its southern end. Around the middle of the island on the eastern coast, a city had formed near a crater that made a perfect harbor. Ironically, this crater that had created a thriving city had been caused by the asteroid fragments that ruined the rest of the continent. On the north end of the island was Silver Wing airbase, the secondary target of the formation she was about to intercept.
An alert from the radio distracted Dash from her admiration of the scenery, and brought her back to the present. There was a mission to complete and people to defend.
“AWACS here, call sign Sky Eye. Do you read?”
“This is Rainbow Dash, we read you.”
“Your call sign is Mobius 1. We will refer to you by this name at all times.”
Oops, Rainbow thought. In her excitement, she had forgotten that pilots had to use their call signs during combat operations.
“You are now under my command. Six bombers on vector 360 confirmed. Continue north to intercept.” Wow, what a hard flank.
“Today’s my birthday! A victory sure would be nice.” Okay, maybe not a complete hard flank.
“I have them on radar now,” said Twilight from behind her. “The bombers are flying in pairs, one behind another. They also have four fighter escorts around the middle of the formation.”
“How do they have fighters out this far?” asked one of the other pilots, probably Rapier 6.
“Probably mid-air recharging,” somepony else replied.
“Everyone cut the chatter and check your planes. Prepare to engage the enemy.” That was definitely Rapier 4. “We’ll engage from six o’clock. Maintain your current heading and airspeed.”
“If we maintain our current airspeed, the lead bombers will be over Silver Wing Airbase by the time we arrive.” Twilight stated. Well, that decided it.
“Everypony, we need to engage them now.” Rainbow declared. As she said this, she opened the throttle, allowing raw fuel to pour into the engines, which sent the plane into afterburner.
“Mobius 1, wait! We need to stay in formation.” Rapier 4 shouted.
“Not going to happen, those bombers need to go down now!” Rainbow exclaimed as she rocketed ahead of the formation. One of the advantages of being your own flight leader was that she only answered to Sky Eye and nopony else
“That mare is going to get herself killed.” she heard Rapier 4 say.
“No she won’t, just watch. There is something special about her.” Storm Surge replied, “Go get ‘em Mobius 1. We’ll be right behind you.” Rainbow couldn't help but smile at his confidence in her, and she wasn’t going to let him down.
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“So Twilight, what do you think we should do?” Rainbow Dash casually asked as they approached the bomber formation.
“Wait, you mean that you haven’t thought any of this out?” Twilight asked in disbelief.
“Well… no. But now we can think of one. So, any ideas.”
Twilight rubbed her temples with her forehooves. They were going to die, she was sure of it. With that fact accepted, she looked down at the radar screen in front of her.
“We need to take out the bombers in the front of the formation soon. They are almost to the city. I suggest we fly along the left side of the formation taking out any bombers along the way before reversing our course and taking out the bomber on the left.”
“Oh, I was just going to rush to the front of the formation to take out the lead planes, but your idea works too.” Twilight resisted the urge to facehoof at such an impractical plan.
With a plan in place they continued to fly towards the bomber formation. Two small squares appeared on Rainbow’s HUD as they flew closer to the targets, indicating that they the bombers were within visual range.
The radio beeped again.
“Mobius 1, engage.”
With permission to attack granted by Sky Eye, Twilight armed the sidewinders as Rainbow targeted the bomber on the left and adjusted the fighter to intercept it. Blazing through the air at 1000 knots, the duo quickly closed the distance between them and the unfortunate bomber. Suddenly the square around the bomber changed red, and a loud constant tone sounded in their headsets. They had a missile lock.
“Mobius 1, fox 2!” Rainbow dash yelled into the mic, as she flexed her left fore hoof twice, causing the two sidewinders to detach from the bottom of the Phantom and streak towards their target. As the missiles screamed towards their mark, they left a thin white trail of condensation behind them, before slamming into the tail of the Tu-95, blowing it clean off.
“A bomber has been hit!”
“There’s our welcoming party.” An unknown voice spoke, acknowledging the new ISAF formation.
Rainbow Dash smiled at this response, then frowned. She didn’t recognize those voices.
“Let the escorts handle them.”
Realization dawned on Rainbow. The radio was picking up the enemy communications, but how was it doing that?
“Oh good, it works. Now we can hear what the enemy is planning.” Twilight stated, answering Rainbow’s unasked question.
“How’d you manage to do that?”
Twilight began to detail the process of finding and decrypting the enemy’s radio frequency, thoroughly confusing the much less tech savvy pilot.
“Never mind, it must be more of an egghead thing.”
Twilight gave an annoyed snort, but didn’t press the issue further. Now was not the time to start an argument. A quick glance at the radar showed that they were quickly closing in on the second target, while the escort fighters were only just starting to react to their sudden attack. We just might pull this off, Twilight thought to herself.
Once again the solid tone of a missile lock filled their ears as they got within weapon’s range of the bomber, but this time it was more prepared than the last. The Bear’s tail gunner began to fire at them, filling the air in front of the F-4 with bright yellow tracer rounds, and even more unseen rounds.
Rainbow quickly fired off another two missiles before rolling the aircraft upside down and pitching the nose down, in attempt to avoid the AA fire. Luck was on her side, and none of the rounds struck their aircraft. The heat seekers had continued faithfully on their path and once again destroyed the Tu-95’s tail causing it to plummet towards the earth.
Now only one bomber remained on the left side of the formation. Rainbow repeated the maneuver that she had used on the previous bomber’s tail gunner, but went over the bomber instead of under it. Over the radio she heard its pilot cry out, “Mayday! Mayday! This is Gray 1, we can’t maintain alt..zzzzz Eject!”
After a moment the radio crackled to life again.
“Rapier 4 engaging!”
“Rapier 6 engaging!”
“Omega 9 engaging!”
“Omega 11 engaging!”
The other members of her squadron had finally entered the fight. About time they showed up, Rainbow thought.
“This Black 9 to Red 5, you and Red 8 go and engage the new arrivals. We’ll focus on the lone fighter up front.” The radio was picking up enemy comms again, and by the sound of it, she would have company real soon.
“Dash, keep flying straight.” she heard Twilight say.
“Why? The other bomber is right next to us!”
“We need to maintain our speed to avoid the escort fighters. Also it would be best to attack the bomber from head on, so we don’t risk getting hit by any more AA fire from those tail-gunners.”
“Why does Twilight always have to make so much sense?” Rainbow muttered to herself as she continued on her current vector, putting distance between the other bomber and its fighter escorts.
Twilight brought up a display on the COFFIN system to keep track of their distance to the bomber. If Rainbow turned too soon, she wouldn’t have any time to adjust their heading before they overshot the bomber. Once they the bomber was just on the edge of the system’s ability to track it, Twilight told her pilot to turn around.
She could feel the G forces push her into the seat as Rainbow banked and turned hard to the right. Now they were hurtling towards the bomber, and after a few small adjustments, they were going at it head on. After a few seconds of closing in on the target, she heard the tone of a missile lock.
“Mobius 1, fox 2!” she heard Sky Eye declare, and felt Rainbow pull up to avoid ramming the front of the soon to be wreckage of the enemy aircraft. Twilight grimaced as another thought popped into her mind.
The missiles would impact the cockpit of the bomber and instantly kill its pilots.
As if to confirm her thoughts, an explosion sounded outside of the aircraft, followed by Dash giving a victorious yell. “Yea, target down. Let’s move onto the next one.” Twilight took a deep breath to suppress the rising feeling of sadness.
“Okay.” she said half heartedly.
Rainbow didn’t notice her weapons officer’s lack of enthusiasm due to the fact that she was too absorbed in her own excitement. Her first mission was going better than anypony could have could have ever dreamed.
The fifth bomber was approaching rapidly, but she wasn’t concerned. It would be a simple matter of repeating the same thing she did to the previous one. Sure enough, the new target met the same fate.
“One target remaining.” came over the radio from Sky Eye confirming her progress. With Silver Wing Airbase out immediate danger it was time to finish off the escort fighters before moving on to the final bomber.
“Twilight, where are the fighters that are trying to intercept us?”
“There at vector 340. Why? Aren’t we going to destroy the last bomber?”
“No, I want Prance to know who they are dealing with. I can’t do that if the escorts bug out after the last bomber has been shot down.” She stated as she checked her own vector. The compass at the top of the HUD read 180 S. Rainbow banked to the right until the compass read 340. Those enemy fighters wouldn’t stand a chance.
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Black 9 and his wingmate Black 2 had been desperately trying to catch up to the lone ISAF fighter that was decimating their bomber formation. Unfortunately the single engine of the Mig-21 was not powerful enough to catch up with the far faster F-4.
They had almost caught it when it had shot by them to destroy the fifth bomber, but the time the enemy was within weapon’s distance was too short for a lock. Despite this previous failure, they now had another chance to destroy this incredibly annoying fighter.
Then enemy F-4 made a wide turn and now it was coming straight at them. The distance between them and the lone fighter quickly dissipated as they closed in on each other. Soon Black 9 heard the tone of his missiles locking on, then another tone blazed through his headset, one of a much higher pitch.
His HUD turned bright red, and the words MISSLE ALERT were displayed across the middle. He froze up for only an instant, but it was long enough for the opposing fighter to fly over head. He glanced up to watch it fly by, before returning his attention to the front. Two angry missiles were right in there, and he only had a moment to register their existence before they removed him from existence.
Black 2 watched in horror as his flight lead’s plane exploded. He was just a nugget, a completely new pilot. Without his flight lead he was lost.
A warning appeared on the HUD indicating the enemy fighter had already turned around and was acquiring a lock. A quick glance at the radar confirmed his fears; the bandit was right behind him. He did the first thing he could think of, and turned hard to the left.
Turning hard enough would prevent missiles from hitting so long as one could withstand the g forces. To his dismay, the bandit matched his turn, bleeding off a large amount of speed in the process. How could someone stand that kind of force!? In desperation he called out over the radio,
“This is Black 2, I have a bandit on my tail.” No one responded. Red 5 and 8 were still engaged with the other fighters. Suddenly a burst of machine gun fire passed in front of his cockpit. Fear took over and he began to reverse his turn.
This was the only mistake the plane behind him needed. Half-way through the roll, the warning became an alert. Black 2’s mind stopped working, preventing him from thinking of anything other than trying to complete his turn, but there was no way he would be able to turn hard enough in time. The missiles impacted his aircraft, turning it into a fireball that fell back down to earth.
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“Mobius 1, bandit destroyed!” declared Sky Eye.
Rainbow Dash was absolutely giddy with excitement and bursting with pride. The dogfight had gone perfectly. To her, everything simply felt natural. There wasn’t any real thought put into her maneuvers; she just knew what to do.
Her cutie mark might have been for racing, but dog-fighting seem to come just as naturally. With the adrenaline wearing off, she began to wonder what her next course of action. “Twilight, where are the other two fighters?” she asked.
Twilight looked down at her radar screen. One yellow triangle was surrounded by four blue triangles, one directly behind it. A white blinking dot appeared on the blue triangle, and began to travel towards the yellow one. A moment later the blinking dot reached the yellow triangle and both disappeared from the radar screen. “Looks like our squadron mates shot them down.”
“Omega 11, splash 1.” confirmed the radio.
Suddenly, Sky Eye’s voice was heard over the radio, “Target is bombing the city!”
“What?!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.
“Why would they do such a thing?” Twilight whispered.
“Doesn’t matter, we're going to stop them now!” Rainbow declared, turning the plane until they were flying north again, and opening up the throttle.
A message from the lone bomber came over the radio, “Five miles to the target.”
“We’re not going to make it!” cried Twilight.
“Yes, we are.” stated Rainbow Dash as they tore through the skies.
“Two miles. Open bomb bay doors.”
The bomber appeared on the HUD, the distance to the target just under it. It counted down as they approached:
40000ft away
3500ft
3000ft
2500ft
2000ft
1500ft
Only 1000ft
“Target on the nose!” the bomber exclaimed.
Just as it said this, the distance to the bomber hit 855ft; the range required for a missile lock.
“Fox 2!” Rainbow Dash shouted one final time as the missile leapt from her aircraft. They streaked across the sky towards the last Tu-95. In a desperate attempt to avoid the two sidewinders flying towards it, the bomber began to turn. It was futile though, and the missiles impacted the side of the Bear at the base of the wing, blowing it clean off. It fell out sky, spinning toward the ground beneath it.
“Good job, Mobius 1, mission complete.” Sky Eye praised.
“This is Silver Wing Airbase; we got a visual on the downed bombers. Whose kill was that? Make sure to thank him.”
“That’s a round up! Let’s get on home!”
.
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Ace Combat 4 X MLP = Instant Track
“Probably mid air recharging”
I thought it was Mid Air Refuel.
266417 Magical enchantment allows fuel to be directly transported into the fuel tanks. This enchantment runs out after a set period of time, so it needs to be recharged by a recharging aircraft. This is supposed to explain the time limit given for missions in the actual game.
266075 Not just any F-22, but Mobius 1's F-22 which ,by extension makes it Rainbow Dash's F-22, so that particular plane is about 3 times as awesome as the normal version.
Yay! More Ace Combat x MLP stories.
274493 Don't worry. No one seems to hate it, and with people tracking I now feel obliged to continue. Of course your encouragement also helps.
275264 Don't know why you would think that. The description has shattered skies and distant thunder in it, the two names for AC4. It also has the second half of the quote that appears in the beginning of the game. The prologue says this takes place on the continent of Usea while AC6 takes place on Anea .Sitting Duck is the name of the first mission in AC4 and of course Mobius 1 is the ace from AC4 whose symbol is the ribbon while Garuda 1 is from AC6 whose symbol is a bird of prey (probably and eagle since he flies a Strike Eagle). As I am sure you can tell, I am a huge Ace Combat nerd.
A few spelling errors and the name is Allenfort (not to be mean), but this definitely did not take away from my enjoyment of the story. I love Ace Combat as well, mainly the ones on the PS1 and PS2. Also you are doing great.
275335
Are you still active? I love this story.