I am alive! This update kicked my ass, for some reason. But here it is.
>>6106699This Thing needs to die.
And it needs to die *now,* before it leads your fighters into the teeth of its fleet’s air defences. Queued to action without a word or radio wave, Gamma 1 and 2 begin to pull back from the monster and put some distance between each other. They would need only enough separation to put an AIM-9X up its exhaust pipe.
But the Thing is not blind to the less-than-friendly implications of the two fighters leaving its 3 and 9, and snaps into a hard left-hand turn. Gamma 2 is quick to react and pulls hard to the right, taking the Thing one-circle, while Gamma 1 hits the smoke to get above the fray.
And then the Thing screams.
The broken-jet-engine screech of murder and rage erupts from the speakers of Gamma Flight’s radios. For a moment you find yourself cringing away from the sensor feeds and covering your ears uselessly, but force yourself to look back. The scream keeps going, even with the radios in the planes turned off, apparently inducing current in the wires. Gamma Flight are fighting for their lives as the rest of the avionics in their planes freak out, screens flashing on and off and flight controls twitching without input. From where the Thing’s cockpit would be a blindingly-bright spotlight flashes into Gamma 2’s cockpit, forcing (him? her? it?) to squint and look away, and a flash of green-glowing tracer rounds emit from the monster’s nose, but miss, passing far behind Gamma 2’s tail.
While Gamma 2 is hard put, Gamma 1 manages to regain control and get tone, and a pair of Sidewinders come off the rails. The Thing notices them and flashes its searchlight at the two missiles. One veers hard off course and begins flying in circles, but the other is coming in too fast for the same countermeasure to work a second time. The detonation of its small warhead sends a spray of supersonic titanium rods through the creature’s tail. Its scream turns to a roar, then a growl, then a whine as it struggles to maintain control. Gamma 2 manages to get in position and takes a gun shot of their own which saws the Thing’s left wing right off. Its bestial wail continues as it falls, only ending amidst a splash of white and black and fiery red 20,000 feet below.
When you pull back again, you find you’re breathing hard.
Nagato is looking at you with deep concern. She’s sailing just feet from you, as close as she safely can at 18 knots. “Are you quite alright?” she asks.
“Well, I found one,” you answer, as you catch your breath.
“Of what?”
“Of *them.* The monsters. The Enemy. It was a scout plane of some sort. I shot it down, but… that thing screamed and did something to my fighters, nearly knocked them out of the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
