The scream of the alarm sends me running toward the hangar, Ian at my side.
"Finally get to fly the bird, huh?" The smile on his face is palpable.
"Mhm."
For the third time, we emerge into the hangar. An unknown pilot flips Ian and I off as we run in front of his fighter. He quickly taxis out of sight, but not before giving us another look.
As I cringe from the screech of a passing A-10, the techs usher us over, and discuss with us our loadout as we double-check our radios and distress beacons: three AGM-65s, two JDAMS, two S-8 rocket pods, and a JSOW. We're running at three-quarters fuel.
"I get the other stuff, but do we really need the JSOW?" The tech just shrugs and the group walks away, laughing about something or other.
Ian and I quickly climb into the plane and retract the boarding stairs. While a tech removes the chocks, we attach our oxygen masks and turn on our HUDs. "Verify comms."
"Loud and clear."
About 2 minutes later, we taxi out of the hangar, and out onto the runway. I look back over at Ian, who has an excited look to his eyes, like a child on Christmas Day. "Ready?" We both nod, and slowly push the throttle to full. As we barrel down the runway, I finally engage the afterburner and the we speed into the blue sky. The only thing louder than the Sukhoi's engines are Ian's screams of excitement over the radio.
"Visual of the AO."
As Ramond comes into view, so does the large Nerverak force. "We have some stuff on our hands."
"Better wipe it off." Ian laughs, and I roll my eyes. I glance at the airspeed indicator. Mach 1.5.
"Blackwater, Tosè. Requesting sitrep."
A sigh over the radio. A mutter about using the radio correctly, and he responds. "Unknown at this time. Wing of bombers at heading 250, airspeed unknown. Make and model—," a rustle of papers, "—unknown."
"Hm."
