NationStates Jolt Archive

Static… For the longest time, static, and then sound.

Dzień dobry,rekonesansowy osiem-jeden..

Bloody earpiece. The pilot pulled it down, free of his left ear, revealing haggard eyes ringed from too many sleepless nights. He was unshaven.

The noise of the aircraft swelled, and the pilot tried to ignore the sound of his mindless operator’s voice, becoming more drowsy and agitated with each passing moment. He yawned into the earpiece.

Cześć? Osiem-jeden?

“Cześć,” he muttered into the headset, silently cursing his situation. It was just his luck to be trapped in the only air unit not to see combat in the war. The only all-Polish unit. And, so it seemed, the only unit with a flight controller who chattered on like a schoolgirl. “Good morning, you Polish bastard. You know they record our transmissions, so would you shut the hell up, or at least use Slovak like you were trained?”

Tak… ale…

“You worthless pig.” They both laughed softly for the recording. At least the controller could laugh at himself. Somewhere in the dim cockpit a red light flickered on, but was willing ignored in preference of the sunrise and further conversation. “You know you’re like a twelve year old girl from Krakówa. You never stop talking.”

The red light was followed by a buzzing alarm swept away by the roar of the jet’s engine.

So how are you, seven-one? Jak się maś?

“Dear god. You know they’re recording this?” He sighed and tilted his head back to see the last of the twinkling stars fading in the sky. “Bloody… You know how much trouble you’re going to get me in?” He was talking for his sake now, and paying little attention to anything outside his earpiece. Another sigh. “Ugh… Fine, but you made me. Jak się mam? Jeste-…”

The faint buzzing switched to the much louder Radar Tracking alarm, coinciding with a dozen red and yellow lights flashing on across the control panel. The pilot must have muttered something under his breath, or else the sound of the alarm could be heard through his mouthpiece.

Powtórz to. Proszę powtórz to, osiem-jeden.

“Alarm,” the pilot answered, frantic. As a result, he hushed his voice, yielding to the same response as before.

Powtórz to, proszę.

“It’s the fucking alarm. Something’s tracking me. Now do your job and tell me, are there any friendly flights in the area?”

No. The reply came and the pilot cursed to himself.

“Ground teams?”

No, nothing.

“Bloody…” He flipped a switch labeled ‘reset,’ and the lights snapped off, then back on. The alarm continued almost unbroken. “Well something’s tracking me. Radio Prostéjov and tell them we’ve got a possible contact. Radar-directional says –“ he glanced down at the panel’s instruments. “Radar-directional says it’s probably an aircraft. Shall I take evasive measures?”

How the hell should I know? I’m not a combat pilot!

“You’re my controller. You’re supposed to know things like that.” A second alarm began to sound, splitting the brief moments of silence down the middle with hairline accuracy. The noise of that and of the jet itself began to wear on the pilot’s patience. In his mind he likened the alarm to a hammer, pounding the hatpin of his flying cap through his temple and into the skull. “Missile tracking. Shit! Something’s shooting at me.”

Do you see them?

“No!” A tense quiet over the speakers, and then he spoke again. “I’m maneuvering. Control, I am formally deviating from the flight plan in response to the current situation.”

Confirmed. The aircraft rushed down and left in a wide, banking turn and dive. Behind, the red light of a rocket motor raced down with the aircraft, closing the gap between the two with startling speed.

“I can see it!” The pilot shouted, his head tilted hard back. The red orb seemed to float motionless against the black ground as the aircraft continued to maneuver. The pilot pulled hard up and right, and the missile rose with him, curling around to pop above the horizon and follow him back down as he rolled left again. The air controller was shouting incoherently now, but even if his speech were intelligible, the pilot’s headset was tossed aside as his head darted frantically left and right, trying to follow the closing missile. The shouting slurred together with the sound of the wailing alarm, and of the engines, and the whirr of passing winds, and a heartbeat pounding on and on and on and –

The missile hit.

Far from the coast, a large aircraft lazily paced itself around a racetrack orbit of an imaginary point in the sky and atop a massive radome spun around emitting radiation for hundreds of kilometers. Edward Worthington, in his second year of service with the Royal Air Force, grumbled and shifted in his seat. Having been in the air for six hours now, the massive airborne surveillance craft’s design defects became plainly obvious. Worst among them being the wholly uncomfortable seats for the various radar operators.

Throughout the war, the RAF had been detailed to making long-range strike missions from bases in the Home Islands and later at Bedric Harbour after the base had been retaken from Novikovian commando units. Of course, Worthington had seen none of that, his last post being in Avinapolis, operating the radar from an airborne surveillance craft that patrolled the western Indian Ocean. Since the end of the war, though, the United Kingdom had seen fit to redeploy air units to Novikov for the purpose of cross-training the men and women as well as providing fill for the gaps in the units and capabilities in the battered Novikovian air defence force. And so his unit had been shipped to Prostejov, a place whose name was still unpronounceable to the boy from Devonshire.

For the most part, Worthington didn’t mind his job. Commonwealth Credits bought large amounts of trinkets for family and friends back in the Home Islands while the women were lovely and many easy. Not that Worthington knew much about the easy part, his pimpled face and less-than-ruggedly-handsome looks precluded him from having many romantic adventures. But in large part, the Novikovian air force had been practically obliterated and so while they trained with feverish intensity, Worthington rarely saw large numbers of military aircraft in the air. But, every morning the Polish unit dispatched aircraft from Prostejov and every morning Worthington listened to the nonsensical gibberish rattled off between ground and air units. Sure enough, though, the Novikovian liaison officer always cracked up, and so Worthington gathered that all was well in the skies.

Until his screen found itself ringed by a red light. Worthington toggled the intercom between his station and the flight commander. Captain, I’ve got an unidentified combat aircraft on my screen.

Where at, son? came the crackled reply.

Flying behind the daily Polish morning flight, sir.

Where the bloody hell did it come from?

Prostejov, sir? There are no other functioning air bases in the immediate area.

What sort of aircraft are we talking about?

I read a Sukhoi-15 interceptor, sir.

That’s an old bucket of bolts if I ever seen one.

I thought you had, sir.

Shut up, Worthington, I’m not that old. Anyway uplink the data to Prostejov ground control, I want to—

Sir, the Polish flight is gone.

What?

Off the screen, sir.

Gone?

Yes, sir.

Bloody hell.

Shortly after the flight disappeared, an encrypted communication from the AWACS craft reached the tower at Prostejov, which was copied and then delivered to the commander of the RAF fighter/interceptor squadron and the Novikovian air wing commander. In less than five minutes, Vladimir Sokolov was behind the stick of his fighter, pushing the aircraft into the air and racing towards the AWACS bird as fast as he could push his own bird. In his ear he heard a small crackle followed by a burst of static.

Raptor One, this is Athens Control, we’re mighty glad for the company up here. It got quite lonely all of a sudden.

The Polish 3rd Gabriko Naval Patrol was based out of the southernmost part of the Gabriko Prefecture, some 200 km from the major city of Plzen, and roughly 650 km south of the last known position of Reconnaissance Flight 7-1, which had been on the homeward leg of its patrol circuit near the small fishing port of Gorno-Altaii. Placed 900 km north-west of the 3rd’s small airstrip, the Prostéjov air base played home to the regional command center. On the disappearance of Reconnaissance Flight 7-1, it took only five minutes for word to transverse that 900 km gap, to the regional command.

The news was first reported by the frantic operator manning the control tower on Gabriko, and then rapidly confirmed by Azazian forces flying in the vicinity of Gorno-Altaii. At first, the report was dismissed as a possible engine failure or pilot error – it was even suggested that the Plzen radar station which transmitted to Gabriko’s airfield had malfunctioned and that Reconnaissance 7-1 was still in the air – but when the story was verified by the Royal Air Force, along with the report of a Sukhoi fighter in the area, serious concern arose as to what precisely was happening over northern Gabriko.

“Report?” Voyska General Josef Dubček, the Novikovian commander in Prostéjov, asked. He was one of the increasingly common officers who, having survived the devastation wrought by the Royal Air Force, felt a personal obligation to protect each and every one of his men.

“We have a group reviewing the audio recording of the flight as we speak. Otherwise, no new information as of yet.”

“We have a dead pilot. If there’s any information we’re missing about the situation, I want you to find out; I don’t want to see another.”

“General,” a second orderly approached. “General, the Kapitan of the 3rd Gabriko Patrol is calling. He demands to speak to you on the matter at hand.”

Moments later, the telephone was in hand.

General?

"Yes, Kapitan. What is this about?"

Sir. I am requesting permission to send a flight north and find out what is happening. I just received word that an Azazian patrol picked up the signature of a Sukhoi trailing my pilot.

"Yes, that is correct."

Sir, I ask you grant me permission to launch my aircraft and find out what happened.

"I wish I could, Kapitan. However, I am not the authority on this base. However, I will requisition the RAF Commander on your behalf."

But sir, we have lost one of our pilots, and an unidentified aircraft has been detected in the area of the attack. This is a matter of colonial defense. Sir, contact the Azazians later. Now we need to act, before any more aircraft are destroyed!

"Very well. As a matter of colonial defense I am ordering you and your men to take action to find and destroy any threat over Gorno-Altaii. Use whatever means you deem necessary. My squadrons will do the same. However, no pilot will have firing clearance until I give the order to shoot. Do you understand?"

Yes General, thank you.

"We’re done here then?"

Yes.

"Godspeed."