Several minutes later

“Bogey sighted, west corridor, coming in fast and it’s not one of ours.” Nighthawk streamed the information back to his squad. They were flying hard and fast, no tricks, no laughing conversations on the air. They could all be heading into a battle that could break them. Fragility was a concept rarely debated amongst fighter pilots. Everyone else, who lived most of the their lives on the ground would never understand that life and death are meaningless to someone that can fly faster than sound. They were all cocky and lived as if nothing could kill them, as if they were immortal. Soon enough they would find that this was not the case.

“Bogey spotted. Shall we drop in to have a look at them?” This request came from Eagle and was directed to Nighthawk.

“Permission granted. Eagle and Wildcat break formation and check out bogey, report back once identified.” Eagle and Wildcat dropped out of formation and slid off to the side to head towards the un-identified plane. They would re-group with the others later.

The ungainly AWACS plane, piloted by Chocolate and manned by Jang Yunho, Lee Taemin and Kim Heechul had started to prep the plane’s arsenal of electronic equipment. They were countermeasures officers, setting up the jamming bandwidths (of which the plane had ten) for the planes that they expected to come in contact with. ‘Bobbles’ could choose which frequencies to jam and therefore, enemy planes and not their own would be affected. (TECH EXPLAN)

It had come about its name from Taemin’s hat, which he worn on every mission. It was a hat lovingly knitted for him by his aunt, who was a delightful woman by all accounts but could not, for the life of her, knit particularly well. It was a bright orange colour, the sort you can see from kilometres away and it had not one but four red bobbles on it. Two hung from the top of the hat and one on each string so, as his aunt proudly told him as he was gifted with it ‘you can tie it un’ y’all lil’ chin as so you not get the chills’. Taemin had accepted the hat with gratitude and after discovering that his crewmates were basically werewolves, in the fact that they never got cold, he wore it to keep his head warm in the plane. Heechul believed that as he was ‘the hottest and most available male on the earth’ he never got cold and Yunho just didn’t care. As the entire AWACS crew knew of the hat and it’s astounding ‘bobbles’ the plane was awarded it’s nickname.

“Bandwidths ready. Countermeasures prepped.” Heechul relayed the information to his co-officers and Chocolate.

“. Iranian F1’s. Looked like one on radar, it’s actually five. I need the rest of you over here now. Me and the ‘Cat are sitting on what looks to be a standoff.” Eagle relayed the danger back to his squad mates and as if timed, all the remaining planes of 17^th Squadron moved in sync to head towards their fellow squad mates.

“Nighthawk here. We’re on our way, stick in there Eagle.” Nighthawk could tell from the tone of Eagle’s voice that these jets weren’t happy with just watching. There was going to be a firefight and even the combination of Eagle and Wildcat couldn’t hold out against five Iranians.

“Supersonic, now. Angel.” G-Dragon wasn’t meant to go over Nighthawk’s head but in some cases, Nighthawk let him have his head.

“Going now GD.” Angel’s voice flitted over the radio waves and GD knew that her tone meant she was raring for a fight.  Almost half a year had gone by since the squad had seen action, the last time supporting troop movements in Kuwait, against some trigger-happy terrorists running drugs in the Armenian Gulf. All they had to do then was check out and possibly destroy anything that shot at them. That included the entire total of five utes full of men with RPG’s and stolen or hijacked air-to-air missiles. They had been fired on several times and nothing had ever come of it. The closest someone got to being damaged was Eagle shooting an air-to-air head on as it came at him.

GD and Angel were slammed back into their seats by the force of Mach 2 speed (TECH EXPLAN). Angel would have whooped for joy if she could. They caught up with the other pair in a matter of minutes. Eagle and Wildcat had been, not exactly on the run but close to it, and the arrival of two more planes on their side meant that if it came to a firefight, they could protect each other.

Three of the Iranian F1’s pulled vertical turns and disappeared into the cloud layer.

“SOB’s we can’t follow. We’d be flying into an ambush.” Eagle, Wildcat, Angel and GD were still heading towards the damaged ship with the last two Iranian jets still following, abet at a safe distance.

Wildcat’s radar began to whine and beep at her. One of the F1’s had locked on to her plane and was firing a missile.

“Duck and roll Wildcat.” Eagle yelled over comms. He pulled a quick turn and shot a missile straight back at the tailing jet that had fired. The Iranian jet dodged it as easily as Wildcat had, letting the missile fly past him. Unfortunately for him, it was a heat seeking missile and the missile turned to follow his plane, honing in on the heat coming from his engine.

The pilot had obviously realized that the missile wasn’t going to give up easily and rolled his plane completely over to give him the room to accelerate to Mach 2 and shoot straight up, punching a hole through the cloud layer. The missile was then disposed of by his teammate, shooting rounds of tracer bullets till the missile exploded. He then followed his squad-mate up through the clouds.

“And at this point I say screw their ambush.” G-Dragon spoke quietly and then relayed the firefight back to Nighthawk, the three Hellcats and the AWACS plane. ‘Bobbles’ responded by switching on their chosen bandwidths, completely and utterly screwing over the enemy’s radar.

Angel and GD followed the lead of the F1’s slicing up through the cloud layer to discover the previously reckoned ambush. It was rather blasé really, three jets in front and two behind to hit them from both sides. Wildcat and Eagle appeared shortly after, coming up firing. The Iranians responded in kind, wildly shooting tracer rounds. Eagle shot out a volley of tracers, just missing one of the front planes before switching to missiles and locking onto the plane up ahead of him. Eagle flipped the weapons release switch and thumbed the button to free the missile from its position under the wing of his plane. It disengaged from the plane’s wing and dropped several feet before it’s rocket engaged and it powered off to hit it’s target, the engine housing of the aforementioned F1. The housing exploded in a starburst of fractured metal and fire. The pilot ejected and seconds later the plane began to fall from the sky, spinning in what fighter pilots term a ‘death spiral’. It then exploded in its entirety, blasting chunks of metal and what was left of its armament to hell. The ejected pilot floated down, head bobbing in his helmet, probably unconscious and more likely than not, injured.

With the destruction of one of its planes, a damaged if not dead pilot, the attacking force fled, as fast as they could.

“Back to base you lot. We have some talking to do.” The irritated voice of Key, listening in from the carrier, rebounded across the airwaves.

“Well, we’re in for it now.” G-Dragon grimaced and turned his plane back towards the carrier. The rest followed suit, Nighthawk, Tiger and Free-fall turning up in the last few minutes to land some well-placed shots. The remaining planes would have a bit more than chipped paint to deal with when they returned to base.

AN

Now I'm really sorry for the tech language I had to use in this chapter, this is literally as bare basics as i could make it without sounding like I was talking to little children. (No offence intended)

Ok, jamming bandwiths- basically the radio frequencies on which the radar operates. The AWACS officers (Taemin, Heechul and Yunho) are choosing the frequencies that the planes (they will most likely come into contact with) operate on. By blocking these, the selected planes have difficulty getting correct radar readings.

RPG- rocket propelled grenade. These are fired from hand held or mounted launchers. They basically look like those whistler flying toys that kinda look like a small football with a tail. Only bigger.

F1- It's a French designed fighter, they are pretty impressive and Iran actually confiscated 24 (as far as my info goes) from Iraq during the Gulf War. Approx. 6 are still in operation. For the basis of this story, lets say they have more than that. Rough number 18, just incase I need to add more. Top speed approx Mach 2.2.

Mach- basically the speed of sound. F-16's can travel above 2 times the speed of sound. 

I mean no offence to anyone of any nationality mentioned as 'enemies' in this chapter, I have nothing against any of them. I respect all countries! The reason they are used is because even though (from the point of the US) they are 'friendly' countries I can imagine they still wouldn't want anyone to touch anything they have that keeps them ahead. In the technology standings, Iran is down the list. That is why they are prepared to go to such ends (such as firing on the squad) to get this technology.

So schools back tomorrow and I'm going to try to get back to weekly or every other week updates. 

Comments are love!!!