fanfic_name = Shooting Stars

chapter = Chapter IV

author = Cicero_Phelps and Knights Templar

Rating = AP15

Type = Adventure

fanfic = Chapter IV

‘0530 comes way too early,’ Rick decided, as Reville sounded across the quad. Rodney, Alan, Max, and Ben rolled over, shoved their feet into boots, and fell out to the rain-swept parade grounds immediately after Rick. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the pre-dawn darkness seemed surreal as the cadets stood together as they had done every morning since they had arrived there. This morning, however, there was an aura of electricity; word had broken through the night that the Russian forces in Novosibirsk had begun mounting their final stand against the Chinese 15th armored division. With that knowledge in their minds, the cadet corps assembled into morning formation and sounded off roll call, whereupon the Drill Instructor came forward.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he boomed out of a smile that was completely incongruous to his face.

“Good morning, Drill Instructor, sir,” they bellowed back as one voice.

“All senior cadets, report to the briefing theater in thirty mikes, flight suits and combat gear. Everyone else gets to do morning PT with me,” he growled. The underclassmen groaned; that was not what they wanted to hear.

“Maybe Doc Roman was right,” Alan grunted as the five friends bolted back to the dorm to change into their flight suits.

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean we’re getting involved with this,” Rodney muttered dismissively.

“What else could it be,” Max asked, once they were all inside the barracks, dressing for mission.

“Let’s just get there and find out,” Rick said, notching his harness and clearly annoyed by this pre-briefing psychic babble.

They grabbed their duffle bags (always packed, for deployment at a moment’s notice) and sprinted to the briefing room. With five minutes to spare, they sat in the corner nearest the exit, as it was the only block of 5 seats left. They had long ago learned to not discuss mission briefs before the mission, as it led to preconceived notions of what the mission would be, and that would lead to getting mentally keyed up for something other than the mission at hand, which had the potential of risking injury or worse to the pilots.

Right at 0600 on the dot, Commandant Reynolds walked through the doorway, and the seniors stood at attention. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, smoothly but with an air of authority.

“Good morning, base commander, sir,” they shouted.

“Take a seat, folks,” he ordered, clicking a video projector to life. “This is a live video feed from Skye News over St. Petersburg. Note that the Russian Army is surrendering, ladies and gentlemen. This changes the scope of the war dramatically, now that Russia has one fewer field force in play. So dramatically, in fact,” he said, pacing back and forth on the dais, “that Moscow has asked the President for an alliance, one that can shift the momentum of this war, and potentially shorten it.”

“Sir, what does this have to do with us,” Rick asked.

“PACCOM has diverted most of its carrier groups to the southern Pacific rim, to counter the Chinese offensive through Indonesia,” Reynolds answered. “Therefore, they have requested that we send you on ‘training maneuvers’ on the Japanese carrier, Akagi, for ‘practice with carrier landings.’ It also serves as the flagship for combined operations with our Japanese friends, and is Admiral Grayson’s command ship. Once on board the Akagi, you will rendezvous with your opposites in the Japanese ROTC program, designated Lotus Squadron, for air security. Our brethren in the Navy program over yonder have been tasked with ship security, and will meet with their opposites in the Japanese navy. We will escort their shuttle, a Planetlifter named “Truce,” to the Akagi for this purpose, ensure the docking maneuvers with the Russian submarine, the Minsk, and escort the carrier and the submarine back to Pearl for the treaty negotiations.

“Just so you know, we have a limited window to do this with; Chinese carrier group B, the Water Dragon Task Force, is only two hours away from the meeting zone as of this hour. We expect it to take one hour to fly out there, land, and tend to the security matters. The Chinese haven’t changed course or speed as of last report, but that may change. Expect the Chinese to deploy Sai fighters, two variants. One, as you know, has the long range, medium-damage lasers and limited missile payload, whereas the other has an extended-range particle cannon with plenty of missile backup. Be careful when maneuvering; there’s really no way to spot the difference between the two from far away, and when you notice the chin hump for the particle cannon, you’re in range.”

“Sai’s matter not,” Alan muttered.

“This is a highly important mission, ladies and gentlemen,” the commandant finished. “You have twenty mikes to get to the flight line, we’re going up in a half hour, that’s thirty mikes.”

Rick motioned to his buddies, “C’mon, guys, let’s grab some caffeine and pastries before going on the line.”

Alan said, “I wonder what happened to that schmuck from the other night, Karl?”

A similar question was being asked across the campus, at the Navy mess, after their morning briefing. “Where’s Karl,” Lisa asked, half not caring what the answer would be.

“Not certain,” Claudia replied. “I haven’t talked to the Trio yet this morning; they were out of the barracks before I was awake.”

With a squeal of gossip and a flurry of boots, Lisa and Claudia found themselves surrounded by the Trio, all with expressions that hinted they would explode if they didn’t get their information out. “What, ladies,” Claudia asked, trying to speed up their delivery.

“Sorry we didn’t get to see you before the briefing, Lisa,” Kim began, breathless, “but we have some juicy gossip, and we know you’ll want to hear this.”

“Karl’s gone AWOL,” Sammie blurted out.

Lisa went from calm and collected to startled awake in a second. “What Miss Sensitivity didn’t tell you, Lisa,” Vanessa said, glaring briefly at Sammie, “is that the bitch he was with that night, Anna, filed rape charges against him, and he fled to avoid arrest.”

“Who the hell is that slut, and why did Karl take up with her,” Lisa asked shortly.

“She’s apparently an Air Force ROTC cadet, and rumor has it, she used to be the girlfriend of a certain football player we know and drool over,” Kim said.

“I wondered what brought him out that night,” Lisa mused. “I guess that answers that.”

Claudia wondered what Lisa was doing. “You okay, Lisa? You seem out of it.”

“Yeah, I’m okay; I just decided that, what with the mission and all today, I’m putting this out of my mind, there’s no use in getting worked up over it right now,” Lisa said, not trusting herself to speak further, and finding the oatmeal she had was more interesting than her friends’ company. Just then, the PA blared:

“All senior cadets to the tarmac, liftoff in five mikes.”

Passing over the horizon, and approaching the rendezvous area, Rick looked over the flight formation his squadron was in. He was reassured to see that it was the Vulture formation Alan and Max had designed, which meant that the twelve fighters in his unit, Lancer LX-2’s, were arrayed in twin lines of five fighters each, forming a reverse dual arrowhead on split levels, with two lead fighters forming the ‘neck’ and ‘beak’ of the bird. This encouraged the pilots to stay alert, and if they came upon an enemy formation from behind, they could spread out and pounce on the fighters, using multiple angles to pound the enemy to slag. In theory, of course; they hadn’t tried it in live-fire exercises yet.

“Sooner Leader, this is Sooner Five,” Alan said. “I’m getting a sonar contact off my two.”

“Acknowledged, Five, that’s the Minsk. She’s pulling alongside the Akagi as we approach. Maintain formation, guys. We’re making history today.”

“In other words, we’re like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, we’ll go down in history,” Rodney joked from the cockpit of Sooner Twelve.

“More like Rick’s grade last semester,” Max sniped.

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth,” Rick snapped in mock annoyance, then sat up and said, in an official voice, “Half klick out from Akagi, comm check, guys.”

Sooner Squadron reeled off their call numbers, from Max through Rodney, and everyone in between. “Sooner One, this is Akagi Control. Please alter course and formation so that you can proceed with landing maneuvers.”

“Sooner, you heard the lady; form up for landing maneuvers. Sloppiest flight pair buys drinks,” Rick said, looking at the picture of his father for luck and preparing for the complicated procedure that one of his instructors compared to “jumping on a moving skateboard while going downhill.”

“Attention, Sooner Squadron. Abort your landing run now; enemy fighter formation on the horizon. Two Sai squadrons, plus carrier support,” came the flight controller on the Akagi. “We will send up Lotus Squadron in support.”

Rick thought it over; Lotus Squadron flew Sparrowhawks, armed with short range air-to-air missiles and short range lasers. He figured out a battle plan rapidly. “Sooners, break by wings, find a target, and attack,” Rick ordered. “Max, follow me.”

The Sooner Squadron pilots got up to speed quickly in their Lancers, their lasers firing as fast as they could cycle. Unfortunately, three of their pilots went down without a chance to defend themselves. As Sooner squadron took their lumps, Lotus pilots fell upon the Sai’s from behind, and a massive furball ensued. Rick led his flight element on an Immelmann’s turn up and away from the Akagi in an attempt to draw some enemy fighters with them, and into the range of some of the AA guns. Three Sai’s followed, and were turned to dust.

Rick then inverted his fighter tail-for-nose and unleashed a deadly torrent of pulsating laserfire on more of his pursuers, while the remaining three pilots following (now ahead of) him used their ATA (air-to-air) missiles, destroying four Sai’s in the process.

Donating another missile group to the dogfight, Rick pulled away from the bloodknot for a moment and looped around to assess the damage. The Minsk and the Truce both accomplished their missions, but at a dreadful toll; half of Sooner squadron had taken severe damage, with three dead already, and the Lotus pilots were at 50 casualties. He turned his fighter back towards an enemy pilot making a run at the command tower, firing his pulse lasers rapidly. He burned off a section of the fighter’s tail but couldn’t get it broken down enough to prevent its course. “Akagi control, this is Sooner leader. Get your firefighting crews on standby and evacuate the bridge. You have an enemy fighter set to ram your flight deck. Copy.”

Rick heard orders snapped to the Navy cadets as his message was relayed. “Sooner leader, we read you. Will comply. Now forgive us for being unsociable, we’re going to have to get belowdecks.”

Rick was sure he heard the vocal stylings of that brunette he saw outside Anna’s motel room; he could swear her name was Lisa.

“Copy, bridge,” he replied, trying as he went to dislodge the Sai from its flight path. He kept tearing off small chunks of armor from the fighter’s backside as it dove, but couldn’t discourage it from plummeting into the Akagi’s flight deck. He winced as he saw the Sai detonate on the deck, near the command tower, and hoped that it didn’t penetrate too deeply.

Lisa’s face contorted with horror as she witnessed the fighter diving towards the flight deck from her position on the lower command deck. She turned to run toward the door, engulfing Kim, Vanessa, and Sammie with her arms as she tackled them to the deck to avoid the explosion. Heat and flames flew across her back as they tumbled to the metal floor, and Lisa felt a scrap of metal nick her lower back. The explosion was deafening, and the women all looked at each other in shock. The Lieutenant that had accompanied them to the auxiliary bridge was flat on his back, with a deep chest wound from flying debris. Lisa suddenly found herself as senior officer present; her training hadn’t accounted for that yet. The remainder of their cadre was below deck, attending the ceremony welcoming the delegates aboard, as were the Japanese cadets.

“Alright, ladies,” Lisa snapped, as they all stood up, “there’s some firefighting gear two bulkheads down the hall. Let’s grab it and go to work.”

They took the extinguishers and set about putting the fires out in their section of the world, and Lisa looked at the auxiliary bridge, seeing the room in tatters and the controls damaged. “Vanessa, can you get the radar operational,” Lisa asked.

“I think so,” Vanessa replied.

“Communications are shot,” Kim called out.

“Sammie, I need you to run to the flight deck and seek out Captain Gloval, maybe some flag officer is with him. Tell them the situation and request instructions,” Lisa said.

Sammie saluted by way of reply and ran off to perform her duties. Lisa glanced around the auxiliary bridge and grimaced; it would need a lot of love to get it up and running again. She was digging the tactical display up out of a pile of debris when she heard feet behind her. She turned around and smiled at one of the twelve Japanese cadets who just arrive, and he saluted and shook her hand.

“Chu-I Ichiro Takagi, at your service,” he said, with a slight bow.

“Lieutenant, j.g. Lisa Hayes,” she said in reply, bowing.

“What do we need to do to help,” he asked.

“Grab a shovel and help us dig out parts of the bridge, here, for starters. Then we’re gonna try to search for survivors in this neck of the ship.”

He spoke in Japanese to his crew; half took up shovels from the supply closet, the others went out to seek survivors. In rapid time, Lisa noted, the auxiliary bridge was up and running pretty well. Sammie returned a moment later.

“Lisa, the hallway to the flight deck is collapsed; I couldn’t get in there. But I heard the admiral yelling through the debris that the bridge was destroyed and we had to regain helm control.”

“Helm is now operational,” Lieutenant Takagi reported a half second later. “Orders, Lieutenant Hayes?”

Lisa looked at Sammi and arched her right eyebrow. “Admiral Grayson didn’t leave orders about what to do next, Lisa.”

Lisa thought for a second, furiously trying to figure out their next moves. “Can your classmates shoot, Ichiro,” she asked.

“Yes, they can, Miss Lisa,” he replied.

“There’s a few anti-aircraft batteries between the flight deck and the hangar deck. Do you think you can get your men there to start shooting at them?”

“Hai, Lisa,” Ichiro replied.

“Send half your men to the gun pods, and the rest to try and bypass that hallway to get the Admiral out. I’d like you to stay here and help us coordinate the bridge activities,” she replied.

Takagi, Lisa, and the girls did everything they could to resume control of the ship, even dispatching some of the girls and guys from Lisa’s training cadre to help with critical control systems as they drifted away from the rubble they’d been caught under.

“Attention on deck,” Kim shouted as the flag officer walked in the door.

“At ease,” Admiral Grayson said, returning the salutes offered around the room. “Good job, ladies and gents, we’re still afloat and you got this ship back under control. Let’s land those fighters and go home, shall we,” he smiled as they brought the ship up to flank speed and headed back to Pearl Harbor.

AN: Sorry it took so long to post a new chapter, I had a minor annoyance happen in my life (my car caught fire, and I had to deal with the insurance people). Now I’m back and the juices are flowing. Hope you like, and please review. J

State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes

email = Lightsaber01ATHotmail.com