RP: 21st Fighter Sq [Mission 6.0] Mists and Mysteries

Elisto watched the squad move away, while he flew in a straight pattern waiting for Ricky. It wasn't that long after did he pick up on his team-mates fighter move up behind and gave a nod, before pulling off into the atmosphere to join back up with Yaeko and the rest of the squadron.

He sent a brief message to Yaeko that Demolitions was now up and heading to the surface, and would rendezvous with them before the bombing run.

Silic meanwhile was having his own problems, when Yaeko had slowed down he'd ended shooting out in front. Trying to slow down had ended up in him turned around instead and entering the planets atmosphere backwards. His fighter slowly rotated as it fell, leaving Silic with a canopy view of the quickly approaching planet. As the planets gravity began affecting the inside of the cockpit loose objects began falling up to the canopy, his flashlight, playing cards, some credits, and even some loose poker chips.

Silic muttered to himself as he began retrieving his stuff "Oh boy, that's the ground, oh boy."

Yaeko was relieved when she saw that demolitions team was on the way, at least she wasn't going to have to lead the mission without any explosives. She barely had time to collect her thoughts when she noticed Silic's Kawarime in front of her...backwards...upside down.

"God damn it Tin Man," she said into the comm with a sigh. "Just set your fighter to autopilot until we hit point Bravo and then you won't have to worry about flight anymore. You're no good to me if you're dead before the combat even begins."

Akemi checked her position along projected flight path. She was dead on, or as her father would often say, dancing on the sword's edge. She did a check on her wingman Kayo's position. Kayo was off the projected flight path be a small amount, "Kayo-Hei, tighten up your approach. You're doing good." she said over their local channel. She liked Kayo, the squadron's plucky clerk turned fighter pilot. She even considered speaking to her father to see about having her adopted into the clan.

She noticed Silic's fighter shoot past Yaeko and worse tumble until it started a tail first reentry. She resisted the urge to cover her face with her palm in disbelief. I don't believe this, Tin Man groused the last mission that he did not get a fighter. He gets given one and can't even handle a standard reentry.

She was about to say something when Yaeko did. She sent a secured message to the squadron. "Good job Tin Man, if our guests on the planet are monitoring our trajectory, you just convinced them that this is a team of new pilots who need the training."

Lynn had taken off without difficulty, listing off her number and launching with the green-light from the ship.

She followed the rest of the squadron down to the surface, said nothing about Silic's failure (but gave an honest wince) and readied herself to finish the course.

"What? There's nothing wrong with my flying. It's not like there's an upside-down in space. I don't need the computer to fly for m-" That was when his fighter started death rolling.

There was some yelling over the comms, then finally the distinct cry of Silic shouting "Turn it on! Turn it on!" came through and the fighter began stabilizing. There was the sound of panting before Silic continued. "See, everything's fine."

Yaeko raised an eyebrow at Silic's antics before lowering the eyebrow and shaking her head at him. "Tin Man, I have serious concerns about giving you a weapon." None the less, she continued to the rendezvous point where she slowed her fighter and began circling in a very large circle so that the rest of the squadron could stay in formation while Demo Team caught up.

A heavy sigh left Elisto as he listened to what was going on, he couldn't help but wonder if Silic's flying was actually good thing - thus it would convince their targets that they were a completely newbie squad coming for training, or if the man was just genuining crazy. He decided for the sake of argument, that both were corrected.

He made a quick check as to where Ricky was before angling his fighter and leveling it out, then he began to make his way toward the rest of the squadron.

Akemi brought her fighter through the transatmospheric maneuver and brought her fighting in the holding pattern that Hunter had established. She looked behind her and was proud to see that Kayo was right on her wingtip as she should be.

Cutter plunged his fighter down towards the surface of the planet, he was following the projected flight path that her navigation system laid out for him, and he was determined to stay on track which meant making micro-adjustments of power and the controls as he passed through the various layers. His attention was diverted as something streaked past him.

It was 0149, Ghost's Kawarime streaking down at high speed, his trajectory was off and the fighter was heating up too fast.

"Ghost, pull up you're coming in way to fast. You'll burn up your systems." he called out on the radio.

A loud squeal blasted her ears when the signal from fighter 0149 was abruptly silenced, all telemetry from it lost, it continued lower and started to spiral downward, the CFS collapsed and the fighter turned into a fireball as the friction superheated the craft. Moments later the forces shredded the Kawarime and it exploded.

"Ghost... . Hunter, this is Cutter, we just lost Ghost. Not sure what the hell happened he flew past me and just about peeled the paint off with his speed." he radioed to the acting commander.

"Damn it!" Yaeko yelled as she slammed her fists into the sides of her fighter. She paused for a a moment to think about the situation before speaking up on the squadron's open comm channel. "Diamonds, we lost Cutter. Changes are as follows: Hoshi will be replacing Ghost entirely. It seems that everyone is here, so prepare your ordinances for our bombing run, we're moving out." She refrained from mentioning anything about Demo Team because she was worried that the enemy might be intercepting any communications in the atmosphere.

When Yaeko was finished speaking she banked her fighter to the side and led the formation of Kawarime towards the designated bombing zone. As she flew, her worry about communications interceptions crept back in, so she made a few comms calls in order to keep up appearances.

"Heitan, 21st Squadron. We lost Thurston-Hei during atmosphere entry of our training exercise due to some sort of high-velocity entry. Upon our return, I request a retrieval team be sent for his Kawarime and an investigation to be conducted as to any possible systems malfunctions." Yaeko quickly switched comms channels once more.

"Aqueos Training Facility, this is Munkata-Kohosei of the 21st. Be advised we are incoming for our scheduled training exercise. Requesting clearance to proceed."

"2X-F21, this is Aqueous Range Control, you are cleared for training bombing run on primary zone. Drones are standing by to record your results.

Range conditions: Improving
Bombing range has cloud cover and light rain. Ceiling is 2,500 meters, visibility is 2 miles. Winds out of the west at 10 knots.

Signal when commencing your run." Came a male voice.

"Roger, will comply. Munkata out." Yaeko flipped back to the squadron's comm channel before glancing behind her to check the squadron's status.

"Alright Diamonds, we're clear for the bombing. Current conditions of the bombing range are as follows: 2 miles of visibility with a cloud ceiling of 2,500 meters and a tailwind of 10 nautical miles per hour. Location of the primary bombing zone to follow."

Yaeko pinged the location of the bombing range on the squadron's IFF before making final adjustments on her trajectory.

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"Roger that Hunter. Anne-Hei, I'm right behind you." Cutter's voice came through the squadron's channel as he adjusted his trajectory to match Anne's

Errowyn sighed as she watched one of the fighting diamonds did the dreaded burnout atmospheric entry. "Merrrow!" softly as she eased her Kawarime into her slot in the circling flight pattern. Doing last minute checks and arming the training bombs for release on command.

She listened to the updated weather report. With the rain and lowered visibilty, this would be a instrument guided flight. Already things were going wrong as she tried to avoid thinking about the second half of the mission.

"merrrow, just focus on the bombing run.... one step at a time..." She muttered.

Opening channel, =/= Wingman, this is Hellcat, stay behind me and to the left. Standard wing formation. When youi see me drop for at the beginning of the run, drop back to my six and follow my flight path. Have an alternate target picked out incase I destroy mine." =/= Sounding calm with a tinge of nerviousness.

Not for the bombing run, but what lay aferwards.

Anne watches Thurstong on her monitors. His vitals was fropping for some reason. Maybe some kind of seizure? She could nto be sure by these reading onyl.

"Hunter! 0149 is not dead yet! His vitals are dropping rapidy though!" She radioed to Yaeko.

Yaeko thought for a moment as she listened to Anne speak. She could always swing back to get him, but the mission was the number one priority. Besides, she could always have him picked up within minutes.

"Roger than Anne." Yaeko did a quick channel switch. "Heitan, Munkata-Kohosei 21st Squadron. Readings from our flight surgeon show that the downed pilot still has vital signs. Requesting an immediate rescue team be sent for retrieval via medivac. Coordinates to follow." As Yaeko switched back to the squadron's comm channel, she transmitted the last known coordinates of Ghost to the Heitan.

Elisto had no time to really help, to lost in his thoughts that he hadn't noticed Ricky or the problems he had until it was to late, but when he heard from their flight surgeon that there was still life it made him feel only a little bit better.

With a heavy sigh, he increased his speed and closed in behind Yaeko and took up a bombing position. "Hoshi, fall in behind me please just off my six. Follow my tail once we commence our run, if my target isn't destroyed, then you take the shot."

Once the entire squadron had fallen into position Yaeko, she chimmed in on their comm channel. "Diamonds, we're approaching the bombing zone. Change to assault speeds and drop ordinances at will."

"Aqueous Range Control, 2X-F21. Commencing bombing run."

Yaeko altered her speed to the standard bombing run speed as she had learned from training. Once she was going to proper speed, she maintained that speed and height while she allowed the computer to do a quick calculation and automatically release her training ordinances when she was at the proper position.

"0048, Training Bomb away," she called into the squadron's comm channel before slowly banking north towards the mountains. Pausing for a moment to give the entire squadron time to pass through the bombing range, she called in, "Aqueous Range Control, 2X-F21. Bombing run complete. Please send results up to the Heitan so we can examine them upon our return."

"Hai." Lynn said, falling in with Elisto.

She lined her Kawarime up in formation with her new wingmate and trimmed it out for atmospheric flight. She began priming the training systems.

Errowyn, once entering the atmosphere and made sure her areo space fighter was working properly for air manuevers, barrel rolling upside down to get a visual, sent her fighter into a screaming dive towards her designated targets at 78 degree vector. Arming the training bombs enroute down.

>thunk<

Errowyn heard and felt something hit the back of her seat, momentary distracting her as her fighter hit terminal velocity in her downward plunge.

<i>~~Damn grounder armor!~~</i> Errowyn thought as she fought to keep her fighter on even keel in it's plunge to the planet surface.

Once altimeter registered the proper altitude, she hauled back on the control stick and pedals to pull out of the deadly plunge to the surface of the planet.

"Meeererrrrrroooowwww!!" She screamed inside her cockpit as the fighter pulled out of the dive, skimming the ground at a few feet. Raising the areospace fighter...

>thunk!<

"thunk?" Errowyn muttered, doing a quick look over her panels and found out that the training bombs had been ripped off as she fought her Kawarime back into level flight as she slowed the areo space fighter down to more maneuver speed. "I sure blew this run!" As her kawarime overflew her designated targets.

Akemi watched as Yaeko made her approach, she signaled Kayo to follow her and signaled the Range control.

Her Kawarime streaked above the surface as she flew the adjusted flight path that lead to the bombing run. She relaxed and let all distractions fade from her thoughts. She released her bomb at the indicated time, and was with a feeling of satisfaction, she pulled up and followed the XO into the mountains.

Kayo stuck on Akemi's tail, this was pretty much exactly like the runs she made in the simulator. The instructors had given her lots of distractions, but she focused on her task and released her bombs a moment after Akemi.