Fandom << Yo, Buddy. Still alive? >> // 1/1 Ace Combat RP

[Whisker]

“'Sometimes. Mom doesn't want me smoking around my brother, mostly-flight leads at Redmill generally discouraged it as well.”

AJ shrugged. “Can’t say that surprises me. Smoke’s hell on a pilot’s body, you know. Just the same” – he blew out a long puff, the smoldering embers of his cigarette glowing bright red – “Need something to take the edge off. Remind me I’m not taking a dirt nap in the Banion right now.”

He chuckled then stretched lazily, pulling his arms high up over his head. Unlike the Captain, it was only his first day on station and AJ was utterly wiped though he tried his best not to show it. He leaned against the wall, trying to shake the alluring thoughts of the squadron’s heritage room (or “bar” as it was known in loose terms) and comfortable dorm room from his mind, for there was something else that had been gnawing at him ever since he’d left the debriefing.

“So, what was that all about in there? I gotta tell ya, Cap,” AJ said, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I’ve sat in a few tough debriefings before during FTU, but this one . . .” He shook his head. “You’d have thought we fired on the damn SAG instead of responding to their distress call. And a debrief right after we touched the ground? Jeez, they couldn’t have had time to pull the DVRs out and watched the bloody thing.”

His questioning must’ve been close to the mark because the Captain suddenly sighed, her expression becoming rather terse.

“Lieutenant. Despite protecting our allies on the water, we’re still being punished for being the only ones fluttering about when Sarsfield and Wesson picked up the fighters on radar.”

“We’re being grounded. Stripped of our wings until this situation is resolved, as the base commander put it.”

His whole body felt like it’d been crushed beneath the weight of two-ton semi with the announcement.

“Resolved?!” he hissed. Too loudly. A few A-10 pilots going over a mission brief in one of the classroom’s nearby glanced their way, and AJ hurriedly shook his head before lowering his voice again.

“Resolved?” he repeated again, once he was certain the listening ears had butted out. “What the hell is going on here? Jesus, we already told them everything we knew.”

But even as he said the words, AJ knew it was a pointless waste of air. The Captain clearly had had nothing to do with the decision, and there was no arguing with orders pressing down from above.

Fuck it.

He ran a hand through his hair.

“What about qualifiers?” he asked, after a moment. “The expect me to do those entirely in the simulator?”

 

[blitzfritz]

The DVRs, right… Loane forgot about those, admittedly. But her tense frame did relax for a moment as the cig’s flavor started to kick in and calm her nerves. One of the few Thunderbolt pilots who glanced the two’s way lit up in what was recognition of Loane, but his co-pilot snapped him back to briefing and to mind their own business.

The Captain listened, and shrugged at his question. Loane had a possible idea why such extreme measures were taken: paranoia from the last war and of Belkan involvement. However, she didn’t say anything-instead, she let the cigarette hang on her lips and let him vent his frustrations.

“What about qualifiers? They expect me to do those entirely in the simulator?”

“Depends. You’re still a rookie, they might let you go back up for qualifiers under heavy supervision, despite the commander’s judgment.” It was just conjecture, of course. Her lips formed a thin line and threatened to let the light fall from her mouth. “I won’t be going anywhere though, I've already been through mine.”

Loane was hesitant, before deciding not to speak her next thought. Saying “Don’t worry about me, I've lived through two wars. This is nothing.” might’ve worried him more than keeping her mouth shut, so she stretched her hands above her head. Instead, the Captain’s thoughts drifted to how her brother was back home.

Ninian Moritz Holzknecht, taking a break from his job listings to help with his mother in a bout of illness, last he said. Not that Loane didn’t believe him, but he’s never been able to commit to a job he likes-she has been wedging his interests to him to be able to kick Ninian into working, and that has been…less than successful. He just wouldn’t commit, even if he liked the job he was working in.

Nevertheless, she pulled the cig from her mouth and gave AJ what seemed like a small strained smile. “I just don’t get why the Belkans want to stir up trouble again…not so soon after the last war.”

 

[Whisker]

"Depends. You're still a rookie, they might let you go up for qualifiers under heavy supervision, despite the commander's judgment."

Fat chance of that, AJ thought bitterly, taking a drag of his cigarette.

In the airbase, the commander's word was law. Gospel truth. He'd have had a better chance to convince the sun to march backward and rise in the West than convincing anyone to pull one over on the old bastard. But just the same, there was a part of him grateful for the Captain's concern, so he merely nodded his head and decided to let the matter drop.

It was ultimately better for both of them.

And at least that'll give me more time to hang out in the Vault.

The Vault, a set of high-security rooms that contained classified information about weapons, systems, threats, tactics, and more. It was the place where rookie pilots were hammered out into veteran ones, assuming they lived long enough to get accustomed to their wings.

He was still thinking it over, trying to pull some small victory out of the situation when the Captain suddenly said something that made him perk up despite the turmoil of the early morning hour.

“I just don’t get why the Belkans want to stir up trouble again," she said, with one of her small smiles. "Not so soon after the last war.”

AJ scowled, and the words left him without thought.

"Aint it obvious? Because they're a bunch of bastards, Cap. They dropped seven nukes on their own people simply because they couldn't stand to lose. What's that tell you?"

Too loud again. The Flight lead doing mission planning in the next room stuttered in his briefing and went over to shut the door. AJ rubbed the back of his neck, then jerked a thumb back down the hallway.

"Cmon," he said, dropping his voice into something far less bitter. "It's stuffy in here. Can't fly, but we can at least get some jet fuel in our lungs."

Without waiting to see if she trailed, AJ stuffed his hands into the pockets of his flight suit and went back the way that they came. Outside, it was dark as old pitch, but the night was cool and clear. On the taxiway, an F-4G Phantom equipped with AGM-65 Mavericks was slowly wheeling down the flight line in preparation to take off. An F-16D was close behind at its heels. AJ went over to the metal railing that lined the stairs and watched them prepare to taxi. When Loane had joined him, AJ asked, "So level with me, Cap . . . What made you choose to join the OADF?"

 

[blitzfritz]

The Captain’s eyes never left AJ as he started to rant and rave about the Belkans enough to have the Thunderbolt II flight lead shut the door. Before he did, however, Loane recognized the man: J. G. Pliskin, Captain rank, and a Flight Commander for his crew of Warthogs. He wasn’t too fond of his briefing being cut into by a rookie from outside the room, though, so he ultimately gave out a huff before shutting him and his crew inside, with no distractions.

Loane almost showed a wince at A.J’s anger but kept enough composure to not break face. Yes, she remembers the seven nukes quite well-the Captain was but 10 years old and in what was called South Belka when the motherland split itself apart by detonating it’s own arms along the mountain range to save itself from the encroaching Allied forces. Her mother was horrified, her brother didn’t know what was going on but clung to his sister like glue, and her father soon turned to alcohol to numb the conflicted emotions of his loyalty or his family.

Eventually, he did choose family, and became an Osean pilot from the newly named North Osea.

The pilot extinguished the ashes on to her knuckles with a few taps of the cig, before following her wingman and taking another drag of the cigarette. The flavors mixed in her mouth as Loane watched the Phantom and Fighting Falcon start to taxi, drawing her eyes to AJ when he spoke again.

“Why did I choose to join?” The Captain repeated the question, tonguing the portion of the cig that was across her lips as she began to think, “Well, it’s mainly because of my father; Kaspar is his name, and he is, or rather was, a Major in the Air Force. Fought for the country he served with tooth and nail, and the maneuvers he pulled made it seem like he danced while in the sky upon his Flanker. It was a sight to see if you ever saw him take off into the blue…” Though she did gloss over one crucial bit about Kaspar: he was originally a Belkan pilot before being recruited into the OADF. “He served on the Vulture during the Circum-Pacific War, right up until it sunk with the Buzzard. He’s the reason I joined the force, to follow in my dad’s footsteps and become a pilot worthy of respect.”

Loane’s eyes were trained onto the rookie now, “And what about you: what made you join the Air Force?”

 

[Whisker]

AJ listened to the Captain's tale in silence, his gaze fixated on the big F4-G Phantom as it lined up on the runway. The Viper wasn't very far behind. Now that it had drawn closer, he could make out the familiar contour of the M6-1A1 20 MM Vulcan cannon and AIM-9 sidewinder missiles tucked beneath its wings. His curiosity heightened. Aside from standard air defense patrols such as the one they had just returned from, training, and alert aircraft, it wasn't too common to see fighters running "hot" in the days after the war due to the de-escalation efforts of the military put in place by then-President Vincent Harling. Maybe someone upstairs had taken them seriously after all?

Huh . . .

Still thinking about it, he turned back to the Captain, folding his arms back behind him and resting them casually on the rail. Behind him, the jet engines began to whine.

"Why'd I join?" he asked. "Ah, that's simple, Cap. Who doesn't want to be in the cockpit of a badass flying machine, gripping life by the balls and soaring into the stratosphere? You think I wanted to spend my life cooped up in some office somewhere?"

AJ cocked a grin, trying to sound upbeat, but couldn't summon up his usual fire. He scratched his head then leaned back and looked up towards the stars.

"You know, my folks back home? They don't have a clue I'm here. Told'em that I was a civilian pilot flying cargo for Air Ixiom down in USEA. You shoulda heard my grandma. The tears could've floated an aircraft carrier."

He was interrupted by a roar. The F-4G had gotten clearance for take-off. AJ could feel the residual blast rifle his clothing as it blistered past on the nearby runway and took to the air, a speck of flashing strobe lights illuminated by tower searchlights. Once it had gone, AJ cleared his throat. "Well, anyway, long story short. My dad served, too. Seventeen years ago. Belkan War. 4th Fighter Wing, 102nd Fighter Squadron. I imagine he's still over there now, plastered on some goddamned mountain somewhere in South Belka. They never did find his body 'cause right after his plane supposedly went down. . . ."

He made a motion with his hands, simulating an explosion. His face hardened thereafter.

"I don't know what the hell's going on, Cap . . . or how those bastards today even got their hands on the hardware considering their military was supposed to be wiped right down to the last damned crumb, but if somethin' really is going down, if this shit we dropped into today is really brewing up something . . . I got no qualms blowing Belkans outta the sky. Count on it."

 

[blitzfritz]

The armaments upon the Phantom and Viper were quite the sight, but it wasn't likely that their report could go so far up the chain…right? Regardless, the Captain flicked her gaze to AJ-being a pilot didn’t always mean you flew the skies, of course, but she wouldn’t tell him that. No, she wouldn’t tell him a lot of things.

Only a Belkan could keep so many secrets even if they’re trying to be honest. Hah, the irony…

But Loane listened to AJ’s tale, talking a few puffs from her cigarette. She couldn’t imagine hiding her whereabouts for so long from her family, not that her family was that small. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews-they were all scattered in North Belka. It wouldn’t be a problem, had each country not been so hostile towards one another; it was hard to see her cousins now because of passports and borders and spit nationalism. Before the war, it was easier-before everything, it was easier.

But today was not a day to be down and sour about your circumstances and wishing on a star thousands of miles away for everything to be back to normal. Wars cannot be undone with a snap of the finger.

But a low hum came from Loane as he told of his father. A fighter pilot as well, huh? Though, combined with his earlier description of not telling his family of his future, she deduced that the reason why he joined the OADF in the first place was not a happy one. Not that she could blame him for it one bit.

The Viper wasn’t far behind after the Phantom took off, of course-soon enough, its engines roared and it started to take off, being given clearance. The wind kicked up well enough without the F-16D’s help, and the wind tousled through Loane’s hair as the night kicked on.

The Captain nodded, pulling the cig out of her mouth and tapped out the ashes, dropping it and stamping out what was left. “I’ll be countin'.” She sighed, before holding out a fist to AJ, “To a growing partnership, as Raven 1 and Raven 2. Let’s hope we’re not shot in the meantime.” A light chuckle trailed on the end of her sentence, though the concern was warranted, even if the two were not in the air with their wings.