Operation Pacifica: Harm's Way part 2
by Trooper Charcharadon (highland@iastate.edu)

F/A-18 Renegade 311
2358 hours
Day 6 of Pacifica

        It was just a bit over nine hours after his morning sortie
  had come to a rather ignoble conclusion, and Charcharadon was in the thick
  of it again, mixing it up with the bulk of the sponge fleet's air forces in
  one giant gnarled collection of contrails.  He wasn't sure whether things
  had gotten worse since J-R and company had put the B'harnate carrier out of
  action roughly an hour ago, and he hadn't had time to put much thought into
  it, being more concerned with not getting his tail shot off this time
  around.

        [settheme = "Son of a Gun"  KMFDM  XTORT]

        Adding to the confusion of the raging air battle was the
  immense sea battle going on below them.  Flashes from deck guns, missile
  launches, flares, afterburners, and dying machines of war crisscrossed the
  sky like so many fireflies.  Charcharadon pulled a high-g Immelman behind a
  chaff cloud and ducked the missile that had just been fired at him.  With
  almost 1000 knots closure, he had just about enough time to squeeze the
  trigger before the Luv Fighter that had been following him streaked past.
  It had the desired effect.  Several hundred cannon rounds ventilated the
  cockpit and left wing of the Luv Fighter.  It spun crazily out of control
  and by freak chance crashed onto the foredeck of the B'harnate Frigates
  which had just seconds before been Tomahawked in the bridge.

        "Leader to all fighters," J-R's voice came over the tacnet,
  "protect the ships! Repeat, protect the ships!"

        "Roger that Dragon 307," he called out over the radio as he
  broke off pursuit of another Luv Fighter to race on afterburner for a flight
  of four which were headed in the  direction of the _DFS Des Moines_.  He
  slid in behind them without being noticed and the missile crosshairs slowly
  aligned and locked on the tail end Charlie.  Fuchikoma, once again plugged
  into the control systems of Charcharadon's fighter, was doing the same thing
  with one of the other planes.  Within a second of each other, two
  sidewinders streaked from the racks under Renegade 311's wings, blazing
  trails of death towards the Luv Fighters.  Two of them disappeared in a
  giant fireball.  One of the remaining Luv Fighters held course to release
  its missiles while the other one broke hard right to try to come in behind
  his pursuer.

        Charcharadon rolled up and over the fireball, avoiding the
  debris and settling right in place behind the lead Luv Fighter.  He squeezed
  the trigger and once again his cannon etched a pattern of holes in the metal
  skin of a Luv Fighter.  It exploded as its fuel tanks touched off, but not
  before the pilot had launched two anti-ship missiles at the _Des Moines_.

        "Crap," snarled Charcharadon, who then radioed the _Des
  Moines_ to warn them about their rapidly approaching problem.

        "Roger that, Renegade 311, thank you," replied the cruiser.
  Its air defense systems quickly and successfully dispatched the two incoming
  missiles while Charcharadon succeeded in putting an AMRAAM straight through
  the fourth fighter just 1000 feet off the stern of the _Des Moines_.  He
  leveled his fighter out and went streaking back past the cruiser on his way
  to the main battle, giving a thumbs up to some waving sailors on the deck.



        As his fighter clawed its way back up to altitude, the _Des
  Moines_ was enveloped in a sickening tendril of glowing unnatural force and
  then burst at the seams, large and small chunks of it flying in all
  directions.  The force of the blast nearly slapped Renegade 311 nose-first
  into the Pacific Ocean, but Charcharadon just managed to prevent that from
  happening.  As he shot away on afterburner, avoiding the debris that was
  raining down around him, he fought down the rage and sadness welling up
  inside him.

        He rejoined the air battle just as DS cleared J-Rock's
  hindside of an unsightly sponge with a burst of well placed laser fire.

        "Nice shot. How many does this make for you?" Charcharadon
  quipped.  Any replies to this were lost on him, as he finally caught a
  glimpse of the Lyran flagship floating on the sea below him.

        "Oh chowder.  Where the hell is Oswald when you need him?"
  he asked, unable to take his eyes off the evil glowing menace of the
  flagship.

        "Oswald?" asked someone over the radio.

        "Yeah, were going to need a hell of a lot of magic bullets
  to sink a Lyran battleship."  Nobody laughed.  `Oh well, it wasn't that good
  of a joke anyway,' he thought as he evaded another missile and noted that he
  himself was down to one missile and a few hundred cannon rounds.

        Five minutes and a few hundred cannon rounds later,
  Charcharadon observed the sudden and unexplained explosions on board the
  Lyran flagship.  Then it and the remains of its escorts turned tail and
  sailed away.

        "I have no idea how that happened," he declared after
  indulging in a relieved sigh, "but I'm not complaining about the results."

        "I don't believe it," DS dryly noted. "We won."

        "Yeah," J-R replied, "but at what cost?"

        "We can count that later," Yearnshaw interjected. "Right
  now, we'd better get back to the barn."

        After a much needed and greatly appreciated refueling,
  Charcharadon came in for a landing on the _Freedom_.  It wasn't a pretty
  landing, and he probably would get grief from the LSO later, but he caught
  the wire and was dragged to a stop.  After taxiing out of the way and
  popping the canopy on his fighter, he suddenly realized how damn tired he
  was.  It took the assistance of two of the deck crew to get him successfully
  from the cockpit and another minute before he felt steady enough on his feet
  to head for the debriefing room...

[to be continued in Operation Pacifica: Hit the Beach!]