Krieger Platoon

by Jay Ivanovich

  Though the jet wasn’t designed for space fairing, Mars had received a massive amount of them after Earth’s US Military had taken them out of mothball during the Colonization Blitz. Thankfully too, because during that conflict the Air Force and Navy hadn’t received most of their equipment yet, and Air superiority on the Red Planet was an enormous factor against the retrofitted helicopters and other aircraft the raiders were using to terrorize and murder entire towns across the frontier. Air Superiority can be the difference between being overwhelmed, and or being that one that does the overwhelming.

  Major Johan Broz, aka Dade, gazed out either side of the glass canopy to his five other F/A - 24’s, currently flying in a diamond formation around Krieger’s two Stealth Hawks. The narrow Plastic-glass canopy of the fighter’s cockpit gave him just enough room to adjust himself but not much more; they were designed for combat not for comfort. Dade gently gripped the cyclic ‘joystick’ as he blinked twice into his helmet’s Heads-Up Display, activating the holographic map and waypoint.

  They were only a few minutes away from New Denver, but the utter devastation the traitor ships sewed through the streets was evident even several miles out by the raging fires and black billowing smoke all around the city. Why would the Navy do that? Why bomb your own city if you planned on taking control over the government? This is just one more tragedy in a war filled with more than enough loss… This needs to end today, or thing will just get worse…

  Though one ‘benefits’ of the fighting, if you could call it that, was the most of the defense grid was in chaos and the Air Wing had a strong chance of flying around the city unnoticed…or at least they hoped so. Not as if they were going to stay for long regardless…

  General Travis came over the radio, with a proper stern radio voice. “Krieger Air Wing, this is Command. You read me, Dade?”

  Dade keyed the radio. “Loud and Clear, Brett…” He yawned as he spoke, even though the plane supplied him with oxygen, he always felt a little sleep when he was just flying idle. It was probably a little bit of suppressed boredom.

  “Good, I’ll keep this brief. We caught a glimpse of that drop ship you’d marked, it heading to the space elevator, but it disappeared off our screens right after it got there. I’ll send you the last known coordinates… Besides that, Barsha in all her wisdom has refused to provide any support, and says it’s too risky with the Navy controlling the Air. So, sorry but for now you guys are on your own. I’m mustering the 75th Rangers for support and the rest of the air assets, but that’s going to take a while.”

  Dade sighed in frustration. He could have guessed that outcome from the start… There was something fishy about Barsha. “That’s BS! I thought we agreed, before we even left Fort Greg, that she would provide Air Support?”

  “Yeah I know… At this point it’s safe to say we can’t trust her.” Brett replied earnestly.

  Sarah’s voice blasted over the radio a moment later, with the sound of battle behind her. “Krieger Command, this is Bravo team…”

  There was a temporary pause as General Travis answered. “Go ahead, Bravo.”

  Sarah continued. “Clarkson and MacAnthony are dead. Looks like the traitors didn’t like each other too much… That and Admiral Al Hakam escaped on a drop ship... We need-” There was a sudden loud rumbling of static which cut the radio coms for a several seconds.

  Brett keyed his radio. “Sarah? Are you still there?”

  Sarah’s alarmed voice came back over, along with a large amount of cursing in the background. “EVERYONE INSIDE! NOW!”

  Brett’s voice became troubled. “Sarah? Sarah are you there? What’s going on? Bravo team, anyone? Tell me what’s going on!”

  The radio feed went silent as Dade glanced toward the city, and could very clearly see the Aries Rail gun glowing with energy and pointing in the general direction of Congressional hall. The horrible realization of what was about to happen set in, and he rapidly key his radio to speak just as a lone Navy ship sent a flood of missiles into the rail gun and along the bottom of the Aries hull. The Aries gun went dead, a large amount of metal plating began to fall from its underbelly, and the lone ship attempted to flee the angry swarm of traitor ships now on its tail.

  As the lone ship moved passed the space elevator to the south eastern side of the city, an entire battle group of other Navy ships quantum jumped in near it, and began an immediate and all out exchange of fire with the traitor fleet. Holy…! Dade keyed his mic immediately. “Jesus! Brett, did you just see all that?”

  Brett replied with a very concerned overtone. “Yeah…satellite picked up the whole thing. This situation is out of control and I’m ordering an abort. I want you to pick up Bravo team, and then return to base as soon as possible. Understood?”

  Bag’s voice cut into the conversation immediately and with clear cut irritation. “That is unacceptable! No disrespect Brett, but Sempra is still out there and we know his position!” Jon muttered loudly in the background of Bag’s radio. “Shut up Bag, not this again!”

  Bag continued. “Jon, you know as well as I do something doesn’t feel right about this! It’s pretty safe to say Sempra was responsible for shutting down Hydra… But why would he do that?”

  “He’s a fucking mercenary! He’s doing what he’s paid to do!” Jon retorted irately.

  Bag sighed. “Yeah…and this kind of work is way too elaborate for his normal bullshit jobs. Look at the gear he’s wearing! Its stealth tech, that shit was unheard of even before the fall of Earth! Whoever his employer is has some pretty deep pockets and has gone all out toward seeing him succeed… And whatever it is he’s up to, it’s most certainly not in our best interest!”

  Jon sighed loudly and keyed his own radio. “Damnit… Brett, as much as I hate to admit it something is seriously fucked about all this… I…somewhat agree with Bag. We should follow Sempra.”

  Dade had only caught a few hints of what was going on before, but from experience he knew that when Bag and Jon agreed on ANYTHING, he didn’t have a problem supporting it. He wasn’t as worried about an aerial counter-attack anymore either. “Brett, I can drop them off and still pick up Bravo team… Plus I think the Navy is way more occupied killing itself than with whatever we’re going to be doing.”

  Cholius joined the conversation and concurred. “I also agree, given the circumstances. I volunteer my team to extract Bravo.”

  Brett hesitated as he considered the worst case scenario. The gain potentially outweighed the danger, and they shouldn’t have a problem sneaking around a bit. He still didn’t like it, but he didn’t like most of the reckless things Krieger did. “Ok fine... You get in there, you pick up Bravo, you see what Sempra’s doing, and you get out! You will NOT get yourselves caught up in this fight, understood?”

  All on the radio verbally acknowledged, and then Brett signed out. “Be careful and leave no one behind, that’s an order! Patriot out…”

  The coordinates for the drop ship came over the network from Brett, and Dade promptly input them into the computer and keyed his local coms. “All pilots, Wasp 1, ready check.”

  First Lieutenant Mike Lorenzo responded, followed in close suite to the rest of the air wing. “Wasp 2, ready Sir.”

  Lieutenant Trevor Ulrich acknowledged smoothly, in typical aviator fashion. “Wasp 4, ready.”

  Captain David Shields likewise acknowledged. “Wasp 6, ready.”

  Lieutenant Junior Grade Boris Gray grunted into the radio. “Wasp 5, you know I’m ready!”

  Second Lieutenant Joshua Wang hesitated before responding. “Wasp 3, yeah uh… I’m ready.”

  The two Stealth Hawks checked in, but Dade hadn’t had a chance to meet the pilots in person just yet so he didn’t exactly know their call signs. He’d learn them later though. For now they were tagged as Raven’s 4-5 and 3-6 on his radar. He punched in a few commands on his touch screen console then continued to speak. “Ok… Wasp 2, 3, and 4. You and Raven Four-Five will head straight to Congressional Hall with Two Al
pha. Wasp 5 and 6, you’ll follow me in with Raven Three-Six. We’re going straight to the Space Elevator. Everyone good?”

  There was silence over the radio for a moment, until Wang responded. “Yeah, about that whole flying straight into an aerial combat zone… For the record, this is STILL a terrible idea.”

  The pilots all laughed a few over the radio, and Gray replied sarcastically. “Good thing you volunteered for this then! Grab your throttle and embrace the suck!”

  Dade grinned at that. These pilots were goofballs but they knew this plane and its capabilities like the back of their hands. A rare commodity indeed in the rushed training of today’s aviators. “Everyone stick with your wingman and watch your backs. Make it happen people!”

  The group stayed together as one right up until they entered the New Denver city limits and bypassed the air defenses. They carefully navigated up to about five hundred feet in altitude, and then masterfully peeled away and separated toward their objectives. Dade’s group proceeded forward down the thickest region of skyscrapers, the distorted reflection of their aircraft bouncing off the mirrored building windows like a fun house as they passed by.

  The whole region ahead was on fire and billowing smoke, which was now being fueled even more as decimated Navy ships began to crash all throughout the city, some of them into the sides of buildings. That could be a potentially deadly problem should debris fall onto one of the aircraft. They’d have to be very careful and alert.

  At this point New Denver was starting to look like the chaotic, and destroyed pictures and video he’d seen from Crystal City. That thought made him very troubled…and of course angry! His family were some of the few lucky ones, and had managed to catch a ride out of the area several hours before anything serious had happened… Crystal City WILL be retaken by the US, one way or another. After they retook New Denver, of course.

  Below the group, the streets were being torn apart by rioters and looters, and the few police still in the area were hunkered down within their districts and fighting for their lives…it was absolute anarchy. Dade shook his head bleakly and wondered if he’d gone to the Academy with any of the officer down there. He didn’t want to think about that either; the space elevator came into view in front of him right then, but now with an ominous purple glow radiating off of it.

  LT Gray called over the radio in astonishment. “Damn… I’m not hallucinating, right? Do you see that purple…light?”

  Captain Shields responded. “Yeah I see it too… And my instruments are starting to act a little funny.”

  “Yeah same…running checks now.” Dade did a quick computer check and likewise noticed there was some interference, which continued to grow in intensity the closer they flew to the elevator. Not a problem, he’d just secure the systems and fly the fighter manually. F/A 24’s were designed for electronic warfare in mind. “Wasps 5 and 6, I’m going to manual control. Follow my approach.”

  The other pilots acknowledged, but were increasingly difficult to read through the building static. The Aircraft accelerated around the last of the skyscrapers, and slowly climbed up in altitude to gain a bird’s eye view of the entire complex. The complex was roughly two miles across, and the stalk itself, which stuck right out of the center, was a little more than a third of its total diameter. The whole facility was made of mostly black carbon steel, and the lattice work framing and support gave the stalk a spider web look. The thing seemed shoot straight up into the sky and never end.

  Off to the right side of the aircraft were a series of landing pads for commercial shuttles, elevated up on large platforms and connected directly into the second floor of the complex. Even though Dade couldn’t verify the coordinates with all the interference, he estimated that this was pretty close where they had pointed to, if he had to guess. Further observation of the area revealed a very large presence of NSW’s, who appeared to have setup barricades at all of the elevators entrances. They also were shooting anyone who came within a block of the place too. There was a lot of dead civilians around the perimeter fence. Brutal bastards…

  The NSWs below had either not seen the air wing yet, or possibly their anti-air equipment was being blocked by the mysterious purple haze. Either way, Dade wasn’t going to wait to find out. He pushed his throttle controls forward and led the air wing straight down to the landing pad, steadied himself into a low hover, and pointed his guns right toward the landing pad’s blast doors.

  The Stealth Hawk rolled into a hover closely next to Dade and disembarked One Alpha team, who right away took cover behind several large metal shipping crates. The Stealth Hawk began to lift off just as the landing pad’s blast doors opened and a squad of NSWs rushed out. One Alpha and the fighters immediately turned to engage the new threat, but it was not soon enough. An unguided rocket flew directly into the cockpit of the still low Stealth Hawk, setting it ablaze with explosive destruction, and dropping it into a heap of rubble right on the very edge of the pad.

  Dade unleashed his 35mm anti-everything cannon and directed the stream of red hot lead in a clean path through the line of NSW’s, but not before having to dodge a second unguided rocket himself. One Alpha waited for Dade and the other fighters to cease fire, then waved the pilots off, and rushed through the blast doors.

  Dade drifted over to the wreckage of the Stealth Hawk in an unrealistic hope to see if one of the aviators had survived, just as Wasp 5 came over the radio mostly broken by the static. “Hey….Radar… Go…”

  Dade keyed his radio. “Say again?”

  Wasp 5 responded by shouting. “RADAR…WARNING!”

  Dade turned his gaze toward Wasp 5, just as it launched flares and attempted to lift off the deck, only to be hit by a missile from overhead and explode into a ball of fire. The impact of the missile shook Dade’s aircraft violently and sent it drifting back several yards, followed by a stream of bullets rushing past where he’d been a moment before. Oh hell no!

  Two boomerang shaped Navy Gemini Fighter’s hissed right overhead, as they looped around for another attack run. How the hell did their missiles work with all this interference? That was a thought for later… Dade keyed his radio immediately; hopefully Shields could read him enough. “BREAK! BREAK! BREAK!”

  Dade and Wasp 6 immediately banked away from the pad and sped down a nearby city street, as their radar warning lights began to blink in a frenzy. David Shields in Wasp 6 shouted over. “Separate! Split them!”

  “ROGER! GO!”

  Wasp 6 and Dade banked away down opposite roads, all the while continuing to bob and weave as the enemy fighters tried to either lock on with missiles or blast them with their guns. The hostile Gemini fighters were capable of much greater speeds, and even space travel, as compared to their F/A 24 counter parts. Their much larger size however, made them awkward to fly through the narrow streets the Krieger pilots were now forcing them into. They were designed for open air and short range space engagements, not for this at all. Dade was counting on exactly that; holding his controls to the point of making his knuckles white, and pushing the maneuvering abilities of the F/A 24 to the absolute limit.

  His engines whined as he made a particularly sharp turn down a narrow alley and then straight down a connected side road, which the Gemini fighter had no hope of following him down. The Gemini simply continued forward and climbed high up to the rooftops as it began to circle back to drop down behind Dade, wherever he came out. Dade took the opportunity to reboot his computer systems, all of which was now functioning properly after having left the area of the purple haze. He waited for the system to complete it boot, then keyed his radio. “All Wasps! This is Dade, we’ve been engaged by enemy fighters and could really use some back up now!”

  Lorenzo responded frantically. “THEY’RE ON MY TAIL! THEY’RE FUCKING EVERYWHERE! HELP! FUCK IM HIT! IM-” The radio went dead with static, causing Dade to sigh forlornly. “Damnit… Wasp 6, you there?”

  Captain Shield’s responded immediately. “Yeah…Busy!”

  Dade
activated his navigation system and set up a waypoint point on his radar a few blocks in front of him. “Yeah I know…just move to the waypoint I activated! I’ll take out your tail, then I want you to do the same for me.”

  “Sure… If I can live that long.”

  “Don’t worry. We got this!” Dade thrust forward at full speed, while the enemy fighter continued to regain its position on his tail. He continued to swerve and dodge through side roads in an effort to buy himself extra time, all the while carefully monitoring Wasp 6’s position on his radar. “Wasp 6, on my signal I want you to pull straight up above the rooftops and head towards the clouds! 45 degree angle!”

  Shields hesitated, but obviously understood what Dade was doing. “You better be Johnny on the spot with your attack, Dade.” He stated frankly.

  A stream of bullets ripped past Dade’s canopy as the Gemini regained its position on his tail. He was out of time! “Ok…on three! One…two…three!”

  Dade pulled straight up into the sky and above the rooftops of the buildings, just as Wasp 6 did the same a block away. Dade immediately throttled full forward, and spun up his guns, just as the tailing fighter began to gain on Wasp 6. Dade locked his gun onto the fighter and directed the fiery stream of bullets into the exposed side of the enemy, nearly cutting it in half. Shields darted away to safety, while the fighter that was pursuing Dade locked on and launched a missile.

  Dade immediately rolled back into the city and burst flares, deflecting the missile and forcing it to detonate a few yards aft of him. However, the missile exploded with enough force to pelt his wing with fragmentation and shove the jet into the side of a building, causing it to spin out of control. Damn! No, no, no!

  The interior of his jet lit alive with malfunction warnings as he lost power in his right engine. Dade quickly throttled hard on his remaining engine, and gave it just enough thrust to slow his descent and not die. His fighter went skidding down the asphalt road, and came to a stop just as it crashed into a parked sports car.