Ace Combat: Archangel

Chapter 1: Calm and Collected Mourning

     There was an impromptu funeral held by Golem Squadron and the remaining members of Mage Squadron. They didn't have a casket or a body but they did what they could, making a small memorial for him, a tribute if you will. After their latest sortie it had been hectic at their base with casualties rising with few replacements. The priest finished reading his last rights, stepping away as Knocker stood up and walked to the front. He inhaled deeply before speaking "His death was tragic. It is terrible that this happened but it is war. People do die, he knew that something like this might happen when he volunteered and joined the air force. Please join me for a moment of silence to honor his life and mourn his death." Knocker stepped down and went back to his seat, sitting down in the chair. He regretted what happened but knew that there was a possibility people would die. He wished it didn't have to happen but like he said to them, it is war. After some time he cleared his throat and turned to trigger.
     Trigger was going over the events in his head, replaying the events that lead up to Clown's death, he was surprised and looked up when his name was called by Knocker. "Trigger, would you like to say a few words"? Kocker said, looking over at him. Trigger nodded his head and stood up, he breathed in deep and closed his eyes, composing himself. Once he finished he sighed going up to the front of the room. "I wasn't part of the squadron for long, I haven't known any of you for long at all. But, it is terrible what happened to Clown. His death was avoidable and again, a tragedy. I ultimately feel responsible for his death, I'm sorry." With that he got off and sat back down. Knocker stood back up and turned to the members of his squadron "If anybody else wants to speak they can." Boggard stood up to speak about his time with Clown, when he started speaking when 2 transport planes, a C17 Globemaster III carrying cargo and personnel, and a C-5 galaxy touched down on the runway. The craft  arrived outside carrying replacements and supplies that were supposed to arrive at some point that day.
     Crates of weapons, ammunition and other supplies were unloaded onto the airbase as were replacement personnel. Alan and Hannah unloaded and were sent to speak with the Major in charge of personnel to get assigned their squadron. Alan looked around the base, there was still some minor damage to be seen from the air raid such as destroyed vegetation like trees and some burn pock marks from where shrapnel hit buildings. Alan turned his head to look at Hannah "Well, at least we're here right? Looks like we missed the action." He said looking at the visible damage. Hannah cleared her throat. She had noticed the damage as well, wondering how bad it was when it first happened. Clearly not all of it was repaired yet, and there were a lot of personnel on the plane with them, she hoped they weren't all replacements for people that were killed. "Guess so, let's get our assignment." she said walking off towards the majors office with Alan. They walked into the Majors office, Alan first, he walked up and saluted the Major as did Hannah. The major quickly returned the salute before clearing his throat "What are your names?" He asked. Alan spoke up first "My name is 1st Lieutenant Alan J. Reyes, Osean Air Defense Force." After he finished Hannah spoke up "My name is 2nd Lieutenant Hannah Scholz, Osean Air Defense Force." The major nodded and went through the online documents finding them "2nd Lieutenant Alan Reyes and 1st Lieutenant Hannah Scholz, you are both assigned to Mage Squadron. Report to your barracks." Reyes nodded "Sir" he said, before saluting and exiting the building followed by Hannah.
     The funeral had finished, Knocker had gotten news that his replacement pilots had arrived with the transports and they should be arriving soon, he had taken Trigger with him and dismissed the rest of Golem squadron. Alan entered the barracks followed by Hannah. When he entered he saw his squadron lead and Saluted him, Trigger saluted back as they put down their bags. "Are you the replacement pilot?" Trigger asked, looking at them. Alan nodded "Yes Captain, I am. 1st Lieutenant Alan Reyes, this is my WSO 2nd Lieutenant Hannah Scholz." She nodded at him, trigger nodded back "Alright, you 2 are assigned to the bunks A-2 and A-3. We're having a formal meeting later on at 1600 hours, for now get set in." Alan nodded again, "Sir." He put his stuff down and went to use the bathroom. Knocker exited as Alan was about to go in, Alan saluted him before entering.
     Hannah was looking through her bag when she was approached by Knocker. "Hannah." she looked up towards him when he called her name "Sir?" She asked, he sighed "your flight lead is taking the loss of his old wingman hard. He is probably not going to be very open to conversation, if he seems cold that's why. Try not to bring up his old wingman unless he does first." Hannah nodded "Yes sir." Knocker nodded and walked away, going to do some paperwork. Hannah wondered how much the wingman's' death would affect their flight lead, or just their other squadron in general. It seemed that Golem and Mage squadron were quite close, which was a good thing. It's always good to know the people your flying with she felt. She finished packing and sat on her bunk, she pulled out her phone and started going through the recent news, she stopped on one in particular, inhaling sharply when she saw the title. Her home city, where her parents and siblings lived, Avera had been captured by Erusea. She immediately tried calling both their cell phones and the landline they had to no avail. She brought the news article back up and stared at it for a time, not quite believing what she saw.
     Several minutes later Alan came out to find Hannah sitting on the bunk on her phone going through the news, attacks on cities and how bad things looked. Alan grabbed his bag, putting it on the bunk next to hers and starting taking stuff out and putting it in his footlocker. He was also looking at the news in the bathroom, he knew he couldn't let the panic or fright set in so he could maintain composure, even if the war seemed hopeless. He looked back up at Hannah, she was still staring at her phone, at the same news article which showed her city, the one she and her parents lived in had fallen to Erusea. He knew what she was going through, having lost his mother and father during the last war. Alan stopped and looked at her "look, its going to be alright. Things may look bad now but you have to maintain hope. Don't let the sadness and panic take over. It will end well, I'm sure of it." He said putting his hand on Hannah's shoulder. She exhaled and closed the screen "Thanks Alan, but I'm fine" She said getting up and walking out of the barracks. Alan sighed and finished unpacking his stuff.
     Alan and Hannah had gone their separate ways, Alan had spent several hours getting paperwork done, and being assigned his new aircraft etc. At 15:30 hours he finished what he was doing and headed back to the barracks for the meeting. They met in the briefing room, Knocker was at the front of the room along with Trigger. The Lt. Colonel had a projector screen and a projector setup that was loading as the members of both squadrons sat down. Knocker cleared his throat as everybody sat down "Since you're all here we can start early. First off, our short range AAM is changing. We are finally dropping our outdated AIM-9Ms or AIM-9x BLOCK IIs. Now we can engage targets much more effectively in environments besides clear skies and maneuvering targets much more effectively. Secondly, the deployment of drones as you know is an extreme threat, these drones often can overwhelm our squadrons since they can be deployed in large enough numbers that we run out of ordnance. The DOD had already thought of weapon systems in case drones were used by other nations and had started producing them. These weapon systems are micro missiles, whereas on a normal hardpoint you'd be able to fit 1-2 missiles now you can fit a tube of 25. These missiles carry a miniscule amount of explosive, enough to down a drone but that's it. Not useful against normal aircraft unless you get very lucky with where shrapnel lands. These missiles are mostly propellant and targeting chips. Just as fast and maneuverable as our new AIM-9xs, with around 3/4s of the range. These are required for any further missions. And speaking of further missions, on 2 days on may 30th Operation Dual Wielder will commence. Be prepared for the briefing tomorrow at 20:00 hours. With that, you are all dismissed." He turned off the projector and packed up his computer, Everybody started to get up, Alan walked out of the room yawning as he made his way back outside to grab some food. Alan was tired and hungry, he wanted to get some food, finish up his work and then go to bed.
     After Hannah exited she received a phone call from her moms cell phone, she exited the barracks to answer it "Hello, Mom?" She said, in a panicked voice "Are you guys ok? Are any of you hurt"? She was panicking as she paced back and forth outside "Were fine honey, were all ok. None of us were injured in the fighting. Were living in an Erusean refugee camp, there's still fighting going on in the city and its not safe there. Stay safe, ok? Maybe well get to see each other soon. I have  to go and talk to some people from the Erusean government, ill call you later ok? Nobody else can talk to you right now, their all meeting with government personnel Love you." Hannah exhaled "I love you too mom." She hung up the phone and started to cry, happy that her mom and family are safe
     "Hey." Allen heard someone say behind him as he turned around to see who it was. "Hello" Alan said back "don't think we've met before, who are you?" He asked, wondering who she was. "Everybody Calls me Brownie. Nice to meet the new pilot." She said smiling and reaching out to shake his hand. Alan shakes her hand "Name's Alan, everybody used to call me Bambi." He wasn't a fan at first of the name seeing how he had gotten it, but it had grown on him. She cocked an eyebrow "And how did you get that name?" She asked, looking like she was hoping for a good story. Alan cleared his throat and told her the story "well, during IFT on one of my flights, I had finished my preflight procedure and started down the runway for takeoff. What I didn't notice was the deer at the end of it. As I pulled up the propellers hit the deer and, well, it was messy. Since that day I've been known as Bambi." Brownie stifled her laugh after hearing the story, she regained her composure and cleared her throat "well, that's a great story. I'll see you around" she said, walking the other way, as Alan headed outside he could hear her laughing. Alan always found that story amusing himself, he initially regretted it had ever happened but now he's seen the humor in it and enjoys a good laugh about his callsign as well.
     Alan went and sat down at a table in the mess, about 5 minutes later Hannah sat down across from him. He nodded towards her as he swallowed his food "well, hows it been going for you so far?" He asked, curious about how she was doing. "Well, had a talk with some of the members of Golem Squadron, I see you told at least one of them about how you got your callsign, they were laughing about it. I also had a talk with our flight lead, Trigger. Seems like a nice enough guy if a bit distant." She shrugged and took a bite of her burger "either way, we'll be back up in the sky in a couple days." She finished taking another bite of her burger "yeah, yeah we will be. Guess we'll have to wait and see how it goes huh." He said finishing off his food. He did hope that flying with a new squadron would go well, even if it is during a war it's the least he can hope for apart from not dying. "I'll see you later Hannah, I'm going to finish some work." She waved to him "see ya."
     The next day was much of the same, there was a lot of work to do. He had to go over his new plane and make sure everything was ok with it, he and his WSO did a dry run to make sure everything worked. Once they confirmed it they did their own thing until the briefing that night, where they went over the mission plan. Alan and his WSO didn't really interact with Trigger or Golem squadron that much. When they arrived for the briefing that night they were there with the other bases' squadrons, the colonel who was in command of the base at the front along with the squadron leaders, a projector and a large projector board turned on. As everybody arrived the colonel began to go over the briefing. "The surprise attacks carried out after the declaration of war saw the peacekeeping forces of various countries, including Osea, suffer major damage. The ships moored around the space elevator and near Gandar Ba y have been hit particularly hard. Numerous ships have been sunk and abandoned. Fortunately, our cutting-edge aircraft carrier Kestrel II was at sea, so it was spared from the attack. Kestrel II is now preparing to launch another attack against Erusea's capital, Farbanti . The aircraft carrier Vulture also managed to escape Gandar Bay safely. However, it lost all its aircraft, so it's sailing empty. Today the International Union Peacekeeping Force reclaims its bid to the space elevator. The Fort Grays Island Air Base Squadron will rendezvous with the carrier Vulture for a joint mission. The first objective will be to seize air superiority in Chopinburg in order to secure a route for the support squadrons. The enemy maintains air superiority over Chopinburg, so expect heavy resistance from enemy aircraft. There's more, so listen carefully. Right from the start of the war, the enemy has been deploying drones. They're using a new, advanced type of drone. The unmanned, airborne aircraft carrier the Arsenal Bird carries this new drone, MQ-101 . The Osean Army headed up the development of the massive Arsenal Birds and dispatched them to the space elevator to provide support. However, it's been reported that the carriers may have fallen into the hands of the Erusean Forces. If that's true, it could be a significant obstacle for us. We need to regain control of the space elevator ASAP. Good luck out there. Along with this, it will be the first deployment of our anti drone weapons system, the DAIM-A, which should provide us with a major advantage against these drones. We will be launching at 0400 hours, so get your rest in. All Squadrons will be deploying except for Nomad Squadron Meeting dismissed." The projector was shut off as Alan exited the room, he headed towards his bunk and laid down, he was excited for the mission tomorrow but he was also nervous, he hadn't engaged drones before and wasn't sure what to expect. He stayed awake for several hours until around 23:00 when he finally fell asleep.