Take My Breath by AwayRealityBetterThanFiction on a03

Chapter 11

Squawking 7700 - An emergency code indicating distress when a pilot cannot communicate over the radio, usually due to mechanical failure. Basically, it's a "Mayday" code that's set by the pilot in distress on the plane's transponder to alert the nearby air traffic control facilities that help is needed.

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Harry had never felt G-force like this before. All he could do was stay conscious as his F-14 ripped through the clouds in pursuit of the bogey in his sights. He clenched all of his muscles, trying to keep the blood to his head as he'd been trained, with his hand gripping steady on the yoke. Behind him, Ginger chattered back and forth with the carrier's tower letting Harry focus on the pursuit. He stayed on his target while the pilot in the MiG sliced the sky in front of him, just out of range.

The pilot was good. But Harry had faced better. He'd beaten better.

Is that all you've got, Pigeon ?

He viciously jammed the thrust forward and got his bandit on lock, and then the bandit was bugging out, zooming off to the North and away from Harry's missiles.

Harry heaved a sigh of mixed relief and frustration, his finger still on the trigger. With some effort, he peeled it back and then pulled at his face mask.

"Ghostrider to tower," he called over the radio. "Target no longer a threat."

"Did you get a close look at the aircraft?" the Air Boss asked.

"Close enough to see that it didn't have an allegiance to any recognizable flag. It was a MiG, alright. But it didn't advertise itself that way," Harry told his superiors.

"That confirms other reports. Return to the carrier for debriefing."

"Affirmative," Harry said, already easing the yoke back toward the direction of the HMS Elizabeth.

It had been just another in a long string of episodes involving the mystery fighter jets that continued to toy with the Royal Navy's finest. Since joining the Mighty Wings squadron four weeks ago, Harry had become privy to the knowledge that he had been denied as a Premier Delta recruit. Apparently over the past four months there had been a series of aerial attacks on planes and ships stationed around the North Sea. There didn't seem to be a pattern to the attacks at first, as no single government had been targeted. The only similarity had been that all the attacks were mounted by what looked to be the same type of plane, Russian crafted MiGs. Russia had adamantly denied the incidents, which was thought to be largely political posturing, but then Russia sent aid in the form of battle ships and surveillance planes to figure out who was trying to use their name to start trouble. After a real Russian fighter jet took out one of the false MiGs, no one questioned their alliance any more.

Intel had been scattered, but what they were able to pick up from chatter was that these planes had been older models that were stolen from military yards while under repair. They'd been fixed up and then stripped of all signs of political ownership. It seemed their only goal was to create mayhem...and to possibly turn superpowers against one another in moments of tension. So far whoever was behind it had not yet achieved that loftier goal. But if it wasn't stopped quickly, it was very likely that the stress everyone was feeling could boil over to something more dangerous.

Once Harry was back on deck, he trudged down to the War Room to rehash his account of the recent mission. It had been a cat and mouse tactic of sorts, which Harry hadn't been all too comfortable with, mostly because he wasn't sure which role he was playing. They'd been successful in drawing out the attackers, but they were still no closer to knowing their identity or motives. And they didn't even manage to take one of the planes out. In Harry's mind, it was another failed mission. He and his compatriots had been having more than their fair share of those the past few weeks.