"What Am I To You?"

Danger

Ice kissed Maverick bye before he went into his plane.

Maverick waved and walked over to his jets with the others. Rooster walked next to Maverick with a smirk.

"I take it with all the marks on your neck, you two had a very nice night last night?" Rooster said as he promptly got elbowed by Mav.

"Yes. We had a great night. We got busy, watched movies and passed out. We needed it..." he said as he climbed up into his jet.

Rooster nodded as he climbed up into his. "Good. Let's get home." He said with a smirk as he put his helmet on and lowered the canopy.

Ices plane took off first and they all followed suit, staying under and above the plane.

Maverick looked ahead and looked at Rooster. "Kid I'm going ahead to do recon." He said as he increased power and raced ahead to see if anyone had made it into the airspace.

Ice was in the plane typing the report as the president looked out the window.

"Admiral..." the president said.

"Yes sir?" Ice said as he looked up. "Have you worked on a will?" He asked.

Ice looked at him. "Um... not recently. I just planned to will everything to my son, husband, and daughter." He said.

"Good." Ice was confused on brought this up. "Why do you bring this up, sir?" Ice said as he saved his report and closed the computer.

"My intelligence agents have discovered that the enemy is targeting North Island, Hickam, and our military base in Alaska." He said as he turned and looked at Ice.

Ice was surprised. "Oh..."

"Just thought I'd let you know. Things will be getting more and more grim." He said as he then looked back out the window.

Ice looked down slightly and just took a deep breath.

Everything will be okay...

The group got to California. This is where the Air Force would take over the escort.

"Alright. Mr. President and Admiral. We are releasing you both to the Air Force. It was an honor to escort you both." Maverick said as him and his F-18s descended down to North Island.

Maverick went and landed and then the others followed properly. Bob was standing in the hangar waiting for them to land.

They all opened their canopies and got out of their jets. Rooster helped Hangman out and walked with the group to the hangar.

"Hey guys. How are all of y'all?" He said with a sigh of relief.

"We are okay." Rooster said.

"I'm extremely broken!" Hangman said as he limped over. Bob chuckled. "I figured, so, I brought a wheelchair." He said as he pulled it in front of him.

"Thank god someone is thinking of me." He said as he plopped down into the wheelchair. Rooster rolled his eyes.

"Uh huh... us helping you shower last night mean't no one was thinking of you? You are so spoiled." Rooster said.

Maverick chuckled and sighed. That sorry started to settle in again. He looked over in the direction where Ice was flying.

"Be careful."

Phoenix was cleared to fly, and she was back to flying almost everyday.

She was teaching her squad how to work with only her signals. She was very determined to train well enough to get accepted into Top Gun

Junior was picking up on her lessons, and Reaper almost got them down perfectly. She raced past the tower with the in tow.

"Alright, single maneuver!" She said. They all flew so close to each other that they were one on the radar.

"And... spread!" They all dashed in opposite directions with Phoenix going straight up. "Perfect!" She said as she leveled out. The two came up next to her.

"Look at us go! Dang you're an awesome pilot Phoenix." They said. She chuckled, "it's only because my teacher was good at his Job."

"Who was your teacher?" Junior asked. Phoenix continued flying. "Maverick. One of the greatest pilots I have ever met." She said as she went up.

"He became not just my mentor, but my father in the process. Which led to me getting another father and a bunch of brothers." She said with an soft smile.

She then started to descent. "USS Carl Vinson, on final for runway 09." She waited for a respond but heard garbled information. She raised a brow when suddenly everything went silent.

Everything went slow when the ship exploded underneath her. Her eyes widened as she did an aborted take off and went up to avoid the shock Waves of the ship.

"No!" She yelled. "Junior! Reaper! Are you with me!?" She said as she circled the explosion.

"Yeah we're with you! What happened!?" They said as they watched the ship start to sink. She saw something in the distance. "Boys! Go land at Hickam Air Base!" She said as she turned and headed back towards the island.

"Honolulu Center, USS Carl Vinson under attack by enemy forces. Requesting emergency landing." She said as she prepared to land anyway.

"Permission granted to land. Please provide coordinates of crash." They asked.

She told them the coordinates as she landed. She landed and then went full power ahead. "Junior come with me! Reaper land and give them the report."

They listened and followed her. She flew for about 3 hours until she raced by the enemy to see how many were coming. Her eyes widened as she saw 7 destroyers coming their way.

"Junior! Take notes! Seven destroyers. No aircraft carriers. Heavy artillery!" She said as she turned back to go back to base. "Junior in front of me!" She said as she went full throttle and started back for the base.

"I took note! I sent the message to tower!"
He said as he kept up with her. "Good! Land at the airport on the east side of the island. They'll target Hickam. Avoid Hickam as much as possible!"

The two eventually got back and landed on an eastern airport. She landed and parked the plane into a hangar. Junior did the same.

She grabbed her phone and called Reaper. "Hey... get your plane to the eastern airport. Hickam is a target, we can't lose our jets." She said as she acknowledged.

She called an Uber and got a ride to the base. She walked into headquarters and looked for where Ices base would be.

Junior turned and tapped Phoenix shoulder. "Found him."

She turned and looked at Ice as he walked over. "What's going on?" He said worried.

"USS Carl Vinson has been destroyed."