The Bradshaws: A TopGun Maverick Story

~FOUR~

"Yo, Coyote, take a look at this."

"The man, the legend. There he is."

"No, no—not him. Next to him."

The camera panned across the faded photograph of Goose and Maverick in their Top Gun days, arm in arm, youthful and fearless.

"He look familiar to you?"

"Bradshaw, as I live and breathe."

Before more could be said, Maverick's voice cut through the room. "Time is your greatest enemy."

The chatter died instantly. All eyes locked on him as he tapped the screen, the mission profile coming to life.

"Phase one of the mission is a low-level ingress attack in two-plane teams. You'll fly through this narrow canyon, hugging the floor all the way to your target. The area is defended by radar-guided surface-to-air missiles. Lethal. But they're designed to defend the skies above, not the canyon below."

A mutter came from the back, half a laugh. "That's because nobody's crazy enough to try it."

Maverick's gaze flicked up. "That's exactly what I'm going to train you to do."

Daredevil shifted uneasily in his chair, the words weighing heavy. Insane. He's asking us to do the impossible.

"On the day of the mission, your maximum altitude is one hundred feet. Exceed that, radar will see you, and you're dead. Airspeed: six hundred knots, minimum. Time to target: two and a half minutes. Because fifth-generation fighters sit on alert at a nearby base. If they're scrambled and you're caught in a head-to-head while flying F-18s—" He paused, his tone flat. "—you're dead."

A murmur spread across the room. Everyone already knew this. Nobody wanted to hear it spoken aloud.

"That's why speed is critical. Get in, destroy the target, and get out before those fighters have a chance to launch. But—" Maverick clicked to another schematic. "—if the enemy planes do get airborne, a decoy will be deployed. Their job will be to intercept, take those fighters head-on, and pull them away from you."

The room erupted at once.

"Wait, a dogfight? At those odds?"

"That's not a decoy, that's a death sentence!"

"Who the hell's volunteering for that?!"

"It's a suicide mission, plain and simple!"

The pilots' voices tangled together in protest, their fear unmasked for the first time.

Maverick didn't raise his voice, but the authority in it cut through the chaos like a knife. "I didn't say it would be easy. I said it was necessary. Someone draws them off, or you don't come back. That's the reality of the mission."

Silence fell. The weight of his words sank in, pressing on every chest in the room. Daredevil clenched his fists beneath the table, the thought echoing over and over: Even if we make it through the canyon... someone's not coming home.

"Good luck."

"Time to target, one minute thirty. We're two seconds behind—push it to four-eighty knots."

"We gotta move, Coyote."

"Copy. Increasing speed."

"Oh—oh, shit!"

"Why are they dead?"

"We broke the three-hundred-foot ceiling. SAM locked us, we're done."

"No. Why are they dead?"