DEFCON Year One

Chapter 1

One month after calling a DEFCON 4 readiness level, the White House and the Pentagon learned that Russia intentionally launched conventional missiles on Ukraine, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania, which happened to be members of NATO while China launched conventional missiles onto Australian, Indian and Indonesian soil. Further news included Iran and North Korea launching missile strikes against Israel, Jordan, Morocco for the former and South Korea, Japan and Taiwan for the latter.

While there were unfortunately civilian fatalities, the missiles were loaded with conventional warheads, thus limiting the devastation caused by those strikes. But this was enough for US President Joe Biden to raise the US Military's readiness level to DEFCON 3, meaning every troops were to be ready for combat on a defensive posture. And the order fell upon the Joint Chief of Staff.

In the bases however, the troops were training as usual, since DEFCON 3 readiness involved harder and more frequent training to get the US troops ready for combat. But now, troops had to be ready to get deployed within fifteen minutes, since DEFCON 3 level has been triggered, thus making both reserve troops and National Guard elements part of the global US war machine. And said troops were now training to face a conventional threat and not an asymmetric-warfare-type one.

Meanwhile, in a US Army UH-60M Blackhawk stationed in Poland, a young woman named Lisa Hadley was sitting in the pilot seat while her co-pilot was next to her. Behind them were the two door gunners, without any passenger however since the helicopter was on a reconnaissance patrol. Lisa was flying her Blackhawk when she suddenly saw Russian Mi-17 helicopters flying in front of her. The young American Blackhawk pilot did what she was taught and plugged the radio to the headquarters.

"Red Crown, this is Rapier 2-4. I have two Russian helicopters flying in front of me towards Belarus. How copy, over." She said.

"Rapier 2-4, this is Red Crown. Do not engage. AH-64s are on their way. ETA thirty seconds from your position. Out." The headquarters replied.

With that answer, Lisa saw two US Army AH-64E gunships flying past her Blackhawk from above before she heard them tell the Mi-17s to turn back of face consequences. The door gunners on the lead Russian Mi-17 opened fire on the Apaches. The two AH-64E Apache attack helicopters shot back with their chin-mounted M230 Chain Gun, riddling the two Russian birds with 30mm bullets and sending those two Russian helicopters to crash, leaving no survivor. Lisa understood the whole US Military was now in DEFCON 3 in the whole world. This meant operational readiness and training were heightened. And this also meant US forces were allowed to shoot if being either fired upon or reporting airspace violations.

In the meantime, in the Persian Gulf, onboard the USS Ronald Reagan, fighter pilot Alicia "Metal" Briggs had boarded her F/A-18E Super Hornet before closing the canopy, turning the engines on and enabling the afterburner to improve air speed. Metal then turned the dashboard screens on before putting her oxygen mask to her face and tightly fittin it. She then turned to the deck launch officer and gave him an Okay sign just before the officer motioned the catapult operator to launcher Metal's F/A-18E Super Hornet. She suddenly felt the plane speeding up from neutral to nearly 400 kilometers per hour in a 3-second timeframe before being airborne.

Metal then smoothly turned to her left before seeing another F/A-18E Super Hornet being launched from the deck of the aircraft carrier. Two other F/A-18Es were launched four seconds later before linking up with Metal's F/A-18E Super Hornet. But Metal quickly went to the number four position in another group, since she actually was the rookie pilot. And the reason why she was launched with three Super Hornets from another group was because the fleet had launched an E-2D Advanced Hawkeye before launching the other three Super Hornets from Metal's group.

Just then, an eighth F/A-18E joined the other three before Metal's group leader spoke into the radio.

"Gator 5-1, this is Shark 2-1. We're ready for routine patrol missions. Over."