Young Skies: The Black Acts

CH4

I took a moment to let Cassie do some sight-seeing. "Ooh! Aah! This. Is. So. Awesome! This view is simply breath taking!" She cooed. I was intrigued so I took a look as well. That's when I noticed how beautiful the island was from up here. Besides the airport, there was a big town over to the north, with a large expanse of flat grassland in between. I nodded in agreement.

"Alright, are ya ready to go?"

"You bet! What are ya waiting for! Let's go already!" She replied in one breath.

"Good grief, sheesh," I remarked as I increased the throttle to level-4. We instantly shot forward. From the outside, more of the Hawaiian islands swept by. Before long, they were nowhere to be seen. At the five mile mark, I turned left, and started flying south. Another ten miles went by and we were there. I lowered the throttle to level-2 and activated the scramjets. While we hovered in place, I looked down far below with a pair of binoculars. Sure enough, there were men down there. Lots of 'em, marching around, carrying AK-47s. A few were stationed in six SAM towers which were spread out over the weird star shaped island. What do you know! There were dangerous SA-9 vehicles too. This was not going to be easy.

"How's it look down there?" inquired Cassie.

"Not good, I'm afraid," I replied sorely. "Things are not looking very pretty, and I can fairly warn you that it's about to get nasty!"

"That bad, huh?" Cassie remarked. "Well, we can't give up now! Liza, Jai and your cousin's lives are counting on you!"

"You're right! Cassie, you're absolutely, positively, darn right!" I replied with confidence. "I'm really pumped now! Here we go!" I pressed a button on the yoke to activate weaponry mode. The right screen lit up a few seconds with the message, 'Weapons Online!' The joystick for controlling the weapons selection popped up behind me on Cassie's side.

"JAMO, WHAT'S THIS THING FOR!!??" She shouted loudly.

"Whoa, calm down! There is no need to shout!" I turned to look at her. "Cassie, looks like you get to help me save them! Please look at that screen on the right there. Whenever I tell you, please use that joystick and the screen to switch missiles for me, ok?"

She nodded in agreement, "I understand... JJ." I smiled when she referred to me in my child hood nickname. "I'll do my best!"

"Great, now switch to Hell-Fire X, please." I looked to the right as the screen showed what I asked for. Outside, on either side of the belly, out popped rectangular missile-pods. "Thank you! Now then, let's get happening!" I shut off the scramjets, pulled up the yoke and brought up the throttle to level-5! This caused the jet to fly up vertically! Everything began shaking as gravity fought with me.

"JAMO!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!??" Cassie yelled.

"Nnngg! Just. Brace. Yourself!!" I looked at the digital altimeter. We were at twelve thousand feet and climbing! I pulled down on the yoke, and made the plane half loop. We then started plummeting to Earth! I lowered the throttle to level-1 and cut off the triple thrusters. Gravity was my best friend right now!

"Jamo, Please! I didn't sign up for this!" Cassie screamed.

"You didn't sign up to anything!" I shot back. Turning away from her, I then paid attention to the middle screen. At seven thousand feet, eighteen targets appeared onscreen. Since the missiles could only be fired with the joystick, I shouted, "Cassie! Squeeze that trigger on the joystick! Fire the missiles!"

"OKAY!" She squeezed the button, and nine missiles shot out from both pods each. All 18 of them took up a position above their respective targets on the island.