Author's Note: I remember that, in 1992 when I wrote this, 2017 seemed so far in the future. Man, have times changed. This was my second ever full story in the ETF world, and, while obviously a little dated, still isn't terrible. I should probably pull a Lucas and put out a "Director's Edition" lmao. Anyway, Enjoy
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Confrontation
Clash
of Titans
An ETF Saga
story
By
Brian
R. Kupfer
June
24, 2017
In
controlled airspace above Nevada
15:34hrs
local
High over the dusty sands of Nevada,
a lone, battleship gray, F-15E Strike Eagle circles, awaiting it's prey.
On the outside surfaces of her twin
vertical stabilizers is the tail code EE in white outlined black.
On the Eagles nose are the words
"Eagle One", painted in
blue, with a white shadow.
Beneath these words is a painted
picture of the American flag, with a bald eagle, wings spread, holding a
Sidewinder in its talons, superimposed on it.
Just beneath the canopy of the
Strike Eagle, are the marks of this bird's victims. Twelve red stars you will find there, and
forty-five rising suns. Six tank
silhouettes you will find here also, and a row of numerous benchmarks, counting
radar sites, SAMs, and bridges destroyed.
Under each of these markings, or, in the case of the stars and suns, on
them, are dates of destruction and types of vehicle or emplacement
destroyed.
Obviously, this bird has seen
some action.
On the canopy frame is painted
the names of the cockpit's occupants.
The first, for the pilot, says:
Col. Wahren "Wolf" Morast.
The second, for his WSO: Col. Aaron
"Valder" Fieldman. The two
Colonels converse as Aaron watches his radar, waiting for their rendezvous to
arrive.
They are veterans of the recent
World War III. This pair are the
undisputed champions in the Strike Eagle in all of the southern, and central,
U.S.
* * * * * *
A white, black, and gray camouflaged
F-15E streaks west out of Utah towards Nevada, the large black AK on it's twin
tails telling all where it once came from.
The Strike Eagle roars at twenty
feet, flying over uninhabited land at an eye-watering Mach 2.5.
On the nose of this Eagle is painted a cartoon
character, Warner's Tazmanian devil, but for some reason, this one's arms have
been painted raised above it's head.
This cartoon also has the American flag as a backdrop.
Everyone at the base in Alaska
has nicknamed this Eagle "The Tazmaniac",
after it's WSO, Lt. Col. Anthony "Vyper" Wakefield.
The pilot, Col. Matthew "ElTito"
Bendix is the reason for the figure's arm gesture. It is his trademark, to all who know
him.
This dynamic pair has been
tearing up all competition in Canada and the northern U.S. in the past few
months.
They had also fought in WWIII, in
the same unit as Aaron and Wahren, but they often flew the B-1, B-52 or
EF-FB-111's then.
Ryan had been known to fly the
odd sortie in the F/A-18 Hornet during the war, as well.
Therefore, this Eagle only has
three suns and four stars on it.
Good enough to give both of them
ace status.
Matt pulls the F-15E into a rapid climb,
rising to 35,000 feet, once they cross into Nevada.
He has come to this altitude for
one purpose, against his normal instincts.
He has come here to be seen on
radar.
Soon, a circling blip appears on Ryan's
radar screen.
* * * * * *
At precisely the same time Ryan sees
the blip on his screen, Aaron sees the blip of Matt and Ryan's aircraft.
"ElTito and Vyper are on
station." Aaron calls up to Wahren.
Wahren checks his radar, and,
sure enough, another Strike Eagle has entered the area.
Aaron calls up Ryan on the
radio.
As soon as he ends his
transmission, Wahren kicks in the afterburner and dives for the deck, quickly
speeding past the sound barrier.
* * * * * *
"Vyper, this is Valder, game's
on, repeat, game's on." Aaron's voice comes over the radio, into Matt and Ryan's
headsets.
While Matt dives the '15E for the
deck, Ryan adds some encouragement.
"Let's do it." He yells.
Matt ends the screaming dive at just
under twenty feet above the hard desert floor, a place where one mistake can
cost you your life, a place Matt and Ryan have lived their whole careers.
Matt points the nose of his Eagle
at the canyon in front of him. This is
the arena for today.
They can't touch us, he
thinks, this is our playground, and
they'll never beat us down here.
While his pilot roars them into
the canyon, Ryan turns on the gun cameras.
* * * * * *
Moments before, Aaron had done the
same thing as he and Wahren entered the canyon at fifty feet above ground. Wahren looks at his radar and sees Matt at
twenty. You aren't showing me up, Bendix!
He growls mentally, and drops another thirty feet. The two fighters hurtle towards their
objective, an empty storage bunker, from opposite ends of the canyon. Wahren and Aaron have a slight lead on Matt
and Ryan as they rocket towards their objective.
* * *
Though Eagle One is slightly ahead of The
Tazmaniac, Matt is much more at home than Wahren. Guided mostly by the feel of the rock around
him, he isn't using his terrain following radar. But, then again, neither is Wahren. Their mutual rules in this contest won't
allow for it. This should be a battle of
skill, not automation. Using occasional
encouragement from Ryan, Matt skillfully roars around corners and over the
larger boulders, only climbing far enough to clear them. Ryan arms the Durandals under the Strike
Eagle's wings, just to be ready.
* * *
Wahren rockets Eagle One around a bend, and sees a pair of fifty foot tall
boulders ahead, separated by just ten feet.
Wahren slips the Strike Eagle into a knife edge pass and shoots between
the rocks. As he comes out from between
them, the bunker is in his sights, two miles ahead!
"Aaron..." he calls.
"I know." Aaron replies,
arming their pair of Durandals.
Matt and Ryan choose that moment to bring
The Vypermaniac roaring over a huge
rock formation, inverted! As Aaron and Wahren
watch, Matt rolls the '15E over as Ryan releases the twin Durandals from beneath
it's wings. Matt then pulls his Eagle
into a climb.
Score one for Vyper and Tito Aaron
acknowledges grimly as he releases his Durandals on the now smoking bunker,
relieving his and Wahren's Eagle of their dead weight.
"Hey, Valder, how's that?"
Matt asks mockingly over the radio.
"Just wait, Tito, we're not
done yet." Aaron responds.
"You might as well just give
up." Ryan remarks.
Wahren pulls his '15E up beside Matt's,
slowing down as they have done. Matt and
Ryan are openly grinning at them.
"Just watch Vyper, who knows,
you might just learn something." Wahren hisses. He signals to Matt, who gives him the
"You first" signal back. Aaron
and Ryan exchange signals. No radar. So,
they want to dogfight! Aaron
surmises as he tells Wahren. Shrugging, Wahren
rolls his Eagle over the top of Matt's, and climbs for the clouds, afterburners
blazing.
"Fucking lunatic!" Matt
exclaims as he pushes open his afterburners and roars off in pursuit. As Wahren puts his aircraft through a series
of Immelmans, loops, tight and wide turns, Matt sticks to him. Wahren flips his Eagle over and dives,
spinning, into a cloudbank. Aaron and Wahren
are pushed deep into their seats by the G forces. So are Matt and Ryan, starting a pursuing
dive. Inside the cloud, Wahren levels
out, does a tight turn, and exits back the way he came in. Matt roars into the cloudbank after Wahren,
and, figuring, logically, that no one would be stupid enough to make a blind
turn in a cloud, roars right back out the other side.
"Where the fuck are they?"
Ryan yells as the burst out of the cloud, following...nothing.
Meanwhile, Wahren had flown under
the base of the cloudbank and was sneaking up on Matt and Ryan, albeit two
hundred feet lower.
Ryan, checking all around him out
the canopy, cannot see them, as they are directly below them. Wahren slowly Aaronngs his plane closer to Matt's. Ryan turns on the radio, and stops looking
around to operate it. As he does so, Wahren
slows down, so that he is a hundred yards behind them, and climbs to Ryan and Matt's
altitude.
"Sneaky, guys. Now, where the fuck are you?" Ryan
sends.
"Check six, Vyper." Aaron
replies as the missile lock alarm starts blaring in Matt and Ryan's ears.
"Mutherfucker!" Ryan
exclaims as he looks over his shoulder. Wahren
and Aaron are close enough so that he can see their eyebrows.
"We take round two." Wahren
comments. "The score, I believe, is even."
"You never would have had us if
it wasn't for those clouds." Matt growls.
"Even so...." Aaron
begins.
"Fuck you, Fieldman." Ryan
cuts him off.
"Whassamatter T, desperate for
a date?" Aaron chides.
His only response is a low growl.
"Yeah, lets see how hot you
talk after Multiple Bogeys." Matt starts up.
Eagle One pulls
ahead of Vypermaniac, and the two
buzz the base in close formation, doing a pair of synchronized aileron
rolls. They land and grab a bite to eat,
waiting for their planes to be refuelled, and to be loaded with missiles. They take off and circle on station, as
Nellis sends up the Adversaries. The
Adversaries are surplus aircraft, left over from the military drawdown of the
1990s, and are being used as drones.
They fire paint pellets, while the Strike Eagles' ordinance are
real. Many will be sent up for this
engagement.
Twenty-five of them, to be
exact. Seven A-4 Skyhawks, eight F-5E
Tiger IIs, and ten F-16C Fighting Falcons.
The two Strike Eagles keep in
formation. They will fight as a team on
this one. They cannot begin until the
Adversaries reach 15,000 feet. The whole
sky, from a deck of two hundred feet, will be their battlefield.
"Bogies up!" Ryan yells,
watching as the twenty blips pass fifteen thou on his radar. The radars will be left on for this test.
But, there could be a problem
here. Between the two Strike Eagles,
there are eight Sparrows and eight Sidewinders. That's sixteen missiles for
twenty-five aircraft. Problem? For most crews, maybe, but for these? We'll see.
At a signal from Ryan, Wahren and Matt
break formation. Wahren pulls off to the
left, under Matt's aircraft, which he is pulling into an Immelman. The fight has begun.
Ryan and Aaron arm their missiles,
selecting their first targets.
Eagle One roars
after an F-16 painted in Desert camo, and with prominent red pipe lettering
declaring "56".
Vypermaniac rolls
off the top of the Immelman, lining Ryan up for a head-on shot with a blue on
blue A-4.
The F-16 in front of Eagle One climbs into an Immelman, and,
rather than follow it, Wahren turns tightly to the left and comes out Matteath
it, raises the nose, and Aaron releases a Sidewinder. The '16 explodes satisfyingly. One
down, Twenty-four to go.
As Vypermaniac closes on the A-4, Matt rakes it with cannon fire. He then executes a half Cuban-eight to end up
behind it, lining up for a blast that shears off the A-4's tail. Two
down. While Matt and Ryan have been
intent on this A-4, two F-5s have snuck out of the clouds behind them, and are
now lining up for a shot, at max range, about ten miles. Ryan yells off a warning to Matt.
"Two Bogies, six-o-clock
high!"
Matt starts evasive maneuvers. The F-5s open up with their cannons. Paint pellets rain all around the F-15E as Matt
snap rolls it. Then, just as he levels
out, and it appears the F-5s will get a lock, a battleship gray form screams
over Matt and Ryan's Eagle, and the F-5s
disappear in twin fireballs, thanks to a pair of Sidewinders.
An all-black F-16 chases the form,
screaming in pursuit of Eagle One. Wahren starts evasive maneuvers as Aaron
tries to come up with a Aaronght idea.
Suddenly he finds one.
"Wahren, you see those A-4s up
ahead?"
"Yeah, they're heading right at
us!"
"Do your Lead Weight
move."
Wahren's face lights up. "Perfect." He responds.
Wahren opens the throttles and aims
his Eagle straight at the onrushing Skyhawks.
At the last moment, Wahren flips the '15E onto it's back and dives for
the deck. The F-16, caught by surprise,
slams into the A-4s in a gargantuan explosion, and a mass of molten metal drops
from the sky, all that is left of the three aircraft. That's seven!
* * *
Matt has yet again picked up a tail,
but Wahren and Aaron aren't around this time.
This time, he has the
F-16. Matt decides to test it's guts as he
slams the control stick towards the instrument panel. The Strike Eagle picks up speed as it goes
into an almost vertical dive. Ryan is
starting to turn a little green as the G forces assault him. Three more aircraft have joined the
chase. Two F-5s and an A-4. Matt starts to pull out of the dive and
levels out a scant five feet above the hard desert floor. The A-4 learns exactly how hard that floor is as it becomes a smoking crater. One of the F-5s and the F-16 have leveled out
at fifty feet, just high enough to avoid the dust storm Vypermaniac is kicking up.
The other Tiger II, however, has leveled out at fifteen feet in it's
attempt to acquire a lock. It's intakes
soon fill with dust, and the F-5 buries itself in a stall-induced belly
landing. Matt smiles at his new record
of low altitude as the Strike Eagle disappears from sight, dropping into the
nearest mouth of the canyon.
PARTY TIME!!! Matt
and Ryan think as one.
Matt has a ear-to-ear grin on as he
takes the Eagle around corners at breakneck speeds. He roars under a thirty foot high rock Aarondge,
and the F-16 streaks over it, still following them. The Aarondge disappears in a puff of rock and
metal, as the second F-5 slams into it, not able to dodge it quickly enough.
* * *
Meanwhile, Aaron and Wahren are
having their own problems in Eagle One. They are being chased across the cloud
studded Nevada sky by a flight of six
Fighting Falcons! As they race for their
lives at Mach 2+, Wahren spots a particularly large cloudbank to his left. As he heads towards it, he warns Aaron.
"Time for the ol' cloud
trick." He drawls.
Oh, Shit!! Aaron
curses mentally. This stunt had almost
gotten them killed numerous times during the war. Aaron checks all his straps and harnesses,
tightening a few, just to be safe, and makes sure his ejection seat is
armed. He hates this move, and Wahren
knows it.
As Wahren enters the clouds, he pops
the airbrake and roars into one of the tightest Immelmans ever attempted. As he exits the clouds, Wahren is depressing
the cannon trigger, and performing a series of rolls. A wall of deadly lead pours out of the 20mm
Vulcan, chewing up it's targets. One
F-16 loses it's left wing, another takes a round through the cockpit. One unfortunate Falcon swallows ten rounds
into it's intake. Two more Adversaries
collide, trying to evade the lead wall.
The last Falcon arms a missile as Wahren puts Eagle One on it's tail and kicks in the 'burners. Wahren then rolls the Eagle inverted, diving
back into the same cloudbank. This time,
however, he flies straight through it, and Aaron, checking six, is amazed to
see Falcon shrapnel falling from inside the cloud.
* * *
Matt screams through the canyon,
hurtling through the ever narrowing walls, trying to lose the F-16 that seems
dead set on destroying him. A Sidewinder
arches off the rail of the Strike Eagle as Ryan fires it at the base of an
upcoming overhang. The '15E streaks
underneath the overhang just as the missile explodes. Ryan had given it a delayed detonation. The Fighting Falcon behind them is buried
under forty tons of rock, as it tries to follow them under the overhang.
"Nice shot, Vyper."
"Yeah, he'll have one hell of a
headache in the morning." Ryan quips.
Matt rockets the Eagle skyward,
searching for yet another Adversary to prey on.
He spots the Falcon tailing Eagle
One, and launches a Sidewinder into the clouds. The blip on Ryan's screen disappears as the
F-16 joins it's fellows. Seventeen down, eight left.
"Thanks for the assist,
Tito." Wahren calls over the radio.
"Call it even, Wolf, you waxed
those F-5s for us."
As Matt and Wahren congratulate each
other, more level heads are targeting the remaining Adversaries. Ryan locks all four of his Sparrows, as does Aaron. A volley of eight long range missiles roar
from under the wings of their Strike Eagles.
Ryan's Sparrows ring true, Aaronnging
down three A-4s and clipping the wing of an F-5, sending it spinning to the
earth below.
Aaron has a little worse luck with
his, destroying the last F-16, while his other three Sparrows are avoided.
Three aircraft left. Two F-5Es, one A-4.
Matt and Wahren split, going after
the remaining aircraft.
Matt chases an F-5E across the
heavens, finally Aaronnging it down with thirty rounds to the tailpipes. An F-5 doesn't fly well without engines.
Ryan has targeted the last A-4, and
lets loose a Sidewinder. Now he has only
one missile left.
Unbeknown to Ryan, Aaron has
targeted the selfsame A-4 with his last missile, also a Sidewinder. Both Sidewinders hit the hapless Skyhawk at
the same time. It is reduced to
vapor. Matt chases the last F-5, firing
his last Sidewinder at it as it enters a cloudbank. Then he follows his prey in, to assure it's
death.
Eagle One had
just entered the cloud from Matt's blind side.
The A-4 explodes not fifty feet in front of Wahren and Aaron. Time advances in slow motion for the two men,
as Eagle One's moveable surfaces are
welded to the wing, tail, and fuselage.
Time slows ever more as the canopy's glass melts and bubbles in the
intense heat.
Time almost stops as Matt and Ryan
watched Eagle One hurtle out of the
fireball straight at them at well over Mach 2.
Matt and Ryan instinctively duck as the two aircraft close at over Mach
5. At the moment of impact, Matt feels
like he is going deaf as he hears the shriek of metal slicing through
glass. Matt and Ryan are showered with
pieces of glass as Eagle One's wing
shears off the top of their canopy.
There is a massive jolt to both aircraft as Eagle One's wing imbeds itself into Vypermaniac's twin vertical tails.
The wing stops and is ripped from the fuselage of Eagle One. The now
one-winged aircraft goes into an uncontrollable spinning dive, and time is
suddenly back on track, and, to the pilots, it seems to be in fast forward. Aaron's hand tightens on the ejection handle
to fire the canopy off, but it had been welded to the fuselage by the
explosion. Too late, Aaron realizes the
damage is done as the rocket Matteath his chair fires. Aaron is slammed through the canopy, shattering
it. However, the resistance from the
canopy glass has tilted his flight path, and the supersonic wind clutches at
him, bouncing him down Eagle One's
fuselage. His last sight is of the
Strike Eagle's left vertical tail as he hits it. Everything turns black....
Wahren's seat fires instants after Aaron's,
and, since the canopy glass is gone, his seat flings him above the Eagle's twin
tails. His parachute opens, as does Aaron's,
and the wind fills the chute, pulling his limp body off the tail of the
hurtling bird. The F-15E dives into a
lake far below, amidst an explosion of foam and a geyser of water.
Matt and Ryan aren't exactly having
it easy, though. Their plane's controls
have turned to mush, and it takes both of them to line Vypermaniac up with Nellis' main runway. Both Matt and Ryan are now wearing their
oxygen masks, and have their blast shields down on their helmets, preventing
the wind from peeling their skin off.
Ryan calls for the Alert Osprey as
he sees the twin parachutes touch down.
He and Matt manhandle the aircraft
onto a straight and level heading and land, joltingly, on the tarmac at
Nellis. The nose gear on the F-15 is
torn out of its housing, and the Eagle's nose slams into the concrete. Matt and Ryan quickly unstrap their
harnesses, anxious to get out of this aviary time bomb. The Strike Eagle explodes as Ryan unclasps
the last securing. He is thrown thirty
feet in the air on a pillar of fire, landing over a hundred yards from the
doomed plane. The lights dim as he hits the hard pavement, but he struggles to
hold on to his consciousness.
Matt is still inside as the Eagle
explodes. Watching in horror as the skin
melts off of his fingers, he unhitches the last of the straps and runs from the
aircraft, trailing fire. He is thrown
five feet as he is hit by the powerful water cannon atop the base's rescue
truck. He, however, is thankful for the
darkness enveloping him, it takes away the pain. These are his final thoughts as he blacks
out.
* * *
The V-22 Osprey arrives two minutes
after Ryan's call, picking up Wahren and the comatose Aaron from the north
shore of the lake. They are rushed to
the infirmary, where Wahren is treated for a broken leg.
Matt is released after two months
recovery, badly scarred from the third degree burns that cover a fourth of his
body. Ryan spends a two day observation
period there, as his five broken ribs heal, and as he recovers from a severe
concussion, never mind the two hours each of them spent getting glass shards
removed from their upper backs and lower necks.
Wahren leaves the infirmary one week after entering, his leg in a
cast. Aaron is in a coma for six months,
and awakens to find he cannot remember his own name. Eventually his memory returns. He had had three broken ribs, but these had
healed long ago. Aaron is diagnosed with
severe head trauma, and eventually released.
On the fourteenth of April, 2020,
almost three years after their mid-air collision, the four men are retired in a
gala celebration. Among the most celebrated
and decorated men in USAF history, Ryan, Wahren, and Matt retire as Major
Generals, while Aaron, for being a Task Force leader in the war, ends up with a
full four stars.
