"Epsilon three, break left man, break left! Dammit!" Flight-sergeant Luke Kingsley watched, hopeless, as yet another of his flight was blown into flinders by the ChinKor fighter ace Purple Lesion, shards of metal spiralling to the ground far below.
WARNING MISSILE LOCK, his ears rang at the volume of the system's voice and he quickly twisted a dial to turn it down. Glancing down at his HDD – Head Down Display - he scanned for the missile, trying to work out where it was coming from.
Jesus it's close! He pulled sharply back on his joystick whilst ramming the throttle as far as it would go. Gravity pressed him down into the seat momentarily before he found himself at the top of the loop, his harness the only thing holding him into his seat. A twitch of the stick rolled the jet belly down. He could see the ChinKor missile, less than a kilometre away, plumes of smoke belching from its exhaust.
Shit that's big! He was still feeling the effects of the loop, fighting to control his breathing and heart rate, sucking hard behind his mask. Lining his Meteor up with the missile, he prayed he was shielding his engines from the missile’s heat sensors, his jet’s stealth profile also helping to confuse any secondary locking-on systems.
It was almost too late. He flicked a switch, firing a flock of flares, hoping to use their bright suns to distract the missile. Kicking the rudder pedals, he jammed hits stick to the right, grunting once again at the g-force pressing down on him. He sighed in relief as the ChinKor missile roared its way past him, the smoke from its engine obscuring his view for a split-second. The crude missile detonated behind him, his fighter bucking like a rodeo horse, adrenalin flooding through his veins in a subconscious reaction.
I'm coming for you, you bastard, he thought as he looked at his HDD, searching for the fighter that had killed his wingman and nearly him. ECAF Navy and ChinKor jets alike filled the sky in a deadly dogfight, missiles, tracers and pulse-fire flying from one to another whilst broken wrecks tumbled flaming to the ground. Finally, he spotted it, just as the tracer racing from its eight forward-mounted nose cannon blew another of the 5th Air Regiment – The Dragonslayers - out of the sky, rolling in victory.
Kingsley screamed in rage, the losses caused by the ChinKor ace Purple Lesion and his squadron, the Flying Circus, had been catastrophic, the ChinKor wiping out whole ECAF Air Regiments on the ground without warning.
With the ECAF air force decimated, every pilot lost threatened the UK’s very survival. He switched from passive to active radar, his fighter's systems actively hunting for the target he had designated. The steady pulse of the searching missile lock turned into a solid tone.
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"Epsilon one, shark away." His own missile dropped from its pylon, its rocket kicking in when it was a couple of feet below and he watched as it raced towards his target. Teeth clenched he willed it to strike home and blow the ChinKor out of the sky.
"NO!" he screamed in anger as another ChinKor fighter flew blindly into its path and was blotted from existence. Checking his HDD he saw he was out of rockets. Unable to believe the ChinKor's luck he switched to pulse-cannon and the nose-mounted twin heavy 30mm cannon that the Shield, an air superiority variant of the Meteor fighter, carried.
Purple Lesion jinked his way through the sky, the ChinKor pilot seeming to avoid any and all incoming fire whilst taking his tally to five. Kingsley marvelled at the way the pilot effortlessly took the fighter through manoeuvres that should have pulled it apart.
"Epsilon One to all pilots, I have the Lesion in my sites, keep these fuckers off my tail." Not waiting for acknowledgements he punched the afterburners, gritting his teeth so hard his jaw hurt.
Come on you shit, just a few seconds more, his lips muttered a quick prayer without thinking as he tried to lead the fighter. His thumb pressed hard on the stick button whilst he snatched at the trigger. Streams of tracer and pulses burned through the sky, arcing to where the fighter would be in half a second. Only it wasn't. Huge airbrakes popped up and the fighter literally stopped mid-air before plunging down in a controlled stall. Cursing, Kingsley kicked his rudder and yanked on the stick, his eyeballs feeling as though they would pop from his head as gravity once more reminded him there were certain laws to follow.
Fighting to overcome the darkness that was gathering at the corner of his eyes and bearing down like his instructors had taught him, Kingsley struggled to remain conscious. Just as he thought he had lost the battle he realised he was lined up for another shot and quickly righted his jet. Tracer reached out to him from the Lesion’s tail gunner, glow-worms turning into burning angry hornets as they punched holes in his left wing. Kicking his rudder he jinked left, sending a burst of his own.
"Yes!" he howled in delight as his rounds shattered the gunner's position, the crewman falling away from the fighter. Purple Lesion banked left, tracers racing in front of its nose forcing it to jink to the right. Every turn the ChinKor made, Kingsley was ahead. He hit the tail again, blowing the rudder off and forcing the pilot to roll and climb in order to bank. Determination filled Kingsley' veins with ice. His breathing was shallow, his heart felt as if it had slowed to the point of stopping. With a feral grin he pulled the trigger again. Pulse-fire streaked towards his target, blowing bits and pieces of fuselage into the air, chunks of one engine spinning away as it caught fire. Another, longer burst stitched its way from tail to nose and he screamed in delight as the pilot's cockpit exploded, rapidly followed by the rest of the plane.
+10000DP – LEVEL UP –ACE KILLER ACHIEVED! Appeared on his visor with a blast of triumphant-sounding trumpets.
"Epsilon One, the fucker’s dead. Let's scratch these scum from the air," he smiled, laughing as cheers filled his comms.
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