A Southern Star and Calamity.

[Akarui Sora]

(This story is part of this on-going event: The Remote Incursion)

The Skies over Cadentia had been the site of conflict for over a month and a half. The Southern Star, a virtual battleship flying through the sky, designed to take on nests of Wyvern’s and other supernatural threats that lurk in the far reaches of the domain of Cadentia had been lost upon its initial flight. The whereabouts of who or what caused the artificial intelligence to cause the havoc it did that day were still yet to be discovered, and for the remaining members of the Cadentia Air Defense Wing (CADW), as well as the attached Liaison squadron from Rhy’din’s RASG the weeks that followed, were filled with daily scrambles to intercept and protect Cadentia and the surrounding region inside of the ‘bubble’.

That was weeks ago, and ever since things had fallen quieter. The occasional breach of the exclusion zone rarely called more than a patrol of aircraft to it, usually a small and unarmed UAV meant for scouting, or a remote SAM site that had been set up overnight to catch the ranging patrols of the CADW that were scouring outside of their protective bubble to find out where the Southern Star had gone to. One could even say that the conflict had fallen… quiet.


“What's for dinner tonight at ‘Flats’?” Akarui’s voice chirped over the shortwave radio channel the three pilots were sharing, as his modified and custom-built plane lazily drifted across the sky at their approved cruising altitude, heading back Northwards towards the ‘bubble’ with two other planes forming a shallow V formation on his six o’clock.

“I think Devil-Dog Six is whipping up some chili, seeing as it's been getting cold enough at night to warrant it.” There was a pause in the reply from the pilot off his left-wing, the baritone voice sweetly ringing into the mic. “After that, It is our night to jam out at the cultural center, you should stop by Humpback Two, we would love to have you.” His plane wiggled, wings going up and down slightly to accent the laughter that rang out in the cockpit of the plane emblazoned with the three-headed, devil-horned dog of the CADW Devil-Dog Squadron.

“Please send us some leftovers down to ‘Dunes’ if you can spare.” Came the squeaky voice of Akarui’s fellow squadron member, Humpback Twelve. Nicknamed ‘Pip’, she was one of the shortest members of the squadron and wasn’t originally slated to fly, but between Akarui’s protest and some hustle from Shelby: they managed to get the half-halfling / half-elf a modified plane that they could fly. “Not to... “

“Don’t worry about it Pip, I know I am not the best when it comes to actual cooking, why do you think I left flight two’s Chief to handle most of the food and I do the dishes when he isn’t having to look after Wolf’s plane.”

A soft chortling of both high-pitched and low-pitched voices came through the net as Devil-Dog Three, nicknamed ‘Mamba’ spoke calmly. “Not too far now, scopes are clear and IFF reads nothing around us, Joker.”

“Copy that, turn heading zero-one-zero, we will escort you the full length back to Flat’s before we turn back to Dunes, give Devil-Dog a little show and see if we can’t win them over for that chili tonight!” Akarui pulled a soft turn, banking through the air in a languid way as he let the plane drift several degrees off of true North before leveling back out and pressing a second Mic key. “Central, Humpback Two, entering bubble at airspace Echo-One-Three-Lima, en route to Airstrip Flat’s with Devil-Dog Three before returning to Base.”

“.....Zrrk...Bz..Bzztwef…” Static

“Central… do you copy?” Akarui stated again, sitting up slowly from his relaxed position as he started to scan around his canopy as the main airway used to communicate across all squadron commands was filled with static and strange clicks. “Mamba… Pip you reading this?”

“Affirm Joker, we're hearing it… or rather not hearing it,” Pip called back across their short-wave.

“We're not too far from the bubble now, it will be alright flight-lead,” Mamba called back, still leaned back slightly in his cockpit.

It had been nothing but a routine patrol. A farmer had spotted two strange objects out in his fields that morning, Remote SAM’s set up overnight by drop-off drones to challenge the extent of the ever-growing safety net set up by CADW, that was slowly making its way out of the initial area around the Bazaar and further out in all directions in the desert. Two missiles and the two SAMs had been dealt with, without there having even been a retaliatory shot.

Akarui lifted his visor and scanned. It was early in the day, and the Sun was closer to the Horizon than it was overhead, and without his visor, it was blindingly bright to look off in the direction of the sun, but the constant static, the clicks, and now the gargled… noise that came across the command network had him on edge, scanning vigilantly. Squinting as he continued to look towards the sun for a painful second longer, he saw it.

“Jink… Mamba jink!”

The warhead of the missile pierced through the outer skin of the Devil-Dog marked plane, expanding its fin’s inward before rupturing its explosive warhead in the heart of Mamba’s plane: the fireball that it became and the shockwave of the explosion caused a moment of turbulence as the serenity of the languid flight home turned to chaos and confusion.

“Pip Jink… Jink for gods’ sake!” There were no warnings from Akarui’s radar warning systems, no alarms, no bells… nothing. Yet he was pulling his plane hard into banking as his breathing turned rapid and paced with the G-forces he was pressuring his body under to try and avoid what he could only assume was a missile coming for him as well.

The second plane in his flight, Pip’s turned hard for the ground. Looking to race the incoming missile to the ground and then pull up at the last moment. Barreling down towards the sand-dunes below Pip turned hard into a motion to pull up at the very last recoverable moment, a spray of sand forming behind her from her engines nearly clipping the ground, yet there was no explosion: no missile. “Joker where is he!?” Panic was stricken in the pilot's voice as she careened around Dune’s, the background of her voice was filled with bells and alarms of her plane locked on. “Why...Why isn’t there a….”

Before Akarui could reply, there was a wake across his nose as his own warnings and alarms began to blare in his cockpit, a strangely shaped and much larger drone having cut right across his nose: nearly colliding with him as it passed and fired its missile towards the fleeing flight. The missile was faster than he could manage to give warning as he watched the left-wing of the plane disintegrate and the fuselage continues moving forward: plowing into a dune at full speed before erupting in flames.

The unmanned drone wheeled itself around in a high G maneuver, turning almost on a dime to cross paths again with Akarui, spinning horizontally so as they crossed paths a red light could track the young pilot's face, watching him.

Akarui braced and threw his own plane into a tight turn, as hard as he could survive. Even as alarms rang out in his ears there was still no signature upon his IFF nor the heads-up display that gave him anything to work with, anything to guide his missiles onto. If he was going to avenge the two burning wrecks below it had to be done the old fashion way.

The Drone mirrored Akarui, pulling another tight turn, and entered into a criss-cross with the young pilot, ducking back and forth in tight turns as it continually turned inside of its prey only to narrowly miss the window of attacking with its remaining missile and having to turn again.

It was hard work maintaining the flat scissors maneuver, as Akarui adjusted constantly his positioning and speed to try and force the drone to overshoot, to get the inside lane. Anything he could do just to get it off of his tail and in front of his gunsight, yet anything he did was matched and then out-maneuvered. The bells turned to sirens as the angle of attack swallowed out and there was a fast-moving missile seconds out now behind him. Slamming his hand into his flaps controller, he pulled back sharply upon his stick as he let all of his airspeed go and turned vertical. Over-G...Over-G mixed with the symphony of chaos in his cockpit as he felt his head lull to one side in the sudden rush of G-forces, before there was the sudden sucked in a breath as he watched the missile duck just under him and sped off in the distance, missing.

Barely managing to bring the nose over into a stalled out roll, as he pulls the flap’s back into position and dove towards the ground. The only other noise from his cockpit came from the static-filled radio channel, as the higher-pitched robotic noises were suddenly drowned out by a much deeper tone that resembled a simple, three-letter command. “R...T...B”

The drone sharply went head over heels and turned back in a Southwestern direction, speeding off before Akarui could even manage to turn to re-engage, disappearing with the sun to its face to prevent the easy chase.

“Central to Humpback Two, come in. Sergeant Sora, what's going on out there?” The command radio came to life as Akarui sucked in a breath, turning sharply to gain altitude and face towards the two burning wrecks on the ground.

“Humpback…Tw….Two.” His voice was shaking. Fear, anger, and immense guilt carried through. “Scr...scramble… S and R teams to Echo-One-Three-Lima. Two… two birds down. I repeat… two friendly birds down.” Akarui sucked in a breath as he let the airways go silent. “Humpback Two… remaining on station… Airspace is clear of …” He couldn’t even manage to say it, but the meaning was there.

“Central copies all. S and R teams scrambling with Chimera flight escort… Stay sharp up there Joker.”

“Humpback Two copies… out.”

The burning inferno raged below as Akarui passed over in a high degree bank, scanning the oil sprayed sands of each wreckage for any sign of… anything. Of hope, of a parachute, of an ejection seat. Anything. It would be ten minutes before the search and rescue made it there, it was ten minutes of seclusion to try and process what went wrong, of what happened, of how to report this…

Of how to report it.