The War of Civlar

CHAPTER 8 – COMBAT

  “Welcome!” booms the instructor. “I am flight lieutenant Yaver. I see that many of you here today are new, which is not surprising since that party season has ended!”

  Yaver continues -

  “It has been designated that you will all be serving on fighter squadron G14. Now, I don't know how much money you'd all have left after the party season, but if you are indeed capable of producing the funds, I remind all the new members that the engineering department will be open from 9am to12am and taking orders for any modification you wish to make on your stock standard X-11 fighters. If, however, you are unable to avail yourselves of this, don't be too sad – the X11 fighters have actually been designed to maximum efficiency in their standard form the government. Obviously, these base models are provided free of charge – otherwise we would not have an air force to fight with!”

  “Why would we want to modify a design that is already perfect?” asks Pliss.

  “An excellent question, recruit! There are only three sane reasons to modify the standard X11 – Deception, Intimidation and because it’s Cool! Deception is a great theme in Evolution. From the Plant and Animal kingdom, deception can be seen all around us. From a military perceptive, I will give an example from my own record. My X11, dear fellow is equipped with the RJ-46 assault cannon as opposed to an RJ-45. It is lighter but has a tad more range than the 45...”

  “That sounds like an advantage!” exclaims Pliss, wondering if he should install his own 46.

  “That is not the advantage young friend. Like I stated if you were listening, the fighters are already designed for peak effectiveness and the RJ-46 does not do as much damage as a 45.”

  Loving to trumpet his own innovation, Yaver pauses to construct a grin.

  “What I often do, is fly 2% slower than I could possibly fly intentionally when approaching the enemy. You see, this matches the top speed of a fighter equipped with an RJ-45. Many enemy pilots are not keen to do a lengthy ordnance scan on every approaching fighter, simply because it is much faster to scan the first fighter in a formation – or scan one at random if they are slightly more clever. This gives me a 100m range advantage, which is approximately 5 seconds, in which to damage or destroy an approaching fighter, then quickly accelerate back to full throttle once the dogfight starts. Some pilots chose to take the alternative approach: intimidation. They will pack as many heavy guns as they can, within reason, onto their vehicles. Some install arbitrary devices that protrude a guttural sound, which, although giving away the position slightly, has been formulated to stimulate primal intimidation in the enemy fighters. You see, friends, the military is an art as well as a science!”

  Everybody nodded that this was impressive. Pliss decided that he needed the guttural sound but preferred the normal weapons. He had also decided on some colors, and a large logo saying “Alcohol is great!” across the front section of his vehicle.

  During an intermission, the crew hastily compares notes on what they reasoned would be the best designs for their respective aircraft, knowing obviously that deviating too much was suicidal, since the government had already determined peak efficiency.

  “Alcohol is great!” blurts Pliss, during a lull in the conversation.

  Everyone laughs. “That's going to be written on my front section,” he explains.

  “Do you like alcohol?” asks a bewildered female recruit next to him. She knew there should be a good answer, but the curiosity was killing her. Also, there was a possibility that he was a reformed prisoner. She had heard from his sister in the prison precinct that they would assist the captured soldiers by offering them wine and champagne – since the grape had been extinct from the Realm for hundreds of years - just to show them the diversity of nature and the beauty of their civilization in preserving it.

  “What do I look like, a cave man?” he quipped. “Alcohol is illegal in those fascist places we are attacking, but some people still make it. It is one of the few drugs that their rudimentary society is capable of producing!”

  “Now that's fucking with their heads!!” she said devilishly.

  “It makes sense...” interrupted another recruit, “their sermons make me nauseous so it follows to reason that they should consume a drug that produces that same effect!”

  “Speaking of retro,” continued the young lady, “do you like my tongue piercing?”

  She extended her tongue as far as it could go and danced it around provocatively.

  “Yeah, I don't mind a bit of retro...” Pliss replies slyly.

  Pliss is distracted about the piercing intermittently for the most of the briefing. He likes this girl. Maybe, he thinks, he should pierce his ears! Hell no, how conformist, that would surely turn her off! There's nothing worse than a “follower” for making friends or even worse, lovers.

  Desperate for some creativity, he decides for a quick one at the bar. Upon arriving there, he is shocked to see that Pleasurin-12 is at full price. Immediately his thoughts turned to hatred for the incumbent government. “Reducing the subsidy perhaps, but removing it entirely!” he thinks.

  Seeing his mortified expression, the bartender smiles. Pliss knows that he is now mistaken somehow, since a bartender would never smile at such a concept. Now, like the girl, he is overcome by suspense.

  “You sick bastard!” he says, doing his best impression of being serious.

  “Don't take it then. You're going on a mission tonight, what do you need to feel love for? Your enemy?” he chuckles.

  He points to a different dispenser. “That's free.”

  Sharp. Supply and demand has made it expensive on the outside, since it is not subsidized. He immediately knew the implication. “Strong,” he says.

  “Certainly not my dear friend. Our records indicate that you have an unfortunate sensitivity to the stuff.”

  Pliss feels ashamed. Now, if that was a joke... well, he'd have to think of some kind of insult in return.

  “He's serious” says the recruit behind him. “We've all seen your medical files. We wanted to know if you really did like alcohol.” It was the other recruit that was making a pass at the tongue piercing girl.

  “Your heart will explode on strong. I mean that literally.”

  The bartender set it for weak and Pliss inhaled... the bitter substance burning as it made its way down his esophagus. “Just remember to stay calm!” taunted the other recruit.

  He managed to resist the shakes while at the base, but now that he was in the air in the privacy of the cabin he decided to release himself. His hand were sweating and trembling. The on-board clock seemed to be malfunctioning - ticking over way too fast, however as soon as he put his attention on it the clock started to slow to a crawl. He now understood the advantage. But counterproductive to this was his racing and erratic mind. Additionally, he thinks - “This is not pleasant!” He starts mentally revising calculus, then the karma sutra. He realizes that he can not keep his mind on one thing. He starts obsessing about his weapons configuration. Single fire. Dual fire. Single fire. Which is better?

  Impulsively, he turns on his guttural emitters, although he is immediately snapped back by the thought of why he had done this arbitrarily.

  The voice in his head started to chant, trailing off in waves:

  “FUNN FUNN FUNNNNNNN......”

  You are here to work, idiot! Or die!

  His inner voice is soon interrupted by a wonderful sight. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the three distinctive dots indicating enemy fighters nearby. Three of them. It was a clear dry day and on further inspection they were indeed there.

  “FUNN FUNN FUNNNNNNN......”

  His head voice changed to a higher pitch, instigated by the acceleration of his heart. Now he was glad that the gutturals had been activated.

  The enemies must now know he was there too. They are now probably laughing at him for turning on his gutturals in defiance of their superior numbers. This was to be a routine reconnaissance mission but is now turning out t
o be far greater. What if he dies after stacking his chips so high?

  “SSSSHHHHAAAAAAAAAAMMMEE!” screams his internal voice.

  “No” he thinks - “No shame. Concentrate. Use what you have learnt, slow down the clock.”

  He now stared at the clock and as anticipated it started to slow. “Now, just secretly: What is the best thing to do?”

  “The enemy fighters are approaching fast. Or is it slowly? But in reality, they are fast, only your perceptions are distorted. Three to one. Three to one. My odds of survival are... bastard, co-operate, what an irrelevant thing to think!”

  Luckily there was still time to formulate a plan and it came to him in a snap. Now, to simply execute it.

  He armed his missiles on single fire, multiple targets. His enemies would know this. Obviously, they would be concentrating all their weaponry on him. They approached head on...90kms, then 80. As the indicator came close to the missile range he willed time to slow down once more. At the first hint of the on-board computers indication of a missile lock, he suddenly changes this configuration: Dual fire, Single target!

  His own missile lock had already been achieved and since multiple target mode changed to single target mode without any time delay he already had his target in scope. He let out barrage after barrage and watched the enemy missiles come in slowly while his own missiles were zooming ahead at breakneck speed.

  “Bollocks! Their missiles are traveling at the same speed respectively – it’s just my subjective perceptions was making me the master of time. Master of time?”

  He pulled up and into a spiral before the first of the enemy missiles could reach him. The single enemy he had targeted proceeding to do the same, but in the downward direction. Now it was two to one, for the time being, as the dogfight would commence. Provided he manages to evade the three missiles sent against him, and his single target managed not to evade the four he just sent his or her way. As predicted, his enemy had been conservative with their ordinance, most likely saving them for some potential future encounter; by liberty of their greater numbers.

  He danced around the sky with extreme randomness.

  “How can optimal randomness be achieved?” he thought, “Too late to think about that!” – Although he already knew the answer – that thinking about it would achieve the diametrically opposite result.

  Cannon blasts are now being heard behind him, and more potential missile locks from his enemy were a distinct possibility.

  Dance, just keep dancing.

  “They think I'll get tired! I'll NEVER get tired! You'll run out of fuel first, you cunts!”

  The cabin shuddered as he took a direct hit with a cannon. A missile whizzed past at this same moment but thankfully missed. Only some slight damage, but nothing structural, nothing that would affect performance.

  “Target two destroyed!” advises his computer. His original barrage of missiles had done its job. Two against one - and now only thirty seconds before those enemy missile run out of steam.

  With ten seconds left the first of his missile pursuers drop from the sky. The duration of a missile run could in no way be accurately predicted, due to the chaotic nature of their maneuvers in pursuit. Soon the other one dropped. The final missile was out wide making and arc to re-attempt a hit, and he knew that it was too far away to destroy him before it ran out of fuel.

  With a jolt of inspiration, he hit the 'brakes'. Full reverse acceleration. The fighters on his tail instinctively moved out of the way and zoomed past, anxious to avoid a dual suicide and collision under these circumstances.

  Now slightly ahead of him two enemy fighters are banking around. Full reverse throttle started to kick in. He again considered his situation.

  The X-11 fighters, just like the enemies, could go just as quickly in reverse as it could forward (without obviously the advantage of afterburners.) His enemies were now facing him, attempting to make missile locks. It was an eventuality, since they were at a standstill relative to each other. Could he try the same trick again? No, he only had two missiles left – and the enemy as noted had conserved its ordinance. But his enemies, although facing forward were not using the afterburners since they were too close for comfort, almost within auto cannon range, and wouldn't want to overshoot their target as such.

  Now Pliss sent forth his final missiles, dual fire – multiple targets. Subsequently, both enemy fighters would need to evade.

  The enemies, learning from his previous barrage proceeded to send forth a barrage of their own. Pliss pulled up and twisted – flying in reverse. He thought that only by virtue of them being so close did the enemy fail to empty their tanks. In fact, both enemies respectively managed to get only one salvo in although it was both dual fire, so there were 4 missiles pursuing in total.

  Pliss is still in full reverse, but despite this awkward situation it produced one strange advantage.

  1.The X-11 cannons were mounted towards the front.

  2.The missiles were approaching from the front, and due to his reverse orientation relative to their speed, they were coming in slowly relative to his position.

  By contrast, his own missiles had been going towards their targets with their targets heading towards them (the regular situation).

  While his enemy danced, he decides upon yet another ploy. Taking liberty of the time advantage before impact he eased off evasive maneuvers and begins flying straight, though still in reverse and at an angle, towards the Sun. The missiles behaved predictably, following the most efficient trajectory toward their target – now a straight line. With a burst of cannons, he destroys two of the missiles, the closer set of the group as they converged near his craft. It was in fact the resulting explosion from the first that managed to destroy the secondary missile of that set.

  Now, with 2 missiles still on his tail, or rather "head" as the case may be, he now commenced evasive maneuvers. The two remaining missiles were better odds than what he had faced previously and he played until he evaded them.

  As they ran out of fuel - and to his shock - he saw that both enemies had left the scene, obviously having used their afterburners to fly out of the range of detection.

  He had killed one of them. He was still alive. Furthermore, he had done half the job flying backwards, a task that would disorientate most pilots. He picks up the communicator and advises command that he was heading back for resupply, and that the enemy was present in in the sector.

  On the flight back he laughed at the cowardice of the enemy fighters. They still had missiles left and were seemingly undamaged and yet they ran away...

  “No, not cowardice. They were needed somewhere,” he concludes in a moment of clarity.