"Two where is he?!"
You pull hard on your joystick, the mechanical beast responds in kind, the weight of the world sits on your chest as you feel your body grow cold. The aircraft growls and roars all around you as if you were the beast itself. The entire airframe screams in pain and distraught fury.
"Nine o'clock low! He's coming around!" Your cadre mate yelps in surprise as she spots the mist colored plane just beneath you trying to put you in a weapons solution.
Despite the impossibility of moving your limbs you fight with all of your might to grab the throttle lever and press the button jutting out to release flares. You look from the bandit to your hud, your speed is bleeding too hard, you won't be able to take the one circle fight.
You jam forward on the throttle settling the lever firmly forward as you hear your after burners ignite, you yank your control surfaces again leveling out and thinning yourself, you had to go for the overshoot.
It was a dogfight.
Into the merge you no longer felt worry or fear, you could feel Her presence there, watching like a weight behind your eyes. You let your instincts take over, it ran like boiling water through your veins, through your manic focus you fail to notice the drool dribble at your bottom lip. Your breathing becomes a mechanical response, your chest rising and falling against the weight of literal worlds rhythmically.
You both took the fight horizontal, both planes dancing around each other as speed bleeds ever slower, each loop your radar warning receiver screams at you letting you know the enemy pilot has you in radar lock, desperately trying to pull his nose on. You snap your head back to see him finally begin gaining on you, you snap the joystick towards the earth, you needed speed and now.
Out of desperation you fire flare after flare as the earth fills your vision. You twist and turn in the air, struggling like a wolf in a bear trap, and then you hear it.
Pull up. Terrain. Terrain. Pull up.
Your flight systems began screaming in your ears, your collar felt tight and scratchy, your muzzle tasted like iron and salt, your stomach dropped. The earth began approaching faster and faster.
"Forgive me, Handler."
For the first time in a very very long time you felt at peace. You wanted to die. You wanted to escape. Something deep a buried in your mind slowly began to bloom, a memory of a different life with a gently setting sun and a warm coffee in your hands.
You look up from your cup and see a white haired figure mindlessly tracing the edge of her cup. She looks over at you, her long hair gently shuffling as she stared at you from behind black framed glasses.
"I love you."
"Adrenaline administered." A robotic voice chimed.
Everything came rushing back, the earth almost enveloping you, your instincts yank back on the throttle with all of your might.
"Hound, off the leash."
The call was visceral, your mind immediately became red, all you could focus on was the enemy behind you nothing mattered but his burning wreckage now.
"AoA limiter offline. Gravity differential stabilizer online." The familiar robot said almost cheerfully.
You kept pulling with all of your strength, your nose finally clearing the horizon as you skirt just above a wooded river, water dispersing at you wake violent enough for it to be seen in your mirrors.
"Hound, bogey six o'clock high, engage." Her words were cold but in your blinded state all you heard was praise, her gentle huff she calls a laugh. Her smile briefly flashes through your mind.
Not skipping a beat you put your aircraft in a rising spiral putting your nose directly on the enemy who refused to follow your suicide dive that fell a few miles behind.
You press a button on your joystick and instantly a circle appears and your hear the iconic growling of your sidewinder. The circle jumps to the green square on your hud and a single tone plays. You jam your countermeasures as you squeeze the trigger. Behind you a blinding display of smoke and fire obscure the earth and in front your missile flies towards its target with the same bloodlust that boils in your mouth.
Unsatisfied with the uncertainty of your missile you keep the throttle jammed forward, your radar targeting sight bouncing around the green square in the center of your hud struggling to keep its lock against the vibrations of the airframe.
You wanted his head.
Your targeting sight snaps on to the enemy craft about to rush past you at over the speed of sound and you hold the trigger.
It felt like forever since you started firing, you see a smoke trail come from the enemy plane as it suddenly bursts into flames and flings itself to the side, 20mm cannon shells impacting on the planes surfaces and shredding the cockpit.
You speed past as its missile and burning debris field pass harmlessly around you. You're throbbing, you felt every single impact of your cannon rounds as if someone had direct access to your prostate. You let out a strained moan as you shift uncomfortably in your cockpit. The rush felt like too much, it felt like someone had been overstimulating you for grueling hours.
"Thats enough dogs, return to base. The skies are clear." The voice crackled over the radio, as her voice faded so did your tunnel vision. Everything was quiet in your cockpit again aside from the gentle rumble of your engines in cruise.
You press your thighs together and wince at the sheer wetness. It was going to be a long flight home.
