Rodriguez took a big yawn and exhaled, un-popping his ear drums what seemed to have been the twentieth time as he sat in the cooped up and pressurized cockpit of his F-16V. Of course it was a rough guess; he wasn't really keeping too close of attention to the clear reflexes of his current state of boredom as there wasn't anything really to treat the drowsiness aside from keeping his fighter in the air. The fact that he had been flying for a good four hours with hardly any satisfying wiggle room didn't help either. It was times like this he wished he was on an actual combat mission; it was simply easier to focus and stay awake that way.

He had begun his morning waking up excessively early at around 3 o’ clock, grabbing some much needed coffee and getting briefed for a couple minutes on his patrol routes. The majority on his time on earth was going through the usual pre-flight checks to ensure full functionality of his aircraft with an equally tired maintenance crew. With so many flights on his belt, it was practically a routinely second nature; testing the throttle, checking the rudder, the elevators, and then bother flaps and ailerons and a multitude of system and functionality checks. Though it was highly unlikely, his aircraft was armed with a Vulcan full of lead, a couple of AIM-7s and a full under wing set of IRIS-Ts that made him feel right at home even though he doubted there would have been any use for them. 
 
The early hours of the morning over Thunder Island and the Bahamas was still a dark one without the sun’s rising light to illuminate the sky. Because of this, he had to rely on his night vision systems and goggles in order to fly through the natural darkness. But he had to admit that flying over the sea with no artificial light and clear sky made the morning worth it as the stars above him glittered with radiance, making up the constellations and the galaxy above him. Sad unfortunately that it was the only thing worth looking at before the sun came up and blurred out the millions of tiny lights from space.

With nine tenths of his patrol already completed, his tilled his F-16V toward Thunder Island after circling the surrounding territory with no troubles at all. Or so he thought. After the island came into a close enough view, Rodriguez couldn't help but notice the several tiny specks flying over the island at high speed before pulling up. It was an unusual sight going by their westbound vectors and didn't exactly make sense what they were doing. Even stranger that the tower had not advised him of any scheduled flights either.

He soon found out why.

Just as soon as the unknown planes quickly gained altitude did one of the cliffside SAM sites vanish into a violent plume of fire. It was only seconds later did the echoing blast reached him as knock on his aircraft. It became quickly apparent to him that there was an attack going on. Frustration by the fact that he had cleared the area those bandits came from hours ago compelled him to bank into a hard left turn directly towards the base and hit the afterburners. Unfortunately the fact settled in that he was nearing low on fuel from his patrol and using the afterburners would easily sap the rest of his reserves on top of the additional case once more he was still at least fifteen minutes out; an irritating setback.

[i]“Tower to Warrior Three, Spirit, we’re currently facing an emergency situation. The airfield and surrounding assets are currently under fire from unknown aircraft. Abort patrol mission and return to base for immediate combat tasking, over.”[/i]

They don’t have to tell me twice thought Rodriguez as he strapped his oxygen mask over his mouth, knowing that was about to increase the throttle. “Roger tower, Warrior Three, Spirit, copies, returning to base immediately. I’ll get there as fast as I can, out.”
 
With the applied throttle, Rodriguez quickly felt the g-forces staking into his chest as he flew back to Thunder Island as fast as he could without using what little reserves he had. Observing the escalating situation from afar, he could see additional specks taking off into the sky to engage. Tracer fire and missiles filled the already smoke polluted skies. Whether it would have been considered a good or a bad thing, it was certain that he was late to the party.

After an agonizing few minutes, he had finally begun to fly over the first cliff face of the island and already identified a Mig in his sights. But before he could even vector on the escaping aircraft, a bright light from the heavens itself caught his attention, causing him to cover his eyes with a free hand he could spare. In an instant, the light crashed into the earth with blinding speed and velocity. The impact was tremendous and powerful; an immense tower of dust and debris lunged from the mountain range into the air as shock waves from the blast shook all the surrounding natural elements. Rodriguez’s own fighter nearly flung out of control until he eventually got the aircraft under his power once more.

Thoughts raced into his mind as he scrambled with the radio which was now giving off a weak buzz into his earpiece. “C’mon dammit…” he growled as he fought with the radio before getting a clear feed on all the channels he could acquire. “Warrior Three requesting status check from Tower or any available units, over.” He heard his own voice through his earpiece and cringed, knowing that part of his broadcast also came with static, distorting the broadcast; his communications equipment must have been damaged from the blast. Rodriguez could only hope that he could make contact with someone and hear their voice clear enough to organize with.