[b]November 18th, 5:47 hours
2018
[i]Base aérienne 701 Salon-de-Provence[/i]
Bouches-du-Rhône (13) ,Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
France[/b]

Far south from the British Isles, in contrast to the cold, unforgiving weather that his new teammates were facing up north, Natan was already cursing the hot, Mediterranean sun, which had decided to show up nice and early. Despite the early hour, the sun was already shining brightly at sunrise, as the Persian brought his fuel-deprived Tomcat around to land at the first leg of his journey to meet up with his new allies, who, unlike him, had already been in Scotland for the last few days. Unfortunately, an early release of an untested update for the F-14D+’s software left him grounded for a few days in the hot sun of the Negev desert while Avalon techies worked out bugs that had appeared in the avionics and systems, which continued a few days after the original time he was supposed to leave and it was only the night before that the last bug had been crushed. With that, Nate began a long, overnight flight to the west, which, after a couple of hours of tense flight in supercruise, had brought him to one of France’s two remaining airbases in the south, Salon-de-Provence Air Base.

However, as he turned the plane around towards the rising sun to land, he was astonished to see that the airbase was less a strip of tarmac in the middle of a typical southern French landscape, but instead, due to the heightened water level around it, the base had been practically turned into an island, with a few typical Mediterranean mountains rising out of the waters around it in an aesthetically breathtaking fashion. Or, if he remembered just what had been beneath those waters years ago; in a grim reminder of the past. A distance away from the base, part of a small church rose out of the sparkling water and Natan could see shadows of houses and former residences and business under the water. To him, the forms that formed shadows under the gentle waves and the small church that rose above were remnants of a tragedy still fresh in the minds of many. He grimaced as he remembered what he had seen of his hometown on a flyover of it years ago; nothing but water with a surviving minaret barely rising out of the waters, a visual analog to the scene here. The pilot clutched the joystick in frustration as he recalled the memory in his mind and he gritted his teeth.

“Unknown fighter, state your mission immediately!” A voice with a French accent spoke up on his comms, in an authoritative tone, knocking the ex-IRIAF pilot out of his thoughts. Natan sighed as he turned on comms on his side; he had to speak up at least a dozen times on the trip, due to the Avalon techies forgetting to set his own plane’s IFF codes to make him show up as a friendly. He made a mental note to chew up the next Avalon guy he saw as he began to speak.

“This is Captain Natan Winter, of the Israeli Air Force, on mission with the United Nations. Requesting permission to land and refuel.” His peculiar accent was evident and he wondered just what the operator was thinking as a short silence followed. Natan took the free moment to observe what was on the base. Surprisingly enough, despite the sorry situation around the base itself, BA 701 was in decent condition, as evidenced by the good variety of planes that were on ramps, being made re ady for combat, at least when viewed from Natan’s relatively high altitude. Aside from Alpha Jets used for the training facilities housed at the base, a bunch of Mirages were being armed and even a few Rafales, the French Air Force’s pride and joy, were undergoing maintenance, despite the early hour. Among the more famous fighters were a few gliders and prop aircraft for training both Air Force and [i]Aéronavale[/i] pilots, along with a pair of Transall C-160’s near a hangar. In all, the base was surprisingly active. After all, along with Toulon, which had been rebuilt on an artificial island in order to further facilitate defense of the southern territories of France, this base was one of two airfields still operational in the Mediterranean south of France. Thus, its responsibilities not only as a air defense base but also as a training base had become essential and losing the base would be devastating, which explained the batteries of Crotale and Mistral SAM launchers that were positioned all around the base and the freshwater missile boats and hovercraft which were stationed at a small dock near the tip of the base’s “island”. Seeing as the strip was originally at the same height as the rest of the town, Natan deduced that a similar treatment to Toulon’s base had been done here before major damage could be incurred by flooding, saving many of the fighters at the base, along with adding two new strips of asphalt adjacent the original. 

“We’re expecting you, Captain Winter. Land on the second strip and we’ll guide you to a ramp for refueling.” With a nod, Natan confirmed this over radio and brought his Tomcat around for a landing. Everything went smoothly; the plane was low on fuel and thus easy to maneuver, so the pilot of the large fighter had no difficulties in bringing it down on the freshly paved runway, which ran adjacent to the base’s original strip; the sole runway of the base before modernization following the events years ago. It was only now that he noticed the true state of things at the base. While there was no shortage of fighters, there was also no shortage of metal carcasses laying on the sides of the runway either. Natan glanced at an obliterated Rafale that was being looked over for salvageable parts by a few French Air Force soldiers as he taxiied past. A few of the men had noticeable injuries; in particular, one who looked like a higher ranking officer was completely bandaged on the side of his face. The aforementioned Transall C-160’s were being unloaded with what looked to be medical supplies and weaponry, such as missiles for the SAM’s situated around the base. In reality, it seemed, the base was in much worse condition than he had originally thought based on his view from altitude.

Within a few minutes of his landing, Nate had been brought to the ramp and a fuel truck was brought to refuel his plane. It would take him only a few hours to fly to Scotland, where he would then meet his fellow pilots and then transfer to the aircraft carrier they would be operating from. To be honest, Nate wished he could cut out the flight to Scotland and just go straight to the carrier, but orders were orders. This made him sigh as he looked over the refueling process from his cockpit. The French were efficient, even at the early hour and Natan silently thanked whoever had alerted the base in advance to him coming there, which saved him a lot of time. Eventually, Natan decided to get some fresh air and he popped open the canopy, just in time for a student from the air school to bring him a bottle of water and some saltless, flavorless crackers, which, while not especially friendly in terms of taste, at least didn’t carry much of a risk of sitting unwell in his stomach; a danger when in a dogfight. Natan shuddered as he remembered the last time he had vomited when flying. Needless to say, it wasn’t an experience he wished to repeat. 

Quietly chewing on the crackers as the plane was refueled, Natan jumped when he heard the [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnY7oO_5Ozc]winding-up of a siren[/url]. Natan urgently looked down at the crewmen working on refueling his plane. Unsurprisingly, they were as startled as he was. The pilot closed the canopy and opened up radio as the cockpit’s noise cancellation dampened the sound of the siren. “Control, this is Captain Winter. What’s going on out there?” He licked his dry lips and cleared his throat as the response came in.

“Captain, we have just detected five bogie headed towards this base. We are currently sortieing two Rafale to intercept. Please remain where you are.” As he said this, Natan saw the two fighters rolling down two different runways. Immediately, Natan questioned if two Rafales would be enough against five fighters.

“Are you sure only two fighters will be enough? I can sortie right now if-”

“Negative, Captain! Stay where you are. We have orders to refuel your plane completely before letting you takeoff. We are currently preparing two Mirage to intercept also-” This time, it was the French radio operator who was interrupted, but this time, it wasn’t by a voice of a human, but by the thundering sound of explosions as missiles destroyed the two French fighters, before they could even takeoff. Natan’s eyes widened as he witnessed the destruction.

Five fighters zoomed overhead at a low altitude, below the base’s SAM’s effective altitude. Nate only had a few seconds to identify the planes; four MiG-21 Fishbeds, looking to be at least somewhat modernized, being led by a plane that struck fear into Natan’s heart with its smooth and lethal looking fuselage; a highly-modified Flanker; equipped with canards and thrust-vectoring nozzles. All had quite the set of weaponry; a set of unguided bombs adorned the innermost pylons, short-range air-to-air missiles on the wingtips and, most interestingly, pods in between the bombs which had opened up to launch missiles at the Rafales, each containing two air-to-air missiles each. Following their strike on the Rafales, they gained altitude, probably preparing for another run at the base.

“I don’t care, sortie the students! We must protect this base!” A man yelled at the operator inside the tower, which Natan heard clearly as he still had his radio on and his mouth fell slightly agape at the thought of rookies fighting against five seemingly experienced enemies. This could not be allowed to happen.

Natan had to think fast. His cockpit indicators told him his plane was armed sufficiently; four Pythons under his fuselage, but most of the hardpoints were taken up by the now empty drop-tanks. His cannon was fully-loaded and his plane was now forty-percent refueled. Sighing, Natan made a decision. He tapped on the canopy to alert the men who were working on his plane and when they looked up at him, he made a throat-cut gesture and the apparent highest ranking man, upon seeing the gesture, hesitated before nodding and he told his men to disconnect the refueling equipment. When the man gave him a thumbs-up, Natan put his helmet back on and began to taxi to the remaining runway.

“Captain Winter! You are going against orders! Return to the ramp immediately!” The French operator barked at him. Nate simply turned off the radio as he came onto the only strip of asphalt that didn’t have a smoldering Eurocanard on it. Without waiting for confirmation to takeoff, he slammed the throttle forward and the Tomcat [url=http://youtu.be/FswZTECtVNA?t=33s]shot forward[/url]. When it had reached a high enough speed, Nate pulled the the stick back and the plane took off with few problems. First, he brought the plane into a vertical climb and gained altitude, flying above the clouds, before pulling back on the throttle and stick; once the plane was inverted, he rolled it over and flattened out, dropping the empty tanks as he did so. Glancing at the radar screen, he saw five blips heading towards the base. The fighters had completed turning around and were now heading in for another run. Natan didn’t have time to hesitate; if even only one of the fighters managed to drop its payload, the base was done for. Natan engaged afterburners and the wings of the Tomcat swept back as it rapidly accelerated towards the enemies.

Right as Natan was able to lock onto the bogies on radar, he dove the his plane through the clouds and as soon as he broke through the bottom of the cloud-layer and could see the enemies, he shot all of his missiles, which all hit the MiG’s in near synchronization. To his dismay, the Flanker flew out of the fireball with little to no damage. With only his cannon left, it seemed that he would have to fight the remaining bandit the old fashioned way. Obviously, the enemy pilot had seen him at this point and the Tomcat was still heading towards the Flanker from the front at a roughly forty-five degrees angle, so he rolled and made a sharp turn away to evade the Flanker’s lock-on. Chances are, it already was locked onto him, he just had to make it hard for it to the enemy to shoot him down.The wings swept forward to make the plane more easily handled at low-speeds, but the Flanker had no problems keeping pace with the less-modified fighter; its own easy turning facilitated by its thrust-vectoring abilities and canards. Natan could hear a shrill beeping as the enemy locked onto him. His own plane’s maneuverability was no match for this fighter and even if his Tomcat was faster, accelerating in a straight line away from the Flanker was suicide.

Instead, Natan decided to bring the fighter down towards the earth, slowly throttling up as he did so, until he zoomed over the airfield, just below the SAMs’ effective firing altitude. The Flanker evaded away; it was too unsure for him, if he was only slightly above the F-14, he’d get fired upon by the SAMs. He turned away, firing a missile at Natan, which was easily dodged and Natan used the shield given by the surface-to-air battery to turn towards the Flanker. Having picked up speed in his dive and flight towards the base, his turn had a large radius, but it was still enough to turn around and get behind the Flanker. Natan’s breaths were short and ragged as he was hit by incredible amounts of g’s and he struggled to stay conscious as his plane broke through the sound barrier with ease as it left the SAMs’ protection area. Finally, when the F-14 had arrived behind the Flanker, the Iranian had a chance to fire upon it, but the enemy used its superior mobility to go into a Cobra maneuver. However, Natan had been able to predict the maneuver by looking at the nozzles and canards of the plane and made his plane do the same maneuver; simpler and slightly less agile, but effective all the same. 

[i]BRRRRRRTT…[/i]

As soon as Natan had the Flanker on his nose, he pulled the trigger and opened fire with the twenty millimeter for barely a second. Even if he only fired for a moment, the enemy plane was torn apart and Natan saw an explosion from the cockpit as the pilot ejected. With his radar now clear, Natan turned on his radio and spoke to the base commander.

“Enemies down. No air-to-air casualties. Requesting permission to land and finish refueling.” Natan didn’t want to stay for much longer with him now running the risk of being grounded for disobeying orders, even to a foreign military.

“We cannot comply, Captain. One of the MiG’s crashed on the remaining strip. However, you now have orders to go directly to the new base. We have sent the location to your flight system. Best of luck, Captain.” The operator was noticeably ticked off and Natan could easily imagine why. Seeing the directions appear on one of his LCD screens, the pilot sighed as he continued his trip. Hopefully only thirty percent of fuel would be enough to last him until he got to the aircraft carrier, the pilot remarked as he flew away from the base towards the Atlantic...

----

Fortunately, Natan had enough fuel to get to the “[i]Nimue[/i]”, as she was apparently called.

Unfortunately, he also had no room for failure. If he failed to land on the carrier the first time, he wouldn’t have enough fuel to try again.

“Just my luck…” Natan muttered to himself as the Tomcat headed towards the front of the carrier, as he had just been briefed over radio. To begin with, it didn’t look that much like an aircraft carrier, more like a starship from some sci-fi show. Approaching the ship’s bow, he slowed down and lowered his gear. The ship continued moving as he did so, which made the landing situation all the more stressful and a bead of sweat dripped down Natan’s brow. He assumed a carrier landing would be a lot like landing on an airfield with an arresting cable for shorter landings, but now he had to factor in the consequences of missing the cable. On a typical airfield or carrier, he’d have the chance to pull up if he missed. But what would happen on “carrier” such as this one? Natan was afraid to even imagine the consequences.

All this served to strengthen his resolve as he steadily descended towards the carrier. His angle of attack was perfect, as was his speed of descent. Now, he could only rely on luck. Moments seemed to last forever as he approached the carrier, until he finally hit the deck, smoothly and with little sound. The F-14 continued rolling… rolling... rolling…

[i]THUD.[/i]

The hook latched onto the very first cable and after recovering from the abrupt stop, Natan let out a deep breath and silently congratulated himself and thanked God. After being directed for the second time that day to where his plane would be maintained and refueled, he opened the canopy and climbed down as crewmen secured the Tomcat and began work on the fighter. Frankly, Natan was surprised he hadn’t been damaged during the battle that day, but that was mostly down to him having the element of surprise against his enemies. He could only wonder why they hadn’t hadn’t seen him on radar though. Perhaps he could attribute that to luck, for once. Putting this aside, Natan now realized how cramped the hangar was and after stretching and rolling his joints around to relieve himself from some of the stiffness, he began walking through the hangar, observing a few of the other aircraft inside. Surprisingly enough, it was almost empty, save for an Osprey and a helicopter. Natan guessed that most of his new allies had not yet arrived, which gave him a bit of time to think things over before he’d be introduced to them.

“Captain Winter?” A young woman’s voice, confident in its tone came up from behind him and Natan turned around to meet a short girl, dressed in crew uniform looking back at him. “You haven’t taken off your helmet, sir.” Natan chuckled at this as he took off his helmet and spoke back to him.

“What’s up, kid?” Natan said in an equally confident, but tired tone as he put his helmet under his arm. He obviously didn’t look all that great after a long night and a morning dogfight, but he did his best to look good for the younger soldier. She practically tossed him a sandwich and bottle of water as he did so and Natan had to make a good effort to catch the two items as he carried his helmet under his arm.

“I have orders to show you around the [i]Nimue[/i], sir. Please follow me.” To Natan’s slight dismay, it seemed that the woman, who was based on her nametag, a Lieutenant Peterson, was much more down to business than he was. With a sigh, he began to follow her through the submarine carrier, taking note where each important part of things were. After spending a good hour wandering through the ship, stopping to let Natan change into more comfortable clothes, they arrived at the now empty ready room, where Peterson had him pick up a small computer before directing back towards the bunks. Leaving him at the door, Natan gave her a friendly wave, which was returned with a much more curt one as he entered through the door, his bag on his shoulder, his computer under his arm and a bottle of water lazily hanging in his left hand. Seeing that most of his squadron was there already, Natan quickly thought of something to say, something that would redeem himself for being so late compared to the rest of them…

“Hey, sorry for being late. What’d I miss?” He grinned slightly to shake off the awkwardness but realized rather speedily that he had forgotten an important thing. “Ah, right. I’m Natan Winter and I’ll be serving with you guys. Could I get a sitrep on things with you? So we’re all on the same page?” Hopefully, it was good enough, but his somewhat casual tone probably didn’t leave a great impression…