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Musings and criticisms about description and its common role in roleplaying.
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10 yrs ago
Forum: Roleplaying Discussion
After that bombshell of a title, at least someone's going to be curious about this thread, so I'll try not to disappoint.
So, starting off, as you may notice if you, cher lecteur, have decided to delve into my profile before reading this topic, you may notice that I haven't been all that active here, that is to say, not active at all. This is due to numerous reasons, but I shall leave it at two; life and love, two things that humanity has been desperate to define for most if not all of its existence, though I'm not going to rant about that today, as it'd get rather hard to comprehend at some point and I may start randomly using terms in French because that's what happens when I rant about deep things.
Ahem, anyway, returning to the subject at hand, during my absence, aside from falling in love, as a new pastime, I began reading realist novels, which have quite easily become one of my favorite literary forms; spending my free hours reading the words of excellent French authors such as Guy de Maupassant (of whom I especially enjoyed Boule de Suif, highly recommended), Gustave Flaubert (whose Un cœur simple may be one of the greatest pieces of literature I have ever read and whose L'Éducation sentimentale has also been highly enjoyable) and, at the moment, Honoré de Balzac, an author who by his writing such as Le Père Goriot, has given me the goal of one day reading all of the published, finished works in his La Comédie humaine and, for the future, I recently ordered the Japanese author Haruki Murakami's newest work Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, yet another realist work, but hailing from a whole other side of the world, which has me very excited.
Well, in short, I've been busy.
However, I didn't start this topic so I could brag about the things I've been reading, instead, I wanted to talk about how these novels brought to my attention a possible mistake I had making for a VERY long time in my writing, without a doubt since the very beginning when I wrote about dragons when I was seven years old. You see, a central theme to realism, at least in its manifestation in French writing is description. Allow me to show you a short line from Wikipedia on realism and its sister-form, naturalism.
Needless to say, without description, realist writers cannot succeed in accomplishing their goal of depicting everyday life and the things that go on in it without resorting to lots and lots of pretty pictures. It goes without saying that descriptions are essential in any realist work, or any writing at all. But do they go any further than that? Allow me to share a few words from my own French teacher, in a lesson we had about a week or two ago (on this note, if I refer to 'French', I basically mean the class anyone in English countries call 'English', that is to say, literary studies, poetry, et cetera, not French language studies as a second language. Hello from rainy Normandy, by the way~)
With this in mind, we now know that the descriptions in realist works foreshadow the story, whether it be by describing a lawyer's study in a way that it seems infernal (as in Le Colonel Chabert, of Honoré de Balzac), by describing a Corsican town as symmetrical but depicting a rivalry (the town of Pietranera in Colomba by Prosper Mérimée) or by describing the room of a character whose name means "happiness" as dark with a single light (from the aforementioned Un cœur simple by Flaubert). In all of the works I've read in these last few weeks and months, there has never been a description without meaning and therein lays the problem I believe was making with my own writing.
As an example, when I described a room, it was only to describe a room and make it more visible to the reader, not to give a meaning to it, making it superficial and almost unnecessary that I describe said room. What was the point? Was I writing just for the sake of writing? Was it just to fill up space and make myself believe I was writing "advanced" stuff? When I decided that my character would wear a black dress, did it have a meaning?
To answer all of those questions; there is a point and there isn't, yes I was, yep and nope, it didn't. About there being a point, well, for the sake of roleplaying, there definitely was, as it did help other players write their own situation and the character's thoughts, but at the same time, by pointlessly describing, I was dooming them to the same fate. When they picked up the scene, they too would be describing a pointless room, which is blue because blue is pretty, had a chair because it needed a chair and had a single, large window because those things are just awesome. After putting a lot of thought into it, I came to the conclusion that pointless description and exhibition was something I had to stop doing, even in roleplaying. If I was going to describe a room now, would it still be blue, considering the story, my character and my possible role as a GM? Maybe, maybe not!
So, here's where you come in. What is your thoughts on descriptions in writing and roleplaying? How and why do you do it and do you concern yourself with there being a point or not? I eagerly look forward to hearing your thoughts and I hope I didn't bore you with these blocks of text! Above all, I hope you enjoyed reading this! ;D
So, starting off, as you may notice if you, cher lecteur, have decided to delve into my profile before reading this topic, you may notice that I haven't been all that active here, that is to say, not active at all. This is due to numerous reasons, but I shall leave it at two; life and love, two things that humanity has been desperate to define for most if not all of its existence, though I'm not going to rant about that today, as it'd get rather hard to comprehend at some point and I may start randomly using terms in French because that's what happens when I rant about deep things.
Ahem, anyway, returning to the subject at hand, during my absence, aside from falling in love, as a new pastime, I began reading realist novels, which have quite easily become one of my favorite literary forms; spending my free hours reading the words of excellent French authors such as Guy de Maupassant (of whom I especially enjoyed Boule de Suif, highly recommended), Gustave Flaubert (whose Un cœur simple may be one of the greatest pieces of literature I have ever read and whose L'Éducation sentimentale has also been highly enjoyable) and, at the moment, Honoré de Balzac, an author who by his writing such as Le Père Goriot, has given me the goal of one day reading all of the published, finished works in his La Comédie humaine and, for the future, I recently ordered the Japanese author Haruki Murakami's newest work Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, yet another realist work, but hailing from a whole other side of the world, which has me very excited.
Well, in short, I've been busy.
However, I didn't start this topic so I could brag about the things I've been reading, instead, I wanted to talk about how these novels brought to my attention a possible mistake I had making for a VERY long time in my writing, without a doubt since the very beginning when I wrote about dragons when I was seven years old. You see, a central theme to realism, at least in its manifestation in French writing is description. Allow me to show you a short line from Wikipedia on realism and its sister-form, naturalism.
Wikipedia said
Realism (or naturalism) in the arts is the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding artistic conventions, implausible, exotic and supernatural elements.
Needless to say, without description, realist writers cannot succeed in accomplishing their goal of depicting everyday life and the things that go on in it without resorting to lots and lots of pretty pictures. It goes without saying that descriptions are essential in any realist work, or any writing at all. But do they go any further than that? Allow me to share a few words from my own French teacher, in a lesson we had about a week or two ago (on this note, if I refer to 'French', I basically mean the class anyone in English countries call 'English', that is to say, literary studies, poetry, et cetera, not French language studies as a second language. Hello from rainy Normandy, by the way~)
Monsieur Stiegler said
Whether these descriptions are found in the incipit of a work or the heart of the action, they subliminally tell the story to come. As such, a discerning reader can deduce the course of the story.
With this in mind, we now know that the descriptions in realist works foreshadow the story, whether it be by describing a lawyer's study in a way that it seems infernal (as in Le Colonel Chabert, of Honoré de Balzac), by describing a Corsican town as symmetrical but depicting a rivalry (the town of Pietranera in Colomba by Prosper Mérimée) or by describing the room of a character whose name means "happiness" as dark with a single light (from the aforementioned Un cœur simple by Flaubert). In all of the works I've read in these last few weeks and months, there has never been a description without meaning and therein lays the problem I believe was making with my own writing.
As an example, when I described a room, it was only to describe a room and make it more visible to the reader, not to give a meaning to it, making it superficial and almost unnecessary that I describe said room. What was the point? Was I writing just for the sake of writing? Was it just to fill up space and make myself believe I was writing "advanced" stuff? When I decided that my character would wear a black dress, did it have a meaning?
To answer all of those questions; there is a point and there isn't, yes I was, yep and nope, it didn't. About there being a point, well, for the sake of roleplaying, there definitely was, as it did help other players write their own situation and the character's thoughts, but at the same time, by pointlessly describing, I was dooming them to the same fate. When they picked up the scene, they too would be describing a pointless room, which is blue because blue is pretty, had a chair because it needed a chair and had a single, large window because those things are just awesome. After putting a lot of thought into it, I came to the conclusion that pointless description and exhibition was something I had to stop doing, even in roleplaying. If I was going to describe a room now, would it still be blue, considering the story, my character and my possible role as a GM? Maybe, maybe not!
So, here's where you come in. What is your thoughts on descriptions in writing and roleplaying? How and why do you do it and do you concern yourself with there being a point or not? I eagerly look forward to hearing your thoughts and I hope I didn't bore you with these blocks of text! Above all, I hope you enjoyed reading this! ;D
Things were quickly getting confusing and yet, in this strange confusion, Ruée felt a strange feeling of pure bliss. One hand hand, she was confused as to why she was suddenly falling, as this had never been explained to her, but on the other, she was ecstatic that she actually felt something. The wind pushing against her… what was it called…? The surface of her body? No, that was too long and convoluted. There had to be a simpler, more understandable term that she had either forgotten or had no knowledge of to begin with. In any case, the wind, however powerful and just short of painful it was, was quite enjoyable as it hit her with the strength of many… things. Again, she was at a loss for a term. Spending just over two hundred years not uttering a word did have quite a few consequences. Lucie made a mental note to do some research with the goal of enrichening her vocabulary as soon as the opportunity allowed itself to be attainable.
For the moment, however, Lucie refrained from saying a thing and instead closed her eyes as she fell, fell, fell and fell. It felt like a long time, though in reality, this sensation probably didn’t last nearly as long as she felt it did, at most, only a few passing moments, though she would probably be able to remember this for the rest of her life; as the very moment she could finally feel her own body, as the first time she knew she was alive. She didn’t dare open her eyes and she didn’t need to. Everything was there and she would let the moment go by before worrying herself with things like her own appearance. If you asked anyone else who had experienced this falling phenomenon for the first time, they would probably express a good amount of discomfort in recalling the idea. But for Lucie, who had never once felt her own body in her entire existence, it was pure elation.
Pure elation, right up until the moment when she felt it no longer and instead of hearing the sounds of gales assaulting her eardrums, she heard nothing but silence. An earthy smell wafted through the air and… was that feeling in her legs that of standing on her own two legs? She couldn’t tell. Her eyes were still closed and since she still wanted to hold that feeling of pure bliss close to her, if only for a millisecond more, she kept them firmly closed. Besides, it was more fun to guess where she was simply based on what she couldn’t see, only smell, hear and feel. The air and atmosphere was not unlike that of an evergreen forest, though Ruée didn’t realize this for herself, having never been to a place where thousand year old pine trees rose from the earth, ferns growing underneath their grizzled trunks and the gently humid air leaving a wispy fog that would run through the woods. In all, though, despite the exact feeling being unknown to her, the key felt a surely calm feeling, one that, unlike the complete lack of feeling that existed in the shop, actually had substance to it, making it feel all the more comforting, even though it was an entirely new and unknown feeling to her.
She couldn’t hear much of anything. Sounds of smaller wildlife dominated, even from within what Lucie assumed was a closed area, based on the acoustics and general feeling she could deduct from the lack of any breeze or any other tell-tale factor that would point to her actually being outside. Even though she had never really felt such a thing, it was easy to tell for someone who had spent a long time past the bicentenary of her “birth” in her own thoughts, deducing things based on what she could figure out by herself and those fleeting words she had heard so many years ago. Though, if this is what a closed place had to offer, she could only imagine what feelings and impressions she would feel once she had left this place and ventured “outside”.
However, this chain of thoughts and ideas was quickly broken by a few sounds of what Ruée could only assume was not only slight fatigue, but a bit of confusion too. They certainly weren’t words and she quickly realized just who these noises were coming from; none other than her new companion, River North II; a name which Ruée still couldn’t figure out the meaning of for absolute sure. Speaking of which…
River North II said
“Ruée! - ouch -”
“Hmm?” Lucie let out a small sound before she finally felt what it was to be in pain for the first time in her existence. Her eyes still closed, she couldn’t help but cry out quietly as her body was brought from its former standing position to suddenly being part of a disorganized heap on the ground, most of her body feeling bruised. It had only happened within a moment, but she could easily remember every feeling of it. The warmth of another’s body, the feeling of losing her balance, the all too familiar feeling of falling and, the worst part, hitting the floor and feeling a powerful shock throughout her body. Some of those feelings, though, were obviously meant in affection and Lucie felt a chill roll through her body as she thought of possible reasons for the unfortunately consequential embrace that had her on the floor and in more than a little douleur.
“Aïe…” Ruée uttered as she lay on the ground, finally opening her eyes to look up at the ceiling and its fan, in all their complete and utter averageness. Though, needless to say, it was a new sight to her and she could only wonder just what the strange spinning thing on the ceiling was used for. However, she did take slight satisfaction in the fact that her deduction that she had been in a unopen area had been correct. To be frank, she was quite surprised she had been correct, but it make her happy to find that her skills of deduction would actually come to use in this new world. However, she had no way of predicting just how her mistress’ appearance would change in this place. Gone was the mature and yet immature look of before; an assortment of beautiful colors and tones had taken their place. Though she looked slightly more mature, the rainbow of different shades of varying colors greatly changed the impression Ruée got from her. Now, she couldn’t really tell just what kind of person Julia was. She had a slight of idea of what, based on her recent actions and words, but with this new enigmatic change, Lucie couldn’t grasp just what was the main feeling she should be getting from the woman’s appearance.
Even more mysterious was the appearance of the room they were in. Unlike the especially average aesthetics of the room Lucie had seen through the screen of the Lumia, this room gave reasons to the feelings she had thought of before when she had stood like a statue with her eyes closed, allowing her other senses to tell her about this room. Flora grew throughout the room, in obviously organic, natural ways, as plants tended to do in any world. River North II was just as confused as the key was by the appearance of the room, based on her stilly worded question that Lucie had no way of answering.
Even more stupefying was when her companion attempted to apologize for tackling her, the rounded and organic plate of wood that stood in the place of a whole in the wall, most likely a door, flew open as a loud woman burst through it. Ruée leapt off the ground in surprise as a avian… thing, burst into the room.
??? said
“Darlings~ Welcome to Alona Hotel~ How are you feeling~? Do you need more towels~?”
All Lucie’s ideas of what people would look like in this world suddenly went out the window. Sure, this thing which couldn’t even be described as a human except for the fact that it stood on two legs had a generally humanoid posture, but it had feathers, which humans didn’t tend to have from her own admittedly small amount of experience. Fortunately, since neither of the two newcomers could answer the beast, it spoke up again.
Mrs. Paunova said
”Oh, excuse me, excuse me. My name is Mrs. Paunova and I am part of the staff here at our lovely Alona Hotel. Ask me anything you wish, darlings~”
For once, Lucie actually felt compelled to speak up, though, it wasn’t the most kind set of words.
“What are you, espèce de oiseau...?” Her voice, though generally unused, definitely had a tone of distrust to it…
If I'm being waited on, then by all means, I'm more than happy to write a post. Do tell me if I'm holding things back.
Dreams about falling were probably Kai’s most hated sort of reverie. The worst part was looking down at seeing the ground coming closer and closer towards you and then the inevitable impact, which for a dream, was always peculiarly felt; like a shock through the body not dissimilar to being electrified. The mind was a great thing, for sure. However, another surety in this situation was that Kai hated not seeing the ground even more. All he could see was white and the now bizarrely feasible Rasui who looked very pleased by the situation, going so far as letting a cold laugh out. After all, Kai was probably exhibiting a visage of utter terror. He couldn’t tell. At the moment, he was focused on keep himself in a relatively safe position. Now, was it best to land on his feet…? He remembered watching a documentary about paratroopers and how it told him it was best to use his legs for landing, but he couldn’t recall why. To begin with, paratroopers had parachutes, as their name implied, so their methods were obviously different from someone who was freefalling at possibly supersonic speeds with no equipment towards what could potentially be nothing or something incredibly painful to land on.
Thinking back on it, how’d he end up falling? One moment he was turning the key in the lock to his seldom unlocked closet door and the next he was enduring g-forces upwards of what most combat aviators faced in their entire career and he wasn’t even making a turn. To be frank, Kai was surprised he hadn’t been knocked cold by getting his own weight times a few digits hammered against him and he was even more shocked by Rasui’s blasé attitude to the rapid descent. All things considered, perhaps this kind of thing was normal for him? Suddenly, Kai respected the black haired man much more. If this was an anime, he’d be a favorite character for sure. Nodamnsgiven characters were always great fun to watch.
As Kai thought all of this over, letting it distract him from the fact he would probably end up with frostbite from the cold wind hitting him, he didn’t have time to see an apparent surface of… more white appear. It would be an understatement to say that he wasn’t completely shocked when he felt himself get practically obliterated and yet not completely destroyed by the impact. His body felt like it had been shattered and no amount of effort could keep him from being knocked into a state of blissful (at least when compared to the events leading up to this moment) unconsciousness…
That’s it. He had been dreaming. Kai realized as he lay in a state of being half-asleep, half-awake and completely out cold. Right now, he was probably in his bed and in a few minutes, he would force himself out to go to work, then he would go home and play games in the evening to wipe away the memory of the chaotic dreams he had experienced the night before. Though for now, Kai would relax a bit. His bed felt a bit hard, but she attributed it to not feeling well after some rather bizarre dreams. That happened to everyone. He had probably just woken up on the wrong side of the bed as was normal after a night of bad sleeping…
??? said
“Excuse me, Sleeping Beauty-”
Kai opened his eyes as a voice suddenly pierced the silence. Sure, he had managed to hear a loud exclamation earlier, but Kai decided it was probably someone down the hall. This sound, however, was definitely directed towards him and it sent shivers down his spine. Unfortunately, after sleeping so deeply, his eyes were still blurry as he looked up at what looked like a blob of white with patches of black here and there. This voice was then interrupted by shouts from higher above and Kai couldn’t make out these very well in his tired state. Instead, as the voices became louder and louder and he became more and more awake, he blinked to get rid of the blurriness. His heart started beating harder by the second as he realized just who could have been looking down at him. The voice matched up and who else had he seen in the last few days who had hair of such a dark color?
Yet, something didn’t match up. As his vision became more clear, Kai saw something that had his heart beating even harder and his face turning flush, for reasons he could not fathom. Was he… smiling at him?
Rasui? said
“Excuse me for waking you from your slumber, beautiful bird, but I must say that the location you have chosen will not be comfortable, unless it is part of the payment. If it is not, then may I suggest the bed? I admit it will be a bit cramped, but I’m skilled in tight situations.”
Beautiful bird...?
Payment?
Tight situations?!
Reflexively, Kai brought his legs back before shooting them forward to give himself enough forward momentum to get upright. Surprisingly enough, he found that he could do so with little problem; he suddenly felt fitter and the movement didn’t even require him to stand up as it gave him enough momentum to get upright in one move. Sure enough, as he found found himself standing on his own two legs, he found Rasui standing in front of him, wearing a sickeningly sweet smile that made him want to gag. After a few moments of simply staring at him in stock as they stood in a shockingly small, messy room, he decide to open his mouth and chew him out.
“Y-you! What the hell do you think you’re...say...ING?!” Kai literally covered his mouth with his hands as he heard a voice different than his own come out of his mouth. His hands felt dainty and soft as they covered his oral orifice and he suddenly felt a soft feeling of cloth on the back of his… bare legs? With a gulp, he looked down at his body.
“Huh..?” He murmured as he noticed his clothes.
“Huh?” Kai said upon seeing the features of a female body while looking down.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEK!” She screamed as she realized just what had happened. Her body was a complete change from his former one. Suddenly becoming self-conscious and embarrassed of this fact, Kai felt compelled to cover her body by any means possible. Without a moment’s hesitation, she grabbed a nearby sombrero and went to the corner, stooped down and hid behind the oversized straw hat, hiding her flushed face with the end of it. “Ra-Ra-Ra-Rasui! What is going on here?! Did you do something?!” Her voice, feminine in tone and only retaining a general sound from his old voice and a pinch of his accent shocked her with every word she struggled to say.
On the verge of having a breakdown, Kai cowered behind the sombrero as she tried to calm herself down by speaking to no one in particular. This also helped her get over the shock of having a new voice, but only to a small extent. “I was opening the door… then I was f-falling… and now I’m here...? What is this place anyway.? Why is the bed like that?” Unfortunately, most of these questions just served to panic her even more. She was in an unfamiliar place, with an unfamiliar person, and in an unfamiliar body. What could be worse?
Beautiful bird.
Oh, right. That.
Kai could feel her dignity going away by the second as she looked up at the black haired youth. Though she was quivering as she hid behind the Mexican headwear, she realized that’d she have to do something to save her dignity. With a sigh, she threw the sombrero to the other side of the room, almost knocking over the bed from its precarious position. In a stronger voice than before, which was a challenge in itself considering how little she knew of this voice, she then sought to put herself on the same level as him. It was a childish hope, but in this kind of situation, it was one of the only things she could do.
“Say, Rasui. Do you have any idea who you’re talkin’ to? Anything going on besides ‘oh purdy gurl’ going on in that dashingly handsome head of yours? Now, you promised to explain just what the hell is going on when we got here and here we are. From what I can see, it looks like you have a lot of explaining to do, hm?”
He's Christian, so no worries. He'd be a bit taken aback due to habit, but there's no problems.
Has the time come... for celebration gifs?
PREPARE.
YOUR.
BANDWIDTHS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILVER!
YOUR.
BANDWIDTHS!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SILVER!
You guys will not believe what motivated me to post.
So here I was, on Facebook, early yesterday morning (read; noon) and I saw a post on the Ace Combat Official Fan Page, or whatever it's called. Of course, the first thing I did after reading the post was to look at the typical butthurt in the comments because of the Sortie Fuel system in ACI and as I was reading through the comments, I saw something that made me pause.
"Wait. S*****n D***e? Isn't that Silver?"
Sure enough, I looked at the profile and based on the photos that were shown publicly, it definitely was Silver. Suddenly, I realized that I've been needing to post for at least a month, so I stopped sitting on my butt and got writing!
I don't think that any amount of apologies and promises to write more could redeem myself for being so late, but sorry, nonetheless.
So here I was, on Facebook, early yesterday morning (read; noon) and I saw a post on the Ace Combat Official Fan Page, or whatever it's called. Of course, the first thing I did after reading the post was to look at the typical butthurt in the comments because of the Sortie Fuel system in ACI and as I was reading through the comments, I saw something that made me pause.
"Wait. S*****n D***e? Isn't that Silver?"
Sure enough, I looked at the profile and based on the photos that were shown publicly, it definitely was Silver. Suddenly, I realized that I've been needing to post for at least a month, so I stopped sitting on my butt and got writing!
I don't think that any amount of apologies and promises to write more could redeem myself for being so late, but sorry, nonetheless.
November 18th, 5:47 hours
2018
Base aérienne 701 Salon-de-Provence
Bouches-du-Rhône (13) ,Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
France
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 Aéronavale 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 winding-up of a siren. 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 shot forward. 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.
BRRRRRRTT…
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 “Nimue”, 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…
THUD.
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 Nimue, 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…
2018
Base aérienne 701 Salon-de-Provence
Bouches-du-Rhône (13) ,Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur
France
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 Aéronavale 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 winding-up of a siren. 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 shot forward. 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.
BRRRRRRTT…
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 “Nimue”, 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…
THUD.
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 Nimue, 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…
For future reference, assume that when I say "tomorrow", I mean "the day after tomorrow". Or just disregard any promises of posts with a time given. That always works too.
I'm not promising anything, but my post should FINALLY be done today.
I'm not promising anything, but my post should FINALLY be done today.
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