Chapter 9:
Cute Little Fleet/Viper Zero
The ice cold air bit into my skin like a pit viper, the gust blew across the deck of the carrier and threatened to knock me over. I pulled my jacket tighter around my neck and turned towards my companion, and shook my head, "Misato, if you'd told me that Bethany was in the
arctic circle I'd have told you no. I don't
do cold."
"Rei, I hate to break this to you, but you
do what I tell you, and right now I'll take the bitter cold over Japan's perpetual summer. Suck it up kid," She shot back as she lead me towards the carrier's island, the island with a big '63' painted on the side of it.
I shook my head, second impact changed a lot in this world, compared to the one I'd come from. And in this world, the
U.S.S. Kitty Hawk still served on active duty. A testament to American engineering and resolve... and an indictment on their financial state.
Then again, maybe not being cozy'd on up to a nuclear reactor wasn't such a bad thing after all, and there were plenty of other carriers in the fleet. I'd counted four American, three Russian, and two I couldn't identify, British maybe?
Wait, three Russian? I thought they only had one...
I shook my head, the hatch in front of us opened, I felt the heat radiating out. So they had warmed this thing up, I was afraid I'd have to freeze to death while I was here. On the plus side, the cold numbed my arm enough that I couldn't be bothered by the ache and the itch.
"So where's the pilot? Where's the Eva?" I asked her as we progressed through the narrow, cramped corridors. I caught a few strange glances and hushed whispers from the crewmen, did they know who I was? Not that there would have been a lot of blue haired Japanese girls wearing school uniforms on an American carrier, and Misato was wearing her Nerv uniform...
How much of a secret was my identity anyway?
"Not here, the Eva is on the freighter we flew over on the way in, the pilot... well that's what we're going to find out right now," she explained as she turned and started to climb steep staircase. Had she been on this ship before? She seemed to know her way around. Better than that first day at headquarters anyway, this seemed
natural.
I followed her up the unnaturally steep stairs, hobbled by my left arm, but then I made a few lunging hops and braced with my right arm, and made it most of the way up before I slipped and started over backwards. I flailed my arms forward, trying to regain my balance, but the handrails slipped further and further way as I tilted backwards...
...and into a pair of strong, firm arms. "Easy there, you're alright, I've got you."
I felt the heat rising into my cheeks as he helped me back to the steps and then finally up to the next level, where Misato where giggling like a child.
"Rei, not even on the boat ten minutes, and already throwing yourself at the handsome sailors?" she teased. I glared at her as her smirk grew wider.
I heard the sound of hard soled shoes on the metal decking behind me when the man who'd caught me finally made it up to this level, and I turned to look at him, nice, well tailored uniform, and that rank insignia... oh.
"Captain, actually. Glad as I am that you're not hurt, what is a teenager doing on my ship? I was told there would be a party from First Branch to take over for the Evangelion on behalf of Nerv... That would be the two of you then, yes?" the man asked.
"Rei Ikari," I introduced myself with a bow, still feeling that blush on my face, but for his part the captain seemed to be gracious about it, and didn't bring it up.
"Colonel Misato Katsuragi, head of tactical operations, First Branch," Misato introduced with a salute. I should have done that, had forgotten about it.
"Captain Phillip Clark,
U.S.S. Kitty Hawk. Welcome aboard my ship," he introduced with a warm smile. I liked this guy already, not stuffy like I might have feared. He hesitated for a moment and then turned back to Misato.
"So, if you're the head of tactical operations, and you've got a young girl here with what looks like a broken arm... I suspect the rumors are true then," he said with a slight frown and an edge to his voice, then turned to look at me. "So, which one of those things are you the pilot of?"
"The purple one," I answered with a frown, "how did you figure it out?"
"Lucky guess, still, I trust that the circumstances surrounding the last time I met the colonel have ensured that she sought every other option before putting a child in the cockpit?" he asked as he glanced back towards Misato.
Misato looked like she'd been slapped, her jaw dropped, "Captain, we've never met before, and I would have you know that Rei's safety is and always has been my top priority!"
The man held up his hands and shook his head, "I meant no disrespect, but we have met before, fifteen years ago. September eighteenth, the year two thousand. I was only a first lieutenant then, but I remember that day well. My statement, well, I do truly believe that you would have exhausted every other option, after what happened back then."
Misato looked ready to slap him and I intervened, stood between them and shook my head, "It's not like that. I fight because I can, not because she makes me. If she could have done it, she'd fight instead, but that's not the way it works, Eva won't move for her."
I took a deep breathe, and looked back at Misato, and then back to the captain, "It's not like this was the first plan, but we're all just working with what we've got. This ship has been in service since sixty one, do you think she'd still be sailing if the situation wasn't as desperate as it is?"
The man stood there for a moment, then nodded slowly and turned towards the open hatch in the end of the compartment, "I understand then. You have my apologies for the implication, Colonel, Rei. The IPEA pilot you're likely looking for is on the
Kuznetsov, the Evangelion is on the cargo ship
Tbilisi."
He started to walk away and hesitated, "Later, if you're amicable, I'd like to invite you back aboard, for dinner. An apology if you will. It's not every day I get to meet people who have saved the world, I'd like to show my appreciation for that."
XXXXXXX
"You know I'm starting to wonder if this entire war against the Angels is sponsored by Bell Helicopter!" I yelled to Misato over the whine of the single gas turbine engine perched above us, over the 'thuck, thuck, thuck' of the two bladed rotor. They could have at least closed the doors on this thing.
"You're a weird kid Rei!" She yelled back with a grin, "Besides, the UH-1 is inexpensive, reliable, and utterly immune to EMP, what more could you ask for?"
I gestured behind me to the open side door that arctic air was currently pouring in through, "A closed door and a space heater!"
"We're not going to be in the air that long, look, the
Kuznetsov is right there, we'll be down in a few minutes!" I could see her shivering though, her cheeks red, her teeth chattering. At least I wasn't alone in that.
I never really minded the cold, actually, I rather liked it, before. Winters were always a welcome break from the intense summer heat of the American south, but the time I'd spent here, in this perpetual summer? Well, I hadn't been here that long, but still, my body wasn't used to the cold.
But then, it wasn't really the same body was it?
I shook my head, shivered against the rush of cold air, and felt my ears pop. I looked out the door, the water was getting closer, we were descending.
The red water, the real dead sea. The color of blood, no smell, no sense of life. The world with no marine life, how did we keep going on? If they could kill our
oceans, even if we won, how long could we last?
Were we even meant to last?
No, I knew better than that. Before the fire, we were thriving, there was no global calamity, no second impact. We had our problems, but we were going to make it, not snuffed out by some alien menace.
No, we were meant to survive, we were meant to overcome this, like we'd overcome everything that had come before. We were the apex species on this planet, and I wasn't about to let anything change that
fact.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the frigid arctic air. It was bracing, felt it deep within my core, and shook off the chill. The deck of the Russian carrier was almost close enough to reach out and touch.
Oh, nifty! There were fighters on the deck, a dark blue camouflage... those weren't flankers. I scratched the back of my head as the helicopter's skids touched the deck, and I shifted towards the open door. No, those weren'tflankers, those were Mitsubishi F-2Bs, three drops tanks each, with two rocket pods, two bombs, and two air to air missiles each. What the hell were they planning on fighting out here?
Russian, American, and Japanese ships, who was really going to pick a fight with a fleet that had nine aircraft carriers in it? Maybe a country run by lunatics, or maybe an Angel, and fighter jet was little more than a distraction for the latter.
"Rei, come on. Let's go talk to the Russians."
Oh, yes, let's. That's absolutely the thing to do, isn't it?
XXXXXXX
I leaned back in the, rather quite comfortable, chair, and let out a sigh. They hadn't found her yet, couldn't find her, she wasn't checking in, or whatever other excuse they needed to think of. Unit five's pilot was nowhere to be found on the
Kuznetsov.
However, the guest accommodations were... nice. Not as spartan as one would assume when they first hear the phrase 'Russian guest quarters', although these were not exactly overnight accommodations, more of a small meet and greet lounge with food and drink.
Unfortunately, I'd only managed to sample a very small amount of authentic Russian vodka before Misato noticed and gave me a withering glare and I put back the rest, instead opting for the bread and cheese, some salami and some marinated herring. I always did have a soft spot for fish, where they'd gotten any on a planet covered in dead oceans, I didn't know.
But I was okay with it. Still, I had to wonder if maybe word had spread about who I was and my role at Nerv, it would explain the veritable feast. Captain's personal stash?
"Say, Misato," I asked with a mouthful of delicious Russian fish, "You think the Russians know who I am? We only told Captain Clark, and only because he figured it out." I turned to look at the other woman, part of the fish still hanging out of my mouth. Manners? Food is on the line, manners take a back seat.
"Well, as the captain of a ship, he wouldn't betray our trust and tell anyone. That said, I'm sure that half the fleet knew about you being an Eva pilot before we even made it to the helicopter," She answered with a laugh, "Rumors on a ship have legs, and radio operators like to gossip."
I nodded and put on my best fake Russian accent, "Little blue hair girl is Eva pilot, is save world, give her the good fish."
"I will admit, the conversation was very similar to that, but your accent needs work." I turned my head towards the voice, and then upwards to meet that voice's face. Large Russian man, very large Russian man.
He grinned at my blush and extended, "Captain-Lieutenant Alexander Siyanin Denisovich, I am pleased to meet the girl who has killed three Angels so far, and thank you both for waiting so patiently. It is unfortunate, but we have not been able to locate the IPEA pilot, she has, as far as we can tell, left the ship some time before you arrived, but beyond that we can not be more specific." He hesitated for a moment, looked over to Misato, and then back to me, and then over to the table of food and drink.
"You lost her? Wasn't it the Russian Navy's job to keep a handle on her during the transfer?" Misato accused as she rose from her chair. Five and a half feet of Japanese fury, you go girl!
I suppressed a snicker at the thought and watched the Russian out of the corner of my eye as I continued to scarf the fish, I had a bad feeling that the end of this conversation was going to be the end of my meal as well.
"Well, the girl is... difficult, spirited. I suspect that the only reason we were able to keep track of her as we had is because she allowed it. You must understand, while we are happy to participate in this transfer, in fact, we volunteered because of what Evangelion means to the world... we are not experienced in keeping
guests confined to the ship when they do not want to be."
"So you're saying that if you wanted to keep her confined, you'd have had to throw her in the brig, and since she's an important
guest aboard this ship, you didn't want to have to resort to that kind of thing?" I asked as I gnawed on a hunk of fresh bread. Where did they find fresh bread on a cruiser? Was there some kind of super special secret kitchen staffed with skilled Russian chef's I didn't know about?
"This is not an inaccurate statement," the man admitted, "However, the only craft to leave the ship recently are the helicopter you arrived on, and one other before that, which was headed over to the
Tbilisi, you may want to begin your search there."
"Well, I'm not in a hurry, I could just sit here and eat fish for a while. I haven't had a good fish in forever, you know? And this is some pretty good stuff, maybe I could meet the cook and ask for a few tips, eh?" I asked, making eyes at the Russian.
"Rei, we really should be trying to find the IPEA pilot before we settle in, don't you think?" Misato interjected with an edge in her voice that bordered just on the edge of 'homicide.' Okay, yeah let's do what Misato says instead, yeah? Yeah.
"I will call for helicopter, excuse me," Denisovich offered as he ducked out of the room and closed the hatch behind him.
I turned to Misato, "Well, I guess I get to eat a little bit more eh? I told you I didn't have an eating disorder!" I patted my stomach with a grin and snatched another bread roll and slice of cheese off the table.
And then felt myself being dragged to the deck as a loud explosion rocked the entire ship, Misato had me by the back of the shirt and was screaming something that I couldn't hear over the reverberations through the deck and the explosion that hadn't quite subsided yet.
I shook my head to clear the fog and the confusion, but couldn't get the ringing out of my ears. The ringing... the buzzing? That wasn't the explosion, that was the ship's intercom, battle-stations perhaps?
"Misato, what the hell!?" I yelled, not at her for pulling me down, more at what the hell was going on.
"Stay here, I'm going to figure out what just happened!" She yelled as she got off of me and started for the door.
Stay here? Fuck that. "I'm coming with you, if the ship goes down I don't think it really matters which room I was in when it happened!" I yelled as I followed her, she didn't stop me.
The ship shook again and I stumbled against the hatchway, but Misato pressed on, oblivious to my peril. I shook my head, she was headed for the bridge, I was going to head for the flight deck. She could ask the command crew what was going on, but nothing beats the mark one eyeball.
I took a right turn at the junction and ran forward, the meeting room was in the island so it wasn't long before I reached a bolted hatch and spun the wheel, and pushed it out into the frigid air.
Oh. Damn. That's very, very, bad.
Half a mile off the port of the
Kuznetsov, the
Tbilisi was rocking in the waves, and aft of that the remains of the
Novokuznetsk were on fire and sinking. And above
that a terrifying amalgamation of metal and bone was flailing as it tried to shake itself free of some kind of hex-engraved binding.
If that wasn't an Angel, I didn't know what was, but how in all of the blue hells did it end up in a cargo ship? We captured one of those things? When the hell did that happen!
No, I needed a plan, I couldn't get to an Evangelion, but the IPEA pilot might already be at it. I couldn't just sit still and do nothing though, she had five minutes of power at most, and in the middle of an ocean? No, she needed back up.
I looked back out at the flight deck... and smirked, despite the situation. I'd spotted a locker room a few meters back, that would do.
XXXXXXX
I licked my lip as my fingers worked their way across the panel in front of me. The helmet was heavier than I remembered, but I was a lot smaller than I was then as well. Them's the breaks.
Battery on, generator connected, fuel booster pumps on. Wheel brakes set. Okay... we can do this. I was lucky, in a way, that the rumor mill had been so active. I'd managed to bluff my way into the pilot's locker room, and again bluff my way into this cockpit. Pilot who killed the Angels? Well, one Pilot was as good as another, and I acted like I knew what I was talking about.
But then, it wasn't really an act, and Misato was about to find out everything that I'd been hiding from her, but desperate times call for desperate measures... and even if I couldn't do anything, I had to try.
I advanced the throttle half an inch and toggled the starter, and was rewarded with the steadily increasing whine of the engine behind me, at least I hadn't forgotten that part. It wasn't what I was used to, but it was close enough. It would do.
I tapped toggled on the targeting computer and cycled through the MFD on the right, switched it over to DSMS mode and examined my external stores pylons. Two LAU-5003 pods, two Mk 84s, and two AIM-9s. Yeah, that would probably be as effective as anything else.
I pulled the throttle back down to idle as the engine caught and the starter disengaged and... that was Misato stomping her way across the flight deck, but I'd prepared for that, had to, because I needed her with me, to make sure she was safe.
The ladder was still up against the side of the jet anyway.
She stormed past the ground crew, probably had seen me from the bridge, but that wasn't an accident either. I looked up in front of me, that Angel was still trying to get free, and it had mostly managed so far, the binding wrapped around it was cracking and splintering more and more with each passing moment.
"Rei what the hell are you--" She started, her face red, confusion, anger, cold? Yes to all of the above.
I grabbed the second helmet out of my lap and handed it to her, and nodded towards the back seat, "I'm doing something, because I'm not just going to stand around here doing nothing. Get in."
"Rei, you can't just take a jet, you don't even know how to fly it, why did they let you in the cockpit, why are they even helping you with this insanity?!" She yelled, pushing the helmet back into the cockpit.
"Misato, you trust me with an Evangelion, don't you? They trust me because I've killed Angels before, and the rumor mill calling me a Pilot didn't hurt that." I explained, then lifted the sun visor on my helmet, "Look, I know what I'm doing, I'm asking you to trust that I know what I'm doing. I'm asking for your help, because from down here, I can't do anything... but up there, I might just have a snowball's chance in hell at doing something, alright?"
"It's not that simple, you've piloted an Evangelion, you've been trained. You can't just jump into this cockpit and pretend you know what you're doing!" She yelled back, "I didn't bring you out here to die!'
"It's not that simple? Misato you threw me into unit one, something I'd never seen before, within two hours of meeting me for the first time, you sent me out to fight something out of a nightmare with no training. You trusted me then to get the job done, now I
need you to trust me now, because this is something
I can do."
I waited, and stared at her, could feel my palms sweating up, felt my stomach churning with anxiety, if she didn't play along, I couldn't leave her here, not with that Angel. If she pressed the issue, I'd get out, and go with her, because...w
She stared at me, silent for a long moment, and turned her head towards the MFDs on the panel, and back to me, and sighed, "You got this thing started up all by yourself didn't you? You're... you're not kidding are you, you really know what you're doing?"
I blushed and nodded, "It's not my first rodeo. I'll explain everything after this, I promise, and I just hope you believe it, but for now, will you please take the helmet and get in?"
"I must be out of my mind, but then it looks like you are too," she said with a sigh as she grabbed the helmet from my hand and slid it on, and climbed into the back seat.
I hit the canopy close switch and reached over to the throttle with my cast-covered arm, at least my fingers were free, I'd be needing them. My right hand felt slick on the control stick. I moved it experimentally and watched the control surfaces in the cockpit mirrors. Good there, alright.
I signaled the ground crew and they cleared out, I released the wheel brakes and tapped the throttle gently, just enough to ease us out of the parking spot and onto the main part of the flight deck. Little right rudder, the nose of the jet steered towards the ski jump and let it idle forward to the blast shield set into the deck, that hadn't been extended yet.
"So, Rei, I'm strapped into your insanity, what's the plan then?" She asked me over the intercom, her voice was colored with irritation and doubt, but she got in the cockpit, so that's all I needed. I've prove the rest once we left the deck of the carrier.
"I was hoping you could come up with something, honestly. Failing that, I'm going to hope to god that the IPEA pilot made it to unit five, and is powering it up. If she's there, I'll try to get in touch with her, and we can work out some kind of plan," I explained as I set the wheel brakes, and looked in the mirror to watch the blast deflector rise up out of the carrier's deck.
"And if she's not there, what do you think we're going to do with a single fighter jet?" She asked me, I could hear her in the back seat fiddling with the controls, It wouldn't surprise me if she actually knew what she was doing back there.
"We've got three drop tanks and our internal tanks are full to the top. If we can't fight, I'm going to run. That's the other reason I wanted you to come along, because I won't leave you behind," I explained, then keyed up the radio before she could reply, "Ikari, taking off now."
Well, time for a date with destiny. I shoved the throttle to the locks, and released the wheel brakes as the afterburner lit. I leaned back into the seat as the g-forced pinned me back, the jet lurched forward down the deck towards the end of the ramp.
A catapult would have been nice, but this jet could do it, wouldn't have been on the carrier if it couldn't, right?
Right?
Oh dang.
I clenched the control stick tightly in my hand as the nose pitched up on the ramp, I grabbed the flaps control lever and dropped it right as the nose gear cleared the ramp, and held back on the stick, gently, as the airspeed still crept up. Altitude dropping... dropping... steady, climbing! I changed a look at the mirror and saw the leading edge extensions retracting as we climbed away from the carrier deck.
I brought the flaps lever back up and pulled the throttle out of afterburner, and started a left turn to sweep over the fleet. I hadn't noticed before, the carriers had taken up most of my attention, but there were several honest to god battleships in the fleet, four of them,
Iowa-class it looked like, were already opening up on the Angel with their sixteen inch guns.
If anything, it looked like they were helping it escape, unfortunately. They couldn't penetrate the AT field, but that didn't seem to stop them from damaging the confinement ring. I shook my head and rolled a little harder to the left, trying to get a good look down into the deck of the
Tbilisi.Oh, crap.
"Misato, unit five has wheels, and it doesn't have hands. If she gets that thing going this it's still gonna be tricky. And for that matter why in the
hell was there an Angel in the other cargo ship?!" I yelled into the intercom as I toggled on the master arm switch.
"That's a question I'd like answered too, Rei." She hesitated, and toggled the radio, "Katsuragi to Kitty Hawk Actual, come back."
"
Colonel, you're not in that fighter are you? We've got a lot going on down here right now, If you've got anything to help that I'd be thankful." Clark responded, quickly too. Must have been having conversations like this a lot the last few minutes.
"Is the portable power supply installed for unit five yet?"
"
It's being powered up as we speak, but it won't do any good if we can't get the Evangelion onto the deck." he radioed back, even through the relatively low quality link I could hear the stress in his voice.
"Kitty Hawk Actual, this is Ikari I'll make it work, stand by to approach
Tbilisi. I've got... an idea." I called into the radio as I throttled down and pulled into a left corkscrew dive. I spilled a few hundred feet and lined up on the Angel.
"What's the plan Rei?" Misato asked from the back seat. She couldn't see the Angel, that was good, for her.
"Fish hook." I answered simply as I switched the cannon over to bore-sight.
"Which is what?"
"We're gonna be the thing on the end of a fish hook, you know, bait," I answered as I licked my lip and lined up the pipper on the Angel, right as that last restraint started to yield.
"I don't like that idea."
"You're not the one in the front seat though," I shot back as I pulled the trigger and fired a one second burst at the Angel, then pulled up into a steep climb. Come on, take the bait you bastard.
"Break left!" she yelled suddenly.
I snapped the stick hard to the left and hauled back out of the climb as a beam of coherent hatred streaked past the cockpit. Okay, yeah, we had that thing's attention. I pushed the nose down and throttled back to eighty percent and took us through a lazy right arc away from the
Tbilisi and towards open water.
I saw the reflection of another flash in the mirror over my head and flinched, but I wasn't the target. It wasn't chasing? I turned and looked over my left shoulder. Oh dammit, it had fired on one of the nuclear super-carriers, I could just make out the '70' on the side of the island.
"The
Carl Vinson just got hit, why isn't it following us?" I muttered into the intercom.
Another flash lit up the sky and another one of the carriers, on the other side of the Angel was hit, and immediately started to list. What the hell was it's game? I was shooting at it, why was it shooting ships that weren't fighting back?
A third CVN was hit a moment later, and Misato yelled from the back seat, "It's targeting the nuclear powered ships!"
"Katsuragi to all ships, the Angel appears to be attacking nuclear powered ships!" She yelled into the radio from the back seat. I rolled left and pulled back on the stick.
There had to be a way to get in touch with the IPEA pilot, if she was still alive, right?
I looked down at the fleet, the battleships were moving in to press the attack on the Angel, the Nuclear carriers were pulling out of the engagement... and it looked like a few submarines had surfaced and fired missiles.
I looked over to find the
Kitty Hawk, and found it steaming towards the
Tbilisi with a purpose.
Kitty Hawk must have some way of contacting the Eva!
"Ikari to Kitty Hawk, can you patch me through to the Evangelion?" I asked, as I twisted my neck to look down at the deck of the freighter. There was definitely movement, what was the plan?
"
Ikari, Kitty Hawk, we've patched you through, whenever you're ready." The operator replied. Alright, now we're getting somewhere.
"Misato, I've got an idea. Looks like the core is in the head of this angel... So, if the pilot of unit five can neutralize the AT field, maybe I can kill it with the AP rockets," I explained as I started to climb and circle around for a pass.
"IPEA pilot, come in, do you read?" Misato asked into the radio. Either she'd agreed with my plan or had one of her own. I actually hoped, quite a lot in fact, that she had her own plan, because mine
sucked, but a plan you have is better than nothing.
"
Hey there, was wondering when you guys were going to call me, sorry I missed you guys earlier but I wanted to spend some time with my Evangelion, that's okay right? Well listen, I'm powering up right now, I've got about four and a half minutes in this thing by the time I've got it started up so if you could get that nice big boat just a little bit closer I'll hop on over and hook myself up, kay?" The pilot replied, I had to admit... she was a little grating, so nonchalant while the fleet was getting torn apart, I was a little more reverent, which was a pretty harsh indictment on her.
"Yeah, about that," I answered back on the radio, "I'm in the Viper Zero that's been buzzing the fleet and taking potshots at the Angel. If you can neutralize the AT field, or pin the bastard down I've got thirty eight armor piercing rockets and four thousand pounds of bomb to drop on him. Might not get the job done but it ought to soften him up. Think we can work together on this?"
I heard a laugh through the link and then she came back on,
"Well, I bet you're popular, you know just what to say to a girl. Sounds like a plan. I'll stay in low power mode till the carrier is in range. I'll signal you then."
"Well, that's nice. She's out of her mind you know? You said I was insane, this chick is... like the polar opposite of Ayanami," I complained to Misato. "This is who you're trusting to replace me, by the way. Remember that when we're swimming home."
"You pick the worst times to complain, you know that right?" Misato asked in an exasperated tone, I could almost hear her helmet tapping on the back of her seat. Well, maybe that was my imagination, but I was pretty sure it was happening regardless.
"Yeah, but you still love me."
She said nothing to that, probably for the best, not the thing I needed to be thinking about when I was flying in combat. Now, if she wanted to give me a kiss of congratulations afterward, well, that part I could deal with.
I rolled my eyes and circled around on another pass, climbing steadily, turning my surplus airspeed into altitude, just in case I needed the extra energy, and kept watching unit five. It was upright now, standing on its four legs, each one ending in a wheel. The two pincer arms were also... different.
The entire thing looked like it was made on a whim, like they had a quadruple amputee Evangelion torso and needed something to fight with, so they just started strapping on half-assed prosthetics and said 'sure why not' to the final product.
And it was our only hope, but it could generate an AT field, so at least we had a hope.
There was a flash of light from the
Tbilisi and I saw unit five rise from the ship on a pillar of fire on a ballistic arc towards the waiting
Kitty Hawk. Unit five could fly? I needed to ask for rockets to be installed on unit one, that was some slick stuff.
"Unit five, are you ready?" I called into the radio as I continued to climb.
"
What, didn't you get the signal? I'm ready to rock and roll! AT field to maximum!" The girl yelled back through the radio. She sounded... excited. Yeah this one was a lunatic. She'd fit right in.
"Alright, my turn then, I'll get his attention on you," I called back as I stepped into the rudder and rolled into an intercept trajectory with the Angel. I switched the weapon selector over to the mark 84s and cycled the targeting computer over to CCIP.
It wasn't exactly what I'd planned, but I had zero doubts that four thousand pounds of bomb hitting the angel at the speed of sound was going to escape its attention, especially with five dampening it's AT field.
I licked my bottom lip and pushed the throttle forward, lit the afterburner, and watched my altitude drop and my airspeed climb. The sound of the wind whistling past the canopy increased steadily and then... disappeared entirely as we passed mach one.
The pipper crossed over the Angel's skull and I pressed the weapon's release on the stick, felt the bombs release from the pylons. I cut the throttle, grabbed the air-brakes and yelled to Misato, "Hang on, boards out!" as I hauled back on the stick.
The g-forces pinned me against my seat and vapor trailed off the wing tips as the airframe shook and shuddered, pulling out of the dive with a few hundred feet to spare, the air-brakes spilled airspeed as we dropped back into the subsonic range and I leveled us out.
I rolled up on the left wing tip and started a high-g turn back towards the
Kitty Hawk. The Angel was paying attention now, good. Now all I had to do was get it to engage unit five... Easier said than done.
"This thing is kind of a pig with all that fuel out there on the pylons, but should be a little better with the bombs gone." I said conversationally to Misato as I chewed my bottom lip.
"
Ikari, looks like you got couple of clean hits. I'm impressed, now can you bring it over so I can play with it?" Five's pilot asked. I couldn't get a read on her, was she screwing with me or was she truly out of her mind? If the latter, I had to question the IPEA's judgment in the matter.
I pulled the throttle back to idle and deployed the air-brakes again to spill off extra airspeed, I wanted to make a slow pass before I took off, to give it something to follow. And hope it didn't blow me up with its laser attack.
"Rei, why are we slowing down?"
"I'm going to shake my ass at it," I shot back as I tapped the stick over in a lazy arc past the Angel. The skeletonized head slowly turned to lock onto us. Yep, got his attention. I retracted the air-brakes and shoved the throttle to the stop.
And we we off like a shot again, and the Angel started to close in behind us. Was it going to attack us directly, was it trying to get a better shot? What was the recharge time on that laser beam attack anyway?
Probably just long enough for me to get complacent. No matter.
I stepped on the rudder and nosed the jet over towards unit five, and boy was the jolly green giant ugly up close, a real hodgepodge. "I brought a friend, play nice alright?" I called out to the pilot as I rolled left and eased back on the stick to pass around the Evangelion.
"
I don't know, I have a really bad habit of breaking my toys. Come on beastie, let's play!"I could
hear the maniac grin in her voice, and was for the moment thankful that I didn't have a video-link with her.
I shook my head, and hauled back on the stick, pulled the plane ninety degrees to the carrier and looked up through the canopy. The Angel had decided that the Evangelion was a more important target than I was.
Presumably due to the fact that the Evangelion was grabbing it by the neck with both pincers and was trying its very best to pop the Angel's head off. The Eva had drilled itself into the flight deck and the carrier was listing terribly to starboard from the force and weight being pressed down onto it.
"
Any time, fighter jock!" she yelled through the radio, and this time I didn't detect the playful mania that she'd been showing me before, this was an earnest request, she was struggling.
"Ikari, making my pass now. Switching to CRV7s," I called out as I pulled back and rolled level, lined up with the Angel's head. I licked my lip and focused on the CCIP pipper on the HUD, nudged the stick and rudders gently until it lined up on the core and then pressed the weapon's release and held it as all thirty eight rockets began to ripple out of the tubes.
I cut throttle, popped the air brakes, and dropped the flaps to spill airspeed and slow my closing rate as I toggled over to the cannon, switched it over to bore-sight, and pulled the trigger. Hundreds of tracers drew a line of light between the barrels of my Vulcan cannon and the Angel, twitches on the flight stick walked the tracers into the core as the rockets impacted.
Stall warnings sounded through the cockpit and I swore under my breath as I closed the air-brakes and pushed power back to the engine. I pulled back on the stick as the airspeed rose and passed over the Angel before the smoke cleared.
"
Not dead yet? Fine, take this!" the pilot screamed. I snap rolled to the left and pulled back so I could get a clear line of sight to the Angel, just in time to watch unit five smash the Angel's cracked core with one of it's pincer claws.
"Looks like we did it, eh Rei?" Misato asked from the back seat, "Now how about we put this thing down and you start explaining stuff."
I nodded, she probably didn't notice, but that didn't really matter. Angel was dead, that's what mattered. Of course, both that Angel and the other Evangelion were nothing like anything I remembered or had ever seen before... but those memories were pretty old anyway.
I scanned the fleet below looking for a carrier to land on, the American CVNs were out, none of them looked like they were in very good shape, all of them had flight deck damage and looked to be taking on water, the
Kitty Hawk had a flight deck full of dead Angel and unit five... and some holes that that IPEA pilot had drilled into it.
"Misato, help me out a little, try to find a carrier that's not screwed up, because the pickings are getting pretty thin from what I can see." I'd tried to act nonchalant, but the truth was it was everything I had not to start to panic. Stuck out over the ocean with no place to land was no fun, and I didn't even want to pretend to imagine what might happen if we had to ditch in that blood red ocean, be dead in minutes from the cold alone.
"I see the
Kuznetsov... but it's listing pretty bad, looks like it took a hit to the engine compartment, the flight deck is damaged... and I can't find the other carriers, they must have gone down while we were fighting," She answered. She hadn't figured it out yet, but she would in the next couple of seconds.
"Ikari to Kitty Hawk, I can't find a clear flight deck anywhere in this fleet to set down on... what's our distance to Elmendorf?"
"What are you planning?" Misato asked from the back seat, I could see her leaning up in the mirror.
"If we ditch in this water, we're both dead, If we're close enough, we might have enough fuel left to make Elmendorf in Alaska, we can figure out something else from there," I explained. "It's not ideal, but sticking with the fleet isn't worth dying for."
"
Ikari, Elmendorf is eighteen fifty on the money from your current position." The radio operator called back.
I turned the aircraft south, south east and jettisoned the rocket pods from under the wing pylons, and called up the radio again, "Ikari to Kitty Hawk Actual, I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone that dinner engagement, we'll have to catch up in Yokosuka. Can you do me a favor and let Elmendorf know we're coming? Would hate to get shot down on the way in."
"
I suspect that we'll be in Yokosuka for a while getting patched up, so you'll probably get that chance. I'll sent a message along ahead of you. We'll keep tracking you from here till you're off radar. Best of luck to you. And Colonel Katusragi? I you've got a good kid working with you, keep her close and we might just make it through this thing." Captain Clark called back on the radio, he sounded worn out. I can't imagine that the battle was easier on him than it was on us by any means.
"I'll hold you to it. Ikari out."
I licked my bottom lip and set the auto pilot to altitude and course hold and let go of the stick, leaned back in the seat. Yep, flying to Alaska. That was happening. I looked up in the mirror at Misato and keyed up the intercom, "So, this is going to be a long flight isn't it?"
She nodded, "Yeah, I have questions."
"I don't suppose we can let those questions wait until we land in Anchorage?" I asked hopefully.
"Not a chance."