SG Vol. 1 pt. 28

Island Assault; Mystery

I don’t give a fuck whether I’m an instructor now or what. I’m getting into my unit whether they let me or not. There’s no fucking way that I’m going to sit by and wait while we’re under attack!

Thankfully, there’s an annoying mechanic girl who I see running over to the hangars at the same time as me.

“Tabs! My unit ready?!” I shout over to her.

Tabs raises a thumbs-up to me and puts some extra speed into her pace, hurrying ahead to get everything ready for me.

Jets are already being scrambled on the runway and taking off. The versatile strike units will be launching next.

If the jets are going first, that at least means they’re not on the island yet. There’s still time to get ready for them before the fighting begins.

I take the lift to my unit’s opened cockpit and climb inside.

The dried blood has already been washed off of it, but there’s still that scorch mark on its leg yet to be covered.

That doesn’t matter.

All that matters is that the demons are coming for us. They’re coming for our home, for our lives – for my Naomi.

Any demon that so much as touches this island is going to die.

I check the time on my display as soon as it boots up. Two minutes have passed since the alarm went off. All students at schools around the island should already be in underground bunkers, and civilian evacuations should be underway.

All Kate should have to worry about is Mom. I know getting Mom to go into a shelter is going to be hard… but this is the one fucking reason why I even stay with Kate. As long as she can make sure that Mom gets to safety, I don’t care what she does.

My phone vibrates in my pocket as they fill my unit up with ammo and fuel.

A text reading, “We’re safe,” shows on the screen from Kate.

Thank you, Kate.

Naomi will be in her school’s shelter, and now Mom is safe.

I don’t have to worry about them now. I’ll be able to clear my mind and let loose on these demons.

Checking around the hangar, there’s me in my A-10C VSU with two others in A-10C VSUs, about a dozen F-16 VSUs, six F-22 VSUs, and eight F-15E VSUs. Between this hangar and the other hangars around the airfield, we’ve got enough power that the demons have to be fucking suicidal to try attacking us. That’s not even taking into consideration any VSUs loaded up on carriers docked here and in the surrounding waters.

This isn’t going to be about trying to win. It’s going to be about minimizing damage while destroying the enemy.

“This is Colonel Hutton to all pilots,” Zane’s voice reaches into the cockpit. He sounds calm. That’s how I know this is serious. “Seventy-three M-class and nine L-class pods have been detected and are predicted to land on Oahu within the next thirty minutes. Most pods are projected to land in and around Honolulu. ABMs have already launched and we have jets in the air en route to intercept. An estimated eighty percent of pods will be neutralized before landfall, and we are going to be depending on you to keep our island safe from those that survive. Your mission will be to eliminate all threats emerging from the pods as their locations are delivered to you. Now, coordinates will be sent where we want you on standby. You can expect pod drops right on top of you.”

Zane pauses to take a deep breath before saying, “Protect your country. Fly with bravery, eliminate the threat, and return home to your families in time for dinner. That is your order.”

A message pops up on my display giving me the coordinates of my destination with a private note that reads, “I won’t stop you, but be safe.”

Thanks, Zane.

I won’t let them hurt me nor anybody else.

Two by two, our units are rolled out of the hangar and control is handed over to us pilots.

Those brats in the infirmary should be in the base’s bunker now.

Now, all that’s left is to wait for the demons to land.

As time passes by, Zane updates us with the progress of pods being destroyed. Forty of the M-class pods have already been shot down, but only one L-class pod has been destroyed.

The L-class pods are the problem. Even if we have the power here to deal with whatever comes out of them, the pods themselves making landfall can deal serious damage depending on where they land. The last thing this island needs is eight L-class pods impacting populated areas.

As for my position… I’m just here on the base still. Two M-class pods and an L-class pod are predicted to land right along the airfield. They’re in the final wave of pods, though, so I’ll be the last to enter the fight.

But that’s alright. I’d rather be back here knowing that I’ll be closest to the pods that are going to land near Naomi and Mom even if it means having to wait longer to kill the demons.

The first pods touch down just outside of Honolulu. Our countermeasures managed to take out all pods threatening the city itself, so now they just have to keep the demons from crawling out of their pods and getting into the city. That should be easy with how many units and tanks are over there.

One of the M-class pods that was shot here was destroyed, but the other and the L-class are both on course to land here within the next couple of minutes.

The M-class pod lands first.

Crashing into the ground with all the fucking grace of a meteor, the house-sized pod tears through the runway and knocks it out of commission. Concrete chunks of the runway fly into the air and impact some of the nearby buildings, and a couple of the F-15E VSUs here with me flinch.

I raise my guns at the pod and fire.

While their guns aren’t strong enough to effectively pierce through a landed pod, mine are. Though, as soon as the front of the pod opens up to reveal the demons within, the other units open fire.

Fifty Forager-class are dead before they can even make it a few steps out of the pod.

The L-class pod is what we have to worry about.

It’s in sight now.

“Move!” I shout over the comms to the nearby pilots.

The three of us fly out of the way just before the L-class pod splits into four chunks, each one several times the size of our units.

One of the chunks crashes into the hangar used to hold our bombers, one crashes into the runway just before where the M-class pod landed, the third chunk lands in the water, and the fourth flies overhead of us and lands just before the infirmary. While it doesn’t deal any direct damage to the infirmary, the chunks of debris flying off of the ground crash into the building and damage its front wall.

Then, the four exits on each side of the chunks open up to allow the demons to pour out from them.

Ten more VSUs are already on their way to support after dealing with their own pods.

I fly between where the fourth chunk is and the infirmary, making sure to mow down any of the Forager-class that climb out to try and get into the infirmary.

I can’t let any of them get inside.

Shooters positioned on the infirmary’s roof and behind all of its windows are shooting down at the demons, too.

Holding them off will be easy until reinforcements get here, and then we can exterminate the rest.

“Cutter-class coming out of the water!” one of the nearby pilots shouts as beams of red plasma shade everything around in a red hue.

These fuckers! Guess the Cutter-class aren’t fucking too squishy for traveling in pods after all.

“Ti-Ti…Titan-class coming out of the water!”

Looking over at the shore, ten Cutter-class are standing in a line as the gigantic Titan-class crawls out of the water. I can’t make out any of its details as smoke and mist fill the air, but that size… there’s no doubt about it.

Ten years of piloting and I finally get to kill my first Titan-class.