Steel Raptors

**July, 1996**

**PIT III, Utah**

Hawk looked up from his paperwork at the knock on his office
door.

“Come in,” he called.

Ace and Wild Bill entered, both were dressed in rumpled
green flight-suits although Wild Bill’s was a different shade of green to Ace’s
and he still wore his trademark Stetson.

“Sit down, gentlemen. I have good news for you,” Hawk said.
He shifted some of the paperwork around on his desk and pulled out a stack of
files.

“The Pentagon has approved recruitment of new pilots at long
last. However, the Joint Chiefs have insisted on the pilots in question being
recruited largely from the Navy, Marines and Air Force for the helicopter
pilots and the Navy and Marines for the fighter pilots. As such, these are your
approved candidates. They’ve been issued orders to report to Nellis Air Force
Base. You’ll meet them there before escorting them here for simulator based
training, some flight training and housing during the selection process. Some
flight training at Nellis has been approved.” Hawk handed over the files.
“We’ve also been given a green light for the training exercise with Action
Force and the Canadians have confirmed they’re sending the new pilot down with
the Hailstorm for training.”

“Cool.” Ace took the files and sorted through them. There
were eight pilots facing selection for him. Five were US Navy pilots, one a
woman. The other three were Marines.

Wild Bill took his stack. There were ten pilots facing
selection for him. One, William ‘Billy’ Guthrie was a US Army AH64 Apache
pilot. The other nine were from US Marine AH1 units, US Navy and Marine Black
Hawk squadrons. He grunted. “Well, I’m glad to see Guthrie made the cut.”

Ace looked at him, “Who?”

“Guy named Billy Guthrie. He’s an Apache pilot in the Army.
Qualified instructor. I’m picking him almost sight unseen. We need an
instructor and he’s the perfect guy. He actually volunteered for the Joes. He
helped design the course for conversion to the new D-model Apache.” Wild Bill
paused to look at Hawk, “I know what I said about making sure the attack pilots
could also fly the Tomahawk, but damn, I need this guy.”

Hawk shrugged. “You’re running the selection, Bill. Pick who
you want, how you want.”

“We’ll qualify at least three pilots on the Apache and the
Tomahawk, to make up the numbers for the attack birds. At least one crew for
the Tomahawk only. They all need to be able to fly under fire at low altitude
and complete their missions,” Wild Bill said staring at Hawk.

“I read the brief,” Hawk said. “Do it.”

The general turned to Ace. “What about you?”

Ace shrugged. “I was hoping for ten but I get eight. I want
a minimum of three qualified to fly air to air and air to ground in the X-16
and air-to-air in the Storm Eagle and I get three jarheads used to flying the
damn Harrier. This ain’t going so great on paper, sir, but we’ll see how we do
in the actuality of it.”

Hawk nodded, “Get on with it, then, gentlemen. Dismissed.”

**One week later**

Wild Bill stood before the group of helicopter pilot
candidates in the briefing room. The other Joe helicopter pilots – Lift Ticket,
Updraft, Major Altitude and Windmill – sat behind him on the stage.

“Welcome to GI Joe helicopter selection. You will be
undergoing a series of training exercises as well as simulations to qualify to fly
the Tomahawk transport helicopter and the Locust light attack helo. Some of you
will also be qualified to fly the AH-64 Apache attack copter. All of you will
qualify to fly second-seat in the Tomahawk so that we have a good supply of
crews if needed. We have five qualified Locust pilots and we want another five.
The Locust is easy to fly, even though it’s a single-seater. It’s a seat and
two machine-guns bolted to an engine basically. The Apache is a lot more
complicated. We want at least three pilots to fly both seats in that.”

There were some murmurs among the pilots.

“Chief Guthrie. Step forward.”

William Guthrie stood, saluted and then walked down to stand
next to Wild Bill.

“Chief Guthrie. You are our newest Apache pilot. You are
selected for GI Joe. You will be assigned quarters and a codename and your
paperwork is waiting in my office.”

“Sir?” Guthrie said.

“Son,” Wild Bill knew Guthrie was only a few years younger
than him, but it was automatic to call him ‘son’. “You’re a qualified instructor
for the Apache. You are a man I need in a hurry. We’ve relied on some
temporarily assigned instructors to qualify myself, Windmill, Updraft and Major
Altitude on flying the AH-64. You are now the GI Joe Apache instructor pilot
and are exempt from selection as an Apache pilot. You will need to qualify on
the Locust, but you should be able to do that, right?”

“Sir, yessir!” Guthrie hesitated. “I do have a codename in
mind, sir.”

Wild Bill glanced at the other Joes; Lift Ticket was
smirking. “Do tell,” Wild Bill finally said.

“Firebird, sir.”

“Fine. Go and sit down, Firebird.”

Wild Bill turned his attention to the others. “Now, I know I
probably just pissed a lot of you off, but we want a minimum of three Apache
pilots. Preferably, we’d like five. So for you AH1 pilots here, you now know,
you’re competing for one of four slots and you need to learn to fly the new
bird fast and to be very good with it.”

In another briefing room, Ace was facing the pilot
candidates for the Joes fighter group.

“Welcome to GI Joe fighter selection. You will be undergoing
a series of exercises and simulations to qualify to fly the X-16 Ghost Striker.
All of our pilots are required to qualify in the X-16 flying air-to-air and
air-to-ground attack missions. Once you’re capable of those mission profiles,
you will then qualify with the Storm Eagle, our stealth air superiority
fighter. You will then have to prove how good you are in air-to-air engagements
in that plane. You guys are going to be up against it. All of us Joe pilots are
trained in the X-16 and you’ll fly against us in the Ghost Striker and the
Storm Eagle. We’ll also be putting you up against the best Action Force has to
offer in a Red Flag style exercise against their Skystrikers, Ospreys and
Conquests.”

Ace paused to see if anyone would ask any questions. No one
did.

“We’ll start off with qualification on the X-16 in
simulators and then in the real deal. We’ll then move to flying simulated
combat ops. You’ll fly scenarios based on combating Cobra and the Coil as well
as other ops where the Joes might be deployed against MiGs, Sukhois, Mirages,
F-16s and other common export aircraft. We have a new simulator set-up here,
which is networked so you’ll be flying alongside each other and against us,
real, pilots as well as the computers.”

**The following week**

Ace sat in the control room for the network of simulators,
the Joes were using. Twelve pods linked together allowed the pilots to practice
flying together. The control room was dominated by a bank of screens; eight currently
showed the pilots in their simulators, another eight showed their ‘view’ out
the cockpit. The remainder were blank. A separate screen showed a tactical map,
similar to what a command and control plane would display. Sitting at a
computer keyboard, was Hard Drive, the GI Joe team’s new computers specialist.
His gaze was flicking between a small screen next to him and the simulator
screens.

Ace watched the action and reflected briefly on the mission
the pilots had been given twenty minutes earlier.

‘The Central American state of San Sombrero is embroiled in
a civil war, with the rebels being backed by Cobra. The rebels have captured
the airfield at Bannoffee Pie. Four X-16s will strike the airfield and attempt
to destroy the runway, whilst the others provide cover.’

Five miles from the airfield, the escort flight, led by Navy
pilot Scotty ‘Dog’ Russell, pulled up and climbed as the strike flight led by
Mike ‘Irish’ O’Malley continued in at treetop level. All eight pilots had
qualified to fly the X-16 with little trouble. Getting the Navy Tomcat pilots,
like Dog, used to flying a single seater was more troublesome than getting the
attack pilots like Irish used to flying air-to-air.

As the simulated X-16s climbed higher, red circles began
appearing on the tactical plot.

“*Ghost Flight, we’re being painted by air-search radars.Attack computer calls them Rapiers, HAWKs and M163s. Expect SAMs and triple-A,”*
said Ghost 2, Clyde ‘Gangster’ Dillinger.

Dog relayed the warning to Striker flight, the attack group.

Seconds later, tracer fire from the M163s began flashing
across the screens of all eight fighters as the anti-aircraft artillery began
opening fire.

“Striker Three has a lock on two M163s in the tree-line
near the runway. Firing Maverick missile. Rifle, rifle, rifle.”

Ace smirked to himself as Jimmy ‘Bucky’ Buchanen called out
the brevity code for a Maverick launch. The Navy pilot flew F/A-18s and knew
how to carry out ground attack missions.

The simulated missile destroyed the simulated anti-air
vehicles.

“*SAMs, SAMs, SAMs. Multiple SAMs!”* hollered Julius
‘Roman’ Simone as the short-range HAWK missiles were rippled off.

Ace watched as the X-16s sprayed out flares and chaff,
trying to decoy any heat-seekers and confuse the radar-guided missiles as well.
They broke off their approach to the airfield and flew evasive courses even as
the first of Striker flight crossed the airfield and dropped two 500lb bombs on
a pair of hangars.

Seconds later, Carlos ‘Slugger’ Sanchez called out over the
radio, “*Ghost Three to all elements, I have visual on four F-5 Tigers taxiing for take-off.”*

It didn’t take long for Judith Rainey to call, “*Inbound hot on the taxiway, stand by… Bombs away, bombs away.”*

Ace watched as the X-16 sped clear and Dog’s fighter looped
around to show the two bombs slamming into the lead F-5s and destroyed them.

“*Striker Two in hot,”* radioed Sean ‘Muck’ McLanahan
as he sped across the runway and dropped his bombs, which detonated and blew a
huge crater in the tarmac.

The X-16s were dancing across the simulated sky dodging the
surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft fire and launching missiles and
dropping bombs to wreak havoc on the airfield.

Ace took a second to look at Hard Drive. “Can you add
something new to the mission on the fly?” he asked.

“Sure,” Hard Drive replied, turning to a small monitor and
the keyboard. “What do you want me to add?”

“Throw four interceptors at them. Airborne already.”

“Any particular type?”

“The new Cobra ATF we had programmed in. Crank the AI on
them as well, make it tough.” Ace gave a rather nasty smirk as he added that
comment.

Hard Drive nodded and went to work. “ATFs coming in at
twenty-five miles distance, speed set to three hundred knots.”

The ATF, or Advanced Technology Fighter, was a new Cobra jet
that had yet to enter service with the terrorists. Its existence was only known
about thanks to a covert recon mission on Cobra Island two months earlier by
the new GI Joe Marine Raiders team. One of the team had snuck into the
underground hangar on the island and photographed the plane under construction.
Analysts from the CIA and the Air Force Intelligence Agency had speculated it
was intended to be a new air dominance fighter similar to the GI Joe Storm
Eagle, leading to the computer programmers to put together an estimated
performance profile based on the photos.

Ace picked up his microphone. “Ghost Flight, Striker Flight,
this is Palace four new airborne contacts on radar. Bandits are twenty-five
miles out, approaching at three hundred knots,” Ace paused. “Bearing
two-five-zero.”

“*Roger, Palace. Ghost Flight on me,”* ordered Dog.

The four fighters reoriented toward the approaching Cobra
jets, but as they did, a Rapier SAM streaked up from a hidden battery and hit
Roman’s X-16 in the rear of the group. The X-16 exploded into pixels and the
screen showing Roman’s view went black. Roman himself slumped in his seat in
the simulator and sighed.

“*Ghost Four is down! Ghost Four is down!”* hollered
Slugger.

“Striker Two inbound. Maverick missile locked. Rifle,
rifle, rifle.”

The Rapier battery was obliterated by the simulated missile.

“*Striker Flight, Ghost Lead, recommend you get out of here. RTB, buster. We’ll cover your butts.”*

‘Buster’ was an Air Force term Dog had obviously picked up, meaning
‘bust your ass’.

“*Striker Lead copies. Roger, outbound now. Objective is complete.”*

The four X-16s turned and sped away even as Dog led Gangster
and Slugger in to a head to head pass with the ATFs.

Both groups of fighters launched radar-guided missiles at
maximum range, before going into evasive moves, spraying chaff to throw off
their enemies’ missiles.

One ATF flew too close to Slugger, who immediately opened
fire with his 20mm gun at near point-blank range. Computer generated smoke and
flames poured from the polygonal plane as it veered away, presenting its tail
pipe for a heat-seeker. Slugger obliged and the AIM-9 Sidewinder destroyed the
ATF.

“*Scratch one Cobra,”* Slugger crowed. It was probably
the first air-to-air kill the Marine Corps Harrier pilot had ever made, Ace
reflected. Even if it was in a simulator.

Ace’s attention flicked between the screens of the three
Ghost flight jets. Striker Flight were clear and speeding back to their base
outside the San Sombrero capital city, Banana Split.

Gangster and Dog were trying to catch another of the ATFs in
a pincer, but that meant the other ATFs were trying to out-flank them. Slugger
came screaming across the simulated sky and loosed off an AIM-7 Sparrow
radar-guided missile. The trailing ATF tried to evade it, but the short-range
Slugger had fired from – only ten miles – meant it didn’t have time to react
and its left wing was blown off.

“*Two down, two to go,”* Slugger gloated.

Gangster finally got a missile lock on another of the ATFs
and loosed a Sidewinder missile and destroyed it. The survivor turned tail and
ran.

Ace picked up his microphone again. “Endex, Endex. Mission
over. Debrief in one hour. We’ll run it again with the flight’s swapped after
dinner.”

Endex meant ‘End of exercise’.

Ace looked at Hard Drive. “Good work, son. Thanks. Any
problems with resetting it up for 19:00?”

“No, sir. Gives me plenty of time to get a cleaner in here
to wash the sweat out and set everything up before I get my dinner.”

Ace smirked.

Two hours later, after the debrief broke up, Ace went to the
mess hall and grabbed a burger and fries. He found Wild Bill and Lift Ticket
sat in one corner.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

“Not at all, Ace, pull up a pew, pardner.” Wild Bill pushed
the chair out with his boot. “How’d your simulator session go?”

Ace sat and took a bite of the burger before replying, “Not
too bad. One guy got his fanny waxed by a Rapier SAM. Navy Tomcat pilot who
still isn’t used to flying with no guy in the back.” Ace ate some fries before
going on. “One of the jarheads claimed two kills on the Cobra ATFs though.
Which is pretty good for an air-to-mud guy.”

The helicopter pilots nodded.

“How’d your training flight go?” Ace asked.

“Pretty well. Most of them are getting the hang of the
Tomahawk. We got one guy, Paul Molloy; he’s a Navy helo test pilot. Flew the
Tomahawk when the Navy evaluated them after the Joes were shut down. He’s ahead
of the curve and looks like a contender to join us along with Firebird,” Wild
Bill replied.

“Firebird?” Ace asked.

Lift Ticket frowned. “Didn’t you meet him yet? The Apache
instructor Bill inducted as soon as he got here.”

“No, I’ve been too busy. I think someone pointed the helo
candidates out and said something about Bill picking one already like he’d told
me and Hawk but I didn’t know his codename.”

“He’s running the Apache candidates ragged,” Lift Ticket
went on as he sipped his fruit juice. “He canned three of the five Apache
candidates two days ago because they couldn’t fly the bird with the
helmet-mounted sight. One guy was getting bad headaches; the one had an
eye-dominance problem and nearly ploughed into a cliff. The other guy crashed
the simulator flights twice before they got in the real thing.”

“Really?” Ace asked, surprised. “It’s barely been a week and
I’ve only had my guys flying basic manoeuvres in the real thing.”

“He’s a real hard-charger,” Wild Bill replied. “He ain’t
messin’. Armour and Santini need to make the grade or we’re going to need to go
back to the Pentagon pukes and request new candidates.”

“The Tomahawk candidates are doing okay. We’re going to try
a live-fire exercise with the turret for them tomorrow.” Lift Ticket sighed.
“If you’re still hogging the computers.”

Ace shrugged, “Not my fault Mainframe and Hard Drive won’t
let us run the two networks simultaneously. We’re still running the pilots in
the ground-to-air mode after getting them qualified flying basics in the X-16.
I don’t want to let them loose in the real things again until they’re all used
to flying it in the sims.”

Wild Bill and Lift Ticket exchanged grimaces. “Means we’ll
be running our flight outside in the real choppers tomorrow then,” Wild Bill
said.

Ace gave them a commiserating look; “I’ll start doing
exercises in the real jets next week. We’ll be doing another simulation this
evening and then two each day for the next three at least.”

Wild Bill rolled his eyes.

**Three days later**

The pilots gathered in the briefing room before heading to
the simulators. Already, five of the eight were proving to be the best, Ace
mused. And they knew who they were. Lieutenant (j.g) Judith Rainey, US Navy,
had proved to be the best air-to-air pilot. Unlike her fellow Tomcat pilots,
she’d adopted quickly to flying with no back-seater. Scotty Russell, Julius Simone
and Sean McLanahan were not doing anywhere near as well. Surprisingly, Second
Lieutenant Clyde Dillinger, Captain Carlos Sanchez and Captain Mike O’Malley,
the three US Marine Corps Harrier pilots had all adapted well to air-to-air
missions and were vying for second and third place. Jimmy Buchanen was trailing
the other attack pilots, but was proving better than the other three Navy
Aviators.

Ace decided to begin the briefing, “Okay, this is our final
simulator session before we switch to doing live-fire bomb drops and some
simulated air-to-air in the actual planes.”

He cleared his throat and continued.

“Coil forces have attacked the Central Asian state of
Currystan. They have occupied the city of Korma. We will be operating from an
airfield near the capital, Vindalooville. The Korma airfield is home to
MiG-21s, MiG-23s and SU-22s. Coil forces are using them as well as Rattlers for
ground attack. You will be flying a intercept mission against their fighters.
The Fishbeds, Floggers and Fitters will be flying air patrols over the north of
the country as the Coil forces advance.”

Julius put his hand up.

“Yes, Commander?”

“You really need to work on your names for fake countries,
y'know?” Julius replied. “I mean San Sombrero was bad, but then you named the
cities Banana Split and Bannoffee Pie. Then we had the… what was it? Socialist
Democratic People’s Republic of Hattari. I mean, that’s a damn John Wayne
movie. And now, this…Currystan? Seriously?”

Ace threw him a dirty look. “You try coming up with
something then.” He cleared his throat again, “Right. Where was I? Oh. Yes.
Gear up and let’s get on with it.”

The pilots filed out.

Minutes later, Judith strapped herself into the simulator
with help from a technician. The simulator was mounted on a hydraulic system
that mimicked the plane’s movements and was fitted with high tech flat screens
that covered the ‘canopy’ to give an all-round view. The simulators were the
most advanced she’d ever seen.

Judith plugged her communications headset in and pulled her
helmet on, just in time to hear Julius, “*Anyone got change of a ten, I ran out of quarters last time*.”

She rolled her eyes, he’d been making jokes along these
lines all the time they’d been using the simulators.

The screens flickered to life, showing an airfield on a
broad plain. The buildings were somewhat boxy and crude, but ahead of her, she
could see a very realistic looking X-16.

“*Striker squadron, this is the tower. You are clear for take-off, winds minimal. Altimeter 2-0-0. Clear to flight level 1-5 thousand feet.”* Ace’s voice was slightly distorted over the intercom.

Ahead of Judith’s simulated X-16, two others taxied into
position before thundering down the runway and lifting off. Her own fighter
automatically moved to take off position and she shoved the throttle forward
and grunted as the acceleration shoved her back in the seat. She hauled back on
the stick and the Ghost Striker lifted off and climbed upward at speed.
Quickly, she raised the landing gear, pulled the throttle out of afterburner
setting and trimmed the plane for level flight.

The fighter jets knifed through the simulated skies toward
the city of Korma. As they approached, Ace’s voice came over the radio again.

“*Bogies coming off the deck. Multiple aircraft launching. Stand by…”* There was a pause. “*Bogies positively identified as MiGs and Rattlers. Intercepts indicate the Rattlers are on a ground-attack mission. Engage at will.”*

Jimmy ‘Bucky’ Buchanen was flying lead, as soon as Ace
cleared the squadron to attack, his voice came over the radio. “*Striker squadron, Lead, engage the Rattlers first. Only knock down the MiGs if they get in your way.”*

The X-16s hurtled toward the simulated fighters. As they
entered the 30-mile optimal range for their main armament of AIM-7M Sparrow
missiles, several of the pilots opened fire. Scotty ‘Dog’ Russell and Sean
‘Muck’ McLanahan fired almost simultaneously. Clyde ‘Gangster’ Dillinger and
Julius ‘Roman’ Simone fired next.

All four pilots’ missiles destroyed targets, but not the
Rattlers, instead, the MiG-21 ‘Fishbed’ fighters had moved to intercept the
X-16s and four were shot down instead. Judith, Slugger, Irish and Bucky
launched their missiles next, targeting the Rattlers. All four Sparrows
destroyed Rattlers.

The Coil forces weren’t taking this lying down, however. The
surviving Rattlers took evasive moves, including descending to lower altitude,
whilst the surviving Fishbeds and MiG-23 Floggers turned to engage the X-16s.
Both sets of aircraft launched AA-7 ‘Apex’ missiles. All of the Ghost Strikers
sprayed out flares and chaff bundles, decoying several missiles as they went
evasive. Judith and Slugger homed in on the Rattlers, dodging the MiGs. They
dropped onto the Rattlers’ tails, accelerating and taking care to stay dead aft
of the trailing Rattlers, to avoid the fire of the tank-smashers’ gun turrets.
Judith fired first, taking out her second Rattler of the engagement. Seconds
later, Slugger fired his second Sparrow and dispatched another. Six remained.
As the dogfight continued above and behind them, the pair closed in and
launched another Sparrow each. Two more of the simulated fighters were blown
into pixelated explosions.

“*Mayday, mayday, Tower, this is Striker Two, Striker Lead is down! Launch SAR!”* Gangster shouted over the radio. Judith had to admire
his attention to realism, calling for search and rescue, even though the Marine
was perfectly safe.

Seconds later, Roman called across the radio channel. “*Mayday, mayday, mayday. I’m hit, I’m hit. Going down! Striker Six is down!”*

Judith glanced across at Slugger. Her wingman was still with
her as they continued to chase the four Rattlers. Both launched their fourth
and final Sparrows. Two more of the Coil jets were destroyed. The pair
accelerated again, closing in to launch their AIM-9M Sidewinder heat-seekers.
The last two Rattlers were destroyed. Judith and Slugger pulled up and looped
around in time to see Muck and Dog be shot down as both their jets were hit by
two missiles each. The pair closed in as Irish and Gangster destroyed two more
MiG-23s and launched their last Sidewinders to destroy the last Floggers.

Slugger closed in on a MiG-21 and opened fire with his Ghost
Striker’s M61 Vulcan gun, obliterating the antiquated fighter in a ten-second
burst.

Suddenly, Ace’s voice came over the intercom system. “*Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off.”*

That instruction meant the exercise was over.

“*Good work, we’re done. Shut your simulator down and debrief in ten,”* Ace added after a moment.

In another part of the PIT simulator complex, two of the
Apache candidates were flying a mission. In the front seat, the co-pilot/gunner
station, was First Lieutenant Francis ‘Frank’ Santini, US Marines. In the rear,
pilot, seat was First Lieutenant Carl Armour, US Marines. Both were veterans of
the AH-1 attack helicopter, Santini had flown in Operation Desert Storm in
1991, whilst Armour had flown his in Somalia in the early 1990s.

Both were having to get used to flying the far more advanced
AH64D Longbow Apache. As Armour flew the simulated helicopter over the
polygonal terrain, Santini reached up to fiddle with his monocle sight for the
third time. Both pilots had managed to use the one in the Tomahawks easily,
since they were only used for aiming the helicopter’s 20mm chain-gun, an
addition made by Special Weapons Force of Action Force and retained by the Joes
when the Z-Force helicopters were transferred to the US as part of an exchange
deal for Action Force to receive six MH-60 Black Hawks.

The Apache pilot’s monocle was far more sophisticated than
the Tomahawk one. Where that merely incorporated a simple aim-point ‘pipper’,
the Apache’s Integrated Helmet and Display Sight System projected symbols for
navigation and aiming the weapons and could be used for low-light flying,
either in darkness or brown-out conditions in a desert environment. The main
problem Santini was having was getting it to sit correctly over his eye. He
already had a welt under his eye from the monocle pressing into his face during
a high-g manoeuvre a week before.

“Stop fiddling with the damn monocle,” Armour scolded him
from the back seat. His position in the higher mounted seat meant he could see
his comrade easily.

Santini swore under his breath and went back to using the
simulator’s instruments to check the helicopter’s systems and the mission map.

Their mission was to simply patrol an area near two villages
in a small Central Asian nation, where an insurgency was ongoing. Cobra forces
were rumoured to be in the area.

The Apache flew low across the simulated brown landscape
toward the tan-coloured mud-walled buildings of the villages. The sun was
setting as the Apache swept across the first village, marked on the crew’s
navigation map as ‘Village 3-3’. Wild Bill was less creative than Ace when it
came to place names.

Armour circled the village a couple of times, as Santini
scanned the ground with the Apache’s cameras.

“Firebird 1-1 to Control, village 3-3 is quiet. No sign of
hostiles. Proceeding to 7-8,” Armour reported over the radio to Wild Bill in
the control room.

The senior pilot acknowledged the report. Next to him was
the Joes’ newest helicopter pilot, Firebird. Needless to say, he’d chosen the
call sign.

The Apache climbed and flew a gentle curving course away
from village 3-3 to the next one, a few miles away.

As Firebird watched the screen showing the helicopter’s
progress, he said to Wild Bill, “Here’s where the fun begins.”

Wild Bill didn’t reply.

In the simulator, Armour announced, “Village 7-8 coming up.
Looks like a quiet weekend down there.”

“That’s a negative, One-One,” came
Firebird’s voice over the intercom. “We’ve dialled in Monday morning and
we’re open for business.”

In the front seat Santini rolled his eyes, without keying
the intercom he said, “Damn, he does like quoting that movie, doesn’t he?”

Armour only grunted in reply. Firebird, it had transpired,
was a huge fan of a Nicholas Cage movie called *Firebirds* which had tried
to do for the Apache what *Top Gun* had done for the Navy’s Tomcats. It
had failed at the box office and been panned. Firebird, however, had subjected
the surviving candidate pilots to the film a few days earlier. Armour thought
it wasn’t a bad movie, but wouldn’t admit that with Santini in earshot.

The Apache swept over the village at six hundred feet, as it
passed over one small group of houses, anti-aircraft fire lashed out towards
it. Armour hauled back on the stick, tipping the helicopter up to halt its
forward progress. The tracer rounds flashed by, just missing it. Armour lowered
the nose and snapped out, “look for it!” to Santini as the cameras on the nose
came back into a useable position.

“Searching!” Santini snapped back.

Armour circled around, climbing as he did. The Apache rose
to fifteen hundred feet.

“I can’t spot it, looks like it’s a mobile vehicle,” Santini
said.

“Try using the Longbow radar,” Armour replied.

“Roger, dunno how useful it’ll be though,” Santini replied.
“Lot of clutter down there to block the radar.”

Before Armour could reply, another stream of tracers sprayed
out at them. Armour dropped the nose, dove, looped around and aimed at where
the gunfire had come from.

“Target’s definitely mobile,” he said. “Probably a Dushka or
an NSV in a pick-up truck.”

‘Dushka’ was the nickname for the Soviet-made DShK
machine-gun.

“Got it, locked on,” Santini told him. “Firing cannon.”

The 30mm cannon rounds lashed out, a deep rumble filling the
simulator module thanks to a unit in the base, design to mimic the gun firing.

“Negative hits, no hits,” Santini reported. “Damn thing
moved as I fired. He hooked left down a side street.”

“Don’t try using a Hellfire,” Armour cautioned him, “stick
to the cannon. Too much risk of civvy casualties.”

“Thanks for that, Carl,” Santini replied, sarcastically.

The helicopter swept over the village. “I lost him, stand
by,” Santini said.

Firebird’s voice came over the radio.

“*One-one, this is control, Sierra Three-Two flight requires clearance over Village 7-8 to collect wounded Joes to the north of the village. We’ve got two critical cases here.”*

“Control, One-one, negative, negative. We have a mobile AA
gun out here, too risky for the Tomahawks,” Armour replied.

“*One-one, you need to neutralise that gun stat. Evac for the wounded is time-critical and a direct flight over the village is required.”*

Santini cursed under his breath. “You know he’s just done
that to screw with us, right?” he asked Armour.

“Of course.”

“Scanning the village again… Target acquired. Firing gun.”

Again, the M230 gun blazed. This time the Apache’s cannon
hit the vehicle, crippling it as Armour flew overhead. The pilot slid the
attack helicopter around in as tight a pivot as he could manage. Santini lined
up and fired another burst from the gun and the pick-up truck exploded.

In the control room, Firebird looked at Wild Bill. He
checked the radio/intercom was off.

“I think these guys are the ones, sir,” he said. “They took
a lot less time to hit that thing than me and Windmill. They’ve consistently
out-scored our standards and out-performed them across every mission. They’re
also the best two Locust pilots, better than me even, and they’re good in the
Tomahawk.”

Wild Bill nodded. “Just in time for the networked exercises
to start before Action Force gets here.”

As the senior pilot stood, Firebird looked up, “Any closer
to deciding who’s going to fly the Tomahawks?”

“Molloy for sure,” Wild Bill replied. “Probably Hal Danvers
as well. Danvers is the best Locust pilot out of the other three candidates and
only a few points below Molloy.”

“So, by the time Action Force arrives for the exercise,
we’ll have our crews selected,” Firebird said.

“Yup,” Wild Bill said. “Danvers and Malloy are far better
than the two jarheads.”

**One week later**

**Nellis Air Force Base,**

**Nevada**

Judith, Irish and Slugger sat at a picnic table near the
runways, watching as the Action Force jets landed. First to land were the
Q-Force Osprey strike fighters. The modified F/A-18s had blue fuselages with
bright yellow painted wings, tail fins and nosecones. A large red stylised Q
decorated the fins, whilst smaller ones were painted on the wings.

Next came the Space Force and Q-Force Skystrikers. Whilst a
full Osprey squadron had been brought over, the two units had brought only six
Skystrikers each. These were both painted a dull grey colour in stark contrast
to the brightly painted Ospreys. The two Skystriker groups were only
distinguishable by the Q-Force logo or the Space Force lightning bolt on the
tail rudders. As they taxied clear, the last to land was the squadron of
Conquest X-30s from Space Force. Like the Skystrikers, these were painted grey,
with black tailfins. They lacked the shark-mouth nose art the GI Joe Conquests
had had, and had Space Force logos on the tail rudders.

Judith stood up, “I’m going to get a closer look at the
Conquests,” she said to the other two. “I wanted to fly one of them when the
Navy evaluated them, but didn’t get the chance.”

Irish and Slugger just nodded.

Judith arrived at the parking area where the Conquests were
as the fourth one was parking up and shutting down. She stood, looking at the
left side of the plane, just behind the canard fore plane. The plane was
decorated with several kill marker silhouettes. The pilot, Judith realised was
an ace of aces. Over twenty-five kill marks decorated the side.

The pilot of the plane had scrambled down from the cockpit
and spoke to the crew chief as Judith walked around the nose.

Judith was slightly startled to see the pilot was a woman.
The pilot turned toward her as the crew chief headed off.

“Who are you?” the Action Force pilot asked.

“Lieutenant Judith Rainey, US Navy. I’m one of the candidate
Joe pilots.”

“Oh, yeah. We were briefed about you guys. Didn’t some of
the candidates just get dumped?”

“Yeah,” Judith nodded. “The five worst pilots were cut.”

“I’m Afterburner,” the woman suddenly said, apparently
realising that she hadn’t introduced herself. “RAF Flight Lieutenant,” she
added.

“You’ve got a lot of kills,” Judith said.

“That’s what eleven years in Action Force gets you,”
Afterburner answered. “I was recruited as a new Pilot Officer, one of the first
women pilots in the RAF. I joined AF in ’85 and flew the first batch of
Skystrikers before we got our first Conquests in 1989. Been flying them since.”

Judith walked back around the plane. “Can I ask you about
your kills?”

“What do you wanna know?” Afterburner replied.

“What’s with the Roboskull silhouettes being blue and red?”
Judith asked, pointing to the top row, where two kill marks were red and four
were blue.

“The red ones are from where I shot down Red Shadow
Roboskulls. We found a base in Romania during our campaign after Ironblood was
captured. SAS Force went into destroy them on the ground. I was one of the
pilots flying cover. Six Roboskulls made it off the ground and I bagged two.
The other four are ones I shot down later, when Red Wolf had defected to Cobra
Europe with the surviving Roboskulls he had,” Afterburner explained.

Judith pointed to the second row where there were five
plan-view silhouettes of Rattlers. One was a light grey, the other four were
black. “What’s with the grey Rattler?” she asked.

Afterburner grinned. “It’s supposed to be silver. Means I’ve
killed ten Rattlers. Cuts down the number of kill-marks. Get twenty kills of
the same plane, you get a gold one. Not that anyone has yet.” She pointed to
the other kills, “Same with the silver FANG on the bottom row, I’ve got twelve
of them.” Afterburner pointed in turn to the other kill marks. “Two Hurricanes
and two Condors from the campaign in Central Europe. They managed to get away
from an airfield in Wolkekuckukland that SAS Force were attacking, along with
some others. I managed to get four of them. I bagged Rattlers, FANGs and
Trouble Bubbles in that campaign too. I got the Firebats on Operation Cheetah
in central Africa. Picked up FANG, Trouble Bubble and Mamba kills there. The
partial Night Raven was when we were flight-testing the Conquest X-30s. First
pair we had, we took on exercise against a Skystriker. Got a call from a
Norwegian radar base that they were tracking Rattlers and a Night Raven showed
up to sneak pictures. Me, the second Conquest and the Skystriker all took a
shot at the Night Raven at the same time. Sky Raider couldn’t figure out who
got the kill, so all three pilots got to paint a half a Raven silhouette on
their bird for the partial kill.”

Judith laughed. “Some career you’ve had,” she said.

Afterburner smiled. “Yeah, I coulda been the first woman
Squadron Leader in the RAF if I’d stuck with them, but I like Action Force. I
wouldn’t be an ace of aces in the RAF, flying boring-ass patrols over the North
Sea, chasing off Soviet Bear bombers.”

“You could’ve got kills in the Gulf War,” Judith offered.

Afterburner snorted, “Sure, might’ve got a pair of
crappy-ass MiGs, not a list of kills as long as my arm like this. Most of the
IQAF was fragged in air strikes and what wasn’t ended up in Iran.”

Afterburner stuck her hand out. “Good luck with selection
and I’ll probably see you in the air.”

Judith shook hands; “Don’t expect me to go easy on you,
though.”

Afterburner laughed. “As if you or I would. We have to prove
ourselves everyday, don’t we?”

Judith nodded.

The next time they met, it would likely be in the air,
facing off against one another.

The sound of a different jet approaching made both women
turn. It was a blue-painted compact jet. Judith frowned.

“Isn’t that a Firebat?” she asked.

Afterburner squinted, for a second. “Oh, it’s the
Hailstorm,” she answered. “The Canadian Joe team’s jet. They’ve got a new pilot
for it and I heard he was coming to the exercise.”

Indeed, as the Hailstorm flashed past on its landing roll, a
large red maple leaf was visible on the fuselage.

Afterburner watched it slow down and then turn to taxi off
the runway.

“That pilot better watch out against the Space Force
Conquests. We’ve waxed Firebats before,” she commented.

Judith glanced back at Afterburner’s jet and the six Firebat
silhouettes. This pilot was not a woman to mess with, she was sure.

The exercise began the next day, with Action Force’s Skystrikers
and Conquest X-30s assigned to defend an airfield and command post from a
combined force of GI Joe jets, the newly arrived A-10 Thunderbolt II anti-tank
jets would attack the ground targets, whilst the Storm Eagles would engage the
Action Force interceptors.

The Storm Eagles flashed across the Nevada desert low and
fast as the A-10s raced in even lower, albeit slower.

Judith was flying in the third of the six Storm Eagles;
Barrel Roll was flying lead, with the other four candidate pilots filling out
the rest of the flight.

Judith’s eyes flicked around the cockpit, checking her
instruments, the radar warning screen and out to the skies. The XP-14Fs were
hunting the attacking group, the faint signals of their radars lighting up the
warning screen. The mountains and ridges served to confuse the radar picture as
the Skystrikers were flying at high altitude.

The Skystrikers were flying in groups of four, rather than
wing-pairs. One pair was closing in on the strike group’s ingress route, just
as an air-search radar from a surface-to-air missile battery became active in
their path.

“*Storm Lead, Thunder Lead,”* came the voice of the
A-10 flight leader over the radio. “*You guys hold off the enemy fighters, we’ll handle the SAM site.”*

“*Roger that, Thunder Lead,”* Barrel Roll replied. “*Storm Flight, increase altitude to fifteen thousand, prepare for air-to-air combat.”*

The six Storm Eagles screamed upward, suddenly appearing on
the radar of the Action Force fighters, despite the fighters’ stealthy profile.

Each of the six Joe fighters armed their missiles, opened
the internal weapons bay and began trying to get a lock on the Action Force
jets.

The four Skystrikers immediately veered off, splitting into
two pairs and firing off chaff.

Judith’s radar screen began to fuzz as the Action Force
fighters activated their radar jammers.

The pilot cursed as she increased the power of the Storm
Eagle’s radar to achieve a ‘burn through’, to counter-act the jamming.

As the Storm Eagles and Skystrikers danced through the sky,
desperately trying to lock on to one another, without being locked up
themselves, Dogfight had broken his A-10 away from the others to launch a
Maverick missile at the SAM site when a second went active.

“Three’s on it,” Bombstrike called over the radio. She’d
been flying the A-10 for several years now and knew the fighter intimately. She
dropped low to the ground, armed her weapons panel and lined up on the wooden
‘launch trailer’ and its logs that represented a surface-to-air battery and fired
her Maverick missile.

The AGM-65 missile obliterated the plywood target.
Bombstrike flew through the smoke cloud as she pulled back up. She wasn’t
worried; the A-10 could take a serious pounding and still keep flying.

Judith pulled the Storm Eagle in a tight turn, dropping on
to the tail of one of the Q-Force Skystrikers. Her radar locked on, having
finally burned through the jamming, and the lock held for the ten seconds the
exercise rules dictated.

The Skystriker promptly stopped trying to avoid her, rolled
out wings-level and turned north to exit the exercise area as the rules of
engagement required.

Judith’s computer promptly blared a warning, another
Skystriker was trying to lock on to her. She threw the fighter into a snap
roll, shoved the throttle forward and then hauled back on the stick, climbing
rapidly. The Skystriker tried to follow her, but as Judith pulled the fighter
over into a loop-the-loop, she saw the Skystriker hadn’t managed to climb as
fast as she had.

The Storm Eagle nosed over and Judith locked on to the
Skystriker and held the lock, gaining her second kill.

As Judith dropped her fighter away from the retreating
Skystriker, her radar chirped. She glanced at the screen. Then took a second
longer look.

“Storm Flight, Three, we’ve got more hostiles inbound!” she
called out over the radio. “Conquests!”

Six of the forward-swept-wing fighters were screaming toward
the rolling melee between the fighters. Judith brought her air dominance
fighter around and immediately locked on to one of the Conquests, which fired
off chaff, activated its electronic counter-measures to jam her radar and
rolled and dove away from her.

Judith threw her Storm Eagle into a dive, pursuing the
Action Force jet. Her radar burned through the jamming more easily this time
and she locked on to the Conquest, but it managed to break the lock, sliding
around a butte as the timer on Judith’s screen reached seven seconds.

Judith flew around the rocky formation, just in time to see
the Conquest rolling out to head back at her. She shoved the throttle forward,
escaping from the fighter’s attempt to lock on. Judith hauled back on the
throttle and the control stick, coming around as tight as she could.

The Conquest pilot threw the fighter into a zoom-climb to
get away. Judith brought her fighter’s nose up, looking for the missile lock
she needed.

Another Storm Eagle was descending toward the Conquest,
which found itself trapped between the two GI Joe jets. The Conquest suddenly
reduced speed, dropped its nose and turned north.

“*Storm Three, this is Two. Did you get the kill?”*
Slugger radioed.

“Negative, Two, I had missile lock for eight seconds before
he broke off. I thought you got the kill.”

“*That’s a negative, Three. I had lock for six seconds.”*

“Ha! The pilot must’ve figured he couldn’t break both our
locks and quit!” Judith laughed.

The two Storm Eagles split apart and headed back to the
rolling dogfight. Judith scanned the area. Three of the Skystrikers were out of
the fight along with three of the Conquests. The Joes were also down a Storm
Eagle, Five, flown by ‘Gangster’. Dillinger and Buchanen had scraped through to
make up the five candidate pilots alongside Irish, Slugger and Judith, but it
seemed he’d been unlucky this time.

Judith could see the A-10s were speeding out of the area of
the dogfight, hugging the terrain to avoid detection, but two Conquests were
chasing them.

Judith shoved the throttle to full, diving after the Action
Force jets.

“Storm Three to Thunder Flight, you have bandits on your
six!” she hollered over the radio. “Am in pursuit!”

*“Solid copy, Storm Three,”* Thunder Lead replied.

The A-10s split up, forcing the Conquests to split up as
well. Judith pursued one of the Conquests as it went after Thunder Four and
Five.

The two A-10 pilots were good, Judith could see, both were
executing rapid S-turns to constantly block the Action Force pilot’s attempts
to lock on to either of them. The Space Force pilot was also target-fixated;
she was able to close in and lock on without him realising until her missile
locked on. The Conquest climbed and turned north.

“Thunder Four, Thunder Five, you’re all clear,” Judith
radioed, before climbing away herself, to try to find the second Conquest.

“*Copy, Storm Three, thanks for the assist,”* replied
Freestyle.

Judith spotted the second Conquest. She checked her
load-out. She had two missiles remaining: exercise rules dictated the Storm
Eagles carried six AIM-7 Sparrows, like the Skystrikers and Conquests.

She threw the Storm Eagle into a banking turn, rolled out
level and dropped on to the Conquest’s tail. It immediately began sliding back
and forth across her nose as the pilot executed rapid S-turns to try to avoid a
lock. Since the A-10s were doing the same, it was a stalemate. Neither of the air-dominance
fighters could lock on to their enemies. Judith cursed, then throttled back,
allowing the Conquest to pull away from her, but giving her a greater ability
to line up her missile to lock on.

Her fifth kill followed.

The A-10s reformed into their attack group and Judith
climbed clear of them as the remaining Conquests began diving out of the sky to
try to intercept the anti-tank jets.

As they did, the surviving Storm Eagles arrived. A second
dogfight erupted even as the A-10s dropped into the broad, shallow valley where
the target airfield was.

Bombstrike armed her weapons as her A-10 swooped toward the
enemy airfield complex.

A short-range surface-to-air missile site activated its
radar. She immediately called her intention to attack it and launched a
Maverick missile, which obliterated the wooden target.

To her left, Dogfight was engaging an ASP battery with his
GAU-8 Avenger Gatling gun, the 30mm shells shredded the wooden anti-air gun
battery.

Ahead of her, the flight leader had already launched a pair
of Mavericks at the control tower and the adjacent antenna farm. The wooden
targets were burning wrecks in seconds.

Bringing up the rear, Freestyle and the other pilot no one
remembered the name of broke off and dropped a pair of Paveway laser-guided
bombs on the large fuel tanks and the associated pumping equipment.

Bombstrike lined up her next attack run and dropped two
Paveways on two of the hardened aircraft shelters. Seconds later, Dogfight
destroyed another pair.

Judith dropped on to the tail of a Conquest that was chasing
down Freestyle’s A-10. Her final Sparrow missile locked on and the Conquest
pulled away before it could ‘shoot down’ the GI Joe plane.

Judith climbed away from the airfield as the A-10s
criss-crossed the valley, destroying the remaining shelters, the wooden dummy
Condor and Hurricane attack jets on the parking ramp and the other short-range
SAM and triple-A units.

Two Conquests survived, whilst three of the Storm Eagles
were still in the fight. Judith checked her radar; the Identification Friend or
Foe beacons indicated Bucky and Barrel Roll had been administratively killed,
whilst Irish and Slugger still lived.

Ace’s voice suddenly came over the radio.

“*All callsigns, all callsigns*,” he radioed. “*Knock it off, knock it off. Exercise is over. The A-10s have destroyed the airfield. GI Joe have lost half their Storm Eagles. Action Force are down most of their Conquests and all their Skystrikers. This one’s done. Meet the tankers as briefed and return to base for debrief.”*

Judith pulled her Storm Eagle into a slow climb, reducing
her speed, and turned to head out of the exercise area to where two KC-135
tankers would be waiting to refuel the jets that needed it. According to the
exercise rules, the Joes would be judged the winners if they destroyed the
airfield and kept at least four Storm Eagles intact. They’d achieved the first
but failed the second. Action Force’s objectives were to protect the airfield
and destroy at least four Storm Eagles. They’d failed both.

That meant GI Joe had ‘won’, but at a cost.

The fighters returned to Nellis.

**Two days later**

Bombstrike was flying the A-10 again on the latest exercise.
She, along with Dogfight, Freestyle and Skystriker, were flying a simulated
attack on a forward GI Joe camp, pretending to be Cobra Rattlers, whilst
Snowbird was flying the Hailstorm jet.

The four A-10s were speeding toward the camp at low-level.
Suddenly, the Hailstorm screamed around a mesa and sped toward them from the
port-rear quarter.

Snowbird lined up on the A-10 flown by Freestyle and
activated his radar for a missile lock. He was carrying four AIM-7 Sparrows for
the exercise.

Freestyle immediately popped chaff canisters and threw the
A-10 into a steep climbing turn away from the formation.

Snowbird simply shifted right and locked on to Dogfight,
flying at the rear of the group. He locked on as the pilot was started a
shallow dive, before suddenly climbing as he realised he was too low.

In his cockpit, Dogfight could hear the warning growl of the
missile lock, as well as see the ‘Missile Lock’ blinking on and off on the
computer screen. He cursed, fired off chaff and rolled right into a turn.

Snowbird stayed on him, holding the lock.

“Scratch one mock-Rattler,” he radioed as the ten-second
limit ran out.

He glanced down at his radar screen, then hauled his control
stick to the left, shoving the throttle to the stops as he did. Freestyle’s
A-10 shot past.

“*You got lucky there, Canucklehead! I nearly had you with a cannon burst!”* Freestyle radioed.

Snowbird didn’t reply, instead he rolled wings-level, pulled
back on the stick and climbed.

The A-10s split up as he levelled off at 10,000 feet.
Shutting off his radar left the A-10s with the choice of whether to try
searching for him visually or to risk a short radar scan to locate him, which
would also highlight their position.

Snowbird decided to force their hands. He rolled inverted,
so he could look down at the ground from ‘above’ his canopy and then dove.

The Hailstorm’s advanced multi-mode radar allowed Snowbird
to detect the A-10s as they tried to hug the ground and ‘disappear’ in the
clutter of the terrain. The Hailstorm however, was able to pick out Freestyle’s
A-10 as she wound her way along a narrow river canyon. Snowbird paced her,
flying above the canyon, waited until she popped out as the canyon ended in a
dead-end and promptly locked her up as she climbed.

“Scratch two!” he crowed over the radio. His threat-warning
receiver howled at him as Skystriker swept in, trying to lock on.

Snowbird threw the Hailstorm into full afterburner,
accelerating away from the A-10, looped around and found himself aimed straight
at Bombstrike.

The Canadian immediately armed his guns and held gunlock on
her.

“Three down!” he yelled over the radio.

Skystriker laughed over the radio. “I have you now!” he
crowed as he dove toward the Hailstorm.

The compact fighter couldn’t get out of his sights fast
enough.

“Hailstorm down!” Skystriker whooped over his radio.

“*Nice work, colonel,”* came Ace’s voice over the
command channel. “*However, you lost three of your flight and the camp is now on alert. Your mission is a bust.”*

Skystriker laughed, “I don’t care! That means Cobra loses!”

Ace laughed himself.

**Two days later**

The five helicopters sped low across the desert floor. They
were low enough to be dodging around the terrain and hard to spot in the ground
clutter, but high enough to avoid kicking up sand from their rotors.

The three Apaches led the way, in a triangular formation,
with the two Tomahawks behind them.

On board the Tomahawks were the Joes’ Navy SEAL team and
Special Forces team. The mission for this exercise was for the Tomahawks to
insert the teams to assault a building complex, while escorted by the Apaches.
Overhead, the Storm Eagles were flying cover, hunting Action Force’s Conquests
who were trying to intercept the helicopters.

The lead Apache was being flown by Carl Armour, now
codenamed ‘Crossblades’, with Frank Santini, now ‘Wildfire’, acting as his
gunner. Windmill and Wild Bill flew the other two, with Firebird and Updraft as
their respective gunners.

Crossblades was constantly scanning around the night sky,
using his monocle to see in the dark, whilst also flicking his eyes down to
check the instruments every few seconds. In front of him, Wildfire was also
constantly scanning back and forth, watching for threats the Longbow radar
might’ve missed.

The Apaches flew across a low ridgeline, dropping toward the
lower terrain as they did.

“Pop-up target,” Wildfire called, “Mobile AA gun, not
moving, no radar active. Longbow missed it, but I have visual. Laser coming on.
Target lock. Firing Hellfire.”

The helicopter-launched fire-and-forget missile sped off the
quad-mount launch rail and streaked across the night sky before homing in on
the wooden target and obliterating it.

“Scratch one target.”

The Longbow radar beeped a warning. “Mobile SAM vehicle.
Target locked. Firing Hellfire,” Wildfire reported.

A second time, Wildfire turned his head and made sure not to
be blinded by the rocket motor of the missile as it sped away from the attack
helicopter.

“Target destroyed.”

Crossblades checked his map screen. “Objective is twenty
miles away. We’ll be in the area in five minutes. Be ready,”

“Don’t worry, bro, I was born ready,” Wildfire retorted.

The helicopters dropped into a broad dry lakebed. One of
many in the area. The Tomahawks pulled to a halt, going into a hover as the
three Apaches raced forwards.

The three attack copters split up. Several more wooden
targets were scattered across the valley. Mobile SAM sites, a pair of small
bunkers, several light vehicles and four mobile AA guns. Each was sought out
and hit by the three AH-64s, either by a Hellfire missile, a barrage of Hydra
rockets to even 30mm cannon fire.

The main objectives were several buildings made of wood,
surrounded by a fence, watchtowers, gun-nests and trenches.

Wildfire laid his targeting pipper on one of the trenches
and fired a burst of cannon fire. Windmill sped in to attack as Crossblades
pulled away, with Firebird launching Hydra rockets at one of the sandbag
reinforced machine-gun nests. Windmill pulled away as Wild Bill’s Apache
screamed in and Updraft launched Hydra rockets at one of the watchtowers.

The helicopters kept up the attack, moving in and hitting
targets before pulling out and allowing another to move in and strike from a
different direction.

Finally, the targets around the complex had been destroyed.

“Eightball One-Six, this is Wildfire Zero-One, target area
suppressed. You’re clear in with commandos,” Crossblades reported. Wildfire had
won the coin toss to choose the Apaches’ call sign before losing the second
toss to decide who actually flew the helicopter.

“*Zero-One, One-Six copies,”* replied Paul Molloy who
was flying the lead Tomahawk with Lift-Ticket as his co-pilot.

The Apaches pulled back to half a mile from the complex,
orbiting at ten thousand feet. The two Tomahawks screamed in at two hundred
feet, before sliding to a halt near the rooftops of the tallest buildings. On
board both transport helicopters, one of the respective commandos threw out and
rope before the teams slid down them to the roof. Immediately spring-loaded
targets began popping up, which the commandos began shooting.

The Tomahawks pulled away, clearing the area.

Firebird was watching the situation with his low-light TV
camera as the SEALs and Special Forces team moved across the roof, blew off an
access door and disappeared inside the buildings.

As the Apaches circled overhead, more pop-up targets appeared
around the two buildings and atop the roofs of several of the smaller
buildings.

“Dolphin Six, Falcon Six, this is Wildfire Zero-Two, visual
on multiple armed pax moving around your buildings. Be advised, personnel are
surrounding you and on nearby rooftops,” Firebird reported over the radio.

“*Dolphin Six copies,”* replied Night Fox, one of the
new SEALs.

“*Falcon Six copies,”* replied Recoil, who was the
radio operator for the SF team.

As the Apaches circled, the two commando teams shot several of
the targets from inside the buildings, but they soon realised there was no way
they could engage all of them. Which had, of course, been planned when the
exercise was set up.

“*Wildfire, this is Falcon Six Actual. We’re unable to target all enemies. Request fire support on all sides of target buildings. Danger close,”* came the voice of Captain Falcon.

“Falcon Six Actual, Wildfire Zero-One. Copy your request for
fire support, danger close. Stand by.” Crossblades switched to the channel
between the Apaches. “Two, Three, stand by for danger close on ground targets.
Recommend you stick to the gun; targets are within twenty metres of friendly
forces. Zero-One is engaging.”

Crossblades took the helicopter in lower toward the
buildings, Wildfire armed the 30mm cannon, slaved it to his monocle and then
locked on to the group of enemies closest to one of the buildings, who were
positioned by several parked vehicles.

“Targets set, firing,” he told Crossblades.

The gun thumped beneath his feet as the rounds flashed out,
every fifth round a tracer, drawing a line across the dark sky like a laser
beam. Two of the vehicles exploded under the onslaught, wiping out several of
the targets, whilst the others were cut to pieces by the cannon fire.

The Apache screamed over the buildings, looping around to
clear the complex.

“*Wildfire Zero-Two, rolling in hot. Guns, guns, guns,”*
radioed Windmill. The second Apache annihilated a group of four targets on a
rooftop before firing at a group of three partially concealed from the
commandos by a large concrete plant-box. The planter exploded from two near
misses.

“*Zero-Three, in hot,”* reported Wild Bill next.

Wildfire was already lining up his next targets as he saw
the third AH-64 speed by, gun blazing. Crossblades brought the Apache in for
the second run and Wildfire unleashed a second 10-round burst, obliterating
another set of targets on a second rooftop.

“Good kills, good kills,” Crossblades reported, watching the
repeater display for the gun camera. “Multiple confirmed kills.”

Windmill came in for his second run, Firebird wiped out a
squad near the second building where the SEALs were.

“*Zero-Two, this is Dolphin Six Actual, good hits. I see lots of little pieces out there. Keep up the fire,”* reported Torpedo.

The helicopters completed three passes each, wiping out the
targets. The commando teams moved out, working quickly to cross to a smaller
building.

Minutes later, the radio call came, “*Wildfire, Eightball, Falcon and Dolphin teams are on the move to LZ Alpha. Package is secure. Repeat, package is secure.”*

The two Tomahawks quickly pulled out of their waiting orbits
and sped to the side of the complex. The two Tomahawks dropped into a hover,
keeping their wheels a foot off the ground, with the rear ramps lowered.

The commandos ran through the dust kicked up by the
transport helicopters’ rotors, leaping on to the ramps before trotting forward
to throw themselves into the seats. Then they lifted upward, climbing clear of
the complex.

“Eagle Lead, this is Wildfire Zero-One, we are outbound from
target complex. Package is secure, repeat, package is secure,” Wildfire radioed
as Crossblades steered the Apache after the Tomahawks.

“*Zero-One, this is Eagle Three. Roger, Eagle Lead is down. We’ll cover your egress as best we can. We lost Two and Four as well.”*

Crossblades didn’t answer at first. “Copy your last, Eagle
Three. Zero-One out,” he finally said.

Crossblades saw Wildfire looking at him in the small mirror
on the cockpit frame. “Who was flying which jet tonight?” Crossblades asked.

Wildfire looked down at the small clipboard attached to his
thigh. “Eagle Lead was Gangster. Two was being flown by Bucky. Four was Barrel
Roll. So the survivors are Slugger, Irish and the chick.”

“Don’t let anyone else hear you calling her that,”
Crossblades said. “Your ass will be in a sling.”

Wildfire snorted. “I wouldn’t mind her ass in my sling.
She’s pretty hot.”

“Say that again and you’ll be in trouble too,” Crossblades
warned him. “Remember, she’s an officer and a pilot, not a woman. Even if you
think she is a babe.”

Wildfire snorted again. “Don’t you think she is?”

Crossblades shook his head, “That’s irrelevant.”

**Three days later**

Ace gathered the final five pilot candidates in a briefing
room. The last exercise had taken place the day before.

“Okay. So, going into these exercises I had a pretty good
idea of who I wanted on the team and your performances have confirmed those
opinions. The GI Joe team sets high standards for all our roles. Standards
higher than those demanded by the regular military a lot of the time. Three of
you met those standards. Two didn’t,” Ace told them.

The pilots exchanged looks. Before Ace could go any further,
Clyde Dillinger, ‘Gangster’, stood up, saluted and said, “Sir, it’s been a
privilege to have been part of your selection. I thank you for your time and
consideration, sir.”

Ace returned the salute. “Second Lieutenant Dillinger, you
are a credit to the United States Marine Corps. It has been a honour to see you
fly and to have had you along. Your performances would do any regular unit
proud. I commend you on your behaviour. Thank you for attending this Selection
course.”

Gangster looked to the others, “Been a blast, guys and gal.
See you around some time.”

“Lieutenant Dillinger, you’re dismissed,” Ace said,
formally. Gangster saluted once more, before striding out.

Everyone else looked at Jimmy Buchanen. Bucky stared at
them.

“What?”

Ace said, “Lieutenant, despite your efforts, you didn’t make
the grade. Like Dillinger, you’ve failed to join GI Joe. Your performance was,
however, a credit to the United States Navy. You are dismissed.”

Bucky stood slowly, gave a drawn out salute and then left
without a word.

Slugger looked at Ace, “He was utterly convinced he’d
passed, sir.”

Ace shrugged. “He may have been, but I’m sure you realised
he wasn’t good enough. In truth, he was the fifth best of you. Gangster was
close to passing, but he was five per cent off. He just had the good grace to
realise he wasn’t good enough.”

“So who was third?” Irish asked.

Ace laughed. “Like I’m going to tell you that. All you three
need to know is that you all passed my grade by over five per cent. You are the
new GI Joe pilots. You just need to pick codenames and we’ll get the paperwork
sorted out when we report back to the PIT.”

“I’m sticking to Slugger, if I may,” Carlos said.

“Not a problem, Captain.”

“I’d like to pick ‘Amazon’,” Judith said. “For some reason,
I never picked up a nickname in the Navy, so that’ll do.”

“Fine by me,” Ace answered.

They looked at Irish. He shook his head, “Damned if I’m
going by ‘Irish’ any more. I choose ‘Banshee’, it’s a cool name.”

The newly named Amazon laughed. “You do know Banshees in
Irish mythology are female, right?”

The other pilot looked at her, surprised. “Tell that to Sean
Cassidy.”

Now Amazon looked confused. “Who?”

“The Irish dude in the X-Men comics. His name’s Banshee.
It’s why I picked the name. I liked him when he was in the X-Men.”

Amazon shook her head. “Well, it’s true. Banshees are
female, same as Sirens in Greek myth.”

The other pilot shrugged. “I’ll stick with it.”

Ace returned the shrug. “Your choice. Banshee it is.”

So named, the three pilots headed out of the briefing room,
the newest GI Joe members.

## Story Notes

The idea with this story was to introduce new GI Joe pilots.
I’d decided the Joes were rather short handed in that area. Ace is the only
real air-to-air pilot since Dogfight, Ghost Rider, Skystriker and Freestyle are
more ground-attack pilots in the fighter jet department. So I decided I would
introduce more. I was looking at other possible pilot characters and decided to
use Barrel Roll from the early 2000s as a fighter pilot. His background on his
file-card is a mess: a sniper with a fixed wing secondary pilot speciality,
who’s enlisted. All US military pilots are officers, no officers are snipers.
It’s crazy. So I decided, stuff it, he’s an F-15C air-to-air pilot. I decided
to make his sister Bombstrike an A-10 pilot. She’s a forward air controller in
the toys, but women aren’t allowed to do that job in the US forces. I know,
women have only just been allowed into Ranger School, which Scarlett and Jaye
completed, but you could at least argue their covert ops types and could’ve
done it secretly. Anyways, that left me with five ground-attack pilots and 2
flying air-to-air. So, I decided to add three new pilots and to make them Navy
and Marine aviators since there’s a distinct lack of non-USAF fighter pilots in
GI Joe and no USMC officers.

I similarly decided the Joes needed more helo pilots given
they’ve only got five: Wild Bill, Lift Ticket, Windmill, Updraft and Major
Altitude. I decided Wild Bill and Updraft could fly one attack copter, Lift
Ticket and Major Altitude could fly a Tomahawk and then Windmill would need a
co-pilot in a second attack copter. I made the decision to have a ‘squadron’ of
ten pilots, flying three attack birds and two transports. I therefore elected
to have two Navy pilots to fly the second Tomahawk and two Marines to fly the
third Apache, with an Army guy to join Windmill. This being based on the lack
of non-US Army helo pilots. I only made Windmill’s co-pilot an Army guy because
I came up with the back-story of him being an Apache instructor and a fan-boy
of the movie ‘Firebirds’ aka ‘Wings of the Apache’, which led to his codename.

The idea of the pilots being able to fly both ground-attack
and air-to-air in the X-16 was based on the idea that the X-16 should be a
multi-role jet like the real-life F-16.

 I decided to give
the Joes A-10s because they’re a good attack aircraft still in service today
and Hasbro had done a redeco of the Rattler as the A-10 in 1997.

Similarly, I decided to give them Apache helicopters since
it’s America’s premier attack copter and by the mid-90s was already replacing
the aged AH-1 which is the real-life version of the Dragonfly and Hasbro had
released an Apache in 1992 in the Sonic Fighters line. The Locust mentioned
here, is the small, single-seat, 1990 one, not the redeco of the Dragonfly from

Judith Rainey’s name is taken from two of the first female
USN aviators, Judith Neuffer (first woman to fly P-3 Orions) and Barbara Allen
Rainey (first woman to earn USN aviators wings). Carlos Sanchez and Mike
O’Malley’s names were just made up to sound Hispanic and Irish respectively.
Billy Guthrie’s name is a play on Billy Lee Guthrie in the movie Firebirds aka
Wings of the Apache. Carl Armour is named for Marion Carl, the first Marine
helicopter pilot and Vernice Armour, who was the first African-American female
aviator in the USMC, and the US military. She flew AH1 attack helos. Francis
‘Frank’ Santini is named for Francis ‘Frank’ Murphy in Blue Thunder and Dominic
Santini in Airwolf. Hal Danvers is named after two of comics most famous
pilots-turned-superheroes Hal ‘Green Lantern’ Jordan and Carol ‘Captain Marvel’
Danvers. Paul Molloy is named for Paul ‘PJ’ Johns and Daniel ‘Bear’ Molloy in
Tom Clancy’s novels ‘Clear and Present Danger’ and ‘Rainbow Six’ respectively.

Snowbird is named after the Canadian Air Force’s aerobatic
display team.

The story ended up being long, but much shorter than I had
originally intended to avoid it becoming to repetitive. I had planned more
scenes of the fighter pilots battling simulated Cobra jets for one thing. I
tried to mix things up to make the flight scenes less similar.

The incident with the Action Force fighters engaging the Night Raven near Norway is the Combined Verse version of the story in the Action Force Annual from 1990.