Mission Report: Central City

This short story is presented as a transcript of an audio recording from the GUN Archives.

## Story

Official Transcript of Audio Recording

G.U.N Archives

Mission Report:

Central City, Battle of (Eggman War)

Officer: Flight Lieutenant James Mondil, 3rd Fighter Wing, Second Squadron 3rd Flight, designation “Archer-2”

Interviewing Officer (IO): Good morning, Lieutenant. Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Could you please state your name?

Flight Lt. Mondil: James Mondil.

IO: Thank you, Lieutenant. Now, could you please just outline what exactly happened on your mission?

Flight Lt. Mondil: \*long pause\* ...sure. It wasn’t exactly a busy day, just the usual. Morning PT. run, some time at the range, then lunch at the mess hall. You know, it’s funny, I always forget important things. Things like my passwords, or credit card code, or a friend’s phone number. But I remember exactly what they had in the mess that day. It was the usual \*expletive\* that they’d have on Wednesdays. You know, mystery meat, stale bread, canned vegetables. G.U.N had the budget to put us in machines worth more than my entire neighborhood, but we still couldn’t get decent chow. Still, it was about 1303 when we first heard something. My flight was called to prep for deployment around then. We’d been placed on standby that day.

IO: Standby?

Flight Lt. Mondil: Yeah, whenever someone needed jets scrambled we were up. Normally it was just idiots flying their prop planes into restricted airspace, or the occasional drill. This was different. Serious.

IO: They didn’t tell you what was happening?

Flight Lt. Mondil: They didn’t know. Command only got a call for air support, then a bunch of static. Found out later that the radioman who made the call got hit with an HE round mid-sentence.

IO: Then how did you know it was serious?

Flight Lt. Mondil: They gave me a full complement of Air to Ground Missiles and enough 30mm armor piercing rounds to level a city block. You don’t need that kind of ordinance for escort duty.

IO: So when did you find out what was happening?

Flight Lt. Mondil: We got onto the runway at 1315, and took off at 1317. By that time we’d been told something had attacked the city, but no details had been confirmed. SOCOM’s intelligence satellites had gone blind about an hour before. Recon flights had been sent out about ten minutes before us, but they went dark before reporting in.

IO: You went in blind.

Flight Lt. Mondil: Yeah. Davis-

IO: Flight Commander Davis?

Flight Lt. Mondil: \*nods\* Yes. He was a bit spooked by it all. Didn’t let it show, but I could tell. Maybe it was a premonition or something. We arrived at the city about ten minutes after takeoff, at 1328. Holy \*expletive\*…it was bad.

IO: What did you see?

Flight Lt. Mondil: We could see the smoke about fifteen kliks out. Once we made it close enough to ID targets, it all went to \*expletive\*

IO: You’re referring to Archer-1?

Flight Lt. Mondil: Yeah. We sighted the Death Egg Robots in the city, and couldn’t believe it at first. Davis reported into command, and they gave us the order to engage. Told us we’d have two squadrons on us as soon as possible. But Davis didn’t even get a chance to fire his weapons. We used our ATG missiles at two kliks out, most got intercepted. Managed to get a couple good hits in, but no hostiles KIA. Once we reached one klik, the flak started coming in, and a missile detonated on Davis’s 12 O’Clock. We saw him go down. Later they told us his head was blown off by a piece of shrapnel that went straight through his canopy. Died before he even hit the ground.

IO: How did you react?

Flight Lt. Mondil: I told the squad to take a standard evasive formation, check targets, and fire at will. There were too many of the big bots for us to engage effectively. Took down one, maybe two before our missiles went dry. 30 mil barely even scratched them.

IO: Why didn’t you pull off after that?

Flight Lt. Mondil: At that point I had two infantry companies screaming in my ears for close air support. Even if we couldn’t take down the Death Eggs, at least the Badniks were a viable target. We pulled several straphing runs, ran through almost half of my remaining ordinance on them.

IO: Is that when you were shot down?

Flight Lt. Mondil: \*hesitates\* Yes. I tried to engage some sort of-thing, I don’t know what..like a massive aircraft carrier, but my weapons couldn’t do a thing. I shifted fire onto another Badnik unit, but one of the Death Eggs clipped my wing with a laser blast. Control surface was fried, I started to tumble.

IO: Why didn’t you eject?

Flight Lt. Mondil: I tried. It wouldn’t work.

IO: Your initial report says you crashed at approximately 1341 hours. Do you remember precisely what happened afterwards?

Flight Lt. Mondil: Heard Mendoza and Charles shouting over comms…turns out they’d both been hit. Neither made it. It was all a haze at the time, I had to crawl out of a hole in my cockpit just to get out.

IO: What did you do then?

Flight Lt. Mondil: I had several Badniks approaching my crash site. I grabbed my sidearm, and ran as fast as I could. Linked up with Castle Squad, 3rd Platoon 5th Brigade. We received the general withdrawal order, and retreated from the city while sustaining heavy casualties. That’s it.

IO: Do you think that your actions may have led to greater casualties?

Flight Lt. Mondil: I beg your pardon?

IO: Your choice to engage hostile infantry resulted in the deaths of both Archer 4 and Archer 7, Mendoza and Charles. If you had withdrawn and received heavier ordinance, there’s a chance that you could have eliminated more than mere Badniks.

Flight Lt. Mondil: Sir. We had an immediate threat, and if we’d pulled back the troops would have had no air support whatsoever until backup arrived. I couldn’t predict who’d live or die. Just had to make a call in the moment.

IO: And your Flight’s Casualties?

Flight Lt. Mondil: Any engagement risks casualties. We had to do something. That’s the nature of the job.
IO: But you admit you may be responsible for the deaths of your men?

Flight Lt. Mondil: Sir?

IO: Answer the question, Lieutenant

Flight Lt. Mondil: Sir, I was told this would be an interview. Not an interrogation.

IO: I’m just asking questions.

Flight Lt. Mondil: I’m not dignifying them with a response.

## Characters

*In order of appearance:*

* Interviewing Officer
* James Mondil