The Need
“Vanguard, wind is 270 at ten knots, runway one, cleared for takeoff,” the monotonous rehearsed air traffic controller’s voice droned into Vi’s fight helmet headset.
The pilot smirked to herself, jutting a thumbs up to her rear seat to let Ekko know they were clear, before responding to the tower. “Cleared for takeoff runway one, Vanguard out.”
Vi’s stomach was doing flips. As much as it made her stomach flutter with anxiety, the pre-flight adrenaline was a high she was constantly chasing – and would be chasing for the rest of her life. The stand-off between the pilots and the dreaded air traffic control officers, groundsmen and women throwing their hands up in symbols and gestures to aid the pilots in taxiing onto their correct runways.
Another thing Vi had noticed about Top Gun was that the ground crew were significantly more flamboyant with their hand signals when aiding with air marshalling. They still held the standard batons, lowering them when the pilots were to hold and throwing them all around their heads to indicate where the jets should move next, but they’d added their own creative flare onto each movement, too. When taxiing on one of their previous flights, one of the ground crew sergeants had thrown an imaginary lasso around Vi and Ekko’s plane and pretended to tug them along as they began moving.
At the call for takeoff, Vi pushed the throttle ever so slightly forward. The miniscule movement grew their afterburners’ soft purr into a monstrous roar which echoed across the tarmac, drowning out and dampening all sound within the cockpit.
She pushed the throttle further forward, palms already slick with perspiration from the wonderful concoction of nerves and adrenaline bubbling in her stomach, and the F22 began creeping slowly down the runway, picking up pace by the millisecond. Switching over to in-canopy radio, Vi called out to her wingman. “You feel the need, Little Man?” she cried out.
“The need for what, Vi?” Ekko called back as innocently as possible, knowing damn well what she was going to respond with.
“The need for speed.” With her closing comment, she pushed the throttle full forward, the jet’s engines now screaming with as much anticipation as the pilots within, and the F22 ripped down the runway and shuddered as it peeled into the sky.
***
For the trainees’ next practice flight, Captain Kiramman had elected to pit the recruits against each other in the one thing they’d all come to Top Gun for: a good old-fashioned dogfight.
There were enough pilots in the program for three pairs of jets to go up into the air one after the other, and the rules had been meticulously crafted and laid-out for them on a platter. No engagement before 100 feet, no use of missiles, minigun rounds only. Actual weaponry had been stripped off of all their jets beforehand, of course; the last thing Caitlyn needed was for the idiots to shoot themselves out of the skies before even meeting the enemy.
The first two flights had gone exceedingly well. Despite the pilots beating each other, they all came down from the air with big grins on their faces, taking it upon themselves to dish out feedback to their fellow aviators and let them know what they did well and what they can improve on. It warmed the frosty exterior of Caitlyn’s heart just the tiniest bit.
The final pair to go up into the skies, however, set off a gnawing anxiousness in the pit of the captain’s stomach. It was Vi and Ekko versus Maddie and Loris. While it was unprofessional to wager bets against who would win and who would lose, Caitlyn knew exactly who she’d have her money on.
There was a growing tension between Vi and Maddie that was the cause of her anxieties, ever since that evening at the Drunken Sailor. And Caitlyn couldn’t help but let herself be eaten up with guilt that she may have started it. Dirty looks thrown across the room at each other, sniggering whenever they gave an incorrect answer, backhanded comments in the locker room, the whole works. But the captain was there to teach them to be better pilots, not to get involved with petty schoolgirl squabbles.
As long as they didn’t lay a finger on each other, they could bicker all they liked for what Caitlyn cared.
From the base’s control room, Caitlyn watched the two green dots on the Radar approaching each other. She folded her arms over her chest, finger nervously tapping against her bicep. Vi and Ekko’s jet zipped across the circular screen at Mach-2 speeds, whereas Maddie and Loris appeared to be pottering on at a much slower, what could be described as leisurely pace.
It was clear who would get the jump on who. But how they handled the contact, how they went from a blip on a Radar to rubble on the ground, was entirely up to the pilots themselves.
Caitlyn leaned in again. The rhythmic beeping and static voices of the control room around her dissipated into the distance as she stared at the Radar intensely.
This would be an interesting fight to watch.
***
“Vi, single bogey at bearing 020, travelling at… 800 knots?” Ekko tapped the screen of his Radar to check if it was busted – that was cruising speed, not attacking speeds. He smiled dryly to himself. “800 knots confirmed.”
Vi scoffed and shook her head, grabbing her freely dangling oxygen mask to respond. “Copy that, Little Man. Let’s pitch upwards and get the jump on these fuckers. Mask up.”
“You got it,” Ekko chirped, clipping his mask into place. Vi did the same, inhaling sharply as she did so, and felt relief when sweet fresh oxygen rushed into her lungs. As she tilted the control column up towards the skies, altitude rising as they went, the air bladder at the base of her skull squeezed the mask into place for her.
Ekko glanced down at the Radar periodically, his gaze flittering between the black and green screen and the skies beneath them. “No vis yet, Vi, but we’re comin’ in hot,” he stated, shifting slightly in his seat to get a better glimpse past the F22’s wings.
“Copy, Little Man.” Vi brought the control column back to a stable position and kept their altitude still. “Reckon that top-of-class spot will be ours after this.”
“Eh.” Ekko tilted his head. “Jayce and Mel are doing pretty well, I think Steb and his pilot are hot on our tails too.”
Vi tutted mockingly. “Negativity, Little Man, keep it on the ground. The skies are ours; let’s keep it that way. Besides, Jayce wouldn’t know the front or tail of his bird even if you labelled it for him.”
Ekko laughed heartily, opening his mouth to comment something equally as derogatory, but quickly diverted the conversation. “Got a visual. 2 o’clock. Looks like they haven’t spotted us yet, Vi.”
The pilot smirked slyly before jutting their control column to the side. “Let’s go make ourselves known.”
***
The captain hadn’t looked away from the Radar once since they set off. She was jotting down every single movement each team made on a small ringbinder notepad, pen scribbling furiously across the blank page as she recorded their airspeeds, their altitudes, every time they changed bearing. If either pilot did as much as sneezed while in-flight, it was going into her notebook.
Vi’s change of pitch was an interesting change of direction. She’d expected them all to stay in the same axis plane, but it looked as though she was lining up for an attack from above, getting the jump on Maddie and Loris before they could even realise they were being stalked.
And as she watched the tiny green blob suddenly change course and barrel towards Maddie and Loris, her suspicions were confirmed.
She scribbled down another sentence before turning her full attention to the screen.
***
Vi and Ekko’s F22 screamed as it barrelled downwards, afterburner bellowing with the might of a thousand suns as they honed in on their target. “Let me know when we’re in range, Little Man,” Vi shouted over their comms.
“400 feet and closing, Vi,” Ekko confirmed. “Be there soon.”
“Yes we will.”
Maddie still hadn’t diverted her own jet, however. Either she was a worser pilot than Vi had originally gauged, or she was planning something. Vi didn’t like not knowing.
She didn’t like that one bit.
At 200 feet out, Ekko flicked the red switch of the minigun engagement button up, thumb hovering at the ready to light them up and be done with it.
175 feet. No movement.
160 feet. Nothing.
150 feet. Ekko placed his thumb firmly over the trigger, ready to press down, when Maddie’s F35 cut to the side violently and skimmed out of their way.
Vi and Ekko went screaming past, into the empty gap Maddie and Loris had created.
“Fuck!” the pilot shouted, slamming a palm against her control panel. She wrapped a vicegrip around her stick and brought the F22 upwards, its nose now in line with the afterburners of Maddie’s jet.
“Still outta range, Vi,” Ekko said. There was the slightest undercurrent of worry in his voice.
“Yeah,” Vi grumbled, before punching it into pursuit of the enemy jet. Even with the F22 hot on their tails, the F35 refused to budge, flying in a straight line right in their crosshairs.
Taunting. She was taunting them.
“Asshole,” Vi muttered to herself. She pushed the throttle down further, harder, this time.
“200 feet,” Ekko read out.
But Vi wasn’t listening. The burning orange tinge of the F35’s had dulled the slightest, and the pilot could have sworn it was glowing less intense by the second.
“150 feet.”
The afterburner was nothing but a smouldering ember now.
By the time Vi realised the F35 was braking, it was too late.
Maddie pulled up into the sky and Vi skimmed past her again, clearly trying to mimic a textbook cobra manoeuvre, only this time accompanied by the shrill screech of metal grinding against metal.
Moments later, a horrific beeping rippled through the canopy, bouncing off of the glass bubble in an irritating trill.
“Vi!” Ekko screamed, his voice masked by the constant beep-boop-beep-boop in the cockpit. “Vi, she clipped our stabiliser! She clipped our fuckin’ vert stabiliser, man!”
Vi’s eyes widened in horror. The jet was shuddering now, fighting against the relentless forces and wind dragging against them, as she spared precious seconds to glance over her shoulder.
Ekko was right. The tip of the jet’s left vertical stabiliser had been cut clean off, jagged shards of metal sticking out of the top. Sparks of electricity spat out into the air.
“Fuckin’ stupid fucking bitch,” Vi grunted lowly to herself. She was wrestling with the control column manically, as if she were trying to tame a wild snake.
She’d trained for engine loss, weaponry loss, landing gear loss, everything but losing a stabiliser. Her heart rammed rapidly against her ribcage, as vicious as the wailing winds just outside the canopy.
“Shit, Vi, what do we do?” Ekko bellowed, slamming a hand upwards against the glass bubble. His teeth clacked together as the jet continued to shake. “What the fuck do we do, Vi?”
Vi flared her nostrils. Inhaled slowly, focusing only on the rich oxygen entering through her nose and into her lungs. With one hand still gripping the control column, she raised a finger calmly to her radio and switched to the open line.
“Control, this is Vanguard,” she said slowly, wrestling to control the nerves in her voice just like the control column. “Mayday, mayday. We’ve lost the tip of our left vertical stabiliser. I repeat, the left stabiliser tip is gone. Requesting emergency landing, over.”
She shot her other hand back to the stick, making miniscule movements as she patiently awaited a response from air traffic control.
“Copy, Vanguard. Runway one cleared for emergency landing.”
Vi was expecting the same monotonous male voice that had taxied them earlier to give the command.
Not the smooth accented voice of their captain.
“Emergency personnel on standby,” Caitlyn chided coolly. “Are all other control surfaces operational?”
“As far as I can tell, yes, ma’am,” Vi replied curtly. “I believe we’d know by now if not.”
There was a muffled noise on the other end of the line. Was Caitlyn laughing? “Copy, Vanguard. Take it low and slow. Control out.”
There was a click as the line closed shut.
***
By some miraculous divine intervention, or sheer dumb luck, Vi was able to land the F22 again in relatively one piece.
After the brief conversation with the air traffic tower, she’d dropped their altitude and airspeed significantly, which gave her more control over the damaged jet as they approached the runway that they initially departed from. As promised, a crew of firefighters and medical personnel were nestled in the relief bay of the runway, ready to spring into action if need be.
As soon as they went wheels down, Vi heaved a huge sigh of relief, and didn’t hesitate to jump out of the cockpit as soon as the ground team brought their ladder over.
Ekko followed suit, ripping his flight helmet off as soon as he got to the ground. When his boots touched the tarmac, he let out a slight giggle, before doubling over and throwing up the contents of his stomach.
After a few exchanged words with the emergency team, Vi jogged over to her wingman, placing a hand onto his shoulder as he straightened back up. “You good?” she asked. His muscles trembled beneath her touch.
Ekko nodded exaggeratedly. “Mhm,” he muttered, eyes blown wide in a thousand-yard stare straight into Vi’s soul.
“Hey.” She placed another hand onto his shoulder, smoothing the fabric of his flight suit down. “You did good up there, okay? Couldn’t have done it without you, Little Man.”
“Yeah.” Ekko shook his head up and down again, shaky hands trailing to the top zipper of his flight suit. The metal teeth caught as he tried to pull it down. “Yeah, we did good, Vi. Thanks.”
The pilot gave him a dry smile, squeezing his shoulders one last time before removing her own flight helmet and making towards the hangar.
Maddie and Loris touched down shortly after them, on a separate runway. Maddie was first out of the jet, sprinting over to Vi as fast as her little legs could take her, the tubes and loose strips of fabric from her flight rig whipping in the wind. “Vi, I’m-“ she began as soon as she caught up.
“Fuck off, Maddie,” Vi spat, cutting her off. She shot a single glare at her, eyebrows furrowed in rage, and the other pilot closed her mouth as quickly as she opened it. She stopped and stared at Vi, dumbfounded.
Vi carried on walking and didn’t look back.
***
After a ridiculously long, scalding hot shower, Vi was back in her quarters, flight helmet nestled between her legs as she swiped at the interior padding with baby wipes. She’d pulled on a loose-fitting vest embossed with the Zaun Navy logo and a pair of grey unmarked sweatpants.
Cleaning her helmet post-flight was a ritual to Vi. It was time to decompress, weigh up the mission she’d been flying, think about what she did wrong and what she could have done better.
Only this time, for once in her piloting career, she hadn’t actually done anything wrong. It was entirely the fault of Maddie failing one of the first manoeuvres any pilot was taught in flight school.
Maddie nearly got Vi killed. And if Vi got killed, Ekko would have definitely been killed, too.
She scrubbed at the fabric lining of her helmet harder, knuckles turning white.
Just as Vi thought she might start wearing through the thick leather coating of the padding, there was a sudden knock at the door. She shot up instantly, eyebrows furrowed, and placed the flight helmet on the table before her. Was she expecting visitors?
Reluctantly she opened the door. Her jaw dropped.
Caitlyn was standing there, an unreadable expression on her face, still in her RPAF uniform. “Hello,” she chirped.
“Hi,” Vi responded, eyebrows still drawn together in confusion.
Caitlyn glanced over Vi’s shoulder before her gaze settled on the pilot again. Her eyes fluttered over the other pilot's very bold, very revealing outfit, a notion that didn't go unnoticed by Vi. “Are you going to invite me in, Vanderson?”
“Huh?”
“Violet, invite me in, please.”
“Oh.” Vi stepped aside sheepishly, gesturing for Caitlyn to come in. The captain swanned past her and Vi stuck her head out of the doorway to check it wasn’t a setup before shutting the door. “Why are you here?”
“Duty of care.” Caitlyn folded her arms as she glanced around Vi’s room, wrinkling her nose in slight disgust. “God, it looks like a prison cell in here.”
“Feels like it sometimes.” Vi’s gaze flittered to the two lone picture frames on her bedside table longingly before returning to her flight helmet. She flopped down on the couch and got right back to scrubbing. “You spoken to Maddie yet?”
“She’s going to be reprimanded for her actions,” Caitlyn replied. She strolled over to the small kitchenette nestled in the corner of the room and plucked two mugs out, reaching for the jar of instant coffee Vi hadn’t touched since moving in and flicking the kettle on.
Vi looked over at her and frowned. “Yeah, there’s sugar in the cupboard if you want to help yourself to that, too,” she drawled sarcastically.
Caitlyn ignored the quip and continued her explanation. “I highly doubt she’ll be removed from the program. The repair shouldn’t be too expensive, and no-one was seriously injured, but she will be punished nonetheless.”
Vi scoffed as she pulled out a fresh baby wipe. “If she can’t pull a cobra, she shouldn’t be here, Cap.”
“That’s not my decision to make.” The captain pulled a spoon from one of the drawers and began scooping hearty servings of brown grounds into each cup. “I can give my professional opinion, but the final call is ultimately Commander Grayson’s.”
The kettle finally finished boiling. Cait poured the hot water out, the smell of cheap coffee filling the small room instantaneously. “I’m not here to talk about Lieutenant Nolen, anyway. I’m here to talk about you.”
“Me?” Vi looked up as Caitlyn walked over with the two mugs. She handed one to Vi, ignoring the burning sensation on her flesh as their fingers brushed during the handover.
“Yes.” Cait blew on her drink and took a sip. She frowned; it really was cheap coffee. “Despite the fact you lost a chunk of your jet today, I think you did an excellent job.”
Vi drunk slowly from her own mug and wiped the corner of her mouth. “Really?”
“With all things considered. You kept your cool, something you have a very clear issue doing normally. And still managed to land safely with only one and a half vertical stabilisers. That’s something a 30-year veteran would struggle to pull off effectively.”
“Oh. Thanks.” But Vi still shook her head, adding quietly, “I saw her dropping speed.”
“And if the cobra had been pulled off properly we wouldn’t be here. But it wasn’t.” Caitlyn sunk back on the sofa next to the lieutenant and glanced between her and her flight helmet. “You had the jump on them. I don’t like to speculate, but the odds of Maddie and Loris winning a dogfight against yourself and Ekko were very slim.”
Before Vi could reply, or question if the captain was complimenting her for once, Caitlyn smirked and slyly added, “Did you have teacakes in the cockpit?”
Vi stared at her and blinked like she’d grown another head. “What?”
“Teacakes. In the cockpit.” The captain leant over and plucked the flight helmet from Vi’s hands, twirling it around. “It’s an old aviation joke. One day, a bomber trainee pilot took teacakes up into the air with him in his cockpit. As soon as they depressurised, the teacakes exploded and covered the windows and control instruments with marshmallow.”
The other pilot continued to stare at her in confusion, cocking an eyebrow. “I don’t even know what a teacake is, Captain.”
Humming, Caitlyn stood up and took her mug with her to the kitchenette. She poured the brown liquid down the drain and sloshed some water around the cup. “Maybe I’ll bring you some. Next time you have a flight as good as that.”
Vi folded her arms over her chest and gruffed, sliding back on the sofa. “My flights are always good,” she grumbled.
Cait shot her a small half-smile, walking towards the door. “That’s open to interpretation. Thank you for the coffee, Vi.”
But before Vi could respond, or ask her to stay just a little longer, Caitlyn was gone, and her room felt emptier than it ever had before.