THE RUN!!!
Speeding across the desert at 350kts and 70ft over the desert. The pilot and his 4 ship element were answering a call for assistance. The pilot and flight of 4 ships Thunderbolt III's were on the way back to the barn. The Thunderbolt III was a direct descendant of the P47 Thunderbolt fighter of WWII at least in its mission specifications. it received an update that changed the ground attack aircraft, to a machine capable of suborbital flight with the advanced weapon, sensor, and engine advances that made this version of the venerable aircraft state of the art, and the Mach 3 speed made it a formidable weapon. When the emergency call was acknowledged and received it immediately took precedence. A Spec Ops element was in the process of withdrawal when they were attacked by a hidden enemy directly to their rear, while they prepared for dust-off. As one of the rescue elements approached they diverted to the west, as the four plane element made its run. Having a successful mission before the call for assistance there remained plenty of weapons available for this rescue mission. The adversary was visibly approaching from the east in strange looking tracked vehicles and some exo-suited personnel in the lead holding large cannon-like weapons firing on the run.
Cleared hot on target, the choice was to hit the personnel in the suits 1st. They were dark metallic robotic shapes standing approximately 10ft. Tall. What was known was that they were standard human size operators. 3 of them approached followed by 3 tracked vehicles. The spec -ops troops lazed the large running machines so that the missiles could find their way. Three missiles released discharged smoke which made them highly visible to the attackers. Armored attackers threw up smoke chaff and other electronic noise to evade the attack. Too for them bad the missiles were command guided and struck with a blinding flash 3 times, one for each target. One robot was stopped cold by the hit. It paused, began releasing streams of smoke then exploded. This happened 3 times with creating 3 smoldering wrecks in the sand.
Switching to bombs the flight released the 4 remaining 1000 pound bombs in the midst of the 3 pursuing tracks. As the smoke cleared one heavily damaged track moving in the direction from which they came. It was not moving very fast. It was indeed out of the fight. The rescue elements returned to pick up the team and were heading south in the direction of the base. The Carrier in the distance waited for the returning ships the flight circled until the troop carriers landed and unloaded their passengers then were moved off the flight deck making space for the returning flight. The landing was pretty much uneventful except for one thing. The carrier was hovering about 2000 ft above the land mass that they were fighting over. After stowing the gear, securing the planes large, powerful doors closed and the landing deck was sealed. After unloading from the transport, the troops left the crew area, were strapped into acceleration chairs for transport to another destination. The lights dimmed to amber, and the sensation of motion began the trip took about another 30 mins rising to a point approximately 200,000 feet above that planet that these men and women were departing from. They were being pulled into another ship in low orbit. After securing the carrier within the gigantic transport, they were heading out. Going back home it was over, for now, their rotation was over. It was 39 months to home at light speed to Proxima Centauri guess it was a good thing they were going 6 times that fast. Home in about 6.5 months. Messages home were sent on an unmanned ship traveling at 15 times light speed which would be only 2.6 months travel time. These messages included the after-action report in an encrypted portion of the ship's memory with personal messages taking up all available message space.
The crew never thought that within 5 years of 1st contact they would be involved in an operation to secure this part of the galaxy. What they secretly thought was how much would the pay would be for being gone 24 months travel and mission time. This would blow the mind of someone born in the 2020s
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