14 March 1996 · Mission 01 · Northern Norway
The balloon is up
The War Begins.
14 March 1996 · Mission 01 · Northern Norway
The War Begins.
Captain Henrik “Frost” Ruud felt the F-16’s F100-PW-220 engines hammer through the seat into his spine. Outside: arctic night. Freezing fog, blowing snow, the ramp picked out in harsh amber floodlight. The smell of JP-8 and melting ice leaked through the ECS; under it, his own adrenaline, thin and metallic. His gloved hand tracked the left-console switches while the green wash of the MFDs held his eyes. The INS blinked RDY; the lat-long locked, a small certainty on a planet sliding into madness. Through the canopy, two US Army Apaches rose like ghosts, rotor wash exploding snow, then swallowed by the valley. His headset woke: the E-3’s scrambled voice, thin across the sea. “Perseus One-One, Overlord. Mission is a-go. Multiple hostile tracks breaking the border, altitude on the deck, bearing zero-niner-five. Cleared hot.” Henrik rammed the throttle past the detent. Afterburner lit. A plume of blue-white fire tore the dark over Banak, and the war began.
