By the time the twenty minutes given had elapsed, all of the pilots had found their way to the briefing room, some more shaken than others. The Colonel stood up from his chair and went up to the front, in complete silence, before dimming the lights in the back of the room and turning on the projector. He idly cracked his knuckles and looked over those seated in the room as the projector warmed up before speaking. "Good to see you all made it. B-Team wasn't as lucky." He sighed to push the point away. Once the projector had turned on, he began his introduction in proper. "Let's begin. First, I shall introduce myself and the situation before moving onto the briefing. I shall have to keep this brief, however, as we are very short on time and we need you all sortied in the next half-hour." Popov spoke with a somewhat monotonous, dark tone and combined with the now dimly lit briefing room, the pilots of Anemi could feel an oppressive atmosphere and they leaned forward to more easily listen to the man.
"I am Colonel Anton Popov and I am here representing the Neo United Nations. As of this moment, you are all under NUN control, as per the contract that you or the nation you are with signed upon your entry into the International Peace Games. For those of you not with a national entity, such as Anemi team, both General Resource and Neucom have transferred you to our control. You are now all a part of the newly created First Tactical Fighter Wing 'Peace Sparrow'." This surprised the pilots and Popov could easily see the change in mood. "Hopefully, it will only be temporary, but that depends on the situation. Speak of which..." He hit a key on his remote to advance the briefing. The screen now showed a map of the entire world, before splitting into two halves and showing Forster Bay and November City.
"At 1300 hours today, at November City, an unmarked fighter squadron flying R-45 Cariburn fighters attacked and annihilated B-Team before pulling out and heading south towards Forster Bay. At the same time, A-Team was, as you know, attacked by also unmarked, carrier-based MiG-29K's thought to be deployed by a carrier southeast of the bay in the Pacific Ocean. Then, you were attacked by the same R-45 Cariburn fighters which had destroyed B-Team, before reinforcements came from McNealy. Apparently, around the same time, cities in Yuktobania, Estovakia, Emmeria, Osea and Usea came under air attack." He took a moment to return to his laptop and take a drink from a thermos. "First Lieutenant Ansel, if you'd be so kind as to continue with the next part of this briefing, as we discussed." He gestured to the screen and Erika nodded before standing up.
"Ah... right, so..." She stammered slightly before continuing as a view of the same fighters that Mask Squadron used appeared on screen. "The XR-45 Cariburn is a Neucom design that began development in late 2019 as a standard fighter for the Neucom Emergency Unit and for export to other nations. In late 2020, a single aircraft was sent to Aurelia during the Leasath-Aurelia War in order to collect data on its characteristics. From what I heard, the results were good but I didn't hear more for a few months after." Popov took the center once again to continue.
"The Cariburn that you encountered was apparently not built by Neucom. Shortly after the attack, we spoke with a Neucom representative and from what they said, the Cariburn has not yet even been confirmed for production, leading us to think that these are stolen prototypes..." Erika decided to interrupt at this point.
"I hate to argue sir, but these Cariburn actually showed visible characteristics closer to the planned production model, such as the engines. The original prototypes actually didn't have thrust vectoring, but these ones did." The Erusian girl made slight gestures at her points and Popov nodded at each one.
"I'll let you continue then." The Colonel returned to his computer as Erika continued.
"The Cariburn we faced, codenamed XR-45M, the 'M' standing for Mask, shows many characteristics closer to the planned production model, as I have said. Unlike the prototype, the XR-45M uses brand new, thrust vectoring engines based on a hybrid of what Neucom designers call the Caudal Engine and the C-Cycle Engine, giving the plane high mobility and very high speed, respectively, at the cost of armor. Also of note, these Cariburn had improved ailerons and canards, part of the Sylph Wing system that was developed to add even higher mobility, speed, stability and make the plane much lighter weight, at, once again, the cost of more armor." As she said these things, the image on screen automatically zoomed in on parts she discussed. "To make up for the hugely low defense of the aircraft, mostly due to the fact that the armor is made from a somewhat weak radar absorbent material that increases stealth properties but makes it very, very weak, a type of armor called NERA is used. With NERA, the body's inner liner reacts to impacts, effectively reducing damage, but it's still pretty weak compared to even fighters like the MiG-29." She paused for a moment to catch her breath and Charles decided to ask a question.
"You said earlier that it uses an electro-optical targeting system for its missiles. Could you tell us a bit more about the thing's weapons systems?" The Captain took a drink as he finished.
"Of course." Erika cleared her throat as the screen changed to a view of the missiles. "The missiles used by the Cariburn, as mentioned before, use an electro-optical targeting system that can easily target enemies thanks to an optical connection with the COFFIN cockpit. They give off no warning to those locked on by it, but it can be messed up by clouds. Each missile also uses a sixty-four bit processor to aid with tracking, but it seems they still haven't fixed the cloud problem.." The screen then moved onto the guns of the plane. "Cariburn uses a thirty-millimeter cannon that is equipped with specially made high-velocity ammunition which have a velocity that is only about a quarter slower than a railgun. Frankly, I'm surprised that none of us got hit by the cannons!... ah, no offense." Erika paused somewhat awkwardly after realizing her joke might have been taken badly by some. "Ah, well... what else... oh, of course. Ahem, I shall finish by talking about the cockpit systems. I'm not going to go into detailing all of them, but aside from the visible COFFIN armored, digital cockpit, it has loads of systems that improve everything from stability to locking on to targets and doing things like magnification of the cameras and ECM."
As she finished, Popov gave her a gesture, telling her to hurry up and she hurriedly finished. "T-that's about everything." Nodding, Popov took the center once again and she sat down.
"I shall now let my friend in the OADF
give you the briefing regarding the next mission. Go ahead, Major."
A man in an OADF uniform now took the center and began to speak.
Listen up all of you, we have a major situation on our hands! At 1320 hours today, ten minutes before you arrived at McNealy, the capital, Oured, came under attack by hostile aerial forces, primarily made up of aircraft that managed to get through our defense line following the earlier attacks. All of our other air-units are busy with defending their own bases and neighboring cities, so it falls upon you to defend the city. In ten minutes you will all sortie and fly to Oured to aid Capital Air Command squadrons which are trying to defend the city but have almost been wiped out. Apparently, bombers have also been sighted heading towards the city, but our air defense network has been damaged by the enemy attack.
Your mission is to fly to Oured, which will take about forty-five minutes at full-afterburners and destroy the enemy fighters and approaching bombers and end the attack on Oured. We have been unable to contact Capital Air Command for confirmation on the origin of the fighters, so be ready for anything. All of you will be using the fighters that you used in the mission before, save for Angel Witch, who will fly a F-16C due to her A-7 being heavily damaged in the last fight. It is on loan to you from the OADF, so bring it back in one piece, alright? Don't worry about your fighters being too outdated, we have been at least able to confirm that none of the enemy fighters are on the same level as the XR-45M's you faced before. We have intel that the best they have are Flankers, so you should be fine.
Good luck, the fate of our capital rests in your hands. Dismissed!
ENEMY NUMBERS:
AIR: 38 CONFIRMED
GROUND: 0 CONFIRMED AS OF YET
SEA: 0 CONFIRMED AS OF YET The Osean officer nodded to Popov, letting him speak. "Get going, all of you! You better not come back here until the skies over Oured are clear!" The lights came back on and Anemi Team stood before heading straight out to get to their aircraft. They both wore expressions of determination on their faces, despite still being somewhat confused regarding the whole situation...