FicWad

It's based on the Grateful Dead's "Tons of Steel", and heavily inspired by UF and some crap that I haven't gotten around to finishing, or posting anywhere. Let me know what you think.
-W

So here I am, falling into the world at fourteen hundred knots, yet again. One more world, on one more campaign, just one more paycheck in the bag.

I know these rails we're on like I know my lady's smile
We see a dozen dreams in every passing mile
Can't begin to count the trips that she and I have made
But I wish I had a dollar for each time we've both been down this grade

Twenty-eight degrees of positive pitch, and now the ionization shell is beginning to form as we hit the upper layers of atmosphere. The ride gets rocky, and the heat shield drops over the canopy. We're currently passing through a hundred and eighty thousand feet, and dropping like a rock. This part of the flight is never controlled, but completely at the whims of aerodynamics and atmosphere.

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, made to roll
Her brakes don't work and this grade's so steep
Her engine's sure to blow

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the plane I used to know

The heat shield has retracted now at a hundred thousand feet, and the flak has started. It's like I'm dropping through a perpetual cloud of black smoke. We're just fortunate that they don't use fusion lasers for aerial defense, otherwise we'd have been ranged, bracketed, and targeted before we even broke out of the ionic shell. I truly do hate spacebourne bombing runs, but sometimes you just don't have a choice. I see fireballs breaking out on the ground, and I know that the Pandemonium is providing what fire support she can, but a two-ton tungsten rod falling from orbit isn't the most accurate thing ever made.

It's one hell of an understatement to say she can get mean
She is temperamental, more a bitch than a machine
She was built to travel at the speed a rumor flies
These wings are bound to jump their tracks before they burn up high

I look at the anti-air defenses currently shooting at me, and I decide to kick the throttle up another notch, consequences be damned. I hear the airframe creak as I stress it beyond what it is really supposed to take, and I mentally shrug. Either it'll hold, or it'll fail. Either way I'm gonna meet the ground, and after four hundred years, death doesn't frighten me, even less than it did when I was still properly alive.

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, made to roll
Her brakes don't work and her grade's so steep
Her engine's sure to blow

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the plane I used to know

I'm at thirty five thousand feet and still dropping. I'll pull out at five thousand, and level off at eight hundred feet. I've got thirty seven tons of bombs that need to be on target, and the three aircraft behind me have the same. We will kill this war machine, no matter what the cost. That's what we do, and that's what we get paid for. Only once in our history have we allowed a mission kill, and that day I lost two pilots. There's only so much you can do against fifteen-to-one odds in the air, and dumping your air-to-ground stores is the least of your worries. Two of my people weren't equal to the challenge, and we buried empty caskets. That betrayal was paid for in nuclear fire. That's behind us now, but we will always remember. We are the premier aerospace force in the galaxy, and us losing two craft and their pilots is equivalent to any other mercenary airforce losing three wings of fighters. It suddenly occurs to me that, with the density of AAA, this may be my final flight. I'm jinking and dodging for all I'm worth, and yet the explosions keep coming closer. I suddenly relax, and I smile, as I realize that, if I have to go down, I've always wanted to go down in my Valkyrie, over a hotly contested target, and I've wanted to go down making a difference. That's what's driven every single mission the Talons have taken. We support the underdog, we fight for the little people, we've always taken on the Evil Empire for the sake of the few. This is what I am doing today, and if it costs me everything, then Sisu. I will do what I have to do, and I will count the cost later, if ever.

Murphy's sure outdone himself, to pick this stretch of sky
I can only guess my luck is keeping me in flight.
Well I have prayed to the gods that this ain't the death of me
I've done bout everything 'cept try flappin my feet

I'm falling faster now, a couple dozen holes shot in my wings. Luckily, my engineers designed the Valk to keep flying, even with catastrophic damage. I'm close to that level now. Two more hits, and I'll have to dump stores and burn hard for altitude.

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, made to roll
Her brakes don't work and this grade's so steep
Her engine's sure to blow

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the plane I used to know

Another hit, and it's time to level this beast out. My best lady and I are right on the ragged edge. Bah. Fuck it. I came here to bomb a target, and by the gods, I'm going to bomb that target, one way or the other. I drop down to five hundred feet, taking refuge in the lessened horizon that I have to fly across. I kick the throttle up another couple notches, until I'm burning across the sky at just below a thousand knots IAS. Target's ahead, we're thirty seconds out. I switch my ordnance controls, and lob a couple of anti-radiation missiles ahead of me. They'll drop on anything that tries to target me. The other planes in the formation kick out, giving forty-five degrees of separation between attack vectors, giving us the best odds of at least one of us making it through this mission. Twenty seconds now, and I pop up to a thousand feet, roll inverted, and finally get my eyes on target. There it is, the factory that we came so far and suffered so much to reach. I roll back level, put the dot on the building, and mash down the pickle button as hard as I can. The airframe shudders as fifty four bombs fall of the racks, shortly followed by the racks themselves. I cut back ninety degrees to the left, count to five, stand my bird on her tail, and slam the throttle forward, left, and forward to the final stop. I hang there in the sky for a long instant, before the added thrust shoots me back toward orbit at a truly insane velocity. I'm moving fast enough now that the guns can't track me, and inside a minute I've broken a hundred eighty thousand feet again, leaving the flack far behind. I glance over my shoulder, and see all three of my wingmates in close formation. We've won through again, and the after-action review of the Pandemonium's cameras will show that we put all one hundred forty eight tons of ordnance on target, and got away without pilot injury. Granted, our fighters will spend the next month being rebuilt, but that's why we have spares.

Oooh oooh, I wanna go down slow
Oooooooooh oooh oooh oooh

Once more, we've danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, and we taught that bastard how to tango.

Nine hundred thousand tons of steel, out of control
She's more a roller coaster than the plane I used to know.

AN: Yes, I know Michael and the Talons made several tactical mistakes here, first and foremost of which was dropping into contested territory. They should've dropped five hundred miles out, and made the insertion at a hundred feet AGL, but this way makes a better story.

-W