Chapter 209: Interception
Following the response, James gave the order and they immediately started executing the interception maneuver. Two aircraft patrolled in the area just in case any other aircraft appeared, while the remaining two aircrafts went to intercept. One of them positioned itself on the starboard side of the RQ-4 Global Hawk drone and the other one stayed at the rear of it at a slight distance, prepared for taking the action in case the drone ignored the warning.
"Unidentified aircraft, this is Angel One-One of Eden's air force. You are approaching restricted airspace. Identify yourself immediately," James called out over the radio.
But the intruder remained silent even after he radioed in.
"Angel One-One to the unidentified aircraft, identify yourself immediately," John called over the radio once again after the awkward silence they had received after his first warning.
"Angel One-One to the unidentified aircraft, identify yourself immediately," John said for the third time, but like the previous two attempts, they received no response as the drone continued to approach closer and closer to the border.
"BRRTTTTTTTTTTTT"
Suddenly, a sound was heard as bullets passed at the port side of the drone, resulting in it moving to the starboard side, forcing the Angel One-Two to make an aggressive pull to the right to avoid collision with the drone.
"Angel One-One to the unidentified aircraft, this is your final warning. Turn back immediately to avoid any hostile actions," James commanded firmly, at the same time, he initiated a lock on the drone which had leveled once again after the aggressive maneuver.
At the same time as James initiated the lock on the Global Hawk the two patrolling aircrafts immediately in a sync did a 180 degree in such a short span of time that their suit had to get to work to reduce the extreme amount of G-forces the pilots experienced. The force had reached 15 G's which their enhanced bodies were able to handle, however, the suits dampened most of it, leaving them to experience 10 G's.
If the frame of these planes had been made from the same materials as the original SU-35s with these maneuvers they would have bent and crunched on themselves.
With the powerful engines capable of supporting such aggressive maneuvers, the two pilots headed in a single direction as a squadron of four FA/18 Hornets was approaching them at full speed.
The SU-35's afterburners were engaged, marking the first time they had ever been engaged since the time they had been supercruising in Mach three without them, thanks to the powerful engines.
"Angel One-Three to the approaching unidentified aircraft squadron, this is Eden's air force. You are approaching our airspace. Turn on your transponders and identify yourselves immediately, or you will be shot at once," Angel One-three announced through a universal radio frequency, making sure that the approaching aircraft was able to hear his announcement.
"Angel One-Three this is Falcon One-One of the USS Freedom. We are conducting signal recovery for our drone that has lost signal during a training exercise. Do you have any information about it?" A response came from the approaching aircraft, followed by them immediately turning on their transponder as a demonstration of their sincerity.
"Falcon One-One, this is Angel One-Three. Roger that, we understand your situation. We have detected your Global Hawk on our radar, and two of our aircrafts are attempting to intercept it. I will act as the guide, follow closely behind me," came a response from Angel One-Three, who immediately turned the planes that only had visual confirmation between each other. Angel One-four continued heading to the approaching aircraft, passing each other from a safe distance before he turned the plane 180 degree and started heading in the same direction as the American squadron that was following Angel One-Two, acting as an insurance in case the false reason the Americans gave them changed and they started dishing out at them, he was sure that they could win without causing any harm.
When the American squadrons reached their Global Hawk, they pretended to try to recover the signal and when they finally succeeded in doing so, the Global Hawk turned around and was immediately followed by the squadron as it started heading out of Eden's airspace. They then return to the direction where the aircraft carrier of the Pacific fleet was positioned, their mission having ended in failure due to the unexpected discovery and reaction from Eden's Air Force.
....
"So, you're telling me they discovered, intercepted and almost shot down our drone, forcing us to pretend as if we had a signal problem to avoid further escalation?" Obama asked as he briefed immediately, his face and tone reflected his disbelief since he was having a hard time believing that Eden had developed to such a degree.
"Did they secretly buy new aircrafts or something similar without our knowledge?" he asked sarcastically, finding it hard to believe the information that he had just received.
"No, they didn't buy new aircraft. They simply refurbished the ones they had, meaning what we saw was the entire Eden's Air Force at work. However, after a few months of operation, they won't be able to maintain more than one of them in operational readiness due to lack of experienced mechanics working for them and they don't have resources to train some new ones either," answered the Secretary of Defense, assuring that something like this is not going to happen again.
"The same thing happened to Esparia when they thought they could win against them and what do you think happened to them? What do you think will happen to us?" Obama asked sarcastically, getting pissed off by the man who seemed to be too overconfident in their military's power to not even consider the potential outcome of that.
"No, Mr. President, my confidence stems from knowing the full capabilities of our military as the source of it and no matter how they develop and how much faster they are able to get new equipments, they would never imagine of reaching our level at least for about a century," answered the Secretary of Defense, showing the source of his pride.
"I don't care about that. Now it seems that they have something secret enough to hide to even risk shooting down an American drone. If push comes to shove, I want to know what they are really hiding on that island and what is important enough to warrant such actions from them," Obama asserted, as his senses were urging him that they need to understand what was happening there as soon as possible or they were going to regret it in the future.