Well, here's a little snippet I worte. Comments would be greatly appreciated.

========

21st May 2024.
2214 Hours Local Time.
Somewhere off the coast of Japan, between Hokkaido and Honshu islands.

A lone aircraft flew through the night sky, silently making its way towards Japan. It was a one-man fighter, painted in low-viz gray with black and blue trim and the AEGIS badge on its angled tail fins. As it flew a few hundred meters below a commercial passenger plane, the pilot looked up and said simply, "Hmmm."

The passenger aircraft was a Boeing, flying out from Sapporo to Tokyo, on the last transit flight of the evening; a big fat target, and a sitting duck to the fighter. Had the Boeing's pilot known about the fighter, he wouldn't have been feeling so bored about his job that night. The same applied to the air traffic controllers and JSDF personnel manning their radar screeens, though they saw nothing, and would not know about the foreign incursion into their airspace.

This was because the fighter was, effectively, invisible. Not to the naked eye, of course, but invisible to radar screens, by the application of stealth technology. Though the stealth technology of the ex-USMC F-35C Joint Strike Fighter was more than fifteen years old, it was still sufficient to spoof the air defense systems set in place by the JSDF; systems that had been provided by the Americans, who knew everything about such systems...including how to elude them.

And also, this was no ordinary F-35C.

"AI, set radar to TWS, and select nearest target. Maximum search range 10 miles."

"Yes, Major. Nearest target selected, target designated Alpha One." intoned the JSF's onboard AI. While posessing one of the most advanced computers of its time, the original Joint Strike Fighter had a limited ability to receive verbal commands, and nothing like the advanced AI now installed on this fighter. Truth be told, this wasn't even an F-35 - it was actually designated as an NF-35C AEGIS Strike Fighter, or ASF, a special design modified from the standard F-35C, meant for the use of AEGIS in combating Invaders, as well as providing quick support to anti-Invader operations. The VTOL charesteristics of the C-model JSF had endeared it to AEGIS for its versatality, and were also the reason why it had been chosen for this mission.

"AI, select Sidewinder. Lock on to Alpha One and and match speed with target. Bring us about directly aft of them."

"Yes, Major."

"AI, bring us right beneath Alpha One. Match speed and heading with Alpha One, and set radar to passive mode. Master Off."

"Roger. Matching speed and heading with Alpha One; Radar: passive mode. Master Off."

"Alright," murmered the pilot softly. "AI, maintain present speed and heading until I say so."

"Yes, Major."
If all goes well, we'll probably be past Misawa AB by the time BADGE picks us up, thought the AEGIS Major, as his eyes cast a glance over his instruments. Probably, I hope. Airspeed okay, angels 35, fuel looks good - the external drop tanks should be almost empty by now...

As the ASF flew on into the night, the pilot had this nagging feeling that he had forgotten something. Above him, the boeing pilot flew blithely on, unaware that he had a well-armed hunter on his tail, one that could have blown him out of the sky at any moment. Fortunately for him, the ASF pilot had no intention of shooting down commercial passenger planes; he had a more important mission.

He was going to forge his way through the air-defense net guarding Tokyo.

I just hope I don't meet Hiro Ochiai. He's Hyakuhari 202's CO, and if he's on the Alert 5 det tonight, and if I get detected, it'll be hell trying to outfly him, grimaced the pilot. It's never fun dogfighting with your instructor.

Interesting. I think that I'll need to see more to make much of a judgement, but the opening certainly grabbed my attention. It makes certain assumptions that we know a bit about aircraft, but that's fine. (I happened to get what was going on.) Nifty. Why is he doing this?

Keep writing,

Caine

Right, thanks for your comments.

Tech details: the aircraft in question does not exist at this time, and probably never willl, though the F-35C is supposed to come into service with the USMC sometime in the next decade. (The NF-35 is puerly made up.)

This is actually a Gatekeepers fic... well, sorta... a bit of a departure from the trend, at any rate. I'm calling it "Insertion", and I'll be posting more up here from time to time (i.e as I get portions done.) As to why the unnamed pilot is doing this, it's a test of sorts: his unit is trying to figure out the best way of insering people into Japan, so he's trying to see if he can sneak in using a stealth aircraft.

While AEGIS does have a sizable presence in Japan, and pulls a lot of political power there, his unit is outside AEGIS Bureau 9 (Japan), and they intend to run a mission there without the knowledge of the local AEGIS agents. That means an insertion like this.

The other option would be a commando-style paradrop or insertion via sub, so this stealth insertion attempt is trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone: if BADGE picks him up, it's a safe bet than a paradrop is out of the question.

*EDIT: I almost forgot, BADGE is the name for Japan's air defense nerve center. It's based outside of Tokyo. Whether it really exists or not is a point of conjecture.*

... i was reminded of FMP when i read it.. don't know why...

Maybe it's because I mentioned something about an Eva/FMP fusion. *shrug*

At any rate, it's not FMP, but based on Gatekeepers, also by GONZO. (Though reworked to fit my image. Mwahahahaha.....) Still, I suppose I have been heavily influenced by FMP - watching the whole series 4 times through will to that to anyone.

i thinks its the AI bit and all the military talk that reminded me of it... as long as you don't give the AI a personality with a mono-tone then its all good