The newly graduated soldiers who had completed their training received their appointments and got off the pods and had already cleaned themselves and had already taken their places in their allotted rooms for having a rest, where they would be spending a week recuperating there and the time would be even longer for those who would be responsible for doing security duty on the island similar to how it had been done by the previous ARES members who will be soon replaced by the these already trained and high-level point achievers, taking their place since they will be going to take their training.
But among these graduates, there were a few among them who were called by Athena before they could start resting due to the emergence of some urgent matter.
"WHOOOOOOOM"
A beastly roar could be heard as it echoed through one of the empty roads that were usually busy with trucks passing back and forth, carrying containers in tandem with the rail network, however, at this moment this usually heavily busy road was completely empty.
Four SU-35s could be seen already powered on as the pilots were urgently making their way to them, donning specialized pilot gears which didn't have any resemblance to any of the existing gears seen before. The maintenance teams were doing their final system checks on the planes like removing the red hanging tags on the missiles that were attached to the hard points of the planes, the urgency of the situation could be seen due to their professional movements.
These aircrafts looked brand new as if they had come out of the factory just a few minutes ago, because in fact, it was true that they were indeed made just a few moments ago.
While these planes outwardly resembled SU-35s, the only difference between these planes which resembled other SU-35 was that the structure and all their internal components of these planes were entirely different and were made by utilizing a special material that was the result of continuous breakthroughs in the lab city.
Though the data as to how these planes appeared could be found online, Nova had still opted to ask Athena to send one of the two flight-ready, fourth-gen flights that the previous military had to the island.
There, the plane was immediately sent to the printer for it to be thoroughly scanned, to have all the dimensions measured accurately and by using that acquired information, new aircrafts that looked like the SU-35 were built.
However, these new aircrafts didn't have anything similar to them other than their outside appearance, with everything inside comprised of the latest tech, resulting in these fighter jets being able to go toe to toe with even the most advanced aircraft the current world could offer, while at the same time, not attracting attention and suspicions as to how they were able to manage to research and build brand new fighter in a matter of few months.
The pilots boarded the planes using the ladder integrated into them and soon took their seats, this was followed by them putting on the seat belts before they started conducting their pre-flight checks of all the moving parts on the plane.
The flight control surfaces responded crisply to their inputs, and the displays in the cockpit blinked to life, showing the vital flight data before it was immediately transferred to the headgear they were wearing, subtracting any need for them to have a look at the displays on the cockpit unless a malfunction on the headgear occurred.
"Ground, this is Angel One-One. All systems are green, I'm ready to take off," James, the pilot of the first SU-35-looking aircraft and also the team leader of the mission, reported.
"This is Angel One-Two….." "This is Angel One-Three" "This is Angel One-Four" the other three pilots also shortly reported to confirm of having finished their system checks, with all the systems being green.
When James heard the clearance from all three other pilots having reported their green systems and ready for takeoff he smiled, feeling happy that their very first mission had started without facing any problems.
"Angel Squadron, this is Square Tower, you are cleared for takeoff!" A response shortly came, allowing them to proceed with take off.
With them receiving the clearance to take off, they wasted no time as James pushed the throttle on his left hand, increasing the amount of thrust coming from the engine, and slowly releasing the pressure from the brakes. The airplane started moving slowly, gradually gaining speed before he slowly started raising the front wheel which was shortly followed by the rear wheel, leaving the ground, officially marking the take off of the first Eden-made plane in real life and this was not for a test but for an official mission.
Closely behind him, the other three jets also had taken off within a few seconds of intervals, which was soon followed by them joining each other, flying side by side.
The moment they rejoined each other side by side, James radioed in, "Square tower, this is Angel Squadron. Requesting clearance for mission Vector."
"Angel Squadron, you are clear for mission Vector. Godspeed," came the response from the tower.
The squadron leader acknowledged the clearance and made a slight adjustment to the target they were heading to, the other three SU-35 following his lead seamlessly.
"Angel Squadron, this is the Air Operations Center. Intercept an unauthorized drone entering Eden's airspace. Escort it back to the international waters immediately," came a tense communication the moment they started their mission vector.
"Angel One-One, roger that. We'll intercept the intruder and redirect it," James responded, his voice reflecting his brimming confidence.
In the vastness of the open sky, the Angel Squadron executed a series of precise maneuvers, each pilot seamlessly the moves of the other without having the need for any word to be spoken. Their training had forged an unspoken language of communication between them, a bond that transcended any verbal communication.
The jets cut the sky in full speed and were heading to the country's northern border as if there was no tomorrow, they were doing so to intercept the RQ-4 Global Hawk reconnaissance drone that was on the verge of entering their border in about half an hour.
During their flight, they maintained their high Mach three speed, resulting in most of their flight path to avoid populated areas in the worry of breaking windows in those areas.
At the same time, they weren't trying to hide themselves or anything since the world was already aware that they had four SU-35 planes, but the surprising fact was that all four of them were in the air at the same time, something that had never been seen in the history of the country.
This meant that all the stealth options that were present in these new aircrafts were disabled for this specific mission, with the only active one being a signal releaser, whose job was to make the plane have the same radar cross-section that of any normal SU-35, hiding the actual radar cross-section of this plane that could send the Raptors to therapy.
"Target sighted at twelve o'clock," called out James.
"Angel Two, Three and Four, confirm visuals," James instructed.
"Confirmed," echoed his wingmen.
In a matter of a few minutes, the squadron had already reached their border, and after reaching, they noticed the foreign aircraft, thanks to their advanced avionics.
