too much sky for a pilot

That’s too much sky for a pilot discussion with commended pilot Johr Stirflar

Giant clouds bigger than our own planet are rolling in the sky. Weather fronts so big and immovable we map them. The war still rages between the three nations on our Mother Elben, high in our sky.

I was chasing bombers around the Etra’s cyclones region when two unknowns showed up: they were fast. planes that high usually don’t go that fast: I knew it was Etren’s high altitude chasers. Our hero of the day, Sft. Johr Stirflar, was handling a BX-100 fighter, a versatile but aging machine. Unfortunately, it’s not very well suited at high altitudes against Eltren’s tenth-atm specialized fleet. I knew I couldn’t flee, so I climbed hoping to use some more altitude. I first thought they hadn’t made me, but they quickly banked and shot long range missiles. I barely had time to retort that my craft burst into flames.

I spent eight hours reflecting on my life, alone in that space raft

THEY CALL IT THE DEEP DIVE. Getting shot down is the bane of the grey skies’ pilots, even more so than the ones on our planet: you are left with no choice but to pull the emergency system which separate your whole cockpit from the falling craft, hand then hang below a parachutes for hours on end, hoping that the rescue team picked up your call, while the sky gets darker and darker. It was a long wait. You’re suspended facing downward, with your low frequency antenna reaching far into the deeps. At times, it looks like a tether pulling you towards the dark.. War treaties forbids from shooting down rescue battalions and downed crafts, but those are just cordial agreements between countries which are formally at war. Nothing would prevent one from violating that rule, other than risking others doing the same. I spent eight hours reflecting on my life, alone in that space raft. I was at -80.000 from one-atm, things were getting hot. Literally. […] All of a sudden I heard radio chatters, and then saw it: the “whale”, a large vessel half-floating half flying, with its hooks on its belly. I was finally saved.

TOO MUCH SKY FOR A PILOT. Johr long described how the sky feel there :

[…] I spent five years in the 3rd deployment battalion here on earth. We would launch on so called long range missions, flying for 24 hours at a time. The sky felt limitless: horizon on end. Except, it’s not: it starts at the ground, and stops however high conventional planes can go. On Elben, It’s just atmosphere all around you. Every time you sortie from the carriers, you leave what little ground you had: you better not look down, even if you don’t fear heights. Heights have meaning. Here, nothing makes sense. The sky really is, limitless. It’s too much sky for a pilot.

Since the start of the war two years ago, following territorial issues around the 3000km long Ar’ sky wall which flanks the Sea of Felz, 32 pilots got lost to the depths.

Fighters like to tell stories at the cantina of how it’s supposed to feel to fall beyond the Ash Line. But if they’re hear to tell, they didn’t crossed it […] You automatically get a commendation for doing the dive. Not that its something to be proud, but they know you joined the rank of a very special kind of pilot: one who fears what’s below and won’t get hotheaded.

Sft. Johr Stirflar is scheduled to go back to the frontline later this year: everytime you look at Elben’s gentle grey crescent at night, think of those pilots braving the dark depths for the glory of our nation!

— Jonathen Golduque, correspondent on Air Station Polm II.