Manta's Dawn (Original Fiction, Imperium Americanus)

[Zor]

This is a short story i wrote for an time travel/Alternate Histroy Universe of mine. This story and the universe it is in was created by Leighton White and i will not allow unauthorized duplication of it. However, i hope you enjoy...

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Manta’s Dawn

-Febuary 17th, 1916, 620 hours, local time

Flight Lieutenant Hugh “hunter” Tibbs got into the cockpit of his F-8 Timberwolf, strapping himself in. Despite being stationed here for more than two months and being in his sheepskin flight suit it was still miserably cold outside with snow outside on the base and he was quite happy to close the cockpit overhead. Fortunately it had not snowed today nor yesterday and the Runway and the Runway did not have to be cleared. The sky was clear and he could see moonlight and the stars without any disruption from cloud cover. He hoped this would stay as such when he and the rest of the force returned to Green River. Even with snowplows and landing gear that could handle landing on a runway with a thin layer of snow, he did not like taking that risk. He quickly ran through the systems check, not missing a thing and turned on his engine, after pulled the microphone from his radio set and readied for battle.

“Pit-bull, this is Hunter. Everything is go for launch.” He said calmly.

His squadron leader responded “Affirm on that Hunter. Standby.”

For the next couple of minutes he quietly waited, thinking about how the hell would he keep himself from being bored out of his skull on the flight out there as the control tower sent out two messages that were directed to other people in this operation, then he heard want he was waiting for.

“This is flight control, First Fighter Flight you are go for Launch.”

“Affirmative Flight Control, launch in progress”. With that, the propeller began to spin and he waited as an identical plane with a cartoon rather angry looking dog painted on it’s left wing moved out on the runway. After waiting for a few seconds, he released the landing gear breaks and the three rapidly spinning blades in front of him began to drag the aluminum framework forward along the well lit light, guided by a earth brown uniformed deseret airman with a pair of flags until he was on the runway. The Timberwolf then accelerated, gradually gaining speed as it moved down the salted gravel runway until it lifted off the ground and began to gain altitude. Behind him gradually came more aircraft. Among the mix that was launched from Green River was a full wing of Timberwolves, but the Timberwolves were just an escort to the main force, two wings of B-5 Manta Bombers, one hundred and twenty of them in all. Several other offensives were to be launched today, but the target of this mission was a special one


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-George Custer United States Army air corps base, nearby Denver

Brigadier General Samuel R. Yates was sitting down to his breakfast in his personal dining room. It was a relatively simple meal, a couple of slices of toast with strawberry jelly, a couple of slices of back bacon and a cup of black coffee and he was about half way through it. Despite the fact that gluttony was not his major vice, he was portly. He was by no means obese nor was he physically weak, but as he aged he had gradually gained in weight. Otherwise he was not a striking man, he had been spared from male pattern baldness and had a finely combed if short moustache but was not someone who really jumped out visually. Despite this, he made himself quite recognizable as he was well known for being brash and aggressive when addressing his men. However, at the moment he was calm as he quietly engaged in the consumption of his breakfast.

As he ate, the general heard the Door creep open, followed by quick footsteps. He did not bother looking at the person who cam in, nor did he notice the salute. “What is it, private?” he said.

“Sir, we have just spotted an incoming group of airplanes, they have ignored all attempts to respond. ETA Five minutes. Sir, we believe that this is it.”

Yates got to his feet with his mug in hand, “Dear god. Private, get all pilots into to the air and I want all AA Cannons manned and ready yesterday.”

The Private quickly saluted “Yes sir!” and then he ran off to inform the base.

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“All right ladies and gents, its Showtime.” Hunter heard Pit-Bull say over his comm. “Cobra’s Flight will hit the west airfield, Hunter, you take the East. My wing will be looking out for and silencing anti aircraft. Our objective is to make things clear for the coming bombardment. Now let’s show the Bluejackets down there how to fight a war.”

“Affirm on that, flight prepare for assault.” The Wing then turned there noses down and descended. Hunter had a good view of the base beneath him and he and his flight turned onto to airfield. There was some anti aircraft fire. Beneath him, he saw a couple of tractors pulling fighters out of their hangers. They were quite different from the Timberwolves, instead of the slender, smooth and narrow build of the Timberwolves designed to pierce through the air like a bullet they were squat things with open cockpits. These were P-27 hornets and they were getting ready to launch. He and his flight descended upon a row of them, hastily being readied for flight and got ready to pound them. He fired his twenty millimeter cannons, breaking through the air with one tremendous thud after another, his flight followed soon after. He stopped firing two seconds latter and pulled up. He looked back and saw the flaming wreckage of more or less twenty fighters. He then heard a series of Zings and a couple of mechanical digs going outside.

“Pit-bull, I have AA on my ass, clear it out.” He yelled over the comm. A few seconds latter the firing stopped.

“Hunter, looks like Ranger already did that for me, I’ll send him your regards.” Pit-bull replied. He did not reply, he had more things to do

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Despite the fact that it was minus five degrees Celsius outside, second private Glen Hansen did not have gloves on as he ran about outside with two boxes of 50 caliber ammunition in hand. The Shellheads had taken them completely by surprise and he had no time to find them. When he grabbed them, they were going off to runway six which had two dozen Hornets ready to go into the air, but those Hornets were in no condition to be flying or fighting after the pounding that a group of Imperial Fighters gave them. Now he ran towards an towed double barreled AA Gun in cover. Around him he saw dozens of men firing small arms into the sky, Jenkins sub machineguns and Reynolds Squad automatic rifles bared into the sky in the dim light, event though their ability to hit anything was slim to none. There was no order to the resistance the US forces were putting up, it was pure chaos. He saw officers and NCOs attempting to organize things in some fashion, but there efforts were not enough to keep things from falling further apart beyond a few AA guns.

Glen reached the AA gun, announced his presence with a quick “Here!” and ran back for another box of ammunition, the NCO working the gun gave a quick response…

“Thanks!” And continued to send lead up into the air. However his trip as he saw a Timberwolf dived towards him, machine guns blazing. It was not targeting him but the AA Cannon and a Hornet beginning to move down a runway about half a kilometer away. The AA Gun was targeting another fighter which had just finished a Pounding run on several fighters still on the ground and did not see it coming behind it. Never the less, a 7.5mm machinegun bullet passed through his head. As the metal form moved through his brain, it severed many connections. The severing of said nerves obliterated his feelings, his thoughs, his memories and his abilities to regulate his body’s myriad factions. In a tiny fraction of a second what was once a sapient being with desires, beliefs and a life worth of memories was reduced to a mindless biological construct that went limp and to the ground.

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Hunter pulled up over the burning wreckage of the latest addition to his Tally when he saw the armada of oncoming planes approaching; they were large, broad winged aircraft each with two engines pulling them through the air. He then steered away from the main body of the airbase as they came towards there target. He saw several big one six inch anti airship guns belch up into the air against the main force. Even against the slow moving Mantas, the cannons were not quick enough tracking to be of use against them and were very slow to load. Despite the lack of accuracy of the USAAC heavy AA had as it blasted into, the Mantas still responded in kind as bomber after bomber dropping its payload of twenty one hundred kilogram bombs upon the main facility of the base. He watched as the bombs impacted the ground. Not everyone hit something, but the base was hit by a hard wave of saturation bombing that leveled what it did. The base came alive with massive explosion after Explosion. Hangers which still held large numbers of aircraft were quickly leveled; ammunition Depots went up in colossal fireballs. He also noticed that fires were spreading across the base, which he assumed was from burning fuel reserves. He was partly right in that regard, however one in ten bombs aboard the Manta’s was loaded with a newly devised compound made of coprcipitated aluminum salts of naphthenic and palmitic acid. The result was a sticky, flammable gel that burned intensely and was very hard to put out. Even from the distance and even with only a few glimpses, the damage that was inflicted upon the base was obvious. All in all it took about a minute, but the damage done by the bomber wings was obvious.

Despite this, a trio of Hornets managed to get into the air while the bombing was taking place. The Timberwolves had cleared out to avoid being victims of friendly fire and the airstrips themselves were not worth bombing and they had managed to get up. The squat aircraft went up towards the assaulting airplanes as quickly as and without orders Hunter turned towards them to aide the assault. However the Mantas, while big and slow compared to their agile escorts were not defenseless. On the underside of the nose of each Manta was a ball turret and inside this turret was a motorized six barreled 7.5mm Gatling gun and when the Hornets got close to the bombers, they faced a hailstorm of steel that they were just not designed to take. They returned fire before being ripped apart, but the damage they inflicted upon the bombers was minimal.

His radio came alive, “This is Pit-bull to all fighters, the deed is done, lets go home.” With that, Hunter turned away from the wreaked American stronghold to return to base.

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-9:01 Hours

General Yates emerged from his command bunker along with his senior officers to find that the officer’s quarters above it had been completely destroyed. What was once a cheap, but tidy building was a twisted array of broken plaster, shattered floors and wreckage that was a short while ago wall and framework. He walked through the Haphazard mess, seeing a few men lying dead in his path until he found a hole in what was once the officer’s mess and the sheer devastation that was left of his base. For the bad shape the officer’s quarters was in, it paled in comparison to the buildings that were being engulfed in. Medical teams went over the remains in search of survivors. No doubt the Infirmary was hit badly as well. Despite his cool exterior, inside he was in awe of the Blow that great America had inflicted upon the United States, no doubt that other such Ariel offensives had been launched against other targets. Custer had a total of over 450 aircraft stationed in it and a good number of highly trained pilots, undobtudly most of them of both groups had been destroyed.

He turned to a junior officer behind him “Lieutenant”

“Yes General?”

“If this is how the war between the Empire and the US begins, well this is a hell of a start.”

Edit-fixed date error

[Falkenhorst]

Interesting so far; do you have any backstory material to flesh out the AH universe this takes place in?

[Zor]

Plenty

Zor