“We do nothing. Our mission is to perform a patrol around the strait.”

“But....”

“I know, our weapons are free but we were told not to engage unless we are engaged.”

I heard a low ‘fine’ being muttered through the radio as my wingman’s F-15C flew closer to my own F-15C.

The place my wingman and I are patrolling is the coastal region located to the north of the airbase we took off from. The briefing earlier had told us that due to the lack of any activity on the strait, AWACS wouldn’t be needed for the patrol and it would be only my wingman and I patrolling the empty coast for a few hours.

They weren’t lying when they said that the coast was empty. There was barely anything here other than the usual cliffs and rocks that formed on the land. Our patrol, however, was disturbed as a random plane appeared from the clouds and flew on the back of our left flank. The unknown plane followed us for an hour which led to the discussion my wingman and I were having earlier.

Time passes as my wingman and I continued on with our patrol. The unknown plane was still with us and, to be clear, whoever was flying it is spooking me and my wingman out.

“Should we try and to radio whoever it is?” My wingman asked.

“I’ll try to.” I switch to an open channel and contacted the unknown plane.

<<“Unknown aircraft who is tailing us. Please respond and identify yourself.>>

<<“....”>>

That was odd. I radioed the unknown plane again and still got no answer. I then radioed the unknown plane for the third time.

<<“Unknown aircraft. Identify yourself or will be forced to-!”>>

As we passed a cloud, I looked back and saw that the plane had disappeared, startling me as I quickly changed the radio to talk to my wingman.

“He disappeared?!”

“What?! What do you mean?”

“He’s not behind us and the on-board radar isn’t picking up anything.”

I turned my head around to find the other plane behind me and I checked both of my sides but found no sight of it.

Suddenly, I could hear a loud roar coming from my right side. I turn my head towards the source and had to jerk my plane towards the side.

A grey plane came out of the clouds on my right and I was given an incredible sight of an F-22. The vapour of the clouds cloud clinging to its body that housed an opaque yellow canopy.

I steadied my plane as I watch the Raptor rolled above my plane before it suddenly put itself into a vertical climb and shot up into the sky, disappearing into the higher clouds.

“Should we go after him?” My wingman asked.

“No. I don’t think we have to... That Raptor, it had a blue ribbon on its tail.”

“A blue-ribboned fighter?”

“A ghost from the past... The Reaper himself...”