"Mav, how do you plan on getting this museum piece in the air?" Rooster asked hesitantly when the canopy closed and the plane started to slowly creep forward. All he got in return was a slight huff, so Rooster resigned to just now knowing. He took a deep breath. He had to trust Maverick. That man had done crazier shit (hadn't he?).

While they rolled out of the hangar, Bradley searched avidly for Ice, but the darkness had already engulfed him. Well, Bradley had seen what the older pilot had done with that poor unfortunate (soul, Bradley's Disney-brain provided, which Bradley took as a sign of stress) man, so he should trust Ice too. This one was harder, however, since Bradley had known Maverick could fly planes absurdly well from the moment he had met the guy, but he only knew Ice could freeze people's brain (!) since approximately ten minutes ago.

"Mav, this is a taxiway, not a runway. This is a very short taxiway, Mav," Bradley said worriedly when he noticed Maverick had rolled unto the taxiway and was now toying with the controls. The darkness was almost complete now, except for a few lights here and there on the runway (the actual runway, not the taxiway they were standing on) and Rooster was getting increasingly worried. His heart took an even bigger jump, when he noticed that at the end of this (very short!) taxiway stood two storage silos, which were so high their pitch black shadows seemed to creep menacingly towards them. With a shock Rooster noticed that it wasn't the shadows creeping to them, but them racing towards the shadows.

"Mav?" he squealed. They raced towards the silos, on their way to (hopefully quick) oblivion, but just as Rooster had closed his eyes in terror, he felt the (never more welcomed) drop of his stomach that meant lift-off. He still didn't dare to watch, illogically praying that the silos would not be there if he couldn't see them.

They were still there. And their plane felt it, when she just scraped over them (actually physically scraping by, since Rooster heard something break at the front. He hoped that was the landing gear and since they didn't explode or drop out of the skies at that exact moment, he assumed it was. Something to worry about later, he decided). Only then did he realize that they were flying. They were actually flying! They were now a (not insignificant) step closer to getting home safely (or at least, not in a body bag). Rooster giggled from pent-up tension and petted Maverick on his shoulder.

"You, crazy son of a bitch, you actually did that!" he yelled. Maverick, however, did not join the celebrations.

"We ain't home yet," he said (somewhat strained, Bradley noticed).

"Rooster, you keep an eye on the radar, we need vision and my screen is apparently broken," he ordered and Rooster immediately peered towards the big round screen and the twenty thousand buttons and switches that filled the back part of this (ancient) plane. Before he did so however, he quickly turned on his esat, hoping the boat was still close enough to get his signal (or that Comanche was still roaming around).

"Ehh, what?" he asked, not a little bit overwhelmed by all the unfamiliar buttons.

"I put the RIO-position ready for launch before you climbed in, so the screen should already be on, is that right?" Maverick asked and Rooster gave the affirmative.

"Didn't know they taught the pilots how to run the RIO seat back in the day?" he mentioned off-handed. He heard Maverick chuckle lightly.

"That was your dad's doing," he said with a fond smile and Bradley couldn't help but smile too.

"He had us checking each other's set-up before each flight, for extra safety as he called it. Apparently his persistence has paid off," he resumed.

"Sounds like mother Goose to me," Bradley chuckled too.

"But, how do I read this thing?" he asked, seriously this time, as he tried to decipher the green lines in front of him. Maverick explained to him (at best as he could) how to read the big screen at his knees ("the TID", Mav provided) and the tiny screen above that ("the DDD" apparently) and when Rooster had somewhat of an idea he asked how to put on the radio, since the radar was clear (for now). He could almost hear the gears in Maverick's head turn as the older man searched deep into his memory.

"The uhf-2 circuit breaker, try that," Mav supplied hesitantly. Rooster nodded (even though Mav could off course not see that) and bent around the seat towards the even more switches that resided there. Here, there was only one measly little light strip, so the labels (which were already a bit worn down, because, again, this thing was old) were hard to read. Rooster squinted and tried to lean a bit closer (which did all sorts of things to his back). Finally he spotted a switch with uhf-2 beneath it. He had almost switched it, but then found out the one besides it also read uhf-2.

"Anything more specific?" he threw back towards the front of the plane. He heard Mav chuckle breathlessly (coming to think of it, his breathing had been worsening for the last few minutes, which made Bradley a bit worried).

"That was fully your dad's department," he answered. Rooster sighed, but set himself to the task again.

"I'll figure it out." He resolved himself to a few more minutes in this position and strained his eyes again. While he slowly figured out that the different uhf-2 switches were probably tied to different wavelengths (considering he made out the letters mhz on some of the labels of better wear), he suddenly saw a flash of light flashing in the corner of his eyes. He swivelled his head towards the left to peer into the inky darkness outside of the plane and when he saw nothing he quickly straightened into his seat to check the radar. His suspicions got confirmed when he saw two little half rectangles blinking on the screen in front of him.

"Mav, tally two, I don't know from where, but nearing us with ehh, the right one was it? 400 knots then," he rambled and he heard Maverick curse in front of them.

"Okay, listen. Just be cool." (Cool? Cool?! That was Ice's department...)

"If they knew who we were, we'd be dead already," Maverick supplied not really helpfully. Rooster swallowed and when he reckoned the planes were close enough, he glanced out of the window instead of the radar. Two bright spots of light filled the night sky and when Rooster's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, he even made out two ink black planes around the spots of light (which were the cockpits of these planes, he now understood).

"Rooster, put your mask on," Mav ordered and Rooster scrambled to do so (still keeping his eyes anxiously on the planes besides them). When the two planes levelled themselves besides them (thankfully not in attack position), suddenly a white ray of light illuminated them and their surroundings (making it even possible to sort of see the ground below them). Rooster couldn't help but turn around to see where it came from, somehow hoping it was Comanche or some other friendly plane above them. His hopes got crushed, however, when he saw the culprit of this illumination. It was the moon, who had chosen her time to throw the blanket of clouds away right at that moment.

"Just wave and smile," he heard Maverick say and he quickly turned around again, feeling like an absolute moron (and absolutely terrified) by waving sheepishly. From the corners of his eyes he saw Maverick making some signals (he knew what they meant, but his mind was frozen from fear so he couldn't really manage to interpreter them right now) and the pilots in front of them replied with other signs (these ones he actually didn't know). When he had asked Mav, and got a negative on what the other pilots were saying (twice), Rooster's heart began to beat even louder, echoing in his ears on top of the already loud rushing of his blood. This was not good. It became even more not good when he saw the furthest plane shift his position to behind them.

"Shit, his wingman is moving into weapon's envelope," Mav said worriedly after he had turned around to follow said plane with his eyes. Maverick and Rooster locked eyes and Rooster startled when he saw the white edges around Maverick's frantically wide ones. He may have sounded the part, but he for sure was not actually calm right now. Maverick closed his eyes once and swallowed, before turning around again.

"Okay, listen up. When I tell you, you grab those rings above your head. That's the ejection handle." Rooster's eyes widened too. No. They couldn't eject. Even if Maverick would survive the ejection (for which, considering he had a shot open backside, the chances were really slim), they would have absolutely no way of coming home after that.

"No, no, Mav, you won't survive that! Can't we outrun these guys?" he hurriedly asked, the words tumbling out of his mouth and laying as a thick blanket on top of the air between them. Off course they couldn't outrun them and their missiles. And an F-14 against fifth-gen fighters in a dogfight? Not a chance. Maverick turned around again and Rooster saw in his eyes that he thought the same. Rooster couldn't let this end this way, however, so he shoved his doubt really far away (a place his regrets had made very cozy over the last twenty or so years) and put his chin up.

"It's not the plane, it's the pilot," he said and he tried to pour out all his faith in and love for the man in front of him in that single sentence.

"You'd go after them if I wasn't here."

"But you are here," Maverick said with an audible lump in his throat.

"I am. But Mav, Ice promised to get back to us, remember? We gotta be there when he does," Bradley tried another tactic.

"Both of us," he softly added and that seemed to do the trick, as he saw Maverick take a laboured breath and square his shoulders. Before Rooster could be warned, Maverick threw the plane to the side (which made Rooster happy he had strapped himself really tight into his harness) and fired away towards one of the enemy planes. Miraculously, that seemed to do a lot of damage, as the plane immediately made a nose dive towards the ground below, his tail end on fire. Rooster, who had his eyes squarely on the undamaged plane, saw that the other plane smoothly (briefly Rooster wondered how that sleek aircraft would feel to fly) dove into their pursuit.

"Tell me when you see smoke in the air!" Maverick yelled, his voice focused and strong.

"How do you want me to do-smoke in the air, smoke in the air!" Rooster yelled back when he saw the moonlight reflect off the white smoke of a missile coming at them.

"Hang on!" Maverick grunted as he made a sharp turn towards the still falling other plane. Rooster closed his eyes for a brief second when he thought they were going to crash into the falling plane (wondering which way to die would be the less painful one), but he should have had trusted his faith in Maverick, since he felt that the other plane (just inches above them) exploded into a great ball of fire. He opened his eyes again as he felt the shockwave of the explosion shudder through their aircraft. Luckily, all her nuts and bolts were screwed tight and the old lady survived even this violent attack on her existence.

Much time to celebrate this minor victory was not set out for them, however, since Rooster already saw another missile racing towards them.

"Here comes another one!" he yelled and he immediately got pushed back into his seat (his arms stretched out awkwardly) as Mav started a sharp climb.

"Rooster, flares, now now now!" Maverick grunted and Rooster pushed the little button to release their countermeasures. Rooster heard (and felt again) the missile being exterminated by their flares and he breathed a short sigh of relief.

"Splitting the throttles!" Rooster heard Maverick say (sorry, what? That was a starting-only manoeuvre?) and he braced himself for whatever may come. That whatever turned out to be an insanely fast turnaround followed by a quick inverted dive. When they levelled the plane, Rooster saw the black plane appearing in front of them instead of behind. While Rooster was still wrecking his head around the manoeuvre they just did, Maverick was begging for tone. They eventually got tone and Maverick fired one of their missiles immediately.

Rooster followed the missile as good as he could (even though he had cursed the moon earlier, she sure came into clutch now) and he almost already cheered when it seemed to be going straight into the back of the other plane. The darkness played tricks with his eyes however, since the missile hadn't actually been that close to the other aircraft, who at that moment just stopped. It angled upright and to the side and rolled away like a wheel that fell of a soap box, causing the missile to miss the plane and fly off into oblivion.

"What the.." he heard Mav say and he blinked furiously with his eyes himself.

"Holy shit, what the fuck was that?" he exclaimed, his voice high from adrenaline. He turned around to see it he could spot the plane again, but it was gone. A sinking feeling came upon him. As good as the dogfight had begun, they were in for a much, much tougher end to it than even Rooster had expected.