Operation Hail Storm

Over the city of Wonsan, North Korea ― on the F-35C Lightning II Jet Aircraft

As Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan approached the target site, he drastically reduced speed in order to have a look at the warehouse below. At his previous speed of a thousand miles per hour, the warehouse would have passed under him so fast, that it would have looked like a firefly.

Up ahead, the blaze from the warehouse was clearly visible.

Nolan made a long slow circle above the target until he was convinced that it had been destroyed in its entirety. And just as he was preparing to throttle up and run for the sea, another explosion erupted down on the ground. The Lieutenant Commander estimated the blast was a good hundred yards away from the warehouse. But it didn’t make sense. Any explosive material that had been in the warehouse would have gone up in the initial blast. As he tried to determine what it might be, cockpit alarms began beeping. He checked his heads-up display and was disturbed to see two bogies in the air and headed in his direction.

“Oh, shit,” he muttered.

But the Lieutenant Commander was ready for a fight. He had been for years. He was flying one of the world’s most sophisticated aircraft and armed to the teeth. There was no doubt in his mind that he could certainly take out two shitty North Korean jets. They were probably those outdated Chengdu J-7s or possibly a Russian MIG or two.

But they were not.

“Oh, shit,” he said again. And this “Oh, shit,” he really meant. On his screen the designator J-20 was clearly marked next to each dot that was closing in rapidly on his position. At first he thought it was a mistake, but their speed was no mistake. They were hauling ass and would intercept him in less than one minute.

Nolan pressed the engine throttle forward to its full extent and the jet screamed and pinned him back into the seat. For a moment he considered turning his radio back on and explaining his precarious situation, and then he thought to himself ― why? He was a lone pilot flying over North Korea on a clandestine mission with two J-20s on his ass. No one was going to help him.

Foster Nolan checked his display again and saw that the J-20s were vectoring to cut him off before he could make it out to sea. It was either fight or flight and he was already in the process of flight. But there was another option that appealed to him as well. Actually, not exactly an option. More like an added bonus.

Up ahead he saw a target. It appeared to be a multi-story structure that was fully lit. The reason the target stuck out so well was because it was the only thing down there that had any lights. And this was a big target. A big bright target. Obviously something very important to the North Koreans. Most probably a military installation of some type.

Nolan flipped a switch and armed the new Joint Air-to-Ground Missile called LOCO. If the North Koreans thought that the old Hellfire missile was nasty, then the LOCO would truly rock their world.

From five miles out, Lieutenant Commander Foster Nolan pointed a laser beam at the brightly lit military complex and yelled, “This is for my brother,” as he pulled the trigger.