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The B-7A Silhouette is a prototype stealth fighter which was built by Entertech Ltd.

History[]

Ice Station[]

In the bid to build a stealth fighter during the 1970's, Entertech Ltd proposed building a plane that could become completely invisible, only to lose the bid. However, the Joint Chiefs of Staff member Otto Niemeyer was intrigued by their proposal, and struck a deal with Entertech to build the plane in secret. 

Niemeyer arranged for the construction of a secret ice station in Antarctica, and during 1978 Entertech engineers began working on building their fighter, which they decided to name the B-7A Silhouette. Eventually, towards the end of 1979 they finished the working prototype, and Nieymeyer agreed to come and see close to the New Year.

However, an earthquake struck on the 20th of December, and the ice station collapsed into a fissure of ice with many of the Entertech employees being killed. When the quake was over, the Silhouette remained intact, yet it and every surviving engineer were trapped several feet below the surface. The survivors hoped that Niemyer would be able to get them rescued when he came for his scheduled inspection of the Silhouette, unaware that his plane had crashed en-route. Three months after the earthquake, only one engineer, Simon Wayne Daniels remained, and he left his journal detailing the plane's construction up until after the quake in the hopes that someone might one day find it and understand what had happened.

Over the next 20 years, the Silhouette remained in the cavern untouched, and the passively leaching radiation from its plutonium core began mutating a group of elephant seals that had settled in the cavern. Back on the surface, in 1991 a new research station named Wilkes was unknowingly built over the site of the station where the Silhouette was constructed.

In June 1999, the geophysicist James Renshaw was conducting ice core research when his drill struck the Silhouette. Surprised that a source of metal was in a 300 million year-old section of ice, a team was prepared to investigate when they discovered the existence of the cavern, though Renshaw had been accused of murdering his supervisor and locked himself in his room.

Two divers were sent down into the cavern, but were attacked by the seals, prompting a second, larger team to go after them. When Ben Austin and his team arrived in the cavern, he began reporting what he could see, but upon seeing the Silhouette, was shocked. In his report to the other scientists at Wilkes, Austin claimed that he was looking at what he assumed was an alien spaceship. Before further investigation could be made, Austin and his team were brutally killed by the seals.

Wilkes sent out a distress call for help, and Abby Sinclair mentioned the apparent spaceship in her message, however they received no response due to a solar flare that was disrupting communications. As it happened, the Americans, the French and the British each picked up the distress call, and all were eager to claim the Silhouette first, and prepared their military forces to obtain it and any other potential alien technology for themselves.

The French paratroopers and U.S. Marines fought inside Wilkes for control of the station, with Shane Schofield's Marines managing to win the battle. As he prepared to send Gant, Montana and Santa Cruz down to the cavern, Sarah Hensleigh convinced him to let her go too, noting that if it were not an alien ship then it might be proof of a super-ancient race of beings on Earth.

When the team emerged in the cavern, Gant opted to secure it as they'd been instructed, however the others, particularly Hensleigh, wanted to attempt to open the Silhouette up. They soon uncovered a keypad with human numerals, proving that the ship was neither alien nor ancient-being made. While Hensleigh began attempting to figure out the code to open the Silhouette, Gant soon found a fissure leading into the remains of the old ice station, uncovering several documents on the plane.

Meanwhile up at Wilkes, Schofield's team faced several taxing confrontations for control of the Silhouette with the British SAS led by Trevor Barnaby, and operatives from the Intelligence Convergence Group. Though he managed to defeat the former single-handedly, Schofield and the remaining people in Wilkes were forced to dive down to the cave when the ICG sent a SEAL squad to eliminate them all.

Schofield, learning of an incoming nuclear missile set to destroy Wilkes, hoped to use the Silhouette to escape, however with Santa Cruz, Montana and Hensleigh all dead (the latter two having being ICG agents) and Gant injured, no one had managed to figure out the entry code. Luckily, Kirsty Hensleigh recognised the clue to the entry code being part of a Fibonnaci sequence, and was soon able to figure out the rest so that that could open the Silhouette. Schofield found the plane's controls similar enough to Harriers he had once piloted, and soon managed to fly the survivors out of Wilkes right before the ice shelf was hit by the nuke.

As Schofield attempted to contact the USS Wasp to request a landing, he looked through the documents on the Silhouette and discovered its cloaking capabilities. He was soon contacted by a squadron of F-22 Raptors who demanded he land on the USS Enterprise, however Schofield realised that they were under the ICG's control. Schofield activated the cloaking device and used the Silhouette's weapons to engage the F-22's, which were outmatched by the invisible plane and quickly destroyed.

As he made his way to the Wasp, Schofield reflected on how many people had died for the Silhouette, and how dangerous it would be in the ICG's hands. With that, he decided to launch the Silhouette's last remaining missile and timed it to strike on the deck of the Wasp after he landed. A few minutes after landing and disembarking from the prototype fighter, the missile struck the Silhouette, destroying it and a few ICG men who were about to examine it.

Attributes[]

Stealth Cloaking Device[]

The B-7A Silhouette is capable of generating an electromagnetic field that distorts the air around the aircraft, refracting light and making the plane invisible to both the naked eye and to radar. This cloaking device is powered by a plutonium core, the only thing which could power the device while the plane was still being powered by its primary fuel source. Schofield uses this to take down a squadron of F-22 Raptors with ease. 

Weaponry[]

The Silhouette, like all fighter planes, is armed with tracer bullets. In addition, it also has a standard missile bay which is capable of holding up to six missiles. Since it was only a prototype, the Silhouette was presumably only armed for a single demonstration to show off its full capabilities to Niemeyer when he came to inspect it. 

Trivia[]

  • The Silhouette may have been named for the slight shimmering that surrounds its outline when cloaked, which John Yates was barely able to perceive during the dogfight with the F-22s.
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