PROLOGUE

The Erusean’s hands trembled as he soldered some wires into place, careful not to make the slightest mistake. Dressed in off-the-shelf camouflage and a balaclava, he hunched over a briefcase overflowing with a muddled cluster of electronics.

Two more men, dressed similarly, stood by a doorway. One, holding a MAC-10, looked bored as he stared into space.

“Haugan,” he began, “…I‘m really not sure about this.”

His counterpart paused. “Way to hide your apprehension ‘till the last minute, Eriksen.”

“I mean, is this really going to make things better for us?”

“Shut it, you two,” the leader yelled at the guards.

“We’re here to make some oppressors glow in the dark, not to debate. You seemed pretty gung-ho about it yesterday.”

“I just was thinking, isn’t this going to make it worse?”

“Just keep quiet!” the man with the briefcase interrupted, “God! Do you idiots want to be caught?”

The guard shifted his glance away from the doorway and continued in a quieter tone, “Can it get any worse? We don’t even have goddamned sovereignty anymore with that ISAF puppet regime in power.”

“Goddammit, will both of you just shut the hell up and keep that door guarded!” the man working on the briefcase exclaimed. He closed its top and breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Done.”

“Flash and clear!”

“What th -”

A cylinder rolled into the room and exploded into a blinding flash of light as four soldiers slammed the door opened and entered the room. A flurry of spent cartridges let out shrill chimes as they bounced off the concrete floor, the only sound present after the initial bang. Before they could recover, the Eruseans laid dead on the floor. The special forces team leader walked towards the briefcase, seemingly unfazed by what had just transpired.

“Able five-six,” he said, opening the piece of luggage and peering at the crude bundle of electronics inside, “Sabre team has secured the package; building is clear.”

“Copy, Sabre; NEST team Able five-three is on station, ETA five minutes; Able five-two is inbound to hold down the area; hold position until their arrival.”

“Jesus,” one of his subordinates said, studying the wiring, “they finished the damned thing, too.”

“Alright, let’s get going,” the team leader announced, walking out the door as Port Edwards Police Department officers entered the room. “Enough heroics for today, eh?”

“We'll take over from here.” Two men in plain tan fatigues with no identifying insignias stopped them.

“Uh... how did you get past security?” a police officer asked.

“Forsvarets Spesialstrykors,” he said, taking out an ID card and badge, “ISAF and the provisional government want us in charge of this investigation. We'll take that evidence.” He gestured towards the briefcase.

“Ugh, ISAF bureaucrats,” the spec ops operator apprehensively moaned before handing the briefcase to the man.

“Thank you, we'll take care of this promptly” he replied, leaving as abruptly as he had entered.



A small bulb dangling from the ceiling illuminated the concrete walls of a bunker. Buried deep under Farbanti, five men bickered around a table. An officer passed a stack of papers to one of them men, who was visibly in shock as he glanced over it.

“Christ,” the Prime Minister murmured, “a dirty bomb? We’re talking about some ultra-nationalists pukes.” The old, portly man threw a cigarette into a nearby ashtray, his bald forehead dripping with sweat, “For the love of God, how did you allow this to happen?”

An older military officer wearing an Air Force uniform spoke in reply, “We can’t underestimate Free Erusea, sir; half of our military is sympathetic to them.”

“Then we can't entrust this job to Eruseans,” an Admiral said.

The Prime Minister’s shaking hand rose with a lighter, illuminating the new cigarette dangling from his lips. An Army officer at his side glared at him.

“Sir, you’re going to quit, remember? Part of that whole image problem we’re having?”

He groaned. “Not now, Selgelid.”

A third man in a Central Usean uniform spoke up. “If it comes down to it, I can get ISAF involved again; Mobius certainly did a hell of a job in Katina.”

“No!” the Prime Minister yelled, his cigarette falling onto the desk. “That’s precisely why we’re still dealing with this… the population knows this government is nothing but a sham.” He pointed his finger at the third officer, “a marionette with you bastards pulling the strings!”

“Calm down, sir,” the Air Force officer responded. “But he's right; having ISAF marching down the streets of Farbanti is only going to make things worse.”

“It’s not like they've left us much of a choice,” Selgelid mumbled, only to be met with a dirty look from the PM. “Well, I mean, we have to acknowledge that the insurgency has gained support since Katina; I’m sure seeing ISAF over our skies again has contributed.”

Erusean Prime Minister Jørgen Møllen rubbed his forehead again. “Do we even know where they got the material for this?”

“We’ve traced it back to a decommissioned reactor in Zakat; probably wasn’t any Yuke involvement, though; their decom process is just a disorganized mess,” the foreign officer answered.

“That tells us nothing… hell, there probably was some involvement from my army. So, what are we going to do about this?”

“Well we can’t send in the military; for all we know the majority of them support the nationalists,” Reidar Selgelid, the Army Chief of Staff said, shaking his head.

“Wait,” the first officer interjected, “what about the Foreign Legion?”

“No foreigners, Long,” Møllen cut in, sounding more subdued than before.

“You know that we can’t leave defense up to our military until the insurgency is gone. I know it's been brought up before, but Port Edwards almost getting nuked changes everything.”

“There's no way in hell I'm letting foreigner bastards into my army, Long.” Selgelid retorted. His eyes drifted to the Central Usean officer. “Uh, no offense, Pearce.”

Glen spoke apprehensively, “Um, I'm not too sure about this for the Navy, either. We'll... have to decline for now.” Selgelid subtly nodded in his direction.

“Okay, fine. ISAF and the FSS are stable assets on the ground, but we’ve had reliability problems with my native pilots. Some air support that’s actually willing to bomb its targets would work in our favor.”

“Fine, Erik, go right ahead. But I want those terrorists taken care of as quickly as possible. And make sure this is kept under wraps.”

“W-wait just a minute sir,” Selgelid said. “Foreign intervention is the problem here, not the solution. What do you think is causing all these kids to defect? Us or the ISAF stooges goose-stepping through the country.” He turned to the Central Usean General. “...again, no offense, Pearce.”

“Enough, Selgelid,” the Prime Minister spoke, “I don't see you presenting any alternatives.”

“...anyway, I guess I'll get the recruitment process started… can't be too open about it, though,” Ryan Pearce, the FCUAF officer, said. “Plus… where do you even plan to station these guys?”

“Well,” Colonel Erik Long replied, taking out a laptop, “you don't have anything else in mind for Megalith, do you?”

Møllen’s forehead dropped onto his palm. “Your Air Force isn’t hemorrhaging enough funds as it is, huh?”

“You do want to keep them out of the public’s eye, right?”

He grumbled.

“I’ll take that as a yes. It’s all ISAF’s money until they cut and run anyway.” Long turned to his Naval counterpart. “Glen, your battlegroup is already in the Atlantic; think we can get some exercises going once we’re up and running?”

“I’m sure the CAG will bitch and moan about putting even more stress on his old Tomcat, but we should be able to help,” the Navy Chief of Staff, Glen Schattenmann, replied.

“Alright; so, I’ll be reactivating the Sixth Air Force as the Air Force Foreign Legion; any objections?”

“Not until you screw it up, Long,” Møllen muttered. He removed another cigarette from his pocket; Selgelid aggressively pulled the carton away.

“Last one before we go outside, sir.”

The Prime Minister made less of an attempt to recover his cigarettes than to express his frustration with Selgelid. He stayed behind for a moment as the military men filed out of the room. A few seconds free from the watchful eye of Reidar Selgelid manufacturing his image to the public. They’d never support ISAF’s hand-picked head of state, he thought, so what difference does some drinking and smoking make? Lost in Selgelid’s obsession with PR was the fact that Møllen was inevitably a collaborator, perceived as selling out the country ever since ISAF came in. All he could do to prove his government’s legitimacy to the people now was to get the occupation forces out, and at that point, it all came down to demonstrating self-reliance by putting down the ultranationalists, something only Erusea’s own military, and maybe Long's people, could do. ...while drowning out his own qualms with more booze and tobacco.

But that was just his opinion. He hoped he was wrong.

CHAPTER 1
------First Contact

The FES Fafnir drifted through the Bay of Farbanti, having departed the city’s port for a destination to the west. The ship, a Jötunn class frigate, was approaching the Twinkle Island chain.

A young man in a flight suit leaned against the ship’s side rail, watching Farbanti disappear on the horizon. Mike Durao was a small child when he decided he wanted to join the OADF. He was eighteen when his family told him that he’d hate military life – but to hell with them, he thought – he’d live out his own dream. He was twenty-two when he realized that they were right. Overwhelmed with the Air Defense Force’s bureaucracy, he planned to get out as soon as his commission had expired, despite having his dream job of being an F-15E pilot.

…but the Air Defense Force had other things in mind. With the end of the Continental War, President Harling promised humanitarian relief to Erusea, and Mike found himself transferred to a cargo squadron ferrying food across the Atlantic. He had heard through some Usean pilots about an FEAF officer trying to push through a reactivated Foreign Legion. He managed to come across Continental War-era application forms, which he promptly submitted after resigning his OADF commission, but the response was delayed for a prolonged period of time. Only now, a full two years after the war’s end, did he hear back from the government: apparently they were looking specifically for foreign pilots at this time and requested his presence here.

Mike wasn’t even sure what he was getting himself into, the letter itself was very vague, but it was better than another year or two with no flying, no excitement, no anything – just trying to make a living as an ordinary citizen in Farbanti.

Well, those days were over now, and he could go back to flying – flying without bureaucrats looming over his shoulder. That’s what he hoped for, at least.

Mike turned around at looked at the deck. Scattered about among the Erusean sailors were quite a lot of foreigners – probably the other contractors, he thought. He was particularly surprised to see quite a few Useans in the group, apparently with no qualms about working for the same country that invaded their lands four years ago.

Well, he pondered, maybe this continent finally was changing for the better. Probably not, though. Ulysses had sent it into chaos, even before the impact. He could still remember the news reports of the ’98 coup de’tat back when he was in high school. With the impending planetfall of the asteroid looming over them and increased regulations to keep the public misinformed, and calm, the militaries of several nations around Usea rose up against their governments without a clear direction or objective. Though they didn’t make any meaningful political stance, didn’t prove a point, nor didn’t accomplish anything, it was obvious that the tensions in Usea wouldn’t be resolved any time soon.

Then came Ulysses. Over half a million people killed by an act of God. But the continent pulled through, barely. Erusea in particular was devastated by a direct hit to its capital and most populated city while also receiving no sympathy from a continent that it had angered from some of its actions in the past few decades. Finding itself in poverty and with no allies to turn to, it launched an invasion of the rest of the continent; an invasion that proved to be many times as bloody as Ulysses itself by the time that the Eruseans had capitulated.

He again gazed out to sea; his destination slowly became visible through the haze. It was a miserable sight – a rocky obstruction pushing its way out from the serene ocean. Megalith, or what was left of it, sat atop the island. It was one of many projects intended to shoot down Ulysses; specifically, Megalith was to launch missiles at the asteroid to change its orbit. It was to serve as a rocket testbed for a similar, better-protected facility in the mountains of North Point.

The North Point facility, built as a headquarters for Usean leaders’ continuity-of-government plans when the asteroid hit, was, like everything else in Usea, subject to warfare. The anti-government extremists made their last stand at the installation in 1998, and ultimately it was totally destroyed. Megalith was too exposed to the elements to serve as a full replacement, and progress with Stonehenge led to the project’s abandonment. Something happened to it since then, evident from the ruins of the installation. The brown metal exterior exhibited a charred and shady hue where it wasn’t simply blown away. Large silhouettes of cranes hovered over the facility, dismantling some of the more heavily damaged areas.

“Hey,” a high-pitched voice called out behind him.

“Huh?”

Mike turned around to see a young Comonan woman standing behind him – really young, he thought; she barely looked like she belonged on the frigate.

“Eh, those other guys said I was obnoxious and to go away,” she said, gesturing towards a group of North Point pilots giving her annoyed stares, “mind keeping me company?”

“Meh, sure,” he unenthusiastically muttered, turning back towards the island.

Ignoring the young girl and not caring enough to ask what she was doing aboard the Fafnir, Mike looked at the installation again. He deduced that this was probably what the recruitment material referred to as “Bronze Gate,” the new foreign legion’s base, given its refurbishment in progress. Conspiracy theorists said that the facility was taken over by Erusean extremists immediately after the surrender, causing the planetfall of several Ulysses fragments into the Spring Sea. Apparently ISAF destroyed the installation. He wasn’t sure what to believe, but that would explain its state at the time.

“And you are?” the young pilot asked.

Mike didn’t shift his gaze from the island, thoroughly uninterested in speaking with her. “Mike Durao; former Osean Globemaster pilot. Hated my job, now I’m here,” he stated in a quick, uninterested manner.

“…oh,” she said, quickly becoming as bored as he was. “So… what are you doing here?”

“Meh, they said that I can fly an F-15. That was convincing enough.” Confident that he wouldn’t be able to avoid her forever, he continued, “Well, a better question is what are you doing here? You look like you shouldn’t even be out of high school yet.”

“Oh, well… I’m Katrina Sandico, I grew up in Comona… I always had a bit of an interest in aviation, but really I just wanted to lend a hand to the Erusean people.”

Oh Christ, here we go, Mike thought. He tuned her out for several minutes as she went on a monologue, acknowledging her only with the occasional nod as he admired the Fafnir’s 100mm main gun. All he could hear was a long rant about how she could “help people.” All he could do was chuckle while trying to hide his amusement. Absurdity reigned supreme on this continent; two deadly wars, with what could have been an extinction-level-event in between. News reports alone had left him with the notion that nothing could be done for Usea. Maybe rival ethnic collectivism, growing ever stronger in response to the FCU’s encroaching melting pot, made conflict inevitable; maybe luck just wasn’t on its side. Whatever the case, war seemed to be an inevitable part of life in Usea.

As it seemed that her speech entailing her whole life story was coming to a close, he spoke again. “So, you can’t have any military experience at your age; you’re coming here as a pilot?”

“Well,” she responded, “I have my private pilot license.”

Mike sighed, wondering if all of the foreign legion’s recruits would be of this high caliber. “…great…” he mumbled. “Do you know what unit you’ll be with?”

“Uh… ‘Adlers’ or something?”

With a hopeless look on his face, Mike rubbed his forehead as his concern about the foreign legion grew. “That’s just outstanding.”



“So, where are we going?” Mike asked his new flight lead, leading him through the cavernous passages of Megalith.

“Hangar three, Ninth Fighter Wing’s storage area; we’ll be showing you your plane,” Robban Raneses replied. He wore an FEAF captain’s insignia on his uniform. Each squadron within the foreign legion was assigned one native Erusean to command it, with Raneses apparently being the one chosen for the 9th Fighter Wing’s 2d Fighter Squadron.

Durao noted Raneses’ features, he didn’t exactly appear as the typical Erusean. “So…” he inquired, knowing that he’d have to pass the time as they navigated though this labyrinth, “Raneses? That sounds Southeast Usean.”

“Yeah, it is; my family came here from Comona in the ‘70s. The country was just going down the shitter with all of its insurgencies gaining ground… of course, Erusea didn’t turn out to be much better thanks to Ulysses.”

“Yeah…” Mike muttered.

“Oh,” Rob abruptly added, “before I forget, we'll be sortieing with twenty-mil today.”

“Er... wait, what? Live?”

“Yep!”

“That sounds... moderately unsafe.”

“Eh, the Colonel's a bit paranoid, he‘s been screwed over a lot; wants us to be 'always ready' or something.” He appeared apprehensive for a moment, before putting on a less bothered facade. “Just keep the safety on and you‘ll be fine.”

“...and hope everyone else does the same, I guess.”

“Heh, that's the spirit! Anyway, here we are.”

Raneses opened a door to reveal gigantic room, easily several hundred feet tall and as wide as an aircraft carrier. “Well, here we are.” One side was heavily scorched with a circular opening on the ceiling being covered up, scars from its past as one of Megalith’s missile silos. Opposite of that an opening about the size of a C-17 led to a runway stretching out to the coastline. Aircraft littered the apron in a haphazard manner. Four MiG-29s sat unattended in a corner. Enlistedmen stood over a group of Su-35s wearing standard FEAF three-tone gray schemes, replacing their old base markings with large “BG”s on their tails. Next to the Flankers, aircrews examined A-10s in Usea One woodland camouflage.

“F-15S/MTD,” Raneses said as he pointed towards his squadron's aircraft, “bit of an improvement from your old Strike Eagle, eh?”

The F-15s were positioned in a line of four airframes. The first thing that stood out was their color – of the four aircraft, one was green, the others blue, red, and yellow. Aside from these highlights – marking the wingtips, elevators, and stabilizers – the planes wore standard F-15C Grey Ghost low visibility schemes.

“Jeez, what the hell is with those schemes?” Mike asked.

“Eh, they’re just old aggressor craft; stripped down a bit and given… some pretty flashy paint jobs mimicking ISAF Eagles.”

Mike’s expression became more confused. “Yeah… well, why are active duty units being given aggressors?”

Raneses smirked. “We’re a foreign legion, do you really expect to be getting anything but left over equipment? Keep in mind how many fighters we lost in the war.

“Outstanding,” he mumbled, “God forbid they spend a few Zollars on paint. So which of these fruity things will I be assigned to?”

“Serial number 04-0082 – that nice little green one.”

As he walked to his airframe, he saw Sandico inspecting the red aircraft and an unfamiliar man in a G-suit walking around the blue one. Mike studied the details of his plane. The only thing that disgusted him more than its bright lime hue was the evident structural damage throughout the airframe – trails of rust forming behind numerous rivets, pools of hydraulic fluid and fuel underneath the jet growing larger by the minute, and God knows what kinds of residue caked onto most of the fuselage.

The structural integrity of the airframe was questionable; it appeared to have been modified back into an active duty fighter as hastily and cheaply as possible. The initial modifications to S/MTD standard looked poor enough; the canard actuators were housed in what were clearly makeshift nacelles and the rear fuselage wasn’t reshapen to house the thrust vectoring nozzles. Even worse were the modifications to return the plane to combat. The M61’s barrel wasn’t even housed in anything; it simply protruded from the starboard canard’s mounting. The fuselage missile hardpoints were crudely attached into areas they didn’t even fit on; Mike was pleasantly surprised to see that they seemed to be fitted with the right avionics.

Well, at least it could fly, Mike thought. Hopefully it could fly.

“Christ almighty!” the blue plane’s pilot exclaimed as he yanked his aircraft’s pitot tube off. “Great equipment we got, eh Raneses? I swear, if the brochures said I’d be flying this piece of crap I’d still be having a lovely time getting carpal tunnel syndrome with the FCU Chairforce.” He shot a glare at Durao. “And what the hell is this guy doing here?”

“Uh, hey; Mike Durao, ex-OADF,” he said, offering a handshake to the disgruntled aviator. “I'm in your squadron, apparently.”

“Ross Bailey,” he replied without visually acknowledging Durao, “FCUAF with a grand total of zero combat sorties.”

Mike looked puzzled. How could someone serving during the Continental War with its major player see no action whatsoever? “Uh…” he began, “how did that happen?”

“Oh, I sortied plenty of times,” Bailey explained as he tested an aileron’s freedom of movement, “but on every mission I had a radio failure and had to RTB; we were so short on planes and spare parts that the higher-ups wouldn’t give me another airframe or even a new radio.” The aileron came to a sudden stop and he tried to tilt it upwards. “Ugh,” he muttered, “it’s like dealing with ISAF all over again.”

Mike turned to Raneses, showing the CO fear in his expression.

“…okay, so maybe it's not an improvement.”

“You got problem with Eagle?” a deeply accented Belkan voice asked from behind.

“Hu-what?” He turned around to see a large maintainer towering over him.

“I take care of plane like I entrust own life to it.”

Mike noticed “Gunther Beiber” scrawled on the Eagles’ landing gear doors. It sounded Belkan enough; that must be the crew chief, he deduced.

“Yeah, it’s got your name on it, but I’m making it my bitch,” Ross mumbled, smirking. He promptly found Gunther’s hands wrapped around his throat.

“You bring it back anything but Code One or I gut you like Christmas Goose.”

“Y-yes, sir,” Ross managed before the crew chief dropped him to the ground.

Mike cautiously walked away from the chief. He noticed Raneses and Sandico talking in a corner of the hangar. They appeared close. …strangely close. Comonans must stick together overseas, he thought. Rob noticed Durao and walked to him. “…you guys friends or something?”

“Heh, she’s been with us longer than you,” Rob replied, “she needed basic pilot training upon enlistment. I was the instructor; we were training over at Spitsbraten Airbase for the last two months.” He raised an eyebrow. “You insinuating something?”

“What? No, that’s not what I- never mind.” He turned his attention towards his Eagle, being loaded up with PGU-28 rounds. “…but really? Live ammo?”



An older pilot sat behind an F-14A on the Freyja’s flight deck, staring incessantly at the nozzles of his aircraft. He was clad in a flight jacket with a myriad of Erusean Navy markings – various squadrons, a Captain’s insignia, and the patches of his current unit, Fighter Squadron Twenty Three of Carrier Air Wing Five – but he was clearly not an ethnic Erusean, but an Osean. The man was Barry Wood, CAG of CVW-5, and his expression was one of absolute abhorrence as his eyes stayed fixated on the rear of his plane. Back in Osea he could be flying a fully updated F-14D Super Tomcat; even Belka and Ustio had been using them for the past twelve years. But no, of all the countries to immigrate to he just had to come to this little hellhole with its underfunded, defeated armed forces. As he continued to glare with unbridled revulsion towards the Tomcat, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Still angry about that bird, eh Viper?” the squadron CO and his backseater, Anton Faulk, asked.

“Hate. Absolute hatred,” Wood muttered.

“Heh,” he chuckled, “well, you’ve got God providing everything you need; you’ll survive without a newer plane.”

“If Jesus loved me he’d give me F110s,” Barry answered.

“Well,” Faulk said while gesturing towards one of VFA-25’s F/A-18Cs, “at least you’re not flying one of those things.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Wood irritably retorted as he fastened his HGU-33. “So, are we sortieing or what?”

“Launching in five,” Faulk replied, following his pilot. “So,” he asked, “how do you think those foreign kids are gonna fly?”

“Pfft, I heard they’re a bunch of nuggets. Besides, the rest are old ISAF guys, and we definitely know just how ‘good’ they are.”

Faulk laughed, “don’t get too ahead of yourself; we only came across… what, three of them? And we only shot one down!”

Barry grumbled. “Don’t remind me.” He was still a bit aggravated that the Frejya stayed totally out of the Continental War. He has hoped to see more action in Erusea; at this rate he could have flown more if he joined the OMDF in the ‘80s and fought in the Belkan War. Granted, her sister ship Geofon was right in the middle of the action in Comberth and received a Mark 84 to her magazine – maybe that boring assignment could have been worse.

Wood stepped off of the ladder and seated himself on the GRU-7 ejector seat. He felt a bit calmer as he looked over the instrument panel. Sure, he was sitting on top of a cluster of rockets in a cockpit more cramped than a coffin, getting ready to propel himself and a pressurized aluminum tube from zero to one hundred and fifty knots in a little over a second – but that’s what he signed up to do. That’s what he loved to do. No, that’s what he lived for.

The F-14 was now sitting at the base of the catapult with a heat shield rising behind it and smoke billowing out of the slit in front of it. Other Tomcats pulled up beside it on the other three catapults as Wood saw the yellow silhouette of the shooter outlined against the smoke give him the signal to launch. Afterburners roaring behind him, his face exhibited a slight smirk as he pulled back on the control stick; all angst, anxieties, and concerns disappeared in an instant. And immediately after that, the launch bar jerked the craft out of its stillness and thrust it into flight once again.



A dense cloud of aircraft filled the airspace around Bronze Gate, appearing on First Sergeant Chris Liberatore’s radar display as a large green mass. Just south of them another large formation of aircraft was flying in the opposite direction; F/A-18Cs and F-14As moving north to engage the Foreign Legion’s Bronze Gate units. Something else had caught the FCU enlistedman’s attention, though: a flight of MiG-21s out of mainland Erusea were off of their flightplan and quickly approaching the mock engagement.

Chris sighed, repeating the same message to the flight that he had several times before. “Blue four-one, Blue four-two, AWACS Overwatch; I say again, you are off of your intended course; correct heading to one-four-zero and RTB to Baldonnel.”

Again, there was no reply. He leaned back in his seat, the green glow from the radar screen illuminating his frown; the MiGs were totally unresponsive, but there was nothing he could do if they wouldn’t heed his warnings. Surely, though, they’d see the furball up ahead and know they were in the wrong place. He keyed on his mic.

“Overwatch to Adler, Raven, and Dragon flights, bandits confirmed bearing one-eight zero, two-zero miles, angels one-zero, proceed on course to intercept,” he directed. “Be advised, military traffic is incoming from bearing zero-eight-zero, angels five, speed three hundred. Two Fishbeds, suspect radio failure.”

“Roger that,” Raneses reported, “Adler flight proceeding on one-eight-zero.”

“Dragon flight, one-eight-zero.”

“Raven flight inbound, one-eight-zero.”

“Adlers, we’ll let the Yuke shit handle the bugs,” Raneses ordered his flight, “I want all of you to take those Tomcats, understood?”

“Adler four, you’re with me; I’ll bait the bandits, you get the kills,” Bailey said.

“Roger, three,” Sandico replied. She glared at her instrument panel, pausing as she put her oxygen mask on. She was struggling enough just with keeping the large Eagle airborne, she wasn’t at all ready for a dogfight. “Dammit,” she muttered, knowing it was too late to disengage.

“Adlers, bandits at ten miles; climb to angels ten and dive on them,” Raneses reported.

“Copy, angels ten,” Bailey responded.

Mike looked below the flight to see a grouping of several dozen naval fighters aligned in V formations. “Adler two has visual, tally Tomcat group, eleven o’ clock low; permission to engage?”

“Adler flight cleared; Mike, I’ll take the lead, let’s get the CAG.”

Led by his wingman, Durao rolled his F-15 into an inverted position and pulled up, directing his aircraft towards the cloud of aluminum below. Stressing the airframe with over eight G’s, Mike was violently buried into his seat. Blood began rushing from his head as his eyesight turned gray and breathing became more difficult. He centered the stick and in an instant everything returned to normal. His oxygen mask concealed a slight smile even as he struggled to catch his breath.

The Eagles shot directly through the formation of F-14s in excess of 500 knots and pulled up; Raneses in front of the Navy’s commander and Durao behind. Durao observed the Tomcat’s modex, 100, as his plane slid into position at the rear of it.

“This is the CAG, alright,” he told he told the flight lead. The Tomcat swayed left and right but was glued behind Raneses.

“He’s all over me, Mike; get him quick,” Raneses ordered with RWR warnings chirping in the background.

Mike maneuvered to align his gun pipper with the big naval jet. “I’m working on it,” he said. Just as the HUD’s gunsight moved itself over the Tomcat, the pilot locked onto Raneses. “Adler one is down; egress to three-six-zero,” the AWACS commanded.

Raneses sighed over the radio. “Sorry… sir,” Mike muttered as the Eagle disengaged. Distracted with his wingman’s simulated shootdown, he hadn’t noticed that the target was pulling up into an Immelman. Unable to keep up with a Tomcat at slow speeds, Mike rolled his Eagle into another split-S to maintain his inertia. When he completed the maneuver and was facing upward he was surprised to see the F-14 stiff-arming him vertically. “Holy hell!” he yelled, instinctively leaning to the side of the cockpit opposite of the Tomcat. With both a good maneuvering speed and gravity on his side, as well as the rest of the Tomcats being distracted by the Dragon and Raven flight Sukhois and Mikoyans merging into the engagement, he pulled the craft into another dive, almost directly behind the F-14. The dive caused the Tomcat to gain speed and its wings folded in to compensate for the faster airflow. The ‘Cat wasn’t designed for tight dogfighting in this configuration, giving the Eagle the upper hand. The Tomcat pilot disengaged his autosweep and raised his airbrakes, but was already traveling in a relatively straight path. A gun pipper appeared on Mike’s HUD which he proceeded to line up with the F-14.

Though tuning everything else out from the rush of the fight, Mike was able to make out the next transmission: “Ghost one hundred is splashed, egress to one-eight-zero.” Disregarding the dozens of Tomcats that he knew must be somewhere behind him, he slid back into his ACES II for a moment, until realizing that he was 1000 feet above the ocean and dropping rapidly. He snapped to attention and leveled the plane a few hundred feet above the water.



“Ghost one hundred is splashed, egress to one-eight-zero.”

“Nice going, volleyball player!” an ecstatic Hornet pilot called out.

“Who the hell was it that shot me?” Wood yelled over the Navy’s channel; disappointed and angered that he’d be going home so soon he seemed to ignore the fact that he was disrupting important communications. “Find who was responsible for that shot!”

“Ghost one-oh-two here; I think I saw the serial number zero-eight-two, Eagle with green highlights. That’s all I know, though.”

Barry sneered as he looked longingly towards the engagement. “Next time, chairforce,” he mumbled.



The sergeant continued to stare at the MiGs on his display. He had just called them a fifth time, again to no avail. If they had known their radars were out they would be dropping chaff to indicate the failure; perhaps they hadn’t known about the failure? They were now ten miles from the mock dogfight.



“Oh God, oh God, OH GOD!” Sandico screamed as the roar of an F/A-18’s F404s whizzed past her cockpit. She couldn’t even find Bailey anymore; on the bright side, she had yet to crash into anything or be locked onto.

“Adler four, where in God’s name are you?”

Katrina glanced around, seeing nothing but a sky full of planes above and an ocean below. “I… uh… I’m not too sure of that myself, Adler three.”

Bailey let out a displeased grunt. “Alright, four,” he began, knowing he wouldn’t be able to form up with her, “if you see a Tomcat, lock onto it, got that?”

“Eh… yeah… yessir.” Katrina looked at the sky again, filled with a multitude of aircraft. Bailey could handle himself, she thought; she already had enough near misses today, no need to take more chances.

Before she could begin maneuvering, a MiG-21 raced past her canopy. “Eh…” she thought out loud, letting the rest of the Adlers hear her, “we don’t operate Fishbeds, do we?”

“What?” Durao inquired. Suddenly another of the old fighters shot past her. They wore clearly visible FEAF roundels.

“I dunno,” she replied, “I just saw some MiGs merge into the fight.”

A puff of smoke appeared under the lead MiG’s wing and snaked its way towards a Flanker.

“Dragon three, offensive Atoll at seven o’ clock, flare!” a pilot yelled out. The plane ejected fiery trails of burning metal, causing the missile's proximity fuse to detonate at the rear of its target.

The Foreign Legion’s radio channel crackled with an unfamiliar voice: “…foreign occupiers, Erusea will not be subjugated.”

“Overwatch, what the hell is going on?” a Flanker pilot transmitted, “we’re getting engaged here!”

“...are they insurgent sympathizers?” he wondered. Regardless of whether he was right or wrong, the Erusean planes' safety took priority. “All aircraft, rules of engagement are green; splash the Fishbeds!”

Bailey was dismayed, staring at his MFD showing only a captive AIM-9 and data pod. “With what, our twenty mil?”

“Got any better ideas, three?” Mike retorted, banking his F-15 towards the Fishbeds.

“…no,” he muttered, flying towards the lead MiG. “I guess the Colonel does have a reason for this insanity. Alright, I’ll engage the lead Fishbed; two, Adler four is nearby; she can assist with the trailing bandit.”

“Roger, three,” Mike responded. “Four, bandit is at your eleven o’ clock high, get on his tail.”

“Y… yeah, four engaging,” she replied. The MiG was twisting its way through the foreign craft, a tiny plane amongst the much bigger Flankers and Tomcats. She hit her afterburners and set a course to intercept the enemy.

Seemingly out of nowhere an F-14A came racing through the furball. “Ghost one hundred has visual on your bandit, Adler three,” Wood spoke, “keep him busy; we’re engaging.”

“Roger, Ghost one hundred.” Bailey accelerated from behind the MiG and let it set its sights on him. Dropping flares in his path, he tried to ignore his blaring RWR.

“We’re a mile out, Adler three; steady him.”

Bailey stopped maneuvering and drifted into a straight line, his RWR chirping louder with every second.

“Ghost one hundred, guns!”

A torrent of AP rounds sliced into the MiG’s body and immediately ignited its engines.

“Sierra hotel!” Wood yelled as he pulled his Tomcat away from the debris.

The other Fishbed didn’t appear to be maneuvering much; he was simply firing AA-2 missiles and hoping they would lock on in-flight. Katrina’s Eagle easily accelerated to within Vulcan range of the small plane.

As Katrina put pressure on the trigger, a stream of 20mm PGU-28/B rounds fired out of the F-15’s M61A1 straight towards the Fishbed. The semi-AP shells shred through the left wing and found their way to the MiG’s cockpit. Wispy trails of fuel leaked from the wing and caught fire; Sandico felt relieved at the sight of the threatening aircraft vanishing into the clouds below.

And then, as the Fishbed’s engine cut out and the craft glided behind her Eagle, she caught a glimpse of the cockpit.

Most of it was stained a deep crimson hue broken up by white streaks from the bullet holes peppering its sides. Through what wasn’t obscured she saw a helmet. Half of the body that it had been attached to was blown away by one of her 20mm rounds. A pilot’s face was lodged into the HUD; a young pilot no more than two or three years older than her. Tilted down towards the instrument panel, the only movement she could make out was in its eyes as they shifted in her direction in one final glimpse of the world around them.

She froze as their eyes met; isolated from the world around her as he turned his gaze towards his mutilated torso. The pilot violently coughed, splattering more blood onto the visor before his eyes again wandered up towards the victorious F-15, exhibiting an aghast stare before disappearing in the clouds below. She ignored a garbled congratulation from Durao, continuing to gape at the haze that the Fishbed sank into.

“Adler four? Adler four!”

Katrina turned back towards her instrument panel and took a deep breath. After staring into space for a few more seconds, she spoke “yeah, Adler four reporting in,” in a subdued tone.

“You alright, Katrina?” Raneses asked.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.”

“Alright, four; Adler flight, form up on three-six-zero and RTB.”

She sighed. “Roger, Adler four heading three-six-zero.”

RADIO FAILURE?!?!?

sorry, I had to.


This is a really great read. Can't wait to see how the FA emerges.

Yes, that guy=SoU version of me.

This post has been edited by Tempest: Jun 8 2008, 07:23 PM

The radio-failure man in this fic? GENIUS!!!

Yes, this is quiet the dope.

Hmmm, Has your mike been cutting out in AC6 Multiplayer or something?

This is the shit.

Carry on.

No, I just suck that way.

Holy shit more.

Thanks, I know I kick ass. :3

But yeah, this gives you an idea of where I'm taking SoU; it's a realistic look at counterinsurgency (well, becomes more Iraq-ish later), the effects of war on peoples' psyches, and similar personalities entering antagonistic relationships out of circumstance instead of "lol yukbana an belka declare world war 3 n teh uber aces pwn all lololollololololol."

...now, new writers, what am I doing different that makes this fic get praised instead of ridiculed like half of the stuff on ACS?

Maybe because its written better than most of the other stuff here. Either that...or maybe they just don't want to hammer an admin.

>>
<<

...probably the latter.

It's Zaku, my female dog has more balls then him, just its awesome. Wait till you see the later chapters, going to be real good.

I'm going to be very very blunt here, and I mean no disrespects...

But I just feel like I've read this before. I didn't see much in it that really brings anything new, apart from the spot-on professional radio communications. I guess I'm a little biased since I do write other genres outside of air combat (of which are not posted here), but I keep finding more and more rehashes here...

Your writing quality is fine; very well done in that respect. All the mechanics mesh in this. But the scenario feels too...familiar.

This post has been edited by Red_9: Jun 10 2008, 04:52 PM

You really can't make anything that's very original and keep it realistic in terms of conflicts being plausible.

...that's why it'll be focused on Katrina's mind and other character interactions. Fics fail when they try to make an international incident seem interesting, which is impossible without making absurd plotlines. Instead this'll be about the characters as they develop and are shaped by said incident.

I'm guessing that they're done and you've read them?

Plot discussion and planning, etc etc.

I'm pretty sure half the FA knows what's coming lol.

But not Reido.

Nice Zaku, very nice.