"Blue Section, this is Tower. You are all cleared for immediate takeoff. Wait your turn. After takeoff, remain orbiting until all aircraft have assembled."

"This is Blue Leader, acknowledged."

In the cockpit of his Hawker Hunter, Sub Lieutenant Chris Gerry sat on the sweltering tarmac at the Thornhill airbase. It may have been fall, but that meant little when there was nothing but dead air outside and one was on blacktop, in a metal aircraft, more specifically in a darkly colored cockpit, laden down with survival gear. He wiped some sweat from his face, the only part of his head that wasn't covered by the flying helmet. Suddenly, the high-pitched whines of the idling Rolls-Royce engines was punctuated by a roar, and soon enough, Squadron Leader Wightman's fighter went rocketing down the runway.

"Time to go."

Gerry reached down and flipped several switches, and soon enough he began to feel the cure-all of slightly cool air on his sweat-drenched flightsuit. Takeoff was soon, and he wouldn't be wasting too much fuel. The fact they could fly at all was a miracle, and while the logistics brown jobs studied their fuel consumption like they were the BSAP searching a crime scene, they weren't wrong. But then why do they even fly the Viscounts then? he thought to himself.

The Viscount. ZANLA. He paused as his face involuntarily contorted with barely-contained fury. But now wasn't the time to seethe over the shootdown. He had a job. The pilot reached up and back, grasping the canopy. Pulling it forward, he reached over to the left side of the cockpit and moved a lever forward until it clicked into place. Looking up again, he saw the second Hunter had launched off. Moving the throttle up inch by inch, he came up only a few feet from the aircraft in front of him.

He looked down at his translucent right knee pocket and leaned down slightly to get a better look at the paper inside.

"Trim, one half degree up." he clicked the device on his stick once quickly. "Fuel…booster pumps on, no warning on, transfer indicators in-line." he looked to check. Everything was as it should have been, no screaming in his headset and no amber lights flashing. "Tank selector switches at auto, drop tank indicators black." he checked again. "Flaps, up." as he confirmed the checklist's requirements.

Looking up, he saw the final fighter in front of him had just come onto the centerline. Pushing the throttle forward again, he drew it back almost as soon as he felt motion. Reaching up with his toes onto the top of his rudder pedals, bringing the aircraft to a slow halt, holding short as the Hunter pilot in front did his final checks.

"Blue 3, departing."

Immediately, the Hunter began to move. As it came to the halfway point down the runway and began rotating skyward, Gerry moved the throttle forward, and began slightly pressing on the left rudder to bring himself in line with the white stripes on the black tarmac. Drawing back the throttle and pressing the toe brakes again, he looked down at his checklist once more.

"Nosewheel steering on, toe brakes on, power to one hundred percent…Tower, this is Blue 4."

"Tower, go ahead Blue 4."

"Blue 4 departing."

"Roger that Blue 4, cleared to depart, good luck up there

"Thank you tower, Blue 4 departing."

Gerry began easing the throttle forward. As it came close to the full forward, he slowly let off the brakes, and aircraft began moving forward, quickening by the second. "One two five knotsrotate." he said out loud as he slowly drew back on the stick, unsticking the nosewheel. As the aircraft passed 150 knots on the airspeed indicator, he felt a slight rise, and the aircraft began rising skyward.

"Gear up." he flipped the lever in the cockpit up, and the hydraulic motors began whirring as the nose and main gears came into place. Craning his head around, he spotted the remainder of his Section in a racetrack pattern around the airfield. Checking his speed, he brought the aircraft into a steep turn to catch up with the rest of the Section. "Blue Section, this is Blue 4, coming up on your six."

"Blue Leader, roger that Blue 4. Blue Section, turn heading three-zero-zero, standard right-hand formation."

Gerry banked his aircraft to 300, ensuring he was slightly behind the rest of the formation. Coming up off Blue 3's right wing, he adjusted his trim and throttle to a point where he was keeping pace slightly behind Blue 3.

"Blue Leader, Blue Section, keep altitude at five-zero-zero AGL."

Low. Lower than usual. But nothing about the day's sortie was usual. As the Section of Hunters soared above the thick bush towards the Zambezi, Gerry looked out of his cockpit at the earth, wondering if there were some troopies down there looking up at them as they went on the raids of their own

Below the fighters, a wide brown river passed quickly, and then more Central African jungle. But Blue Section wasn't over Rhodesia anymore. Now below them was Zambia, though the old-timers still called it Northern Rhodesia, and soon enough, if things went tits-up, they'd be in the thick of it with the Zambian military. The formation continued flying. Over the radios, silence.

In the distance, Gerry spotted a clearing, a big sandy rectangle sticking out like a sore thumb in the bush. Little dots all around it, and a big square training or parade ground in the center. As if on cue, the headset crackled to life. "Blue Leader, Blue Section, climb to 10 angels, begin Operation Gatling."

Grabbing his oxygen mask, the pilot quickly secured it to his helmet, and flipped a switch on the left side of the console as he began to breathe. Pushing the throttle forward, the pilot pulled back on the stick, the G forces pushing him into the seat as his Hunter pitched up and the altimeter began spinning like a ceiling fan as he approached 10,000 feet above sea level. Pushing the aircraft over, his straps struggled to keep him in his seat as the positive Gs turned into negative in a split second.

"Blue Leader, Blue Section, initiate a left-hand racetrack pattern above Westland's Farm, from left to right, break and begin your runs and return to altitude."

Looking out over his left wing, Gerry saw Blue 2 bank over, and dive towards ZANLA's camp. Turning into a left turn, he trimmed the aircraft appropriately, and waited patiently for his turn. As Blue 2 began accelerating back up to rejoin the formation, Blue Leader banked over and began his own run. And again for Blue 3. Gerry waited, gripping his control stick tighter and tighter.

Looking down, he saw Blue 3 complete his run, and begin pitching up and away from the camp. He yanked the aircraft into a diving turn, letting out quick and sharp bursts of air as he drew back the throttle. Taking his finger off the trigger at the front of the stick, Gerry instead placed his thumb on a red button on the corner of the stick. The ground grew larger and larger in his windscreen, and he could see the figures scattering in panic as the air attack continued. Quickly pressing the release switch, he felt two lurches as a pair of fragmentation bombs left his aircraft.

Pulling up slowly, he counted twice, and hit the throttle to one hundred percent, banking up towards the remainder of his Section. Pulling back into his number four position, Gerry looked out towards the camp. From the air, he could see columns of dust and smoke from the bombs they had just dropped. The carnage on the ground though, he couldn't imagine it. But any sense of pity was wiped away by the memories of what had happened to the Viscount.

"Blue Leader, Canberras are inbound. Blue Section, on me, echelon turn 110 towards Lusaka Airport."

As they orbited above Lusaka Airport, the helmet radios of the pilots once again crackled to life, and the slightly nasally British accented voice of Squadron Leader Chris Dixon from Green Section came over it.

"Lusaka Tower, come in."

There was a pause, and then a calm African voice, with the sounds of panic and commotion in the background, came over. "Go ahead."

"Tower, this is Green Leader. This is a message for the station commander at Mumba…from the Rhodesian Air Force. We are attacking the terrorist base at Westland's Farm at this time. This attack is against Rhodesian dissidents, and not against Zambia. Rhodesia has no quarrel, repeat, no quarrel, with Zambia or her security forces. We therefore ask you not to intervene or oppose our attack. However, we are orbiting your airfield at this time, and are under orders to shoot down any Zambian Air Force aircraft which does not comply with this request and attempts to take off. Did you copy all that?"

"…copied."

"Roger thanks, cheers."

There was to be no chit-chat on the radios, but Gerry looked over at Blue 3 to see what his reaction was. The former flashed a quick thumbs-up. The other seemingly thought for a moment about what to do. He unhooked his mask for a moment, and smiled back at Gerry, returning his thumbs-up.