A/N: Yes, it's back. I decided to rewrite this with None is Quiet's apparent success. Expect a fleshed out and more developed story of VF-115's war over Belka with some old and new things in it.

Chp. 1: Warriors Without a War

March 23, 1995

Altaria Bay Region, Southwest Osea

The couple picked through the thick brush towards what the young man claimed was a secluded spot.

"Come on Harry, how much longer?" his red-haired girlfriend protested, concerned about how much longer until an errant branch snagged against her favorite blouse.

"Not too much longer Louise, just be patient." He smiled.

The young man picked through a few more bushes despite the protests of his girlfriend and led her out into an open field. Compared to the words it was populated by soft green grass and gentle hills. She gasped with delight.

"Oh Harry, it's beautiful!" she gasped. He smiled and gently took one of her wrists.

"Not as lovely as you." He purred. She giggled.

Neither had heard the low whine until it was practically on top of them. By that time, an accompanying gust of whirlwind swept up from behind. Louise screamed while Harry tried to spot what had just happened. As he looked up, shielding his eyes from the sun and grass tornado, he saw two triangular shapes flash by on a path towards the coast. He raised his fist to curse them, but they were already gone…

Lt. Ryan Bradford hadn't noticed the two kids for more than a second, and even then his only thought was acknowledging that he'd seen movement on the ground. His brain was focused on what was coming from his Radar Intercept Officer in the rear seat of their F-14B Tomcat.

"What's their position now, Razor?" He spoke up over the Internal Communications System (ICS).

"Hummer just sent me a new data link; appears the group of bandits just got within 100 miles of the coast, Rocky." Lt. Takeru Hinamoto replied, his head hunched towards his controls.

"Okay, that's far enough for a Phoenix, get me the angles for a shot here." Ryan said as he reached down to engage the master arm switch.

In the back Takeru switched on the AWG-15 and went to Track-While-Scan mode to fire one of their AIM-54s. Ryan looked at the other F-14 off his left side and gave him the signal to break off. Its pilot, Lt. (j.g.) Tom Kurt, nodded and banked his F-14 to the left. Ryan looked forward and pulled the stick up a bit to get his nose on the group of approaching aircraft.

"Okay, I've got the lead bandit. Looks like a BM-335, standby…" Razor spoke up. Ryan waited as a Razor went through the final few motions. He did not have a clear indicator on his HUD, so he had to rely on the radar display for the big weapon.

"He's locked, shoot, shoot!" Razor ordered.

"Firebird 105, Fox 3." Ryan confirmed over the radio.

Razor called out more targets locked, and Ryan punched off all four missiles in rapid succession. However, the weapons never left his plane, and in fact were not even aboard in the first place. Instead the radio came to life.

"Referee counts four targets splashed by Firebird 105." An airborne controller in the back of an E-2C Hawkeye reported among other calls of "kills".

The truth of the matter was this was an exercise, a simple flex of the muscles. Ryan's squadron, The World Famous Fighting Typhoons (VF-115), was practicing against Osean Air Force B-52s pretending to be aircraft of the Belkan Air Force, given the country had been stirring trouble in the region, especially with Ustio. The OPFOR's escort, probably one of F-15C Eagles playing it up as MiG-29s or Mirage 2000s, was next on the kill list.

"Roger that Referee, requesting bandit dope on their escort." Razor said, both Tomcat drivers knowing there HAD to be one.

"Understood, we've got a bead on them. Count eight bandits on the same vector as the heavies, Angels 17. Looks like they're about 70 miles out."

With his imaginary AIM-54s gone, Ryan switched to the equally made-up AIM-7s on his wing pylons. Razor switched to Single Target Track

"Firebird 1 Lead to all Firebirds, engage the bandits at will." The six-ship's lead, LCDR. Chris Buckley, ordered.

With the radio frequency being the same for both parties, Ryan signaled to Tom, telling him to draw the nearest bandits in while Ryan ambushed them from the side.

Razor killed the radar and Ryan went to his fictional AIM-9s, though in reality he did have a single inert AIM-9M on his port Sidewinder rail, the ACM pod on the starboard.

With the ECM keeping him updated, the blonde pilot craned his neck and searched for any specks in the scattered clouds and blue sky. He pulled back the throttles and slowed his F-14 enough to avoid missing something. Light gleamed off the black visor of his older HGU-33 helmet in an almost cinematic fashion as he disappeared into the glare of the afternoon sun for anyone to his left. Finally he saw a pair of specks below at ten o' clock, around 17,000 feet as the E-2 had reported. He licked his lips and yanked the stick towards them, pulling back the throttles even more.

"Fight's on!" Ryan called as he came down from the sun.

Ryan balanced the F-14's energy carefully as its wings spread out at the slower speed. Osean F-15 pilots were the direct rivals of Osean F-14 pilots, and Ryan was not about to let these guys get him by the balls. He lagged behind them, hand ready to give the machine power the SECOND it looked like he might lose the advantage. They appeared to spot him as Tom entered Sparrow range.

"I've got the lead guy." The blonde declared.

"Roger that, number two is mine." Bull agreed.

Ryan saw the lead F-15 in its two-tone gray snap upwards and pass over his wingman, prompting Ryan to roll his F-14 into a much steeper dive and adjust the throttles. He had Razor reactivate the radar with the jig up before his RIO turned around to check the tail area. Meanwhile Ryan pulled out of the dive as his adversary passed by his nose. The AIM-9's aural tone began to perk up a bit as the Eagle's tailpipes came into its general range of sight. The single-seat aircraft broke right, Ryan hot on his tail. All the meanwhile he was calculating the advantages the F-15 possessed. At this range, he had to avoid getting too close to the bastard with the F-15's edge in maneuverability. Lag pursuit was his best friend.

They seemed to be in a delicate freeze-frame as the two fighters began to go from turn to descent. On his HUD, the Sidewinder's tracking was illustrated by a gun sight progressing towards the F-15 inside its TD box. The adversary released flares to delay the lock and pulled out just above the clouds. Ryan yanked back the throttles and brought the F-14's nose up, keeping the AIM-9's seeker pointed in the right direction. Razor wasn't reporting much still, which was both fine by and mild unsettling by the blonde pilot.

"Firebird 104, what's your status?" He asked as the shapes on his HUD once again went for each other.

"Engaged offensive with one bandit." His friend assured.

"Roger that." Ryan said as he got closer to the F-15, which was now in a left turn as it slowed.

The enemy aircraft deployed more flares to Ryan's annoyance, but the inevitable conclusion of this fight was near. The Eagle driver had hoped too long to bring his Navy counterpart in close enough, and the shapes on Ryan's HUD became one and the word "shoot" appeared in the corner. In his ears he heard a constant tone: missile lock.

"Firebird 105, Fox 2. Splash one bandit. Kill on the Eagle in a left turn." Ryan called. There was a brief pause.

"Roger that, Harpoon 2-1, you're dead." The exercise's commander aboard an Air Force E-3B Sentry.

Ryan could hear the F-15 pilot grumble some unintelligible curse before breaking off the fight and confirming he was dead. Ryan broke off and looked around for another F-15 to take on. He keyed up the radio again.

"Firebird 104, what's your status?" He asked.

"Uhh, Firebird 104 is dead…heh heh…" Tom admitted after a pause. Ryan frowned. Touché, Eagle drivers, touché…

"Altaria Tower, Firebird 105 is on final approach."

"Roger that 105, bring her in."

Ryan eased the F-14 down towards the waiting runway of Naval Air Station Altaria Bay. Below, the inlets that lead to the Pacific Ocean flashed by without event. The pilot kept the fighter stable as he passed over the ILS and went below 100 feet. Ryan was no stranger to landing the Tomcat, but nonetheless he always took it carefully as he crossed the base's outer fence and reached the point of no return. The F-14's tires hit the pavement with a brief squeak, then adjusted to the rolling speed. Razor held on as his pilot pulled back the throttles and brought the F-14 down from 185 miles an hour to a near-crawl of 10. Ryan took the first right towards the ramp, where other F-14s were sitting in the spring sun. He pulled into place between two other VF-115 Tomcats and finally let the machine come to a stop.

Ryan quickly took off his oxygen mask as he was guided into place. On signal from a ground crewman, he silenced the two GE-built turbofans and locked the brakes in place. The blonde reached down and lifted the canopy.

"Nice ride today; three B-52s and a single F-15." Razor commented.

"Yeah, at the loss of our wingman. I'd like to know how the "Invincible Bull Kurt" fucked the pooch on that one." Ryan said as he freed his dirty blonde hair from the helmet and stroked his left hand through the stuff a few times.

"I'm sure if he doesn't divulge the details, Samurai will or he will during the debrief with Buckshot. Gotta be brought to light sooner or later." His RIO offered as he rose from his seat.

Ryan maneuvered down the boarding steps and on to the ground, stuffing his helmet into his bag one his O2 mask was completely free from it and hooked to his gear. A young man, barely old enough to drink, came forward and greeted the pilot and RIO.

"Good afternoon sirs, how was she?" Plane Captain Petty Officer Third Class Casey Washington asked.

"You haven't failed me before, and you haven't failed me today, Wash." Ryan smiled, patting the enlisted man on the shoulder. Washington's dark-colored face contorted into a smile.

"That's what I've hoped to hear, sir." He said.

"Yeah, if this were an A, though, we'd be hard-pressed to have many flights where we didn't feel at least a bit shaky." Razor quipped.

"I'd still make it fly, sir. I'll make sure it's ready by the next hop." He promised.

The two aviators left Washington to his trade and walked towards the buildings that were along the flight line while Washington ordered about the ground crew of Tomcat number 105. The two entered one of the larger buildings along the flight line where several of the squadrons based here had their flight gear stored and also did briefings and debriefings for daily flights. The first stop, however, was the locker room. Sweaty flight suits weren't the most appropriate thing for even a simple debrief. It also felt nice to Ryan to rid his hair of the sweat that had accumulated from wearing his helmet for that long.

The entire time he hadn't said a word to Tom about his getting "morted", as was the term. That was held until they were all in the locker room, donning their khaki work uniforms. Ryan looked at his friend as the man fixed his shirt.

"Okay Bull, you owe me an explanation, how'd that Eagle get you?" Ryan said. The tall, muscular Tom seemed to freeze a moment before he turned towards his shorter friend and wave a dismissive hand.

"He just got the advantage on me and morted me." Tom insisted.

"Dammit Bull, anyways I'm sure we'll hear it when Buckshot or even Ranger asks." Ryan said in an exasperated tone. Tom frowned.

After making themselves look better, Ryan and his fellow aviators walked from the lockers and across the street to what was known as "Squadron Row". Most of the units stationed at Altaria Bay had a building here that served as their "HQ", and while most of their affairs did take place on the actual airfield, administrative matters were here. Each building was distinguished only by the sign out front and squadron logo on the same wall, maybe some additional individuality as well. VF-115's gray cube Only individuality was a chipping mural on the side facing the runways depicting their jets since inception.

With Buckley leading the group, they entered through the doors, acknowledging the duty officer, before walking to the left and down the hall to the two rooms the squadron used for briefing. They entered the first; inside were some desks, a whiteboard with markers, a podium, projector, and a TV up on the wall to play HUD tapes. The pilots all took their seats at the front, setting notes and such on the desks. Razor went to a mini fridge on the left side of the room and extracted water bottles from it, handing them out to the members of that day's flight of six jets.

Ryan was mostly concerned with how he'd handled the F-15 today. The B-52s had been shot down like any threat: target, lock, fire. Lumbering bombers were hardly able to defeat smaller, more nimble fighters over the water. F-15s, being one of the closer machines to a MiG-29 (frankly the F-16 was the best match), were a different story. Inevitably he'd been forced to play against the F-15 in its realm of the horizontal fight, whereas his F-14 was best in the vertical. Granted if you pushed hard enough and were smart, you could fight in the horizontal; hell F-14 pilots had too. Dogfights, although not all in the horizontal, often seemed to spend a good deal in that plane of space. Ryan noted how his Tomcat had handled today against the Eagle until Buckley, who'd gone to the front, stood up straight.

"Attention on deck!" He called.

The sound of spurs clanging announced the arrival of the man who lead VF-115. The pilots stayed still and ramrod straight as Commander Cody Walker, appropriately named "Ranger", walked to the front. He turned around and returned a salute administered to him.

"Take a seat, everyone." The tall, lanky man drawled.

Ryan sat down as Cody withdrew to the podium and set his notes on it. He looked at the stack of HUD tapes near the TV, then his subordinates.

"Welcome back, everyone. Ah've been informed that today we get to send home a bunch of grumbling B-52 crews and a few F-15 drivers as well. The aircraft were intercepted, from what Ah was told, well before they reached the coast and even become a threat to their intended targets. Y'all then closed and defeated several more enemy fighters. As we usually do we'll spend most of the time looking over what was done right and what could've been done better. Bull, Samurai." He began.

"Yes Skipper?" Bull asked.

"It came to my attention that y'all were morted during a 1v1 with an Eagle today. If y'all and Samurai would be so kind as to come up and give some extra commentary while we watch your HUD tape?" He said.

Despite his attitude earlier on, Tom was willing to stand up and talk (not that he had a choice). Keith said little as usual, joining his pilot up front. Cody took the VHS marked "Firebird 104 HUD Tape" and put it into the device underneath the screen, turning on the TV as he pulled away. He grabbed the remote and adjusted the volume before hitting pause.

"Okay Bull or Samurai, whoever wants to start, mind telling us how you initially engaged the F-15?"

Keith nodded and cleared his throat.

"Rocky and Razor were our lead today, sir, and we had coordinated with them to attack a pair of bandits. The lead of the two had broken formation, going to the right towards them in order to get out of their forward quarter. Our target went left and climbed to get above us and close to where it could use its maneuverability. Bull if you would be so kind as to illustrate this."

Tom nodded and held out his hands, thinking for a second as he tried to translate the complex realm of air combat from his memory to his hands. In the meantime Cody had gotten the tape to the beginning of the dogfight. From there Tom didn't have to do as much talking with his hands, and the picture was made clear.

"Around here, as we were in a right turn, going into a rolling scissors, we had bled too much energy trying to turn tightly with the bandit. In order to avoid a stall, we had to increase speed and inevitably go on the defensive." The RIO went on.

The HUD tape showed this both with the speedometer, other sights, and the sounds. Ryan noted they were close to the F-14's stall speed as they tried to turn back into the Eagle, and when they went into the scissors, said Eagle was very close. Tom, muttering an unintelligible curse under the Gs, had switched to his M61A1 cannon, but the adversary had flow out of his line of sight before it could be used.

"After this I increased speed to avoid stalling. Consequentially this meant we had to shoot out in front of him." Tom divulged, his hands still showing the mock duel.

Again the HUD tape showed more. Airspeed went up and Tom reverted to his AIM-9s, but there wasn't much to say after that. Ryan tuned in to the radio chatter for a moment.

"Samurai, you still got him?"

"Roger, he's easing onto our six."

Tom broke to the left, into the attack he explained, and then began to climb in military power to get some distance and then get behind the F-15. As he was rising up, the room heard a single line.

"Roger, kill on the F-14 in a climb…Firebird 104 is dead." Tom admitted.

Ranger stopped the tape and nodded.

"Any final comments, boys?" he drawled. They shook their heads.

"Well Ah think today we saw something that illustrates the need to embrace lag pursuit. The major mistake you both made was turning too tight and bleeding all or yer energy, which y'all can both agree to?" the CO said. Tom nodded.

"Confident as I am in my abilities, sir, I can see what I did wrong." He replied, not able to hold back a grin as he brushed aside the front curls of his blonde hair. The others chuckled.

"Good. Remember that the F-14 is big; if y'all try and yank her like that, she won't turn how y'all want. Hell son if you were in an A, your engines would've given up pretty quick. My advice in hindsight would be accelerate and get above him so y'all can come back down. Keep it in the vertical and if y'all do need to turn, have energy and lag behind him." Cody said after the giggles had subsided.

The two were allowed to sit down and Cody stood up to eject the tape.

"Now we'll go through the others and point out some other ups and downs. This is an equal-opportunity workplace, after all." He commented.

When Ryan and Razor's turn came, they were chided mildly for actively going into a turning fight, but also commended for his use of lag pursuit and energy management. Ranger commented that they would be wise to think further on matters regarding turning fights. As Ryan had suspected, and when he'd asked, Cody did agree on his thoughts about how often turning fights happened. Ryan had flown and "played the game" of ACM many times, but it'd always been a matter that'd bugged him. Cody replied that it was something the Tomcat had to do, and could do well, it just took constant fine-tuning.

Afterwards the pilots were eager to free themselves from the debrief as the workday was ending. Cody was willing to oblige after the formalities of dismissal. The pilots and RIOs again came to attention and waited while their CO had one last bit to say.

"Well that ends business for today. Ah'll see y'all all bright and early tomorrow for weekly squadron PT. After that we get our newer HGU-55s back from the paint shop. Dismissed." Ranger smiled. The pilots filed out through the door. Ryan looked at Razor as they left.

"Good job today, man. Know it was just some ACM training but still." He said.

"Thanks Rocky, same to you. So you and Mae gonna make it back here on Sunday?" the other man asked.

"Yeah, that's still the plan. My aunt's gonna have the party on Saturday, then we come back Sunday morning."

At the same time, a large figure came up from behind them and wrapped its arms around them. No mistaking who it was; both gave their morted friend from that day's events a look.

"Hey, you two up for lunch tomorrow before the weekend?" Bull proposed.

"Where at?" Ryan asked, looking up from his charts and notes.

"I was thinking Walter O'Riley's; I haven't shortened my lifespan in about a month and I work out like a damned maniac at the gym to cover for it." He said. He looked at Ryan.

"Besides you could use the energy before you go off to ravish Miss Surf Queen."

"Depends, you paying?" the shorter blonde asked.

"Hahaha, you're a funny guy, Rock; maybe that's why Mae loves you so much." Tom replied sarcastically. Ryan smirked.

"Among other reasons. Anyways sounds fun; I'll see you guys then." Ryan said before he went his own way. Tom shouted the time to him before he was too far off.