June 5th, 1995

Sudentor Air Base, Main Runway

1131 Hours

Canopies opened, engines wound down. Maintenance crews swarmed the newly arrived jets, attaching hoses and various appendages onto the fuselages of the MiG 31's and 29A's, while members of those crews assisted the pilots as they disembarked. As Alexander strode down the runway to meet them, those pilots finally reached the ground and, joking and roughhousing, started to make their way towards the barracks. One of them, upon spotting the rank indicator on Alexander's uniform, quickly got the other pilots' attention and gestured towards the Major. Immediately, the group of pilots shaped up, neutralized their smiles, and made for the officer. As they reached him, they stopped as one, threw their hands up in near-perfect salutes, and awaited their relief. Alexander took one look down the line, and, satisfied, saluted and put them at ease.

One of the pilots stepped forward. He was a tall man of perhaps twenty-three years (Alexander had not had the time to read the briefs of all his new pilots), with an air of confidence and assurance. He was Belkan through-and-through, from his appearance to the manner in which he spoke when he introduced himself as the flight leader of the assembled pilots. As a lieutenant, he had led the flight from Northern Belka down to Sudentor on the southern border, and looked weary from the journey. Alexander offered his hand, and the man took it.

"Colonel Marks of Aggerman Air Base offers his greetings, sir," the man started, "and apologizes for the need to mix your squadron. He says that your upcoming assignment requires a full-strength flight, and the 31's were the only jets he had available. I've trained with these pilots, sir, and I can vouch for their quality. They're the best we've got, and they are damn good. Damn good, sir."

Alexander smiled at the last statement, and, stepping back, spread his arms. Gesturing to the other pilots from Regent Flight who were now making their ways down the runway to meet the new pilots, he addressed all the new members of his flight. "Welcome to Sudentor, pilots. As you all know, I am Major Finn. I'm honored to have you all under my command, and if you're half as good as the Lieutenant here says you are, you'll do just fine out here. The Ustians don't know what we're capable of. Currently, it is 1135 hours, which means you have a little less than four hours to clean yourselves up and grab some food and sleep. I want to see all my pilots," (he looked towards the arriving group) "to be in the briefing room by 1530 hours for a 1600 hours departure. Lukas, Burke, make sure your new squad mates feel at home. That's all I have for now, dismissed."

He turned sharply, and started the long walk back to the barracks to read up on his new pilots and try to get some rest. Lukas and Burke led the greeting party, shaking hands affably with the new members of the flight and introducing themselves and the rest of their companions. Members of the Regent Flight were known for their friendliness and their outgoing nature; what many didn't take into account is that they needed those things if they were to survive for long in the skies. They had to trust the pilots who had their backs, and with so many casualties, and with so many replacement pilots, they simply could not afford to be at odds with their squad mates. In shattered skies, the cost of unpreparedness was death.

June 5th, 1995

Sudentor Air Base, Briefing Room

1531 Hours

Major Finn, as was customary after any sort of meeting with his superiors, walked pointedly into the briefing room. His disposition indicated that he had not particularly liked what he had heard, but his posture spoke only of disciplined, passive acceptance. The orders he carried were preposterous. He had always thought that what he considered as a major misallocation of military resources would be seen by his authorities as a grand display of Belkan might, and this proved it. He'd seen it coming. Already the dull roar of jets filled the air above him as flights pulled from the muster in the North flew south towards their destinations in Sudentor Air Base and various other major Southern Belkan airfields. Nobody had seen it coming, but preliminary reports indicated that the Allied forces to their south and across the Round Table were discretely shifting jets and forces around to take advantage the Belkan muster. All Alexander could do was his duty, and so, face set, he began to brief his flight. It would be a dark day.

A flight of five of the new Belkan Air Force SU-35's roared overhead, gleaming silver in the noonday sun. Finn walked the runway with the rest of his squadron, helmet in hand. Their MiG's, a mottled green, sat ready on the runway – they were fully fueled and armed for air-to-air combat. There were few nations who could supply a squadron so fully armed with ease – and, at this point, not even Belka was among those. Air crews stood by the pilots' jets, ready to help them into their cockpits and complete the final checks. The flight wasted no time; Finn tossed his helmet to the nearest crew chief and mounted the ladder to his MiG. He started to spin up his jets while his ground crew ran final checks on his weapons and tracking systems. His chief helped him into his helmet and seat harnesses, then started to double-check Finn's cockpit systems. Alexander looked across the runway to where Typhoons of Titan Flight were completing their pre-flight checks and wheeling onto the staging strip. The airfield was a flurry of activity; fueling and arming two full flights of fighter jets was no small task.

Then, with a final thumbs-up and salute from its crew chief, the first Titan roared to life. Its afterburners flared as it lumbered onto the runway and prepared for take off. Its pilot, as was customary for Belkan pilots, gave his mic a triple-click to notify the tower that he was ready to take off. Upon receiving a triple-click in response, he saluted the Belkan flag, hummed the first five notes of the Belkan national anthem (for luck), and kicked his jet into full afterburner. The fighter jumped ahead, racing down the runway until it finally lifted up off the ground and started gaining altitude. Already, the second member of Titan Flight had wheeled to the runway from the staging strip and was triple-clicking the tower.

Meanwhile, Regents 4 and 5 had finished their checks and, having received final takeoff instructions from the tower, had begun queuing up behind the rest of Titan Flight. Finn received the salute from his crew chief, and rolled into line right behind Regent 4. Now, it was just a waiting game. He, and all the other pilots, had received detailed takeoff instructions from the control tower beforehand. There were simply too many fighters in the skies above Sudentor for the air traffic controllers to handle in real time, so each flight had a predetermined set of instructions (like altitudes, bearings, and speeds to reach) that they had to follow in order to minimize the risk of collision. Each pilot knew exactly what he was supposed to do. It was the Belkan way.

Now the final member of Titan was ripping down the runway. Regent 4 was next, and it wasn't long before he was airborne either. Finn stared down the long expanse of concrete and took a deep breath to steady his hands.

Raise the right arm, bent forty-five degrees at the elbow. The hand should form a straight line with the rest of the forearm, with the tip of the third finger barely touching the corner of the eyebrow. Now look at the flag. You've got it. Now give it to me, Airman!

"Our Belka, glorious..."

June 5th, 1995

Area B7R

1638 Hours

"Keep 'em peeled, Titan."

Another long break.

So much goddamned silence.

Silence from their enemies. Silence from Sudentor and the flights around them. Silence from Titan Flight, too.

Too much goddamned silence.

Suddenly, Titan Five's voice flew in through the speakers, the rushed stream of speech peculiar to untested rookies.

"Sir, my radar shows seventeen repeat seventeen hostile IFF signatures ahead – ten bombers, seven fighter escorts. Bearing one-three-seven, 11 o'clock low!

Titan Lead responded immediately, and coldly.

"All Titan flight, peel off and return to base. Repeat, do not engage. Return to base."

"WHAT?" Alexander roared in response. He furiously keyed Titan Lead's radio channel into his communicator and communicated, in no uncertain terms, his exquisite unhappiness with the current situation.

Titan Flight, however, offered no response as its fighters peeled off by the number and headed back into Belka and out of the Round Table. Finn seethed, but no amount of cursing or threatening reprimands could turn their fighters back. The Titans had shut off all communication.

"What now, Boss?" Six asked nervously.

Alexander thought for a few seconds, and then opened a channel to his squadron. He said, "Flight, we will not turn back. We remain loyal to the Belkan order. Stagger formation – Two and Three, you go front and high. Four and Five, hang back a bit. Rear and low. Seven, Six, and Five, I want a delta formation centered on me. Let's take the center at median altitude. Stick on me, got it?"

The flight signaled acknowledgement. Regent 2 and Regent 3 accelerated and climbed ahead of the main formation while Four and Five dropped back and below. Within 30 seconds, everyone was in place.

Two and a half tense minutes later, Three's voice came in over the radio. He said, "Lead, I have RADAR contact with what looks like a group of bogeys. Twenty plus, escorts counted, given by what I can see."

Alexander responded, "Right. Alright Regent, let's give 'em hell."

He booted up his weapons computer, and then tried again to check into Sudentor ATC. They weren't responding, just as they hadn't done the entire flight.

Three's voice, again: "Lead, I've got visual contact. Looks like… ten Osean, seven Ustian bombers, fighter escorts interspersed. Revising earlier estimate… looks like 25 aircraft total. Fighters flying zone cover, they're not full-on. Hit at the flanks and from above and below; avoid the killzones directly to the front and rear. Engaging, engaging! Two, guns guns guns!"

The radio feed cut off as the first two fighters engaged, ripping through the enemy's formation. Even at the distance he was at, Finn could see tiny silver and orange flashes and even two distinct bursts of light. He turned to his own flight element, saying,

"Alright, squad, raise elevation one hundred, repeat, one hundred meters. Turn to bearing five-seven, spin up the guns."

Already, the enemy formation was rushing up before and below his formation. He flipped over, and dove into the Ustians, aiming to avoid their fighter escorts and engage their bombers. Tracers spit up at him from the bombers' ceiling turrets; he jerked his MiG around to avoid them. Suddenly he was inside the formation, tearing past bombers and fighters alike. Out of nowhere, a flaming tracer hit his fuselage, bashing his head into the glass of his canopy. Disoriented, Alexander squeezed off a rushed burst of tracers at the nearest bomber, barely grazing its side. Suddenly, he was out on the bottom end of the formation, spinning, fighting his plane, trying to regain orientation. There was no rest for the weary. A piercing tone smashed into his skull, and automatic reflex told him that an enemy had a lock on his plane from above. He shot off flares, then twisted and pulled up, craning his neck in a desperate attempt to catch a glimpse of his attacker. The last two members of Regent flight thundered past his cockpit, hammering his already aching head, spitting out bright orange tracers at a bomber and an Ustian fighter. Alexander caught a glimpse of his attacker – and of the missile he had shot. Again, he slammed his fighter to the side, hoping to sweep past the missile and come up beneath the enemy fighter. It worked beautifully, and as the Ustian adjusted his flight path to counter Alexander's move, Finn, feinted right and then jerked left, climbing all the while. The two fighters passed in a flash, and, for an instant, Finn glimpsed the inside of his foe's cockpit. It was an older model of the F-16, and, as the two pilots gazed into each other's visors, Finn saw that the other pilot was already wrestling to bring his jet up from its dive and to the pilots' left. Alexander countered immediately, rolling his fighter upside down and to the right. He wanted to "cross the T," reaching his enemy's intended destination before that enemy did, and then squeeze off a few shots before the Ustian had time to react.

The two pilots met again just a few seconds later, but, again, Finn was unable to take any shots. The adversary had known that Finn was trying to do, but since he was already committed to the maneuver, he had sped up and beat Alexander to the engagement zone. The Ustian was good. There was no way he could have been an Ustian national, though. Their air force couldn't raise pilots like these. He was a mercenary, then, but Finn didn't care. He fought with honor and ferocity, and had already gained Alexander's respect.

In Area B7R, though, good isn't good enough. The Ustian pilot made his first - and final - mistake. He assumed Alexander would try the same maneuver again after failing the first time, and dove down and to the right in order to meet the Belkan head-on.

But Finn wasn't about to chance another head-on encounter with this pilot. After flashing by him that second time, he leveled out, dropped speed, and snap-rolled to the left - bringing him right behind the enemy F-16. The Ustian was committed to the dive now, but couldn't see his adversary.

Finn grinned ferociously. "I've got you now," he thought. He lined up the F-16, got tone in his headset as the spinning triangles glowed read over the enemy plane, and squeezed the trigger. There was a loud whoosh as the missile on his right wingtip flew away. It speed ahead in a cloud of smoke and flame, detonating mere feet away from the Ustian's left wing. It wasn't a kill, but it was enough to shake things loose. The F-16, stricken and rattled, started trailing smoke and dropped to a lower altitude. Finn leveled out behind it. He could have bagged the kill if he really wanted to. All it would have taken was a stream of bullets across the right wing. But Finn respected the Ustian too much for that - instead, he dipped his right wing in an aerial salute to his neutralized opponent and then started a steep climb to rejoin the rest of his squadron.

They had done well in his absence. Regent Flight was in fine form, darting in and out of the bomber formation and throwing tracers at the lumbering B-52's. Two lines of smoke were streaming down towards the ground, but Finn was certain that more bombers had been shot down. The bomber crews' frantic pleas for help may well have gone unheard. The Ustian escorts were nearly worthless, too scared to drop into the middle of the formation and brave a knife-fight with the skilled Regents. Instead, they orbited the central fray, taking nervous shots at the MiGs whenever they strayed outside the bombers' groups. Some of the Ustians had even turned tail. With the few aggressive pilots gone, survival was the order of the day.

It was incredibly easy, then, for Alexander to penetrate the fighter screen and settle in right behind a B-52 near the rear of the formation. Regent 3 was tailing the bomber to Finn's left, spitting bullets in short bursts in attempts to take out an engine on the bomber's wing. Flight chatter was minimal, as each pilot was intensely focused on the fight ahead of him. The Regents were virtual grim reapers in the skies over B7R that day.

With a final scream of frustration, the lead bomber in the Ustian formation ordered the bombers to break off the attack and flee the airspace. With over half of their bombers destroyed, the Ustians no longer had the slightest chance of successfully completing their mission. To continue further would be the height of folly, nothing more than a waste of lives and resources. The bomber just ahead of Alexander peeled right, eagerly accompanied by its fighter "escorts," and joined the remainder of the Ustian force in long flight home. Alexander called his flight back into formation behind him, wheeled the area twice to tally and confirm kills, and then turned back towards his own base. Fortunately, no Regents had fallen. Another good day to add to Regent Flight's record.

Almost.

Finn still could not connect to Sudentor or to any of the other Belkan jets that had been in the sky just that morning. It was almost like everybody had completely disappeared. Gone somewhere else, maybe?

What the hell is going on?