Harry had a headache. Maybe the drinking the previous afternoon had been a bad idea. The roar of the impressively powerful Rolls-Royce Avon engine even more so. Having woken up with a horrible headache, Harry had limped to his car, awake and sober but hungover. Leaving with Jack to the airfield so he could drive it back to Bradbury Lines when Harry himself was overseas. Between them, they got the Hawker Sea Fury running and Harry departed for Kent where he quickly packed what gear he needed in the back, heading for Germany.

His headache had suddenly been exacerbated by an order to make an emergency return to the airfield from whence he'd flown and get back to Credenhill. It had turned out that a group of Death Eater wannabes had attacked a local pub in which another SAS troop had been getting thoroughly plastered. Harry had been delayed with debriefing while someone managed to cover up the nine heavily knifed, shot and beaten dead wizards, and he'd quietly returned to the Sea Fury and attempted to sprint it out of British airspace and radio range before he could be accosted again.

Unfortunately the day got worse when suddenly, the fighter decided to loose all hydraulic pressure as, circling around south of London airspace, as he raced past the late Tommy Sopwith's magnificent Horsley Towers. With an emergency hydraulic reserve in the back, he got the machine to Ravenscroft and lowered the undercarriage, consuming all of the emergency reserve. It meant however, that he had no flaps.

Getting down successfully, with a landing slot at Celle at a set time approaching fast, he needed to get there faster. Sat in the hanger with all the checks up until the start already done was a newly acquired Swiss two-seat Hawker Hunter. Grabbing his jet flying gear, he worked out that at the speed he'd be going, there was enough time for him to grab a coffee. Naturally, as was the wont of Murphy's law, his cup of coffee had delayed him longer than he'd expected.

Now in a shallow dive, screaming up the lowest part of the North Sea towards Den Helder in Holland, he had the Hunter through the sound barrier. He'd have to slow to subsonic for Holland, and turn east to head towards Celle.


Late 1996, Celle Airbase, Germany.

The tanker drove away from the jet parked on the stand at the airbase. The aircraft was gloss-black, an ex-Swiss aircraft painted in the colours of the Royal Air Force's legendary Black Arrows, but with a snarling wolf's mouth added to the nose ahead of the twin ADEN cannon. The side-by-side cockpit was wider than most aircraft, but allowed equal view to either pilot.

"You ready?" Harry asked his German friend.

"Would it help if I said yes?" Nadya laughed nervously, double-checking her anti-G suit for the nth time.

"Come on, jump in." urged Harry; "If you're nervous, this has got the power to get you out of trouble, and I'll be next to you. It's good fun to throw around the sky."

Still nervous, she climbed into the cockpit and Harry dropped in next to her. He disconnected the lock for the braking parachute and the safety pins for the emergency backup oxygen. He then checked the radar set's circuit breakers before turning the electricity test switch to 'Normal Flight'.

"Strap in, pull the pin out to arm your ejector seat and adjust the rudder pedals." Harry ordered; "Then connect your oxygen mask, your g-suit and the radio."

Having checked that she had done it as instructed, Harry gave her an encouraging grin as he turned on the aircraft's Battery Master Switch. A few checks on pressures and a test of the radar set followed before he turned the Battery Master Switch off, and then back on to test it. The Cockpit Pressure Warning worked, so he turned that system on so that at a higher altitude he could activate the pressurisation. The cockpit heater was turned on and finally, he checked the lock for the jettison-able external fuel tanks which he did not want to throw away.

Mentally running through the rest of the checks, he then turned on the low-pressure fuel flow, tested the ignition, tested the throttle and lowered the canopy, locking it. Reaching for the throttle again, he opened it an inch before setting the maximum engine temperature control on, which would adjust the fuel flow to the engine if it began to overheat.

Running his eyes over the instruments, he made sure those displaying the control surfaces were neutral. With that done, he checked that the undercarriage was locked down, checked that the radar ranging was off, checked the presence of the emergency release handle for the canopy, made sure that all of the controls for the undercarriage were set correctly, checked the flaps were up and that they weren't set to 'emergency'.

With the hydraulic warning light on as it was expected, he turned off power to the elevators and ailerons, ran his eyes over the instruments again, making sure that the engine and flight instruments were set correctly and that the fire-warning light, audio warning and fuel pressure warning worked.

"Oxygen masks." he said to Nadya.

They each secured the masks over their faces, breathing in to check the condition of the air and checking that there were no leaks in the system. Double-checking that all the fuel tanks including the two drop-tanks were brimmed, Harry made sure that the booster for the fuel delivery was off having turned it on for a few seconds to make sure the warning light for it worked. He flicked the switch to choose which tanks to draw the fuel from to make sure that system both worked and that the indicators in the cockpit worked.

Setting the fuel tank selectors to draw from the drop-tanks, he made sure that the oxygen for their masks was being drawn from the main reservoir, turned on the Identification Friend or Foe which would make his location available to civilian air traffic control as well as military radar. Harry then turned on the navigation lights and the anti-G system, testing it by pressing a button that momentarily compressed the anti-G suit around his legs.

Making sure of the presence of the circuit breakers for the fuel tank pumps and the starter motors, he tested the generator failure warning lights, turned off a number of switches before moving the control stick and rudder pedals to their extremes.

With the parking brake on and enough pressure in the system for said brakes, he turned on the starter master switch and pressed the starter button.

"Oxygen!" ordered Harry.

They both breathed from their masks as the acrid, highly flammable and highly toxic AVPIN chemical spun the engine up to sixteen-hundred revolutions per minute, enough for the fuel to catch and the Rolls-Royce Avon to light. It then rapidly climbed another thousand RPM.

With the fire-warning light out, enough RPM, the jet-pipe maximum temperature set at five-hundred degrees Celsius, enough oil pressure, the generator working, the air brake tested and confirmed to be working as well as its indicators, Harry watched in the mirror as Nadya tested her controls, making sure that the control surfaces followed her actions.

He set the radio to the right frequency, checked the trim for the tailplane, checked the hydraulic pressure for the brakes a final time before turning on the power to the ailerons and elevators and did another test of the control surfaces including the flaps. He then performed the most important job, setting the compass correctly.

Turning on the fuel booster pump, he then actuated several hydraulic systems simultaneously to kill the pressure in the system, creating both an audio warning in his helmet headset and a light in the cockpit before the pressure built back up.

"Instruments?" Harry asked.

"Check and set." replied Nadya, confirming they were set right as he did yet another check of the control surfaces, setting the flaps and the trim on the rudder and ailerons before locking them. With the fuel systems set fine, he activated the push-to-talk on his radio.

"Zulu-Charlie-November, this is Hunter Golf-Sierra-Tango-Alpha-Golf, requesting taxi to runway two-six-zero. Over." Harry radioed the airfield controller.

"Golf-Sierra-Tango-Alpha-Golf, we have no traffic, taxi and takeoff in your own time." replied the controller.

"Roger."

Harry released the brakes and gently eased open the throttle, moving the Hunter out onto the runway. The hydraulic pressure was at around three-thousand pounds per square inch, their harnesses done up tightly, the canopy closed, locked and sealed. A few final checks and they'd racing down the immense strip of tarmac and launch themselves into the air.

Increasing engine RPM to four-thousand five-hundred, he checked the power controls for the control surfaces, rolling the aircraft forward a few yards with the engine RPM increasing another two-thousand five-hundred where he tested that the brakes still held the aircraft back.

With the windsock fluttering in their direction, showing that the wind was blowing directly towards them, Harry steadily opened the throttle, having released the brakes. As the air-speed indicator rose to one-hundred and twenty-five knots, he pulled back on the stick, the nose wheel coming off the ground.

At just over one-hundred and fifty knots, the entire aircraft lifted off the tarmac, unsticking effortlessly. Immediately, he braked the wheels and set the undercarriage to 'up' and slowly raised the flaps. There was a distinct thud as, approaching two-hundred and thirty knots, the nose-wheel locked in the up position.

"Nadya, take control and bring us up to twenty-thousand feet." Harry ordered; "Switch onto intercom and oxygen at ten-thousand, I'll pressurise the cockpit."

"I have control." she replied, taking the throttle and stick, easing back and keeping half an eye on the machmeter and altimeter.

At twenty thousand feet, with oxygen masks across their faces, they levelled out, Nadya gently manoeuvring the fighter to get a feel of it. Harry watched with an approving eye as she gradually got more confident.

"Go for a full roll, then reverse it." he encouraged.

Nadya, still slightly nervous, gently pushed the Hunter over onto its starboard wing-tip before going through the remaining two-hundred and seventy degrees to the normal plane of flight. More enthusiastically, she rolled it without hesitation in the opposite direction through a full three-hundred and sixty degrees.

"Hand me control." said Harry.

"You have control." Nadya stated over the intercom as he took the stick and throttle.

Harry pulled back on the stick, bringing the aircraft into a climb. As it went vertical, he fully rolled it once, pulled back so the were upside-down, rolled it fully a second time and pulled it into a dive, finishing the loop having fully rolled the fighter twice during said loop. He quickly turned to starboard, pulling four-Gs, or multiplying his body weight to four times its mass before half-rolling and reversing the turn so they were heading to port from their original direction. Finally, he turned back to the bearing they had been flying.

"Think you can do that?" he asked.

"I think so." she replied.

"Then go wild, this plane's structural limit is high enough you can safely pull seven, seven-and-a-half G." Harry stated, handing over control to Nadya.

She easily pulled the Hunter through his bag of tricks before beginning to experiment with what she could do with the jet. Sharp low-speed turns, high-speed barrel rolls, dives, climbs and loops. Nadya was just handing control over to Harry when two Royal Air Force 3 Squadron British Aerospace Harriers bounced them, the leader formating to their port side and the wingman behind them.

"Unidentified aircraft, you will identify yourself or-" began one of the RAF pilots over the radio.

"Why don't you idiots just ask civilian air traffic control to identify us? We've been in continuous contact with them since we left the airbase at Celle." Harry growled irritably; "This is Hunter Golf-Sierra-Tango-Alpha-Golf on a sortie from Celle for however long it takes us to burn the fuel in the tanks, so sod off. Unless you want a quick lesson in air combat?"

He throttled back and applied the air brake suddenly, forcing the wingman to pull up and overshoot the decelerating Hunter. With his hand easing the throttle back open, Harry now was holding the Hunter right on the tail of the wingman. Suddenly the Harrier went into a split-S, rolling inverted and diving into a half-loop. He began to follow, having a feeling as to what was coming. As the black Hunter rolled over to follow, the leader went into a one-eighty degree turn and a shallow dive, and had Harry completed his own split-S, would have had the leader on his tail.

However, he'd barrel-rolled to a position above the leader and was now in a shallow dive after the two Harriers. The RAF pilots broke left and right, turning a hundred-and-eighty degrees in an attempt to reverse onto his tail, but Harry finally went into his own split-S and brought himself again onto the tails of the two Harriers, one at his two-o'clock, the other at his ten-o'clock.

They then decided to try outrunning him by opening up their throttles to full power. Despite the quite impressive power of their GR7 model Harriers, running twenty-two thousand pounds of thrust from their Rolls-Royce Pegasus engines, the squat aircraft couldn't outrun the Hunter, running as it was a Rolls-Royce Avon engine from an English Electric Lightning, minus the afterburner section. The sleeker, clean form of the black-painted fighter was keeping up with the air-to-air equipped Harriers from Laarbruch.

One of them suddenly employed his thrust-vectors to 'viff' – vector in forward flight – and caused the Hunter to overshoot. The wingman turned hard to port as his leader slowed his aircraft to a crawl. Harry knew exactly what to do, as at that moment one Harrier could out-turn him, sitting on a cloud of hot air while the second circled.

The Hunter's control stick was wedged in Harry's stomach and the throttle fully open. One Harrier was now sat on a cloud of hot air, unable to pitch up to follow him while the second had lost visual contact and within seconds had a Hunter bearing down on it from above and behind as it finished the one-eighty degree turn.

"Damn you Alpha-Golf. How the hell are you doing this?!" demanded one of the Harrier pilots.

"I'm on leave from the Royal Air Force." Harry grinned behind his oxygen mask as the three British aircraft broke the combat and formated at ten-thousand feet.

"What squadron?" asked the other Harrier pilot.

"According to the paperwork I've just had filed, Jagdgeschwader 73 at Laage, I'm going to be on exchange with the MiG-29 unit there for the next year." Harry drawled, noting Nadya's eyes widening. He'd completely forgotten to mention that when they'd been chatting and having lunch.

"Nobody outside the RAF could be that smug." grumbled the same pilot; "Break and return to base. Hunter boy, go and fix your transponder, it's not working."

The two Harriers peeled away, but not before Harry got in a final snide remark.

"Don't get into any more fights with Hunters, you're outclassed there. If you need some good fare, I'm told that there's good pheasant and partridge shooting in southern Germany." he stated while leaning forward to check the transponder box. One of the wires had come loose and the thing wasn't transmitting any longer. "Returning to Celle."


"Enjoy yourself?" Harry asked as the Avon spooled down with a low whine.

"Never felt anything like it." Nadya replied with an infectious grin, peeling off her helmet, shaking a wave of blonde hair out; "I haven't had that much fun in an age. I love my little Taifun, but that's something else."

"You should try something with an afterburner then." said Harry with a smirk; "I've been lucky enough to fly quite a few things and the powerful 'burning jets are pretty damn fun. Just being able to shove the throttles open and blast away."

"They said that about the Starfighter." was the sarcastic riposte.

"Hey, the Starfighter isn't all that bad." Harry countered; "I've flown it and it's a pretty neat aeroplane... as long as you don't try doing something stupid, like flying it."

Nadya snorted as she disarmed and unstrapped from the ejector seat.

"To be honest, the Starfighter's nice to fly for short periods of time, at high altitude and in fairly straight lines." Harry admitted; "I have only flown Danish and Italian ones though. And I've stuck to high-altitude, good weather and been pretty damned careful."

"Good, because it would be embarrassing if you got hurt flying an idiotic aircraft idiotically." said Nadya.

"Don't worry, I've already experienced ejecting from a jet and I have no wish to do so again." replied Harry with a grimace.

"What!?" she demanded.

"Don't worry, it was a test ejection from a two-seat Gloster Meteor for which I volunteered out of boredom." Harry reassured her.

"I thought that it was men who weren't supposed to understand women." Nadya shook her head; "Not the other way around."

Harry laughed as he unstrapped from the ejector seat, making sure to replace the safety pin before dropping onto Celle Airbase's tarmac. Nadya did the same, making certain that her 'bang' seat wouldn't go bang before climbing out. Before they headed towards her hired Mercedes-Benz SL parked on the edge of the stand, Nadya gave the aircraft a pat on the side of the cockpit.

"A good aircraft." she commented.

"The single-seaters are good for interrupting boring after-dinner speakers." Harry smirked; "I once took one past an RAF base officers' mess at thirty feet and five-hundred knots. Apparently the unholy howl from the airflow over the cannon livened things up a bit. And shut up the person droning on and on."

"I don't know how your career is intact given you seem to have no care for authority and generally seem to do whatever you like whenever you like." Nadya commented, shaking her head.

"I generally do whatever I like whenever I like, but I know well enough when to cover up what I did." Harry said with a straight face; "Anyway, d'you need me to write anything in your logbook?"

"If you could." Nadya requested, retrieving said logbook from the seat of her hirecar.

Harry noted an hour-and-a-half sortie in a Hawker Hunter T.68 with just over fifty-five minutes as pilot in control including the takeoff and intensive air combat manoeuvring. He signed it as Flight Lieutenant H.J Potter, Royal Air Force. That would be interesting to anyone looking through it Nadya's logbook and the experience for herself would be useful. He had some suspicions that she had a fairly photographic memory because, before taking her up in the Hunter, he'd quickly run through the emergency procedures for the aircraft and got her to memorise the locations of the various instruments and controls. All of which had been done without hesitation or failure.

"D'you want to get some lunch now?" Nadya asked as Harry returned her logbook.

"Sure, my treat." Harry grinned.

"You've already taken me flying – I should pay." she objected.

"I don't often get the chance to take a friend out for lunch." Harry waved her objection off; "Especially good looking women."

"Be careful Harry, a woman might think you were talking about her." Nadya smirked, a slight blush appearing.

Harry chuckled as he climbed into the passenger seat of her hire car.


"So, MiG-29s at Rostock?" Nadya commented with a raised eyebrow, sipping from a glass of beer just after the waiter had taken away their plates, having had a quite satisfyingly tasty meal.

"I got told that I was being posted on exchange just yesterday evening." Harry admitted; "I've been told that my intelligence officer will be around, and that another RAF pilot will also be on the exchange. Apparently I'm the most experienced pilot of Warsaw Pact aircraft in the British Armed Forces with time on every MiG between the '15 and the '29."

"Oh, I wasn't aware that the '25 was in Western hands?" frowned Nadya.

"Mhmm, there are quite a few Eastern Bloc planes in NATO hands, including two ex-Iraqi MiG Foxbats, plus a load of airframe spares. I can't tell you who possesses them, that's classified." Harry responded.

RAF Boscombe Down with the Aircraft and Armament Evaluation Establishment had custody of the aircraft, all of which had been procured by Section Five. The testing was performed only at night-time and in such secrecy that only four pilots, two being Harry and Jock, two from A and AEE, knew about it. Ground crew were limited to a dozen technicians. The base controller and the test unit's CO were the only others 'in the know'.

"I heard that the Iraqis have retired their remaining MiG-29s because nobody is willing to maintain them." stated Nadya.

"Mhmm, the Russians have yet to secure such a stable position in the modern world that they would risk supporting a controversial nation like Iraq, especially in providing the ability to combat the no-fly zones we're enforcing over northern and southern Iraq." Harry nodded; "These exchanges with Western pilots getting their hands will be useful with ex-Soviet stuff being spread around like sherbet lemons."

"What's the betting some rich American tycoon gets hold of one of them and tries to kill himself with it." Nadya laughed.

"I don't do sucker bets unless I'm the one winning them." Harry rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair.

"Anyway, you've flown the '29, so is it up to the hype?" demanded Nadya.

"Somewhat. I haven't actually flown one in mock combat apart from one occasion when an RAF Tornado 'fired' an electric signal mimicking a Skyflash radar-guided missile. The crew didn't even know what they were 'shooting' at." Harry chuckled; "But the aircraft is designed for being guided into a fight by a controller. The onboard radar systems aren't great, what is great is that the Vympel R-73 heat seeking missile can be directed by a helmet display for shots at weird angles. The only place where the super-manoeuvrability thing comes into play is at speeds way below where a jet dogfight would occur."

"So it's an extremely powerful aerobatic aircraft with missiles?" Nadya concluded.

"Something like that." replied Harry; "Damn, now I've got to take one around an aerobatic course."

"That should either be very interesting or very lethal." said Nadya, before cocking her head to one side; "Does having all this classified stuff, all these secrets, knocking around your head get annoying, having exceptional experiences and not being allowed to discuss them in any detail with friends and family?"

"I don't honestly know." Harry mused; "I was never the most sociable type, my one true friend in school stayed to complete her education when I dropped out and joined the armed forces, we didn't keep in contact because I was so rarely in the country during the first few years. Otherwise, the nearest thing to family for me is the group of guys who I work with, the kind who I'd trust my life to as my only blood relatives would be rather happy if I upped and died."

"Oh?"

"Orphan, see. Parents killed in a terrorist attack back in the mid-seventies." said Harry with a thin, humourless smile; "Can't say I've ever had a family, I've always been a bit of a loner."

"I'm sorry-" began Nadya.

"Don't worry. I've tried never to let it define who I am. I make my own choices, right or wrong and accept the consequences, all that changed was that I had to start doing that far earlier." Harry cut her off.

Nadya fell silent for a moment, piecing together what he'd said and what she could accurately infer from that. Orphaned as he was learning to walk-and-talk. Possibly brought up by neglectful relatives. Forced to become self-reliant at an early age. Oh the irony. She made a snap decision to open up her rather personal story.

"I can sympathise with you." she admitted; "I don't know what became of my parents. All I know was that I was smuggled across the Berlin Wall as a year-old baby in nineteen-eighty and sent to blood relatives. For a few years I lived in their... custody. They weren't pleasant people, but eventually George Roberts, one of my neighbours, found out and took exception to their behaviour, and since then I've lived with 'Uncle George'."

"Sometimes I wonder what I could have been with a loving family." Harry sighed; "Probably not sat here talking to you, but I live for the present and the future, not what could have been."

Once again they fell silent. Harry was occasionally struck by melancholy, often in the long hours sat in the field waiting for something to happen, for a fight to erupt, but he had spoken truthfully, he didn't live for what might have been. Nadya contemplated what he had said, something far deeper than she expected. To live not in or for the past but for the present and the future. Subconsciously, she had indeed done so. Skipping years at school, graduating early, saving money, making contacts, studying. Her yearning to fly had led her to live for the future.

"Don't get me wrong, I do have regrets, but I cannot change the past. I can however learn from it, make better choices." Harry said eventually; "And yes, sometimes living a life full of secrets can be tiring but it's something you learn to cope with it. I suppose that's one area where no family is good, nobody asking awkward questions that I can't answer. There have been times I wished that there was someone who would care for me, but I learnt otherwise too early."

Nadya swiftly locked down her emotional responses, knowing from her own experiences that outbursts of emotion would simply confuse and make things awkward. She settled for simply taking his hand and gently squeezing for a moment.

"I don't understand sometimes how people so happily denigrate their parents, if they no longer had them..." continued Harry; "Ah damn, I should take my own advice and not live in the past. You know Nadya, I don't know why I'm so open about this. I've only discussed this with one person, ever, before you."

"Maybe we're just similar people." Nadya shrugged; "Both of us are orphans, both of us love flying and mucking about with old aeroplanes, both of us had crap childhoods until we took control and made our own choices. For you the armed forces, for me the guardianship of someone who cares for me."

"Maybe." Harry nodded; "Sorry, I shouldn't be unloading my woes on you-"

"Don't." Nadya snapped; "Just don't. Sometimes even the strongest people need to talk through things. God knows I have had to often enough. Besides, I'd be a pretty terrible friend to refuse to listen. And don't apologise for attempting to apologise because if you do I'll hit you."

"Okay okay." Harry laughed, a smile breaking out on his face; "I get it. But anyway, thanks."

He directed a significant glance at one of the waitresses as he drained the last dregs of his coke, knowing he was flying on that evening he hadn't ordered alcohol. She quickly got the hint and brought the bill. Harry quickly glanced over it and produced a wallet. He searched through it, going past wodges of British pounds, US dollars and other European currency before digging out a couple of Deutsche Mark notes.

"Danke, die anderung ist ein tipp." Harry stated, handing them over.

"I assume you're not staying tonight, given you've not touched the alcohol?" asked Nadya as Harry squared the bill.

"I could just be a tea-totaller." said Harry with a slight smirk.

"But I saw that hip-flask in the pocket of your flying suit." Nadya countered.

"Maybe I was pleased to see you." Harry said innocently.

"Stop, I'm innocent." she laughed, holding both hands up.

"But anyway I'm flying onto Jagdgeschwader Dreiundsiebzig 'Steinhoff' at Rostock-Laage tonight." Harry said before adding to the waitress who was deftly removing the various items of used crockery, glassware and cutlery; "Danke sehen."

"Bitteschön." replied the waitress.

"If you don't mind me asking, how do you manage, as just a gymnasium graduate, to run something like a Taifun?" Harry asked as they headed back out onto the streets of Celle.

"My guardian is the gamekeeper for a big game reserve in southern Germany. There are a lot of rich German industrialists and American generals willing to pay a lot to shoot a wild boar or a deer and have its head stuffed and mounted." Nadya replied; "I often go along as spotter or gun-caddy."

"That's pretty neat. I don't usually shoot for sport, somehow it seems a bit pointless." said Harry.

"I'm curious as to how, aged, you said eighteen at Fairford, you were running a Spitfire and a Super Sabre." commented Nadya.

"The Spit was inherited. The Super Sabre was pre-teenaged rebellion when I took up arms dealing as a hobby." Harry replied with a completely straight face.

"I should never have asked." Nadya shook her head in despair.

"Well you did."

"Much to my regret."