The following day

High up in space, the Pilgrim I orbited around the planet. Kei was on the bridge of the plane-like space vessel looking at the Earth below. On the Usean continent, smoke could be seen from orbit, the site of mass destruction. There were many smoke pillars that she could see. Kei sighed and got up. 'XO has the bridge.' The captain left, heading for the crew quarters. She needed to make a call to someone.

At the Twinkle Islands, Alex woke up when he subconsciously heard the faint roar of jet engines. The first thing he did was to check his phone for the time. 6:30 in the morning. Jeez, didn't get much sleep. Alex stood up and stretched when his phone started ringing. 'Who?' Alex mused to himself while checking the caller ID. 'Oh. Kei.' He took the call.

'Alex?' She started the conversation first.

'That's me, Kei. How's space doing?'

'Come up for seven years and ask me again. Are you okay?'

'A little banged up but otherwise I'm fine.'

'Banged up?'

'Well I got shot down and shot in the stomach a few weeks back and I almost got shot down again earlier this morning.'

'You what?!' Kei's sudden volume and concern made Alex jump out of his skin. Protective as ever.

'Hey now, I'm still fine. Funny story, I managed to find Marcus and I know Grimm's out there somewhere. And now me and Marcus are at an ISAF-controlled airbase on the Twinkle Islands.'

Kei calmed down. 'Okay, good. But I thought ISAF was disbanded after the Continental War?'

'With all the Free Erusea stuff that happened a while ago, they're still around but in a smaller capacity.'

Meanwhile
Maya-class guided missile destroyer Geofon

In the middle of the Spring Sea, Erusean AEGIS destroyer Geofon cruised south at a steady 20 knots. After much of the fleet moored at Farbanti was crippled, Geofon had been sent to escort a high-value cargo ship to Anchorhead Bay. The two ships had been operating at EMCOM Alpha to avoid detection by the Osean carrier task force that was probably around their location.

An electronics warfare officer was manning a station in the CIC, scanning passively in all directions for any hostile communications.

'Sir!' He called out. 'Detecting a broad-band connection from a craft in low Earth orbit. Path is consistent with that of a radio call.' A more senior officer, the Tactical Actions Officer, came over to the EW officer. He checked the screen and then picked up a headset.

'Bridge, TAO, an Osean satellite above our heads is communicating with forces on land.'

'Can't risk it revealing our location. ASAT launch authorised, kill the bird.'

'Copy.' The TAO smiled and put away the headset. 'Activate SPY radar and fire control. We're shooting to space ladies and gents.'

'Ballistic tracking enabled. Target aquired.'

'Kill Track 2100 with birds.'

'Batteries released, shoot.'

'Missile away.'

Geofon fired an SM-3 Standard exo-atmospheric interceptor. A variant of the SM-2, the SM-3 was designed specifically to intercept ballistic missiles while they were in the orbital phase, but in practice they could hit anything in orbit provided that it could be tracked. The first was followed by two more. They quickly broke the sound barrier and accelerated to intercept the Pilgrim.

'New ESM contact.' Down at the base's command room, an electronic warfare operator reported a spike in energy appeared as a solid line on his monitor. The line was thin and down a definite bearing. 'He's a strong one. Bearing 055, designated Echo 3.'

'With that sort of energy, no way in hell it's a civilian vessel.' The senior NCO next to him noted, pressing a button on his keyboard. 'Control, Chief Griffins. Warship assumed hostile, 055, designation Echo 3. Recommend aircraft scramble to ID and intercept.'

In a room under the ATC, an officer received the call. 'Acknowledged. General, Echo 3 is assumed hostile.'

A gritty-looking general saw the contact go red on a projector at the front of the room. 'Send up the Alert 5 aircraft as a precaution and wake up the others.'

On Pilgrim, Captain John Davis was half-asleep when a light flashed red and made beeping noises. The noise stirred the XO and made him check what the issue was. His heart stopped and his blood turned to ice when he realised what alarm was going on. John was quick to press a button on the communications panel that transmitted to Nagase's room.

'Kei, radar ping from the surface!'

In her room, Kei held her phone in one hand and replied to John's call with the other by hitting the voice activation button.

'Search or fire-control?' '

'I dunno but it's pretty fucking powerful and getting really fucking close!' John's voice was urgent. Alex could hear it from the other end of the line.

'Kei, what does he mean getting close?'

A ship-wide alert blared, loud enough to vibrate the hull. 'All hands, incoming kinetic warheads, brace for impact!'

'Alex!-'

Alex heard the commotion and Kei shout out his name before there was a loud static noise and then the line cut.

'Kei? Kei?!'

All three missiles hit their target. One hit the command deck directly, shattering the plexiglass windows and shredding apart most of the front end. John was speared directly by the warhead and exploded in a puff of gore. Explosive decompression sucked the other three members on the bridge out into space where they would suffocate in the vacuum of space. The second was a near-miss, blowing out many hydraulic and electric systems in the starboard wing near the flaps. The third and last hit roughly in the centre of the Pilgrim. This warhead exploded instead of piercing using pure kinetic warhead. Kei's room was located on the bottom-most level of the centre module and so took the brunt of the explosion. The floor underneath her simply folded away as the explosion blew it away. Luckily she still had her pilot reactions and instincts, grabbing onto the handle of a closet before the decompression could suck her out. Kei reached for the door handle next to the closet so she could get out of the room and into a safer area. Fragments of metal shot up and caught her in the legs. A particularly big shard of metal ripped open Kei's arm halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. She screamed soundlessly in pain, that arm falling uselessly and leaving her tethered to the cabinet to suffocate. Blood started to pour out of the wound. Kei almost let go from pain overwhelming her body when the door opened to reveal another crew member looking for her, wearing an oxygen mask and helmet. She grabbed Kei by her wounded arm, motioned for her to let go of the door. Kei did so and the crew member dragged the captain back into relative safety before shutting the door and sealing the room. Injured by exposure and impact marks, Kei passed out on the floor.

On the planet surface, Alex tried to call Kei's phone. He waited a second for a tone. The call cut short followed by an automated voice. The person you are trying to call is currently unavailable- Blaze threw the phone at a wall in a fit of anger. Quick-minded, the first thing to come to the 32-year old's mind was revenge. Eyes seeing red, Blaze rushed out of the room to the surprise of a nearby ISAF airman. He ran for the hangar bays, passing Snow and Cipher on the way past. Snow said nothing but Cipher called out to the apparently deaf pilot. 'Blaze! The fuck are you going? Your aircraft isn't combat-ready!' Blaze left the two in the distance. Behind Cipher, Snow sighed.

'I hope you lock your plane, sir, because if it's functional he's going to steal it.' Snow's voice was flat, as if he understood what had happened. A third man, a white-haired one in a brown flight suit, watched Blaze run.

'Not yours Williams, your F-15 is still in the hangar. He'll probably take my 37.'

Blaze burst out onto the Alert 15 line. Ground crew and some pilots were assembled in the area but not a lot of the latter. He quickly processed each aircraft to see if they were suitable for anti-ship operations. He skipped over a few Su-27s and F-16s. No, no, no, no, no. A two-tone grey and yellow Su-37 caught Blaze's attention. Prepared for a sortie and armed with anti-ship missiles. Good enough. He climbed up the ladder, strapped in and put on the helmet the Terminator already had. The same size as Blaze was, good. Blaze shut the canopy and kicked off the takeoff procedure with the assistance of confused ground crew. Within 5 minutes, Blaze rolled out from the hangar and swiveled to the taxiway which he used as a runway to take off from. Afterburners lit, he roared into the skies. The number 14 was pasted on the side of the Su-37.

'Tower, Razgriz 1, requesting bearing to enemy ABM launchers.'

'Bearing 045 from tower, Echo 3. Transmitting IFF data.'

'Received. Intercepting.' Blaze shot off at just above sea level at bearing 045. He had just lost his best friend - no, girlfriend -, a veteran of the Circum-Pacific War, to new-fanged ABM technology. By tooth or claw he would extract revenge on the offender. A water slick kicked up below and behind the jet.

'All three interceptors hit. Target destroyed.'

'Good job. Shut off AEGIS and fire-control.'

The contact went silent on radar and dropped off. Blaze grunted angrily and increased his altitude to peek over the horizon. He activated his radar. It took a few seconds to get a radar return from the same bearing. Lock acquired, you fucks. Blaze selected and fired a pair of missiles - BrahMos supersonic AShMs. Faster than the Su-37, they shot ahead to go hit the contact. Blaze switched off his radar and went to an extremely low altitude again. This process was performed fast enough that the Geofon didn't detect the Su-37 nor the AShMs. Both BrahMos weapons went active at their end-point, five kilometres from the bow of the Geofon.

'Vampire vampire vampire, incoming AShM-'

Geofon was hit by two supersonic anti-ship missiles on the 31st of May, 2019 at 0630 hours local time. She was lost with all hands when VLS magazines detonated and tore apart the ship. Later analysis of electronic systems data and satellite imaging would reveal that the launch aircraft was an unmarked Su-37.