June 10th, 2019
Aircraft carrier OFS
Hubert

South-west Spring Sea

For an aircraft carrier, Hubert's flight deck was almost clean of aircraft and devoid of personnel. On that deck, a recovering Talon approached the F-14D parked on the starboard forward most aircraft elevator. The Super Tomcat bore the Navy's standard light grey camo with the tail marking correctly assigned to Hubert and her carrier air wing. There was a personal emblem near the left air intake, one of a man wielding a sword. A second one was placed next to it. She had seen it on Alex's aircraft. The Razgriz. She ran her good hand across the emblem slowly, her right arm plastered and slung around her chest and neck.

'Yes, it's a Super Tomcat.' A voice from behind made Talon jump and turn around. A man was coming up to her. Commander Snow. Talon exhaled and looked back at the F-14D.

'The Ghosts of Razgriz. I've seen that emblem.' Talon read the text on it.

The Ghosts of Razgriz

Razgriz Air Command Squadron

'You've seen it?' Snow was now a few metres away from Talon and the F-14.

'Alex had it on his Su-33, and I swear I saw it on a Typhoon at Fort Greys.' Talon stopped touching the emblem and rubbed a spot next to her neck scar. Next to that scar was a line of stitches that were keeping together a wound that was mostly concealed under her uniform.

'Yeah, we all kept the emblem after that.' Snow held his position. 'How did the captain end up in your squad and not in anyone else's?'

'I guess it was because we had the least pilots. Razor had eight, Hammer and Hawk both had six, while Panther only had three including myself. Hell, Razor wasn't even assigned to the Vulture at the time. They were a squadron stationed at the naval base.' Talon answered. 'Down to one now. I'm the last man standing.'

'I know how that feels…' Snow spoke but drifted off. Talon spun to face him and placed her good hand on her hip.

'Alex didn't mention you being in Wardog. Where were you before the Razgriz?'

Snow nodded slightly. 'On the Kestrel. I was a squad leader, or at least until the fucking Scinfaxi appeared and sunk both the Buzzard and the Vulture. Barely survived that one. A carrier's no good without pilots, so along with the carrier I got placed in reserves in a remote port in the middle of the Ceres Ocean.'

'And that was it?' Talon was curious.

'Well, I helped in a plot to fake the deaths of Alex, Kei and Hans, but that's legend by this point.'

'Yeah, Alex mentioned it. Did you actually get a medal for that?'

Snow laughed. 'Ah, sadly not.' He noticed the rank slide half-concealed because of the sling on Talon's uniform. 'I don't believe I caught your name, Lieutenant…?'

'Lieutenant-Commander Zoe Davis, sir. I didn't catch yours either.'

'Commander Marcus Snow.'

'Well met, sir. Keep in mind, most people call me Talon.'

'Well, Talon, did you fight in the last war?'

Talon shifted on her feet a little. 'A major skirmish over the Pacific with the Yukes, but that was in the final week of the war.'

'Carrier-based?' Snow was resting on the ladder leading up to the cockpit of his F-14. Talon nodded.

'Orca. A small VTOL carrier in the 5th Fleet. The losses we took during that battle were bad. How I survived, only god knows.' Talon leaned against the air intake, rubbing the scar on her neck. She looked down at the flight deck and shook her head. While he didn't say anything, Snow could see that something was troubling her.

Fort Greys Island

Helmet in hand, Grimm walked alone across an empty taxiway to the hangars where his Typhoon was parked, helmet tucked under one arm. He wore aviator glasses to blot out the glare of the sun that was rising across the horizon.

'Target is approaching his aircraft.' Proning behind the dead corpse of a recently deceased mechanic, a man in flight uniform watched his target stroll towards the single aircraft in the hangar, a Typhoon. He held a remote detonator in his hand connected to an explosive charge in the cockpit, but should that fail he also had a 9-millimeter pistol in the other hand.

'Jeez, empty this morning.' Grimm noted to himself. There was literally no-one in the hangar, which was unusual for a packed airbase. That on its own wasn't too concerning. Grimm heard a slosh of liquid as he stepped into a puddle. The liquid left a streak of red on the sole of his boots. He frowned and crouched down next to it. He took off a glove and dipped his fingers in it. It was bright red and had a consistency similar to blood. That was cause for concern. Grimm looked around the centre of the hangar. There were similar patches close to the plane and near racks of weaponry. A spray of blood could be seen on the nose of the Typhoon along with a dent in the middle of it. Grimm unholstered his sidearm, an M9A3, and went into the high-ready position.

The man with the detonator frowned. His target had stopped and pulled out a pistol in alert.

'Well, if you want to play that way.' He pressed down on the detonator. A split second later the charge he had placed in the Typhoon exploded, lacing through the aircraft and causing a larger secondary explosion that blasted open the hangar and knocked over most of the boxes in it.

Grimm was thrown back into a diesel power generator by the force of the explosion, dropping his pistol in the process. He hit the generator hard and grunted loudly, falling to the floor. A piece of airframe about the size of a football hit him in the head, dazing him for a moment.

Joshua Nicholas groaned and brushed himself off before standing up. He could taste blood. The explosive charge he made had evidently been of a higher yield than the assassin had intended. USP in hand, Josh walked forward towards the target. He was sure that the explosion didn't kill him.

His assumption was correct. Grimm had recovered quickly and was standing by the time that Josh had regained line of sight. With one hand he leveled his USP and fired a single round.

Grimm shouted as something slammed into his chest at high speed. It knocked the wind out of him and put him on his ass. As he fell, Grimm saw a man through the rising flames and smoke with a pistol leveled at him. His own pistol had been thrown somewhere else. Running out of options, Grimm untied the helmet looped through his vest and threw it, cricket-style, at the man with the gun.

Josh had been about to fire when the target had stood up, torn a helmet off his hip and threw it at him. The pitch had been fast enough that Josh had no time to react before his hand was slammed by the helmet and thrown out of position. He fired a bullet uselessly into the concrete floor. Josh shrugged the helmet off of his arms and raised the pistol to finish the job. At that precise moment, a man burst out from the flames that was engulfing much of the hangar. The lower half of his flight suit lit on fire, Grimm knocked the gun out of Josh's hand with a firm backhand before proceeding to punch him directly in the mouth. His right hook missed as Josh ducked underneath it and tackled Grimm. The latter had good footing, holding his ground and using an elbow to hit Josh in the back of the head. The blow stunned the attacker who held his head in pain long enough for Grimm to break his grip and flip him onto the now-searing concrete floor. To make sure that the attacker didn't get up, Grimm finished the fight with a firm punch to the nose, resulting in a wet crunch and Josh being knocked out. The victor of the short-lived fight, Grimm dragged the man out of the hangar and out onto the taxiway where a large group of military personnel had gathered very quickly following the explosion. Core among them were medics and armed guards. The medics ran over to Grimm and the man he was dragging. Grimm's uniform was no longer on fire, appearing unscathed. Flight suits were fire-retardant.

'This motherfucker,' Grimm stopped dragging the man and fell to his knees and hands, coughing up some of the smoke he had inhaled. He looked at the guards and stood up, pointing to the man he had dragged out. 'Sergeant, restrain him.' Grimm burst into a coughing fit before falling to the ground facefirst.