The same day

444 Squadron Air Force Base

Alex was eating a small bowl of pasta when someone knocked on his door early in the morning. He stood up and went to the door to open it. Four men were standing outside. Colonel McKinsey, two bodyguards and an admiral that he had met nearly a month ago on a now-damaged aircraft carrier.

'Good morning Commander, been a while hasn't it?' Rear Admiral Tahir Logan, wearing a utility uniform, greeted Alex. The latter nodded and stepped back.

'Indeed it has sir. Come in.' Logan came in and the others shut the door behind them. Alex noticed that the admiral had a bag and a folder with him. 'Want a coffee?'

'Polite pass. I have something to discuss that you may be interested in.' Logan took a seat on a couch in the corner of the room that had a table in front of it. Alex quickly refilled a bottle of water and took a chair over to the table to sit down.

'All ears.' Alex was handed the folder. He opened it. Inside were several photos and papers showing radio transcripts. He looked at the photos first. Based on the point of view, they were taken by satellite. A cliff-face facing into the ocean with snow and ice surrounding it. The second photo behind it was of the same area, but this time a gap in the cliff had opened and something was coming into it. A large black object. It had a large central section with two smaller pods flanking it at the stern. A big son of a bitch.

'Where was this taken?' Alex shifted through the two images.

'A fjord in Ice Creek. NAVSAT managed to catch these two images after a communication came down the cable network we tapped into. This area was mentioned.' Logan explained. Alex found the mentioned intercept and read it.


TO: Commanding Officer, Fjord Delta

FROM: CINC, Royal Armed Forces of Erusea

MESSAGE:

Acquisition and refit of Scinfaxi-class submersible aircraft carrier confirmed. Vessel will leave on 4TH JUNE. Expect arrival on or about 8TH JUNE. Maintain the usual security level to avoid suspicion and investigation from foreign forces.

Asset callsign AVENGER.

END MESSAGE


Alex placed the message back in the folder. He whistled. 'So you need my help to sink the damn thing.'

'Yes.' Logan shifted in the seat and pulled out something from his bag. Black fabric patches with three thick golden stripes and a circle. They were directed towards Alex, who looked at them with a frown and a raised eyebrow. 'These are yours, now, by the way. Congratulations, Commander.'

Alex took them and started replacing his lieutenant-commander patches with the newer commander ones. 'I'm honoured. But on topic of the ugly fat fucker, what's your game plan?'

'Boys on the ground are still working on that.'

'Boys on the ground?' Alex frowned. Always some factor that he didn't find out about until later.

'Already got part of a team assembled. A carrier, two Air Force squads and a Marine Force Recon platoon.'

'I thought the Navy was low on aircraft carriers?'

'Our supercarriers? Absolutely, we're in dire need of those. But at the same time, small escort carriers are in surplus.'

'Don't like where this is going.' Alex stated, rubbing his forehead. 'And I definitely don't like the fact that there's a second submarine with ballistic missiles running about.'

'OIA's working on intelligence for the first one, but Avenger takes priority for your case.'

'Understood. When do I meet the rest of the team?'

'Orca's underway south of Rocky Island. You'll be flying in with a VTOL.'

'Last I checked, there weren't any F-35Bs on the base.'

'That won't be a problem. We brought one with us.'

Alex frowned and stood up to go to the window. He opened the curtain. On the taxiway was a C-17. Coming out of the back of it was a black aircraft without wings attached. As the nose came around, Alex saw the flame paintjob on the nose.

'Well, at least you got my style down.'


The next few hours were a blur.

Alex suited up for flight while the mechanics prepped the F-35B Lightning II. Once the aircraft was readied and fuelled, Alex zoomed off the runway and went north-east. The C-17 followed shortly behind. In that time Alex had a lot of time to think about his situation and the upcoming mission. A recon and strike mission on a super-submarine deep behind enemy lines, in the arctic regions. Well this feels familiar, Alex thought at some point. It was basically what he and his wingmates had done to the Hrimfaxi nine years earlier. The water below them was gradually turning more opaque as the two aircraft travelled into colder waters. Three hours later, a rocky cliff came into view. At the base of it was a wide water passage. In the middle of it, a ship. The IFF identified the vessel as OFS Orca. As Alex got closer, he saw what Logan had meant by light carrier. The ship was a third of the size of a supercarrier, with no angled section for aircraft recovery and a ramp at the front end of the flight deck for launching S/VTOL aircraft.

'Orca, Blaze, requesting landing permissions.' Alex called the air boss on the carrier.

'This is Orca, commander, you are cleared to land on the aft landing pad.' The air boss responded. Alex reduced thrust on the engine and went into VTOL mode to lose forward airspeed approaching the ship. His maneuver was well-timed, bringing him to a halt exactly over the area he had to be. The ship was moving forward however, forcing Alex to move with the ship to compensate. Alex reduced vertical thrust further and shut down the engine entirely as he touched down. The moment the wheels kissed the flight deck a gaggle of ground crew ran out to tie down the F-35.

'Blaze, on deck.' Alex said one thing before powering down the aircraft entirely. A small crew of pilots had already come out to the back to see the newcomer. He took off his helmet, looped it onto his vest and opened the canopy to step out. At that moment he noticed that the crew of pilots currently out was only four members. Two black guys, a bald man and a woman. Alex walked over to them.

'You our new guy?' One of the black males, the one with sharper facial features, spoke first. He sounded like a relaxed man.

'Unless they sent someone to replace me, yep.' Alex joked. 'I'm Blaze.'

'I'm Wiseman, overall commander of this joint.' He indicated to the pilots standing next to him while saying this. 'The other guys are in the crew room, I'll introduce you to the rest of the team.'

'Thank you.' Still in flight uniform, Alex and the four pilots walked across the deck, through the superstructure and down inside the hull of the carrier. They walked through several hallways, passing by the hangar before finally arriving in the crew room forward of the hangar. Two other pilots were in the room. They were playing a card game.

'Lanza, Jaeger, say hi to our new friend.' Wiseman quickly introduced Alex to the two men.

'Welcome to the merry ol' crew, man.' Lanza said while scanning the commander. He nodded and smiled.

'That's Lanza, our resident book nerd.' The woman in the team said, falling heavily on a couch facing towards a table.

'Hey, you're no better than me, Huxian.' Lanza defended himself. Huxian chuckled while shaking her head and opening a book.

'Wiseman, is there a ready room where I can put my shit?' Alex asked, wanting to get out of his uniform. The former pointed to a door in the back of the room. Alex nodded and went in. The room was smaller than a typical ready room, probably because of the few pilots embarked. Alex noticed that there was a locker with his initials and callsign on it. He opened it. Inside was a fresh working uniform. He changed into that quickly, stowed his kit and came back out again. Everyone was now seated. Alex found a place to sit in the corner of the couch.

'Admiral Logan showed us your service record.' Jaeger said while stretching his back. 'Glad to have the demon under our wing, captain.'

'You know, I was hoping he wouldn't mention that.' Alex stretched out his legs. 'I didn't take the liberty to read up on you people, so I don't know any names around here.'

'Well, you've met Wiseman, Huxian and Lanza.' The bald man answered the question that Alex didn't have the time to ask. 'We've got two teams. In Cyclops' corner, Wiseman, I'm Fencer, and Huxian. Your half, Strider, you've got yourself, Jaeger, Skald and Lanza.' The pilots mentioned made some form of movement to identify themselves when called out.

'Yeah, if the admiral didn't tell you already, you're being placed in command of Strider. Welcome to the DSRU.' Wiseman briefed Alex on the basics.

'Bloody hell does that mean?' Alex asked. He had never heard of the term in any context.

'See?' Lanza said as to prove a point.

'Deep Strike Recon Unit.' Jaeger actually answered the question.

'We find stuff and attack it, deep behind enemy lines.' Wiseman talked again. 'And in this case, we're after a Yuktobanian super submarine that the Eruseans got their hands on. Any questions?'

'Yes,' Alex did indeed have a question. 'What's your plan for sinking the damn thing?'

'Two phases. First phase, we're gonna find an opening for a Marine SOF team to infiltrate the port and open the gate for us to get in. Second phase, we go in, cripple or sink that sub, and get out.'

'The base looked pretty damn hard to crack from the photos I saw. I don't think it'll be that easy.' Alex was skeptical of the main plan, and rightfully so. Submarine docks were notoriously hard to get into, let alone attack.

'Which is where Plan B comes in. If we can't get in, then we blast the entire place to slag with bomb strikes and cruise missile attacks.' Jaeger pitched in again. Wiseman nodded to him.

'Why can't we go with plan B first, again?' Huxian, head deep into some sort of novel.

'Because that's the very opposite of subtle.' Skald noted.

'Not to mention that blasting open an area of that size and composition will be a pain in the ass.' Alex mentioned.

'That too.' Skald agreed.

'More importantly, are those Marines embarked on the ship?' Alex asked. He hadn't seen anyone in their uniform onboard so far, or any transports an SOF team would use to go places.

'They're already at Ice Creek.' Wiseman answered. 'They've been behind enemy lines for a couple of weeks now.'

'Jeez. Tough bastards.'

'Attention all hands, this is the captain speaking.' The 1MC system going off interrupted their conversation. 'Prepare for arctic weather operations. We are moving into the colder areas of Usea. That is all.'

'Well,' Alex laid back a little and cracked his neck. 'I suspect this is going to be a bland trip.'