A/N: Right, I'm back. I apologise for leaving this for so long! With the COVID nonsense I've been busy for a while. Hopefully I should be able to restore a proper schedule now.
Sitting in the driver's seat of his green Hummer, Tyler dialed a number through his phone. The line buzzed for a few moments before the man at the other end picked up.
'Hello?' The man on the other end was Alex Williams. On his end there was the sound of jet engines roaring.
'Blaze, it's Lance. Keep your eyes out. There's a pilot assassin after you. A good one.' Tyler warned him.
'This couldn't have come through on a secure channel? Besides, I'm a little busy at the moment.' Alex said after inhaling audibly.
'I've got no other way of contacting you, and this is urgent. Watch. Your. Back.' Tyler said with a stern voice before cutting the call.
In the cockpit of the Su-33 with Michael sitting on top of him, Alex shook his head and put away his phone. 'Control, requesting permission to land.'
'Granted.' The ATC answered his request. Alex flipped up his visor and wiped his forehead.
Meanwhile
Tyler Island
While things had been slowly and loudly progressing for the Oseans and the Eruseans, a lone pilot in a white, grey and black splinter camo Su-57 shot forward over the ocean and towards an island. Grimnar checked his watch. 6PM.
'High Watcher, Raven, send mission traffic.' Grimnar contacted his AWACS, switching from master-safe to 500 pound iron bombs while saying so.
'Roger. Objectives from handler as follows: Destroy or disable the SSTO shuttle preparing for resupply of the Arsenal Birds. Sink the two AEGIS destroyers docked at the island. Destroy the THAAD systems.' AWACS High Watcher answered. He was Grimnar's mission controller in addition.
'Hmm. This should be exciting.' Grimnar said to himself. According to the intelligence given by his handler, the Eruseans had heavily fortified the island and its various establishments. In two minutes that wasn't going to matter. Grimnar lined himself up with the shuttle, preparing for a quick bombing run. As he crossed the line from ocean to land, Grimnar released two bombs. 1000lbs worth of explosives. They were Mark 82 Snakeyes, equipped with a high drag tail kit for low-level bombing. Grimnar was faster than the bombs and shot over the target a few seconds before the bombs connected with the shuttle. Its hull buckled inwards, hit by the bombs, and then spectacularly exploded in a bright flash of blue as its cargo detonated. Grimnar saw the explosion via the mirrors fitted to the top and sides of his cockpit. He shook his head and turned south-east to hit the THAAD batteries located at the southern airbase. Crossing the line from ocean to land once again, Grimnar's electronic suite picked up enemy radio transmissions.
'Air raid alert!'
'Where the hell did they come from?!'
'Radar didn't pick up the enemy attack force, I don't know where they are!'
'Jesus Christ, the shuttle is gone!'
Knowing that he was currently undetected, Grimnar punched the throttle all the way forward and switched from bombs to Hellfire ATGMs.
'Satellite imaging indicates four THAAD systems on the airfield.' High Watcher reported. Saying nothing, Grimnar pulled up to climb and dived directly on top of the airfield. His radar locked the four launcher vehicles. As soon as this happened, Grimnar hit the firing switch and four AGM-114L missiles popped off their rails in the belly of the fighter to go after their targets. Breaking the sound barrier, into the launcher vehicles of the ABM sites and detonating. These missiles weren't armed with standard HEAT warheads; instead they had small thermobaric charges more suited for destruction of light-armoured targets. Being very much lightly armoured targets, the THAAD batteries were shattered by the thermobaric charges.
'SSTO and anti-ballistic missiles destroyed.' Grimnar reported.
'Roger. Hmm. Our intel might have been off. The destroyers aren't here.' High Watcher said. Grimnar did a loop around the island. High Watcher was correct. The only ships in the dock near the gigantic mass driver were some small patrol boats and cargo vessels.
'They left before we got here. Either way, that's two primary objectives complete.'
'Indeed. Return to base, I'll inform the handler that the destroyers are missing.'
Without additional words, Grimnar pulled away from the island and back towards his base.
