Someone knocked on the door of Alex's office. Sitting at his desk, checking flight rosters for the next week, Alex stood up and went to open the door. Outside was a single man.

'Wiseman? What are you doing here?' Alex asked the DSRU leader. He and the other members of that unit had left the airbase a few days ago.

'Need to talk with you about a personnel transfer. May I come in?' Wiseman explained. Alex raised his eyebrows and stepped out of the doorway so he could enter the room. The two went to Alex's desk.

'So,' Alex took a seat. 'Is the DSRU getting people or is the 444th getting people?'

'The LRSSG. We're in need of some pilots.' Wiseman said. Alex tilted his head.

'LRSSG?' He asked.

'Long Range Strategic Strike Group.' Wiseman answered.

'If Jaeger was here I would agree with him. But anyway, who do you have in mind?'

'Eric Kovac and Kyle Gregor.'

'Trigger and Count? Well, I can't see them denying that offer.' Alex said. He clicked his fingers a second later and stood up, heading towards the window. 'Tell me Wiseman, do you guys have supporting engineers?'

'We have a team. What are you getting at?' Wiseman turned to face the commander. Alex opened the office curtains and pointed out the window.

'Look at those planes in the hangar.' Alex was pointing at a group of five aircraft; Hornets and Eagles. Wiseman stood up and walked over to the window.

'I see them.'

'What if I told you those were piles of scrap a few days ago?'

'I would ask who repaired them.'

'Would you want the mechanic that built those aircraft?'

'He would be a great support element for the team.'

'Avril Mead. Look for her, she's usually in the service bay.'

'I'll keep it in mind-' Wiseman began to say, but he was cut off by an alarm going off in the room. Alex went over to his desk and stopped the alarm that was ringing from his phone.

'I gotta go. Mission brief downstairs.' Alex collected his effects and went for the door.

'What's the mission?' Wiseman called out.

'DEAD ops!' Alex called back.

July 27, 2019, 1300 hours

Operation Flush

Waiapolo Mountains, Usea

Based on ELINT recon that other units have gathered during pushes inland, the Erusean drone network is relying on radar networks to trigger automatic drone responses. One such network is the communications base in the Waiapolo Mountains. This place has been a pain in the ass for too long. Command wants us to take this place out. The area is watched over by a long-range SAM network and spy satellites, so you're going to have to use the valleys and clouds around the region to hit the radar domes.

Half an hour later, the mission crew were assembled. Alex and Taipan were running as the group's advisors.

'Running aircraft in the region's most heavily defended ADIZ. Charming.' Taipan said to Alex as they exited the briefing room and headed towards the hangars.

'First time?' Alex asked, sarcastically. 'At least it's not Payalvenie Ravine. Waiapolo's valleys are much wider.'

'Isn't Payalvenie in Yuktobania?'

'Yep.' Alex climbed up to the cockpit of his Su-33 while Taipan went over to his F-15E. Once he was in, Alex strapped up and shut the canopy. He started the electrical system and suddenly voices came in through the radio. It was idle chatter, so Alex ignored it while he did his flight checks. Electrical, weapons, avionics, flaps, engines, check.

The Spare aircraft assigned to the mission taxiied over to the runway.

AIRCRAFT

Razgriz 1/Blaze - Su-33M3 Enhanced Flanker-D

Titan 3/Taipan - F-15E Strike Eagle

Spare 1/Count - Su-33 Flanker-D

Spare 2/Keystone - F-16CJ Block 52 Viper

Spare 3/Trigger - F-15E Strike Eagle

Spare 4/Full Band - F/A-18E Super Hornet

Spare 5/Tabloid - Mirage 2000-5

Spare 6/High Roller - F-16C Fighting Falcon

In pairs, each Spare member rolled down the runway until they made it into the air. They would be going hard north to Waiapolo. Blaze and Taipan took the lead of the formation. On course, the formation flew for an hour before they got to the outer reaches of the AO.

'I can practically hear the radar warnings from here.' Tabloid joked.

'No kidding. This place is covered in radar wave emitters.' Keystone with his SEAD/DEAD loadout agreed.

'Stay below the clouds until you're ready to strike. Erusean SA-21 batteries will knock you out of the sky otherwise.' Blaze reminded the squadron of the looming SAM threat. 'Begin operation.'

The squadron of eight entered the valley system from the south. At a certain point ahead of them was a fork in the valley that lead around the entire area; the squadron split in half to go both ways. Blaze, Count, Keystone and High Roller went left while Trigger, Taipan, Full Band and Tabloid went right. There were five radar sites in total. Blaze's group was the closest to Radar 1. As they got close to it, Blaze rose above the clouds, released a HARM and dropped down below the clouds. The missile streaked forward and hit its mark.

'First radar down.' Blaze reported. The group went for the second radar.

'Triple-A vehicles between us and the next radar.' Keystone pointed out.

'Count, High Roller, you're up.' Blaze told the other two in the formation. In reply, the two afterburnered ahead of the HARM-equipped fighters, beelinging towards the ZSU-23-4 SPAAG vehicles that were in their way. High Roller appeared from behind a mountain, armed his AGM-65 Mavericks and fired. The ZSUs acquired High Roller on radar and started firing. The latter evaded while waiting for the Mavericks to hit their target. They hit and shattered the ZSUs. Count flew past High Roller and pulled off the same feat with KH-31P missiles. Longer-ranged than the Maverick, Count fired them outside of the engagement range of the second pair of ZSUs. The long-term effect was the same, the two ZSUs being destroyed by the supersonic missiles.

Blaze and Keystone took the lead and headed for the second radar site. Once within range, Keystone rose above the clouds and fired a HARM. Because the mountain on which the radar was placed, Keystone used a rise and dive firing method for the HARM to negate the height advantage. Like Blaze before him, Keystone dived back into the clouds before the SA-21s could get a fire-control lock on him. And again like Blaze, the missile hit its target, disabling the radar.

On the other side of the AO, Group 2 led by Trigger arrived at the first radar they were meant to hit. Preferring the direct approach to taking things out, Trigger popped up above the cloud layer, the underside of his aircraft bristling with GBUs and air-to-air weapons. His RWR started blaring indicating that hostiles were tracking him. Paying no mind, Trigger climbed towards Radar 5. He released a GBU at the zenith of the climb, shot over the radar and rolled to shoot down the slope of the mountain, disappearing into the clouds. He heard the bomb detonate behind him as he dived. The radar was destroyed. Radar 4 wasn't far behind. Taipan, carrying AGM-158 JASSM cruise missiles, locked the GPS data for Radar 4 into his targeting computer and launched one of the stealthy missiles. It boosted ahead of his F-15 and guided itself to the target, burying into the command centre of the site and exploding spectacularly.

Both groups approached Radar 3 at roughly the same time. The least defended of the five, the two groups used more weaponry on it than would be sensible. Blaze and Keystone both fired HARMs at it, Taipan used his remaining JASSMs against it, Trigger dropped 2,500 pounds worth of explosive on the site, and everyone else gun-runned it as they crossed. The result was the radar site simply disappearing in a massive cloud of fire, debris and smoke.

'Growler batteries have stopped tracking. All radars destroyed.' Keystone reported.

'Those spy sats tracking?' Trigger asked, aware of the series of satellites that were watching them from above.

'If they are, they can't do anything about it. I'd say that's a mission well done.' Huntsman popped in. So far he had been quiet. 'That said, you've got friendly fighters ingressing from the west.'

Blaze frowned. 'I wasn't told of any other operations in the region.'

'Neither was I. Aircraft of VFA-051, state your intentions and destination.' Huntsman attempted to contact the Super Hornets approaching Spare Squadron. Blaze was still frowning. I've heard of that squadron. Where did I find them? He thought to himself.

'Spare, stay on your toes. Something isn't right here.' He called out to the squad. The VFA-051 squadron didn't reply. They were getting to within visual range of Spare Squadron now, moving at fairly high speeds. Blaze was racking his mind. He absolutely knew that he had seen that squadron. It was one of the squads that had been embarked on the Vulture II when he first got into the war.

'They're getting closer!' Count pointed out. That phrase kicked Blaze's memory into action. VFA-051's callsign was Panther; the squad that Blaze himself had been the fourth member of for some time, and the squad that had been destroyed and disbanded following the rescue of President Harling at Selatapura, and a squad that primarily used the F-35C Lightning II and not the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

'It's a fake squadron! All aircraft, engage!' Blaze yelled over the radio. Whoever the fake squadron was, they got the idea first and locked onto the aircraft composing Spare Squadron. An eight-vs-twelve situation.

'What the fuck? Our IFF data is impossible to spoof!' Full Band said.

'Not anymore. Huntsman, mark all non-Spare aircraft as hostile!' Trigger requested the AWACS to mark the fake squad as hostile so they could engage.

'Done. Take them out.' Huntsman did the task and gave the order. Blaze obliged and loosed off a giant cluster of AMRAAMs and Sidewinders at the approaching aircraft before climbing and diving to evade the missiles fired at him. His missiles reached the enemy first, knocking out four in a single salvo. Trigger charged the enemy head-on, lashing out at the core of the group and firing missiles as he went. Only two connected, destroying one Hornet and severely damaging another. On the other flank, Full Band, High Roller and Tabloid all moved to evade the missiles launched at them. Tabloid and Full Band successfully evaded. High Roller did not.

'I'm hit-' High Roller called out before his F-16 exploded, taking him with it.

'Fuck, we lost High Roller!' Tabloid reported.

'Push the attack!' Blaze answered. They'd deal with the loss later. Keystone followed Trigger in the method of attack, charging a Super Hornet headon and, bizarrely, hitting it with a GBU-12. The bomb went straight through the aircraft without detonating, passing through the left-side air intake of the aircraft and shooting out the engine, destabilising the aircraft and sending it into a death spiral where it would impact the ground down below.

Six vs seven.

Count got into a dogfight with two of the Hornets. He nailed one when it crossed in front of him using his cannon, while the second one chased him. To evade the second Hornet, Count leveled out and Cobra-ed to get behind it. He then hit it using a Sidewinder, destroying it. Full Band, some distance behind in his own Super Hornet, launched long-distance attacks against the aggressor Super Hornets by using AMRAAMs and picking off the individual aircraft. He bagged two using this method. Trigger came around for a gun run against the last two hostiles. Turning into the flight path of one, Trigger hit one headon, the 20mm shells from his cannon ripping into the forward fuel tanks and causing an explosion. Before he could turn to get the last hostile, Taipan climbed up from below and speared it in the belly with Sidewinders. It was bisected by the missile and disintegrated.

'All targets destroyed.' Huntsman called out. Blaze levelled out and let the remaining members of the squad form on him before saying anything.

'Let's return to base. I don't want to get jumped by another squad using fake IFF signatures.' He explained.

'Concur. We'll have to report this to Command.' Taipan said. Blaze sighed in resignation of that fact. He never had been a fan of talking to regional command.

'Spare, we all good?' The voices all came in at roughly the same time.

'Count, check.'

'Trigger, check.'

'Full Band, check.'

'Keystone, check.'

'Tabloid, check.'

'Alright. Head back.'