Author's Note: I apologise for the abnormal amount of filler chapters as we enter the end-game. I can assure you, this is one of the last before we get there.
By the time that Razgriz, Strider and Long Caster got back after a couple of hours of flight, Cape Rainy was a mess. Blaze had come around from the valley for a landing approach when he noticed pillars of smoke rising up from the base. Unless they were pulling a bonfire, nothing natural should have causing it.
'Cape Rainy, Razgriz 1, what's the smoke stack?' Blaze called it in to the base air traffic controller. He didn't get a reply. His concern started to rise. 'Cape Rainy, Razgriz 1, report.'
'Something's wrong. I'm not seeing any aircraft, friendly or enemy.' Long Caster pointed out. Blaze approached the base. As he crossed over the mountains from the south, Blaze saw what the problem is. The base had been attacked, hard. Smoke was billowing out of destroyed buildings, aircraft and facilities. The hangars had burned down. The central building complex had been mostly levelled by a bombing run, Blaze guessed. He did a low-altitude flyover. There were people alive on the ground. Men and women in Osean and FCU military uniforms. Blaze noticed near what had been the hangars a motley collection of F-15s, F-35 variants and a single F-14D. The LRSSG. So his squad had survived.
'Blaze, get down here. Situation's critical.' Jaeger said through a handheld short-range ground-to-air radio. With Trigger, Grimm and Lanza behind him, Blaze came in for a north to south landing approach. Luckily the runway had managed to evade any serious damage. One by one the four fighters touched down and taxied over to where the others were temporarily parked. Blaze found a place to stop and let ground crew secure the aircraft while he dismounted from the Flanker-D. Blaze took off his helmet and approached Jaeger and Swordsman.
'What the hell happened?'
Lekk
'So, who are they?' Standing around in his private office around the stern of the Lekk while making coffee, Raven asked his visitor and employer.
'Belkan fighter pilots working for Grunder Industry's drone research division. The guards of that drone you recovered for me.' Lucy answered, sitting down at a metal table. Raven returned to the table with two cups of coffee in hand. He handed one to Lucy before taking a seat. 'Thanks.' She thanked the mercenary.
'How'd you figure that out?' Raven asked, taking a sip from his coffee mug.
'It's amazing what you get when you just ask.' Lucy answered, echoing Raven's actions and taking a sip of her own coffee.
'Keeping them around or are you going to cut them loose?' Raven asked. It was curious enough that they had showed up here in the first place.
'For now. I pushed the senior of the two for a motive. She didn't have one. I'm going back over later to see if I can force a change of heart.' Lucy explained her plan to Raven. The latter nodded in interest, mouth full of coffee.
'What's your next move?' Raven had no idea where they were going, and his presence was still requested by Talisman.
'Fort Greys Island, and then Tyler Island. Drop off Osean personnel at the first, and Eruseans off at the second.' Lucy told him. Raven raised his head at the mention of Tyler Island.
'Last I checked, Tyler Island was a contested hotzone. Christ knows what's happened since the satellite network went offline.'
'Politics. If Emmeria wants to maintain its neutrality, we have to obey international law and return Erusean personnel.'
'I understand that, but I still think it's a dumb idea.' Raven voiced his concerns.
'It is. But we need to maintain the illusion.' Lucy admitted those concerns were valid.
Cape Rainy
Alex did a quiet walk around the ruined base. He saw many things that he had seen from the air. Destroyed buildings, ruined infrastructure, corpses, the lot. Snow was with him as he undertook his walk. The two officers walked past a MIM-104 Patriot launcher that had taken a missile hit. The base of the turret was fused out and destroyed. There were burnt-out corpses surrounding the SAM turret.
'An Erusean carrier struck the base during the night. Full air wing. We managed to stave off the attack and sink the carrier, but as you can see…' Snow stopped and looked around. 'We took a beating in the process.'
'How many did we lose?' Alex asked about the number of men that the base had lost in the attack.
'More than a hundred dead. Two hundred injured. Orca was damaged, most of our air-defence equipment was knocked out and we're dangerously low on fuel and ammunition.' Snow explained the situation to Alex. Alex hissed.
'Fucking brilliant.' Alex cursed. He looked around, hands on his hips. Everything was fucked. He thought for a few seconds. There was no point in staying here, it was far too dangerous and they had no way to resupply. There was no solid Erusean footing anywhere on the continent that they could attack with any certainty.
Actually. Alex thought to himself. He turned to Snow. 'See if you can find a map of Usea, bring it over to the flight line.'
Half an hour later after some frantic searching, Snow managed to find a map of the continent among the ruins. Alex assembled Long Caster, Trigger, Count and Jaeger. Equipped with whiteboard markers and some coloured pins, Alex put his thoughts on paper. Right now he had his finger over Tyler Island. Count seemed to get the idea.
'We've got allies there.' Count mentioned the obvious. Jaeger and Long Caster didn't follow what Count was implying. Alex explained the story behind it.
'Our old squadron was one of the units assigned to taking over Tyler Island. There were a bunch of good pilots and officers there. Chances are they've managed to take the airport by now.'
'And if they haven't?' Jaeger suggested the worst-case scenario.
'Then we kick the defender's teeth out of their mouth.' Alex gave the solution. Difficult considering their ammo situation, but possible. He looked at the map and considered their tactical options. They would have to approach from the north, the way that the mass driver was pointing. That was fine, the airbase at the northern end of the island wasn't so fine. The scattered reports that Alex had heard from Tyler Island indicated that the fighting had been bloody. Alex inhaled, and then exhaled slowly. He reached over the table to grab the handpiece for a backpack radio that was hosting their local command comms.
'All personnel holding a billet of company commander, higher, or your service equivalent, report to the flight line for the new directive.' Alex announced over that radio. From across the base, the leaders of the various companies that made up the ODF forces based at Cape Rainy came flocking to the temporary briefing station that they had set up. The surviving commanding officers of the air defence batteries, infantry captains, the captains of the three surviving ships they had. Alex looked around. There were about a dozen men and women around the table. On that table was the same map that Snow had pulled out for the LRSSG command crew. However, that map now had blue and red pins on it.
'Gave it a bit of thought. We're considering moving from Cape Rainy to Tyler Island, a contested staging base for the Eruseans.' Alex didn't waste any effort in a fancy speech. He laid out the facts and the decision that he and the LRSSG's command team had made. Commander Mayson, the captain of the OFS Orca, leaned forward and observed the placements that Alex had estimated.
'OMDF committed an amphibious ready group to the island's invasion. Two thousand odd marines, three amphibious warfare vessels and a few destroyers. Might have a sub if they're lucky.' Mayson estimated the number of vessels and men the Navy and Marine Corps had on hand.
'Air Force committed a couple of attack squadrons and a penal unit to the assualt.' Alex provided the knowledge he had. Alex then looked towards the acting company commander of the Delta Force team that the LRSSG had taken possession of; Captain Ainsworth.
'Captain, does your unit have anything there?' Alex asked. Ainsworth gave a grim smile.
'Can't say for security reasons.' He replied. Alex nodded in understanding. Tier 1 units were secretive about their deployments. Commander Mayson took over the conversation for a moment.
'Do you have a plan drafted for getting there? I imagine the Erusean forces there won't take nicely to Osean aircraft knocking.' Mayson asked. It was a valid question. If the island was still occupied, landing wasn't going to be that simple.
'My original plan was to shove everyone onto the Orca and the other ships, dump all of the equipment that isn't vital and surge towards the island. But, that'd leave us without any long-range eyes.' Alex explained what he had been thinking. Unfortunately, if they did follow up that plane, the squadron would have to abandon Long Caster's E-3 Sentry AWACS. Even if the mechanics took it apart it still wouldn't fit on the Orca.
'We could hook up a Crowsnest on one of the Merlins. Shorter-range than a Sentry, but better than a couple of AEGIS panels scanning the horizon.' The air defence system commander suggested. Alex nodded in approval of that idea. He turned to the nearby Long Caster.
'Opinions?' Alex asked. Long Caster looked over at the runway, where his coveted E-3 was sitting. He frowned.
'I'll miss my office… but we do need to move.' Long Caster hesitantly admitted. Alex looked around the officers, looking for any last-minute disagreements with the plan.
'Any questions, queries or disagreements?' Alex asked after being unable to tell from a glance. There was silence and a few head shakes. 'Report back to your specific divisions, start pulling out anything that's vital. If it still works and we don't need it, scrap it. I want to depart by sunset. Meeting adjourned.' Alex concluded the meeting. The officers dispersed. In a few seconds Alex and Long Caster were the only ones left standing at the meeting. A few seconds from that point, Alex left followed by Long Caster. They had a long day ahead of them to get going before the deadline.
