Grunder Bay, Erusea

Talon held on for dear life as she descended slowly, flying on a path that would put her on the flight deck of a carrier. It was risky. She had no idea which carrier this was, why it was abandoned and what had caused the crew to abandon it. The tailhook on the back of Talon's F-35C caught the third arresting cable and she quickly came to a stop on the deck. Talon let the cable release before maneuvering over to an area where her plane wouldn't fall off the side of the ship. She shut the engine off and got out of the Lightning. She ran over to a small box ahead of the superstructure and unlocked it. Inside was a giant net. She grabbed it and yanked hard to get it out of the box. It was heavy, especially for one person. Despite that, Talon dragged it on her own to the other side of the deck and slotted the other side of the net into a box identical to the first one.

Count's aircraft was in a bad way with the damage it had. He silently prayed to himself as he approached the deck of the carrier at near-stall speed. The Strike Eagle slammed down hard on the flight deck but without a tailhook he couldn't slow down. That was what the recovery net was for, to stop him from zipping off the bow of the ship. The front of Count's aircraft was caught in the net and he slowed down to a crawl. The net rolled down so that Count could roll over it and position his aircraft in an area where it wouldn't get hit by another. Count dismounted once he placed his F-15E on the bow. The net had already been rolled back up. Some Navy aircraft came in next; they caught the arrestor wires. Raven in his VTOL Su-57C hovered in and landed while two Strider aircraft, Jaeger and Tailor, landed. The rest of Strider and Cyclops landed before Trigger pulled in.

Blaze looked over his shoulder. The advanced enemy aircraft were no longer chasing him, instead choosing to do circles around the Space Elevator, their purpose unknown to Razgriz's squad leader. With little energy left and his fuel running out, Blaze turned tails towards the carrier that Long Caster had mentioned. It was a little while away. When he arrived at the carrier after twenty minutes of flight, Blaze found that the majority of the surviving aircraft had already landed. Truth be told there were not many survivors. He saw maybe thirty aircraft on the deck, the majority of which were aces. Making sure that there was actually space to land, Blaze came around from the stern of the carrier, dropped his landing gear and tailhook and slowly dropped in for a landing. His landing gear slammed into the deck and the hook caught the number three wire; a perfect landing. Out of training instinct, Blaze pushed his engines to max throttle in case he had missed the wire. He hadn't, and Blaze put the engines back. He was safe. For now.

Back on the ground, Avril blinked. She then groaned slowly in pain, a massive headache present. Avril tried to sit up but was held down by a strong hand.

'Wouldn't try doing that ma'am, I don't know if you've got any intracranial bleeding.' The armed medic attending to her said. 'Sergeant! Our engineer's up!' The medic turned around and called out. A few seconds later, Sea Goblin's platoon sergeant was present.

'Welcome back to the land of the living. How ya feeling?' Jester asked Avril. Avril put her head back and sighed.

'You got any painkillers?' She asked quietly. The medic, Chief Hospital Corpsman John Stark, jabbed Avril in the arm with an autoinjector.

'Fentynal. Not as strong as morphine, but it'll help take the edge off.' Stark explained. 'You got shot in the head. Luckily, your shooter hit just above the lip of your helmet. A few centimetres lower and you'd be dead.'

'Stark, get her on her feet. I don't know where Thomas is, but I doubt we'll be safe on this side of the bridge.' Jester ordered. Stark nodded, then the platoon sergeant left.

'Parker, chuck me a hand with this stretcher will ya?' Stark called out to a nearby rifleman.

'No need.' Avril grunted, rolled over and pushed herself to her feet. 'I can walk.'

'If you insist.' Stark didn't stop her.

Elsewhere, Rosa and Hewlett landed heavily in between a cluster of shipping containers. Rosa bent her knees and rolled to absorb the impact of the landing, but Hewlett just hit the ground like a log. Rosa wasn't even sure if the captain was alive, having taken the brunt of an explosion. Blood seeping out from a wound somewhere on Hewlett's chest didn't fill her with confidence.

'Thomas!' Rosa whisper-yelled right into Thomas's face. He slightly stirred. He groaned. And then he started gasping in pain.

'Fuuuuuuuuck.' Thomas spat out between grit teeth. He was in a bad, bad way. 'Ah christ. How bad am I?'

Rosa tugged at the straps that kept Thomas's platecarrier strapped to his body. They came loose, she then undid the clips and Rosa was able to get the broken piece of body armour off him. That didn't tell her anything, so Rosa started tearing off Thomas's pressure suit to get at whatever injuries he was bleeding from. After that she saw where most of the blood was coming from. A giant piece of metal had passed through his platecarrier and into the top of Thomas's chest. Blood was oozing around it. Thomas looked up. His face was badly bruised and blood ran from his nose and mouth.

'There's a black packet in the bag on the top of my rig.' Thomas pointed at a pouch on his platecarrier. 'Grab that and tear the top open.' He instructed, grabbing the steel inside his chest and pulling it out with one arm. He grunted in pain. Rosa messed around. There were bandage rolls, tourniquets, splints and a couple of black packets. She grabbed one, opened it and looked inside. A grey coloured fine powder.

'What do I do with this?' She asked. Thomas pointed to his now open chest wound.

'Pour it over the source of the bleeding.' He said. As Rosa brought it around to apply it, Thomas grit his teeth. He knew it was gonna hurt. The powder came out of the packet in a stream. Thomas grunted and writhed, obviously in pain, but he didn't scream. Rosa stopped pouring when the entire wound was covered. The hemostatic agent she had been using worked near instantly. Thomas stopped bleeding from his chest wound. He waved his arms around a little. They both moved. Thomas tried moving a leg. That caused extreme pain in his left leg. He stopped. In the far distance there was an explosion.

'We need to move, it's not safe here.' Thomas pointed out. Rosa nodded and passed him a hand to help get him up. Thomas grabbed Rosa's hand and the latter pulled hard. Thomas groaned in pain. An aircraft without markings flew overhead at high speed.

'Cmon, go go go.' Rosa urged Thomas to pick up speed, the latter's arm slung around Rosa's back and neck. The two hobbled over to a nearby building.

On the carrier, Blaze sat down and leant back against the island superstructure, facing towards the Space Elevator which could be seen over the horizon. He had to recollect his thoughts. The coalition had technically taken the Space Elevator, but they had taken massive casualties both in the air and on the sea. As far as the pilot knew, none of the coalition's naval vessels had escaped still afloat. Five hundred pilots had died and now they were stranded on a carrier with many Air Force aircraft. Blaze was beyond frustrated.

Commander-

He wasn't sure what to do. Blaze was lost in his thoughts and emotions.

'Alex.' Somebody said his name, and Blaze looked up at the person who had said it. A face that he hadn't seen for a long while. Captain Walter Atkins, Osean Marine Corps, the old Razor 5. Luna.

'Been a while, Luna.' Alex greeted the Marine aviator. The latter crouched in front of him.

'You hit?' He asked.

'No?' Blaze replied hesitantly.

'Then get on your feet.' Luna stood up. Alex sighed and got on his feet as well. Luna took a step forward and placed a hand on Alex's shoulder. 'We might be out of the fight, sir, but you've got thirty dudes waiting for orders and an entire carrier to explore. I'd advise sending people outwards to find out what the fuck happened to this thing.'

Luna's sharp words penetrated Alex's clouded thoughts and he found some clarity in the darkness. Alex thought quickly. He ran around and assembled all living personnel into a vague formation.

'We've got this carrier to ourselves, let's find out what we're dealing with. Marcus, you're a diver, there's gotta be SCUBA gear at the rear of the ship, find out what we're stuck on.' Alex gave directions to Snow.

'Can do.'
'Trigger, take Strider and find out what we've got in the hangar. I'll be down with you as soon as I'm done here.'

Trigger and his squad moved out without any confirmation.

'Talon, your guys are Navy, you'll know these ships the best, see if you can find any information on this vessel.'

'Roger that.' Talon replied, leaving into the superstructure alongside some of her remaining pilots.

'The rest of you, either help tie down our aircraft to the deck or look around for anything that might be useful.'

The various pilots all split apart. Trigger was the first to find out something of importance. He had walked down a staircase that led into the hangar when he saw it. The carrier's hangar was packed to the brim with aircraft. And not just OMDF types; he saw Eagles, Falcons, even a couple of Raptors at the very front of the vessel. His Strider pilots all dropped in, shortly followed by Alex thereafter.

'Oh shit.' Lanza was the first to say something. Alex scanned the hangar and very quickly came to a conclusion. This carrier was being used as a ferry. An oddity, especially for a proper supercarrier.

Talon and her company busted into the abandoned combat information centre, the coveted CIC. The room was desolate and empty, but intact. No dust, no damage anywhere, it was as if Talon had walked into a museum. She walked over to the seat where the CIC's commander, the TAO would have been sitting during a watch. There was a notepad with a few bits of scribble dotted down. Nothing written down made much sense to her, so Talon moved over and tried opening the TAO's safe. Rather predictably it was locked so she left the CIC and went down to where the captain's at-sea cabin should have been. Talon found it. The plate on the door read:

CO, OFS ADMIRAL ANDERSEN (CVN-36)

CAPT L. VAERRIS

The Admiral Andersen. Named after a venerable legend in the OMDF. Talon opened the door and stepped in.

Snow dragged a rope ladder out to the rear of the carrier and kicked it out so that he would have a way to get back onto the ship. He took a few steps forward and jumped off the ship a couple of dozen feet into warm tropical waters. A mouthpiece supplied him with oxygen and stopped him from drowning. Snow turned around and started swimming down, underneath the gigantic rudder and propellor shaft. It didn't take him very long to find out what had bogged down the carrier. There must have been a navigation error when the carrier had been approaching Selatapura, for the ship was caught on a large reef.

This doesn't make things easy, Snow thought.

Slowly things were getting placed together, piece by piece. They were on the Osean aircraft carrier Admiral Andersen. The carrier had been undergoing a modernisation refit at the start of the war and so had been packed with as many aircraft as could be carried and sent to the Usean continent as a ferry. Something had caused her to go off course while moving towards Selatapura Harbour, which forced her onto a shoal. Presumably the crew abandoned the ship after that.

Alex laid on his back on the deck of the Andersen, looking up at the sky. Things were slightly more organised now, but he was left without a directive. Behind him to the bow of the ship, Lanza and Fencer were scanning outwards with binoculars. Alex left them to their fun, whatever they might have been looking for. He heard one of them mutter oh shit.

'Commander Williams, sir!' Lanza called out to the senior officer. Alex looked in their direction. 'Warship coming towards us, bearing 0-3-3. I'd say about eight miles out!'

'Bullshit.' Alex said, standing up and running over to the pair. Lanza handed him his binos and pointed where he had seen the vessel. Alex looked down the specified bearing. Gods be damned, Lanza was right. A military vessel was coming at them. From the silhouette, Alex guessed it was an AEGIS destroyer, an Arleigh Burke-class DDG.

'I'll be damned.' Alex handed the binos back to Lanza and started sprinting towards the island of the carrier.

OFS Drake

Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, Flight IIA subclass

Commander David Averson saw an aircraft carrier in the distance from behind the reinforced windows of the bridge of his destroyer. He had seen that carrier on the way in as well, the OFS Admiral Andersen. Far as he knew, the ship had been abandoned early in the war, but with the virtual destruction of the fleet he had just been a part of, anything he could get his hands on was a welcome addition. There were a few flashes of light from the superstructure of the carrier. Averson blinked, not sure if he was seeing things.

'Captain, starboard side wing, light seen from the carrier to our south-west.' The enlisted personnel on watch outside on the right hand bridge wing confirmed that he wasn't tripping. 'Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.'

Averson stepped outside to the bridge wing. He took over one of the static rangefinder posts and looked in to see who was behind the transmitter. A man in a green one piece uniform. A pilot?

'Lieutenant, signal back my following message, break. Name, rank, affiliation.' Averson ordered. The officer next to him on the signalling device spelt out what the captain wanted in morse code. Given a few seconds, Averson saw the person on the carrier answer. WILLIAMS. COMMANDER. OMDF, VFA-108, RAZGRIZ.

'Well I'll be fucked.' The lieutenant mused, aware of who the Razgriz were. Averson chuckled.

'Transmit the following, break. How many souls onboard.' Averson ordered. The message was transmitted, and a reply was sent back. 34. 'Thirty four. Not very promising…'

'New message, sir?' The lieutenant asked.

'Prepare for crew transfer.' Averson said. The LT sent out the message. Averson walked back into the bridge. He grabbed a radio. 'Boat control, captain.'

'Boat control here, sir.' A woman on the other side replied.

'Prepare a VBSS team and a RHIB on the starboard rig. We're going to reinforce the people on that carrier.' Averson said to the woman on the other side of the radio. He then looked to the helmsman. 'Helmsman, left hand rudder twenty degrees, drop speed to five knots.'

'Twenty degrees to port, five knots, aye sir.' The helmsman acknowledged the order and carried it out.

'OOD, you have the conn.' Averson then told the officer of the deck before exiting the bridge heading for the RHIB he had ordered to be prepared.

Space Elevator

Sea Goblin, with Avril in tow, crossed the bridge that they had used to get to the Space Elevator in the first place. They were going for a middling complex of buildings close to said bridge, where they would probably be holding up for the time being. The platoon's first team, Siren 5-1, were the first to enter the compound, doing so quietly. When they didn't encounter any resistance, the rest of the platoon bypassed the walls surrounding the area and they all entered what seemed to be the primary building. Avril had no idea what purpose this complex served, but based on the fact that the buildings were basically a series of large rectangles and the outside courtyard was mostly made of concrete and asphalt, she assumed it was some kind of storage area or vehicle testing facility.

'5-1, entering the warehouse.' The team leader of the first squad reported. The kicking in of a door could be heard as the building was swarmed by Marine Corps Raiders. They had entered a hallway of some sort, filled with offices on both sides. Jester entered the building with Avril following the master sergeant. The place seemed to be abandoned. The squad and its command moved through the hallway, sweeping through offices to make sure that there were no soldiers waiting to surprise them. When it was found that there were none, everyone moved into an atrium. Shaped like a dome, there were various pieces of art on the walls. One in particular caught Avril's eye. She walked over to it. The artpiece was a mural; it depicted a series of Space Elevators. She took a moment to stare at it, but she was then distracted by a door opening. Twelve men armed with every kind of weapon aimed at whoever had opened that door. Low and behold, it was a kid. A little girl. She walked out and saw the soldiers all aiming their weapons at her. She froze.

'Stand down!' Jester called out to his guys. Everyone lowered their weapons. The little girl didn't move even though she wasn't threatened anymore. 'Kid, the hell are you doing here?' Jester asked. He didn't get a reply. From the area where the girl had come from, there was a singular gunshot.

'Hardy, Del, on me.' Jester took two riflemen and barged through the open door to find the shooter. They went down a short hallway with some offices to another open door ahead of them. It looked like some kind of observation room onto a large production facility. Jester went in and turned right. There were three people. One looked like a scientist, the second was a security guard of some kind who paradoxically didn't have a gun on him. The third was another kid, older than the first one but wearing a similar navy blue dress. She was clasping a pistol in both hands, an FN Five-Seven, and she was aiming at what had been a hard drive of some kind. Quote, had been, there was a gaping bullet hole through it now.

'Drop the gun, kid!' Jester yelled, his HK416 leveled at the kid's chest. Christ, don't make me do this, he thought. Luckily, the kid was smart enough to not waste her life and wisely dropped the gun at her feet. Jester lowered his rifle, as did the two riflemen escorting him. 'Situation under control.'

'Uhh, this is awkward.' The security guard mentioned, his hands up where the three Oseans could see them. Jester took a few steps forward, kneeled down and picked up the Five Seven. He looked out to his left. A fabrication bay, with two MQ-101s in two different states of completion.

'Where's my sister?' The girl asked, worried. Jester turned around and pointed.

'Just around the corner. She's safe, ma'am.' Jester looked to Del. 'Can you grab the kid and bring her here?'

'Sure.' Del slung his rifle and left for a moment. Jester slung his own rifle, but kept a hand near his holstered M9.

'I've got a lot of questions, let's start with the easier ones first. What are your names?' Jester asked. When he didn't get a reply at first, he sighed, reached for his helmet and took it off. 'Guess I'll start. I'm Jester. I'm an Osean search and rescue Marine.'

Behind them all, Del came back with the younger girl. She ran gleefully to her older sister. The latter grabbed her and hugged her.

'Ionela. I… don't really have an occupation.' The older sister said to the master sergeant. He nodded and looked to the other two civilians present in the room. The guard owned up first.

'Nathan. I'm just a local security guard.' He said. The last man, the mechanic, or doctor, or whatever the hell he was, sighed and looked to the floor. He cleaned his glasses before putting them back on.

'Schroeder. I'm… a drone engineer, I work for EASA.' Schroeder said. The doctor picked himself up.

'You neither sound like, look like or have the name of an Erusean. Who do you work for?' Jester saw right through Schroeder's bullshit. A few extra soldiers and Avril walked in precisely at the end of that sentence.

'Alright, I work for Grunder Industries.' Schroeder admitted. Jester exhaled through his nose and looked away for a moment, fists clenched. There had been a few rumours in the special forces scene mentioning the Belkans, but nothing had validated that to him until now.

'Start talking. What are you doing here?' Jester was audibly annoyed.

OFS Admiral Andersen

Out to sea, a Belkan had an encounter with another Belkan. While Alex had been pacing around the flight deck waiting for a boarding party from the nearby destroyer to visit, he noticed one of the Emmerian pilots looming around behind him. Alex chucked her a glance; it wasn't Talisman. He looked back out to see, but remembered something. There weren't any female pilots aside from Talisman that he had seen on their carrier. Alex turned around again to observe this pilot. She had a distinct appearance, one that Alex was familiar with.

'Ich sehe nicht viele Belkaner in diesem teil der welt. (I don't see many Belkans in this part of the world.)' Alex spoke in Belkan to the lady. She looked at him in surprise, the words taken out of her mouth for a second.

'Sie können Belkanisch sprechen? (You can speak Belkan?)' The "Emmerian" asked.

'Ich sollte dazu in der Lage sein, ich bin dort geboren. (I should be able to, I was born there.)' Alex mentioned his own Belkan heritage, not that it meant much to him as an Osean citizen.

'Welche provinz? (What province?)'

'Hessen. Westlich von Dinsmark. (Hesse. West of Dinsmark.)' Alex answered. The lady was gaping at him in even more surprise than she already had been. 'Hello?'

'Ich habe vier Monate damit verbracht, meine eigene Sippe zu jagen, Captain, also hoffe ich, Sie verstehen die Überraschung. (I spent four months hunting down my own kin, captain, so I hope you understand the surprise.)' Shadow was forthcoming with her intentions.

Alex tilted his head. 'Ghost Squadron.'

'You're looking at what's left of it. Not that I can call myself a Ghost anymore.'

'Figured you were tagging along with the Emmerians based on your uniform.' Alex didn't have to think much to figure that one out. 'Humour me. I assume you were working for the Grey Men, why the change of heart now?'

'When somebody lies down the facts for you and presents you with a choice after almost drowning after a sinking, and if they're good at their job, I'd like to see you continue down the same path.' Shadow defended herself. Alex seemed unconvinced, but remained satisfied regardless.

'Point taken.' Alex remained silent for a moment as the destroyer's VBSS crew got closer.

'Captain?' Shadow asked to break the silence.

'Call me Alex.'

'Alright, Alex. Those aircraft you saw. What can we do about them?'

Alex sighed. 'Truth be told, I don't know. We might be alive, but we're not in good shape.'