For those of you that are already familiar with my work, you'll know almost immediately that this isn't Halo. For those of you that are showing up for the first time, welcome! This will be a story in a similar vein to my Halo writing, a rewrite of Ace Combat 4 with original characters to take the place of Mobius One, the silent protagonist, as well as a new cast of characters and events to change things up a bit.

Regardless of whether you're new or old, this is something I've wanted to do for quite some time. I had aspirations to write an Ace Combat story long before I ever put finger-to-keyboard for Halo. Not only that, but I'm stepping out of the third person perspective I used to tell Morgan's story, and going for something first person. I'm not all that experienced with it, so you'll probably see me slowly get used to it at first before I'm up to my normal skill level. Hopefully this won't disappoint!

My last part of this will be something new. Ace Combat fans will know that music has always been an important part of the games. Music is always important, really, but Ace Combat is one that I've always loved for its soundtracks. Going off of a similar line, each chapter will have a song that came to mind while writing it, and that I think fits well.

The song for Chapter One will be "Flight", track 03 of the Panzer Dragoon soundtrack

With all of that out of the way, take flight with me for the first time, or as an old wingman of mine, and see where this story takes us!

"Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

- Leonardo Da Vinci

A long strip of asphalt, painted with white markings down its centerline, danced and shook in the midday heat haze. There was no shade to be found on the runway, no reprieve from the punishing sun overhead save for the line of hangars on the west side, where four ground crews were in a perfectly choreographed routine around four F-15E Strike Eagles.

The dark gray aircraft, descendants of one of the best fighters ever designed, howled as the engines came online one by one, auxiliary power units hissing as they flooded each pair of engines with power. Control surfaces shifted and flapped as the sticks in the front cockpit were pulled and pushed, tested for any faults. Displays came to life and showed pre-planned mission information, waypoints, fuel loads, armament, and more. Comm chatter started up as each aircraft selected the proper frequencies, and the pilots and weapons systems officers checked their intercomm system.

Wheel chocks were pulled from their places, letting the mighty engines on each Eagle push them forward with noticeable increase in noise as fuel and power were pushed into each engine, turned into hot air that shot out the back with enough force to move the multi-ton aircraft. Each crewman on the ground assigned to aiding the Eagle's taxi guided their charges out, and when it was time to let them go free, each would salute the pilot and WSO, who would return it, faces hidden behind oxygen masks and dark tinted visors.

All four Eagles turned to the right, heading for the taxiway and the runway beyond, marked with a 36 in blocky white letters. Comms turned to the traffic control tower, and the flight lead's WSO spoke up, a feminine voice tinged with the accent of someone who had spent their childhood in Yuktobania. It was rolling and fluid, but with a bit of husk to it.

"Khentani Tower, Hellfire One, flight of four F-15s, taxiing to runway 36 for immediate departure to the north. Khentani Tower."

A voice came back, calm and collected. "Hellfire One, Khentani Tower copies. Departure to the north, radio when you leave my airspace. No further communications until you reach North Point."

"Confirm, Khentani." The Eagle turned onto the runway, rolling a few dozen meters down the runway to get some space for the other Eagles, who lined up behind the lead. "Be safe, tower."

Off on the apron, several C-17 Globemasters were finishing their preparations to leave, several still onloading people, including the ground crews that had led the Eagles out. The tower would be abandoned as soon as Hellfire flight was gone, and Khentani Air Base would be left behind.

"And you, Hellfire. Don't worry about us. Khentani out."

The lead Eagle's pilot stepped on the brakes, pushing the throttles forward and waiting for them to spool, sending out a call to the other three, who all returned it. Immediately, the lead's brakes went off and the throttles went to max. Twin streaks of flame burst from Hellfire One's engines, and the Eagle set off at a run, ready to spread its wings.

It was off the ground halfway down the runway, gear immediately going up and the flaps following. The rest of Hellfire followed close behind, radioing when they rejoined the formation. Hellfire One's WSO radioed back. "Khentani Tower, Hellfire flight is outbound to the north, leaving your airspace, turning to monitor guard."

No response this time.

That was all it took. While none of them could see it, the C-17s were taking to the runway, with one staying behind to load the tower crew. The operator who had spoken to them last was the last person out, and looking around, he made sure that the small, handheld clacker was still sitting on the table, ready to be armed. Grabbing it, he started off down the stairs to his crew, moving into the C-17's rear bay through a side door.

As it started to taxi after the others, he hung out the side door, the Loadmaster behind him making sure he didn't fall out. The flick of a switch, the press of a button, and an instant later, Khentani Tower went up in a ball of flames as C4 planted throughout the structure went off and blew it to pieces. Whatever survived the explosion came down even before the explosion had echoed off of the city just on the western outskirts of the base.

The evacuation of Khentani Air Base was complete.

I frowned beneath my oxygen mask, the flash of an explosion showing up in my left side mirror if I moved just right. "Khentani just went up."

The woman behind me spoke with what sounded like indifference, or maybe resignation. "We knew it was happening. Better to deny the enemy whatever we can on the way out."

"Expo City still has a civilian airport they can use."

"We can't just blow Expo International, though," she shot back.

I couldn't exactly argue with that. "Fair enough." All I could do for Khentani Tower's crew was hope that they, and the rest of the people loaded onto those C-17s, would make it north before the Erusean fighter sweeps started coming in.

We'd hammered the shit out of them as long as we could, but with transport capability lost after Stonehenge's cannon network came into play, we ran the base dry of weapons and fuel. After that, we had no choice but to hightail it up to North Point, where our forces were consolidating.

Almost as if she had read my mind, Alex "Watcher" Miles didn't let the silence go. "Look, we bought them as much time as we could. That's the only reason we're not already on the ground in North Point."

She was right. I had refused to leave the people behind and just hope for the best. I had volunteered to be the last flight out, even if I had to be a single ship. The rest of Hellfire had decided they wouldn't leave the two of us alone, and so we had been the last shooters out of Khentani, carrying whatever was left, but it wasn't much. All we really managed to get out with was the pair of pods on the belly mounts, the targeting and navigation pods that stayed on almost all the time. While we didn't have any external tanks left, the Strike Eagle had conformal fuel tanks that we had filled up. We had more than enough gas to make it to North Point and back with this load.

Erusean fighters had been seen all over the sky from Khentani's control tower's radar before they had blown the place. The only reason that we hadn't been jumped already was because of the mobile air defenses that an armored battalion was bringing through the area during their retreat to the coast. They'd offered to give us an hour of backup to cover the transports leaving, but that was all they could offer.

It had been enough.

The scattered cloud cover fell beneath us as we climbed to 45,000 feet. I pulled up the datalink page on one of my Multi-Function Displays, and I increased the zoom on it to five miles, seeing the C-17s behind us peel off to the east and go out over the ocean. They had plenty of fuel as well, enough to take a far more roundabout route than we were taking. They were big and slow and prime targets. So long as they were out over the water, no Eruseans would risk coming this far out to try and deal with them while they were still trying to catch whatever fighters we had rushing out to North Point.

It would be a long flight either way, four hours strapped into the flight seat with nothing to look at but the clouds below for who knew how many hundreds of miles and the sun glaring into the cockpit. All I could do was get comfortable, but that was easier said than done. For once, I was glad I didn't have the helmet mounted display, and took a little bit of relief in that my visor was as dark as it was.

I reached forward and pressed the autopilot button on my front control panel, setting it to hold barometric altitude, and the autothrottle came next, keeping our speed constant while the throttles were automatically moved to keep the speed despite whatever turbulence or air resistance hit. Hellfire Flight did the same, allowing for fine maneuvers that kept us in perfect formation with minimal effort.

Pushing the datalink back out to its maximum range of 160 miles, I settled back into the seat and rested my head against it. We were safe for now, outside of even Stonehenge's formidable range.

We didn't speak much on the flight to North Point. Nothing to talk about besides how badly the UTO – now ISAF – was getting its shit pushed in, or about how we'd already been forced to rebase twice before now in just as many weeks. The only saving grace for those of us in the actual birds had been that we'd had time to load travel pods onto the Eagles in an attempt to at least keep clothes and our most important possessions. Everything else we left behind would likely be rat fucked by whatever Erusean grunts got into the dormitories. I'd already written most of that off.

It felt like it had been only an hour at most, but our waypoint was coming up on us quickly, only thirty miles out. Alex switched the radio to our new airspace, speaking for the rest of us. "Merrin Tower, Hellfire One, flight of four F-15s inbound from Khentani, requesting landing clearance."

The tower controller was a bit slower than Khentani's had been. "...Roger all, Hellfire. Descend to angels three and enter holding pattern south of Merrin. You'll be landing Runway 27."

"Roger, Merrin. Hellfire flight entering holding pattern south of Merrin, angels three. Out."

A press of the paddle switch on the backside of the stick between my legs and the autopilot cut off, the Eagle buffeting slightly as the flight control system released its tight hold back to me. I pushed my thumb against the comms switch on the throttle, activating the interflight communications channel that our datalinnk provided. "Hellfire, check right, descend to angels three, negative five degrees."

They rattled off their responses and when the last one came through, I pushed the stick over gently and cut the throttle to maintain our speed as we began our descent. We fell through to three thousand feet, looking graceful in how smoothly it all went. It was almost like it had been choreographed, and in some ways, it was. Hours upon hours of practice flying together until we were a well oiled machine made it almost possible to do in our sleep.

As we got to altitude, I sharpened the turn just a little bit, enough to be noticeable to the others. We were in a holding pattern now, waiting to be waved down. We had only just completed our first lap of the pattern when we got cleared to land, and we broke out as quick as we had got in.

Hellfire Two, on my left side, immediately shifted below the rest of us, taking up position on the far right side of our formation, turning us from an arrowhead into a diagonal line was we passed back down to 1500 feet and started to take the runway heading a few miles out.

Everything now was just numbers and angles, simple math and memorization. We were halfway down the runway when I keyed the mic, transmitting on the tower frequency to let any other aircraft know my intentions.

"Hellfire One, in the break."

The throttles came back, the speedbrake came out to slow us down, the gear and flaps dropped into the landing configuration, and I went back the way I came. Two, Three, and Four followed after me in ten second intervals, with Four entering the pattern just as I got far enough along my heading to turn back to land.

"Hellfire One, turning base."

Step two of three was complete, and I started the leisurely turn, scanning between my HUD and the runway to make sure I was still in position. On altitude, on speed, no problems. Perfect. Beautiful.

Completing my turn, I gave my last call. "Hellfire One, on short final." The Eagle dropped through the air slowly, the engines purring as I modulated the throttle ever so slightly, my velocity vector nestled into the black streaks where so many other aircraft had put their wheels down and shaved off a little more rubber from their tires.

Then the bump of the aircraft settling onto the runway, and I felt like my teeth rattled. I made sure to hold the stick back, pulling the throttle to idle as I used the Eagle's wide lifting body like an aerobrake. I kept it like that until the nose dropped on its own, and I started pushing on the toe brakes ever so slightly, slowing us down enough that we were ready to turn at the second taxi point.

"Hellfire One exiting the active, clear left."

Hellfire Two had just touched down, and the others wouldn't be far behind. In the back, Alex was already starting to check all systems and shut down those that were nonessential. Radar was off, targeting pod was already stowed and powered off, panel backlighting and countermeasure systems followed. Radar warning receiver went next.

I saw plenty of ground crew working on a slew of aircraft of all makes and models, and even now, ground crew were ushering us off to the right, and I followed one of them as he led me into my own parking space beneath a thin makeshift hangar. By the time I brought us to a stop and put the parking brake on, Alex had shut off almost every system, and I had to finish the last few.

The engines powered off last, the canopy starting to open, and the battery finally shutting off with the flick of a switch as we unhooked and slipped our helmets off. I wanted to sit there and relax for a moment, getting into a more comfortable position and stretching, but it was short lived, and the ground crew descended on us like a swarm of ants on a cube of sugar.

"Ma'am? Hate to rush you, but we've gotta get this bird turned around ricky tick." The man who poked his head over the canopy rim was barely even a man. He was 18, baby faced, and he looked almost afraid to tell me to get out of the plane even while I was unbuckling from the ejection seat.

"Sorry, airman. We'll get out of here, let you boys get to work."

He seemed relieved at that. "I appreciate it." He reached a hand out, and I took it, letting him help me to my feet before I dropped my helmet into the seat and stepped out onto the set of stairs that had been rolled up to us, wide enough for both me and Alex to step out onto them. Another member of the ground crew was helping her out even now, and she was rattling off information about the systems, any faults or issues that cropped up. The kid who had taken to helping me out looked at me as he realized he had missed something. "Any problems with her?"

"Yeah, she complains I'm too hard in the turns." The airman seemed to be confused at my words, before he looked over at Alex, seeing the death glare she was shooting at me, but I knew she wasn't really mad. My fun over, I went on. "Nothing to report, Airman. No problems on my end."

"Perfect. We'll have her ready to go within an hour or two in case you need her."

Stepping out onto the stairs, I made my way down. "Make me proud."

The rest of the crew was already breaking open panels for critical areas, checking to make sure that nothing had come loose under the hood, and to confirm that Khentani's crews hadn't messed something up.

We only had eyes for the travel pod, though, and one of the crew members stopped his work for just a moment to pop the pod open. It was little more than a hollowed out external fuel tank that we had put our bags in before we'd left Khentani. Grabbing the first duffle out, I handed it off to Alex, and then grabbed my own.

Heading for the other aircraft, we stopped short and waited for the rest of Hellfire to come through, and they were all with us within a minute or two. Now with eight more pilots added to the growing roster at Merril Air Base, we had to figure out where we'd be sleeping and eating. Everything else was secondary.

An hour later and we were all scattered. Some of us were getting food, some were dealing with their aircraft, and some of us had sought out our rooms. Alex and I had done the last option. I didn't want to think of food, my appetite nowhere to be found. Everything was settling in now that the evacuation was complete and we were grounded while general headquarters tried to make heads or tails of the situation. Anybody who hadn't checked in was considered lost.

Too many hadn't made their check in, and plenty more could still be shot down on the way in.

It didn't bode well at all for us, and now all I could do was sit and think about it. We were at war. Not just at war, but losing a war. Erusea had pushed us back enough on their own, but then Stonehenge got taken and the whole thing went so far south that part of me believed we were only delaying the inevitable. Hell, they'd sent a massive force of our best and they'd lost almost every damn one of them.

Maybe we were just trying to delay as long as we could. Maybe something else would happen and we'd be able to bring it back, but that'd take a damn miracle, and those were in short supply last I checked.

"Hey, you alright?"

Alex's voice broke me from my thoughts. We were sharing a room. It was a given. We were a pair, and she was the only person I trusted to work the back seat while I was in the sky.

The rings on our fingers weren't just for show either. It had taken plenty of work and more than a few called in favors to get the two of us assigned to the same jet, but we'd managed it… somehow.

"I'm fine," I replied from the bathroom, looking in the reflection to meet her eyes when she turned to fully look at me, and not just over her shoulder. The room was on the smaller side, so she wasn't in arm's reach, but was close enough I could make out every detail on her. Her eyes were a stark blue, like the sky had been on the way over. Looking closer, I realized I never really took the time to take in her face. With the evacuation and the possibility of being shot down higher than ever, I wanted to commit it to memory.

Just in case. Just in… I forced the thought away.

She looked far too serious for her own good, and she had a major case of resting bitch face, but if you looked closely enough, the laugh lines on her face gave her away I could pick them out like contour lines on a map, like the lines in my palm, and they grew more defined as she made her way over. She had pale skin, which seemed odd for a person that spends most of their time high in the sky in direct sunlight, but we spent most of our time buttoned up in flight suits and with full helmets and visors. A tan wasn't out of the question, but… we hadn't been fortunate enough to get one yet.

Normally, women in the military would keep their hair pinned up in a bun or in a ponytail, anything to keep it out of the way. Alex had done away with it entirely, her light blonde hair cut down to a short messy cut that had been matted by her helmet, or sticking up in some places. She didn't seem to care though.

We had left our bags on the single-size bunk beds, mine sitting on top unopened, hers on the bottom, where she had been taking everything out and organizing it. She had stopped at some point before she'd decided to look my way, and with a frown, I realized I had been staring into our bathroom mirror, but I only stared through myself. Things were settling in more and more, and it felt grim.

Looking back at it more closely, I focused on myself now, seeing how the last few months of the war had taken their toll since the start. Hunched over the sink with my hands on either side, I noticed – not for the first time – that I had slight bags under my eyes, some stress lines here and there. My skin was a little darker than Alex's, and where her hair was a light blonde, mine was a fire-red, and hanging down to just above my shoulders limply, not very well taken care of, and just a little greasy at the moment.

Alex slipped in behind me, but she didn't try to turn me around, just put her hand on my shoulder and met my eyes in the mirror. "Still bothered by us leaving?"

"Yeah."

"You know that-"

I cut her off. "I know." I frowned in the mirror, closing my eyes for a moment as I clamped down on the sudden outburst of frustration. "I'm sorry. I just… I don't like the thought of running away. Of us being beaten like dogs on a chain."

Her hand moved from my shoulder and her arms came around my waist to rest on my abdomen. "Neither do I, but if we'd stayed, we'd have been captured and sent to a POW camp or who knows what. Better that we leave today's fight to be ready to hit back tomorrow."

My hands moved away from the sink to rest on hers, and I finally straightened up. I was taller than her, and most other women I'd met, standing at 5'11, but she was a head shorter than me at 5'4. It didn't matter to me though. Sometimes it was fun being taller, but sometimes it sucked for both of us, either hunching over to get closer or her having to stand on her toes.

I turned in her arms, moving to face her and wrapping my arms around her shoulders to rest on her back before leaning back and sitting against the sink. She laid her head against my chest, forehead against my neck. It was grounding in a way. I hated running, hated leaving so many of my comrades behind to suffer beneath the Erusian military, leaving my home behind… but she was a constant, something I could keep close, remind me what I was fighting for. Not just her and my friends, but to free both our homes from those newly war-torn skies.

My chest rose and fell slowly, her head moving in time. My chin had come to rest on her head, one of my hands moving up to the nape of her neck to absentmindedly play with that short hair of hers. I think she liked it as much as I did, but she never said as much. She liked to play her cards close to her chest, but usually, she had that sly little half smile that she couldn't fully conceal. It was something I always looked for, and something that I had originally fallen in love with.

Time slipped away from us, and I had no idea how long we stayed there, wrapped in each other, when the comfortable silence was split like wood beneath an axe.

An alarm started blaring across all of the base's speakers, a deep, artificial sound that spiked something in those ancient genetic memories of mine, reminding me of a predator and danger.

"SCRAMBLE. SCRAMBLE. SCRAMBLE. I SAY AGAIN. SCRAMBLE. SCRAMBLE. SCRAMBLE."

And just like that, we were apart, the bathroom and our worries forgotten, our door left wide open as we tore out of our room at a sprint. The flight line was close enough that at this rate, we would be there in just a minute and a half. Stairs disappeared under us two, even three at a time. Other pilots were flooding out after us, and we turned the empty routes back to the tarmac into a sea of green suited pilots.

With my long legs and just as long strides, I was tearing out ahead of all but the tallest of the other pilots, and we became the front runners. I didn't have to update Alex on what I would do. She knew by now. I'd get the jet started from the front as quickly as I could, and she would join when she was able.

Getting to my bird, I knew it was her not just from positioning, but from the tail code. Two large black letters in that familiar military stencil stood out. CB, Joint Base Comberth Harbor. The small 98, and three larger 291 to the right. Our primary identifier for our assigned aircraft. But the details were so far from my mind as I ran up the stairs and jumped into the cockpit. I didn't miss the flash of the squadron insignia below the left engine inlet, a gray dragon's head with long defined horns, a puff of fire escaping from its toothy snarl. The background, a five pointed shield reading "Fortress Keeper's" finished it up.

I had only just gotten the right engine spooling when Alex jumped in behind me, strapping herself in and putting her helmet on before she took over in the time between the right engine coming to idle and us moving to the left engine. "Your turn!"

She kept moving through the checklist, knowing where I was at from the sound. I slipped my own helmet on and attached myself to the ejection seat, two ground crew members coming up the stairs to ensure we were coming along and to aid in some things. They flicked a switch on top of each seat, arming the backup ejection mechanism. We would hit the primary arming lever once we were in motion.

The left engine came online a few moments later, and the howl of a few other aircraft started to fill the air even while our canopy dropped down over us and sealed it all out. All that came to us now was the low hum from the engines sitting at idle power, and our switches flicking as we ran through the expedited checklist.

Our inertial navigation system was brought up quickly with its stored heading, and I ordered Alex to check the control surfaces.

"Flaps, stabilizers, elevators, all clear. Ground crew loaded us up with weapons too."

I glanced out the left side at the pylons, spotting a pylon with six small missiles hanging from it in two triple racks, one behind the other. Short range missiles with a twin-warhead, the so-called STANDARD missile was small and capable of engaging both air targets and ground targets. When launched at an air target, the fire control computer would determine that it should use the annular blast warhead, shooting out shrapnel at a high rate of speed in a ring shape. It was a rocket with a shotgun on the end.

The other warhead was located behind the first one, and when the fire control computer detected a ground target had been locked up, the annular warhead would be disarmed and a second, heavier explosive would detonate, adding the first warhead's explosive power to its own to deal with any armored targets up to infantry fighting vehicles like Erusea's Centauro tank destroyers or armored personnel carriers like their BTR series. Heavy tanks though, were a non-viable target.

But we had other munitions for that. I couldn't see it directly, but pulling up my stores page on one of my MFDs showed me that we had a total of 24 of the standard missiles on our wing pylons, and 12 longer range ADVANCED missiles, dubbed Long Shots, in twin racks on our six belly mounts. Not many other fighters carried this much of a payload, and dedicated attacker aircraft were too slow and vulnerable, focused too much on air to ground. The Strike Eagle was in a category of its own almost.

The last bits of the startup were completed quickly after with Hellfire Three checking in, and Alex started calling in to the ATC. "Merrin Tower, Hellfire One, flight of two F-15's taxiing to runway 21."

"Roger Hellfire. Proceed runway 21 and take the runway."

"Hellfire." She immediately went back to her displays, and I called to Hellfire Three.

"You get all that, Karl?"

"Yeah, I got it. Synced take off?"

"Of course."

"Three."

We taxied probably a little faster than we should have, but there was a reason it was a scramble alarm and not something else. Whatever was on its way had either come through when our combat air patrol was low on fuel and rotating back, or there were too many for CAP to take.

The runway opened in front of us a few moments later, and I waited for Karl to slot into place on my left.

"Set."

"Set."

"Brakes on, run up." Another moment as we eased the throttles forward and stood on our brakes. Karl came in with his ready call, and I gave the order. "Roll it."

Both Strike Eagles, abreast on the runway, pushed into afterburner and sent plumes of flame and heat out behind us. Were it anything other than an emergency, I would have watched us both rotate at the same time and take off.

"Merrin, Hellfire flight wheels up, maintaining 210 and climbing to angels 12."

"Merrin copies, Hellfire. Switch to frequency 253 tac 500, check in with AWACS Kingmaker."

"Copy all, switching 253 tac 500." A few presses of her controls and she was talking again. "Kingmaker, Hellfire flight of two Strike Eagles, we're all yours."

We climbed through ten thousand feet and started leveling off and pulling back on the throttle when Kingmaker got back to us. "Kingmaker receiving, we have you on the scopes. You're our only flight in the air right now capable of intercept. Datalink connection established. Turn heading 230 for 40, 6,000, hot. Large group merged."

That meant that Kingmaker was seeing a flight of several aircraft flying so close together that they appeared as a blob on the radar, and they were forty miles out, at 6,000 feet. We had our work cut out for us.

"Roger all, Kingmaker. Moving to intercept."

We had two radios in our birds, and a recent upgrade gave us the ability to have an additional two over our datalink connection. Either of us could tune the datalink channels, and I moved to one of them. "Karl, go wide, push to burner. No way they sent just fighters at us."

"I was thinking the same. Bombers?"

"Definitely bombers, definitely ready to flatten Merrin." A glance down at my radar screen and I wasn't just seeing the icons that indicated a contact, but dark red icons that meant confirmed hostiles, courtesy of Kingmaker's powerful radar and our datalink. At least six, probably more escorts. "Check picture, tally on group."

"Three same."

Karl had started to pull Hellfire Three off to the side, the distance between us opening rapidly. We had hit ten miles and I was starting to worry. "Alex? How's that whole locking on going?"

"Standby… Acquired!" On my display, she had locked up at least one of the targets in the middle. Transmitting on the AWACS net, she pulled the trigger and one of our advanced missiles shot off of the rails, going straight for its target. "Hellfire One, Fox Three!"

Ten miles was a stone's throw away at this speed, and with the missile capable of reaching mach 4 within seconds of launch, it was like a lightning bolt had streaked out and tagged its target.

In the distance, I saw a fireball go up, inky black smoke trailing from the aircraft that had been hit as it started to roll. I couldn't see it well, but one of the wings had definitely sheared off of it, and whatever it was went into the drink, disappearing into the ocean.

But now the escorts were starting to engage, and I kept my heading, inverting and diving down into the thick of the formation, Karl turning in and moving to support.

My bird shook heavily with the pull on the stick, water vapor condenscing on the wings and flaring in a pair of fluttering white trails of what was almost a cloud, looking like the feathers on a real Eagle.

I got in close, able to identify the bombers now. I recognized the long body, heavily swept wings, and multiple twin-prop engines almost immediately. "Kingmaker, formation identified, six Tu-95 Bears, multiple escorts. Splash one Bear."

"Confirm splash one Bear. Locket flight is up and on its way, just try not to get shot down."

"Copy, Kingmaker."

With sufficient distance from my plane and the formation, I pulled hard on the stick, feeling the pull as we hit six Gs. It wasn't easy trying to stay awake through a sustained turn, and the blackened corners of my vision disappeared when I let the aircraft level out and pick up more speed. The buffet was heavy for a time before it eased off, and the sea and sky spread out around us in their normal orientations again.

Several of the escorts had peeled off, and were completing their turns now. Another missile shot in from the left, and Hellfire Three blew through the formation just as another Bear took a direct hit and disintegrated in mid-air.

Older Mig-21s and Tiger aircraft were the escorts. Why they hadn't sent something better, I had no idea. It just made our job easier when we had to fight relics. "Alex, hand off!"

"All yours!"

She gave up her control of the weapons systems to me, and I immediately switched to the standard missiles, mashing one of the buttons on my throttle and cycling through several of the targets on my HUD. A second later, I got a deep buzzing tone, followed by a high pitched whine, and I pulled the trigger, sending one of the missiles off the rail to meet its new friend. Another followed soon after, angling towards the other target.

"Hellfire One, Fox Two times two!"

Two more Erusean fighters were turned into balls of flame, aluminum caskets for their pilots. Hellfire Three was turning back in now as well, but I saw the rest of the escort was going after Karl's bird. "Three, three inbound!"

"I see them! I'm gonna- Three defending!"

Just as he finished his sentence, he immediately rolled over, chaff and flares dumping into the slipstream as he dove for the deck, his afterburners cutting off. One of the surviving Migs had just launched a missile at him, and another was tracking him down to get a second shot off.

One of the missiles tracked for the flares and detonated, but wasn't far off from Three. The other looked to be tracking, but whether it hit or not was up in the air.

Instead of heading for the bombers, I angled back towards the Migs, locking one of them up and pulling the trigger. It started to evade, losing its angle on Karl as it tried to stay alive, dumping flares just as Karl had. It would all be for nothing though, and I saw the missile keep tracking, before it closed in and exploded, peppering the Mig and sending it down in flames.

I had only just turned on the other and got a lock when I heard Karl yell something out. "Three's hit! I still have control!"

The second missile that had closed in on him had flew true. I pulled the trigger again and brought an end to another escort. It didn't come to mind at the time, but I was the first allied ace of this war. "Can you make it home?"

His WSO, Mirah 'Mirror' Lamens responded. "We're gonna try. Lost right engine and just hit the fire switch, hydraulic pressure already dropping. Trailing oil and fuel, right vertical stab is a fucking stump. We'll call if we punch out. Switching back to Merrin."

"Roger, Three. I'll make sure they don't get through."

I tuned one of our radios back to Merrin, turning the volume down while turning back in towards the bomber group. The closest one was growing larger in my view by the second, and I let loose another standard missile.

Flares started to dump out of the bomber's sides behind the wing roots, a shower of bright hot spots that struggled to make the missile go for them instead. They failed, and I watched the missile strike near the rear. The tail of the bomber was pitted with damage, holes opening up and trailing white and black smoke before it failed and the tail sheared off. The bomber started flipping end over end, dropping below our field of view.

Tail guns on the remaining Bears opened up as we passed behind them, all of them missing by a long shot. They wouldn't be able to defend themselves like this, and I pushed the bird into another climb, the high power of the engines sending us rocketing up, before I pulled back on the stick and let her nose back over, diving towards her targets. The two remaining escorts had split off and started to turn back in, trying to pincer us, and in the distance, I saw four black dots. Locket flight.

They wouldn't be here in time, though. "Mad dog the long shots!"

Alex didn't need to be told twice, and smashed a button on her console several times, and just as many of the Long Shot missiles dropped off of our rail systems without guidance from us, all of them locking onto individual targets with their own onboard radars, deconflicting targets with their datalink to make sure none of them went for the same plane.

The five missiles went for the bombers, and the remaining two bombers went up in flames and started dropping out of view. The rest of the missiles, fired at the aspect ratio and rate they were, missed and detonated past their targets.

I had no choice but to choose one of the escorts and go after them. Pulling hard, I heard the tone that indicated I had control of the missiles again, stepping into a dogfight with a mudhen.

The first one went high over me, roaring past, and the other managed to slot in on my tail. Shit. "Keep an eye on the other one!"

"Eyes on!"

I nearly threw my neck and back out twisting to try and get eyes on the Mig that was on my six, pushing the throttle into afterburner and then putting my hand against the cockpit glass to keep myself from slamming into when I was forced into a snap roll after a missile launched on us.

Flares dumped out of the Strike Eagle just like they had done from Karl's jet, and I felt myself sweating bullets as it lost track and went dumb, detonating harmlessly in the distance.

Pulling harder, I used the Strike Eagle's superior thrust to angle us back up into the sky. After chasing us into a turn, the Mig wouldn't have the energy to follow us up, whereas we would have energy to spare, gaining speed even in a near vertical climb.

Another missile flashed and started to chase us up, but I cut the throttle to idle, pushed forward on the stick, and dumped the rest of our flares before kicking in hard rudder and sending us back into a dive.

This time, the missile detonated closer, rattling the aircraft, but no damage was done, and I now had the Mig in my sights. This time, the missile that launched was ours, and I watched with no small sense of satisfaction as it slammed into the Mig's nose, the blast fragmentation warhead mulching whoever was in the cockpit and causing the rest of the aircraft to explode, letting us come out the other side unharmed.

Now there was only one, and I spotted him on the datalink, but as I turned to acquire him, I saw that he was little more than a fireball now. Locket flight had finally arrived.

I let loose a breath I didn't realize I had been holding, closing my eyes as we leveled out. Alex was already on comms. "Kingmaker, splash all contacts. Request picture."

"Picture clean, Hellfire. Amazing work. Return to base, Locket will remain on station until relieved."

"Roger all, Kingmaker."

"Oh, and Hellfire, headquarters sent a line through as soon as they saw the contacts dropping like flies. They wanna see you as soon as you get back on the ground, said your pilot was damned good."

"She's eavesdropping if you wanna tell her yourself."

A laugh on the other end. "I think I just did. You made ace today, Heartbreaker, congratulations. You're the first of the war for us."

I frowned, realizing he was right. Well, I guess I'm famous now. I cut in on the conversation this time. "Don't ask for any autographs."

He didn't laugh this time, but I heard it in Kingmaker's reply. "No promises."

That was enough for me, and our exchange was over. No need to clutter the net up with a conversation. We angled back towards Merrin, and with the threat dealt with, I turned up the volume on Merrin's frequency just in time to hear Hellfire Three was starting their approach. I listened carefully as Mirrah came over the net.

"Merrin control, Hellfire Three declaring emergency. Right engine out, hydraulic pressure dropping, oil pressure dropping, fuel leaking, right vertical stabilizer gone, low state, 3.1 and dropping fast. Requesting emergency landing clearance."

"Merrin control, copy all Hellfire Three. Runway is clear, fire and emergency on the way. One attempt at landing, if it fails, head back out to sea and punch out. SAR birds are spooling up just in case."

"Confirm, one attempt, then punch out."

Their conversation went quiet after that, and nobody dared break it. I was on the edge of my seat wondering if Karl would be able to nurse the stricken Eagle back to the ground. Almost two full minutes passed, and Merrin came into view as we closed in on it.

"...Merrin control, Hellfire Three on the deck. Taxiing off to clear the runway."

"Good work, Chieftain. Get out of there as soon as you can."

That brought a sigh of relief to both myself and Alex. Karl and Mirrah weren't just our comrades and fellow pilots, but our friends. It was nice to know that at the end of the day, I wasn't losing two more to this war.

We checked in shortly after, and made a slow pass over the runway to confirm that Hellfire Three had been cleared completely and there was no debris before we slotted into the pattern and circled around, dropping in to land just like we had when we'd first arrived.

After such a stressful dogfight, I felt drained, and the gear touching down on the tarmac startled me slightly. The adrenaline was dissipating now, and I knew that as soon as I got out of this bird, my legs would be jelly. We'd fought before, but… nothing like that.

Taxiing back to the spot we had from earlier, we shut the Strike Eagle down, and this time, it was understood that we'd earned the right to sit in the cockpit and relax for a minute or two before we got dragged out.

In the course of less than two hours, we had gone from running with our tails between our legs to the first 'victory' we could claim in this war, just over a year after it had begun.

Helluva way to make ace.