Live and Let Die
The camera is shooting vertically upward, from the interior of a millennia-old well, and two people are looking into it from its exterior, one is Vincent Harling, the other one is a young miko with a petite figure, snowy skin, crotch-reaching straight long hair of raven-colored and tsavorite-resembling irises.
"This well has a history of thousands of years, and there are dozens of them scattered around. Locals extract brine via these wells, from the subterranean reservoirs, remnants of a pre-history ocean vanished because of tectonic movements, for salt-production, since ancient times." The miko girl, or miko bishoujo explains: "During the crystallization, algae living in the brine gives the salt a pinkish coloration, this cherry-hued salt was a highly prized commodity sold along trade routes, till now."
The two walk along the road side-by-side, through the complex of the Shinto shrine. "…more than salt, the mountains generously bestowed us many other gifts, like natural gas as the fuel for boiling brine, lumber and ore of superior quality, also rare herbs and gems. So farming only plays a minor role in local economy, insignificant next to gathering-processing." The history lesson continues as they move forward.
Harling: "And for thousands of years, your family is responsible for all spiritual affairs, especially the rituals to present locals' gratitude to the deities, for their bestowments. Am I right, Ms. Shiratori?"
"Certainly, Mr. Harling. My ancestors also organized locals into militias to protect the valuable commodities along the trade routes. We're not great horsemen, instead being professional archery, swordsmanship and hand-to-hand combat. Later we were assimilated into the Great Khan's legion of conquest as an elite combat wing, during the Era of Unification, and was awarded nobility and positions in imperial bureaucracies."
"A heritage of Osean heroes." Harling affirms: "As the former president, I think I know quite a lot about my fatherland, however such confidence is shaken upon acknowledging the legend located so close to where I used to be on active service."
"Osea is full of surprises, right?" The girl winks impishly, and Harling feels his heart just skipped a beat: "Right…" They keep moving on, however the mid-aged gentleman seems slightly embarrassed, that is, his companion and lecture-giver looks very different today, as her hair is bound into "twintail (ツインテール)" and her fashions are altered to be more…daring, for example the hadajyuban is a detached-sleeve-design, revealing the exquisite skin of upper arms and shoulders, even a fraction of the ample bosom; meanwhile the hibakama is also shortened, only reaching the thighs' midsection, exposing much of the long and curvaceous legs wrapped in white, semi-transparent pantyhose.
"I'd like to say you're full of surprise too, birdy. And may I ask did you configured into this combination on purpose?" Harling says to himself. Sensing his uneasiness, the "Birdy" pretends trembling on the slabstone-paved road and leans to Harling, forcing him to move aside in a hurry to avoid his arm bumping against her large bust, or vice versa: "This will not end well…"
Prime chance! With a exclaim, the girl suddenly "slips" and throws herself to Harling's chest, and the president…correction, ex-president responds fast, by holding her by both arms for preventing a tumble. The direct outcome of this stunt is Harling finding a tiny, well-endowed, warmth-radiating and aroma-emanating body snuggles up to him like a kitten, and frankly, he doesn't want to resist the feeling of being lucky and delighted.
"Definitely not end well…or maybe too well?" The ex-president wraps his arms around the girl, who goes by the name Rekka Shiratori, and the girl rests her head on his chest, blissfully. Meanwhile, some other girls in miko's costume are watching the development from a hidden position, they high-five among themselves as if their favorite Super Bowl team wins the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
…
Avail Mead is working as…well, not as usual, because the objects she's tending are fifth-generation fighters, and she's not alone this time. Some floating, sci-fi-style robots are helping her — actually all Scrap Queen needs to do is sitting back and enjoying coke and ice-cream. Cyclops Squadron packs up and leaves 444th Airbase hours after returning from the mission at Yinshi Valley, then the next day another flight of battle aircraft arrives with associated materials and equipment, including advanced drones for construction and repair/maintenance. Instead of VIP, these are meant for Spare Squadron — apparently someone is pulling strings for the convicts…pilots, more importantly, these convicts…pilots, at least most of them, are proving they're worthy for the strings to be pulled. Coming with the delivery there is a special crew of personnel, they immediately begin to review and evaluate each of Spare Squadron's members' activities, especially combat performance, after touching down.
"This is rumor control. Here are the facts." Inside the briefing room and before starting the briefing, McKinsey is making an announcement: "As some of you know, special amnesty of the 444th Fighter Squadron is underway. Yes, you all are being pardoned."
Instantly convicts…pilots begin to turmoil. "Excuse me sir, what about…" Someone raises a hand, followed by several others.
"I know your concern. And I can assure you that all your points, both spent and remaining, will be converted into fiat money by the ratio of 1:1 and will be given to your disposal. Is that acceptable?"
"Acceptable, totally acceptable!" Some convicts…pilots shout with approval, some others exchange opinions among themselves with murmurs and nods.
McKinsey: "However I must remind you there're still some unfinished businesses to be done, before the completion of amnesty, so it's not the proper time to slack off. Is that reasonable?"
"Reasonable! Completely reasonable!"
"Then let's get to the briefing. One of the core components of our overall strategy is to deny Erusea the access to food and fuel. But as time passes, enemies had come up with countermeasures, which means the upcoming mission is an air raid on Port Artiglio, where is estimated to house one million barrel of fuel, and food for one million Erusean mouths."
Count: "Excuse me sir. I can understand the fuel part, but what does the port to do with food?" He drives at the screen-wall displaying the layout of Port Artiglio, a vast complex of docks, refineries, oil tanks…and something bears resemblance to farms of some sort, both on shores and on the sea. There are also several platforms built off the coast but don't look like for drilling petroleum from planet crust, as well as a dozen of tankers.
"That's the billion-zollar question." Although always seeing this heroic fraud troublesome, but today McKinsey is happy about his inquiry. A common phenomenon is the internal strives go down when a collective is on a winning streak, so since Spare Squadron is doing very well, its members get along among themselves, also with authorities, better than before: "Pop quiz hotshots: What's the primary nutrition we assimilate from food to energize ourselves?"
"Sugar? Starch?" Convicts…pilots answer without synchronization.
"Correct. And what machines burn to power themselves? Apart from isotopes of uranium and hydrogen?"
"Gasoline, diesel, kerosene…shall we include coal and methane as well?" Another wave of unsynchronized replies.
"Sugar, starch and products of fractional distillation of petroleum, all fall under the same category of…"
Despite the answer is obvious, nobody voices back to McKinsey. Seconds later, Trigger suddenly gets it: "Carbohydrate...sorry sir, it's hydrocarbon."
"Very good. Both carbohydrate and hydrocarbons contain carbon and hydrogen, elements also found in carbon dioxide and water, so they can be created through…"
"Photosynthesis. Living cells with chloroplasts."
"Highest mark!" The base commander applauds: "Eruseans had been cultivating genetically modified algae in a cosmic scale, to produce raw sugar, then to make food and fuel out of it. Clever bastards, I'll give them that." An animated flowchart of how it works is displayed on the screen-wall: Algae thriving in farms make sugar via photosynthesis, the sugar they made is sent into refineries, or complexes look like refineries, to undergone series of complicated chemical reactions, rearranging molecular structures by detaching and attaching atoms…with the help of rays and enzymes. End results are starch products for human and synthetic fossil fuel for machines. "And algae itself can be dried and compressed for supplements of proteins and vitamins." He adds.
Count: "I almost give a thumb-up, however I think surrender is a perfectly acceptable alternative of sources of food and fuel in extreme circumstances. Osea may be gracious enough…" He's cut short by a finger-snap on his head, from behind, initiated by another convict…pilot.
"Thank you." McKinsey continues: "AO is periodically covered by sandstorms, which will work to our advantage." Screen-wall zooms out to display a huge, approaching blur: "Inessa 2, formed a few days ago, will effectively impede local defenses, mainly UCAV launched from ground and vessels, fly inside it in low altitude to achieve a nasty surprise."
"That's dirty." Count whistles.
McKinsey: "You think Eruseans deserve anything clean?"
"No, sir. Actually I think they don't deserve to be alive at all."
"For the first time, you and I are in absolute agreement."
"Glad to know that." Count whistles again.
"Why build a fuel base there? Unfavorable weather could perplex maintenance and transportation." Tabloid asks.
"Another billion-zollar question." McKinsey answers: "We had severed their international sources of fertilizers and deformed domestic sources, since the beginning of war. The minerals carried by sands are the only viable supply to fulfill algae's nutrition requirement."
"An unauthorized exploitation to Mother Nature, I see." Sarcasm from Count.
"Well, Eruseans don't have many options." McKinsey shrugs: "Give the severity of the punishment enforced by Osea."
"They can always take the option of surrender…hey! Stop it!" Count receives another "snap attack" on the backside of his head.
"Sorry, my fingers just slipped." The convict…pilot who snaps Count, turning out to be Tabloid, smiles, and the perpetrator immediately raises another concern: "Sir, if I may say so, flying within a sandstorm is bad for engines."
"The third billion-zollar question. Worry not, your aircraft had been added some features to keep sands from entering intakes." McKinsey points a thumb to the screen-wall, footage instantly changes to how the stuff works: "Specialized electromagnetic fields to deflect heavier sand particles, but allows air to enter, and layers of nano-grade filters function as backups. Assuring?"
"Yeah, very. I'm good."
"Nice. Any more questions?"
"Sir." Trigger hands up: "May I ask one?"
"Please do."
"What do those seaborne platforms do?" The super-ace drives at what's now being displayed — 3D structure of one of the platforms: "They don't look like rigs but seawater desalination facilities, however they seem don't store treated seawater at all. And there's an enormous unoccupied wet dock located in the center of the complex, what's its function?"
"As far as I know, those platforms are for extraction and enrichment of uranium, deuterium and tritium, but only classified as secondary targets." The base commander responds: "As for the wet dock, there's no further intel for now, even it serves any ships of similar size, but they must have already sailed away for days."
"Thank you sir." Trigger falls silent, but something is disturbing: When there are nuclear fuel and something can hold up a super-sized sea-faring vehicle, one thing comes to mind…
"Before rolling out, I suggest carefully study enemy complex's layout. Such high concentration of inflammable substances, try cause chain reactions to save time and ammo."
Artiglio Port, West to Southern Coast of Usean Continent
July 22nd 2019, 10:00
【Background Music: Pipeline Destruction】
【Extracted from Video Game "ACE Combat 7: Skies Unknown"】
"They're coming out of the sands! They're coming out of the goddamn sands!" Entire complex is thrown into chaos, as Osean fighters are suddenly all over them as if materialized from the void of sandstorm, like those devils in fairytales.
"Deploy all drones!" The Erusean commander who's in charge of the fuel base, shouts with a lacerated voice.
"Negative! We're having trouble to adapt them to the wind this strong!"
"Just deploy them goddamn it!"
MQ-99 make haste from their container-launchers, and most of them collide among themselves and get destroyed during the process, because their airframes can't handle sideward airstreams well, and are too light to hold steady in a storm.
"Idiots." Count, in an FB-22 Strike Raptor's cockpit, comments the comedic mess of the enemies, then drops a salvo of XSDB onto the nearest container-launchers. Also codenamed as "F/B-22 Concept", such alternative title clearly suggests this Raptor's cousin was supposed to stay on drawing boards like S-32, and just like S-32, some talented people brought it out from mere blueprint. Compatible with a wide diversity of ordnance and possessing the capability of releasing ordnance in a quick session from its four weapon bays, Strike Raptor is often considered as an analogy of TIE Punisher for "curing air force's phobia of insufficient firepower".
Dropping a SFFS, Count expects to see several fuel tanks burst into multiple major explosions, followed by a chain reaction to take out neighboring ones, but "No secondary explosions, chain reaction is no-go. I repeat: No secondary explosions, chain reaction is no-go."
Bandog: "Hold on…ComScan detects all oil tanks have super-fine alloy nets installed internally, they can absorb tremendous amounts of heat and impact. That's a bad news, you'll have to forget the grand firework show and resort in the old-fashioned way, pick them one by one." His AWACS remains outside AO, outside the storm, for the aforementioned engine-protection is yet to be fit to an airliner-grade aircraft, still he's close enough to provide limited support.
Tabloid: "Eruseans suddenly get smarter."
"No. We Oseans had long since utilizing the sophisticated and cost-efficient flash-freezing as an instant pacification to fires and explosions, but they still cling to an obsolete approach like this? Don't they ever realize nets wear down through time and the fragmentation will clog in valves and pipes? That's called 'dumb'." Count always judges Eruseans as subhuman, can't blame him since from the perspective of IQ, Eruseans are even more inferior to Belkans. Apart from the hilariously poor performance during the epidemic of Coronavirus Disease 2018, since ISAF is capable of pining Erusea on ground and raping it like a beast in heat, then why Eruseans believe they can win a war against Osean Federation, who is essentially a glorified integration of People's Republic of China, United States of America, and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? If Wendy Northcutt lives in this universe, she would give all Darwin Awards from 2004 to 2019 to Erusean population without hesitation.
Trigger is always a man…woman of actions, less talking, more destroying — for example focusing her offensive capabilities on the platforms. She flies very close to the sea surface, directly to a platform, and releases torpedoes from the three belly-pylons of her A-10C Thunderbolt II. This heavy-duty ordnance has multiple warheads lined up to detonate in sequence for drilling through layers of reinforced concerts of the pillars supporting the platforms, then destroys the steel cores to completely overthrow entire structures. Defenders of this base consider missiles launched from aircraft and vessels are the most threatening menace and the water is too shallow for torpedo attacks, so they rigged all platforms with CIWS and ignored anti-torpedo nets. Now such configuration of defense really takes its toll because Trigger's torpedoes are fixed with wooden fins, Scrap Queen's custom, to agree with shallow water, and she flies too low for CIWS to lock on.
One of the fundamental rules of war: Always outsmart enemies by something they don't foresee. The Art of War is very specific about it.
It only takes a few minutes for Trigger to finish off the platforms and shifts her attention to the tankers, which stand even less chance than the previous victims. Sure, these ships are equipped with MQ-99 as proximal defenses, but as aforementioned, they're not designed to work under difficult weathers such as storms, and one more inconvenient truth is since these drones are mainly deployed via launched rocket-like, it takes seconds for them to slow down and maneuver, and by that time, torpedoes had already did what they're supposed to do.
No more worthy targets on the sea, Trigger circles around to bomb facilities on the dryland, firing air-to-ground missiles and dropping bombs to oil tanks and refineries — four of her A-10C's eight wing-pylons are configured into triple-hardpoint racks for XSAG, another two are attached with a FAEB each, the remaining two are quad-hardpoint racks laden with HCAA in case of any unfriendly flying objects. Meanwhile Champ and High Roller are dousing the algae farms with some chemical compounds for contamination, rendering the biomass unsafe for food or fuel. The rest of the fighter-jockeys are also doing their parts like…like fighter-jockeys, well-trained and war-trialed.
Bandog: "Mission going smoothly despite not completely according to the initial plan, but enemy reinforcements are coming from north."
Count: "They won't dare to bring the fight to us up-close and personal, if they still value their engines. And if they dare, we'll blast them out." He's right, Erusean fighters have no shielding of any forms to keep sands from entering intakes, and since Osea is devastating Erusean industrial capability like a boss, hence fighter-grade aeronautic engines are becoming more and more scarce for Erusean military, so they can't risk damaging such cherished commodities by entering sandstorm for dogfighting, therefore only can resort in tossing missiles from afar. However in this universe, it seems all guided weaponry, especially missiles, lose reliabilities sharply as they travel farther, not to mention owing to the light weights, air-to-air missiles are constantly blown to wrong directions by the strong winds. As the result, missiles launched from Erusean fighters pose little threat to Osea fighters, who're too far away and are hiding in a quite violent meteorological system.
After exhausting the last missiles, enemy reinforcements retreat to where they came from, having realized there's nothing they can do unless the sandstorm clears — and it won't until tomorrow. Spare Squadron goes on its own business of decimating local food and fuel production, storage and distribution. There's no need to pursuit and destroy, for still plenty of targets left to be wiped out traditionally…or creatively, also since the main goal is to decimate the ever-shrinking food supply of Erusean population, sparing those Eruseans pilots will add more mouths to be fed, enhancing the effect desired by the Osean side, both subjectively and objectively.
Some fuel trucks attempt a desperate escape, by taking separated roads to different directions, only end up being nailed by the aerial predators, because the prey forgets to take two factors into account: The trucks are not all-terrain, therefore must drive on roads, betraying tracks and positions in a natural manner; then even more naturally, wheels never outrun jets.
【Background Music Stops】
"I'm telling ya they're up to no good." On the way home, Full Band starts his "I know more than you do" routine for…well for god knows how many times: "Scouts have detected an unusual high concentration of Erusean military presence around the ruin of Stonehenge…"
"You gotta be kidding! That mega-structure has been busted and rusted for fifteen years!" Champ is full of disbelief: "Do they really think it can be repaired to be functional?"
"Well, not as a whole, but since it's consisted by twelve railguns, only fixing the least damaged one will be enough." Tabloid raises a point that is fairly solid: "And figure out how to energize it."
High Roller: "Nah, I'd like to bet they're going to repair the very one contracted to them to build, before the divine retribution coming down from outer space, even it might be the most severely damaged one. Anyone wants to take the bet?"
"No." Several convicts…pilots respond in unison, which in turn, proving High Roller's deduction is correct, or at least logical, judging from Erusean behavior.
"So what those big shots in Oured will do about the upcoming Erusean Big Gun? Sending an ace or an ace squadron to finish what Mobius 1 didn't complete?" Count muses. During the Second Continental War, or more precisely the Operation Stone Crusher of the Second Continental War, the sky-tyrannizing super-ace of ISAF, Mobius 1, managed to invade the airspace of Stonehenge and knocked all railguns out of commission, however they were merely inoperative thanks to the super-ace only carried a very small quantity of ammunition, due to the fuel demand of ultra-long distance of aerial incursion. So theoretically, given enough time, sufficient resources and proper management, it's possible to patch up the complex, even just partially, and now, the word "theoretically" should be replaced with "practically".
"Of course not. They have a different idea. I'm yet to get the full picture, but already quite there." Full Band is dangerously close to leak critical information: "It seems the superiors are drawing up a plan of a surprise attack to seize Stonehenge and to use it as a staging point for another operation. I figured out what they're up to, after connecting the dots, and the answer is the Arsenal Birds. They intend to snipe Arsenal Birds with the railgun."
Turmoil engulfs the channel, everyone is dumfounded to different extents, except Trigger and Bandog. "Spare 6, you had spoken too much today, I strongly advise you not to open your mouth again in the following hours." The latter warns harshly.
Count: "I still vote for a nuclear strike."
Tabloid: "I maintain my vote for a handful of aces and a good-planned tactic. If my memory serves correctly, we had successfully brought down one Arsenal Bird over Chopinburg, by four squadrons, only one was lost, an acceptable rate of casualties for destroying something this big."
"Indeed, but why Galactic Empire builds a Death Star instead of ramming a Star Destroyer into Alderaan or Yavin IV with maximum subluminal speed, or Rebel Alliance doesn't ram the Darth Star with the same manner? It's called 'showoff', sometimes you gotta choose the more troublesome and expensive way to demonstrate muscles. Besides, Stonehenge can do more than just penetrating Arsenal Birds' shields and armors, it also can be doubled as an ultra-long-range artillery…" Obviously Bandog's warning falls to a deaf ear, as Full Band keeps showing off his big mouth: "…I decoded an incomplete list, a huge amount of assets is scheduled to be allocated for taking over…"
"You really dig out many juicy intel this time, Mr. Know-All." Says Bandog with a lowered, chipper tone, Trigger instantly senses a trace of hidden darkness, while her own mind is shrouded in darkness too. The Force moves darkly near a creature that's about to kill, she will "accidently" make Full Band flying through the jet wash of her aircraft, getting him trapped in an unrecoverable flat spin as the result of the ensuring flameout of both engines. If the victim somehow survives, there's still Plan B: Having already acquired a pretty good handling of 444th Airbase's surveillance cameras' coverage and places they cannot see, Trigger will manage Full Band's liquidation in one of those blind zones and to disguise his demise as an accident — she knows quite a few ways of commencing a weapon-free murder, since her family fares good at martial arts for generations.
"Not 'all', but almost. In this war, intel is a life-or-death thing." Full Band is still blabbing, having no idea he just sentenced himself to death penalty.
"I presume you're right." Bandog inputs password on his console, as the result, one of the screens displays a message of final confirmation, once confirmed, a subroutine installed in flight control of Full Band's aircraft will be activated to cause it to automatically crash on landing.
But just as he decides the big mouth's fate, the fate intervenes by its own accordance. Erusea can't do anything to Spare Squadron with fighters for the time being doesn't mean there aren't other options — for example some additional features of Arsenal Birds, besides the staple UCAV swarms.
"Incoming hypersonic (5 Mach to 10 Mach) projectiles, some area-purging ordnance. Stay away from the projected radius of explosions!" Everyone's radar-map shows several large circles of crimson, those who happen to be flying inside the circles also gets an acoustic warning — data relayed by Bandog who gets relayed from higher commands.
"5…4…3…2…impact…now!" Several huge and white-cyan-colored fireballs, accompanied by violet shockwaves and deafening sounds, come out from nowhere, occupying quite a portion of the space between heaven and earth, in different altitudes, during the same process those crimson circles are filled solid, before disappearing from radar-maps.
"Ouch! My teeth!" Count groans. Some others also express unpleasant, albeit non-harmful, physical experiences.
Bandog: "...just got a word from above, those are cruise-ballistic-hybrid missiles launched from the Arsenal Bird nearest to our position, armed with plasma payloads, codenamed 'Helios'."
"Another fancy toy of Baby Huey, nothing new here." "Aiming stinks as always." "Not bad for fireworks, I'd like to watch some fireworks for a change." "C'mon! Why don't invest money in poisoning our coffee or tea instead, at least the success rate is slightly higher." Convicts…pilots start to rub in the daily issue of Erusean IQ as usual, while Helios Missiles keep coming and missing their marks…or the marks keep escaping from the blast radius, thanks to Bandog's timely reminder of when and where they should evade.
"You're almost beyond the reach of Helios. Don't let the guard down, I don't want casualties at the last minute." Bandog announces and gets desynchronized responses, Trigger, on the other hand, is trying to figure out how the blast radius of those plasma-primed missiles can be predicted and so accurately predicted. There is a related question "How come where the laser beam of Excalibur is pointing can be precisely forecasted". Well, guess it'd better ignore finding answers, instead focus on being grateful for the 100% predictability, that's what matters the most.
Then without an omen, Full Band's plane goes up in flames, caught into one of the super-explosive plasma spheres. "Damn it! I told him not to let the guard down! Here goes our four-week record of casualty-free." Bandog moans, but not going to throw a palm or a fist to the console.
"Take it easy shepherd dog, war is war, war has casualties. His time comes here and now, that's it." Someone says in the background of communication and gets a general murmur of approval. Sure, Full Band is a partner in the ranks, however every Osean military personnel is trained to properly deal with friendly losses, so they will mourn those who are lost, but won't burst into tears or something. Besides, being a war-buddy doesn't nullify disciplines, this Full Band breaks the regulations of maintaining military secrets left and right, ignoring repeated warnings and chances of self-correction all the way, subsequently warranting himself a capital punishment. Therefore everyone just considers his sudden demise as a poetic justice. Still losing someone is not a happy event, so during the rest of the journey home, nobody speaks a word.
Despite one participant less, the debriefing and dinner proceed as usual, then MP clear out Full Band's belongings for mailing them to his family, with a consolatory letter enclosed with death benefits. He will be posthumously promoted by two ranks and will be lauded as a martyr, which means his relatives will live with honor for the rest of their lives. Agreed, it chokes those who know the inside story that a leaker getting such a forgiving treatment, but this is how the policies work.
This "Full Band Incident" also affects Trigger to an extent, for she knows (also the only one knows) Bandog killed Full Band, since he was providing information to all members of Spare Squadron to properly evade Helios Missiles, and none of the pilots were slow-responsive, the only explanation is he deliberately supplied Full Band with false data, victimizing him to his death. Fact aside, Trigger is not going to accuse Bandog, much less to expose him, instead being impressed by various reasons, and if she organizes her own team after leaving this penal unit, this AWACS operator is on the list of handpicking.
Moreover, the super-ace's concern is confirmed in the debriefing, since the enormous unoccupied wet dock located in the center of Port Artiglio is revealed to be the parking site of an oversized vessel, not any other vessels of excessive bigness, but Alicorn, the Alicorn-Class Strategic Nuclear Submarine Kingdom of Erusea purchased from Union of Yuktobanian Republics, and those seaborne platforms are indeed for extraction and enrichment of uranium, deuterium and tritium to produce nuclear fuel. Alicorn-Class was meant to be "Super-Scinfaxi-Class" and to play a prominent role in Yuktobanian Navy, if not the strategic arms reduction treaty led to the project's cancelation. In an attempt of partially salvaging the investment, Yuktobania put the half-completed vessel on sale as a pile of scrap, Erusea brought the pile and retrofitted it to what it was supposed to be.
Led by Captain Matias Torres, entire crew of Alicorn went rogue and took the super-submarine with them, disappeared under the high seas just forty-eight hours before Spare Squadron's raid. Resources are being allocated by Osean DOD to find the sub's whereabouts for its destruction, but it'll be extremely difficult, for simply tracking a massive surface vessel like an aircraft carrier is so hard, even with all the aircraft flying around and satellites orbiting above, much less to something capable of submerging.
No time, nor leisure, for Trigger to further worry about Alicorn, because Operation Flush, the last mission for the penal unit, comes way sooner than anticipated. It has been confirmed Erusean military is indeed hastily repairing one of the Stonehenge's main cannons, the very one contracted to Erusea to build before the arrival of the space nemesis, planning to use it as an ultra-long-range artillery to assist breaching Osean blockade. Apart from working on the big gun, several associated observation posts are being commissioned in different locations, one of them is atop Waiapolo Mountains, and is assigned to the penal unit for demolition and destruction. After this mission, all (remaining) members of Spare Squadron will be reassigned to different posts, according to the assessment results produced by the evaluation team.
Waiapolo Mountains, East to Central Usean Continent
July 23rd 2019, 14:00
【Background Music: Waiapolo Mountains】
【Extracted from Video Game "ACE Combat 7: Skies Unknown"】
"You were all briefed before we left base. I'm sure it doesn't cover anything you weren't familiar with." Says Bandog.
Count: "In other words, kill anything bearing Erusean chromosomes, inside their jamming field and firepower grid. Same business as usual."
"This is your last mission, impress yourself in every way you'd like to. Now break formation."
"Yes sir!" For the first time, the convicts…pilots answer in unison. The primary targets are observatory-shaped buildings located dispersedly on the mountaintops, and they're observatories in reality, or at least used to be observatories run and funded by Federation of Central Usea until the funding no longer came years ago. Astronomy and astronautics are two major fields of fierce competition among the powerful nations, but through the years most of the competitors selected "Exit to DOS" one by one, for the bottomless demand of investments and seemly impractical rewards, thinking they'd better pour money over something capable of pleasing their short-sighted taxpayers more effectively.
By 2010s only Osean Federation and Union of Yuktobanian Republics are maintaining active programs of gazing and reaching for the stars, not to mention the latter has its activities limited only to small facilities and sub-geosynchronous orbits, leaving Osea the exclusive constructor and operator of large ones, also the last player around and beyond the Moon. No surprises, "Osea" means "grand river" or "galaxy" in ancient Osean language, they were astro-enthusiasts ever since the Era of Dawning, it plays an significant role in their culture; thus it's natural for Oseans to keep producing astronomers and crafting astronomic tools throughout the millennia, not to mention leading the Space Race since Space Age's beginning, owning the first satellite, the first manned spacecraft, the first space station, the first manned lunar landing, the first interplanetary probe, the first Martian rover…the list goes on. Even now Osea still holds the largest telescopes/observatories of both ground-based and space-based, plus orbiters and landers roaming through Solar System, even solar probes of close-range, and is doing more despite the ongoing Lighthouse War. Well, Osean taxpayers are generally indifferent about where their money has gone, for they're more interested in working and enjoying the leisure after working, and since there're many state-owned enterprises providing direct financial support to the country, they actually don't have too much taxation on shoulders.
On a side note, since Osean population exceeds one billion, simply the annual taxes generated by selling tobacco, alcohol and lotteries are enough to keep both astronomy community and astronautics industry running for an entire year. Sorry pal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is a liar, someone is indeed born superior and more irritatingly, they work harder to have their superiority further solidified.
Dealing with Erusean observation posts and associated defenders isn't much of a challenge, just the routine fire-and-hit or fire-and-miss-then-fire-again. Interestingly, by some reason all Spare Squadron pilots are riding European planes in this sortie, for example Trigger chooses a Rafale M armed with XMAA, QAAM, SOD and XLAG, others' choices including Mirage 2000-5, Rafale M, EF-2000 Typhoon, Tornado GR.4 and Gripen E. Maybe they feel like to compensate European stuff for having less spotlight time than American and Russian, even Chinese equivalents, similar to Chewbacca doesn't get a medal from Rebel Alliance like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: A New Hope, so he's granted the last line (Wookiee howl) in the movie.
"Here goes our days in 444." Count muses: "I thought there would at least be some ceremonial challenge as a grand finale."
Tabloid: "I'd like to say it's just fine, no challenge is a charity." Other convicts…pilots (except Trigger, of course) also express their opinions in radio, seems they're generally happy about serving in the penal unit. Why shouldn't they? Living in conditions way superior than Shawshank also having high-tech toys to play and Eruseans to kill, not to mention soon they will have fresh starts in better places, no matter military or civilian, many things to be prospected.
Suddenly Bandog hails everyone: "Attention all pilots, friendlies detected at 270, crossing AO's border and approaching."
Count: "Briefing didn't mention any friendlies in or near AO, nor any reinforcements."
Tabloid: "A change in deployment yet to notify us?"
"Don't think so." Says Bandog: "And they're closing in from the depth of Erusea-controlled regions, that's sufficiently self-explanatory." He quickly alters IFF parameter: "Trigger, hold your craft in a steady speed and altitude."
"Yes sir."
"All others form up around Trigger and be right there." Spare Squadron quickly gathers into a tight formation with Spare 15 as the reference point, for her Rafale M is the only one painted with "three strikes".
"…here we go, Eruseans attempt to surprise us nastily, instead they're in for a nasty surprise — fire at will, show no mercy!" Bandog manually sets all fighter-presenting icons outside Spare Squadron's formation as enemies. So Eruseans managed to mimic Osean IFF coding, sadly Oseans don't solely rely on IFF coding but also rely on their eyes and brains.
Never ever determine friend or foe simply by ID cards, insignias and uniforms. Lixiaofossil is very specific about it.
Erusean fighters planned to catch Spare Squadron off-guard by posing as allies both by IFF and by hull-coating, then strike from the most favorable positions, but Oseans shoot first unexpectedly just when they're most vulnerable, decimating quite a number of them in an instant and gunning down the rest in a pretty quick session. During the process Oseans also discover they're actually dealing with "manned fighters retrofitted to be unmanned", evidenced by the reddish glows resembling HAL9000 visible inside canopies from close-range.
Count: "No wonder they fly like drunk, should've brought a railgun or a plasma lance for this drone…bee…bug hunt." A plasma lance fires flechette-shaped "bolts" of super-condensed, super-hardened plasma that travel at around 25 Mach, inflicting both plasma-burn/corrosion and kinetic penetration to the targets, can function as an "isotope" to a railgun even still being a glorified coilgun with an extended barrel-length in nature, and such nature brings an extra competitive advantage — energy-based armaments don't need much capacities for ammunition as their ballistic counterparts, granting a bigger easiness of being crafted smaller and lighter, exceptionally fitting for shape-sensitive and weight-conservative aircraft and spacecraft.
"Care for a target practice of blasting their cockpits? I'll double the points if you can achieve a hit." Bandog announces a proposition: "There aren't any pilots inside, so no laws are breached."
"Good call! However I don't think anyone dares to accuse us even we do breach laws, should they still value their own lives." Count whistles: "When you're in possession of guns…correction, big-enough guns, then you're the laws…correction, you're the one who makes laws and enforces them. I think someone who goes by the name Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov is very specific about it."
"I see you remember the nature of sovereignties and associated elements learned from high school political textbooks. We're lucky for having the biggest guns and we also have the determination of firing them." Bandog echoes sarcastically.
"I think you wanted to say 'We love peace, but peace doesn't love us'." Count chuckles.
Bandog: "Close, but no. We love peace, but history has taught us peace absolutely will never come from begging."
"Do we really have to be this explicit? How 'bout 'We don't like adapting to the world, so we make the world adapting to us'." Tabloid cuts in.
"Is this supposed to be inexplicit?" Count chuckles again: "But I'll give you this, last time I checked, we Oseans are the meanest and toughest bad boys Mother Nature ever conceived, countless times she attempted to Force-choke us to death by all forms of disasters, unsuccessfully. Instead of submitting to this harsh mistress, we fight her head-on. Flood? We channel it to ocean by digging ditches. Drought? We draw water in by building canals. Plague? We make medicines to cure ourselves. Famine? We stock up and conserve food to brave it. Earthquake? We construct our houses too resilient to collapse and reconstruct them even better if they do collapse. Invasion? Even simpler, winning a war is one of our oldest heritages passed down from ancestors. Now having exhausted tricks, her majesty begs for our mercy on her knees. Just take a look around, every other civilization has 'doomsday flood and Noah's Ark' of some sort in their prehistory myths, ours instead are filled with 'heroic people banding together to teach the deities not to mess with us via the hard way'. Hell, we're too awesome even ourselves are amazed."
Tabloid: "Indeed. Still we have to adapt if the situation calls. If my memory serves correctly, the first emperor of Imperial Osea once said 'I won't spend gold to conquer the lands can be taken by using tongue instead, I won't wave whip to conquer the lands can be taken by spending gold instead, I won't draw sword to conquer the lands can be taken by waving whip instead'. We're adaptive like fluid, throughout the history."
Count: "Pay attention to the phrase 'conquer', we actively adapt for a strategic reason, that is, making others adapt us ultimately, willing or not. Sometimes to take, one must first give. A superhero or super-antihero called Mao Zedong is very specific about it."
…
The friendly debate goes on and remaining Erusean fighter-converted UCAV go off simultaneously, with their cockpits — or more literary — nonorganic skulls — shredded. Strong artificial intelligence they might possess, but still easily outsmarted by human intelligence. Agreed, silicon brains can best protein brains in playing some board games, but warfare is too complicated and unpredictable for the so-called "thinking machines", they still have an extremely long way to go, if they're to replace "thinking men" or at least to be neck-and-neck. No surprises, all emerging technologies must undergo dozens of, if not longer, years of maturation to be qualified for commercial use, so AI will definitely remain in padawan stage for decades before Jedi Trials. Patience, youngling, patience.
【Background Music Stops】
"I'm hit! How…" Minutes after wiping out Erusean fighter-drones, on the way home, suddenly Champ is hit by two missiles come out from nowhere and before he can react, another missile impact kills him.
"Bandog what're you doing?!" Someone in the squadron snarls.
"No blips on sensors, can't determine the source of attack…" Bandog is struggling to find anything representing hostiles on the screens, no matter in air or on ground/sea, but all he sees are blank.
Meanwhile the bandits, a Su-47 and an S-32 with strips of grey and black painted on hulls, attack Spare Squadron again with some sort of triangular-pyramid-shaped missiles.
"I have trouble to pick up the missiles!" High Roller barely evades a salvo of incoming missiles: "Missile alert doesn't go off in time! Only when they're extremely close!"
"Working on it." Bandog is tapping keyboard like Bishop's five finger fillet in James Cameron's Aliens: "Missiles must have special electronic low-observable properties like bandits do, don't freeze in a straight line, evade as frequent as you can."
"Missiles on my tail again! I'm hit!" High Roller shouts: "I've got a bet on me getting out of this…" He never has the chance to finish his last sentence.
"Got it!" Bandog finishes recalibrating AWACS' main radar array, drastically increasing power output by focusing the width of scanning activity from 360 degrees to a much narrower sector of a certain orientation. Screens in front of him display icons representing enemy fighters and missiles launched from enemy fighters, even still flickering, appearing only for one second before vanishing for two or three seconds, but much better than completely invisible.
"Spare 7! You have…damn it…" The gambler loses the gamble of his life.
"We really got them with their pants down!" In cockpit of the Su-47 Berkut, a male pilot shouts excitingly.
"Yeah! Osean bastards! You've had your way long enough! Prepare to see just how pissed off we are!" A female pilot who's in the S-32's cockpit.
Bandog: "I've summoned escorts from the nearest ally-controlled territory, apply maximum afterburner and fly to the rendezvous point, watch out for the missiles and take early evasive actions. Trigger, you take on the bandits with Count's support, Tabloid leads the rest's formation."
【Background Music: Mimic - Rage & Scream】
【Extracted from Video Game "ACE Combat 7: Skies Unknown"】
"Let's handle this freak show ojou-sama, one for you, one for me." Count engages the Su-47, leaving the S-32 to Trigger's mercy.
"No haste, prioritizing evasion." Bandog advices.
"Understood./Righto." But immediately the super-ace and quasi-ace experience troubles. In Trigger's case, the S-32 activates a jamming device that effectively disrupts her targeting, shown as on the Rafale M's HUD, the rhombus-shaped missile reticule bounces wildly around the square-shaped one, unable to acquire a valid lock. However like aforementioned, Oseans do adapt and adapt well, both macroscopically and microcosmically, so she quickly draws up a plan of snatching victory out of difficulties, yet to win, several conditions must be met, for example getting close enough from a correct angle, and to get close enough from a correct angle, she must weave through salvos of those "blinking missiles". As for Count, the Su-47's also starts a jammer registering multiple empty missile reticules on his Gripen E's HUD and the missiles he's carrying always lock on these non-exist targets instead of the real one. "Fine then, I'll just gun it down." Like Trigger, Count doesn't take long to devise a plan to win, in fact this time his thought runs faster than hers, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize what to do when finding missiles are not good. Of course guns hurt much less than missiles, but they do hurt and can hurt a lot given enough time.
Dodging the "blinking missiles" is not hard as it appears to be, they're not much of stalkers as QAAM, keep circling around with high speed and releasing countermeasures at the proper time are more than enough, at least it's practical for Trigger. Condolences to Champ and High Roller, if they could just think and act a little faster, but they can still rest in pieces…peace because Trigger is avenging their untimely demises right now right here, and it's done way sooner than anticipated, for by 70% of skillfulness and 30% of luckiness, she manages to acquire a position with both acceptable distance and agreeable angle to launch a salvo consisted by four XMAA and four QAAM, with homing nodes deactivated. Don't be so surprised, air-to-air rockets were common armaments during WWII in the real-world, and they were quite devastating.
"Scream!" The male pilot of S-47 yowls as witnessing his wingman…wingwoman gets pulverized into one million pieces and therefore is too difficult to be glued back into one piece. So his companion's callsign is Scream, but probably unable to honor it since it seems she's unlikely to have time for screaming before her fission. "Dammit! You'll pay for this!" He immediately disengages Count to duel against Trigger, but the latter disallows his shift of focus by the combination of pursuing and firing.
"Out of my way!" The male snarls. Sorry pal, you got it completely reversed, it is you who stand in Spare Squadron's way home, and you're not going to get away with your life.
Bandog: "Only one left, now support Count." He doesn't need to say twice, for Trigger immediately dashes into actions, assisting Spare 2 by attacking the last bandit from a different direction with her gun — she ain't stealing the kill, only to quicken it.
Male: "I'll kill both of you! I'll kill both of you alright!" Go ahead if you can, but the objective truth is you can't, for sparks are observed all over the Berkut, sparks produced by large-caliber slugs fired from Rafale M and Gripen E impacting on the hull.
"I'll kill you! (Cough) I'll kill you! (Hysterical laughter) I'll kill you!" Looks like the male needs to take a deep breath of fresh air and to have a gulp of fresh water, badly.
Trigger continues to constraint Su-47's movement for Count by gunfire, and the latter is using these opportunities to the most, as the male's aircraft starts to trail smoke and the smoke is getting thicker.
Male: "What makes you heroes?! We tried to be heroes! We really tried!" Then you probably should consider quitting your current job in favor of an easier occupation, like a Youtube uploader of Project Wingman playthrough videos or something.
Bandog: "Well struck! That looks to be a mortal blow!" Apparently that "is", not only "looks", to be a mortal blow, because the Berkut suddenly bursts in flames and loses thrust completely. Count delivers the kill, by the way. "Suck this!" He raises a middle finger to the victim.
"(Hysterical laughter) Just as I imaged. No matter what we do, this is how we end. But know this, Oseans! I'd rather go to hell than live in a world shaped by you…" Instead of pulling the ejection lever, the male is still cursing, even fire is spreading fast on and in his aircraft. Maybe he tried but the lever is stuck, or maybe he gives up for not having any loved ones left. Ouch, either of the possibilities sucks terribly.
"You can always slash your own throat open when you were four or toss yourself over the balcony of your home when you were six. Now waste no time to drop dead into hell, dumbass!" Count raises the other middle finger to the fireball formed by Su-47's explosion. So long, sucker.
【Background Music Stops】
"Mimic Squadron, operating directly under Erusean king as his personal thugs." A fighter squadron's emblem is displayed on the screen-wall, after Spare Squadron returning to base and beginning the debriefing of their last mission: "Since his majesty is serving a life-sentence in the Pandemonium, they answer to Lady Mussolini instead, or more precisely, to the entire breed of Farbanti fascist pigs."
"My way of insulting enemies, way superior than that stupid 'Dance with the angels'." Count whistles, and in turn, doesn't get a contemptuous stare from McKinsey. Instead the colonel continues as the emblem shrinks and moves to the screen-wall's corner, its previous position is occupied by two personnel profiles: "Mimic 1, Otto van Dalsen, callsign 'Rage'; and Mimic 2, Elke van Dalsen, callsign 'Scream', siblings."
"Fit to a T, they were definitely only good in road-raging and screaming in frustration…correction, they were indeed good in road-raging, but the screaming part remains under debate because they died too fast to scream." Count satirizes: "And it gotta be a genetic-passing disease running in their family. I dare to say their parents must have suffered severe mental disorders and killed themselves, leaving them orphaned and even more unhinged, before being dragged off slum streets for conscription."
"But don't let that deceive you. Our intelligence provided more details behind ID cards. They're actually 'posthumous children' of a Belkan human experiment implemented shortly before the Belkan War, an attempt to breed so-called über-soldaten by injecting pregnant women with enriched steroids."
"So Belka and Erusea are indeed colluding with each other…wait, what?!" Count is dumbfounded, while Tabloid shakes head and sighs: "You're telling me they were tinkering with fetuses?! Homo sapiens fetuses?!"
McKinsey: "Yes I am. And I'm further telling you there were total 731 test subjects, almost all ended up in miscarriages, only these Dalsen siblings were luckily enough to be born alive, but the damage was already done in the form of congenital schizophrenia." To emphasize the base commander's words, bits of information of this ill-resulted eugenics is put on display, both texts and images, not recommended to audiences who're having meals: "And there's something about the surname, 'Dalsen' is actually the surname of the mad scientist in charge of this, he was also the sperm-donor of these abominations, aborted or not. Right, he used his experiment as the excuse to have sex with every woman delivered to his lab."
"Great! Typical Belkan, can't keep the third leg in check. And another BMW (Belkan Meaningless Waste) as always." Count face-palms himself, then grits his teeth: "Gimme a good reason not to kill them all like Anakin slaughtering the Tusken village."
"Down, boy." Once again Tabloid takes the role of ol' nice guy: "You're not Anakin Skywalker, and your mom is alive and well under the protection of mighty Osean military."
"Fine. Convincing." Count is persuaded not to kill Belkans to the last post-menopause granny, as McKinsey is saying "Ground forces have recovered wreckage of Mimic Squadron for analysis and reverse-engineering their ECM".
The last topic of the last debriefing…if it can be viewed as a legit topic. "Osean Air Defense Force 444th Fighter Squadron, also known as 'Spare Squadron', established as a penal unit on May 17th 2019. During its days of activities, twenty-three missions were flew with 100% success rate." McKinsey is making a brief summarization, when he says "100% success rate", all convicts…pilots stand up and applaud.
"A grand total of 6432 targets were destroyed, 2970 airborne and 3462 ground ones." After gesturing his subordinates to be silent, McKinsey goes on, everyone cheers when he reaches the statistics part, nothing is happier than knowing a great deal of enemies are squashed like bugs under your feet…well, witnessing them die gruesomely right in front of you might be an exception.
"Fifteen pilots joined the team, four gave their lives, our hearts go with them." This time the crowd only can murmur in low, but immediately go high, very high, as McKinsey says "Not only redeeming yourselves, you have once again proved your worth by braving the trials of your skills, courage, fleshes, spirits and insights on the battlefield. Convicts no more, from now on you can proudly declare yourselves heroes, and each of you is entitled to choose the path for the future you've won back."
"Today 444th Fighter Squadron is officially disbanded, you have thirty-six hours to collect your belongings, before transportation arrives, dismiss!" All convicts…nah, all pilots salute in unison, and McKinsey salutes back.
"Gonna miss these magnificent bastards." Inside his office, McKinsey is packing up and Bandog is helping him because he had already finished his own stuff.
"Quite an interesting bad batch, aren't them?" The XO can't help to chuckle: "By the way, it's a pleasure to serve under you, sorry to say I'm leaving."
"Sorry not junior, you should find your place in a bigger world."
"I'm surprised they don't put your prowess in some good uses, dad." Bandog grins: "Or should I say 'Grim Reaper of Blue Ribbon, the airborne bane who suffocates Eruseans like Agent Orange'."
"Well, they have considerations of their own." The soon-will-be-relieved commander of 444th Airbase, with the secret identity "Mobius 1", shrugs: "At least I'm getting my general uniform back, and some R&R is nice before stretching these old bones…" After Operation Katina, Osea secretly approached this Han Solo and hired him from ISAF for participating in training new generations of pilots, McKinsey initially wanted to turn it down for being uncomfortable of babysitting, but changed his mind after laying a hand on what the superpower offered — five thousand kilograms of gold bars, all in advance and tax-free. In following years this super-ace spent his life in Osea for working in OADF, even immigrated his family there. The only dissatisfaction was lacking opportunities to increase his kill-count, but since the employer kept promoting him and paying him with exceptional handsomeness, he let it slide, not to mention sensing the return of his trump card days already looming above the horizon.
Two days later 444th Airbase is transferred under other OADF units' jurisdiction. All members of 444th Fighter Squadron, along with the associated base personnel, are relocated and reassigned according to the evaluation team's final verdict. Trigger, Count, Tabloid, Avril Mead, Bandog and McKinsey are taken to Oured by Cyclops Squadron, met by Osean military's highest-ranking officers including the president, Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff in DOD, for being important components in the next phase of "The Great Erusean Dying". Well, maybe Eruseans should've just committed a mass suicide instead, for saving time and money as well as reducing carbon footprints, but they didn't, trademark Erusean cowardice. However from a certain point of view, maybe they're actually committing a mass suicide, albeit in slow motion, via waging a suicidal war against Osean Federation. Conspiracy theorists are always in abundant supply in both the real-world and fictional universes, someone champions an idea that Eruseans "accidentally" released Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 for self-termination, the virus and its mutated strains do liquidated a great many of Eruseans, but were defeated in a short order by the "International Immunity Coalition" a.k.a. "The White-Coated Great Wall" led by Osea, prompting them to turn to "Osean solution" as the much better alternative. Given the fact in the real-world India deliberately lets the epidemic to massacre Indian population like an extinction event, it's not far-fetched.
Mass suicide or not, millions of Eruseans are marching to their doom like Belkans before them, for the real terror is about to begin. Not the least sympathy to Eruseans, for they deserve none.
【Ending Theme: Tomorrow Never Dies】
【Extracted from 007: Tomorrow Never Dies】
【Performed by Sheryl Crow】
President of Osean Federation and Prime Minister of Union of Yuktobanian Republics are enjoying their tea off together, inside the cafeteria located in Assembly of Nations' HQ.
"Good afternoon." Here comes President of Republic of Emmeria: "Do you mind me joining you?"
"You're warmest welcomed." Says President of Osean Federation.
"Thanks."
Moments later, the Emmerian asks: "So what are you going to do?"
"Purging 70 million Eruseans and purchasing 10 million copies of Project Wingman." The Osean is honest.
"10 million copies?! I know Project Wingman kicks ACE Combat 7's sorry-ass in every way, but why 10 million copies?!"
"See? I said everyone on this planet cares less about Eruseans." President of Osean Federation raises his cup.
"Cheers." His Yuktobanian companion toasts with him, even it's just tea and coffee.