Valais Air Base, Ustio, 20/05/1995, 10:00, Weather: light fog.
She had still two hours before lunch and the questioning of the Belkan pilot. So, she asked to Pixy to recall her how Directus fell. Maybe as such he would be able to detach himself from that dreadful day. He wasn't mourning anymore, but surely needed to share how this war started for him. A war that had already changed many things for him, and would keep changing many other things, and just not for him. Besides, she had agreed to confess a small part of her backstory, even if she had specified that this very chapter wasn't as bloody as the first one. It was at a point where she was at a crossroad of destinies. She had so much choices that day and chose one. One that could have let on a peaceful path if she kept walking in it, far away from all of this violence and hatred. But Pixy insisted that he would speak first, and he began recalling the circumstances that led to the fall of Directus.
"Laura and I have just been recruited by Ustio for three days. We arrived on 11th March. Ustio's forces have already been depleted by unsuccessful raids on Glatisant and B7R. Maybe those F-117Z were responsible for those drawbacks, but I guess the Belkans won't tell us this. Only the Halo squad and the Komyeta team were still intact, as well as the airport."
Directus International Airport, Ustio, 15/03/1995, 16:00, Weather: high stratus.
"Osean Intelligence Satellites have sighted the Belkan invaders at 15:30 taking off from the Schayne plains but could not confirm their numbers. We can expect mainly fighters, and maybe some bombers that will attack our main defenses such as those around the airport, or the SAMs sites." The admiral Koenig they only met yesterday was making the briefing, with a map centered on Directus. But this map was also showing the Belkan raids on the lake near Wesson.
"At least, the Osean defenses near Wesson are keeping them busy. Otherwise we would have the entire Belkan Air Force banging on our door. Be ready for anything today, from Belka sending Frischling on first line to high-tech ace squadron. Any questions, pilots? Kein? Gut."
On their way to the hangar, Laura and Pixy were chatting quite friendly, maybe a bit further than friendly. Still, friendly chatting could not keep them from the main subject of interest:
"You won't be disturbed when attacking other Belkans, will you?" Her leader asked with a confident voice. She was the oldest merc among the team, and thus had already fought her countrymen.
"Well, we have fought Yuktes, Eruseans, some Shilagean guys, quite a variety of mercs from other countries so far. I will not be scared by my countrymen." Pixy answered with a similar set of confidence, ready to climb in his F-15C. She chose a F-15C after her aircraft suffered too much damage from a dogfight against a Shilagean renegade ace when they fought alongside Voslage, Belarus and Shilage. After all, this man they fought wasn't very different from them, fighting his own countrymen for the acquisition of power, wealth and fame. With the main exception that unlike this man they weren't castaways with scars of the past.
"They will see the power of Galm team. And since we are fighting over Directus, may Ste Victoire watch over us." She wished him good luck, even if they wouldn't need it. They didn't need it over Romney, and not over Erusea. Skill was always better than dumb luck, and they both possessed quite good sets of skills. Victory seemed achievable to the both of them at this moment.
And a few minutes later, all that was left of the Ustian Air Force was in the air. From all six Units, only the sixth survived. All former Belkan pilots that had chosen to stay in Ustio after the secession were already gone over Mt Ivrea and B7R, having being killed by the local defensive squadron or reinforcements, with some of their opponent being the Belkan pilots that had chosen to go back to Belka. Former units that the secession shattered had been reunited on the battlefield, but with members on different sides. The Halo squad was maybe the greatest Ustio had ever seen, comprised of F-14Ds, F-15Cs and F-15Es, but they were manned by young pilots, eager to fight for the freedom of Ustio, but this left them quite susceptible to death a bit quicker than battle-hardened mercenaries. Speaking of mercenaries, they weren't alone. Two Su-33s were with them today.
"This is the AWACS Eagle Eye. I will relay all orders to you. Be ready and be brave, folks." The operator indicated, as they had reached their operational ceiling.
"Galm 1 and 2 rogers." The mercenaries agreed. They had been given some fitting squad numbers, as their designation was now the 666th squadron, for the 66th aerial battalion of the six Air Unit. Pixy did point out that there weren't sixty-six aerial battalions, not even sixty or twenty but just a handful of them in the Ustian Air Force. But to Laura's taste, the number was fitting enough, due to the demonic beast that she chose as their common emblem, on a pitch-black color with two white stars behind it.
"Komyeta team ready." A Yukte-sounding voice added.
"Halo 1 to 30 on standby." The young Ustian leader indicated, even if the planes with number above twenty only said 2-5 instead of 25 to gain some time.
"It's hard to believe that you lost with so many troops." Iskanda cut him as he was recalling his story.
"Many of them were still younglings. The battle of Directus was just a hail Mary for the Ustian Air Force." Pixy commented sadly, before going back to his story.
Directus, Ustio, 15/03/1995, 16:30, Weather: light stratus.
"We have four Bm-335s on a vector of approach to the airport. Escorted by F-5Es and MiG-21s." Eagle Eye announced, as most Ustian fighters were hovering around the city itself.
"This is Halo 6, engaging." One Ustian pilot indicated from his F-15C.
In total, four Lindwurm were sighted, with ten F-5Es and Fishbed escorting them. Both didn't come with long-range weaponry but were nimble enough to evade their opponent's. They were a good thirty kilometers away from the airport. Still, it would need only one to destroy the lighter defenses that could take the bombers down by themselves, but not quickly enough, and not with their escort.
A couple of minutes later, they were both approaching the Lindwurm formation. But in the meantime, two other bomber formations had been sighted. The Halo squad was forced to split up in three, losing his sole numerical advantage. They both fired volleys of XMAAs that reduced the Belkan bombers to flying wreckage, as the Ustian decided to lock on to the enemy fighters.
"Half of the squadron attacking the airport is down. Keep up the good work." Eagle Eye observed the mitigated results from the volleys of XLAAs, XMAAs and SAAMs the Halo squad were armed with.
"Yes, they are doing great work, but without reinforcements from Osea or Sapin we are doomed to flag of fail." Koenig didn't share the confidence of his operator. He knew this battle wasn't going to end well. The Belkan escorts that weren't shot down were now rushing on the Ustian interceptors.
"F-5Es are too agile at close range. I have one on my tail." Halo seventeen complained. By luck only some bullets hit his F-14D. Enough to hamper his movements, but not too much.
But soon the F-5E trailing him went for something more dangerous, firing a QAAM. He saw the high velocity missile gaining ground despite his evasive maneuvers, and was ready to pull the ejection handle, but instead of a big explosion he only heard a bit of gunfire. One F-15C with dark wing and red fuselage had jumped into the furball and successfully gunned down the QAAM hot on his tail.
" You need to keep your energy, young one." Galm 1 commented his flying, while firing one of her QAAM to the Tiger II. And this Belkan had no friendly to intercept it, so he died pretty quickly.
"Do not pursue them too much. Stay strong and united." Pixy gave another advice as he executed a sharp double turn to get in the six of the F-5E that was trying to lock either him or his flight lead. The smaller fighter met his end with a pair of standard missiles.
"Let's show those Belkans how good we really are!" Halo 10 said, flying in her F-14D, alongside the number 11 and 12, eager to fight as two F-15Es went down. They were defending against the third Lindwurm group. Furthermore, with the two mercenary squadron already mixed up with the other pilots against the two other bombers, these Halo squad members were put in greater risks than in any place on this battlefield.
She went back in the furball and fired some XLAAs that the Belkan F-5Es had not that much trouble evading them. They did not have that much trouble getting in her six, but as she closed her geometrical wings, they had trouble keeping her in range of their standard missiles and QAAMs. This gave the two other Super Tomcats pilots that were overseeing her a perfect target for their XLAAs. Five F-5E fell to this attack, and the ones that were slowed down as they successfully evaded the XLAAs went down by the fire of some QAAMs from the Eagles of this defensive sector.
And in the third sector, it was where the Komyeta team was working hard to keep their brother-in-arms alive. They had suffered some losses as the cannon of a loose Bm-335 that had crashed into a forest manage to fire some gun burst from below, before a well-aimed SAAMs from some F-15E -Halo 7 to be precise- destroyed it. There, the Belkan had even some F-16C in their forces. They weren't as fast as the Tomcats or the Eagles, but their small size allowed them to easily dodge their missiles, especially the ones with long range but poor mobility. Squeezing through the Ustian squadron, they were slowly shooting down Halo squad members one by one, attacking pilots at the edges of the defensive formation.
But soon the Ustian pilots realized the battle tactics their enemy were using, and lured them in. Letting some aircrafts flew a bit further than the defensive line, they attracted the Belkan attackers. When the trap unfolded, it was too late for the Belkans. Even if they bagged some hits on the Ustian fighters, the SAAMs bore by the F-15Es that were the most numerous fighters of this Halo squad group in the vicinity made quick work of them.
Of course, the Belkan had inflicted them losses in their fierce attack and some defenses of the airport were now only burning piles of scrapped metal. But this only pushed the Ustian defenders to counterattack even fiercer, flying better than usual for the ones that survived the initial onslaught.
"Maybe we can end this on a draw and the Osean reinforcements will help us to draw them back to the Glatisant!" One Ustian pilot proposed in the heat of the battle, as he killed two Belkan planes in one shot, with the first aircraft he gunned down losing control and hitting another that was evading the gunfire of the Galm team.
"Good shot Kind (Kid). But don't get too cocky, the Belkan are usually cunning warriors." Galm 1 replied with a voice somewhat rejoiced that these new Ustian pilots were proving themselves to be good enough against the ones that had shot down their elders.
"Belka won't just send one wave. We have to hold until reinforcements." Koenig recalled through the AWACS, with the few messages he was getting from Wesson and other battles being not very good ones. He was afraid the Osean forces would come too late.
But right now, the Ustian were making steady progress, sanitizing the air with casualties below the Belkan ones for once. At least unlike battles over Osean territory the exchange ratio wasn't against the defenders. And at this moment, as he was gunning down the last Belkan F-5E of his sector, Pixy thought they could win this.
"I guess you were wrong for once, Larry." Iskanda interrupted his story, finding this battle a bit too annoying as it was almost an even one.
"Ich war so falsch dieses Tag (I was so wrong that day). And the Belkan reinforcements were something worse than I ever met until Excalibur yesterday." Pixy acknowledged his mistakes of the past and was ready to make amend of it to have a brighter future. Even if the brightness would only come from overheated and electrically overloaded air.
And like many things, it simply began with a message of the AWACS:
"Eagle Eye to all, we have some unidentified jammer aircraft, approaching from the same vector than the Bm-335s. Stay in this formation. Looking like some flying wings on the scope, but definitely not B-2As." The AWACS disturbed the almost peace that had returned since the last Belkan fighter went down.
Galm 1 and 2 kicked the burners and were joined up by other Halo squad members. They quickly arrived on the Belkan unknowns and were utterly surprised to say the least. But a missile incoming alert suppressed quickly their surprise. Two flying wings were gliding toward the airport. They were smaller than B-2As, almost half its length. But what surprised them the most was their deep dark color. It was even darker than pitch black.
"I thought the B-2A was an Osean bomber?" Iskanda interrupted once again, even if since she saw the F-117Z she doubted that Belka would not have the blueprints of those stealth.
"Belka never get their hand on it, unlike the Nighthawk. But these were Dunkle Wing. DW-1s to be short." Pixy explained and began to describe those DW-1s.
They were indeed flying wings, but with their wings in a tighter angle than the B-2A's. Of course, it would decrease their stealth, but it wasn't for this capability that this airplane was created. Otherwise it would not bear four engine in its main body and great vertical sharklets to give it better mobility, with a hemispheric glass cockpit on top of it with two set of targeting systems flanking it and one back cockpit between its exhaust equipped with one SPK. At the beginning they fought it was some Belkan answer to the Osean AC-130s. Maybe it was intended to be, but then a volley of four SAAMs was fired from bays positioned between the two sets of air inputs, below the cockpit.
"All aircrafts, evade. Try to circle around it, or attack from its sides." The AWACS operator suggested, as the casualties were mounting again.
And to had this to this frightening description, the external side of the ailerons were housing supports for its heavy ECM system, rending all attack from the side pretty difficult. Furthermore, more defensive firepower was coming from small bays positioned on each upper side of the plane, between the sharklets and the set of air inputs that were used to fire standard missiles. A four-man crew was enough to pilot it and used it with great efficiency. Against this the Ustian fell short literally and realistically.
"Saturate them from behind. It's too dangerous head-on. Galm 2 conceded, as he was unable to get even a QAAM lock from the front due to the DW-1's armament being mainly forward-oriented.
"Roger. This is Halo 5, opening fire." The Ustian pilot said, followed by some others.
The quick rounds fired by the SPKs intercepted some missiles, but not all of them. One by one, the DW-1s were crippled to death. Yet they had crippled the Ustian squadrons too. From twenty-four survivors after the Lindwurm attack these six flying wings left only seventeen survivors. Directus' airspace was slowly getting loose from their grasp, away from their forces.
"And why haven't these DW-1s been sighted since?" Iskanda wondered, having not even heard about them.
"Because the vast majority was used in the first attack against Wesson, where the Osean Death Stars destroyed them. For once their Vantablack camo didn't help them but was a hindrance, since it's meant to absorb all light, making them perfect planes for night attacks, but the worst one to attack planes with defensive energy-based weaponry." Pixy revealed the true nature of their dark camo.
"And later Wesson fell to the ADFX-01s." Iskanda recalled, before letting Pixy continue with his story.
Directus, Ustio, 15/03/1995, 16:45, Weather: high stratus.
The Osean reinforcements weren't coming. And to make matter worse, another flight of DW-1s escorting some Bm-335T assault craft were heading toward the airport. The Ustian admiral hadn't many choices left. There was no point in doing last stands in the hope of now useless reinforcements. Directus was lost. He was opposed to scorched earth policies, but this time they had no other means of delaying the Belkan advance further into Ustian territories. Even if cities like Solis Ortus wouldn't last long due to the lack of runway disabling fighter presence there.
"This is the admiral Koenig of the Sixth Ustian Unit to all Ustian and mercenary aircrafts. Order has been given to destroy the runway of the airport by all means. Make them crash on it if necessary." He asked his forces to sacrifice the facilities there to slow down the Belkan invasion schemes.
"Well, we will finally use those bombs you choose to make us carry, leader." Galm 2 said, as he evaded a pair of SAAMs from the DW-1s. The missiles he fired impacted on a warehouse while his bombs hit the center of the runway. Behind him the rockets of the Su-33 duo destroyed sporadically its surface, creating dozens of holes in the concrete. Some F-15E dropped their GPBs on it, using the piercing ability of this kind of armament to further damage the runway. But many of them fall to the volleys of SAAMs the three DW-1s fired. Some chutes were sighted, with pilots aiming their aircraft on the runway before bailing-out.
The Bm-335Ts began to turn away from their target, as it was useless now. But the remaining F-14Ds that didn't take air-to-ground munitions decided to attack them at this very moment. Four Belkan planes fall burning toward the airport, further damaging its runway once more.
Yet the Belkan hadn't lost their fighting force. Even if one DW-1s fell to the RCLs of the Komyeta squad that saturated its defensive armament and turned their engines to piles of metallic wreckage, but without suffering quite some hits from the defensive armament. Even if the SPK wasn't conceived as an anti-aircraft gun, it could still hurt them in quite a nasty manner One other fell to four QAAMs launched on its cockpit by the Galm team, even if it was their lasts. But the last took three Eagles with him, either the C or E variant, along with Halo 11. Now only Halo 3,5,7 to 10, 12, 16, 2-2 and 2-3 were still flying, along with the two mercenary squadrons.
But it wasn't the last of the nastiest surprise the Belkans had still in their arsenal. One rear gun of one Bm-335Ts had survived the crash and hit Pixy hard as he was dropping his last bomb on the crashed aircraft. Of course, the improvised AA battery was turned into vapors and light, but Pixy suffered a great amount of damage from it. And he suffered even more the second right after he climbed, having to evade a SAAM coming from nowhere apparently. The great mechanical stress put on his damaged red wing ripped it off from the main body.
"You're once more a Solo Wing, Pixy." His leader joyfully laughed about his demise. It had already happened once over Erusea. Not it was the third time, but always on the same side.
" Lache, es ist sehr lustig."(laugh, it's very funny.) Pixy nodded, as he was almost used to this, and could keep a somewhat good level of stability despite having lost half of his lift.
"We have Su-47 incoming on radar. It's not the Gault team." The AWACS warned, as other SAAMs took down Halo 3, 9 and 2-3 respectively.
"All planes that cannot fight, head to Valais. The rest will delay the enemy fighters. We have ten Osean Hornets incoming, ETA twelve minutes." The AWACS added, as the Su-47 were now fairly visible, harboring an Adder symbol as well as a dark snakeskin-like camo, made of little scales separated by blood. It was for sure an attack squadron.
"Grabacr Schaft, let's finish those Ustians." A thirty-years-old Belkan voice spoke. A voice Pixy had already heard, but he didn't remember when. That he would identify nearly two month later with Maggie during this tour of the museum.
"This is the infamous Ashley Bernitz that you swore to kill I guess?" Iskanda wondered, as Maggie recalled to her his sudden burst of anger when learning about this pilot's identity.
"Indeed. Now I'm describing only what I saw from some civilian that recorded her last moments." Pixy answered his question with a slightly sadder voice than usual. Seeing her demise had been quite painful to him. But it only made his determination to end Ashley's life stronger.
Halo 5, 7, 10, 12, the two su-33s and Pixy were forced to leave the area. Pixy was heartbroken, as he couldn't help his flight lead. This left only Halo 8, 9, 16, 2-2 and 2-3 along with Galm 1 to deal with the Berkuts. And despite how good the Belkan defectors that had chosen to stay within Ustio had trained the Halo squad, casualties grow again quickly. It was difficult to dogfight against very mobile prototypes when flying in highly stable crafts. Furthermore, most of them had no more air-to-air weaponry outside their standard missiles and gun.
"This is 2-3. I'm hit. Gottverdammt." An Ustian pilot swore, as two Su-47 had ganged up on him in order to shoot it down. One of his pursuers fell to Galm 1's gun, while she fired a pair of missiles to the other. Sadly, another Berkut fired a SAAM at her at this very moment, and the one she was aiming at managed to evade her fire. And Halo 2-3 went down.
After a great acceleration, a Split-S and some sharp turns, she managed to attack head-on those two Berkuts, one with gun and one with missiles. But even if she evaded well their missiles by a tight barrel-roll to the left, she couldn't evade all of their gunfire. A few bullets grazed her, and some hit her aircraft.
In the meantime, Halo 2-2 and Halo 16 had gone down. Now there was only three against nine. She had fought with worse ratio, but with better wingmen. These two were good, maybe above average. But not good enough to evade better pilots and better aircrafts.
" This is Halo 8; I can't evade them all. Ejection!" He was forced to bail out after a precise gun burst of Grabacr 6. By luck the debris of his plane explosion caused his pursuer's demise, when small metallic part got sucked into his engines.
"Nur zwei." Grabacr leader proudly announced and began trailing the F-15C and F-15E.
"Nur acht." Galm 1 harshly retorted, as she shot down one Berkut. This one was hard to kill, doing streak of sharp turns, but in the end, she was able to get in his six and a pair of missiles was enough to end him.
Grabacr leader was closing on the F-15E. But as he was aiming his SAAMs on the Strike Eagle, his lock-on warning blared. The F-15C had managed to evade his squad mates' fire, and was slowly catching up with him, as he went a bit stationary to aim accurately. Two missiles followed, that he fooled by flying vertically. The Eagle followed him, but not for long. Using his airbrakes, he ceased to climb and managed to level on the path of his pursuer. Immediately Galm 1 tried to level below him to evade the gun fire, but this was negated when another Su-47 fired from her two o'clock. Her cockpit was hit and shattered in a million glass pieces, and a bullet went through her right arm. She was now bleeding heavily from this wound, even if it was a bit limited by the pressure of her anti-g suit.
"Du bist Tot, Söldnerin!" A Grabacr member shouted at her, as he was flying near his leader, and thought he would just have to gun it down. This Belkan was quite surprised to see the aircraft steering toward him, and actually engaging him. Despite the sufferance, she was willing to end this day, and her life fighting, not being defeated.
The two aircraft went for each other head on. Laura heard the bullet grazed her plane as they fired at each other. But he missed her, and this actually gave her an opportunity to fly below him. He could have expected this merc to try to hit him and die in self-sacrifice. Never to pull-out a sub-machine gun and fired at him from below as he flew above the very damaged Eagle. Bullets pierced the cell of his plane, which ended up exploding above Directus.
Yet this moment of glory was her last. A SAAM from the Belkan leader struck her on the side, and luckily her death was almost instantaneous. Halo 9 didn't last long. Surrounded by the Belkans, his plane filled with bullet holes, he met his demise when trying to impact on some Berkut, but the more mobile fighter escape his path, and when to his six to end him.
"In the end, Osean and Sapin reinforcements achieved nothing. They were slaughtered plain and simple by this very aggressive team." Pixy commented the uselessness of those allied pilots Osea just throw in the furball.
"She met her end fighting, and with hopes of survival. While us... If we have some other fights I don't know if we will survive them." Iskanda commented, having lost her confidence since the shifting of balance in favor of Belka.
"Guess now it's the time for you to speak about this second chapter of your life." Pixy pointed out; a bit relieved from having shared his pain. People say that happiness is the only thing that grow stronger when shared, but maybe sadness go weaker when shared.
"So, last time we were 19th of June 1986, with me fleeing from my mother. I fled to the West, toward Shilage. I didn't spend much time there, trying to put as much of a distance between me and my birthplace. Then I headed North toward Voslage. The small kingdom has turned into a republic recently, creating a bit of chaos as some nobles paid scums to generate disorder against this government they were refusing to recognize. And of course, as this was reinforced by a lack of local police, Erusea took advantage of this situation to send some "overseers", under the disguise of helping the locals."
" I know this quite well. It led to an invasion of Shilage and Voslage by the warmonger king of Erusea in 1991 and later the invasion of Delarus in 1993. Laura and I have fought in this war. In the end our allied have managed to obtain an honorable truce, with Shilage and Voslage becoming semi-autonomous Erusean province." Pixy recalled this sad episode of history. At least now Erusea was more peaceful since the king had been overthrown by his own offspring that wanted a better place to rule, and not a big patchwork of battlefields.
" To be fair their strategy was quite simple: they funded local gangs through dead boxes and such, allowing them to grow and thus showing the inabilities of the local police. Then they would arrest those thugs they helped quite easily as they were all holding them with a good leash of money. And all of this led a deprived and weakened girl to try to steal from one gang and failing in her task, and forced to run, pursued in the cold streets of a city she was just beginning to know." Iskanda put together the big History and her personal one.
Historical center of the city of Voslage, Voslage, 13/11/1986, 21:30, Weather: little cold fog.
A small silhouette was running on the wet pavement in the small narrow streets of the old Voslage, trying not to slide on them. Once it already happened to her, and it did hurt a lot. She just wanted to find some food that those thugs were selling far too high. She had almost succeeded when someone caught her, forcing her to run as he threatened her with an old rifle, outranging her small blade. She managed to evade the poorly aimed shot by laying flat quickly but was quite afraid when she heard the sound of the rifle being reloaded.
And now she was on some place she hadn't remember the name yet. The only thing she remembered that there was a church there, and that on its left transept a pretty big scaffold made to replace the rose glass along with removing the black marks created by pollution on its facade. Maybe if she could arrive there quickly enough, she could lose them. So, despite the cold air burning her lungs at each breath, she speeded up her running. She was sure they wouldn't just hand her to the police, the Voslagean or the Erusean overseers. They surely reserved a fate similar to what her mother had foreseen.
However, a little surprise met her: the workers had removed the first set of ladders allowing to climb on the scaffold, maybe to avoid that homeless took shelter there. Even if those perfectly rule-followers weren't taking into account the young women that could bother the bands of thugs. Furthermore, the metallic structure was wet and thus hard to climb on. So, she took her thin scarf that masked her face during her little raid, tore it in half, rolled it around her hands and try to climb on the scaffold. Twice she slipped on the cold metal and was hearing the running thugs coming closer. At the third one she managed to get to the first stage, and then kept climbing on the ladders without turning back.
"Damn, where did that thief go?" One thug, which was holding a searchlight began to ask.
"She must be hiding somewhere. you two stay close to the scaffold, the other you come with me to circle the church's perimeter." An elder thug, wearing a blue hoodie and dark jeans ordered.
As she was seeing this from the top of the scaffold, near the empty space left by the removed rose glass, she authorized herself a bit of relief. She sighed a bit but couldn't properly relax: the weather was getting colder and colder by the minute, and the thugs seem to be not willing to let her escape. So, she glided through the scaffold to arrive on some balcony slightly lower than the rose glass. A wooden door was linking it to the inside, closed by a small lock. But the lock fell to her blade. She had become quite good at picking lock with it, as sometimes stealing was a part of a homeless fleeing girl's life.
She slowly closed the door back and began to descend a small turning staircase. From the top of it she saw that the church was almost empty and plunged into darkness. Only a few candles near the altar were still burning. If she had been more careful, she might have seen an old hairless man in white habits right behind it.
It took her half a minute to go down those stairs that had quite sharp turns to say the least. She then lunged the rows of chairs, but by walking this way, she stepped on some heating system exhaust port that were now off, as they were only used during some ceremonies. The heavy tapestry on the center of the church didn't help her being stealthy either. And all that noise surely disturbed this man she didn't saw, because when an old voice spoke, coming from nowhere and everywhere due to the resonance, she was quite goose-bumped to say the least.
"It's a bit late for vespers, young one."
"Who's speaking?" She worryingly asked, pulling her blade and starting to walk slowly toward the altar. The voice was clearly stronger there.
"This is not the time for ceremonies. And I have rarely taken confession at this hour." The old priest kept talking, sat on his prie-Dieu. He had heard the running and shouting outside. He knew why this scared daughter was here. Or he thought knowing at least. Fleeing everything: fate, her fears, and her past. Taking confession surely made him good at reading voices through the years. And it was clearly the voice of someone who was fleeing.
"I have nothing to confess. I won't have my will tempered by feeling of regret." She replied, despite the blood marks on the blade becoming clearly visible due to the big candles' light.
"Still, it's not a place to sleep either. The heating system is locked, and you will soon freeze on the cold wood or limestone." The priest rose from behind the altar, surprising a bit the young girl that didn't expect to see someone praying at this hour.
"And so, what's happened next?" Pixy asked, curious about the development of Iskanda's past. This time, it wasn't bloody nor scary, just a bit surprising.
"He offered me a room in his presbytery, using an underground way in an old crypt to evade the band of thugs. The maid there called him Monseigneur Myriel. She was quite uneasy with me, maybe for good reasons. She was a bit right to be wary about me. The thing was that I did not repay their hospitality him very well." Iskanda answered with a slightly awkward voice. How could she feel awkwardness toward this doing and not toward her almost matricide was weird to say the least.
"I steal from him. Some old compass. And one other awkward point is that when I flee from his house, I mistake his room's door for the entrance's. I thought he was sleeping but he surely wasn't, because he wasn't surprised a single bit when I was brought to him by Voslagean policemen that recognized the compass, when I used it to set my motion."
"I can see that. Quite a miserable scene I would guess." Pixy could already depict the scene in his mind. But obviously he couldn't guess the unorthodox priest's reaction.
City of Voslage, Voslage, 14/11/1986, 07:30, Weather: light cloud coverage.
The young woman was held by two policemen, right in front of the presbytery door. Now she was beginning to regret her act. ''Regret'' she repeated in her mind. But it was something she thought to be only utterly gone.
"We caught that thief who was trying to get out of the city before dawn, bishop Myriel." The elder officer explained, with the cleric watching the scene with a strangely amused face.
"But why didn't you say I gave this compass to you? People need guidance in life." The cleric responded, to the surprise of all involved persons here. Even his maid, who told him to be cautious about this girl was completely cut off guard.
"If it's a gift, then you have no reason to hold this lady. You can go, I will just fix some minor details." He dismissed the two policemen, who only felt uselessness at that point in time.
"I admit that's a weird reaction." Pixy judged this bishops' doings. He guessed it had to come from the notion of forgiveness and mercy that some clerics possessed in this world, and that him as a battle-hardened mercenary couldn't get a grasp on. He could understand these concepts for sure. But never feel any of them toward someone who would steal from him for sure.
"He was right about guidance. He told me I could become many things, as I was in a crossroad of destiny: student, teacher, politician, preachers, believer, leader, astronaut, champion, truth seekers. But that I couldn't just stay an exiled fleeing girl." She agreed this old man was right. And now she might be needing guidance too, but there was no one around to provide it.
"Und was passiert danach (and what's happened next)?" Pixy wondered how this only light chapter of Iskanda's story could end.
"He sent me to Farbanti, his home city. There I got a place to live and to study. For once I know peace and serenity. For once I could be just a simple teenager, growing like any others." She recalled the order she followed.
"Well, we all have our time of peace in our busy lives. Even if they are always way too short." Pixy responded, agreeing that he would have liked to have a bit more peace in his life.
"To be peaceful, it was peaceful. After all, living for three years in a conv…" Iskanda began further explanations but was interrupted by Pixy who almost burst of laugh.
"Great. That takes the cake. The murderous mercenary with a mind filled with matricidal thoughts lived in a convent?" Pixy couldn't believe what she was explaining. And it was quite hard to try to figure her out walking in some cloister, wearing some homespun.
"I did. But I wasn't fully in the convent. I was living in its wall but without all its rules. It was in those years that I grew an interest in motorbikes - and get my Motoraddführerschein - and also for fighter jets after seeing some Sukhoi with orange lines doing some Himmelmans during an airshow." Iskanda retorted with a slightly annoyed voice, fully understanding that this moment of her life didn't cope really well with the image of merciless pilot she was giving right now.
"It must be funny, to see someone doing back and forth travel between a convent and a school on a motorbike. Or just utterly unusual."
"You can say it for sure. To be exact I owned a ZBM (standing for Zwei B M: Belkan BewegungsMittel: Belkan means of transportation, Belkan equivalent of BMW) at that time. Stable and sturdy." She specified her model, a known Belkan one.
"That's quite a good choice for that kind of thing. But I guess that like with me, your peaceful time didn't last long, or you would have kept that compass as well as your harpoon." Pixy began to point out the obvious.
"I can explain that. In that talk with Myriel, at one point he took my hands and saw the callus created by the use of my blade. He told me that I had the hands of a warrior. But that in the same time he hoped those hands would not become the ones of someone who reveled in slaughtering her next one." She recalled that little bit of philosophical phrase he quoted then.
"He had quite some stern point of view on why to fight, I see." Pixy judged this righteousness, that could be admirable for civilians, but deadly in a bad sense in war times.
"He thought there was only nobility in fighting for the ones who cannot. But to become what I am now I have only fought for myself. I have killed people who hadn't any chances at fighting me. This is why this compass he ceded to me is still in my chamber in Farbanti. Now it must be in some sealed place, due to all of the mess I caused when fleeing." She finally explained why she kept only the bloodstained harpoon.
"Those so-called honorable way of fighting are for knights. But we aren't knights. We are mercenaries. Thus, we fight as we see fit." Pixy commented with a somewhat harsh voice, enable to cope with the idea of clean wars.
"And now it's time to eat." Iskanda finished their talk, not willing to go into flight of philosophy again, and began to gear up to go outside again.
"And next step of the day will be to cook some Belkan." Pixy reminded her of their busy schedule.
"I know, I know. I will have something to ask Herr Steller about for this questioning session. See you at the mess." She left the room with a scary smile. Even the Joker would have found her smile more fearsome than his right now if he knew the mad scheme that she was ready to use to make this Belkan talk.
Valais Air Base, Ustio, 20/05/1995, 14:00, Weather: medium cloud coverage.
Günthar Nühmer, former F-15S/MTD pilot of the squadron led by the sinister "Docteur Guillotin" had never conceded anything to anyone. No Ustian nor Osean officer managed to make him talk about Belkan Wunderwaffen. Even when he was younger, he had a strict no snitch policy in Gymnasium. Hervin had warned him he should talk. After all, this Galm 1 pilot knew how to impress people with dreadful results. The best example he knew was Gelb 2. That unlucky guy saw her disintegrating his leader using those static FAEBs. He said he felt the warmth of the flames born of the remains of his leader. No wonder why he was now suffering from pyrophobia (the fear of fire).
"Do you really think I will talk?" The Belkan pilot rejected the possibility of her being successful, rolling his eyes at her in disdain
"You will." She said as she entered the room. She was carrying three things: some kind of thermos, a chocolate bar and a metallic clamp who was maybe more used in chemistry that in questioning. In modern questioning of course, in old ones such instruments could have been used in very hurtful manners -funny ones for Iskanda-.
"To be honest, I don't see where you're going." The Belkan pilot kept his proud stance, despite being locked to this table in this interrogation room.
"I have only two questions that I'm sure you will answer quite easily." She began this unorthodox questioning. But against some Wunderwaffe every way was permitted. As long as she didn't kill him it was fine.
"Do you like iced chocolate?" She asked nonchalantly, even if the question seemed to have nothing to do with the subject of this talk.
"If I must be specific, I will say I prefer that Stracciatella flavor that Emmerians have created. Aber ja ich mag es. Warum? (But yeah, I like it. Why)" The Belkan pilot answered, utterly lost in his tentative to find some sense in the current topic.
"Gut. One point. Now a bit of physics. I guess you know what sublimation mean?" She kept enacting her strange scheme.
"Ja. Von Solid bis Gas. But what's the matter with all of this?" The Belkan asked back, trying once again to think her strategy through.
"Well, since Thesermeister has been turned into plasma and energy I had to do the physics too. But now we are done talking." She gave him quite a cryptic answer. Then she opened the thermos but using thick gloves. When the metallic cover was removed, it let heavy wisps of matt white gas pour out of the container.
"What are you going to do to me with liquid nitrogen?" The Belkan inquired to know, recognizing the liquid to the heavy wisps it was producing when in ambient temperature.
"Oh, just some homemade iced chocolate. A good dessert. Or a good way to die." She smirked at him, slowly inducing the cold venom of fear in his mind.
"Ich verstehe nichts. Was passiert hier (I don't get it. What's the hell is happening here)?" Günthar expressed his misunderstanding of her intentions that were not friendly at all. After all, the fact that mercenary who just lost all of her wing mates but one to Excalibur could be only that unfriendly was an absolute certitude.
"I guess I will have to give a bit more of this physic lesson. What can happen when it's an isochoric sublimation?" She kept this strange questioning going, much to her joy.
"Iso-wie?"
"Isochoric. With constant volume. If we follow Laplace's rules, in this case the pressure increases dramatically, and you obtain an explosion." She recalled some old physic lesson that she once followed during her studies in Farbanti.
"Are you going to make me die of boredom? Because it's the good way to do so." The Belkan pilot yawned, having zero interest in those thermodynamic concepts.
"Dying because you ingest a piece of iced chocolate at a few dozen Kelvin will surely be funnier, mein lieber Kameraden. If I assume the equivalence of energy correctly, the explosion would be like if you swallowed a small grenade. Enough to kill you in a very excruciating way." She finally explained what fate she was deserving him, and by doing so she plunged a piece of the chocolate bar into the liquid nitrogen, contemplating the nice wisps around it as the face of the Belkan was in a state near catatonic shock.
"Was? Du bist verrückt! (what? You're crazy!)" The Belkan pilot shouted, realizing after a moment of silence that maybe static FAEBs were a good way to go. At least it would have been instantaneous.
"It will be so fun, writing "killed by isochoric sublimation of chocolate" in the reports." She said, now laughing madly at this thought, while closing the piece of now very deeply frozen chocolate. Small wisps were still around it due to its very low temperature.
She could see the Belkan firm stance slowly shattering under the terror, fearing such a gruesome death she was very likely going to impose to him. She could hear his teeth hitting each other as he was trying to vainly contain his stress. Just to be sure it was still deeply frozen, she put it back in the nitrogen a bit more, before beginning to approach the now deadly piece of chocolate. And she was surely taking her tall seeing him suffering, shaking like a leaf, maybe now more afraid of this way of dying than her when she met the Helligen Kolumne yesterday.
Him on the other hand was slowly losing his countenance. His hands were beginning to move erratically as he trembled more than if he was in a local snowstorm. At least you could protect yourself from a snowstorm. But from this very painful death he might have deserved for being such a proud and stubborn Belkan, he couldn't protect himself at all. First, he would feel his lips burning. Then his tongue and mouth. Maybe even at some point, if that piece' of deeply frozen chocolate was truly deeply frozen, and it was the worst-case scenario for his now overactive mind, the temperature in his lung would become so high that the air would ignite by itself. There could not be more painful way to die for his point of view. Of course, this girl was crazy enough to figure out even more gruesome way of dying.
He even tried to free himself of his restrains, but they were way too solid and well-build to cede to human strength. And when she forced him to open his mouth, nearly dislocating his lower jawbone, he knew she wouldn't hesitate in killing him. Her attitude was firm and determined. This little piece of sweet was going to kill him in such a horrible way that now he was finally understanding why Gelb 2 was in such a state by now.
So, he chose survival over duty for once. Some commander once said that survival was paramount, some others that duty was. And he was definitely going to choose to live. Thus, he almost broke in tears when he asked her some pencil and paper sheets, in order to draw Excalibur and its surrounding. This he told him with a very reluctant and fearful voice, fearing that piece of deeply frozen chocolate like the charcoals old executioner would use for their questioning. She just replaced the fear of fire by the fear of extreme cold, both able to cause intense pain through burns. She put it back into the liquid nitrogen, still with a mad smile of success on her face.
And as such, under his still shaking hand, the shape of Excalibur was slowly coming on the paper. If she had to compliment that guy for one thing, it was for his drawings that had some quality within them.
Soon the first drawing was finished, explaining Excalibur's surroundings. The giant tower with a cylindrical base housing the Wunderwaffe was preceded by four heavy jammers that made even radio useless if used at maximum intensity. Excalibur was flanked at the South and North by two small industrial areas, with all linked by railway, on which obviously RTLSs could be set. Obviously, such buildings would have some lighter pieces of AA artillery nearby, and heavy ceiling or even armored ones. Then the Sword of the king itself was surrounded by three big concentric circles of solar panels covering almost a square kilometer, with each separated from the others as well as the exterior or the tower itself by railway, with RTLSs that could come from underground entrenched hangars around the outer layer of solar panels, or from others below the Sword of Kings itself.
And if its title was Sword of Kings, King of Swords could have been fitting too. The first stage of the superstructure was a five hundred meters hemicylindrical tower, a bit similar to a chimney from a nuclear power facility, but with five hundred meters of heights and a good three hundred meters in diameter at the bottom and fifty at the top. Some diagonal buttresses were added to the structure, with a little amount of protuberances which could be used as supports for point defense cannons, both energy-based and with conventional ammo. On the platform between the lower part and the "Sword" which seemed to be embedded into the superstructure energy-based and conventional AA artillery could also be set.
Then, there was the Sword itself. The blade was oriented on an East-West axis. Furthermore, it bore the same strange double cross that Ste Victoire's Spear bore on that rose glass in Directus. The last piece was the top of the tower, which was a simple cupola that had a very high likelihood to house its main weapon, or at least its main reflectors.
Finally, on the third sheet of paper there was a strange drawing: some in a strange scissors-shape partially opened, of a base North of the Northern industrial zone. Basically, it was just two big runways allowing the Gault squad or the ADFX-01s to back Excalibur's impressive array of defense if needed. Two aircrafts could land on one runway and two others take off on the other one, or even four at once, allowing the eight aircraft formation of the Gault team to be deployed quickly.
"Any idea of internal structure, mein lieber Kameraden?" She asked, hoping to find some elevator shaft to do some fun inside flight.
"No. Kupchenko made sure it's impossible to fly through it. No great corridors, and no great shaft either." The Belkan pilot said with great reluctance, slightly happier to know she would meet hell there.
"I have no idea of which matter was used either, nor if there's any other Wunderwaffen protecting it. Unlike my squad leader I wasn't affiliated to the Pendragon project, which granted us access to those F-15S/MTDs. But it's surely a very hart mixture of metallic alloy, ceramics, composites, and carbon nanotubes."
"Good. Mister Perrault, you can come in. He has spoken." She announced, satisfied of her achievement. The said Osean officer had been watching the scene unfold through a stainless glass, and at some point, was a bit puzzled, slightly afraid or surprised by her methods of questioning, but results were all that ether mattered to him
"Interesting, these drawings. I will transmit then to your IT technicians here; they should be able to create some 3D model of it for future briefing." The Osean officer gauged the results of today's interrogations. They had no certainties, but this man wasn't hesitating here. Life or death situation sometimes made man act in foolish ways, he assumed.
"Can we expect a counter-attack in the oncoming days?" Iskanda asked, eager to avenge her comrades and create one more caldera in Belka's landscape.
"Not today nor tomorrow. What we can expect is long range strike from our side at them." He muttered to her, wanting not to inform the Belkan. Then he headed out toward the IT technicians' location.
"You were wrong, this chocolate bar was very good." She spoke, while eating the piece she used to threaten Nühmer.
"Was? Es war eine ganze Witze (what, was it just a big joke)?" The Belkan barked, expecting her to be burned but no. She only had a bit of water born of condensation on her lips, not liquid nitrogen.
"That's called an ultrasonic steam generator. Great to create those wisps of gas." She retorted as she used the clamp to pull out of the thermos some small metallic cylinder featuring a mike on one side.
And then she left the room, laughing madly at the unfortunate Belkan pilot which was toyed by his own fears. She had played with his fear like if he was a kind (kid). Now he was understanding why some pilot she left survived were truly feeling the burden of survivors and wanting to kill themselves.
"Auf Wiedersehen, Herr Zeichner (goodbye, Mr. Drawer.)." She waved out of the room, ready to tell everyone how it went. It was a bit sadistic but feeling successful in something when her last mission had ended in utter disaster was so good for her.
And in the following minutes, everyone was laughing of Günthar's misfortune. Even Pixy who was not very gifted with humor did enjoy her recalling this funny questioning. Still to Iskanda's point of view it could have been way funnier if they had authorized her to do a bit more than psychological torture. She liked a more corporal approach of questioning, but sadly those Osean soldiers had some ethics.
North West of Ceres Ocean, 22/05/1995, 3:00, Weather: fair with little cloud coverage.
A small group of Yukte Sea Flanker was approaching their carrier. Some Yak-141 Freestyles were going after their assault carrier. Amongst them was a girl named Anouchka Dussika. She was flying an Su-33 with two-tone blue grey camo. Now they had finished their aerial patrol over the area, helped in the task by some Osean patrol craft and airborne radars. This seemed useless to her. Of course, the Belkan had destroyed some of the EWRs with their strikes at Wesson, Lumen and Directus, but she wasn't seeing any way that the Belkan could exploit to do damage at such a distance from their homeland. Even with air-refueling being a factor, such attack would always be repelled by their numerically superior forces in the area.
As such, she wasn't worried a single bit when she was about to land on their carrier, the Sputnik 3. After all she had learned from her senior officer that Yuktobania had decided to take the initiative and launch retaliatory strikes, from both the mainland and submarine hidden in the Foster bay at the South-west of Osea, and even some other in the Adaman sea, near that autonomous group of Islands that the Socialist Republic of Adaman Islands was, situated at the South of Bana city's Bay. Nothing could reach them at this distance, or only ICBMs.
"Zmiorka 2, you are clear to …" The carrier landing officer was giving her the clearance, but suddenly her radio went dead, replaced by disturbed electric noise. Such level of EMI (electromagnetic interference) can only have few explanations. The possibility of Belkans having managed to squeeze through the SSRs (secondary surveillance radar) was close to zero. This had to come from something else.
"Carrier, what's happening? answer me?" Zmiorka 2 worryingly asked, feeling the strange feeling of uncertainty spreading through her veins. And as she looked up toward the sky, strange lights had appeared in the upper layers of the atmospheres. Not blue or turquoise ones that have been reported as sign of incoming Excalibur strikes, but bright orange ones. This achieved to turn this uncertainty into deep fear, and the fear went only deeper as she realized that she was only talking to herself and that her fly-by-wire controls were now non-responding.
A deep stall was her end, right on the aft of her carrier. The big ship wavered due to the strength of the impact but was still floating. Yet she didn't keep floating for long, as a bewildered Yukte cruiser went right on her flank, as a result of both ships losing their engines and rudder control. The impact was terrible, nearly cutting the carrier in half while the cruiser was now sinking but embedded into the carrier. Yukte sailors were desperately trying to expel the cruiser that was now involuntarily moored onto theirs. Both ships sunk at 3:30, despite the Yukte sappers resorting to blow the cruiser in half to try to lesser the weight on the carrier. All other this area, Yukte plane were falling, having lost their electronic compensators. One assault carrier met the same fate when one Yak-141 having lost his vectoring nozzles descended too quick on the hangar deck. It didn't cause it to sink immediately, but the flames and the shockwaves of the impact created so much eddies in the air above the carrier than a pair of Freestyles collides, only to have their remains falling on the hole the prior impact had made on the carrier. Burning from the inside, and its electronic extinguishing system out of control due to EMI, the assault carrier blew up at 3:20.
Some fighters manage to survive the pulse that were affecting the entire fleet, but it was useless in the end, as refueler never came, and they were all running low on fuel as they were supposed to land. Entire squadron were lost at this battle without real opponent to fight.
And even the ones that managed to bail-out over the sea did not last that long. The unfortunate sailors of ship sunk by collision meet the same fate, which was similar to what their long-dead brother-in-arms of the OFS Indianapolis suffered forty years ago. But unlike those sailors in this war fifty years ago, the sharks were not turning around them before eating them. They didn't wait this time. It was an unexpected effect of this EMP disaster. In some twist of destiny, the electromagnetic discharges affected the electrosensibility of the sharks, leading entire schools of them to the place where the sinking occurred. It is said that the next day, around the wrecks, the man-eaters were still feeding on the dead bodies, and that the blood spots were bigger than the oil spots from the sunken ships. Sadly, this already lost battle wasn't fought on one field only.
Eagling Straits, Osea, 22/05/1995, 3:10, Weather: overcast.
Two aircraft Carrier were cruising here with their escort, the OFS Lexington and Yorktown. They had seen almost no action, as they were on an anti-piracy mission near Verusa when the war started. The deep valley that was constituting the Bennion Sea was a perfect hiding place for this strike group. And soon their fighters would leave for the foreseen assault on Excalibur. Everyone was eager to destroy this Belkan Wunderwaffe.
But here again, nothing went as planned as the CAP patrol was returning from their duty. Suddenly, all lights on all ship where shut off. As a result, confused Osean pilots went the wrong way to land, and failed absolutely. One had lowered his altitude fifty meter to soon, he went to low, and in the wrong axis. The impact with the bow of the ship was terrible, making it tilt dangerously. It would have been fine if it was just one that missed his landing. But the flames of the explosion were too bright for the other pilots that were following him, equipped with night goggles. Hereby, three others explode on the stern section, but higher than the water line. Yet the last that impact the carrier almost blew up inside the forward hangars, and as such formidable explosion began to occur and propagate the fire to the ship. Anti-fire door closed automatically as their system wasn't an electronic one. However, the captain of the ship knew very well they wouldn't last. A decision needed to be made. He had to try to save his ship.
"Lieutenant, transmit this order to our field engineer we have onboard: Detonate the boat below the water line." He conceded, feeling heartsick as he had to damage his ship to save his men.
"But sir, we will flood still intact areas! Are there no other means to stop this fire?" He required a certainty of absolute necessity to transmit such order, which seemed to be borderline suicidal to him.
"There are none. The water pumps are offline, and the CO2 extinguisher are in a locked area now. Transmit this order now!" He yelled at the reluctant officers, who run outside the isle to go transmit this last effort to save the ship.
And at 3:20, as the anti-fire doors were almost ruptured due to the intensive heat, loud explosion shook the entire ship, making it tilt terribly. Men who were on the bridge fell, and some surely died by falling from such heights. The ship tilted the most to the bow, as water was flooding the destroyed section. The fire was extinguished quickly by those hundreds cubic meter of water that suddenly entered. The Yorktown was saved, but at what cost ? half of the crew was injured, heavily burned, or even dead in the flames, and all the pilots had to bail out over the land, like all the pilots of the CAP from the Lexington did, sparing it from any damage due to fail landings.
And slowly the ship recovered from the electromagnetic pulses. Workers and firemen from other ships had come, bringing with them some CO2 extinguisher too. The ship wouldn't be capable of conducting air strikes against Excalibur, but she could still be towed to a nearby harbor in order to receive repairs to her bow section. Furthermore, most of the pilots that had safely ejected other the land had been recovered by patrol from local military forces, and would be sent to the next base shortly, to keep the fight to the air.
But the worst was still to come. The electromagnetic pulses that the ship suffered from where only one cause. The first impact, and the subsequent shockwaves that followed it due to munitions exploding in the fire amplified the nascent phenomenon. And the phenomenon reached worrying level when the charges set by the field engineer blew up. But what was this phenomenon: simple, the same that sealed the fate of the first Yorktown in the previous war. Fate was definitely playing twister today, to be that twisted. From the weaken electrovalves and ruptured seals vapor of volatile jet fuel began to flow. The workers didn't pay that much attention, as the vapor was mixed into the air still reeking of the strong smell of burned metal. As such, they allowed this time bomb to be born, as more and more vapors were filling the poorly ventilated hangars due to the ventilating systems being out of commission. What caused the ignition, no one knew. No one would ever know. Was is some short-cut caused by a damaged cable? Static electricity resulting from the EMI? But its effects were terrific: dozens of workers were turned to ashes, burned, shredded by the shockwave.
This time the fire was the master on board. And the unfortunate captain, which had chosen to stay when the commandant of the fleet told him otherwise, saw it with powerlessness from the isle. In a matter of minute, the fire was breaching the anti-fire door of the arsenal, while dozens and dozens of sailors were blocked into intact areas, due to electronic doors' malfunction. Henceforth, at 4:00, the Yorktown blew up from the inside, damaging the lighter ships nearby, and almost sinking the destroyer that had begun towing him out of the Eagling strait. The Lexington had survived but was left without no projection capacities.
Over the Industrial complex of Cranston, North Center Osea state, 22/05/1995, 3:15, Weather: light nocturnal cloud coverage.
Another simple pilot was now cursing at the allied Forces. But not only at the allied forces, but at herself, as she had volunteered to be at night patrol. And she regretted even more the choice of entering an experimental squadron of Osean X-29As. They created one after witnessing the amazing achievement of the Erusean mercenary that was piloting it for most of her battles that had almost been successful in every of them but the last.
She had seen Northern lights once, in a joint exercise with Yuktobania, Wellow and Estovakia. What a beautiful sign it was, especially from the canopy of a jet. Some old Belkan legend said it was the Valkyries coming from the paradise to pick up the warrior that were deserving to fight another battle at the end of time. But for now, she knew what these lights in the ionosphere were: the sign of death. Her bail-out system was dead and gone were her four onboard computer that allowed the forward swept-wing fighter to obtain some level of stability when in idle flight. She would let a small boy named John Snow orphan; it was her last thought as she entered a spiral of death toward a weapon factory. And what would her husband tell her son to comfort him? That she went maybe fighting heroically until she was outmatched and outnumbered, and not downed by some overloaded leptons.
Her entire squadron crashed upon the very city they were supposed to protect, falling to the weakness of those highly mobile fighters: lose your onboard trim computer, and you are a dead man. Or dead women for her case, but what would it change anyway. Her death was instantaneous, as her airplane fell on this factory despite her trying to veer in any directions.
In an aircraft factory nearby that wasn't hit by falling airplanes, the effect of the EMPs were instantaneous and tremendous as well. All happened as the workers were still around their small tables, quickly and efficiently assembling parts of planes Osea needed if their military wanted to overwhelm the Belkan forces. When suddenly all the neon lights on the roof exploded, this lighting system being particularly sensitive to high fluctuation of electric current. If it was incandescent light bulbs nothing would have happened, or at least it might have been slightly less terrible. But now it was happening. Fire was beginning to spread from the overheated wires, and the reaction of the workers only caused their chief of security to wail in desperation.
" Do not use the water extinguisher, you will only create more sources of ignition for the fire! Use the CO2s you morons."
"Yes, sir." a fellow coworker dropped the useless device to go for a more appropriate one.
But at some point, contrasting with the noise of the fire and of the worker running, water was heard. And if those fools were using it in this section, they were doomed. The officer check two times the schematics and was pretty sure of where this water from an emergency tank was used. He ran toward this area, screaming to firefighters who were using a fire hose, pointing it in a precise direction, a sector where the use of water was strictly forbidden.
"Stop using water, idiots, this sector is full of alkali metals, it will cause a chain..." The officer yelled over the noise of water and flames, but it was too late. An extremely violent explosion caused by the gigantic quantity of water they had already been spread and that due to the chemical characteristics of the alkali metals - causing dihydrogen to pour when in contact with water-. The chain reaction was violent, setting fire to the entire building. Soon, the entire military-industrial complex was burning, from this thoughtless act or falling fighters that struck the area like a meteor shower.
Weeks of munitions and spare parts for their frontlines burned that day. The military might of Osea would greatly suffer from this and suffered even more as other complexes burned to the ground due to firefighters being unable to respond quickly enough, their trucks paralyzed by the electromagnetic pulses. Henceforth, those workers of Cranston would not be the only ones to endure fire, pain and death that night. hundreds, maybe thousands of civilian workers died not by the hand of who they consider their prosecutors, but their protectors that had failed them.
Apito International Airport, South-West of Oured Bay, Osea, 22/05/1995, 3:40, Weather: fair.
A refueler was about to leave to help alleviate some weights on the fighters that couldn't land due to friendly crashes. As such, a good portion of the Night chase of Osea was endangered by the lack of runway or fuel. But the area was subjected to EMI quite quickly, with the upper layers of the atmosphere turning in bright orange. As such, he didn't saw an ace squadron of Yuktobania trying to bank in order to evade its path. Three overflew him, but the fourth member wasn't as good as them at flying without numeric compensators, and as such the KC-135 was impacted in the middle of its fuselage. The fuel tank immediately went ablaze, and red flames brighten a bit the nocturnal sky over the bay.
Another KC-135 went down as he was operating. The fighter that was being refueled, an F-16C as well as the KC-135 suffered from the massive amount of EMIs. The fighter lost a bit of its stability, nothing he could have recovered due to the good stability of the Fighting Falcon. But as it suffered from it while being refueled, and as somehow the electronic pulses caused its afterburners to come to life unwillingly, the probe was ripped out of the Stratotanker. Spewing fuel in the air, as the electronic fuel wave was left open by the EMIs, it caused their downfall to both of them. The afterburners or the electronic instability were enough to ignite the kerosene that was lingering in the air, and another ball of fire highlighted the skies above Apito. The explosion engulfed two other Fighting Falcons in its shockwaves.
Now it wasn't time to fight against any foe. Their foe was themselves, their fear, their power that gave them this false sense of security, and in the same times their weakness that Belka used to create such tremendous event that would be carved in all Osean's memory for decades, maybe more than the Excalibur strikes for the inhabitants of Wesson. Belka had shown that using great unchecked power could have its consequences. And they were deeply suffering from it.
Valais Air Base, Ustio, 22/05/1995, 10:00, Weather: clear.
Far away from all of this damage, and protected by sheer luck and geographical positioning, Valais Air Base was now fully awake. The freezing fog that usually engulfed the base at the early hours of the day was now dissipated. Yet the base was soon engulfed into an utter chaos greater than any fog could have created. After the cheers born of Iskanda's success at questioning the Belkan pilot, the moral had gone down again. But this time none of this was depending from them. What caused this chaos, they all learned it while listening to the radio.
"This is Denis Delacre, transmitting not from the Assembly of Nations today but from the Belkan embassy."
"Well, I should thank them for their sudden hospitality. Or the sudden fact that they are the only building which had now electricity." The speaker of the Ustian radio set up the lines for the oncoming broadcast.
"You're right, my dear colleague. Oured is under a severe power shortage. And here's the kicker: not only Oured is under black-out, but almost all of Osea in the Northern hemisphere : from St Hewlett to almost all Northern Osean cities such as Sarsfield, Cranston, Durant, Shubrick, Hollister, Onslow, Fairwether including McCord, Elmirah and Shiloh. The area of the Eaglin Straits, and the inner Bennion Sea were affected as well." Delacre began a little Osean geography lesson, before describing more facts: " Those power shortages led to massive fires, with firefighter teams enable to respond due to the consequences of electromagnetic interference, thus resulting in building being burned to the ground."
"And Osea is not the only one that was affected, since some Yukte delegates from Ocktabursk have reported that the same happened over their home city. Furthermore, unexplained blackouts have happened in the Adaman Islands" The Ustian speaker added, revealing the scale of this incident.
Excalibur didn't seem powerful enough to do that to such a wide area. Sure, its strikes could cause local electromagnetic pulses, but not up to Yuktobania or the Adamans. And if Yuktobania was hit, why wasn't Ustio or Sapin? They were way closer than the Union of Yuktobanian republics. This was what everyone in the room, nationality put aside, thought.
"But maybe Frau Ursula Reutner can give us some answers? I mean, they knew it was coming since they have all this back-up power supply and satellite phones. I'm currently using one, and they are good." Delacre walked a bit into the courtyard of the embassy, toward the concerned one.
Despite being situated in the center of their sworn enemy, the Belkan embassy had never been evacuated. The medieval building was contrasting with the nearby buildings, that were built on purpose to hide that Belkan splinter in the middle of the Osean capital. And its black, yellow and white flag was still hanging on a metallic pole, that looked like a spear. Osean laws were stopped by international rights, and its power seemed to be still strong as the concerned Belkan representative approached the Ustian special envoy with two Belkan soldier escorting her, bearing submachine guns. Delacre was one of the only ones to be allowed here after two Sapin and one Gebetan journalist. Oseans, whenever they would be journalist or anything else were persona non grata at vitam aeternum (unwelcome people for their whole lives) in this place.
"Danke für diese ungewollt Werbung (thanks for this involuntarily advert). Aber ich habe keine rechte Antwort über was passiert diese Nacht. Wir haben nur unser Land verteidigen. Fragt mehr Ihre verehrte alliierte Yukte für diese massive Angriffe. (But I don't have the right answer about what has happened this night. We only defend our land. Ask more your cherished Yukte allied for this massive attack.)." The fifty-years old Belkan lady answered with the most complete politeness, and a big smile on her face. The sight of all of the lights of those building suddenly switching off had been heart-warming to her and any Belkan belonging to the embassy or its security forces.
"What do you mean, the Yuktes?" The journalist asked, dumbfounded that this disaster for the allies was not the Belka's doing at its core, but Yuktobania's.
"Ich werde einfach: Osean Leute fürchten Atombomben. So Yuktobania benutzt Ihren. (I will be simple: Osean people are afraid of nukes. So Yuktobania used theirs.) Und dozens of Nukes exploding in their mid-course over the Osean Land create this disaster for your side, or victory for mine." She explained the forthcoming events that led to this tremendous event. It was now making the previous Excalibur Strikes look like nothing, as those didn't hit Osea at its industrial heart, and above all, in the heart of the majority of its population, that had now seen for most of them their proud defenders fall from their own skies.
"I'm sorry to interrupt that very interesting broadcast, but I have received some data. You should come to the briefing room too, mister Perrault." The old voice of the control tower called them for an emergency debriefing, interrupting the Ustian envoy as he tried in vain to enter the Yuktobanian embassy a few minutes later. And obviously news couldn't be good, giving the circumstances of today.
Briefing room, Valais Air Base, Ustio, 22/05/1995, 10:30.
This time the map wasn't centered around Belka at all. Only Osea, Yuktobania and the Adaman Islands were depicted, with circle around their main cities, and the damage they submitted, such as "inoperable" for Apito international airport at the South-West of Oured Bay, or an estimated numbers of dead sailors due to ship collision, or dead pilots due to EMI , with number from Adaman islands being quite low as they were at the border of the zone concerned by the electromagnetic discharges. But in the end, not the downed pilots, nor the unfortunate sailors, airborne troops or marines were raising the number of dead. Civilian were. Dozens of hundreds that died in factory incident, from either the fall of the CAP planes on it, or fire induced or enhanced by the high-energetic magnetic pulse, that stopped the mechanical process, leading to ammo falling from racks, or from chemical reacting in unforeseen ways, leading to even more incident, fire, intoxications and death. The greater risk was of nuclear incident. Osea hadn't maybe that much nuclear plant, but the ones in Seward or Mildenhall that took EMP at full power could already lead to catastrophes in the nearby areas.
And these numbers were growing by the minute. What should have been a successful saturation attack that should have turned Excalibur to another caldera filled with melted metals had caused a disaster amongst the two superpowers' forces. Still, the fighting will of both countries was only strengthened, as both countries officials were accusing Belka of those cataclysms.
"So, at 22:30 local time Yuktobania initiated a massive ICBM launch, from both silos from their eastern territories and hidden submarines. More than fifty missiles, each bearing five warheads and five decoy head were fired." Perrault began describing the situation.
"But Belka somehow detonate them at high altitude, and It wasn't through their Wunderwaffen known as Excalibur. That we can be sure." Steller analyzed the few data the GHQ could send them, as only few computers were available there.
"Have you anything to say, Nühmer?" Iskanda asked with a very determined voice, as the latter was brought for information. Surely, he wouldn't fell from the same trick, but now that he knew to what extent she was ready to go to make him talk, he would maybe snitch a bit on the other Wunderwaffen Belkan possessed.
"I wasn't as close to Kupchenko as my leader was, and I think it's the same for Hervin. Aber..." He reluctantly replied, lowering his eyes to avoid the deadly gaze from both mercenaries and the Oseans that knew people that were maybe dead by now.
"Aber? Spricht weiter mein lieber (But? Keep speaking by dear)!" Iskanda ordered him to talk, and as he wasn't responding, she pushed him against a wall, and with angered-decoupled force, pin him against the said wall, almost choking him.
"Ich werde sprechen (I will speak)!" He muttered as the unexpectedly strong grasp of this woman was tightening on his throat. He was released and almost collapsed to the ground if she hadn't caught him by his collar, with was quite uneasy to him after this treatment.
"Kupchenko. He once said with a cold smile that Morgan wasn't the only fairy watching over the Sword of the Kings. Merlin is watching too." The Belkan specified, out of breath.
"That must be the name of what they used to intercept those nearly two hundred warheads. But we aren't advanced a single bit." Iskanda shared her mind about those revelations.
"It surely is some satellites. That's maybe why they hadn't the time to launch other reflectors to increase Excalibur's range." Pixy guessed, a bit surprised that Excalibur's range was that small, as its previous strikes could tell.
"First they destroy more than one hundred planes. Now nearly two hundred nuclear warheads. What will be able to bring that damn sword down?" Iskanda rhetorically asked, and no one had an answer. Maybe Thesermeister would have had, but he was now only dust. Or Koenig could have had too. But his remains were surely spread all over the Mt Ivrea by now. This next mission could be their last. Sometimes they would doubt of that before their last missions that ended in such a horrible way, but now it could be a realistic thought if nothing changes. And if nothing changes, the victory could escape from their grasp. After all, war never came with any certainties for each side.
This is a little rough for the Oseans, I will say. But this can explain some things that will happen further in this fic. About Iskanda's Past, it's a reference to some French author. I also let some hint about some ace they might encounter if my protagonist ventured in Usea.
About Pixy's it's a reference to a French Belgian comic named "Le secret de l'espadon" and the Dunkle Wing is inspired by the "Aile rouge" (because I find that having B2-As as the only delta wing / flying wing bombers of the Strangereal universe to be boring, and because there not enough information released on their Russian (the PAKDA) and Chinese counterparts (That I didn't remember the name yet, maybe some reader can quote it for me...)). They will be more reference to this comic that I love in further stories…
I guess she can question anyone with any means, regarding Günthar Nühmer's interrogation. This time I was gentle. Next, I won't (and it will surely be another M rated scene).
Regarding the Adaman islands, they aren't canon (the designation, not the island itself), they are on some map of the Strangereal with named countries at the East of Yuktobania. I guess that since I'm writing an alternative universe story everything's fine.
I Hope you're still enjoying this story, even if I made suffer those Oseans…
Bis nächst mal, Lesern!
21/1/20: some grammatical fixing