Valais Air Base, Ustio, 23/05/1995, 12:00, Weather: fair with light cloud coverage.
For once they didn't awake with fog in the valley. At least one event brightened a bit the mood of the sole two sixth Unit survivors, that thought they were the only two remaining pilots of the entire UAF : some Ustian pilots, that had been wounded or with their fighters damaged to greater intensity in battles prior to the fall of Directus had arrived this morning. They were six F-16C pilots, with some from Osean origin. They were the Crow squadron, but unlike the Belkan Krähe squadron they only bore a dark grey camo with a white area around their cockpit and grey nose instead of a more crow-like. The third member of this squadron was particularly verbose. That PJ guy was monopolizing the talk, often recalling how he met his girlfriend while trying to escape some Belkans troops on a bike the day of the fall of Directus: the shockwave of some nearby explosion had made him fell to the ground. He actually met her as he woke up in some Hospital of Directus, having been found unconscious and brought to the said place by this very lady.
"You could have been friend with the Delaire brother to be sure. Sadly, they aren't here anymore." Pixy commented on the almost childish behavior of the young man with brown hair from Bana City.
"Stay focus while fighting, kiddo. Love won't save you from Helligen Kolumne." Iskanda amplified the mind of Pixy on this guy who was surely filled with thoughts of clean war maybe. But such thoughts had been eroded to ashes after the incident the Yukte caused one day ago. Osea had begun to recover, but its military-industrial complex was surely reduced in producing capacity, and now the total losses of the prior strikes and these were equal to a third of the allied forces. Yet now Osea was using its vast roadway network which had a fair number of tunnels to protect its fighters and was resorting to massive deployment of smoke shells to cover their movements. It was what they should have done the day Excalibur struck. After all, it was what the Belkan used with great efficiency against the Osean "death Star" squadron.
"I cannot understand how you went this far in your questioning of that Belkan. Questioning like this belong to medieval era. Even wars have sets of rules to follow." The unconvinced pilot answered, a bit dumbfounded that even his brother-in-arms laughed as she recalled her funny nitrogen trick.
"Yeah, like the ones that forbid the use of chemicals and submunitions. Our own resistance used the first against the Belkan invaders, and I'm using the second in almost every engagement. No Belkan ever complained to me about their use." Iskanda rolled her eyes at Crow 3, almost pretending to be falling back on her seat due to the stupidity -she was considering that refusing what wars were, basically legalized paid murder for her point of view- was only stupid.
"Because you're so merciless than no one survive you." He retorted, trying to find some ways to justify his thoughts that were maybe morally right to his point of view, but that were deep tactical mistakes. Against foes using unrestricted warfare there was no point in restricting your army if you wanted to obtain victory.
"War and mercy are two combinations of power that cannot be melted together. They are two parallel lines, they will never meet, our you would have to change our reality to obtain that. And this war is our reality, Kind. Our world in which and for which we are fighting every day." Pixy steered the talk into some flight of philosophy that he was surely better in than this callow youth.
"Hem, I'm not good at flight of philosophy, mister Pixy. But I hope you will be as good against lasers. We are doing the joined briefing now." Perrault entered into the restroom, still with an appalled face due to the tremendous event of yesterday.
Like many Osean soldier, he had lost someone he knew due to the EMP disaster. Some members of his family lived in Burgen, a medium-sized Osean city located on the shores of the Bennion Sea. The city was crossed by a nice river, the Bur, which had sometimes flooded the city's street, but since 1977 a dam was shielding Burgen, while providing green electricity. There no weapon factory exploded after a plane hit it. No, only one fell on that dam, which had been slightly weakened by local rough weather. And it was enough to make it collapse on the hundreds of houses that it was supposed to supply power and protect. Like so many Oseans, the inhabitants of Burgen suffered from the failures of what was supposed to protect them. His family had been added to the gargantuan amount of civilian losses: 22500 was the number of estimated casualties, which could vary a bit in the oncoming days. Military losses were also quite high, being counted in the thousands. At least the worst had been avoided: the corn bank, place where nearly the two third of the agricultural Osean yield were stocked was untouched. If this complex was one day put in danger, it would not be just a military disaster, but a humanitarian one.
Now he wasn't feeling anything dragging him back to use any means against Belka. He was at this moment ready to offer one to Iskanda, after this briefing. Dealing with unorthodox danger needed unorthodox solutions.
Valais Air Base, Ustio, 23/05/1995, 12:30, Weather: fair with light cloud coverage.
"We now know that the unidentified laser weapon is a long-range offensive weapon codenamed "Excalibur". It is a Belkan anti-aircraft defense chemical laser weapon developed as a ballistic missile defense system following Yuktobania's research in this matter. According to our information, the strike zone is heavily guarded by a jamming facility and multiple antiaircraft artillery units." Perrault announce those already-well-known facts, as the estimated numbers of a dozen RTLSs, and even greater numbers of SAMs, SPKs and TripleAs on Excalibur and around it were displayed by Ustian IT technicians.
"Your objective is not a secret: to destroy Excalibur. But to do that, you must first neutralize the jamming facility and the antiaircraft artillery, in order to diminish the threat for other Osean or Yukte attackers." The Osean officer kept doing the briefing, while a blue arrow was depicted over the Tauberg region, which split in four to attack the jammers.
"Considering the importance of your target to the enemy, I'm afraid there's no way to avoid casualties from the enemy defensive network. In light of this, we have called in reinforcements for this mission. Work together with them to achieve the mission objectives." Some other blue dots appeared at the bottom of the blue arrow. Of course, they already had the Crow squadron from the fourth Ustian Unit. But there were also the mercenary squadrons of Osea, the only ones that were crazy enough, or only paid enough to get close to this target.
"Sorry, but how will we refuel until Tauberg? It's quite far." pointed out Crow 2, a man with paler brown hair that Crow 3 and a less childish behavior.
"Your concerns are not unfounded. Due to the unprecedented anti-air abilities of Excalibur, we won't use usual means of mid-air refueling. Instead, two squadron of EA-6B Prowler will be used at this effect, bearing tanks and probes. It will be done over Glatislant as the still burning caldera is messing with both Belkan and allied radar in the area." Orson Perrault responded, a bit worried for those pilots who unlike the Galm team had never undergone such task. But he was a bit less worried when he told them that no, he wasn't borderline suicidal enough to be willing to follow them aboard an AWACS. Radar recognition would be done by their radars and a swarm of MQ-9 Reaper which would precede them. Of course, those drones wouldn't be a factor in the battle itself, but the intel and the distraction they would provide might spare some lives today.
"Miss Rayien, I still have some issue to talk with you. Just some B plan, since you haven't come with some crazy inside flight schemes. Dismiss." The Osean Officer added, willing to reveal to her only the B plan that in case of failure she would have to enact.
"They are out of the room. What's this plan B you wanted to talk to me about?" Iskanda inquired, a bit surprised that Osean had tactics other than numerical superiority and plunging countries in recession. Even if the latter worked quite fine in many cases in the last decades.
"If you were shot down, even if it's a low probability considering your skills." He was a bit reluctant to admit that this plan B would be enacted in case of utter failure of today's operation.
"Keep saying, even if I'm not planning on getting shot down. I doubt I would survive being turned into plasma." She retorted with a bit of harshness in her voice.
"If you were, we had equipped the under-siege compartment with a sniper rifle and camouflage gear. You will try to shoot Kupchenko when he's on the ground. Osean commandos that have departed after operation Hell Bound will retrieve you at the south of the Tauberg Lander, at the North of the Schayne plains." He explained what this not very imaginative plan was. Now she was wondering why Osea hadn't enact it since the beginning of the war, but she didn't know the danger there was in the Belkan landscape. Some Osean infiltrators had been sent there but never showed sign of life since. And the few that survived a few days only report the horrible death of their compatriots, often their sentinels found with grievous wounds.
"I have received a bit of survival training at Farbanti. Still, why choosing me?" She shrugged, having had no proper training in such black ops.
"Because you're one of the most determined persons here. You won't hesitate when you will shoot him. And to make sure he will die, the only bullet that this rifle is equipped is filled with enough cyanide to kill his entire squadron. Nothing can save a man hit by this." He added. Now it was a certainty that Osea wanted Gault leader dead.
"I do not like poisons, and I would rather kill him close and personally, but for once I will do this." She agreed to enact this unfair plan. But since when war was fair? It was never, as she tried to explain beforehand to that PJ guy. Maybe it was an acronym for two letters, name or surname she didn't know.
Valais Air Base, Ustio, 23/05/1995, 13:10, Weather: fair with light cloud coverage
"So, what was that thing all about?" Pixy asked, a bit curious to know the details of this B plan.
"They want me to amend Kupchenko. Literally speaking." She replied, still a bit unphased to the idea of resorting to poison and referring to this poison's scent. Sure, women had poisoned their enemies for generations, and the greatest poisoner of history were women. But she would rather stab him in the heart and turned him into a bloody mess.
"Good luck." Steller wished her, as they both climbed in their aircrafts, which like the Crow F-16C were only loaded with air-to-ground ammo. A mistake of central command, but they wanted that each aircraft would be able to deal as much damage as possible.
"Viel Glück Dort (good luck there)." were Blaise's encouragements. Even if she didn't want some luck to win today. But was luck really enough against a one-kilometer high laser weaponry that could surely shot down a Star Destroyer with more ease than an ion cannon?
"I wish you the best of luck in battle." were Perrault's.
Over Mt Ivrea, Belka, 23/05/1995, 13:30, Weather: heavy cloud coverage.
The rough weather could be explained by the massive smoke shell barrage as well as Excalibur's fire that was slowly turning these clouds into giant thunders. Sadly, they could not use this cover in the vicinity of the Belkan Wunderwaffe: at this distance, it was possible to launch a great volley without Excalibur intercepting too much of them. Furthermore those artillery pieces that were used for this purpose didn't possess a very great range, and if the Osean servants put their pieces to be in range of firing their smoke shells at Excalibur, the Sword of the King would very likely be in range to fire at them too.
At least they weren't going to be alone here. Outside the nearly twenty EA-6B present here to refuel them, the Osean merc were quite numerous. There was the domino squad of twelve Typhoons painted with a black and white and black eponymous paint scheme, the Savage squad which was comprised of ten F-16Cs with grey paintjob and black stripes, and the thirteen F-14Ds of the Joker team, that had a pale violet two-tone camo.
"Damn it, this is aiming at the eye of the needle." Crow 3 complained about the difficulty of such mid-air refueling methods. He had troubles closing on his prowler, a bit shaken by the eddies created by the ascendant wind over the edge of the mountainside. But it was that or being disintegrated.
"Come on, I'm sure I could be aiming for the eye of a real needle while dogfighting." One Osean merc mocked him, as he was unlocking his probe from his refueler.
"I'm glad you're the last to refuel on my aircraft and the probes are flexible enough. Otherwise you would have ripped it off." One EA-6B pilot complained of the almost failure of PJ at refueling his craft.
"Be ready for anything when attacking the jammers or Excalibur." Galm 1 warned the other pilots, cutting PJ who was beginning to argue with the probe operator, as she disconnected from her probe. She still had trouble refueling with fighters due to her receptacle's being behind her cockpit, but less than with the Espada team 4 days ago.
"We shall succeed if we have the Galm team with us!" Crow 4 try to cheer up the mood, even if there was no certainty of victory. There would have had prior to operation Dynamo.
Now the forty fighter pilots kicked their afterburners toward the North of Schayne plains, while the twenty refueler were supposed to retreat through the lake near Wesson. Few EA-6Bs would make it out alive.
Tauberg, Belka, 23/05/1995, 14:15, Weather: fair.
They had arrived this far. If only they could put aside the loss of five refuelers as they were getting out of the South of the Schayne plains, while the main squadron was crossing them. Obviously all MQ-9 Reaper drones had been already downed, but without any wreckage visible anywhere. Surely Excalibur destroyed them all. And despite the fact that they were supposed to be infiltrating the most secret and powerful weapon platform of Belka, the Crow squadron was chatting at medium altitude, while Iskanda was skimming toward the jammers, which had been added to her radar data by the Ustian IT technicians. Even from nearly one hundred kilometers the huge shape of the black mass raising from the ground was already catching her sight. Almost a week ago she had thought that the central tower or the Twin Barbicans of Glatislant were big.
"If you wait too much, another will steal her away from you, you know." Crow 2 mocked Crow 3's shyness.
"It's not the time to talk about my personal life!" PJ barked, quite angry that not only his wing mates, but the Osean mercs laughed about him before the beginning of the mission too.
"Well, for once you're right kiddo. This is not the place. You will have the right to do that when we will have survived this. And only if." Iskanda ended their dithering, followed by only Pixy who had kicked the afterburners to follow her, leaving the slightly slower F-14Ds, F-16Cs and EF-2000 behind.
And her radar wasn't even displaying that the closest jammer was only at sixty kilometers that Excalibur was already firing. No beam was clearly visible, but when the horizontal Helligen Kolumne began to take shape, three F-14Ds and Crow 6 were shot down in a matter of seconds. They weren't close, they were still far, and they were already having casualties.
"You are entering in dangerous airspace. All units, break, break!" A message from the Osean GHQ pointed out the obvious order that all pilot should have followed since the beginning of this operation.
"Don't forget to put your radar at maximum intensity to see the flyable areas on it." Pixy reminded them, having remembered that physical advices from the now defunct Thesermeister.
As she made her way to the jammers, Crow five and domino eight were shot down. Hopefully no more allied planes were downed by the three attack they were submitted to. And as she was approaching the jammer at the far East, her HUD went crazy. Not because of some Helligen Kolumne, but of one Belkan order.
"Augment ECM to level 10." The Belkan radar officer in charge of Excalibur defense ordered.
"Ver. Behaupten ECM." An ECM servant obeyed, pushing calmly one lever on his panel. He had all the reasons to be calm, after all: he was in Excalibur, well-protected from anything the allied would throw at his jammer kilometers away from his current location, theoretically speaking. At least that was what Kupchenko's engineers were ensuring them.
And speaking of the latter, he was surely taking off by now. He wouldn't miss this occasion to swipe away those Oseans and their allies banging at his doorstep. Besides, his SAAMs weren't disturbed by the ECM, since there were semi-active and not radar guided. Long-range infrared-guided missiles weren't a factor here, as this technology was still in development in most countries. Outside Belkan ERAAMs obviously.
As such, Allied attacks on the Western jammers were greatly hindered and delayed, as the only allied fighters that possessed LAGMs were the F-16Cs. And the SAAMs launched by the Gault unit were preventing them to have a good sight on the jammers in order to manually aimed their ordnance. The Typhoons had come equipped with a mix of SODs and SFFS, but the Stand-Off Dispensers needed proper radar guidance to be used properly and the latter to be dropped from high altitude and slow speed to maximize their effects, and such conditions were not reachable at this very moment.
The aerial fight wasn't even either. While Gault unit stayed untouched in this engagement, this due to their armament and Excalibur covering them, it wasn't the case for the domino team that suffered three losses. Furthermore, some Belkan F-20As had joined the fight, and their SAAMs were giving a bit of trouble to the allied forces, even if they weren't as precise as Gault's'. The heavy jamming that caused their onboard speakers to emit nothing but statics, helped immensely the Belkan defenders, who could still use their phase modulation radio. In the end, Pixy and Iskanda were the least disturbed ones in their assault.
As they arrived over the target zone, choppers took flight, and their locked-on alarm began to blare. Even if Pixy could only lock them with his IR-guided missiles, it was enough to make them deviate from their defensive position. Thus, Iskanda had no trouble at the exception of some AA guns when she arrived over the jammer, with her finger clenched on the release mechanism.
"Here comes a warm present from Ustio!" She exclaimed fiercely, as she flew over the jammers. Not only the jammers were destroyed by her thermobaric ordnance, but the choppers were caught in the shockwaves. The jamming power decreased to a level making radio conversations understandable once again.
"Keep attacking, Sixth Unit." The aerial command ordered. It was unusual to have no AWACS transmitting the orders and providing radar guidance, but anything bigger than a fighter would have been nothing but cannon fodder for Excalibur.
"I have some ground forces around the second jammer. Some AAs only. I will clear them with a FAEB, and you take out the jammer." Iskanda suggested to her wingmen.
"Ver, Galm 1." He answered quickly, kicking his afterburners as EMIs were suddenly intensifying in the area they were standing in. Excalibur was firing.
Both rushed to the next jammer, and missed a bit their aim, but the blast radius of their weaponry was wide enough to clear all of its defenses and cause some minor damage on the jammer's structure, and it was a F-14D that finished it with two well-aimed missiles. Still, he was followed by two Belkan Tigersharks. Pixy let his leader rush on the third jammer, while he chased the two F-20As. They were gaining ground on the Tomcat despite its maneuverability, but the latter had suffered a hit on his wing-root fillet, which caused some asymmetric extension, limiting the ability of what was at one point the world best' turnfighter. But the F-15C was still one of the world's best' fighter in matter of speed and stability, and Pixy was quickly in the six of the two Belkan fighters, firing a pair of missiles at one while gunning the other single aircraft.
"This is Joker five, I'm fine. Thanks, Galm 2." The fighter pilot was glad he survived for now. But he forgot the plasma that was still lingering in the air from a previous shot of Excalibur, and the complete loss of control of his airplane send in spiraling to the ground.
Pixy regretted this loss. Seeing plane going down like that were making him feel useless. To counter this feeling, he went to the rescue of that PJ guy, which was attacked by a Tigershark as he dived to evade a SAAM coming from his three hours. Some bullets scratched the Fighting Falcon ailerons, but not his engine hopefully. Pixy dived toward the F-16C, and as he crossed his path, barrel-rolled slightly upward to have the pursuing F-20A in his crosshairs. A gun burst head-on finished him, but the Belkan pilot had almost managed to aim his SAAM at the F-16C. If Pixy had killed him a second later, the missile would have impacted Crow 3.
"Crow 3, if you are shot down, crash where I can't see." Pixy wished, not willing to see just another useless rescue ending in a stupid death.
"At your orders." The fourth Ustian Unit member responded, almost joyfully, even if he just evaded death mere seconds ago.
In the meantime, Iskanda had destroyed the third jammer, at the expense of one other FAEB. She was keeping the two others as deterrent to shook of some fighter if she was pursued, but she knew Kupchenko was and would be smart enough not to fall in her trap. The others, though, it might be possible to trick them. The fourth one was destroyed by a Typhoon that dropped his SFFSs during a Stuka-dive, but ended up being hit by a nearby SAM. The artillery piece was utterly destroyed by the shrapnels, but as well as the fighter, who almost managed to level, but was killed by a long-range missile coming from almost nowhere. Or it was what the unfortunate Osean merc thought.
"Zveda, one kill." The ADFX-01 pilot claimed his victory, staying a bit far from the furball in order to have his ERAAMs arriving at twice the sound velocity on their target, augmenting their non-escape zone exponentially.
"Galm 1 to all allied, the jammers are fried. Evade those SAAMs spammers and began the attack on Excalibur." She announced as she was herself steering toward the Belkan Wunderwaffe, which was fairly visible by now. She chose to attack it from the side, since Nühmer mentioned the two heavily defended industrial areas at its North and South.
But Pixy, who was between the remains of the two central jammers when the final one was finally put out of commission, attacked from the South. As such, he clearly saw the three RTLS that were shielding the Southern complex. Those were the same that at Glatislant: with light turrets only, thus maximizing their AA potential. He tried to bomb them or launch anything on them, but all was intercepted. He managed to knock out one or two laser turrets as he flew over it with "PC max", in order to evade the lethal discharges, and because of this his gun run lacked accuracy. But eight SODs launched from the four EF-2000s behind him were enough to saturate their defenses, while the train themselves were taken out by Crow one and two's LAGMs.
Yet at this moment, as Iskanda was coming from the side in order to circumvent some of its defense, and as Pixy was approaching the superstructure, both had a plain sight of the Belkan Wunderwaffe. Like the questioned pilot said, it had this chimney-like lower part, reminding Iskanda of some solar power facility she saw being built at the East of the Usean continent. Yet seeing drawing of it and seeing the actual thing were two very disparate things. Even a B-52 Stratofortress could have stood on the top of this truncated hemicylindrical shape. And now the double-cross guard was way more threatening, even if there was a slight gap without gun emplacement between the upper and lower guard. But this gap was vastly compensated by the fact that the faces and the extremities of each guard were bearing at least two TLSs, thus creating a point defense system for every vector of approach. However, Nühmer intel was incomplete: the top was not just comprised of the main laser port, but also of some reversed eight-arms candelabra, with each arm bearing one TLS.
And Excalibur defenses, which were situated on its double cross-guard, on the top of the platform between the two parts, on the diagonal support strengthening the overall structure were not the only ones to open fire. All around it were three concentric layers of solar panels. At least this laser was environmentally friendly, if there was just one good thing about it. From some bunkers built on the hills that were surrounding the small basin in the bottom of which Excalibur was built came more RTLS than at the south. Twelve of them quickly positioned themselves on the railway between the concentric layers of solar panels. To add more surprise, some SAMs, AA guns and SPKs came on self-propelled vehicle from below the supports of the solar panels.
"Gott Verdammt. It's impossible to fly near Excalibur. It's filled with laser artillery." Pixy resumed the situation as he saw the four Typhoon that just destroyed the Southern RTLS being destroyed by those more numerous ones and the fire from Excalibur herself. Now he was forced to circle around it at full speed, trying to drop his bombs, but without great success. The blast of one that was intercepted a bit late by Excalibur defenses maybe knocked out one or two TLSs on the diagonal support, but it wasn't going to do much effect.
"These turbolasers are better than the Executor's. Argh." An Osean F-14D pilot recognized, trying to skim over the ground to escape the fire of the RTLSs, but ended up being targeted by the TLSs on the lower guard. At least his burning fighter went for a solar panel, destroying it. But destroying just one would never be enough to steer the balance in favor of the allied forces.
"Picolaser and Femtolaser. They are far better than these Turbolasers indeed." Kupchenko corrected, enjoying the sight of allied planes being torn off piece by piece by the technical achievement of the Pendragon project.
" There're too many EMIs in the area due to their laser fire. I cannot lock my weaponry properly!" Crow 3 cursed, as he fired two LAGMs and dropped a pair of bombs, with the first losing their track and hitting the ground outside of the complex, and with only one bomb hitting one solar panel, with the other being intercepted by a RTLS. As such, he was targeted by this artillery piece the next second. And as he lost energy flying in erratic turns, his fate was sealed.
"Aber I can aim mine." Erbe 1 fired an ERAAM on him. Fired in the middle of so many fighters flying erratically, the missile went almost unnoticed. Typhoons, Tomcats and Fighting Falcons were maybe too focused on trying to survive as they were forced to constate that they had already lost more than half their initial forces despite having taken all the F-20As. Yet the F-20As were only eight, and their initial forces was forty aircraft strong. As such, with all these alarms, his lock-on alarm blaring continuously, and his radar filled with sparks as the TLSs and RTLSs were ionizing the surrounding atmosphere, Crow 3 didn't see the missile coming for him. His reactor was torn off by the explosion, and his cockpit ejected by the blast was shredded by a RTLS, destroying every remains of his fighter before it could even hit the ground.
"Crow 3 is down." Savage 4 reported, before being gunned down by a far more mobile Su-47. He had managed to evade one SAAM by a streak of sharp turns but fell at his mercy as he bled too much speed compare to the forward swept-wing fighter.
"At least you didn't see him crashing, Galm 2." Iskanda pointed out sarcastically.
"I would have rather seen him crash landing than being disintegrated. But this is war." Galm 2 admitted, a bit sorry for this pilot.
"Indeed, it's war. Pain and Sufferance will be your only allowed feelings. Your losses will be your only birthrights now, Galm 1." Kupchenko said in a solemn manner, as he engaged her, after she had tried to lock one of his wing mate, but ended up having to break the pursuit as her prey flew in the gap between the two guard, leaving Excalibur's servants a free window of fire on her. Her radar was quickly covered by the electromagnetic interference the laser fire was producing. She barely made it, right before Gault 1 engaged her.
"I'm not going anywhere as long as this sword isn't pulled from the rock." Iskanda retorted, despite having to see once more her comrades falling to the technological marvels the Pendragon project had created, while evading Kupchenko's lock.
"Only the King as the right to do this." Kupchenko recalled the medieval legend, maybe foreshadowing the allied forces' fate in their attempt to do so. All false kings that tried to pull out Excalibur ended up dead, after all, following the Belkan Parsifal (Perceval) legend.
"This is domino five. I'm hit, I'm hi…" were the last word of an Osean Typhoon pilot that tried to attack Excalibur main laser port, a TFLS (Tactical Femtolaser System), as his plane was splintered upon the energy deployed by the small TLs around the main one.
"Savage 2, I can't shake that missile. Missile!" The F-16C pilot screamed in terror as one ERAAMs arrived on him, faster than a MiG-31 to his point of view.
"You have only brought these people to hell. And there's not detour to heaven after." Kupchenko taunt her a bit, as she was trying to whir out of his grasp but couldn't shake him in the end.
"I am not the only one coming here." She snapped back verbally, since she couldn't try to attack him immediately.
But after some other whirring session, she did try to attack him, pulling a head-to-tail maneuver, but he countered it by pitching down quickly. This make him gain a bit more of speed, and he used this gained momentum to climb back at her, asserting his position as the pursuer, but she pulled up a second head-to-tail maneuver as he was climbing and thus had lost a bit of mobility. His right wing was grazed by the bullet, and his right rear radar become inoperative afterwards. But in this very close-quarter dogfight it was not an important factor, since it was meant to guide backward fired SAAMs.
"Nice shot. But do you really think our defenses would be too busy with this puny attack, since Osea cannot conduct a massive airstrike due to these EMPs they suffered from their own failures?" He asked her rhetorically, even if the Osean high command hadn't judged good to inform her that Osean B-1s and Yukte Tu-160s would assist them. To be fair, she was discovering that right now, as her radar was set on short range to have the safe fly zone on it.
This was the reason why the two ADFX-01s were now steering out of Excalibur's vicinity to engage those new enemies, following their leader and that merc heading toward those bombers while in constant fighting. The Erbe's craft weren't bearing MPBMs, but the ERAAMs were good enough at dealing with heavy targets. Besides, the allied fighters were far too busy dodging the fire of the Gault team, when dodging it weren't putting them in harm's way, to make thing short in the line of fire of Excalibur. Sometimes the well-coordinated Berkuts would pursue some fighters, without taking them all down by themselves, but they just had to make them overfly Excalibur and either the TFLS or the TLS would tear the allied fighters to pieces, while if they make them fly low they would be dealt with by the RTLS. Three RTLSs, a few mobile artillery pieces and some TLSs on the guards had been disabled during the combat until the arrival of this unexpected bomber squadron, but it wasn't enough to ensure any damage on the Sword of the King. For sure they may have destroyed half of Excalibur solar panels, but due to the importance of their target, they surely had dozens of back-up generators, accumulators and capacitors. In the end, like Iskanda, they could land some hits on their aerial or ground-based opponent, but none were critical enough to down any Gault team members or reduce the firepower of the Wunderwaffe.
West of Tauberg, Belka, 23/05/1995, 14:30, Weather: fair.
The Razor Unit of Osea had been deployed, comprised of 20 B-1s in grey camo. Following them were 20 Tu-160s Blackjack, the Polar Bear unit of Yuktobania, trained to operate in iced territory, and thus with a paler camo. Each and every one of them were packed to the brim with cruise missiles, and separated from each other by at least eight hundred meters, to reduce theirs losses according to their superiors or more to reduce the time an Excalibur strike would need to wipe them out if their leaders had been honest in their briefing. They already had those "Morgans" on their long-range radars and some of them would maybe fell to the ERAAMs those fighters were equipped with. But they couldn't stop such a widespread attack, Razor leader thought hopefully. Maybe with too much hope, yet this hope was strengthened by the sight of some flight of MQ-9s equipped with SODs and QAAMs that were arriving on a more southern vector and would be disturbing the ADFX-01s. Still, an Helligen Kolumne was growing in this sector. Those drones' swarms would not disturb the Morgans for long.
"Merlin, verteidigt das Schwert des Königs (protect the Sword of the Kings)." The Yukte-sounding voice of Anton Kupchenko spoke on all channels. He wanted them to know their doom was coming. And above all, that they would meet their doom without any chance of evading it.
"What's he expecting? To scare us with some fairy tales?" Razor 2 said out loud, as he released a volley of six cruise missiles. Others followed him, and it was soon entire rows of cruise missile that were fired. Nearly one or two hundred of them, if we added all the volleys from the forty bombers. Only some wonders could stop that, he guessed. Yet he was forgetting that Excalibur was a Wunderwaffe.
But here, the wonder wasn't coming from Excalibur itself, not some old wizard Kupchenko was summoning. No, it came from space. Orbiting in geosynchronous orbits, the Merlin satellites were activated once more. Those longilineal pseudo-satellites that seemed to be like gigantic space dragonfly were about to definitively turn the tide of this battle in Belka's favor. They had a main long fuselage solely comprised of hundreds of electric capacitors to store their energy, and two pair of wings, one equipped with electric receptacles allowing Excalibur TFLS to reload them, while the second pair looked like spreading system that tractors would use to spread pesticides. However, in this very case Kupchenko hadn't equipped them with chemical spreader for pesticides, but high yield masers (laser but in the wavelength of the microwave), even if those Oseans would soon be swapped like the pest they were. Thus, with this different armament, their fire would not create Helligen Kolumne meant to destroy large enemy groups.
"Protect Pendragon, Merlin." Kupchenko said with confidence, as a green line was displayed across the control panel onboard his fighter.
If some Osean had been flabbergasted by the Helligen Kolumne, this time their bomber pilots, copilots and flying officers were stricken by astonishment as the sky began to shiver in front of them, turning from a pale blue to a pale violet. Some cruise missiles attempted to do evasive maneuvers and circumvent this obstacle that their onboard radar could detect with ease, but a second plasma shutter descended from the heights of the sky, widening the overall defense system.
"What's this sorcery? Are Belkan using dark magic?" Razor five asked, his physical knowledge being a bit too deficient to understand where all of this was coming from.
"Magic is often unexplained science." Kupchenko specified, still evading his foe, arriving now quite close to the area where the bombers were, yet on the other side of the plasma shutter. He had been distracted for a second as the Merlin network was being activated, but now he was back into the heat of battle.
More Merlin satellite came to life, creating additional plasma shutter in mid-air, which were encroaching greatly on the cruise missiles' path. However, as they try to run toward the North, the bomber crews saw four pitch black flying wings taking off vertically, using rotors implemented in some cylindrical holes in their wings. And those Belkan Dunkle Wing didn't wait to attack their opponents. Each fired a volley of four ERAAMs. All of their missiles scored hit on the bombers, while the cruise missiles were exploding on the plasma shutter.
"VTOL DWs? And with ERAAMs? You surely update them since Directus." Iskanda huffed, seeing that in every corner of the battlefield the technological achievements of the Pendragon project were out-matching them.
"I did. Last time they were hindered by those dagger-shaped drones of another project. Not this time." Kupchenko whispered her thoughts of failures, as both of them were flying line astern, each of them carefully turning or accelerating similarly to evade becoming the prey in this fight. But both of them were skimming toward the remaining bombers.
"I don't care if we suffered some losses. Go through that wall of plasma!" A Yukte pilot ordered, hoping to outrun these DW-2s they had no chance fighting against. If they could fire their cruise missile on the other side of these plasma shutters, they might have a chance to hit Excalibur.
"Now these DW-2s are the true successors of the Me-110, our bomber hunters in the second Osean-Belkan conflict of this century. They downed hundreds of Osean and Yukte bombers." Kupchenko depicted, as these new heavy attackers were destroying the Osean and Yukte bombers in a matter of seconds.
"If our weaponry cannot go through those plasma shutters, maybe our planes can. If needed, crash on Excalibur!" White Bear leader agreed with the seemly nonsensical suggestion of his comrade.
The DW-2s let them fly through the ionized air. But they didn't go through it untouched. After all, it was like getting through a waterfall, yet with leptons replacing the water. From all around their craft, static electricity began to sparkle, while their radar, IFF identifier, ECM pods and chaff dispensers being soon out of commission. If they could have said anything, they would have surely said "radio failure" but they couldn't, since they were indeed submitted to radio failure. The slowed Blackjacks and Lancers were followed by the DW-2s, which had gained a bit of altitude before going through the plasma shutter, having closed all hatches and air intakes. They just glided through the electrically overloaded air. Even if a bit of static electricity began to sparkle around them, they did not sustain any damage. As such, they were able to radio between them this message, as they were out of the high EMI zone:
"Wiedereröffnung Waffenbays (Re-opening weapon bays). Feuer weiter (Continue Firing)!"
And again, sixteen bombers were downed. This was ludicrously easy for the Belkan manning the DW-2s, as their opponent were without any radars or defensive systems. Furthermore, with their afterburners being inoperable, the bombers had no chance in trying to outrun the high velocity ERAAMs.
"This can't be happening. Galm team, do something!" The Osean officer that was transmitting order from the GHQ screamed, horrified as more than thirty bombers were already down, and the two thirds of their fighters.
"Galm 1, engaging the DW-2s." Iskanda announced, after breaking the fight she was into by some erratic whirring and outclimbing her pursuer, as she possessed a tuned engine slightly more powerful than his.
She went for the one at the left of the four-plane formation, who was currently using its rotors to steer toward the rushing Yukte bombers with a smaller turn radius than flying wing usually possessed. She dived to evade the missiles the DW-2s fired at her as well as a SAAM from Kupchenko, and then zoomed in right on the right rotor. A short strafing run was enough to destroy it. Suddenly deprived of this lift generator, the Belkan flying wing began to tilt dangerously. Still zooming up, Iskanda climbed above it before plunging like a bird of prey on her target, aiming for the left rotor. The fragile carbon blades were finished by one missile, after Iskanda avoided their defensive ones by a tight barrel-roll, and the DW-2 began spiraling toward the ground. Then she went for the closest one, which had already downed another Tu-160, bringing the number of bombers to six. Of course, his pilot learned from the mistakes of his comrades, and quickly closed the small cylindrical hatches that would have given her an opening on his rotors. However, her attack pattern was quite similar, as she dived below the bigger craft, before raising on his tail section, where the SPK was located, avoiding by such tactics its fire. Thus, she ended up with this tail section in her crosshairs. She fired everything: two missiles, and her twin guns -when she knew from Nühmer that there was no possibility of inside flight here, she asked Steller to have her secondary gun back-. The tail was shaken dramatically by the shockwave, temporarily disabling its defensive armament.
But in the meantime, the two other DW-2s had brought the number of Yukte bomber to three, and the three lefts seemed to be slowly caught up by the Belkan Bomberzerstörer (Bomber destroyer). These two were gaining speed far too greatly to allow the Blackjack any escape. Furthermore, the Osean fighter numbers were dwindling even more, shrinking away their forces.
As such, she wasn't changing nor evening the odds here. Belka would suffer more losses, it was obvious. But Osean ones would always be more numerous. After all, they brought more planes than the defensive forces had. And no Su-47 of Gault squad had gone down. Sure, they suffered some hits, and some had stepped back a bit of the combat zone, with damage on their engine outlets, their ailerons or their canards, but at this distance they could fire with greater accuracy their SAAMs on the few remaining Ustian and Osean fighters. Only Gault 8 had to retreat after an Osean tried to ram him, with the Sapin members of Gault team resorting to an all-out fire when he realized the desperate tactics the Osean was pulling out. Two missiles and one SAAM were enough to blow the Typhoon sky high, but some burning parts of the EF-2000 impacted the Su-47. Still, he was able to land safely, their runway being surrounded by a very efficient laser defense system.
Galm 1 sealed the fate of the DW-2s in quite an original manner: falling on his tail after a quick climb, she fired again all she had at him. Yet this time the tail section was not just damaged, nor its weaponry put out of commission, this time the tail section was sectioned. In a massive burst, the two-meter-long part was separated from the craft. A pair of missiles impacting in the opening left led to a chain reaction that blow up the DW-2s from the inside. Only lingering black powder was remaining in the air after the flames died.
"Enjoy your meager victories, Galm 1. Du kann zurückziehen, Dunkle Falke drei und vier (you can step back, dark falcon 3 and 4)." Kupchenko sounded disdainful, as the two last DW-2s had just destroyed the last Tu-160s.
"Ver. Superstaustrahltriebwerk auf (scramjet on)." The Belkan pilot agreed, recognizing they had nothing to gain battling this little fly. After all it wasn't what they were intended to.
"Cowards!" Iskanda tossed, finding none other qualificative for those who run before their enemy.
"Es ist nicht Feigheit. Nur Sicherung meines Vermögenswerts (it's not cowardice. Just bringing my assets to safety)." Kupchenko countered, preferring to have tactical results than just blind glory his countrymen usually sought to obtain.
"They are using the only technical advantage you possessed once." Pixy spoke up, noticing that the DW-2s had reached a speed well above Mach 2.5.
"Eigentlich. Aber der Griffon wurde nutzlos hier (indeed but the Griffon would be useless here)." Kupchenko recognized, that if she had flown that old relic of the sixties, she would have only been splashed sooner due to its massive cross section -created by the steel-made structure-.
And to be fair, any allied aircraft seemed to be "nutzlos" here. No fighters had laid a single hit on the TFLS. No one seemed to be able to pull the sword out of the rock. If nukes had failed, and fighters were failing, what could? Fighters with nuclear missile maybe? But those concern about using nuclear armament would only reach a dead end: their use would be disastrous for the morale within the allied states. Belka had announced the truth behind the "EMP disaster" as the Osean journalists were calling this tremendous event, causing some protest within Osea, Yuktobania, from civilian having suffered what they consider to be useless losses that could have been easily avoided if they made sure they had space superiority. The worst was the anti-Osean protests among the Adaman Islands, which suffered some EMPs, as they were below the trajectory of some Yukte VRBM (Variable Range Ballistic Missile) launched by the Yukte submarines. They were growing by the day, and if The Adamans were not a threat to Osea's might, Osea wanted to avoid creating more enemies than allies in the end. As such, those types of aftermath should never happen again.
Yet here, there was not a single nuke needed to have a violent aftermath. Osean numbers dwindled even more after another failed saturation attack on Excalibur main laser:
"Belkan defenses are still too strong to land a single hit on Excalibur's main weapon." Crow 4 admitted, as he tried with three remaining EF-2000 to saturate its eight TLSs defending it from above, after half of the TLSs on the guard of the Sword were out of commission. However, it revealed to be a poor choice, as in this situation the eight lasers were able to fire upwards, alongside the TFLS. The three Typhoons were disintegrated in less time than it takes to say or to write it, while the fleeing F-16C was downed by the remaining TLSs positioned on the higher guard of the Sword.
"There's nothing to do against such power." Crow 1 was forced to concede, after he tried to attack the support on the small cylindrical platform between the two parts, along with four F-14Ds, but all of them ended up either shredded by the TLSs on the lower guard, or on the platform itself, or by RTLS that had been relocated to engage them, or in the case of Crow 1 himself, by a pair of SAAMs.
"This is Joker twelve, I'm going down!" The pilot pushed a scream of agony as the powerful high-caliber cannon of the ADFX-01 destroyed his canopy head-on.
The state of the Savage squadron wasn't good either. Their achievements were nothing but meager victories: surely the nine tenth of the solar panels had been destroyed, along with the majority of the self-propelled anti-air armament, and seven RTLS, but this loss of energy didn't seem to be minded by Excalibur servants. Indeed, the lasers on the Wunderwaffe were still firing at a somewhat high rate, intercepting nearly all weaponry thrown at them, and providing a strong anti-air artillery again the now outnumbered allied fighters.
"We have suffered some losses on the external generators. But the underground superconductor cables are untouched, so alles' gut Herr Sturmbannführer." The Belkan officer in charge of Excalibur power supply reported with a somewhat posed voice.
"This attack is doomed to fail. All fighters, retreat, retreat!" The GHQ officers transmitted, heartsick. Obviously Iskanda would not follow this order. She would fight to the end, trying to at least take down those Erbe that had almost destroyed all of their allied by now, and that were veering toward her, in order to support their leader. She had still two static FAEBs, but would it be enough against two sixth generation aircraft?
"I won't run. Not in face of evil." She stated firmly, pursuing Kupchenko as he was getting a bit more above the airbase at the North of Excalibur.
"Evil, angel, heroes, demons. These are abstract concepts. We are just men, fighting for some cause. History make heroes and villains." Pixy commented, managing to land some hits on the left engine of a Berkut, but at this moment the Belkan fighter slept between his finger like a soap he had got a grasp on, before letting it slip through his fingers. And he suffered some hits on both of his engines as retaliation. However even hit the Eagle would always be faster than the Berkut. As such Pixy was now skimming out of the area, with the few survivors. Some stragglers were still around Excalibur, not wishing to run, but their last stands were just vain efforts and recklessness, not bravery.
"Every Belkans are evil. They just deserve to be wiped out." An Osean pilot spoke, one of the stragglers, as he tried to rush toward Kupchenko, only to be wiped out by the main laser of Excalibur, which instantaneously detonate his fighter before turning to ashes the bail-outing pilot. Kupchenko evaded the fire easily, since he knew when and where it was firing in advance.
"Your point of view is irrelevant. What matters is who has power. And you haven't." Kupchenko retorted harshly, enjoying the view of the pilot being disintegrated. His pawns were slowly setting up. And soon not just their fighters would be disintegrated. Their will was going to fall, sooner or later. Then he would have his revenge.
Tauberg, Belka, 23/05/1995, 14:45, Weather: rough thunder.
The weather was now getting thunderous. After all, it was expected, due to Excalibur fire messing with the static electricity in the air. Under heavy fire, the Allied fighters had retreated, but it was a last-ditch effort kind of retreat. Almost no one was covering each other, and as such they didn't outrun many of the SAAMs launched by the Gault squad. It was understandable, as all had suffered heavy hits caused by energy-based or conventional AA artillery, with some losing ailerons, wingtips, but there wasn't any new Solo Wing or worse No Wing in the retreating crafts. In the end, only Pixy and two F-16Cs, respectively Crow 2 and Savage 1 were getting out of the area, skimming over the small hills in the hope to escape direct fire from Excalibur.
"Du verlost, Eruseanerine." The Erbe callsign "Cipher" commented, as he was almost getting a clear lock on her fighter. She had come with FAEBs only, maybe mistakenly thinking that the Osean reinforcements could have handled the fighters. However, this kind of armament would be no use against his last ERAAM, from the point of view of Cipher, even if he knew what unconventional use she was making of her thermobaric ordnance. And to be honest, they should have brought enough planes to outnumber them by ten to one at least. However, this number not currently reachable due to Osea still dealing with the aftermath of the "EMP disaster" they created by themselves on themselves.
"As long as I'm in the air, I haven't lost!" She retorted with anger, at the moment in the six of Kupchenko, who despite the damage she inflicted to him was still highly mobile. His plane was definitely more resilient than hers. Each time she was fighting him she was hindered by the limitations of her prototype. Just for the sole reason of being a prototype it didn't receive any upgrades since its creation besides her little additions such as this secondary radar, but if it had maybe she could have carried more advanced weaponry in battle.
"Denn friss das. (then eat this)" The young Belkan pilot fired an ERAAM angrily, fed up by her astonishing survival against all odds. For him she should have been dead since their first encounter on B7R. Kupchenko let her live in a fit of pity. Or maybe his Meister had schemes for this war he wasn't understanding right now, like most of the time since he recruited them that day in Hoffnung.
Obviously, her missile alarm warned her only at the last moment, due to this kind of missile being quite stealthy despite having a very high velocity. It wasn't like some QAAMs that possess some re-lock capacities, and thus based on the fact that one plane would lost his mobility dodging one time the missile to ensure it would be successful in the second approach, these missile were designed to strike first and fast. If they were designed with such mind set, they were surely equipped with vector thrust in order to counter evasive maneuvers. Besides, her aircraft had already taken some hit from Kupchenko's gun and other AA fire, so putting more stress on its structure wouldn't be a good thing to do. The only question was: could this missile cross the shockwave from a FAEB unscathed? After all, it had been enough to take down a hypersonic missile during operation Juggernaut.
"You won't escape this time." Kupchenko tried to induce some fear in her, as the heavy-duty missile was on her way. It was now only at five hundred meters from her six. She dropped the static FAEB and flew at full speed forward, letting the missile trailing her go into a straight line toward her plane.
Five seconds later, the missile was caught in the explosion. Though her survival was only thanks to mere luck. Sometimes she asserted that she did not need luck in battle. But it was only for those times when she was facing conventional fighters not supported by otherworldly weaponry that they surely borrowed to some Death star. Iskanda authorized herself some relief and pulling up a head-to-tail maneuver, headed on the one hour of that Cipher pilot. She intended to cross his path and leave some warm Ustian gift on the intersection path. But the other Erbe had still some ERAAMs, and for this reason she would need to keep her weaponry. She couldn't use her FAEB offensively if she wanted to survive a bit longer. The X-29A and ADFX-01 fired at each other head-on, but without any success for any of their pilots
"Unexpected. But this is becoming annoying. Cipher, Amber plan." Gault 1 ordered to his subordinate, knowing one deadly weakness of the X-29A. That his Berkut shared for once, but not anymore. And he was sure that the likelihood that she would deduce the plan from his name was fairly low. Or maybe if she studied old languages, especially the etymology of electricity.
Henceforth, as she went in firing distance, he zoomed in, as if he wanted her to follow him. He had maybe the advantage of bigger engine and thus greater thrust, but she had a tuned engine and lighter craft that allowed her to balance the odds for this climb. Even if it was only a balance in velocity for now, and all odds were still against her. What odds could be better than being helpless and alone, and with a feeling of utter powerlessness after witnessing the full failure of her mission?
Yet, for an unknown reason, or maybe because he was following some secret schemes that she couldn't get a grasp on, he released something. It wasn't a static bomb, Kupchenko was creative enough not to copy her. Or at least if he did so he would surely equip his static armament with some Hypersthene or high-frequency laser. However, a detail caught her attention, a line that seemed like a very black lace linking the device to the fighter. And as she saw that this device was not dropped, but towed by the fighter, she began fearing for her safety. What could it be? A towed TLS, she thought maybe after reminding her foolish assumption she made just seconds ago. That seemed unlikely, or would have seemed to be very unlikely to her before this war, but coming from the Pendragon project everything was possible and the impossible was only something that would take them a bit more time than the usual stuff but seemed reachable.
"TEGS online." The fighter pilot she was pursuing announced, almost with some joy.
"What can it mean?" Iskanda wondered, but the response was quick to come, as she was trying to get a lock on the still-climbing ADFX-01. Her radar went crazy, and a turquoise color began to appear near the device towed by her prey. Apparently, a strong ECM unit. Nothing she couldn't shot down with gun at first hand. So, she speeded up toward the source of the EMIs.
"Behauptung der Spannung über Luft disruptives Feld (augmenting tension above air's disruptor field)." The Belkan pilot muttered some scientific idioms that Thesermeister would have surely understood with ease, and that she might have understood too if she paid a bit more attention in physics class -in which she only focus on things that could explode because it was funnier-.
But she quickly had the response handed over to her as she was getting in gun distance of the device that was hanging three hundred meters behind the Morgan. The turquoise blue surrounding it grew brighter, almost blinding her like she was looking at the sun, but it wasn't its main effect. No, its main effect was far more perverse and aimed toward aircraft needing absolutely numeric compensators for stable fight. Like her one was, for example. Soon she was able to sense her aircraft becoming more and more unstable, and after hearing one more "Behauptung", sparks began to emerge out of the electronics of her aircraft. Now she was understanding was TEGS meaning.
"I guess your new toy is a Towed Electromagnetic pulse Generator System, right?" She asked for confirmation, even if her radio was more and more filled with buzzing sound as the fuse protecting her onboard electronic systems were blowing one by one, filling her canopy with a strong smell of melted metal.
"It is. And when you will have lost everything on your craft, you will fall to your death that you have owned for surviving so far and hindering me so much. Any last word, Fraulein?" Kupchenko replied, as more and more static electricity was around her fighter. The fact that she was still resisting to the electric shocks induced inside her fighter were surely a testament to her strength and willpower, but the three computer she had onboard for the sake of redundancy wouldn't last that long. Even her belly radar was beginning to emit dark smoke and was surely inoperable by now. She was also climbing slowly due to the loss of all wire control, especially to her afterburners.
"At least, when Ulysses will strike at the Earth, you will be protected." She commented the only peaceful use such technological marvel could offer. But it was only the foolish idea of a woman hanging over a very deep precipice, that she once intended to rappel down, but some mad lad was burning the rope with a plasma torch.
"I haven't thought of that. I won't redirect asteroids at Directus, the city is nice, but against Oured I think you can count on me." He agreed that they had the power of changing the course of those debris, even if they were supposed to hit only the Usean and Annean continent. He had the power to do what he wanted, or almost. That was supposing that Excalibur would survive this far. And of course, he was seeing his project surviving, because Osea hadn't any efficient enough counter.
"Auf Wiedersehen. Bitte reserviert einigen Kessel in Hölle für alle deiner Oseaner Alliierten, Sie werden es brauchen. (goodbye, book some heaters in hell for all your Osean allies, they will need some)." Was all she could heard before her entire HUD and panel had only but red lines among them, and electric discharges were beginning to burn through her flightsuit, and a bit of heat was transmitted to her skin, causing her some small pain. She was quite surprised that her fuel tanks hadn't caught fire yet. Or maybe she used her afterburners so much that there wasn't that much fuel to burn now.
But her fate was sealed. A master caution alarm blared on her HUD as her three compensators were out of commission. Obviously, they were just dead due to the loss of all her fuses. As such, her canards ceased ensuring her roll stability, and she fell the second later, which relieved her a bit from the magnetic pulses, but it was too late. All on her fighter was offline. She was falling from three kilometers. She had more than one minute before her death, apparently. Hopefully the last FAEB she was carrying hadn't explode yet, or she would be no more than some moles of flying molecules by now.
"Du erkanntest nicht, dass du bist tot! (you didn't realize that you are tot)" The second Erbe exclaimed while firing her last two ERAAM, as the X-29A was only at two kilometers. It should hit her before she hit the ground, removing any likelihood to attempt a crash-landing. And above all, how could she crash-land over a forest without clear zones?
On a hunch, Iskanda released her last static FAEB, depriving Kupchenko and his subordinates from the spectacle of seeing her crash on the ground. The combined explosive powers of the FAEB and the two heavy-duty missiles were enough to blanket the sky. No chute was sighted due to the very bright explosion occurring at this moment. Survival was quite impossible, giving the conditions here. But he would have preferred to see her fighter exploding into pieces, or his chute burning and her with it. Being deprived of this little price frustrated him a bit, but the satisfaction of having destroyed so much Osean today was compensating it greatly.
"Do we need to launch a ZV operation?" Some subordinate in the facility asked to Kupchenko, as much for this Erusean merc than for all the other Osean pilots and flying officers.
"Kein Versuch und Verstorben (seek and kill) (abbreviated as ZV for Zwei V) Operation. Excalibur is not meant to leave survivors. Do me a Sitrep of our losses and begin listing our needs for the Hoffnung factories." Were the final words of Kupchenko, as he steered toward the runway at the North of Excalibur, rejoiced by this other victory on the allied forces. He was now wondering a bit what could be the allied forces' next move. They would not attack Excalibur right away without further data. But covering urban area or area of close dogfight while ensuring that no allied fighters deduced the area of impact that they usually transmit through phase modulation radio was going to be tricky to say the least, if they wanted to evade blue on blue. As such, the Pendragon project was not a total success now. But it would soon be.
Valais Air Base, Ustio, 23/05/1995, 16:00, Weather: overcast.
The back travel was not a really chatty one. They had lost the chat-boy of the Crow squadron after all, with Galm 2, Savage 1 and Crow 2 being the sole survivors of the forty aircraft formation. Besides, what could be the subject of their talk, with the exception of warning of Excalibur strikes on their radar. And obviously they made it through these Helligen Kolumne, but at a cost in time. As such, they had to be refueled at the bottom of the Valaisian Alps by a Sapin Rafale squadron nicknamed Tequila bar. Maybe at this moment Pixy would have wanted to get drunk with some real tequila, so he could forget how much of a disaster this mission was. He had suffered a loss at Directus, and had to mourn it a bit, but manage to overcome it in the end. He wasn't sure if he will survive this war, or not, especially after this disastrous week for the allied forces overall. This became the main subject after the debriefing made by that Perrault Osean officer.
"There is no such word to describe the mission than a plain disaster. All fighters were shot down by Excalibur, along with the bombers, and we have hidden this fact during the mission not to disturb you: no AE-6Bs nor MQ-9s we deployed to refuel you made it to Cranston. And we have still a good third of our aerial forces grounded due to the aftermath of the failed Yukte nuclear strikes. Now Belka think we are weak and their representative at the Assembly of Nation almost insinuated that we should stop fighting to count our losses or we would lose the count!" He finished on a very frustrated tone, quite angered by the venom this Belkan had spat on his country once more.
"And about Galm 1, what is her status?" Pixy asked, honestly thinking he would respond "K.I. A."
"Missing in Action. The Belkan didn't boast about her death, so we can have little hope she manage to survive there." Perrault replied, doing great efforts not to show his resentment about the B plan. If she had survived, she would enact it without reluctance, after witnessing such power of destruction. However, one thought struck his mind: what can a single man, or woman do, with only one shot? Not much. And thus, he didn't know if she would do enough to help the allied gained a well-needed victory. Just for the sake of troop and civilian morale they were in need of a victory, even a pyrrhic one.
"Still, we will not stop here. Allied forces will keep fighting Belka to the bitter end!" Savage 1 agreed that they would not let Belka get away with this.
"If we think about our attack, I think it looked like what could have happened if the Death Star has no heat vent and her defensive teams were only made of Tie Advanced. For once the small outsiders were destroyed by the well-entrenched Pendragon project soldiers." Crow 2 gave his mind on today's failure as they made it to the restroom, having been from hell to come back to this iced purgatory, without any detour to heaven. In all honesty he should just say through hell.
Pixy didn't even eat this evening. He only drank, trying to forget these fateful days. Who would fight for the Allied and for Ustio since all was now gone. Could they still win the war, he wondered. Distress caught him, but this time he shrugged it away. Mourning his leader for a second time would not bring her back. She would have wanted to keep the war running, but to which aim?
Then he reminded himself his words about victory. Victory does not last. And those about war: It's not fight on the battlefields nor in the skies, but in the heart of the ones that are fighting. To really end a war requires a push, an evolution in understanding. Yet, who could instigate this push? He could not know now, even if deep down he hoped he would know the answer before dying in another pointless battle.
End of chapter
I guess this judgement just seem to be a misjudgment. Osea doesn't understand what's at hand yet.
Now I think I've definitely crossed the way back point. If it had been a game mission the objective would have only been "survive".
Like Pixy said, World need a push to change. Thus, I'm pushing it harder than it was ever pushed. I could say I'm making them face the Apocalypse, However, if we followed Christian mythology the Apocalypse is not the end of the world, but its reshaping.
And above all (after those flights of philosophy) will our cherished protagonist survive? What's death to her? (Or to you if you're getting ready for flight in philosophy)?
Those new DWs are from another Blake and Mortimer, "Valley of Immortals". The satellites are inspired by the "zephyr" pseudo satellite of Airbus. I hope you like those new additions of military hardware. I might have some more in reserve, but not that much yet.
Anyway feel free to comment, follow, promote.
Und bis nächst Mal, Lesern und Leserinnen.
21/1/2020: some grammatical fixing.