The Belkan war: alternative story

by Vergeltern

It did not take great mans to begin wars nor to end then. But to turn the tide of one they are required. This is an alternate history for the Belkan war. Follow an other sixth Unit of Ustio, a different Galm team, as their actions will turn the tide in a twisted, but maybe better way. This story is rated T, but can content some M rated chapter with some depicted violent scenes.

19. Chapter 11: Operation Battle Axe 2

Valais Air Base, Ustio, 5/06/1995, 13:00, Weather: little cloud coverage with high mountain current.

June had finally come, and with it most of the mountains near Valais had lost their snowy color. Of course, the highest ones near the border with Ratio, which were called by this people the Tyran mountains had still a great amount of these eternal snow. Prior to the war, they had shown intent of buying this territory or even some vehemence of conquering it. They thought it was historically theirs because at some point in the medieval era there was a small prosper town on their side of these peaks. Ratioan legends said it had been destroyed by evil Belkans sorcerers in the space of one terrifying night. This false truth had removed any likelihood of a good relationship and good trades between Belka and Ratio more than the mountainous barrier itself. The truth was that it had just been caught up in a gargantuan snow slide. Yet by now Pixy did not know what were the Ratioan intents toward the Valaisian Alps. They were indeed neutral in this war, but neutrality rarely mean lack of aggressivity and backstabbing nowadays. And without the Osean influence to keep them in check, who would prevent them from trying to take these mountains from Ustio that could only come weakened of this conflict for Pixy's point of view, if the wheels of war kept turning

Of course, like any people listening to the radio, he had heard the beginning of the speech at the Assembly of Nation. But only the beginning of it, as only a few seconds later, a very angered Major Perrault turned off the Ustian radio, calling it "informal Belkan propaganda." Pixy was not in the mood to bear another ranting session of weak Osean that could not cope with their lies being revealed.

So, Pixy retreated onboard his Eagle, using the fighters' antenna to listen to Ufree Fm. Even if he missed half of the broadcast due to the hard time he had finding the good frequency in those mountains range that allowed only AM waves to go through, Delacre summed up the news perfectly : the terrific fall of the SOLG that killed more than one thousand sailors in Oured Bay, the announcement of that Andrew Berry for the Pendragon Projekt to decrease the threat of Ulysses and the secession of what was now called the CSB, for Confederation of South Belka. For now, it was just a rogue state that hadn't fully separated from the motherland yet possessing the more powerful Belkan assets in history. And maybe for this reason alone the Rald Partei-led North Belka hadn't waged open war against South Belka right now, since all of Belka, both South and North was in range of Excalibur's strikes.

Obviously, and with the Osean censorship being only partially enacted by the less than ten Osean mens on the base, the news spread like a forest fire in the middle of June after a phosphor bombardment. Hervin had quite a mixed mind about it. He was finding odd the will to fire at Ulysses, but odd in a somewhat good way. The fact that Kupchenko or his protegees led this part of Belka to secession was something he could understand a bit more. After all, him and the people of Belkan origin here, with Nühmer for example had always found quite strange the simple fact that Kupchenko, a man known to be an anarchist, had worked for so long for a far-right dictatorship, on the opposite of any idealistic or political spectrum. He might have needed time to set his plan in motion or used an opportunity at this crucial moment.

Yet right now, Pixy and Crow 2, a man named Nicolas Siemen, had been called for the briefing by Perrault. And both were wondering what this next mission would be, given the context that was a bit agitated to say the least right now. What Osea should do was to try to take advantage of the political chaos within Belka. However, Pixy knew the strength of Belkan pride might make people separated by political ideas agree on one thing: not letting any allied forces planes in Belka.

And as such, he was expecting some highly advanced strategy to capitalize on Belka's current weaknesses. Not a react of the battle that ended on nothing but a straw in favor of Belka. Because it was what he thought they were going into due to the map displayed being once more the area B7R. Sure, they had managed to make the Belkan army bleed, but they would not be close to bleed it dry of pilots before quite a long time.

"Today, the Allied Forces will try to gain hegemony on the B7R. Analysis of the last battle had shown we had a hard time tracking their aircraft at low altitude due to the natural EMIs of this place. As such, the high command thinks it could be possible for us to use stealth planes to infiltrate Belka by making them fly through B7R once you'd have gained control of the airspace. In the meantime, small group of stealth fighters, bombers or scouting craft will try to gather some data on Hoffnung and Sudentor, two major cities in the Belkan military-industrial complex, that will surely be next targets to end Belka's war production." Perrault describe what seemed to Pixy to be a strategy with far too much contingencies and holes, where a single strike of Excalibur could easily jeopardize everything.

"And through where will they go? Tauberg and the Schayne Plains are like a stonewall so well-built you would have trouble getting a knife's blade between two stones of their plasma walls. The great Lakes and Wesson are no good way either." Pixy unbuilt the whole Osean strategy in matter of seconds, and the long sneer Crow 2 let after Pixy threw his replica could mean he had a similar set of minds.

"We had decreased the number of officers getting critical datum such as this intel to decrease the likelihood of leaks. But we have no intention of negotiating anything with either this rogue state the CSB is nor the North Belka. Osea and the allied forces will face this affront and will prevail. By seceding, they have allowed themselves to be vulnerable. Let's remind them what it means to be vulnerable." Perrault retorted, thinking Belka would be vulnerable.

With no point in trying to talk some sense into this Osean officer who would just stick to the rules even if most of the wars broke most of the rules anyway, they left the briefing room. To be fair, Pixy had nothing to care about Osea, Belka or any of both countries' strategies. What he only wanted today would be to finally face the Grabacr squad and avenge his first squad leader's death. This would be his reason to survive up there. He would not allow himself to die before being sure all members of the said squadron are six feet under. But when he took off with his wings and pylons loaded to the brim with anti-air ordnance, he did not know someone was about to take off too, quite far away from Valais Air Base of course, but often destiny like to be twisted in those troubled times.

As he flew away from the base, he was thinking about one of their first battle here, when they had taken down the invasion forces, their Bm-335Ns and their XB-70 Valkyries. He remembered the speech of Koenig, with him having said that the winner of this battle would determine who would win the Belkan war. But now he was starting to doubt in the words of his now missing leader. This war had taken a new step due to the Belka being shattered one more time. Yet in which sense were those steps taken? This was a very good question, Pixy mused, as they received a last good luck message.

"Pixy, please come back alive and with both of your wings." Herr Steller implied, wishing he wouldn't try to set his "Solo Wing" count higher this time.

"Why? Are we out of supplies?" Pixy asked, a bit worried they were affected by the EMP disaster too.

"Not to fix your wing, but we have no more red paint." Steller ended the talk on an almost funny quote. Giving these last moments a bit of fun was nothing but was sometime a bit helpful. And whatever their beliefs were, God knew they would need a bit of help today, Herr Steller realized as the F-15C and F-16C were disappearing from the radar of the base.

Mausoleum Bunker, Schayne Plains, Belka, 05/06/1995, 13:20, Weather: light breeze.

Kellerman had described her the full details of the battle in which he had fought against his former student. It had seen the engagement of HIMAT fighters on both sides, but the Belkan ones such as the F-14W Wildcat, the F/A-18MW Mörder Wespe and the F-4X III Geist were far superior to the only new craft the Osean unveiled, being those F-15F Agile Eagle. Only the numerical advantage the Osean and the Yukte brought on the bargain table had managed to ensure that it ended on a straw. Still, the exchange ratio was not in the favor of the allied forces. So, she had set her course to be there, in the middle of this denied battlespace. She knew the Oseans would surely try once more to break B7R, and the Belkan would try to hold on to it at all cost. After all, Belka were proud warriors that rarely retreated. Or then only did when there was no other way to end a battle, or for Kupchenko's case, when he knew he would achieve victory greater than any short term sacrifice he could had done sooner during their first encounter above B7R for example.

"Bereit für den Start (ready for take-off)?" Kellerman asked, as they had put together the former Su-47 of Kupchenko into the emergency landing system of the Bunker, which could be used in reverse as an emergency launching system in the same way carrier catapult acted. Still the Su-47 was not made for such maneuvers, at least not intended to. She knew it could resist the mechanic stress this sudden acceleration would put the craft through, but it would be hard for her to bear so many Gs in such a short time. She knew those were longitudinal Gs and not vertical Gs, but still, she would feel them.

"Immer bin ich. (Always I am)." She responded with confidence, while the words of Sainte Victoire were echoing in her mind: she would meet her on the battlefield, the apparition had said so. Would that mean she would be victorious again? Technically she had always survived until now, so she had not suffered the ultimate defeat that death is but seeing her brother and sister-in-arms being swapped away by the Helligen Kolumne had shaken a bit her fighting spirit. And she would not see utter victory like they obtained the day they liberated Directus before long.

"Gut. Start jetzt. (launching now)." The former Silber 1 indicated, and under the formidable pressure than run through the hydraulic system, the Berkut was launched with an astonishing speed. In only a few seconds she had gone from zero to a few hundred kilometers per hour. She could do nothing but felt the horrible sensation of being compressed, like she was weighting ten times her own weight or even more.

"Ich bin in der Luft (I'm airborne). Richtung, B7R (toward: B7R)." She informed the old pilot of her will to go to fight. Yet she did not know for who she would fight. Furthermore, Kellerman had not tried to steer her mind in any direction nor toward any cause, letting her be free of her fights. She was free to fight whoever she wanted. No one would hinder her this time. No one would deprive her of victory ever again.

Area B7R, Belka, 5/06/1995, 13:40, Weather: high stratus.

Pixy and Crow 2 had quite a quiet way to B7R, despite them having to evade countless time Helligen Kolumne before they arrived at the border of the area. How many Osean, Yukte and Sapins were dying each time they took off without having a single chance to defend themselves, and with their sacrifices achieving nothing was a good question that would only see an answer if this war ever come to an end, and the answer would maybe reach the hundreds of thousands by that time. Memorials for the departed would be of colossal size if they wanted to write all of their names on these cold stones.

Like last time, their radar was almost jammed by the raw magnetic materials beneath the Round Table. Still, what they could see in their restricted area was utter chaos. Pixy had thought the defenders of the Round Table would put their pride above their disparities, but he was wrong for once. This place was like in peacetime, when mercenaries of all nations and Belkan officials clashed without any support, and without the Belkan officials supporting each other.

In the close proximity, an Osean squad of two-seaters F-14Ds was fighting against two squads of Typhoons which were fighting each other in the same time. Some had a grey and faint blue splinter camo while the others had a two-tone sandy camo. Which ones were fighting for the North or for this CSB? He had no idea, with his IFF showing only Belkans belonging to two ideals, but all of them were red ones, while the allied forces, mostly Oseans, were blue ones. He hadn't the time to think through this too much, to be honest. Pixy sighted, a bit tired to see the once brave defenders of the Round Table, its modern knights in duraluminium armor fighting each other like a band of rabid dogs.

"Let's dive into the action!" Crow 2 cheered, trying to compensate for his rather pessimistic mood. What had been positive in those last two weeks anyway? Maybe the announcement made about Ulysses was the only good thing that had come out of this conflict. His F-16C in which he had arrived at 5 kms dived toward the area of fighting between those three squads. His smaller F-16C, the sole survivor of Crow squad and one of the only survivors of the mission against Excalibur and the first Battle-Axe operation outside Pixy, was followed by the latter in their foolish dive toward the heated battlespace. But Pixy's reaction showed way less enthusiasm:

" Scheiße. jetzt geht das wieder los! (shit, here we go again)" Pixy swore, as the battlespace was already nothing but a complete mess.

As he dived, he went closer to them, and as such his radar could assess the data better. There was thirteen Typhoon in total, but he couldn't count how many were in each of their separate squads, and the Osean F-14Ds were only six by now. Luckily for them most of the Belkans were busy evading the fire of their former brother-in-arms, meaning that the Osean could survive a bit longer, and even act with a bit more of aggressivity than usual.

Immediately three Typhoons in splinter camo released a long-range missile volley. Pixy evaded them with ease, since radar tracking was very poor in this area. What were those ones thinking if they thought they could use such strategy here? Maybe those ones were the Northern ones, and as such they lack the habit of having to deal with the natural EMIs of this place, Galm 2 guessed. They did show some perseverance in their intention of shooting him down, since they attacked him head-on once their long-range attack failed. However, Pixy wasn't planning on dying against such planes as he survived quite easily his encounter with the Rot Squadron some months earlier, in this very place. As such, he attacked them head-on too, having to dodge their denser fire as he was getting closer. Using the rather large lock-on radius of his radar, he fired two missiles on the one at his left, before ripping the wing of the centered one with his gun, while releasing a QAAM locked on the last EF-2000.

"Gott Verdammt! I can't shake it!" The Belkan cursed, as the F-15C had turned very tight behind him, and in the same time the QAAM had made a U-turn too. The Nord Belkan pilot managed to outrun them for some seconds, but the interceptor-killer that the F-15C was, intended to reach speed making it able to caught even the mighty MiG-31 Foxhound- , and the RAMJET engine of the QAAM did not let him great possibilities of survival. Pierced by gunfire, he was unable to evade the missile. The burning Typhoon splintered into a million ablaze pieces before he even had a chance to bail out.

Pixy then went closer to the other allied fighters, seeking to relieve them of the weight of having to fight while being outnumbered. The Osean were not used to such odds, while this was a fundamental doctrine that they would learn back in the Belkan Air Force. You will always be outnumbered when fighting Oseans, they said. But their number was their weakness sometimes. Because when they would be isolated, alone and in a one-on-one fight, their illusion of power would be shattered and then the Belkans would not be surrounded by Osean pilots, but by fear and dead mens.

In the meantime, Crow 2 downed two other Typhoons: he charged them head-on, launching a pair of XMAA to disturb them and prevent them from launching head-on missiles at himself. Right after he crossed the two planes, making use of the light profile of his jet. By luck, an Osean F-14D was firing at them with SAAMs, and they were busy avoiding those long-range missiles that weren't disturbed by the magnetic interference. Indeed, the usual load for F-14Ds was XLAAs, but the Oseans realized the SAAMs had some advantage in the Round Table. As such, they didn't see the second pair of XMAA that the F-16C launched from quite close to be sure they wouldn't be submitted to this natural jamming.

"You like to go into the fire, Ustians." An Osean WSO commented, as he was waiting for his pilot to be in lock-on position at the two sandy camo Typhoons in their F-14D's one hour. Three seconds later a lock-on alarm blared, and a blue and grey Typhoon was trailing them, forcing the WSO to use the flares and chaffs to lose the missiles the Typhoon was firing at them. A Nord Belkan had almost defended a CSB craft, but it was only as he sought to kill an Osean one.

"We'd rather go into the fire than let it reach us." Pixy responded, as he engaged his afterburners, rushing to the rescue of the Osean F-14D, while another Osean F-14D was already engaging the two Typhoons the first Tomcat intended to attack. In less than ten seconds Pixy caught up with the Nord Belkan Typhoon, falling on it like an eagle on its prey. Still, the Typhoon had managed to land a few hits on the F-14D wing-root, resulting in a bit of asymmetric distortion of the geometric wing. On the other hand, the other Osean F-14D had managed to down one EF-2000 while the second one was dealt with some snapshots from Crow 2.

"Only five Belkan Typhoon left." The Osean commander, who was none but the pilot of the F-14D Pixy had just saved, announced with an old and stern voice.

"Make that four." A younger Osean voice spoke, reporting a kill he had obtained not easily at all, having to pursue the Belkan for some time and wasting three SAAMs the Belkan invaded by doing vertical yo-yo. And even after hitting it on the engines, the Typhoon which was spewing black smoke and flames managed to pull out some high-G maneuver and went below the Tomcat, landing some hits on the engine of the Osean aircraft as last retaliations. Luckily for the Osean, as the two engines of the F-14D were further away from each other than the Typhoon's, only one was hit when on the Belkan Typhoon the twin engines ignited the whole aircraft's structure a few seconds later.

" Nur zwei." Pixy killed two more sandy camo Typhoons head-on, firing a missile on each before extending his airbrake near breaking point, turning quite tight to get in the six of the two already damaged EF-2000s and finishing them with a pair of XMAAs.

Now there was only two Typhoons left, however those two were in different camos, which implied they weren't fighting for the same side. And as such, before any allied pilot could even land a gun hit on any of these two, the sandy one managed to kill the other head-on, saturating him with XLAAs. And then it went for the F-14D piloted by that young Osean voice, as Pixy recognized the sound of his voice when he heard him calling for help a few seconds later. Both aircraft were in his six right now, a bit below him. He knew what his leader would have done in such situations. He did the same.

"I'm coming to help. Just stay on a straight vector, Kind!" Galm 2 ordered, more serious than ever. This maneuver, he had never tried to use it before. He had only the memories of his flight leader enacting it. After all, she was the crazy woman piloting HIMAT, not him. So, he pulled a semi Split-S, keeping his plane inverted, and rushed to the F-14D.

"What are you do… ah!" The Osean pilot of the F-14D wasn't understanding at first what this Belkan merc was pulling out, then surprise and astonishment stricken him as the F-15C flew right above him, with the right rudder tips being only a few decimeters above his canopy. This Pixy guy had the time to made him a small hand gesture, but he only saw blurred things, while he forced himself not to act as his whole mind was screaming at him to move away from the incoming aircraft.

Then Pixy opened fire on the CSB craft which his pilot was maybe as surprised as the Osean pilot was. Of course, he had heard of this Galm 1 pilot flying X-29A who would pull out crazy stunts, but he did not know her subordinates would do such feet. Pixy launched a XMAA while inverting back his aircraft to evade the gunfire of his opponent, aiming right at the Typhoon. Flying at full speed, he overrun his own missile, crossed the EF-2000 craft's path and saw it exploding in his six.

"That was close, Thanks you Sir." The Osean pilot sighted, not, and not at all at a hundred percent not used to this kind of piloting. And he was maybe so surprised that this caused him to call Pixy "Sir". He could authorize himself a bit of relief, as the nearest Belkan squadron was only MiG-29s and was only eight aircraft strong. But would they be fighting each other's or not this time was not a certainty, when it had greatly helped them against those EF-2000, to be honest.

"Don't use that term. That's for officials, Kind." Pixy retorted, not wanting to be put in the same box that some of those proud and stuck-up officials. Sure, he possessed a sense of pride like any Belkan, but from his own action and not a degenerate form of patriotism.

"That's funny how he got your nickname without knowing it, Kid." The Osean commander allowed himself to express a bit of humor after witnessing such chaos.

"Stop calling me "Kid", Lieutenant Deagle!" The younger Osean pilot, identified as Bartlett, tried to response with a bit of authority but lacked strength in his voice to do so.

"Wacht mal Kind. Idealist sterben früher (watch out, kid, idealist die sooner)." Pixy warned him, as he was trying to process the few disparities that he had noticed on the CSB and Nord Belkan aircraft in matter of camo or insignia, while flying up close. He had noticed that the CSB weren't harboring the traditional Belkan insignia, a small Belkan cross with the color of Belka inside. Maybe they weren't wearing anything because they had not figure out some cool insignia to use other than the name of their new allegiance.

"Come on. The Round Table is nothing special, I can handle myself." Bartlett responded once more, which caused Pixy to sigh heavily, thinking they had another guy with the same mindset than PJ in the allied air force now. And unfortunately for him, if he died, he would bring a WSO down with him. Pixy hoped one of them could at least succeed in bailing out if needed.

And now the six Osean F-14D and the two Ustian aircraft were crossing the thin border between Belkan and Ustio, ready to engage those Fulcrums. On the allied side there was some F-15Cs and Yukte Su-27s closing by. However, behind the squad of Fulcrums Belkan F-15S/MTDs seemed to be coming. Only South Belkan had such prototypes since most of the prototype testing was made through Kupchenko's jurisdiction. The only thing Pixy wished right now was that those MiG-29s to be Nord Belkans, as such the F-15S/MTD would fire at them too, and that Kupchenko hadn't equipped the F-15S/MTD with ERAAMs. Or this "Kid" would definitively go down today.

Kreuzbergsee, Belka, 5/06/1995, 13:50, Weather: rainy, risk of thunder.

With Excalibur firing at a consistent pace, it was only normal to have nearly thunderous weather above the lake named Kreuzbergsee, which was almost on top of a small mountain eroded by time. As she was progressing above this nice piece of landscape, she asked herself if there would be such lake in the caldera she had created at the top of the central peak of Mt Ivrea. At least it would be a more peaceful sight to see than the threatening anti-air command tower who stood there and that she destroyed almost a month ago.

Yet this darker daytime would help her have some cover, the dark cloud helping to mask her already very dark Su-47. To spot it one would need hawk eyes. Or maybe phase modulation radars to be a bit more realistic.

She had not been spotted until here, but the squadron of nine Belkan Su-37s with a black and white camo and silver radome would notice her without any doubt. Her onboard radar identified them as the Kaiserritter (Emperor Knight) team, which emblem was a silver shield featuring a dark double-headed Belkan imperial eagle. Kellerman had said Dinsmark was once the capital of the Belkan empire, and as such she could maybe deduced these ones were coming from the Aldernest Base of Dinsmark Pixy talked about. She was about to try to solve her ways, having prepared a small Belkan speech in her mind while flying alone, but their leader wasn't willing to let her talk her way through, apparently, as he inquired her with a rude voice:

"Woher kommst-du (Where do you come from)?"

"Aus den Ebenen von Schayne (From the Schayne Plains)." She answered with honesty, not wanting to blow her cover, and ready to use her small explanatory speech.

"Sie kommt aus Süden. Denn sie muss einem dieser Befürworter dieser verdammten CSB! Abschließen Sie!" (She come from the South. Then she must be one of those supporters of this damned CSB. Shoot her down.) Kaiserritter 1 ordered, as he set her as an enemy target for his and his team's IFF identifiers.

"Aber ..." Iskanda thought for half a second to try to restrain herself from the fight, then give up on that idea the next half of second. If they wanted a fight, they would have one. She had already downed Gelb leader. Those Terminators were going to meet their judgement day. They were engaging her head-on in a pyramid-like formation, with the leader on the front, two behind, then two pairs behind the three first in a staggered pattern and the last two further behind and outside of their formation. This was a very aggressive frontal charge. Their aggressivity was demonstrated by the volley of XLAAs they fired at her once the first one had a lock on her.

She could only evade the long-range volley by hitting the deck toward the lake. The missiles trailing her were lost in the trails her engines produced as she skimmed above the water, impacting each other, and allowing her to survive this violent first onslaught. But while she had done that, the nine planes had set themselves in a mauling circle, flying over her like vultures waiting for their prey to die and nourish on her remains. However, Iskanda was only willing to nourish vultures with their bodies and not hers, even if the fight would not leave that much remains on the ground.

So, she stood her ground and climbed back, thus avoiding the fire of two planes that had pitched downward to fire at her from above. The XLAAs they both fired crossed each other's path only a few hundred meters below her, as she was climbing vertically, hoping to use the excellent mobility the Berkut was supposed to possess. But the Su-37s possessed quite good vertical mobility too, and as such three of them had no trouble following her in her upward motion, while she had to avoid by close vertical barrel-roll the missiles the other members of this squadron that had set her as a target for no reason. Because she was fully unaware of Kupchenko's doing, or the doings of his followers these Belkan mongrels were accusing her of being one. And she had no clue what this acronym Kaiserritter leader used to designate this faction he thought she belonged to. The B in CSB might be for Belka, but why would Belkan fight each other right now. She must have missed some events during her time on the ground without any news of the outside besides the ones Kellerman brought. And in the meantime, since his fight above B7R many things could have happened.

Of course, she had not much time to think about all of this right now, as she was pursued and outnumbered. Odds were not in her favor, but since when did she care about odds? She never did. She hadn't backed down when she took back Directus, and against even greater odds. She quickly knew what she had to do with the three trailing her, and that would imply the use of the modification Kellerman advised her to do on this Berkut's armament. For the others, she had no idea. She had only one: she would survive. And she had already persuaded herself that Victory was achievable for her today by now. And that she would do everything in order to achieve her goal.

So, she fired the proximity-fuse high explosive rockets that they had managed to mount instead of the SAAMs, and in a backward firing angle. At this moment one Su-37 had managed to get closer than the others, and as such the fuse were activated by his craft above his two Belkan teammates, blowing only this lead aircraft. The good mobility of the other Su-37s trailing her allowed them not to suffer direct hits from the explosions nor the shockwaves, but the falling debris of their fallen comrades got sucked into their air intakes, resulting in the two of them losing their thrust and suddenly stalling in one of the worse position. More XLAAs came as retaliation for this shot, which she evaded by diving on the two vulnerable Su-37. She would not let them any chances to recover.

"Was passiert? (What's happened?)" One of the Belkan firing at her from afar asked, not understanding what had happened immediately.

"Sie benutzt einige explosive Bewaffnung (She used some explosive armament)." Another Kaiserritter commented, hoping this unidentified Su-47 they took for a CSB craft was not some prototype created by the Pendragon Projekt and that those explosions they just witnessed had not been caused by Hypersthene.

Yet it didn't require any Hypersthene for Iskanda's Berkut to shoot down the two falling aircraft, which she respectively ended with a bit of gunfire for the closest one, and the furthest one with a pair of missiles. Both airplanes were cut into pieces by the fire they suffered and the great mechanical stress this fall induced on them. Their remains plunged into the cold water of the Kreuzbergsee in a great geyser of steam.

Now she had only six to deal with. Three were in her one hour as she climbed back, and three were in her eight hours. It was not an optimal firing position for them, so she could maybe focus on the three almost facing her while the other would try to go in her sixes. These three seemed to be seeking confrontation and retribution too, since they did not try to go in any other way than head-on toward her. They fired their missiles, but she had already dived a bit to cross their path below them. As such they overflew her harmlessly, and even by pitching down their aircrafts they did not manage to land a single gun hit on her aircraft.

After bypassing this little joust that she had not the forward-facing firepower to handle correctly, she zoomed in, but not without firing another HEFR (High Explosive Fuse Rocket) on the one at the middle of the formation. Then she performed a small barrel-roll to set her rear window of fire on the left one. And fired again. She had no trouble pulling a small Himmelman to swoop down on her last prey of this three-plane group, killing him with gun shot fired vertically above the Terminator's canopy, piercing the body and surely the skull of this obstinate Belkan pilot. They might have been headstrong this time, but their head was certainly not strong enough to resist bullets.

It was by this moment that she noticed that the three others Su-37s had been taken down by long-range missiles. She had maybe failed to notice that right away due to the very bright light the explosive armament she just used to down three of those Terminators produced. Her radar identified her saviors as a squad of four Su-27 Flankers, with white body and black and grey splinter camo on their wings. Once more technological superiority had fallen to piloting skills, apparently. She would have like that the same happened above Tauberg.

"Netz 1 zu Unbekannten, alles' gut? (Netz one to the unknown, is everything alright?" The Belkan leading that squadron asked her as they came closer to her position, having rarely seen plane dueling with the Kaiserritter squad and coming out of it alive.

"Ye... Ja, alles' gut. Warum haben sie mir angegriffen?" (Yeah, everything's fine. Why did they attack me?) She asked back, not understanding why Belkan would break their unity when they could have a chance to stand tall against Osea.

"Sie mussten gedacht haben du war mit der CSB, weil du kommst aus Süden. So was machtest du hier, Fräulein? (They must have thought you were with the CSB since you were coming from the south. So, what were you doing here, milady?)" Netz 1 explained to this female pilot who seemed fully unaware of the new Belkan secession, which left him a bit puzzled to say the least. Anyone with access to a radio had. Yet himself did not know in which side he was with absolute certainty. He was only loyal to the Belkan people and not to its broken government.

"Ich war über Schayne abgeschlossen, aber ich erreichte, dieses Flugzeug von einem verstorbenen Piloten zu reparieren. (I was shot down above Schayne, but I managed to fix this craft of a fallen pilot) " She explained her discoveries in a somewhat subtle way, thus altering the truth for practicality. She couldn't say "I stole the former plane of Anton Kupchenko in the Mausoleum of his family" if she wanted not to appear suspect. After all, the man that Kupchenko was at this moment was dead by now and the man he had become had to be dead too: she knew no way of surviving cyanide.

"Interessante Geschichte (interesting story)." Netz 2 commented, finding astonishing that someone had managed to survive the Helligen Kolumne. He had lost some friends that day who managed to bail out but ended up being fried by the ionized gas. It had been the price to pay to down hundreds of allied planes and kill nearly one thousand airborne troops in the transport the Osean thought they had succeeded in providing security for.

"Nach welche Richtung warst du geflogen jedenfalls (Where were you heading to, anyways)?" Netz 1 intervened, curious about this unknown that seemed to speak Belkan fluently but without any tonal accent. Maybe this female pilot was of foreign origin.

"Nach B7R." Iskanda responded quickly, being not very used to long sentences with their complex subordinate clauses filled with rules and exceptions.

"Gut. Aber dein IFF Sender ist nicht up to date. Ich werde neue Daten durch PM Radio senden. (Good. But your IFF transmitter is not up to date, I'll send you some new data through PM radio)." Netz leader indicated, willing to have every man or woman he could get on his side, and not willing for this new pilot to have his life put at risk due to IFF issues.

"Ver. So ich schalte die PM Radio ein, und denn das ist gut (Roger. So, I switch the PM radio on and then it's good)?" Iskanda inquired the Belkan leader to help her understanding of this technology Kellerman could barely explain her, himself being not a tech-savvy.

"Ja. Ich brauche nur eine neue Name (Yes. I only need a new name)." Netz leader said, ready to connect his onboard computer to hers.

"Nennt mir "Schwarze Luchs" (Name me Dark Lynx)." She carefully chose her new nickname. She could have chosen something that had to do with wolves, but she was more of a small predator that like to use surprise than pack-hunting. Therefore, Luchs was better suited for her, or what she thought.

"Schöne Name. (nice name)" Netz 3 judged the bit of artistic sense there was behind that name. After all, this Su-47 possessed a Vantablack camo, making the "Schwarze" designation quite fitting.

Onboard her craft, Iskanda could see the PM radio working as the transfer of data was on. It was quite a complex transmission mean with strong encryption. She could see data needed for the deciphering change quite fast on her screen, such as frequency, amplitude and phase, with those values needed for PM radio transmission being apparently sent through encrypted AM or FM radio. Taken separately those numbers would have not meant something, especially with the unity of phase they were using, the radians, which was not a very concrete unit compared to degree. After fifteen second all had ended, and all the Netz squadron members could see her as a blue spot identified as "Schwarze Luchs".

"Gut. Schwarze Luchs, Netz Schaft, Heute gehen wir die Tafelrunde desinfizieren von alliiertem Abschaume (Good. SLuchs, Netz. Today we will cleanse the Round Table of the allied scum)!" Netz leader set their and thus her course for the oncoming battle. To change her allegiance wasn't affecting her all that much. As long as she could keep fighting and obtain victory, she was fine.

"Ver." She responded with full confidence, before climbing a bit with a high angle but not vertically, and then diving to the ground. She leveled only a few hundred meters above the ground, relieved of any stress she could have had due to the prior fight by this little flow of adrenaline she got through this little stunt. Using the acquired speed thanks to gravity, she went in supercruise with the four Flankers trailing her. Victory was waiting for her on the battlefield. And it was under its flag that she would obtain it today.

Area B7R, Belka, 5/06/1995, 14:10, Weather: high stratus.

Downing these MiG-29s had not been too hard for the allied forces pilots, thanks to the support of a dozen Yukte Su-27s in a dark green two-tone camo. They had only suffered two losses: a Flanker and a F-14D. Luckily the Osean commander and the "Kid" had managed to stay alive. And apparently these F-15S/MTDs didn't possess ERAAMs, because they were now at less than ten kilometers away from the allied forces -so in estimated range for the ERAAMs, according to analysis of previous battles-, and the allied forces hadn't suffered massive losses by a volley of those devilish missiles almost impossible to counter due to their enormous range. Yet, Pixy know this wouldn't be easy. Even if some Osean F-15Cs and a squad of Yukte Su-33s would arrive almost at the same time than the Belkan Actives Eagle, the fight would be a long and tiring one.

Now he was counting twelve F-15S/MTDs that were closing on the battlespace. They would get into XLAAs range by the minute. And the radar was showing again new Belkan reinforcement, but only four Su-27s. The allied numbers were five F-14Ds, eleven Su-27s, eight Eagles and nine Sea Flanker. Yet having thirty-five fighters that provided them numerical superiority was nothing but an hindrance in this heated battlespace, due to fighters possessing different armament that could not be used at the same range, and as such, they would have to let holes in their formations to fire long-range missiles.

Pixy decided to hit the deck to avoid getting locked at long-range and was followed by the other Ustian and some Oseans. Then they slowly progressed above the edge of the mountains in the vicinity toward the Belkan forces, hoping to surprise them somehow. But most of the allied forces staid at medium level, waiting for the Belkan to be in range of their weaponry. They had chosen between short term glory and long-term survival, Pixy mused. And more than often people chose the first instead of the latter, despite the latter being the ultimate rule in battlefields.

One minute after he dived to evade the first exchange of fire that he knew would cause massive casualties on both sides, they effectively caused losses on both sides, with the skies filled with small explosions. but with higher numbers the allied forces could only suffer higher casualties than the Belkans.

"Why aren't they diving?" Pixy shouted in desperation, while volley of XLAAs, XMAAs and SAAMs were fired above his head.

"I guess they all wanted to get their one kill." Crow 2 sighted, now not very optimistic about the becoming of the battle, especially for the Oseans F-15Cs.

"Damn'it. Dive, Hurricane squad!" The Osean leader of the F-14D squad that had chosen to follow this merc for once ordered at his colleagues in F-15C, but it was too late. Where he had followed common sense and this merc that had survived most of his battles -he guessed it could only increase the survival of his squadron -, the Osean F-15Cs had chosen nonsensical way. As such, all F-15C were down. Only one Belkan Eagle was shot down on the other hand, when twelve Yukte fighters were shot down. Fifteen aircraft versus eleven seemed good odds still, but if only they manage to shoot all of them before those four Belkan Flankers arrived.

Of course, the Belkan pilots weren't planning on letting the allied forces bypass them, what Pixy intended to do. The F-15S/MTD squadron dived toward their formation after the first exchange of fire, thus avoiding the retaliation of the few allied survivors at high altitude, and at the same time Pixy's fighter group was climbing to engage them. Pixy attacked three Belkan craft head-on, downing one with a pair of missile on the left one while firing his gun on the right one, but he suffered a bit of gun fire from the craft at the center of their three plane formation, slightly behind the others. This caused his left afterburner to become inoperative. And he had to shut down both in order to keep yaw stability.

For a moment the Belkan pilot Pixy was beginning to trail thought he would outmaneuver the slightly slowed Eagle with his F-15S/MTD. He should have been able to, due to the canards of his fighter increasing its mobility. However, those canards and vectored nozzles were double-edged sword, their addition resulting in a loss of thrust. As such, if the F-15S/MTD was more mobile than Pixy's Eagle, he couldn't keep up with its stronger engines. Still, the Belkan pilot did manage to get in the six of his mercenary counterparts after enacting very sharp turns. The Belkan pilot tried to exploit this window of fire as his foe was accelerating. Pixy was soon out of gun range, and as the F-15C with two red wingtips had dived while fleeing, the XLAAs were no use. In the end, Pixy gained enough speed to utterly outrun his opponent, and pulled out an Himmelman toward him. The F-15S/MTD decided to shoot first, but this allowed Pixy to evade his missile by flying inverted and thus his trajectory went below his Belkan opponent's missiles. Pixy chose to fire a QAAM inverted, with the missile climbing straight on the active Eagle.

As he leveled a bit far from this heated and denied battlespace, he saw that many planes had been engaged in the same kind of joust he fought with this F-15S/MTD. Half of their F-14Ds were down now, along with some other Yukte Flankers that survived the dreadful exchange of fire. Those Belkans were evening the odds numerically speaking, but it would mean they would be in an advantageous position.

But from this point of view, he could see another thing happening: the F-14D of Kid had managed to land a hit on the nozzles of a F-15S/MTD but was unable to get the kill due to two other Belkans chasing him. "I'm not planning on letting Kindern die in battle." He asserted, before rushing once again in the heat of battle.

"Fly faster. They're gonna chew us apart!" The WSO of Kid shouted to his pilot, seeing on his screen that the cell of their aircraft wouldn't last that long. Even if they had not taken any missiles, the Belkan bullets were powerful enough to injure heavily their fighter, depriving it of its legendary mobility. Of course, its mobility was legendary in the seventies.

"I'm already at full afterburner. And if keep up that pace we will run out of fuel even if we survived this dogfight." Bartlett replied, trying to focus on something else than the lock-on alarms and the Belkan bullets grazing his Super Tomcat.

The two Belkan F-15S/MTDs had begun a rather slow scissoring maneuver, wanting to trap the already damaged F-14D in their crossfire. Bartlett had no other choice but to fly vertically, but with his engine having suffered damage the thrust was not enough to sustain his vertical flight for long. Still, it was enough to evade the crossfire. Ten seconds later the F-14D stalled and fell toward the ground. In their fall they received once more some Belkan bullets, with their aircraft rolling out of control making it harder to evade.

The Osean pilot managed to level, but only to find the two Belkans still trailing him, and about to begin another scissoring maneuver on him. If he stall-climbed once more, he would hit the deck. And trying to run would only mean that they would be in XLAA range, and he wouldn't even have the time to paint the bullseyes before the Belkans hit them. However, as a terrific quietness was reigning onboard the F-14D as he and his WSO had settled for their death, the unthinkable happened : the left one was hit by some bullets that cut his canards and ruined his turning motion, while the right attacker was downed by a missile on his cockpit. But neither Belkan had stopped their forward motion, and the two lose craft were still steered toward him. Then they heard a voice that forced them out of this train of pessimistic thoughts:

"Kind, Run. PC max!"

"Roger, we're getting out of here!" The Osean pilot responded to this unofficial order, still surprised but happy to have escaped death just mere seconds ago.

The two F-15S/MTDs locked into their scissoring maneuver impacted each other at the very place where the Osean F-14D stood five seconds ago. Pixy sighted, authorizing himself a bit of relief, having permitted one survival. Yet true survivors in this place had to earn it, not have it handed by procuration.

In the meantime, Crow 2 and the Osean F-14D leader had managed to have two shared kills, when attacking head-on two Belkan Actives Eagle. The F-14D staid a bit behind, having greater range than the smaller F-16C. And Crow 2's F-16C was agile enough to evade the missile and bullets the two F-15S/MTDs launched at him, before semi-inverting his aircraft and going between the two larger Belkan fighters. And while they were busy evading the SAAMs of the Osean leader, the F-16C caught them from behind, firing with accuracy his gun on their nozzles. And with their engines in bad shape, they weren't able to evade the XMAAs and SAAMs of the two respective allied aircrafts.

Pixy and the F-14D succeeded in terminating the F-15S/MTD this Osean pilot had hit before, with Pixy using his greater skilled at dogfight to make the Belkan pilots lose it speed dramatically. And a well-aimed SAAM sealed his fate. The three other F-15S/MTDs were dealt by the Yukte survivors, but at a great expand in weaponry and at the sacrifice of all remaining allied Su-27s. This left them with only eight allied crafts in the close vicinity. Still, a squad of fourteen Yukte MiG-29Ks, the carrier-compatible Fulcrum was incoming. They would have had substantial different load if they had been in an air-to-ground or air-to-see mission than the ground-based Fulcrum, but in such engagement their load was the same: SAAMs.

" Niemen squad incoming." One of their colleagues in his Sea Flanker informed, recognizing the fourteen aircraft squad, which was coming by the South-West. They were bearing a splinter two tone green camo, and their emblem was an eagle flying above the Niemen river. The four Belkan Flankers were coming from the North-West. Yet Pixy's radar spotted for a second a small anomaly.

Area B7R, Belka, 5/06/1995, 14:18, Weather: high stratus.

On their way to the Round Table, Iskanda received some news about the geopolitical state of the world. She could have anticipated that a man like Kupchenko which possessed the world most powerful armament would pull some kind of coup d'état. Mens and women with enough will could obtain everything if they were ready to make sacrifices. And Kupchenko seemed pretty ready to let the Rald Partei-led North Belka die to achieve what he wanted.

But the other announcement, she couldn't have foreseen it in any way. Sure, she had indeed implied during her last talk that Excalibur could be used to weaponize Ulysses. However, she had never expected such a move from her adversary. This was a display of compassion for the world, aiming to gain support for the still unrecognized CSB. But who was she to try to understand this tactician? She couldn't right now. She was only brave enough to face him, and wise enough to agree that in the current state of things, she had no chance at pulling the Sword of the Kings out of the rock.

In the end, all of this only contributed to further increase her doubt in the success of her assassination attempt. Of course, he wasn't the only person leading this Pendragon Projekt, and as such others could have made this decision for him. Furthermore, it wasn't him who made this announcement but one of his subordinates. Yet, she had survived the fire of Excalibur. Then he could have survived a bit of cyanide if she survived a bit of plasma.

Netz 1 had not made an absolute certainty about who they would choose to fight. The allied forces were obvious targets. Since they were from Blumenberg, a city in the middle of the occidental Belka, they were Southerners. Though they weren't fully convinced secessionist, but they would not hesitate a single bit before engaging North Belkan if they showed hostility. However, if Nord Belkan loyalists only engaged the allied forces, they wouldn't stab them in their back.

They were now arriving on the Northwest sector of the area B7R, while the survivors of the allied strike force were in the center, a few hundred meters above the ravine in which she had defeated Kupchenko more than one month ago. This little victory seemed to be so far now. But those allied survivors would not be the only ones they would have to fight: there was 14 Yukte Sea Fulcrum and six North Belkan Black widows on her radar. Normally the later would not be on it due to their stealth, but apparently the Merlin satellites could track them somehow and sent their position to them through PM radio. These six planes were identified as being the Ofnir squad, which paintjob was a spotted two-tone grey camo and silver radome, with their emblem being a winged snake. Their squad number was the 605, for sixth Air Unit fifth Tactical Squadron.

"Angriff gegen den Alliierten erst. Dann werden wir sehen (Attack the allied first. Then we'll see) " Netz 1 ordered, as he was still unaware of the intentions of Ofnir squad. Even if he knew they were young pilots fed with the glory promised by the Rald Partei's propaganda.

"Gut. Aber ich werde nicht euch erwachten. (Good. But I won't wait for you to engage them) " Iskanda replied, before hitting the deck at full speed. She hoped as she was leveling a few hundred meters above the ground that her plane's stealth would allow her to shoot first at those MiG-29Ks.

"Wir kommen gleich nach (we'll be right behind you) " Netz 2 nodded, accepting to be the bait, since their Su-27s were no stealth planes.

And five minutes later, while the allied forces were clashing with the Ofnir squad, who were managing to stay alive due to the amazing mobility of the YF-23s and the weak number of allied survivors by that time, the Netz squad was in range to fire their SAAMs at the Yukte Sea Fulcrum. They bypassed the denied battlespace at the center of the area, leaving these North Belkan to their fate.

Four Yukte fighters were down by the volley, thus further focusing them on the four Su-27 firing at them. And as such, none of them saw the Berkut when it flew toward their Fulcrums from below. Indeed, Iskanda had arrived right under them with no issue. Sure, the instability of the Berkut could throw her off guard sometimes, especially at low altitude. But being used to cope with such issues on her X-29A, she was able to tackle this challenge.

She had zoomed in right below two of them, a bit in front of their trajectory. As her informal wingmen were keeping them busy with their SAAMs they had a bit of trouble evading, those two did not even see her coming right at them. "Kolossale Fehler meine lieber Kameraden (Big mistake my dear comrades) " she mused, feeling no guilt as she was about to turn against her former allies. She sprayed gunfire on the engine inlet of the first one and fired two missiles on the right one. Flying recklessly, she went between the two burning planes, keeping her plane steered upward.

"Gut Abschloss. (Good kill)" Netz 1 commented, as the Berkut was pulling out a loop toward two other MiG-29Ks, which had lost quite a lot of energy evading SAAMs fired with accuracy by the Netz squad. Falling on them like a bird of prey, she fired her gun on one, killing the pilot and turning the cockpit to a bunch of blooded glass, and exploding the cockpit of the second one with a single missile. Now she had four allied kills under her belt. And to be honest, she was not planning on keeping her killcount this low.

"Kill this Berkut!" Niemen 3 shouted, as he was now the leading officer of the squad, with the two last dead having been Niemen 1 and 2.

"Versuch einmal, Kamerad! (Try again, comrade) " She retorted, as she fired a HEFR toward the two aircraft trailing her. This time they had a bit more of energy than the last ones she shot down, and they were able to evade the direct blast. However, by the time they went out of their surprise, she had already enacted a Split-S and was heading right on them head-on gun blazing. At some point she would have wanted to pull out her head-to-tail maneuver, but she held herself back from doing so, afraid one Belkan or allied pilot would recognize her. Even if she was pretty sure a Berkut had a structural strength high enough to bear such g-forces.

One was set ablaze as she managed to land a hit inside his air intake, as the fuel injectors were destroyed by the gun burst. The other tried to put his nose down to fire at her, but she evaded a first gun burst by inverting her plane. The next second she was retaliating, and a pair of missiles rushed from her bays to impact the enemy Fulcrum.

"I will take that Belkan myself!" The Yukte de-facto leader growled at her, wanting to take this black plane that had already shot down six of his comrades.

"Ich erwachte dir, Kamerad (I'm waiting for you, comrade.) " She taunted him, still speaking in Belkan even if most Belkan would not use their mother tongue in the sky. After all, few allied pilots could understand it, with most of this little group being Belkan renegades or mercs.

The two planes rushed toward each other. Both manage to evade each other's missiles by banking hard. This caused the Su-47 to vibrate greatly when it almost stalled, but she recovered by pitching up before diving, this further increasing the stall. The speed she gained through gravity allow her to outturn her opponent, and she was in his six in no time. He managed to evade her gunfire for a while, escaping her grasp for some time.

In the end, there was no use at trying to outperform such a piece of Belkan engineering. He had pulled streaks of fast turns, but no carrier-compatible plane, that had obviously a stronger structure and as such greater inertia could best this Su-47. And to Iskanda's surprise, he began making greater turns, losing speed dramatically. "What are you trying to do, mein lieber Kamerad?" she analyzed this sudden loss of speed to find out what he was preparing to pull out. She had a good hypothesis, and ready herself in consequences, but she wasn't sure about her assumption.

In an interesting turn of event, what he pulled out was exactly what she had foreseen: a Cobra. She hit the deck when she saw his aircraft passing above her, getting herself in a good rear-firing position. And deprived of his speed by this Cobra, the Yukte pilot was unable to evade the rocket coming right at him from below, fired from this Berkut he hoped to lock but ended up being no more than a defenseless prey.

As his aircraft burned, the last thing he looked at was his four wingmates. Two of them were shot down simultaneously, outnumbered two to one by the Netz squad that would use a simple tactics : send two aircraft after an enemy, let one aircraft overrun him, only for the second to pursue him and make him bleed his speed through evasive maneuvers. Then the first would do a U-turn and fire a SAAM at the enemy from afar, which he wouldn't be able to evade due to the speed loss.

The two other surviving MiG-29Ks attempted to rush toward the main allied fighter group, but it was in vain. They had thought this Su-47 had no SAAMs and thus wasn't a threat at long range. They would have been right in their hypothesis if it was not Iskanda flying it. Furthermore, this plane -Kupchenko former plane to be precise- seemed to be equipped with stronger engines than usual, giving it more speed at the extent of its stability. Skimming above the small dry valleys that were puncturing this place, the Berkut was catching up with them, despite suffering from great roll instability, oscillating on his axis a bit.

They quickly realized this fact, and they turned back to face her, and dived at her from above. However, she wasn't planning on letting them dive peacefully. She zoomed in, feeling the sudden G-forces as she accelerated toward the shattered skies. SAAMs were fired toward her, but she evaded them by barrel-rolling vertically, a figure she would have sometimes a hard time pulling out with her X-29A but was way easier with vectored thrust. Yet she didn't climb fully vertical, curving her path to made sure her sight would be set on their back soon. As such, when they should have crossed, they didn't, and she had no gunfire from above to evade. The Sea Fulcrum pilots were not so lucky, as her curved climb align her right on the engines of the first. They both exploded and he fell toward the ground and to his death.

The second one leveled with the energy of despair, willing to evade this crazy Belkan female pilot, from what he could say by hearing her incomprehensive speech at the radio. But he hadn't flown for more than thirty seconds before a pair of SAAMs was launched from his two hours. He rolled and dived to escape the semi-active missiles, but as Netz 2 was quite far from this fleeing fighter, he could correct the trajectory with ease. The two missiles impacted him as he was engaged in a scissoring maneuver, with the Black Berkut hitting him during a hard turn. His structural integrity was compromised due to the sharp turn he was enacting when hit, and as such, his fighter shattered in a thousand pieces when it blew up above the ground.

After having shot down those Yuktes, the small group of Belkan-made fighters, led by Schwarze Luchs head to the main battlespace : there the Ofnir squad had only suffered one loss by Pixy, when their action had diminished the number of allied fighters even more, leaving only three F-14Ds, four Su-33, one F-16C and one F-15C against those North Belkans.

One Su-33 that had gone a bit far from the battlefield to use his XMAAs was her first victim. As he was firing, he did not saw the Berkut that had flown below him before its pilot pulled out an Himmelman. She didn't level her fighter afterwards but climbed in his forward blind spot, where her stealth could hide her craft. A well-aimed gun burst was enough to down the Sea Flanker.

This caused some allied fighters to look back at their flank, as well as the YF-23s. Their numbers were almost even by now. If only we were united, Netz 1 mused. If they had, now they would be outnumbering the allied forces that had not received any reinforcement in the last minutes. Victory seemed to be reachable for him if nothing changed. A few seconds later, he secured this thought and two kills by shooting two SAAMs at a YF-23 and F-14D that were doing scissoring maneuvers, evading each other's fire with equivalent results, but were unable to evade this long-range fire.

Another Su-33 that had just damaged an YF-23 chose to engage the Su-47 that was evading all incoming fire with chill-spinning ease. He knew he had to try his best to stop this one, or at least disturb her enough. Falling on the pitch-black plane as the Berkut was chasing the F-14D of Deagle, he obtained a lock for his XMAAs and fired two of them, wanting to obliterate this damned Belkan girl that had killed on her own half of their reinforcement.

"Versuch einmal, Kamerad." The Belkan his IFF identified as "Schwarze Luchs" laughed at him as she dived hard toward an altitude were the natural EMIs of this place were stronger enough to nullify his shot.

"I'm on the leader." The Yukte asserted as he followed the dark plane in its nearly vertical dive. He expected this one to try to level at some point to fire at her, but she kept diving.

Then she sealed his fate. He had heard of the rear-firing capacities of some Belkan Sukhois, but he thought these were for ace squadron only, and most of those great ace squad were widely known outside of Belka. As such, that this fighter shot some rocket through its SAAMs bay shook him off. But it did not shake his mind as strongly as his fighter was. The High Explosive Fuse Rocket sent shrapnels in his wings, engines and radome.

Again, he expected her to let him fall, as he was lunging his hand toward the bail-out handle. But as he was startled by the bright explosion, she had chosen to pull out a head-to-tail maneuver. She knew they were the only two in the close proximity. The entire plane vibrated in mid-air as she had suddenly inverted her thrust and trajectory, with her thrust fighting over gravity for some seconds. As such, the Yukte only saw an aircraft almost hovering by itself, on which he was still falling. Taken over by fear, he stretched his hand to catch the handle, but at this very moment this Schwarze Luchs pilot fired his gun and two missiles, blowing his aircraft in a thousand pieces. Not wanting to suck any metallic parts into her engine she evaded by pitching hard, making her plane fall on its back. This was definitely not a thing she would repeat too much, especially after pulling out a head-to-tail maneuver. Then she inverted her plane and climb back toward the furball.

Yet there, things weren't happening as good as they did to her. Netz 4 had been shot down by a QAAM from Ofnir 3 after he had to evade a SAAM from the very F-14D she was chasing before this Su-33 decided to disturb her. She hated when she was losing allies. She felt nothing but hatred toward this Osean as she rushed toward his craft at full speed.

She ended up arriving on its eight hours, yet far too fast to have a proper lock on it, let alone land a good hit with her gun. So, she overrun him, and then fired an HEFR on his side. Acting purely by reflex, and above all because he was not used to deal with such kind of armament, the F-14D's WSO released a bunch of flares. However, these were meant to be used to disturb IR missile locks, not magnetic proximity fuse. Henceforth the HEFR exploded in very close proximity, damaging greatly the F-14D engine due to the shockwave.

"Reboot the turbine Jim!" The captain Deagle shouted, quite worried about his fate. The swing-wing fighter had its wing stuck in a closed position, diminishing the lift it would create by gliding.

"I'm trying. But the inlet had been badly damaged. And I bet the combustion chamber is not pristine either." The WSO replied, as more and more red lines were drawn where only green were before this attack.

"Try again!" The Osean bellowed, as he was seeing the Berkut executing a horizontal loop toward them.

The WSO overwrite some security mechanisms, hoping this would reboot the turbine. For a few seconds, it was successfully rebooted, with the turbine counter going back to normal figures. For a few seconds, they fought they were safe from this "Schwarze Luchs" Belkan Berkut. Then their luck ran out, and even more red dots appeared on their HUDs and sensors.

And five seconds later, before this Berkut could even land a single bullet on them, the F-14D engine blew up from the inside, reducing the fighters to a mist of metallic powder.

"Deagle! What's happened?" Kid screamed, not understanding how his leader's plane had blown up before the Berkut finished it.

" Reaktorüberdruck. Engine overpressure. It can happen more often than you realize, Kid. I have seen plane land safely to refuel mid-battle and then explode as they took off due to that." Pixy explained to the astonished Osean, as he was chasing the YF-23 an allied Yukte had already damaged. A good reason why this technical incident had happened was maintenance issues caused by the lack of spare parts due to the EMP disaster.

"That's... unbelievable how it happened so quickly." Bartlett stuttered, but then a lock-on alarm definitively focused his mind on another thing than his leader's demise. Netz 3 had lock on to him.

As the already damaged Super Tomcat was evading the fire of the Belkan Flanker, Pixy went closer to the YF-23. He managed to strafe the cockpit as the Belkan pilot had just escape a previous gun burst by curving his path a bit when the Belkan climb back to his altitude. He was about to finish him with a missile when this Schwarze Luchs strafed the Nord Belkan head-on, stealing the kill of Pixy. He then saw two missiles leaving the Berkut's bays and thought his time was over. However, the two missiles only grazed him and overrun him to down an YF-23 that had managed to sneak behind him. Pixy was a bit startled by this act, but since Kupchenko had seceded to protect the world from Ulysses, he could expect that kind of compassionate act from CSB fighter pilots.

"If only you knew" Iskanda whispered in her thoughts, as she had recognized her wingmen, which had apparently painted both wings in red. And red was sticking out pretty well in the sky. Even in skies filled with blood, iron and fire like this one.

"I'm on him. Run, Kid." Crow 2 announced after he managed to evade a SAAM from Netz 2, using its smaller size to fool the missile tracking pod. The next second he gunned the left engine of the Belkan Flanker.

"Ich komme an, Netz 3! (I'm coming) " Schwarze Luchs said, as she was next to the now fleeing last Osean F-14D. She could have shot him right away, but she had someone to help first. She only flew by him, maybe startling him a bit, but only to climb at full speed.

"Schnell, Schwarze Luchs!" Netz 3 said, as he just evaded another gun burst aimed for his other engine.

Iskanda's Berkut enacted an oblique loop toward the allied F-16C. She was about to aim for the cockpit when she recognized his squad insignia on his tail. It was an Ustian survivor of operation Jugement. Yawing to the right a bit, she set her gun for its engine. Unfortunately for Netz 3, in the split second of hesitation from Schwarze Luchs, Crow 2 managed to destroy his second engine and rear radome before bailing out. Netz 3 had no choice but to bail-out too. At least, with this result, Iskanda was not feeling guilty toward Ustio nor the Netz squad, since both had survived.

The Osean Netz 3 was aiming at was now fleeing, leaving behind him a black trail. She saw no glory in taking down this already damaged Tomcat. Still, there was still 2 members of the Ofnir squad in the air.

One of them was downed by the combined efforts of Netz 1 and 2, which re-enacted the strategy they used against the Sea Fulcrums a bit sooner. It costed them three SAAMs in total, but it was worth it. Three missiles and a bit of gunfire was a good exchange for the death of a Rald Partei follower.

The last one, who was their leader Ofnir 1, which had only obtained his rank through politics and not through skills, something that many Belkan despised, was now pursued by Schwarze Luchs. Bit by bit, she caught up with him after one or two whirring sessions in which her plane with better mobility was doing wonders. After bleeding its speed, she was ready to make its pilot bleed too. So, she pitched high, climbing a bit above the North Belkan craft before inverting her plane and diving gun blazing on its cockpit. Very painful screams were heard on the radio as she flew by him, avoiding the lose YF-23 by a small barrel-roll to the left.

She was intending on letting the Belkan bleed to death, but apparently Pixy wanted to steal her kill back. The F-15C terminated the Black Widow by a single XMAA. This time too he had flown quite close to this Schwarze Luchs Belkan ace. He couldn't spot any marking on its Vantablack camo and had not had the chance to be close enough to see her face -he could tell it was a female pilot from the tone she was using-. It was a very neutral tone by the way.

He only spotted a low visibility emblem, almost invisible to the naked eye. Some emblem made of arrows and an inverted eight. No, Pixy thought, not an inverted eight, but an infinite. He had seen some infinite symbols during his flight with old Belkan squad when he was still an official. But he was absolute certain of something: he had never heard of someone with the name Schwarze Luchs. Who was this female Belkan pilot was a mystery to him.

He was about to try to get closer to this plane when a squadron of MiG-21s arrived from the Belkan side of the Round Table. In the same time, a great grey spot appeared on his radar, coming from the Ustian side of B7R. It wasn't a Helligen Kolumne, it was moving too fast for it. Or if it was one, it would mean the Helligen Kolumne could reach subsonic speed, which would be bad news for sure. Her IFF identifier tagged them as the Shadow Swarm team of Osea, made of five EA-18Gs and ten F/A-18Cs. This group was rarely used in combat. Most of their mission had been the recovery of fleeing Belkan asset at the beginning of the war. Yet at the beginning of this war Osea had six squads like this one. But the Belkan squadron that was trailing the Fishbeds close could provide an easy explanation for these losses.

"This is allied GHQ for all allied planes. The lead plane of this MiG-21 Belkan group seems to be a deserter. He might have useful data. Force him to follow you and cover its retreat." An Osean officer ordered over the radio, which caused the Shadow Swarm to split its forces in two to let these Belkan fugitives go through.

"Schwarze 1 to all planes. Let's show to these Osean den Macht der treue Dunkelheit (the power of true darkness)." Dominic Zubov aka "The Vulture" ordered to his squad of MiG-31s, which paintjob was a dark one with a red line behind the cockpit, and small red triangle near their wingtips, wing-root, intakes and elevators, like if those part had been blood stained by the blood his squadron had made flow. The emblem of the thirteenth night air division sixth Tactical fighter squadron was a blood red vulture atop a slightly paler red skull. From the red skull a yellow snake was trying to go upward, only to go directly in the mouth of a greater grey snake that was doing a full circle from the Vulture's head, surrounding the yellow snake. This was only further deepening was the sight of this squad meant: traitor to Belka, your foolish attempt of escape is over. Or to make things short: Be ready to face Death!

"We couldn't have worse reinforcement." Netz 1 went ironic, not knowing if the Schwarze squad would rule them as fugitives since they were fighting for the South.

Pixy had chosen to help the damaged Tomcat retreat toward the Ustian side of the Round Table. He was not willing to fight The Vulture. He had read intel that his squad butchered forty Belkan cadets that tried to flee at the very beginning of the war, with no survivors. The Schwarzeschaft had destroyed two Shadow Swarm team that day.

Area B7R, Belka, 5/06/1995, 14:30, Weather: high stratus.

Right now, Pixy was escorting the MiG-21s, with their leader tagged as "Huckebein". He had already met this pilot one or two time during his time as an official. An average bad was what he was to his mind.

As he looked back toward him, he almost felt sorry for these Oseans. They would be sacrificed for nothing that would really matter. He knew this Belkan pilot wasn't in the Pendragon Projekt nor a high-ranking official. He wouldn't be that useful to the allied forces. And to be honest, Pixy wasn't even sure the Shadow Swarm team would delay the Vulture long enough to allow this fugitive to live.

He had seen some other radar anomalies that were coming from the east, and therefore he began to steer his plane eastward. They were similar to the signature of Berkuts. Did some goddess of war allow him to have his vengeance at last?

Area B7R, Belka, 5/06/1995, 14:35, Weather: high stratus.

For a moment the few Belkan Southerners feared the Schwarze squad would engage them. And all but Iskanda feared this squad enough to doubt in their ability to survive a fight against the Vulture. They had a common enemy for now, then they would see. After all, Zubov was not from Belka himself, and was not involved in Belkan politics for all that Netz leader knew.

On the other hand, the Osean Shadow Swarm was not willing to turn away from this fight. Even if it was a lost one from the beginning.

"Schwarze 1 to all units. Downing these fugitives is the number one priority. Zerstört diese Osean Abschaum Jetzt (Destroy this Osean vermin now)!" The Vulture ordered, and all closed the distance between them and the Osean Forces.

"Können wir auch angreifen oder nicht? (Can we attack too or not)" Schwarze Luchs asked, not knowing if they had the right to interfere with a black ops squadron. Her training in Farbanti never spoke about such units. She didn't know if Erusea had such in the first place. Maybe they do too.

"Du kannst. Aber kein Hindernis, verstanden? (You can. But no hindrance, understood?)" The Vulture responded after some seconds of hesitation, yet without any in his voice.

After all, The Vulture's job was solely to take out these fugitives, not to go on the hunt for secessionists. He hadn't planned to engage CSB supporters, but he would if they hindered this chase too much. Their support could always be appreciated if more Osean showed up. To be fully honest those geopolitical games were not something he liked to be part of. The last time he had involved his squadron and himself in politics, it was above the skies of Romney. And what happened in these skies was far worse than anything the Belkan government had made him do so far.

The first volley of SAAMs from the two Su-27s and the eight MiG-31s decimated the Osean Shadow Swarm, as they weren't affected by the jamming of the EA-18Gs. Still, their radar jamming was strong enough to hide the precise location of the fleeing MiG-21s. The Growler and Hornets tried to retaliate, but their only result was a minor hit on Schwarze 2's left wing.

Iskanda had to come way closer than the other craft, not being equipped with long range armament. SAAMs flew by her as she arrived in range of the F/A-18Cs. She gunned one head-on, then barrel-rolled to the left to evade a XMAA launched by a Growler. She curved her path to attack another Hornet from its one hours. In the meantime, many of the Belkan SAAMs had found their mark, while she rushed toward an untouched EA-18G. The very Growler that had fired at her mere seconds ago.

"Fire! Fire at this Berk..." The WSO shouted at his pilot who was tasked to fire the gun of the electronic warfare hornet variant. But their radio was shut off as the said Berkut open fire on the Osean craft. The pilot was deadly injured, but managed to tense his hand on the trigger, resulting in his aircraft opening fire despite his current state. Flying line astern, the Berkut was out of the firing arc of the now almost-dead Growler. She rolled a bit her aircraft to the right and her left wing flew over the Osean plane's right wing. Moving her craft a bit around her yaw axis, she got them in her sight and terminated the jammer aircraft with a rocket.

A second volley had now been launched from the ten Belkan crafts against them, but from their side this time, as the Belkan had chosen to disperse when the Osean missiles grazed them.

The new positioning of the Schwarze squad ensured that this time the Oseans had even fewer chances to retaliate. And the only two survivors were shot from behind by Iskanda that had pulled an Himmelman after shooting these three allied planes. She fired her gun at an EA-18G that had already been hit by a SAAMs head-on, and as such was not able to lose her. Her second kill was a simple Hornet, which had chosen to dive to evade the incoming fire. But she had dived on him with full afterburners, gaining speed very quickly. He did try to lose her by leveling suddenly in the hope that she would have too much G to bear if she leveled at nearly Mach 1. However, she just leveled below him before pitching high and pulling the trigger.

"Gut. Osean abgeschlossen. Huckebein, du bist dran! (Good. Osean shot down. Huckebein, it's your turn)" Schwarze 1 commented the quick clashing they had with minimal losses. All Oseans had been shot down, and due to the great number of missiles they had released, there was few to no chances of having any survivors, with their missiles being set to lock onto chutes when the craft they were targeting was shot down by a fellow pilot. This was a direct violation of the international rules of war, but their Dunkle Ops squadron was almost permitted anything to succeed, including firing at chutes.

But in the Southern part of the Round Table, thing had already started to go south before the red and black MiG-31s had begun to spread chaos there. If Bartlett felt quite unlucky as he saw Su-47 closing on them, Pixy only considered himself to be the luckiest man ever, in total opposition. Of course, two of the five MiG-21s were immediately shot down, but Pixy was able to down two Berkut by attacking them on broadside, with the powerful gun of the Eagle tearing to shreds their fragile forward-swept wings. And of course, it was pretty much impossible for these pilots to keep their plane stable without a wing.

The two of them immediately bailed out to relative safety. The relativity of their safety was further increased as Pixy pulled out an Himmelman to reach their chutes he mercilessly gunned. He could see them either burning as their chute was set ablaze for one or dying from massive bleeding as his rounds sliced the North Belkan in half. He was encroaching on international rights here, but the feeling of accomplishment he was getting from this vengeance was much more precious than some lines written on some papers.

"What are you doing, Galm 2 ?!" Bartlett almost shouted at his allied, disgusted to see such cruelty.

"Enacting my vengeance. You will suffer as much as I suffered, Ashley Bernitz!" Pixy retorted with all the hatred and violence he could put in his voice.

"Abschloss dieser Söldner (Shot down this mercenary)!" Ashley responded, and six Grabacr squad members turned away from the three surviving MiG-21s and F-14D to engage Pixy. They were flying in a two-line formation, with four on the first line and two on the second.

"Ich werde diese Vergeltung genießen! (I will enjoy this vengeance)" Pixy claimed as he fearlessly attacked the six planes head-on.

He fired two XMAAs on the two further away to disturb them, then fired a QAAM on the ones at the sides of the first line. The two last were down by a long gun burst and a pair of missiles, respectively. By this time the two further away had managed to shake off the missiles he fired at them and reach the first line, but Pixy was already zooming in and thus was out of the firing arc of their SAAMs. In reaction, they pitched upward to try to aim at the F-15C.

However, Pixy had read their ill-intended strategy, and had dived on the four chutes below him, ending the four pilots' life in a short strafing run, gaining both satisfaction for him and the ire of the Osean pilot:

"Stop doing that! There are rules in war for god's sake!" Bartlett shouted, now feeling ashamed to owe this mercenary his life.

"Klappe zu, Osean (Shut up)! The only sake that I care for is my own. Not any god's and not yours. You have no moral high ground over me, so stop whining wie ein kleine Mädchen (like a little girl)!" Pixy threw a tantrum at the Osean, who seemed to be just a kid walking out of his flight school without any experience of large-scale battlefields and above all any idea of what vengeance was or meant. Now the two other Su-47s he had let go for a moment were targeting him once more. Putting the pedal to the metal he lost them and their SAAMs in an instant as he reached Mach 1 and went over Mach 2.

"He's too fast." Grabacr 9 complained, as even with full afterburners they weren't even close to catch a F-15C any day. And the SAAMs unlike the more modern ERAAMs had no great supersonic capacities. Hopefully for Pixy the ERAAM was apparently a product of the Pendragon Projekt, since he hadn't seen any North Belkan craft carrying this kind of missile today.

This gave Pixy plenty of time to extend his airbrake, made a U-turn, and attack the Berkut at full speed. He fired a pair of XMAA to prevent them to lock on to him, hoping they would disturb their SAAMs tracking pod. However, given his supersonic speed in his approach, these missiles hit the Berkuts after he shot two short gun bursts that hit both planes hard enough to weaken their mobility. Thus, the pair of XMAAs destroyed the two Su-47 long after he had overrun them.

The other Grabacr squad members hadn't lost much time chasing the fugitives. Now only Huckebein and Bartlett were alive, but not for long: both planes were fuming and riddled with holes. Both knew that even if they made out of this fight alive, their plane wouldn't be able to the Directus Airport due to fuel leaks. Furthermore, the airport itself was out of commission since Excalibur stroke weeks ago, somehow activating explosives secretly planted below the runway by the Belkans, that they didn't manage to use the day of Directus' Liberation.

Obviously, four Su-47 were more than a match against two future wreckages. But against an infuriated proud Belkan merc, they were less confident. Ashley and another kept attacking the fugitives, while the last two other Grabacr members were supposed to down Pixy.

But to be honest, the hunters become the preys quite fast, with Pixy damaging the inlet one of them head-on, and pursuing him hot on his tail. The other one, spooked by this pilot that had effortlessly and mercilessly slaughtered every members of his squad, chose to flee. He had forgotten there was one thing all Belkan pilot knew they couldn't do in the presence of Schwarze squad. Crossing their path in the same vector was allowed. Trying to go the other way around meant choosing death sentence. And no one had safeguards, would they be the son of Belkan five-star admirals or simple pilots.

"Schwarze 3, Fox 1" Was how this was reminded to the fleeing Grabacr pilot, who took two SAAMs head-on.

"Flucht ist Tod. Erinnere das, Piloten." Zubov commented, as the Su-47 was now nothing more than burning debris set on a collision course with the ground.

In the meantime, Pixy had closed the distance between him and he Grabacr plane. But another plane had closed this very distance too: Schwarze Luchs. And as such, it was not two missiles that hit him after Pixy managed to strafe his cockpit, hearing the complaint born of the pain of the grievous wounds he inflicted. No, his plane was reduced to smithereens by four of them. Of course, for both of them Pixy had no need to look for chute since the pilots were obliterated inside their fighters.

A few seconds later, Schwarze 1 arrived in range for his SAAMs. He only locked on to the last MiG-21, the fate of the last Osean F-14D was not his choice to make. He was doomed like all of his countrymen, but they had not assimilated this fact yet.

Area B7R, Belka, 5/06/1995, 14:40, Weather: high stratus.

Now his fate was indeed crystal clear for the young Osean pilot: he was going to die. A silence of death was filling the canopy once more. He just witnessed how merciless Belkans could be, whether they were officials or mercs. He saw them killing their runners without even considering they were human beings anymore. And that Pixy guy who was currently battling with Grabacr 1 and 2 didn't care for him a single bit.

However, as all seemed to be leading toward a full Belkan victory, something or to be more precise, someone was about to steer the tide of the battlefield in his own way. Four Su-47 with white and gold lines on their wingtips and ruddertips, three-tone splinter grey camo and black radome had entered B7R, and head toward the denied battlespace. Still, they weren't the only planes entering the round table: there was also some spots coming from the Northwest, and other from the Southwest. But these four would have the greater impact on the fate of this battle.

"Hallo, Zubov." A Yukte-sounding voice said. A Yukte-sounding voice one pilot thought she had silenced forever, but apparently failed in doing so. Or maybe it was just electronic voice modifier, she mused as she tried to calm herself.

"This is Dinsmark to Schwarze. Svafnir squad incoming. Assist them. Kill the secessionist. This is..." A Belkan officer transmitted to the black ops squadron, as in the same time North Belkan planes were sent on Excalibur. However, the voice was cut due to some jamming, and on one panel of Gault 1 craft, there was a green line with the words "Satellite 3: Jamming aktiviert".

"You know very well how they will treat you whatever the way this war ends. They will charge you with all their crimes and reveal what you have done on your former government's behalf." Gault 1 recalled how and why Zubov had been transferred from Yuktobania to Belka.

"Es stimmt (it's true). Wir sind störende Zeugen geworden (We have become embarrassing witnesses)." Schwarze 3 intervened, knowing too well the horrors Gault 1 was speaking of since he was part of the ones that committed them.

"Aber ich kann neue Chance geben. Eine Amnestie gewähren. Und mit der Zeit können wir alle Erlösung erreichen. (But I can give you new Chances, grant you an amnesty. And in time we can all reach redemption)." Gault 1 proposed with a calm voice, whispering right into the shattered heart and souls of the members of Schwarze squad.

"Es klingt vielversprechend, doch? (It sounds promising, right?)." Gault 4 added. Pixy recognized the voice of Andrew Barry that had intervened at the Assembly of Nations.

"Eigentlich klingt es. (Indeed, it does)" Schwarze 1 confirmed. Right now, he was thinking heavily about this, and what this could allow his squadron to become. In the eye of many Belkans and allied pilots they were indeed considered to be the incarnated fear, but only due to the atrocious acts they had enacted on Yuktobania's behalf few years ago during the Romnyan conflict. If a cam could have taken a picture of him, it would have looked like some statue of perplexity, with a stern face and holding his chin within his right hand.

Few mens had the chance to start anew from their past mistakes, he knew that. Very few mens had the chance to win wars. Was he part of these two kinds of men, he did not know. But he knew there was a third kind of men: the ones that turned the tide of wars. Sometimes it took more courage to change a war than to win it. In the end, what he had to do was to decide what he wanted.

From then he understood that he had a chance to be into this third kind of men. And he pronounced these words with a slightly troubled voice:

"Was müssen wir machen, um dich zu beitreten? (What should we do to join you)"

"Die Feinde der CSB vernichten. Alliierten und Rald Regimenter. (The CSB's enemies to annihilate. Allied forces and Rald Regiments)"

"Einfach. Es wird geschehen (Simple. It will be done) " Schwarze 2 nodded, as he turned his craft to engage the incoming Svafnir squad. There were like Ofnir and Grabacr, young squadrons fed with propaganda. Like them they had chosen a snake-like symbol and a snake-like camo. And like them their twelve men strong would meet their end here and now. Their Typhoons who bear this grey and red snake camo that could look like flames for some would end up in very realistic flames.

"Und was ist mit dir, Netz Schaft und Schwarze Luchs (And what about you, Netz squad and Dark Lynx)?"

"Wir werden die CSB's Feinde vernichten. (we will annihilate the enemies of the CSB)" Was Netz leader response, a serious and stern tone. It was the best way to protect his people for now.

"Ich werde, solange ich kann Hypersthene Bewaffnung haben. (I will, as long as I can get some Hypersthene weaponry) " Was the obviously less serious response of the still undercover Iskanda. Even if she was quite afraid that soon her cover would blow and then she would be blown sky high. So, she chose to enjoy this last battle as long as it could last.

"Gut, gut. Der erste wahre Kampf fängt jetzt an (Good, good. The first true battle begins now)." Gault 1 announced, with renewed confidence filling his voice. Then he directed the forces for this battle to come.

"Netz Squad und Luchs mit mir gegen die Alliierten. Schwarze gegen Svafnir (Netz squad and SLuchs with me against the Allies. Schwarze against Svafnir.)" Were Kupchenko's orders. At the very moment he spoke about the allies, eleven dots approaching the very badly damaged F-14D were revealed clear: there were eleven Osean F-35A Lightnings with a dark grey stealth camo and a low visibility emblem made of a ball of lightning.

"Thunderbolt 1 to all, attack!" The Osean leading the F-35A unit spoke up, yet with less confidence than Kupchenko.

"Verrat ist tot, Schwarze! (Treason is death) " Svafnir 1 shouted at the MiG-31 squad that had turned to engage his, trying to turn the very argument Schwarze 3 used to justify him firing at a Grabacr plane. But eight against twelve was almost an overkill for Zubov's point of view, and as such, he chose to laugh at them.

The MiG-31s had adopted the classic grand chase formation, made of two lines of four planes. The first would use the great velocity of their plane to enact quick hit and run attack, disorganizing the enemy squadron's defense, while the four further away would lay waste on the enemy using SAAMs and XLAAs. Sometimes they would use QAAMs for more agile fighters if they had high tech squadron as their target, but the MiG-21s they had been called to take down were not high enough in this standard. Their Foxhounds would carry UGBLs when dealing with people running away using cars, train or ships.

The first four aircraft led the head-on charge, missile locked and gun blazing, despite the great number of enemy EF-2000 firing XLAA at them. Four Typhoons were shot down in the process, while the Foxhounds were and remained untouched as they seemed to flee after their first engagement. But it was all a mere trap to lure the Svafnir squad. The survivors made the deadly mistake to try to fire XLAAs at the seemingly fleeing aircraft, and in doing this they let their now six hours unchecked. Volleys of XLAAs and SAAMs ripped the squadron apart, while Belkan screams and shouts could be heard on the radio, with most of them containing insults and the word "Verrat". The very few that had survived this onslaught were terminated when the four MiG-31s that attacked them first turned back to the battle and released a final XLAAs and SAAMs volley.

The Thunderbolt squadron did last at least a bit longer than the Belkan enemies of the CSB. Even if the numbers were six to eleven, they couldn't claim they had numerical superiority over airplane and pilots far above their league. Four of them were shot down early on as they were only getting in range for their QAAMs. They had thought their stealth would have at least allowed them to do so. But some of the Merlin Satellites had been activated in "Falkenauge" (Eagle Eye) mode, thus transmitting the precise location of the stealth Osean prototypes to the Su-47 through PM radio. Two more were down when Iskanda attacked the craft from below as they were about to open fire. Her first gun burst land right in his weapon bays, resulting in an enormous explosion. Then she dived and sent a HEFR on a second one as she was flying below him. He tried to send the QAAMs in his bays backward to counter this attack, but they only connected to the craft and not the rocket. As such his aircraft went down when the proximity fuse rockets sent shrapnels in his inner bays.

Evading a pair of QAAMs for an agile fighter like the Su-47s was quite easy to be honest for Iskanda, and after losing them with a small whirring session she pulled out an Himmelman to go back to battle once more. At one point she had a little fear, when she strafed a F-35 from behind, curving a bit her path to the left and semi-inverting her craft during the said strafe to ensure she would end it on another one. Because Gault 1 enacted the same maneuver but coming from the front and going to the right. Had he recognized his aircraft, if it was really him? His question filled with curiosity made the likelihood even higher:

"Von wem haben sie dieses Flugzeug erreichten?" (from whom did you obtain this plane)

"Von einem verstorbenen Pilot. (From a fallen pilot)." She answered, with the fear of being discovered turning her very small Belkan accent off. It sounded awfully foreign even to her ears from her experience of having heard quite a lot of Belkan this last days. But to be honest, she wasn't fully lying now: the man that once piloted her current craft was surely not the same man that Kupchenko was now. Yet the man itself was fully alive, in complete opposite to her expectation.

"Hoch Interessant (Very interesting)." He commented, before gunning a F-35 on his left, creating holes on all of its fuselage. The riddled engine exploded five seconds later.

And unfortunately for the CSB, the Thunderbolt squad obtained one kill. It happened as Schwarze Luchs and Netz 2 were chasing two different planes. Both had already managed to land several hits on their single-engine opponent, hampering their speed greatly. Yet the two Osean planes set themselves on a collision course, wanting to try some last second evasive that would result in the destruction of their enemies. It didn't go their way fully, however the result was negative for the CSB forces.

"Verschlossen." Iskanda announced, as she launched two missiles, aiming for the F-35's tail section. The Osean plane tried with the energy of despair to escape the projectiles by banking in the opposite direction he had planned to go when they would do their last-ditch evasive maneuvers. He only managed to lose one missile of his tail, and the lose missile hit his fellow Lightning pilot near his single air intake. This resulted in one badly damaged plane hitting an ablaze one, and a big reddish explosion. Iskanda had already turned far away from these two aircraft by now, but Netz 2 was a bit slow to react. As such, some flying metallic parts hit him head-on, heavily injuring his plane. He ejected five seconds later after pitching his aircraft to be sent in the opposite direction the still lingering mid-air bright explosion.

The last two F-35 were shot down by two SAAMs fired at them by Su-27s or Su-47s, with the not very agile stealth fighters having hard time to fool the tracking pod on theses far more agile aircraft. In the meantime, Pixy, which hadn't been bothered at all by any of the Confederation of South Belka crafts, had already filled with bullets the body of Grabacr two. Now he was facing Grabacr 1 head-on for the third time in a row, with his nemesis' Berkut having holes in his rear control surfaces and with one canard missing. Pixy flew above him as the last Rald Regiment members was releasing four missiles, two standard and two SAAMs, hoping to vaporize his opponent. Ashley had thought that the loss of Galm 1 would have made the merc weaker and alone. He was wrong. Now all the rage that Pixy had built up for a bit less than three months was being released, and it had targeted him. All of his squadmates were dead. When for an instant he saw a shadow hovering him with a Scythe ready to strike at him.

But it wasn't an apparition to be honest: Pixy had made his aircraft fall flat on his back before zooming in at full afterburner. He enacted a half loop toward the damaged Berkut and plunged like a falcon on his prey -he knew he was piloting an F-15C Eagle so this term could seem out of place-. And it was the shadow of the F-15C falling on him that the North Belkan saw. The gun burst Pixy fired torn off the tail of the Berkut, resulting in a pretty big explosion as the engine were split in half. But as he barrel-rolled around the fuming debris of the plane, he saw an ejection rocket being fired.

"JETZT, JETZT, DU BIST TOT, ASHLEY BERNITZ! (And Now, you're dead, Ashley Bernitz" He said as he climbed toward the chute projected falling point. There he released two static FAEBs -he had expressly asked for Herr Steller to find a way to made him carry two of them-. Was it to honor his fallen leader, or to have the full and utter satisfaction of having disintegrated his nemesis? He wasn't sure, maybe both. But he felt great relief when he saw the two bright explosions in the sky above him, with the last member of the Grabacr unit being caught into their shockwaves and heatwaves and turned into light and vapor. Now his vengeance was complete. Laura could rest in peace, since her tormentors would never reach it. He only wished them eternal damnation.

A bit further away from this utterly not cold vengeance, Iskanda grinned a bit, having seen someone use her static FAEBs. And she was happy that she had helped Pixy finish his vengeance. But right now, her and Gault 1 were rushing toward the last Osean fighter in the vicinity, a lone damaged F-14D.

"Wie viel Männer man braucht, eine Nachrichte zu senden? (How many mans does it take to send a message?) " Kupchenko rhetorically asked to this pilot named Schwarze Luchs.

"Nur ein." The response of the female pilot was short but filled with determination. Such pilot could be useful in his foreseen strategies.

"Eigentlich." Gault ein responded, before overrunning the Osean Super Tomcat. Then to Iskanda's surprise, he pulled out a head-to-tail maneuver. Apparently, she had inspired him not only in his decision to fight Ulysses. The F-14D pilot pulled the trigger instinctively, but Kupchenko had pitched upward while enacting the high G maneuvers, ensuring his safety. His following move was to pitch downward, but he only gunned the rear of the craft, leaving the pilot alive, but being sure to injure heavily the WSO.

"John, eject." Bartlett shouted, even if the wind coming through the destroyed canopy was nullifying anything he said. He was ready to pull the ejection handle, but only choked rales could be heard from behind him. He tilted and rotated on his seat to check his WSO and friend's state, but he only saw a vision of horror: he spotted several large bullet holes on his chest, and even one on his face. The next second he saw a very blood-stained hand pulling his ejection handle from behind, while incomprehensive speech was heard coming from behind him.

His dying WSO had pulled his handle as he was unable to do so, paralyzed by the horror he just witnessed. Helplessly, he could only see the pitch-black camo climbing over the F-14D before firing one of his explosive rockets. Now he was sure his friend was dead as the fuming debris were falling toward the ground, not very far from the craft of the Belkan fugitive.

"Kampf ist ein Sieg. Alles, Zurück nach Tauberg. (This battle is a Victory. All, Back to Tauberg)." He stated, after seeing Schwarze Luchs leveling right beside him, but slightly behind him out of visual sight. He was letting Foulke get away. After all, he helped them greatly by taking down almost by himself the whole Grabacr Rald Regiment. He had earned his survival and was now leaving too. Pixy knew he couldn't win against all of these aircraft.

"Und von wem haben Sie diese erstaunlichen Manöver gelernt, mein Lieber? (And who taught you this amazing maneuver, my dear)." She asked, like he had asked from who she had got this fighter, who was fitting her: as unstable as her former and now destroyed X-29A, but with better response and a greater variety of armament to be mounted.

"Von einem verstorbenen Pilote. (From a fallen pilot)" He repeated his answer, since he could guess that the Iskanda that wanted to desperately pull the sword out of the rock was dead now. Or he thought so for an instant, letting his strategy depend of one contingency.

"Hoch Interessant." She repeated too, grinning, as they were leaving the Ustian side of B7R. What was going to happen afterwards, she had no idea. But she had obtained victory today, she had met her on the battlefield once more. Finally, she authorized herself a little bit of relief, as she could feel the sweet sensation of having been filled with adrenalin once more. She had felt it on the ground when taking down these Oseans too, but it would never be the same from a fighter.

Tauberg, Belka, 05/06/1995, 15:10, Weather: medium cloud coverage, chances of rain.

Unlike B7R that was mostly covered by thin high-altitude stratus, Tauberg was surrounded by quite a lot of well-sized clouds at medium altitude. Maybe the constant vertical fire of Excalibur had disorganized the air currents around here. And to add even more clouds, smoke was coming out of many crash sites all around the Belkan Wunderwaffen.

From her Su-47 she could see fairly well all the Osean, Yukte or Sapin fighters that had died since operation Jugement. And it was only a small portion of the gargantuan number of allied casualties caused by Excalibur, as most attackers would get disintegrated by the Belkan TFLS, TLSs and RTLSs. If the Pendragon Projekt had some way to salvage the metal of all the planes they shot down they might have enough resources to build a second Excalibur, she guessed based on the number of allied losses that were surely far above the hundred planes by now.

Right now, the four other Gault squad members and the two Erben were circling around the tower. The small anomalies on her radar indicated that there had been a fight here recently, since the air was still a bit ionized due to the energy-based weapons. Today they had added another nationality of victims to their list: their former Belkan one they discarded in favor of their newly formed CSB. They had been called secessionist during this battle, and she was wondering which name they would bear later on.

"Excalibur zu alle CSBs Jäger: Landeklar. (Excalibur for all CSB fighters: clear for landing)." A Belkan voice announced from the airbase North of the Sword of Kings.

"Gut. Schwarze und Netz erst, denn Gault und die Erben (Good. Schwarze and Net first, then Gault and the Heirs)." Were Kupchenko's orders for the landing. Four MiG-31 went North since the large twin runways oriented like an open scissor allowed such multiple landing.

Iskanda was a bit uneasy. Maybe admitting she was "a bit" uneasy was the understatement of the millennia. Seeing all these turrets and defensive armaments as blue squares when a few weeks ago they were an ocean of red targets was quite disturbing to say the least. The little bit of duty she still had in her was screaming to open fire at the Belkans while she was still under relative cover. But on the other hand, she wouldn't have never survived today's battle if she had just fought alone.

She flew toward the air base, accompanying the three last Gault member and Netz 1. All pilots had landed but her, Kupchenko and the ADFX-01s. She just had to pull the trigger and most of the defenders of Excalibur would be down. Yet three things filled her with great reluctance: first, the fact that she owed them her life. Multiple times over B7R she had been locked and would have surely got hit if it wasn't for a well-aimed SAAM from either Netz, Schwarze or even Gault squad members. In other words, she wouldn't have met victory today but death. And when she ran into Crow 2, she did let him live, as she fired in a non-life-threatening zone.

The second thing was a more down-to-earth reason: the tree she had set her firing spot on, and which had been hit shortly after her shot, had been reduced to ashes by only one RTLS shot. The third was the RTLS surrounding the twin runways, backed up by what seemed to be a new type of SAMs that was identified as "ZAS" on her HUD, and even some BAWS near the base buildings itself.

And above all else, the problematic given by Ste Victoire's apparition was echoing her mind like the bells inside the eponymous cathedral. Was willst du, sich zu werden? What do you want to become? Taken over by stress, and with her hand shaking on the firing button on her HOTAS, she was now feeling the doubt growing within her. What was the reason for her to push the device? Pretty much none that were convenient. But then why did her shaking hand accidently or willingly push it the next second, aiming to the armored domed hangar where the craft of Schwarze were being parked? Only her fear caused it. Or something like that, that had been building up since she was shot down in this same place weeks ago in very different circumstances.

Whatever the reason was, the result was the same: a RTLS located a few dozen meters on the median line in front of the meeting point of the twin runways intercepted her missiles using its twin four small tactical laser system turrets. Her laughable attempt was the result of a failure and now a full failure. The next second she heard a sinister laugh over the waves, while her HUD was turning red.

"Dachten Sie, ich wäre dumm genug, du nicht wiedererkennen? (Did you think I was foolish to the point I would not recognize you?) Dein Belkan ist gut, aber nicht genug. Wie immer. Zu neutral war dein Akzent. (Your Belkan is good but not enough. As always. Your accent too neutral was)." Kupchenko stated with a very cold voice, reiterating that whatever she tried, it wouldn't be efficient enough to harm him, before adding in a whisper "Iskanda Rayien."

"Ich musste versuchen. Wie haben Sie Cyanide überleben?" She responded, quite surprised to learn that apparently there was things that allowed to survive cyanide. She was dead sure she hit him with it. But he wasn't dead, or the rumors that Belkan used dark magic were true.

"B zwölf (12)." Was the short answer he completed the next second: "ein Überdosis von B12, auch als Hydroxycobalamin gekannt, kann jemanden erlauben, Cyanide zu überleben."

So, he had very likely survived due to the knowledge in chemistry of the exiled poison maker Kellerman told her about. This was the most plausible explanation to how in matter of means. But how did he know about her attempt, this was another mystery to solve. Were there traitors to the allied forces inside their own ranks? Were they even considering themselves to be traitor anyway, if they thought fighting for this nation that had the means to nullify the Ulysses' threat was the right thing to do? There was no way Günthar could have had access to a means of communication, and Ervin was surely watched very closely by the Oseans at Valais.

Again, she was a bit lost in her thoughts, and as such she let Kupchenko leave the airspace above the airbase. He chose to wait near Excalibur for the fight that was about to begin. And it was its beginning that chase all those thoughts of treason from Iskanda's mind, to replace with something more primal: rage, violence and death. Three things that had allowed her to live until here. The rage fuel her fight. The violence characterized her fights. And the Death was only what her fight would cause. She had never been very good at protective fight nor escort missions anyways.

"We have already defeated you once, and we will do it again." The Erbe identified as "Zveda" announced what she thought to be the result of the oncoming battle: their victory, and her defeat.

"Kein "Amber Plan" heute! (No Amber plan today)!" Iskanda retorted, as she was attacking them head on.

"Ich sehe. Du studierst ehemalige Sprache (I see. Did you study ancient languages?" Kupchenko asked from afar, trying to understand if she had gotten what "Amber" meant. If she did maybe she would surprise him.

"Ja. Und Amber steht für Elektrizität! (Yes. And amber stand for electricity.)" She explained, having remembered this from an old physics book she had read in her free time in the convent, as she recalled her story to Kellerman, who find her quite interesting, very singular.

" TEGS on." The other Erbe counter-argued with this "Schwarze Luchs" pilot, willing to enact once again this victorious idea. A small compartment below left engine was opened, and from there the Towed Electromagnetic pulse Generator System was jettisoned and began emitting strong electromagnetic waves. Of course, the ADFX-01s possessed a very strong resilience against this kind of armament, as they were meant to be used even if nuclear class III EMPs were used. He had no worry about that. But the aircraft in front of him, which was going head-on despite the danger of fighting Morgans, was worrying him a bit. Furthermore, the fight prior to this one, was against a great number of Belkans attackers, and had depleted their stock of ERAAMs. She could consider to be lucky, Cipher mused.

Even if her radar had become inoperable due to the strong EMIs her enemies were generating, Iskanda did not turn back. She would fight. And this time, she was considering herself to be on an equal stance technologically speaking. Of course, her Su-47 and their ADFX-01s were not technological equals, but the disparities were smaller than when she had her former X-29A. She went straight, right in the middle of their two-plane formation. Both opened fire instantaneously as they were in range, which seemed to be greater than her standard missiles'. Luckily for her they had fired with a bit of time between each other's shot, and she was able to evade all four missiles fired in quick succession by flying closer and closer to the ground, while doing small whirring session. Yet they missed her barely, as the missiles flew by her, maybe less than a dozen meters away.

She heard some curse as she managed to successfully evade their fire. Now it was her time to strike. She pulled out a head-to-tail maneuver and fired her only non-lockable weapon besides her gun. The HEFR went right to the ADFX at her five hours, apparently not bothered by the magnetic pulses. The proximity fuse that guided a bit the warhead in the last hundred meters seemed to be attracted by the magnetic waves more than anything else, turning their very defensive system against them, and acting more as an anti-radiation missile than a rocket. This caused a bit of fear to grow in the heart of the two Erbe. And before they could turn away to be far enough, the HEFR was on them. Desperately, Cipher tried to explode it by increasing the energetic output of the TEGS, and it worked in the end, the powerful magnetic waves interfering with the proximity fuses, like a tsunami would have been powerful enough to detonate mines. However, this increased in power caused only the counter-reaction to be more violent, when shrapnels of the HEFR impacted the TEGS, which caused the Erbe to lose control of his plane for a short amount of time.

In the meantime, their adversary had already pulled out another of her head-to-tail maneuver and had managed to go under the other Erbe as it steered right to evade the HEFR, still with her TEGS on. Zveda was unable to fire successfully on the nimbler aircraft, that had resorted to the same tactic to avoid her fire, this very low flying while turning and twisting her plane like a madman. Or a madwoman for her case. The Erbe would have not try to fly in such ways, even if she flew a Mirage or a Rafale -two aircraft notorious for their low-level stability-. And then Schwarze Luchs pitched her aircraft high as she went below the Morgan, a very risky position that could sent her right into a deadly stall do to her very close proximity to the ground. Again, this was something Zveda would have not try to do.

However, Iskanda had no fear of the Wesson-UFOs by now. And as she pitched, she managed to land some hit on the system towing the pulse emitter. Apparently, she had hit its energy input, as the level of EMIs suddenly decreased. And she was able to fire two missiles at the small target after getting in the six of the Erbe by a high-G Himmelman. The TEGS's explosion shook the ADFX-01 quite a lot, but as this loss of defense suppress the drag it was creating, the powerful twin engines were able to propel the Morgan far away from her missile range. And when it was far away, a small bay was opened below her left engine, and a second TEGS was activated. Of course, the other Erbe enacted the same strategy, and Iskanda radar become grey in an instant. It was a temporary setback after a temporary victory. But soon she would obtain a total one, she swore while touching her jade harpoon. Feeling it remembered her of the rage and violence she had shown and cause that day. She had not caused death, but the will of causing it in the near future fuel her with great determination, as she would not allow herself to die before having caused a happy matricide. And with a rage similar to what Pixy felt when fighting the Grabacr, she caught up with the two Morgans.

She had learned from the previous fight. Do not climb after them. Below them was always a better option, as for some unknown reason to her, the waves were somewhat weaker below than above their planes. She was more than halfway in the range of her HEFR when she pulled out a head-to-tail, and fire her forelast rocket. But instead of going straight and enacting a second one to be back to the chase once more, she began a big vertical loop toward the female Erbe she had targeted. Again, the TEGS was severely hit by the HEFR's explosion, and caused a loss of control for the female pilot. Furthermore, its very bright explosion had blinded her for her rear, and as such Zveda did not see the bird of prey diving right on her.

" Fortune favors the bold" Iskanda thought, as she realized the foolishness of what she was going to do. She dived right on the Morgan, but not aiming for the cockpit. No, she aimed at the gap between its massive engines. She just hoped the aircraft would be wide enough, and her thin enough. To be sure the Morgan would move less than it would, she fired at the opened airbrake, which consisted of two metallic plating folded upward and downward, which had been extended by the Belkan female pilot to help recover from her loss of control. Hit critically in its actuator, the airbrakes remained stuck, greatly slowing the ADFX-01.

"Was machen Sie?" Zveda shouted, deeply worried that the stolen Su-47 would be kamikazed against her lightly damaged plane.

She did not get any response. Or just a nasty gun burst on her left engine, right before she saw the unthinkable happened in her rearview camera display. It was even more unthinkable than when her Meister had been locked on by this same pilot a few month ago, due to the unconventional use of a belly radar. Then, as she expected to see the Su-47 hit the ground, due to the great speed she had fallen with, nothing happened.

Or cutting a tree part was nothing apparently, as it was what happened when Iskanda pitched high again in a difficult effort to level her plane. She did prevent her Su-47 to hit a tree head-on, but a tree part was moving due to the wind created by the Morgan's jet wash above her, and her forward swept-wing cut right through the thin wood, before she was right below the Morgan. She hit its powerful belly armor, that she expected to go through like butter and kill the pilot above. She roared in desperation as she had to bank left a bit to avoid mid-air collision. However, her bullet had an unexpected effect, for both her and the Belkan pilot. They had detached a few parts of the Belkan plane plating, not enough to endanger its structural integrity, but enough to greatly damaged the engines as these small parts were sucked into at great speed, as the Morgan was accelerating to avoid this damned merc. And unfortunately for the Belkan pilot, her remaining right engine was destroyed in the process. The left one was still running, but a red warning message appeared on her already red HUD "GEFAHR, REAKTORSÜBERDRUCK". With great reluctance, she pulled the ejection handle. The ADFX-01 kept flying for some seconds before the left engine blow from the inside and disperse the plane in a cloud of composites and titanium.

" Fortuna ist ... auf Seiten der Mutigen (Fortune favors the bold)!" Iskanda repeated happily as she went hunting for the second ADFX-01, this time in their language, showing them that odds were never the same. They had not the same circumstances than last time. Last time, she had her airplane damaged by laser artillery and Kupchenko's gun before she had the opportunity to fight them.

"Undenkbar (impossible)." Muttered the second Erbe in awe, as he was running toward Excalibur, hoping the sheer firepower of the fortress would shield him from the enemy attacker. It was the first time of the entire Belkan war than an ADFX-01 had been shot down.

He thought she would not try to follow him, as once again he put the energy input of the TEGS far above air's disruptive field. Lightning were now surrounding the TEGS, and some were even striking at the nearby trees, causing small fire here and there. But with the humid atmosphere, they would not spread that much.

Indeed, she suffered from the increased in power input of the TEGS. Yet, unlike his former X-29A, the Su-47 chose not to try to bear the electricity induced by the near pulse generator. So, the onboard trim computers shut down by themselves, one by one, rendering the Berkut infinitesimally harder to maintain stable than any other plane she had ever flew. She felt than even the smallest push of wind would make her roll over. She was constantly adjusting her airplane stability manually, feeling shaken terribly with each second passing. But with each second passing, she was closer to the ADFX-01. By luck the aircraft engine seemed to have a good resilience against the electric currents, or she wouldn't have been able to keep such speeds. If she could have seen her aircraft, she would have seen that the flames created by her afterburners were glowing even brighter than usual, due to the air being hotter than usual due to the lightnings the TEGS was inducing.

She was finally in range of firing her gun at the TEGS when a strong lighting hit her, paralyzing her electric actuators in her canards. But the next second, a small indicator was on and glowing with a faint blue light, indicating " hydraulisch Notfallsaktuator", and she regained her mobility suddenly. She thanked Kupchenko in spirit for using optic fiber that was way more lightning-resilient and redundancy in his former fighter, and managed to pitch downward, before rolling leftward and finally firing on the fourth TEGS. It exploded quite violently, shaking both planes a lot. Yet, her pitch-black camo helped her a bit to deal with the bright explosion, while the shinier paintjob of the Morgan reverberated a bit of light to the Belkan pilot, blinding him for longer than her.

He did not see her coming from below. And like his know fallen wingmate, he did not immediately see his enemy pitching hard and with a foolish audacity, climbing between his engine, but not before having fired one of her missiles at the right one. Still, he did realize what she was doing and try to roll to catch her aircraft between his engines. He only succeeded in making her turn away a bit to avoid being hit by the massive engine. And as he tried to turn to engage her as she was climbing below her, he was hit by her last HEFR. He bailed out instantaneously, and he saw helplessly his ablaze aircraft being intercepted by the fire of the laser artillery around the external layer of solar panels. Them, two of the best Belkan pilots, equipped with the best available aircraft in the world, had been downed by a lesser one, but maybe they didn't possess the same determination she had showed in this short dogfight.

And she used the distraction of the falling ADFX-01 to get closer to Excalibur, around which Kupchenko was circling. She was about to fire at him head-on when he hit the deck hard, inverting his airplane while diving to do a Split-S toward the diagonal support linking the hemi-cylindrical structure to the ground. Iskanda did not waste a single moment to pursue him, but the second after he passed by the support, the TLSs on them and above on the cross fired in unison. And as she had approached them head-on, while facing the face of the double cross guard and not its side, she felt like she had hit some kind of aerial barrier as she was pushed away by the strength of the explosion of her own armor plating. She felt more shaken that she had never been, even if she had already been shaken a lot by the small explosion of the TEGSs and had to turn away in order to avoid annihilation. She turned away, growling in frustration. The firepower of the Wunderwaffe had nearly destroyed her fighter, which was blaring at her "STRUKTURELLE INTEGRITÄT GEFÄHRDET" (structural integrity compromised), with all her indicators being nothing more than red lines, and with her HUD now gone, having being hit too.

The damage was terrific: her forward canards were gone, and her rudders and had been severely reduced by the firepower. Her rear radomes were nothing but two duraluminium sieves by now. She was glad she had fired her last missile at Kupchenko when he dived, because if she had kept it, it would have detonated inside her missile bay, which had been hit pretty hard. The afterburners were not working any more, and all her landing system had been critically damaged, with the tires exploding inside their housings, damaging her plane from the inside. Even if she knew she had no need of tire to land at the mausoleum bunker, she knew these inner explosions had not done any good to her already critically damaged plane.

There was even impacts on the canopy. There, the laser pulse had just gone through it, sublimating the glass on their path, and projecting small pieces of burning glass on her, which were hit enough to burn her, even through her suit. She even had to extinguish some nascent flames on her suit caused by these burning pieces of glass. Fortunately, her helmet protected her head enough to avoid serious injuries. Still she had no choice, given her critical state.

And with her heart filled by a cold rage she had no way of dissipating it, she definitively turned away from the battlefield. After all, she had stated as she went to the skies today that she had no or very few chances to pull out the Sword of Kings. She had been proved right, but hopefully not deadly right. Her fuming aircraft retreated, leaving behind it a trail of black smoke. Of course, she heard nothing from the current talks on the waves, with all her antennas destroyed. Almost all avionics were destroyed too, with her radar screen showing nothing but grey.

"Gault 8, I will have a message for two of your compatriots." Gault leader asked to the Sapin member of his team. He had no point in engaging this retreating aircraft. And the Schwarze squad had to be ready in case other North Belkan showed up, not hunting this "Schwarze Luchs". He had other way of destroying an adversary that simply shooting him or her down. A single pilot with goals limited to his survival and his short-term glory would have rushed for the kill. A more strategic one would have waited for the craft to be vulnerable to fire, like she had been right after her laughable attempt at taking him down. A chivalrous pilot would have let her live, refusing to fight a vulnerable foe. Indeed, she was after sustaining so much damage from Excalibur. He was now wondering how his former aircraft had even survived that. But him, he was a true tactician. He had finally set all the pieces on the chess board for both sides. And soon, he would have the opportunity to just make it topple over. Those Osean dared to think they would do the same with the Round Table. He smirked at the idea of their meaningless hope.

He then proceeded to land, while rain began to fall, extinguishing the few forest fires born out of the crashes. He didn't start the fire, he even tried to fight it. The true arsonists would be burn in their own flames, it was a certainty.

Schayne Plains, Belka, 05/06/1995, 15:30, Weather: medium cloud coverage.

She had barely escaped the Hell that Excalibur had unleashed on her today. Sure, she survived B7R, and this was a great achievement by itself and downing those ADFX-01s was great too. Sadly, no plane seemed to be a match for the firepower of the Sword of Kings. Even sci-fi fighters with proton torpedoes would fail if they had such technology. And she doubted that the Force could allow to try firing at the Belkan Wunderwaffe.

And she had to rely on her sight and memory to go back to Schayne, since no avionics was on. Only the compass and a few mechanized indicators were still working. Still, she almost discerned two metallic point on the horizon. Who were they? Allied or enemies, she would have to rely on eyesight, the older sensors in the book, to figure that out. In the list of offline systems there was the IFF too. Even the sensors for the structural integrity had died, resulting in a deadly silence in her plane.

However, the two pilots she had a glimpse at from afar could see her very well. Still, they couldn't have figured her side by themselves. Yet they had received a call from one of their compatriots, and this had led them here. They had an enemy of their new "friends" to shoot down:

"Gault 8 to Espada 1. ¡Derribad este Su-47 (shot down this Berkut)!" The Sapinish member of Gault squadron ordered to his compatriots, former enemies now new allies.

"Entendido, Perez." Alberto Lopez aka Espada 1 replied, and ready his SAAM tracking pod, while his wingmen was preparing her Rafale's XMAAs.

"Entendido. Para la Confederación." Espada 2 aka Marcela "Macarena" Vasquez replied.

And for a reason that was obvious for Iskanda but not to the two Sapin pilot with yellow and red planes, with the J-35J of Espada 1 having a red camo with a yellow cross on the upper side, and Espada 2 having red and yellow stripes on her wingtips, their opponent did not say anything. All they could see was a pitch-black Berkut coming head-on and leaving black smoke in its path. It was like some painter had decided to draw a dark line in the Azur.

For the same obvious reason, Iskanda had chosen to engage. After all, they wouldn't be with peaceful intent if they were going head-on too. The confirmation she couldn't get through radio come under the form of a SAAM. In addition to the critical state of her plane, she only saw it as it was pretty close to her, and it was more by luck than through skills that she evaded this one. A two-XMAA volley followed the SAAM. Them, she saw the Rafale firing them from its pilons. As such, it was easier to avoid them. Even if she almost crashed on a nearby tree as she dived in a clearing to fool the missiles. Then she proceeded to attack the two aircraft that were still unknown to her -not the aircraft themselves, but their affiliation-.

"This pilot has guts to keep fighting with that wreckage." Espada 1 shared his mind about how crazy the pilot was to be able to fly a craft with damage almost above the hundred percent. Only the rear control surfaces were left on the craft, and they had been seriously amputated.

"If it was a F-15C without wings I would have said it's Pixy, but here I have no idea." Espada 2 completed her partner. The only data they had was the added IFF through the Merlin satellite they had just been connected, and the name "Schwarze Luchs" it was showing them didn't ring any bells.

Still, despite having to evade a second volley of two XMAAs, which it did by pitching hard and climbing leftward, before it stalled and dived, the Su-47 was keeping its forward motion. The Espada team thought for a couple seconds that it was going straight to its doom, but the pilot managed to level the fighter very close to the ground. It was so close that if it had lowered its gear it could have taxied on the ground.

Flying below the two aircraft, Iskanda evaded the close-range missiles as well as their gun. She had seen in the Futuro canal fighters being torn apart by a Sapin Rafale gun, and she had no will to try its effect. Obviously, it would be less powerful than the anti-air artillery of Excalibur, but her aircraft could not suffer any more damage. As she flew below them, she could get a better glimpse at her opponent: she had sighted the Sapin insignia, but not the squadron. She would identify them later. Now was the time to fight, not to talk. She hastily pulled a head-to-tail maneuver, with every inch of her aircraft vibrating heavily like it would tear itself apart in the process.

Arriving in the six of the J-35J she had surprised by this sudden change of vector, she opened fire. Her last gun shells it its tail hard. Smoke began to pour from the enemy fighter, which tried to run away, nevertheless. Maybe if she had had her radio still on, she would have shouted at him for being a coward. But the Rafale, which had accelerated after seeing it had a fighter in his six, was not running away. Instead, it enacted an Himmelman, and attacked her head-on.

Having learn from her precedent shots on this specific enemy, Espada 2 chose to fire her ammo more cautiously. She fired a first XMAA, which was evaded as the Berkut banked right. Then she fired a second one, and this time the Su-47 enacted the same tactic that just a while ago: a small climb, then used the induced stall to dive below her aircraft level's. But this time the Sapin pilot had launched a third one only a split second after the second. And with the missiles having the same vector, her enemy which had only visual sensors only saw the second one. As such, as the Su-47 was entering its induced stall climb, its right wing was blown off by the air-to-air missile. The power of the explosion pushed the Su-47 away like it was nothing.

Iskanda was not pushed as much as she had been pushed by the firepower of the Belkan fortress, but she felt her whole body being shaken like a leaf in a storm. Still, being pushed this far away from the trajectory of the Rafale allowed her to evade the fire of her enemy. She was even able to get in her target six's afterwards, but to which use: she had no more weaponry available. There was no way she could down this damned Rafale. If she had very powerful engines, she could have tried to use her afterburner's thrust to destabilize it and send it crashing, but she had no such engines. She had not much of her engines left anyway.

As she looked at her severed wind and its cutting edge, a desperate tactic come to her mind. To use the cutting edge as a true "cutting" edge. In a certain way, she would use it as a "bord d'attaque" (attack edge), like her Erusean fellow pilots would call it in their native tongue back in Farbanti. Determined to end this fight, she used the last thrust still in her engines to catch up with her enemy, and then pulled out a final head-to-tail.

Espada 2 didn't understand what the Belkan pilot was willing to enact. Maybe she was a bit too much worried about her captain's fate. Which wasn't bright, as she had heard grievous wound noise when the Su-47 fired its last salvos. And now it was retreating, flying line astern, like he had trouble controlling his plane. It was comprehensible, his tail and rudder having suffered great damage, and the pilot maybe even greater. It was an utter surprise when the Su-47 rushed at her, looking for a ram attempt. She was ready for the worse, and the shock was terrible indeed, but it was not the worse she could have gotten: she thought the enemy pilot would try to slit the canopy and hit the cockpit.

Iskanda only went through the back of the plane with her cutting edge, creating a spectacular shower of sparks. The next second after her violent fly-by, she saw the Rafale fuming, as she had hit it in its engine critically. But she had suffered greatly from the impact too, with new impact on the few pristine parts of her aircraft. If she had her radio on, she would have surely heard some insult commencing by "Puta" or something like that, since she had attacked a Sapin team.

The engine of the Rafale couldn't bear the damage it suffered, especially the afterburners section. The fuel injectors had been shattered in a thousand pieces, and the shower spark had set it ablaze instantaneously. With her aircraft in fire and no more engine, the Sapin female pilot had to bail out. Her craft explode over the plains a few seconds later, and she felt the heat of the explosion. Of course, nothing like a static FAEB, but it was impressive though.

Iskanda was well aware than a similar fate was waiting for her. And even if she had no fire onboard, she was no more capable of evading anything. Furthermore, she thought for an instant having seen a DW-3. If they were capable of taking down entire waves of allied bombers, there was no doubt their ERAAMs would make quick work of her very badly damaged plane. She ejected, not that far from her Sapin opponent.

Indeed, she must have seen one, as her craft was struck by a supersonic missile. The missile breaking the sound barrier and later exploding her craft was surely enough to break her eardrums, because she didn't hear anything for a few seconds.

Once again, she had barely survived. She sobbed as she descended in her chute, getting in the depth of sadness and despair when she had thought she would reach the heights of joy after her victory. Apparently, such emotions were owned, and she didn't.

Valais Air Base, Ustio, 05/06/1995, 15:35, Weather: outcast.

"Pixy, you're clear to land." Were how the only allied survivors of this second Battle Axe, and third engagement over B7R was greeted by his radio tower.

"Roger. On my way." He replied shortly, lowering his gear and extending his airbrakes. Today he was coming back with a sense of accomplishment. He landed quickly and taxied to his hangar, that would maybe stay forever empty of a second user. Now the only other aircraft in the base were some transports. And the Nord 1500 Griffon, but he was not foolish enough to try it, not in this world at least.

He expected the Osean Major to call for him to come to the briefing room, but instead, it was the Osea that come to him. Maybe he had something special to report. What they were aiming to get from that fugitive was a mystery, and he could be coming here to clarify it, Pixy guessed, as he saw the Osean walking toward the hangar as he climbed down the latter. Before the speech of the Osean he received the congratulations of Herr Steller for not crashing nor damaging his aircraft too much.

"Mister Larry Foulke. You're alive. How unexpected it is." Perrault began his speech with an odd voice. Pixy couldn't foresee what was coming next from it a single bit.

"I did survive. Maybe these CSB guys let me go because I indirectly helped them by downing the Grabacr squadron." Pixy tried to find a reason for Kupchenko to let him live, scratching the back of his head as he was thinking about it.

"We couldn't send choppers for S&R, but the GHQ is pretty optimistic about the fact that there could be other survivors. Anyway, you did well out there. This squad was responsible for the loss of dozens of pilots in the earlier days of this war. Dismissed and enjoy your free time before we called you back to the fray." Perrault ended this unofficial briefing without any display nor informatics. After all, did they really need to display what this battle had resulted in: an utter victory for the CSB. They had won B7R and the Schwarze team.

"Strange." Was how Pixy gauged this debriefing. Quite strange was the set of minds of the Osean. He almost seemed to be relaxed. What were the Osean plotting that could make them smile after an horrific defeat that costed them the lives of dozens of pilots and billions of zollars of military assets, especially these F-35As that had been dispatched as cannon fodder in a vain attempt to get this fugitive in one piece.

Even stranger was the fact that Perrault wasn't criticizing him for his choice of engagement, nor blaming him for their losses in any ways. Sure, he could've maybe ensured this kid's survival if didn't get this harsh on the Grabacr and focused a bit more on his allies. But he wanted this vengeance. Now he had consumed it to the bitter end, even if right now this vengeance seemed more sweeter than ether rather than bitter-sweet like people always describe vengeances.

Still, he got some intel as he discussed with Henri of some messages he heard on the waves, with some about their now M.I.A. leader. Apparently, they had not found any remains of the AWACS that could steer their thoughts toward death or survival. It had exploded in mid-air according to the radar data, and the few Osean commandos that were managing to survive had only found mere pieces of it spread across a wide area in the North West of Glatisant. They said that they had to wear battle helmet due to parts falling like rainfall, as the consequences of the huge number of allied casualties. Even if these data were thin, he chose to share them with a person very concerned about this.

"So, my brother is either dead or missing. Great news." Magdalena chose to go ironic about the fate of her sibling rather than go into drama and burst into tear on the line. It was better for her not to be sure about his fate. This uncertainty was leaving room for enough optimism.

"On the other hand, you know, this pilot I ranted about when we visited the Technical Museum?" Pixy tried to share his success to steer the talk on a happier note.

"Ja, diese Ashley?" She recalled, having had that day a hard time considering that this was a guy's name and not a girl's. Even if she was pretty sure the gender of his target was not something that would matter to Pixy.

"Well, I terminated him. Like Gelb 1 was." Pixy proudly announced that he had indeed killed this man through static FAEBs. Quite a horrible way to die, he assumed it. But he had owned this death. Ashley Bernitz had owned to be slain with all of Pixy's hatred.

"Great. I guess Ste Victoire, or some Goddess of War blessed you today. Or maybe some old Emmerian king was smiling at you." She quoted some beings that often people would thank for having been favored in battle.

"Why not a bit of all of them." Pixy concluded this topic, shrugging at the idea that he would be a paw inside the hands of some all-powerful being. Maybe he was a paw in a strategy of some people, but these were not gods or kings for all he knew. Just mans like him, who wanted to end or turn this war in some ways.

Then they dithered a bit about the becoming of her daughters, who were greatly helping her to cope with the quite sinister fate of her brother. They were a bit sad about the unknown fate of his leader too, having had a good time in her company, laughing as she went into mens' clothing shop. At least they had the chance to live in a pretty peaceful city. Directus had been liberated, and now it had been liberated from the weight of the war due to the Excalibur strikes on the Airport, which had caused no civilian casualties. Of course, they had caused losses in matter of military assets. And since, the contingent of Osean were slowly being dispatched to either the front or the backlines, were they had at least some usefulness. To be fair, Pixy gauged in the end, what effort of the allied forces was useful to their cause or the state of the frontlines? The first had seen their international supporters diminishing due to their losses, the EMP disasters in non-fighting countries like the Andamans Island while the third had been stalled for more than a month by now. And Pixy had no idea when they would move again.

End of chapter.
Damned it, with the vacation (forget this word, I only had some very short one that i don't know how to translate from the French forest of abbreviation that our administration is), I did take some time to get this chapter. I guess these XMAAs (Christmas joke 1000% assumed) vacation are never helping to rest in any way. Happy new year of 2020 and for the Aurelian and Leasathian, happy new war (just kidding you guys and girls).
So, here we are, one of the last close-to-canon mission, and the first battle of the CSB against both North Belka and the allies. There are only a few that will stick to the canon. I hope you like this second and thus uncanon battle of B7R (even if it's the third, but there was a third in the game too), which I tried to cut equally between the point of view of my antagonists and protagonists. Which lead to this chapter being quite a long one, maybe around the 25000 words or not, I don't know. I hope you'll not find it too long. I did some quote here and there to other ace combat titles and one Disney.
Some would say the true Wunderwaffe is not Excalibur nor others, but the protagonist itself. There's a bit of truth in these words.
So, bis nächst mal, Lesern und Leserinnen. Feel free to comment, subscribe, favor (I just figured that saying favorize was wrong) ...

26/01/2020: Some grammatical mistakes fixed