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.

26. Chapter 123: Operation Cannibal 2 part1

"Impossible is only in the dictionary of fools" Napoleon Bonaparte

Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 21:00, Weather: heavy risks of thunder.

As if the weather was in accordance with his state of mind, the clouds that once were light and peaceful felt heavy, and ready to burst and burn the world with their thunder. He did not accept his contract for this, to destroy his homeland. He signed to defend and protect Ustio, which he was almost seeing as a second homeland by now. The people living in Ustio were not full of hatred toward Belka like Oseans, after all they had had much of their history together. And above all, there was more bravery in fighting for the building of something new that just to destroy the old ground of this world.

This is why he did not choose to rush on the defenders of Hoffnung. What was left to defend other than old stones and the history they once carried, anyway? At least that was what the sight of a burning city meant to him.

He did destroy a few SAMs and AA guns upon their arrival near that factory with four chimneys at the South of Hoffnung, but then chose to engage the ones he had signed up for to kill : the followers of the Rald Partei that once swore to change Belka in ten years. But maybe it wouldn't require ten years to destroy them and really change Belka for good, and for more than ten years.

And thus, he was engaged by some Typhoons from North Belka in a dark grey camo, bearing red Belkan cross. They fired XLAAs at him, but he dived between some abandoned buildings and made their fire be shot for trash.

"This is Blue Arrow 1, I am targeted by some of those modified F-35s!" One of the Osean F-15E pilot complained, as he was taken aback by the unusual mobility of the F-35X. Pixy had let the last members of Donner squad alive as he rushed to the North to fight his true enemies.

"You said you want our Hoffnung to burn. But your hopes will burn first!" Donner 3 replied with all the harshness he could master in his voice, tangled in a scissoring maneuver with the Osean craft. Still, the modifications of the F-35X were making him gain ground with each second passing. A QAAM was his first shot, which hit the F-15Es on the tip wing and made the Osean aircraft yaw extensively. And this unwanted maneuver resulted in an uncontrolled spin that take him to the ground, and to his death, as the following F-35X dived on him at full speed, and it was quite hard for the Osean to recover with his plane struck by one more missile and filled with Belkan lead.

"Pixy, what are you doing at the North? We need you here!" Blue arrow 3 asked why this mercenary was acting so much as a glory hound when he was said to be someone caring for his wingmen. But these Osean were not his wingmen. His wingmen had all died to Excalibur. And his caring nature also died there. This is why Pixy had no concern about that Osean rookie back in B7R, or for those Osean Mudhens right now.

Thus, his answer didn't show any sympathy toward the threatened Oseans, which despite their numeric superiority were dying left and right to the wrath of the Donner squad, that were only four, but more than enough to have scored one kill each on the Osean Lightning arrow of F-15Cs and Blue arrow of F-15E.

"I am busy with the North Belkans. Apparently, they don't want to help me attack the southerners." Pixy disposed of this little bit of guilt that he was feeling as he was seeing more and more Osean blue dot disappear from his radar. Some Oseans had talked about that during the flight over Gebet, Recta and Fato, that North Belka might ally with Osea to have more chances at destroying the CSB. But Pixy wanted nothing from such kind of alliance. He knew there was people you shall not seek to ally with, but only to destroy. And these North Belkans were amongst them.

As such, he went ham on these supposedly allied Belkans, evading their second volley of XLAAs with ease, flying sometimes a bit tilted to evade their gun fire once he got closer, before opening fire, launching one QAAM on the aircraft at the outside of the enemy four-plane formation, before inverting to evade a gun burst from the one at the middle left, and thus getting in a good position to fire his missile at the middle right plane. Then he dived a bit still inverted, and climb back on the Typhoon from below, still inverted which caused him to fill a bit too much of blood in his head, but it was the price to pay to get a good angle of fire on the EF-2000. Which exploded after a gun burst in his twin ducts.

Then Pixy inverted back his plane, before going on the hunt for more North Belkan, on the form of MiG-21s this time. If Belka was using such old planes, it must mean they were getting desperate. But he was going to give them a few more reasons to dive further into the path of desperation. He knew he couldn't attack openly allied forces to protect the almost already abandoned city of Hoffnung, but killing those supposedly allied North Belkans was as much help for the CSB as when he dealt with the Grabacrs over B7R.

And thus, at the south, the killing of Osean attackers kept going. Still, the Donner squad was not infallible, and soon one of their members was down by three F-15C that kept spamming QAAMs while two more F-15E were targeting him from long range with SAAMs. Yet, when Donner 5 realized he was doomed, he pulled a short Himmelman, before firing every of his weapons at the three Eagles behind him: four XMAAs, and pairs of QAAMs and missiles. None of them survived. And as his plane burned and he finally had to bail out, he had the pleasure to see the two F-15Es that had finished him get taken down by Donner 3 who had taken advantage of the fact that the two were a bit too much focused on his F-35X and not on their surroundings.

"The flame of our Hope will burn all of you, Oseans. Even if we have to drag ourselves in the fire to do so!" Donner eight threatened the other Oseans, as he executed a bold move in perfect coordination with another squadmates that was pursuing one F-15C too. both fired on the rudders of the F-15C as they were beginning to roll to evade each other, and thus the two damaged Eagles collided with each other in a bright explosion.

"Then we will choke your hopes under the weight of our bombs." A F-15E pilot snapped back as he was pursued by Donner 8, and dropped two SFFSs on the "rugby field" factory, which created a cloud of shrapnels and metallic parts due to the partial destruction of the metallic structure of the said factory. And if the Osean pilot was hit by numerous small flying metallic part that caused some loss of control, but nothing that he could not recover in his stable Strike Eagle. However, the reactor of the F-35X behind him did not like that, as parts were sucked through the inlet, and damage the inside. And as a bright flame replaced the pinkish light of the afterburner, Donner eight understood that the fight was over for him.

But for one Belkan mercenary up North, the fight was far from over. He fired a volley of XMAA to disperse the Fishbeds, knowing that once they would be scattered it would be an easy fishing party -after all the MiG-21s was known for its poor visibility-. Still, most of them did not scatter like he had foreseen, they rather chose to climb to avoid his fire.

"Climbing to the sky won't guarantee you a place in paradise." He commented, as he dived vertically, before enacting an Himmelman that aligned him right below two of the fleeing Migalevs, which he quickly gunned down for one while firing a pair of missiles on the other.

Then he kept flying straight, before enacting a loop toward the MiG-21s that had leveled and kept their forward motion, maybe looking for the F-15C into the dark. Furthermore, he had cut his afterburners as he enacted this maneuver, rendering his aircraft less visible in the night sky.

"Wo ist diese verdammte Söldner (where is that damned merc)?" One Belkan pilot sought for him, but find nothing, due to the poor field of view of these MiGs.

"Ich weiß nicht (I don't know)" Another enforced the idea that using such old hardware was quite annoying. They were supposed to have MiG-31s as interceptors, but they had been sent to another squadron, which had been sent to take down the transports ensuring the evacuation of hardware from Hoffnung to Tauberg, but had been irremediably mowed down by the ERAAMs of the DW-2s that protected the aerial corridor.

And as he pitched his aircraft a bit to have a better looks at his six, he saw something coming fast. Even if it was the last thing he would ever see anyway, as these flashes he saw were from the muzzle of Pixy's gun. His aircraft and his body were riddled with bullets, and the first exploded five seconds later, destroying the latter and putting an end to his sufferance.

"Now I see him" Another North Belkan pilot noticed the explosion, and was now rushing toward the South. Maybe these Osean would have a bit more mercy than this merc. But he never had the time to verify this assessment, as he heard quite a harsh reply, while Pixy's F-15C was accelerating far faster than his plane, emphasizing its pilot's threat :

"What you see is just death coming for you, Ralder !" He said as he flew by his side, before tilting hard and firing a pair of missiles on his side. Both impacted the rear of the craft, destroying the engine and engulfing the fighter in a sea of bright orange flames.

The last aircraft of this five-plane formation chose to engage him head on. Maybe he wanted to try even if he was going to fail, or he was seeking to quicken his death. But whatever he wanted at the beginning, he regretted dearly his choice, as the far more agile F-15C met no difficulty at avoiding his salvo of missiles, while he took some bullets on his air duct that decreased its efficiency, thus slowing his aircraft a lot.

"Damn tricky merc." The Belkan swore, as he even had trouble steering his aircraft properly due to this loss of engine power. And thus, after the two aircraft cross each other's path, he was not able to evade the QAAM this Belkan merc had launch a few seconds before they crossed each other. He did see the missile fly by him as it was launched from a bit too close to have a good vector of approach, but then was unable to avoid after the missile turned back toward him and finished his already damaged plane.

The next thing that happened once more make him doubt of the usefulness of this attack, as he was flying over some older part of Hoffnung, in the middle of the croissant-shaped valley. There was standing the history of the city of Hope. Use of the past was meaningful here. Because it became past that would only survive in the memory of those who once lived in those place with a volley of heavy duty missiles, that were coming from the East, fired by the Osean B-52 flying over Fato. It was said that they were flying overcrowded area to deter the CSB from using Excalibur to shoot them down. To see these building filled with history being destroyed with such violence shook his conviction:

"Tomahawks just hit the city? Are those guys serious ?"

"They are dead serious, Solo Wing. Orders are to level this city. Destroy every brick and kill every man standing in our way." An Osean responded coldly, before dropping some napalm bomb on old buildings that had stood there since the middle-age. Building of wood and pitch that had survived the industrial age burned in mere seconds.

Then he noticed that on the Western side of the city, fire broke suddenly. Most of them being old factories. He remembered having visited these decades ago, as the Belkan army wanted their pilot to better understand the process behind the design, manufacture, and maintenance of their future jets. Not only Belka's past, but his was burning. But this was for a reason, that was justified soon:

"Burn every factories and warehouse. Destroy what could not be evacuated. Do not let anything for North Belka nor the allied." The voice of his former commander ordered, as noise of explosion and fires could be heard in the background. That caused Pixy to wonder why Oswin had left the Alderneste Base to come here, while more explosion could be seen.

"This is Luchs unit. Taking-off now."

Pixy then saw some last transport that was leaving the area. It had some white paintjob with a blue line at mid-fuselage and a blue Belkan cross on its wingtips and empennage. He knew what it was: an Ambulanzflugzeug (ambulance plane). So, this unit they had crossed path with at Aarlon had the role of evacuating the wounded of the Belkan army, and now of the CSB. His sense of honor banned him from shooting at such unarmed transport. He had no qualm about finishing a wounded opponent or even a damaged bomber but firing on that would be nothing but shameful. So, he kept going south, crossing the path of the two Donner squad members that were moving North to support this delayed transport. The reason for this delay was that they had had some nacelle issues, otherwise it would have left far sooner.

But he saw some Oseans that apparently had no honor, and were firing their SAAMs and XMAAs at the Belkan craft. Using his QAAMs, he shot down some of the semi-actives, while the Belkan C-130 was using its chaff and flares to disrupt the XMAAs, and with Donner squad using their weapon pods to fired their owns as retaliation at the Oseans. Only one XMAA detonate near the white craft, but he was enough to shake it badly. But it was enough for Pixy to shout at the Oseans, ashamed to have such dishonorable allies:

"It's an Ambulanzflugzeug, Morons! So, stand down!" He even fired some bullets toward an Osean to force him outside of his windows of fire.

"You're defending deserters that are fleeing. Besides, they are fighting on behalf of a rogue state created by anarchists. Thus, they aren't covered by international laws on this matter." One of the Osean of the Blue arrows counter argued. He was one of the few that had complained when Pixy had rushed to the North solely to kill Ralders. He was beginning to get sick of this almost righteous mercenary.

"If you do that nothing will cover you either. Last time I checked paper is not good at stopping bullets!" Pixy snapped back at the Osean, while having his hand right above his IFF switch, pondering if he would switch it off or not and fire more than warning shot on the Osean crafts.

"It's treason then." That very Osean chuckled as he was describing what many were expecting from a merc that was mostly known amongst the Osean army for the loss he inflicted on their recon assets. And to see that this expectation was met was almost making him laugh, on a heavy laugh.

"I haven't betrayed myself." Pixy replied, but instead of throwing anger at the Osean, he responded with righteous indignation. Now he was understanding the comments of Hervin when they talked about betrayal. Maybe, when entire armies, when entire cultures and countries seemed to commit betrayal against themselves and the very ideals they had argued for hours to claim their adherence to such ideals, there was a need for betrayers in this world he was fighting in and for. Maybe it was a means to brought back some measures of balance to this backward-spinning world.

"It's why I…" He would use this reason to answer a question that someone would ask him a decade later. "will fight to defend my ideals while you are burying yours." Pixy's hand stopped hesitating, as he stated his new allegiance, and switch off his IFF identifier, sealing their fates and his.

With this device switched down, on his radar all planes could be locked, all appearing enemies for an instant. But he did not need any help from electronics and avionics to know his true enemies, as more Osean reinforcements were coming from both North and South. From the South, F-15Cs and Es as well as a few F/A-18C Hornets.

But from the North, he had the displeasure to discover a few hours after his former leader in the same place the new A-12 Avengers. He had seen them once as he flew near some volcanic island at the North-West of the Ceres Ocean, not that far from the Osean coast. But these were on a junkyard, and he thought that these prototypes would rot there until someone found them some use. Apparently, the EMP disaster had been that someone.

"I'll take care of the fighters. Shoot these A-12." Pixy suggested, as he headed South. The two F-35Xs headed North, and the C-130 toward Blumenberg, where he knew that the battle of this morning had been a crushing defeat for the North Belkan attackers, and where he would have better chances of survival.

"Ver. Viel Glück." Donner eight agreed to do their last stands, which was now in the most desperate situation: no more ground defenses, or only a few dispersed SAMs and AA guns. There were now three against the allied forces.

"Macht die Alderneste stolz, Foulke (Make the Eagle nest proud)." Were the encouragement of his former base commander. For an instant Pixy had thought he would have to fight this man he once saw as some kind of fatherly figure like many others cadets that had little interactions with their family during their hard years of becoming a pilot in the proud Belkan Air Force.

Pixy saw the attackers. Often, he founded himself to be outnumbered. Here he was outnumbered by at least one to fifteen, as most small Osean task force used formation made of five planes. Thus, there was ten Eagles and five Hornets. F-15Cs could wait, he analyzed. They only had their XMAAs that could be jammed, and QAAM that could be fooled by flares if the latter were properly used. Even if by doing so he knew he would have the F-15Cs on his tail during his planned slaughter of the Hornets and Strike Eagle whose SAAMs were enough to shot down the Ambulanzflugzeug.

"To see a Belkan commit betrayal is becoming a common thing." An Osean quoted one line from their political leaders that kept spitting their venom for hours on every channel of the Osean TVs. In these words, disdain and a feeling of false superiority and false unity could be heard. Because they thought they were immune to betrayal. They were not. Not especially to this kind of betrayal, the betrayal of idealist wanting to live for their ideas, and not just to survive.

"Es ist kein Verrat. Ich tue nur das Richtige (It's not betrayal. Just doing the right thing)." Pixy said calmly, as he fired on his former allies without a simple glimpse of guilt. What was the right thing was only a matter of point of view, anyway.

Four XMAAs left his pilons to kill four F/A-18Cs. He had planned this shot, as they tried to fire their SAAMs, which he evaded easily, since his missiles were fire-and-forget, and as such he did not have to keep his target in sight. Yet something unexpected happened: as a F/A-18C was pulling a barrel-roll but too late, he went out of his path, but still exploded in the end. What changed with his missed evasive maneuver was that he exploded right in front of the F-15E formation, with at least two planes taking damage from either the shockwaves or the parts set free at amazing speeds.

"Damn this Hornet. He made me missed my shot on that Belkan!" One Osean pilot that had taken some hits on his guider for his SAAMs complained, being tired to see the uselessness to send rookies to the frontline. Even as cannon fodder they weren't good, as they would more than often do foolish stunts that could jeopardize veterans.

And these jeopardized veterans were jeopardized enough to be unable to evade the wrath of the Belkan mercenary, that had just evade four QAAMs through a fully controlled spin, before getting out of it, using the high stability of the F-15C, and gunning one of these Osean F-15Es from below while firing missiles and QAAMs on other F-15Es.

"Just shoot him down already! He's just one man!" A F-15E WSO shouted, as he saw on their small mirror the lights of his afterburners.

"I'm just one man. But you're less than men. Traue Mann haben Mut. Sie haben keine. (True men have courage. You have none)" Pixy tossed some half-philosophical line as he performed a Split-S, making his afterburners disappear for some seconds, before enacting some Schräge Musik on the Osean fighter-bombers. They tried to scatter when they heard the gun firing at them, but as they had already suffered quite a lot of damage, their engines did not keep up when they entered uncontrolled spin from such erratic maneuvers. It took only two XMAAs to pulverize both fighters before they had another chance to level their fighters. The last F-15Es thought he was safe as he was away from the two that just went down, but it was without counting on the wide radius of fire of Pixy's QAAMs, that he had modified a while ago.

"Surround him!" The Osean F-15C leader ordered. His squadron was named Black Knight and had a plain grey paintjob with black and red stripes on their wingtips and rudders and had some medieval-like helmet made of white lines on a black shield.

"You haven't had a very chivalrous behavior tonight, Knight. Besides, you title should be "the footmen of B7R". Pixy commented, as the squad tried to surround him. He was just taunting them on the fact that they had been defeated in the first weeks of the war over B7R. They were found almost death from dehydration by some Belkan patrols on the Ustian boundaries and sent to Directus as POW. Pixy wondered how they had managed to leave Directus with the Airport having been rendered out of commission by fire from Excalibur. Maybe this was one of the reasons why they were five instead of twenty like they were at the beginning of the war.

Besides, Pixy had been taught very well how to deal with these people trying to encircle you. It would only work if they were at different heights and not on a single circle like they were doing here. So, he tricked them into attacking by firing at their leader, causing them to break the circle to fire at him.

"We got you." They said as they fired their missiles on him. However, at this very moment, he banked right very hard, causing what his former friend Thesermeister would have called some "provoked boundary layer separation". Or just some instability leading to spin to vulgarize.

"Sorry but laws of aerodynamics said otherwise." Pixy quoted one line of Thesermeister, as he was falling out of the way of their missiles. Even their QAAMs could not follow his sudden dive, as he had first flown with a bit of pitch to fool them before his dive.

"Dive and follow him morons!" Black Knight leader grunted as his men that had fired a bit too late, and thus had allowed that merc to land some hits on his ailerons. By acting in such a way, this merc had prevented him to help his comrade. He knew if he dived, he would not recover with such badly damaged control surfaces.

But it was all a trap that he should have seen coming, but they were far too much fed up with will of vengeance for the downed Blue Arrow squad as well as the F-15E pilot and WSO they had come to befriend as they had been shot down above B7R too and they had to fight to stay alive in this harsh terrain that B7R was.

The trap was sprung wide open when they were fully in their dive. Because by that time Pixy had already done a vertical Himmelman and was releasing his last XMAAs on the falling F-15Cs that were not able to do barrel-roll vertically. Well, one of them did, but by doing so he broke his airbrakes and thus couldn't avoid a gun burst from the merc as he climbed back, twisting his tuned Eagle between their gun burst, missiles and QAAMs while all of them died.

"That's not possible. We were the best." The Osean leader lamented, as he remembered the once glorious result that they had got in some international training with Yuktobania.

"Good use of preterit. That's for past. And the past must die for a new future to be created." Pixy said as he leveled from his hard climb, watching with bliss the four F-15C falling to their death. The XMAAs hadn't destroyed the planes entirely, but with the acceleration, the damages were enough to make their Eagles split in a thousand pieces even before they would hit the ground.

The Osean leader tried to deny this truth, and tried to evade this former allied turned rogue. But trying in such situations was not enough. Death did not let room for tries. Pixy neither. A gun burst finished the damaged F-15C, then Pixy rushed to kill the last F/A-18C, who was almost at SAAM range by this time.

However, on the Northern front of Hoffnung, Donner 3 and eight were not so lucky. They lacked the superior mobility to overcome their numerical inferiority that Pixy had. Those A-12s were pretty agile if not fully loaded. And even without their full load their XMAAs and dual guns were more than enough to damage the F-35X when they ran into each other's formation. Indeed, nearly ten A-12s were shot down on the first joust, and the second line of twelve Avengers suffered eight losses.

"We can do it 3!" Donner eight tried to cheer up his wingmen as they were now attacked by all survivors of these two lines. There were still eight aircrafts in total.

"Protect Luchs, yes. Protect uns, I'm not sure." Donner 3 half-agreed with his partner, his doubt having grown with the punishment his plane suffered. They had little chances to survive such unbalanced fight. But they would not let any chances to the Osean either.

If Schwarze Luchs had been here, they might have had a slightly more balanced fight. But she was needed elsewhere. They knew they were part of something bigger. What was the worth of stopping one push if the entire battle would be lost in the end. Would this battle end up with a true victor? Not really, Gustav commented, as he readied himself for their very last last stand, with multiple structural integrity issues

"Denn keine Überlebenden." Helmut stated the fate they deserved for those Oseans.

Another wild exchange of fire started, with most of the A-12 getting shot down, while the F-35Xs suffered even more damage. A XMAA ripped the wingtips of Donner 8 and the fragments of the impact damaged his engine, while Donner 3 almost evaded a pair of missiles, but one of them connected with his XMAA pod. Hopefully, he had fired his last and it did not lead to further explosion. Still, they knew they were not combat-worthy after this last stand. But two A-12 had survived and were heading to the transport.

Both of them knew Pixy would arrive to late as he was dueling with the F/A-18C that was only a flying wreck by that time. They had loss their radio, and thus could not say "radio failure", but they did not need it to communicate. They looked at each other, before pushing their afterburners to their peaks.

At this moment, the A-12 pilots would have loved to be flying XP-79 Rammers. Thus, they would have survived the shock with their magnesium monocoque wings. Here they didn't, and all four pilots had to bail out because their planes weren't stable enough to let their pilots become new Solo Wings, while the true Solo Wing finished his target, that ended up burning and impacting the Löre river at full speed.

Somewhere near the Belkan-Fatoan border, 11/06/1995, 21:20, Weather: little rain

For a while, the skies of Hoffnung was clear of fighters. It was not clear of threat, as more tomahawk missile would strike at the now abandoned city, that was only illuminated by the raging fire slowly destroying it. For Osea, this was a pleasant sight, the sight of the last hopes of Belka burning, before they would definitively extinguish it. That is what they had planned. However many of their plans had not come to fruition since the beginning of the war, if they only took this simple fact into account they might have truly win something today.

Pixy, after having seen the Ambulanzflugzeug left the area unscathed, left the airspace too, but in the opposite direction. He would fight over these weakened countries that Fato was by now. They had been beaten by Belka, and now both members of this un-righteous alliance were using its people to shield themselves from Excalibur. This was the real extent of their measures that Osea was ready to take. After all, in history, the so-called liberators and crusaders were rarely giving to everyone their freedom back. Peacekeepers would only enforce their version of peace filled with other lies. And if there was something Pixy hated, it was liars.

Yet, he did let his hatred on the backburner, choosing not to engage the first wave of bombers, as he was slowly bypassing their escort, flying over the meanders of some Fatoan river that was joining with the Löre a few kilometers North of Hoffnung. He could have been faster in his infiltration of the allied defensive network, but if he used his afterburners the IR signature would have been increased to such a level that he would have been splashed by a lot of missiles from the escorts of the bombers squadrons of Osean B-52s and B-2s, and Yukte Tu-95s. How had he seen the Spirits? Well, as he turned off his allied IFF he was able to log in the phase modulation radio line of the Merlins, that was displaying the locations of Osea stealth bombers, far from the frontline.

The escort was reduced here, maybe to prevent detection by CSB and the B-2s being targeted by Excalibur or the Merlins. But their squads of Yuktes Su-33s and MiG-29Ks they had launched from the few pristine aircraft carrier, and accompanied by the ordinary long range fighters of Osea, their twin seaters F-14Ds and F/A-18Cs, as well as the new threat of the A-12 Avengers that were firing their SODs from long range, apparently using the data link of the tomahawk missile to guide their missile, none of those squads would be there quickly enough to save the B-2s he was about to perform some Schräge Musik on them. After all, they expected attackers to come on their side of front, not from behind since they were surrounded by allied skies. Or what was temporarily allied skies.

He had managed to climb quite silently and had even set his engine idle for a few seconds as he was heading toward the central bomb-bays of one B-2. It was quite a risky maneuver, but always a less risky one that flying indoors. Pixy was not claustrophobic, but the simple fear of death was enough to prevent him to resort to such tactics. Especially at night when none of those tunnels would be lighted

"I thought I just seen something. Some Belkan stragglers maybe?" The Osean copilot of the very B-2 Pixy was targeting said, but not before long he saw very well what he had spotted for a second.

He saw it very well because the fire of his burning plane lighted up the sky, and a few seconds later, as the roaring sound of Pixy's F-15C's engines could be heard, he turned and began firing on the line of B-2, as he just took down the one at the far left, and was now going straight on their line of formation. The next two kills went without any hitch, but then the others tried to run. This forced Pixy to spend some time to catch them, but now he was not afraid of using his afterburners. This caused him to be spotted, but nothing mattered to him right now. He was just a man, after all.

"We have some lone F- 15C on a rampage on our backline! Visuals confirm it's the rogue Ustian!" A B-2 crewmen sent to the escort, as they had managed to made the F-15Cs overshoot, but by doing so they had almost stalled.

"We have to come from the far front of the armada. ETA 10 minutes." One Osean fighter pilot indicated, as they had almost no interceptors capable of catching that threat in time. This kind of fighters had been the one suffering the more losses above B7R after all.

"But he's getting all of us killed!" Another B-2 pilot protested, as he saw the demise of the B-2 that had stalled, and faced in the following instants a frontal attacks, with Pixy firing without targeting at the air intakes of the bomber, that exploded in a bright orange flame the next second, as part of their ammo was incendiary.

"And I'm counting on it." Pixy added, as he mercilessly gunned down another B-2, reducing their number from ten to three survivors, but taking them down had depleted him of a third of his remaining gun ammo.

Still, if with each second passing by he could take down one bomber, he saw with each seconds the Osean and Yukte escort getting closer and closer. However, there was something none of the two fighting forces here, a one man army against a bomber armada had taken into account.

That something was that the TempestAngreiffSchiffe, the Aegis-class of Belka had suffered damage from some experimental ships that were part of the marine achievements of Projekt Pendragon. Their BAWS bays that had been repurposed as ASATs in order to saturate Excalibur and lessen the threat on the Allied had been destroyed or neutralized, while the fast frigates had escaped the harbor of Anfang, using their sheer speed their unusual shape was granting them. These frigates were the first of their class of militarized trimarans as the higher-ups of the Belkan navy had come to call them. Sure, they were not the most armored, nor with the heavier weaponry or with stealth capacities, but their shape that dramatically reduced water friction had allow them to left a fully functional harbor without suffering a single losses amongst their crews, while their experimental weaponry made quick work of their targets.

As such, he wasn't a one man army against an armada. He had the involuntary support of a Wunderwaffe, and as he saw the bright explosions of B-52s and some of their escort lighting the sky, his heart was filled with hope. Hope that this battle could meet a different end that the one anticipated. Maybe a better end, he guessed as he was trying to use the nascent chaos to go back to over the river and flee back toward Belka. Chaos was on Belka's side today. And one of its agents was getting closer of her next goal.

Valaisian Alps, Ustio, 11/06/1995, 20:50, Weather: clear

Iskanda's flight had been pretty boring as she flew Southward from Hoffnung. There was no allied to intercept in the vicinity. Of course, she ignored the fact that they were going through Gebet, Recta and Fato, but she knew that at this very moment the allied were nothing but inactive.

At one point she had even guessed that she could have run into Pixy and what was left of the Ustian Air Force. Then she thought about it a bit more and corrected herself: Pixy was all that was left of the Ustian air force. Of course, she did not cross his path either, but somehow deduced that he may be fighting somewhere. There was always place in battles for mercenaries, after all.

Still, when she thought that through as she crossed the Ustian border, she realized that it was maybe for the best that she didn't run into allied fighter and bomber armadas, that only equivalent numbers or Wunderwaffe could counter. And with her F-35X having been fitted with two conformal fuel tanks on its wings, were the external bays for XMAAs were situated, she had not been given any edge if she had to engage anyone. Her fighter was heavier, and these CFTs were less stealthy than these bays. Besides, flying with those attached to her craft was like flying with two barrel of fuel that needed only one bullet or one shrapnel to set her craft ablaze. That was something she dearly wanted to avoid, especially with her near-death experience this morning.

Right now, after more than an hour of eventless flight, she had reached the Valaisian Alps. It was almost weird to see the bottom of the closed valley between the chain of mountains not filled with snow, when she had gotten used to see nothing but white and grey for kilometers here. She was flying at low altitude to avoid being picked by the radars of Valais Air Base, that had some capacities against stealth planes. She kept this low altitude to compensate with the decreased stealth of her F-35X, but it came at a cost : having to deal with the powerful wind that would grow on the mountains edge, and caused her plane to be shaken like a leaf every ten seconds.

Besides, she could get surprised, as her radar was also blocked by the mountain range, and she had shut down her IFF to avoid identification by any Osean craft. She did that in the hope that they would rather try to intercept an unidentified fighter before firing at it. Something she would not do. She would not annihilate such UFO, but she would surely put a few rounds in such craft to hinder its fighting capacities. Sure, it was a violation of international rules, but Osea had already broken a few, so she could break a few too.

However, this eventless flight was about to become eventful in a matter of seconds.

A few kilometers above her, other F-35 but with a dark grey paintjob and sparks of lighting on their wingtips were flying toward the same airbase than her, obviously with other goals. The Stormbreaker squadron whose emblem was an axe surrounded by lightings in a yellow circle was only supposed to get there to refuel and then join the flying armada that was being deployed from Fato. But as they flew above some empty space that a snowslide caused by the fall of a bomber had created, and thus was devoid of any trees that could have hidden the black F-35s to their eyes.

"Stormbreaker 3 to 1, I am seeing some low flying F-35. Seemed like a lone fighter without identification nor IFF from up here." One pilot indicated, and tried to send message to this unknown fighter, but met only blank.

"I confirm. But it's not responding. Follow me people, we better intercept it if it has some ill-minded Belkan intent toward our refueling point." The leader agreed, and already pitched his aircraft down toward that F-35 that for some reason did not have the same radar signature than his. Maybe it was one of these F-35X their "aggressive recon" assets had been defeated by. But they had no certainty here. Their lack of recon sats that the Belkan Merlins kept destroying were once more a hindrance.

"Shouldn't we alert Valais?" Stormbreaker 5 asked to his leader, as they were only a few dozen kilometers away from the "hiking station".

"It's just one plane, 5. No need to worry." The number 4 replied with a feeling of false confidence. What could turn bad, anyway, he asked himself, as all five F-35s descended toward the valley in which this strange F-35 was flying on its own.

Even if the night had almost fallen, and thus the visibility was reduced, Iskanda had seen the F-35s diving toward her. They were quite visible on the glowing sundown. It had some of the same nuance of the bright flames that had engulfed the Hexens. And that would soon engulf those Oseans if they did not act.

"Hey, the unidentified just dropped something." Stormbreaker 2 noticed, as the small light of the explosive bolts separated its empty fuel tank. Lighted from this weight, they saw the F-35 accelerate, going in supercruise while they had to use their afterburners. So apparently this one had some different engines that allowed higher supercruise speed.

"Unidentified, respond!" Their leader asked one more time, before going full afterburners and flying above it for a second. Still, the Donner squad was unknown to these Oseans, and as they had erased their old Belkan mark on Iskanda's F-35X, he was unable to identify this craft through visuals.

"Let's hope this unknown know the international code." Their number two commented, as their leader oscillated on the roll axis, the code for "follow me". He was almost exasperated that this process was so long, and his voice betrayed him. This Schwarze squadron of Belka had no qualm about killing their targets they were supposed to intercept, and he didn't understand why they should show mercy to Belkans when their foes show none of it.

Code that Iskanda had followed very early this morning. But she was not flying a defenseless ultralight now. But an armed fighter. Even if she had only its standard anti-air ordnance, it was enough. So, why would she follow it now? She had a few tricks that she had thought about on her way from Hoffnung, and was ready to use them

"The unknown is lowering its gears. Maybe it understands us." Stormbreaker 4 analyzed, guessing that it must be having some radio failure.

However, it was only a trick of Iskanda, to make them focus on her gears, and not on her frontal bays that housed her QAAMs. And as their leader flew once more on her left, tilting his wing to indicate the direction of Valais, she fired a pair of them, while quickly retracting her gears.

"What happened?" Stormbreaker 5 gasped, as all had happened in a matter of seconds, going beyond his observation capacities. Furthermore, the unknown F-35s they had to use their afterburners to keep up with had suddenly decreased its speed, using her canards has air brakes to make all of them overflew her.

Then she fired another two QAAMs at the two at the edge of the four-plane formation, followed by a pair of missiles and a gun burst on the two planes at the center of the formation. The fate of the Osean was not bright in any way here. Only death was planned for them. Luckily, it was a quick one.

The plane on the right exploded when the QAAMs blow up his single engine. Stormbreaker 3 who was targeted by two missiles was taken out, but he did not go down alone. Maybe he would have liked to, so he would spare his comrade of a pretty humiliating fate. The humiliated was the Number four that managed to evade his QAAM by banking right hard, as on his left was only the steep slope of the mountains. But by doing so he hit the damaged fighter and both disappeared in a big flash of ochre-colored flames.

The last one did try to run as fast as he could to leave her range, but long before he could attempt anything he realized that his afterburners had suffered quite a lot of punishment from that unknown F-35's guns.

In a desperate attempt to call Valais Air Base, he still tried to use his very damaged afterburners. The flames were not of pinkish colors but of a bright orange and did not produced much thrust. As such, he had not even reached half of the distance to the vertical limits of the valley that he heard once more bullet grazing his planes. More red lights illuminated his cockpit, and one of them was the "radio failure". And not just his radio was encountering failures right now. His engine gave up against gravity, and he fell in a steep dive, his aircraft spinning out of control.

"Ah! Try recovering without canards and sharklets, du Osean dummkopf!" Iskanda mocked the Osean that was falling without any hopes of getting out of this alive.

Still, he tried to fall on her, but she perfectly avoided the falling Osean Lightning by a tight barrel-roll. Then she agreed that he was worth a bit of pity. She was not let him suffer all alone in those mountains. Making him join his dead comrades was far better. So, she dived on him as he was halfway to the ground. Two missiles shattered the Osean aircraft, with one of them blowing off his canopy and the pilot inside of hit. A shower of bright debris lighted the scene below her before the Valley was once more plunged into darkness.

Somewhere near the Belkan-Fatoan border, 11/06/1995, 21:30, Weather: little bit of rain

Pixy knew he had not enough ammo to kill all of his enemies by himself. He would have to play safe and strategic and use the confidence the Oseans usually get when in numeric advantage. The closest aircraft to him were the Avengers, he saw them tracking him, and soon enough he had to evade a few XLAAs from time to time. Yet, as he watching the long range missile on his radar, he got a good look at the EMIs in the area and their sources, and from this draw some plan to end these Avengers with a dark blue paintjob and dark trims on their wingtips, making them a bit more difficult in usual night time but the artificial northern lights born out of the Belkan Wunderwaffe made every plane visible tonight, regardless of their camo.

Thus, he dashed forward, toward two converging sources of EMIs. On his radar, the jammed form was not the circular shape of usual jammers or Helligen Kolumne. But the linear form of the Merlin Satellite, that had a bit more versatility in their use. He just hoped the window would be wide enough to ensure his survival, and not his pursuer's. Pursuers that were currently hot on his tail, flying in a tight pyramidal formation.

"Leader to all blue monarch, follow him close. They won't use their pulse weaponry on their own forces." The Osean leader, which was at the very front of the formation ordered to his wingmate.

At least a dozen rogers responded, but their Avengers had trouble to gain speed on the F-15C, after all their shape had been optimized for stealth -which was nullified by the space supremacy the CSB had- and not for speed. Still, they were close enough to launch volleys of XLAAs and XMAAs, for the closest Oseans, but most of their fire was for trash due to the increasing EMIs in the area, and the few that weren't for trash were avoided by the faster Eagle.

Besides, it was not that simple difference in speed that doomed the Blue Monarch squadron. The true difference was that when Pixy had turned off his IFF, he was then able to activate his phase modulation radio. As such, his radar displayed not only the jammed parts, but the areas that would be jammed in a very close future. And where he was heading was part of those areas.

But that, the Oseans have no clue about that. No clue about the trap they were all walking through in supersonic. None but one who expressed his concern and his wishes of safer strategies they could use and still get the kill but with a bit more time :

"Sir, there's only five hundred meters between these two no-fly zone, shouldn't we try to go around ? I mean, they are only five-kilometer-wide, that's nothing we can't cover and still catch that Ustian traitor." Blue Monarch seven shared what safety was pushing him to do. But what part of this sky was safe, when whole chunks of the sky were becoming no-fly zone where your aircraft would be neutralized if you were lucky and vaporized if you were not.

"We have still time. All planes, afterburners at peaks!" His leader denied his wise deductions of his wingmen with an absolute tone. For him, there was no time to spare. This Ustian had already killed too much Oseans for this day, and he was intending to finish his killstreak right here and now.

However, some man had decided otherwise. Who was that man? Not Pixy who was still running and possessed no active defense systems. Nor any aces either. But a simple man, a simple cog in the very large wheel that the Pendragon Projekt was. A simple operator in charge of this area, and who was now adjusting some thruster to give a bit of a tilting motion to two satellites in a very specific area. He was smiling in his bunker as he sent the last order to the satellites, knowing how much mayhem he was going to cause amongst the Osean pilots that thought that using some new design would amount to anything in the great scale of things.

And as such, as the Merlins satellites oscillated, their field of no fly zone was shifted, and began to shift even more after Pixy flew between the two fields that were beginning to overlap.

Still, this was not unnoticed by the Oseans, as their leader hastily enforced his order, almost shouting at his squadmates :

"Go faster ! We need to go through!" Was the last order for many of his squadmates, as the EMIs were growing stronger by the second in front of them, with the air turning in blueish or pinkish taint here and there. It was the last because they did not hear anything afterwards.

Pixy on the other side was enjoying the pleasing sight of the Osean rushing to their doom. A very small number, maybe less than three had refused to die and zoomed in before leaving the no-fly zone their comrades were trying so dearly to go through. For the commander and his three closest wingmates, the damage was bearable, only their long-range coms and radars had been taken out. But for the others, which had been sent flying today with dreams of glory created by Osean propaganda, for these pilots only death came. When they tried to go through the ionized air their plane exploded from the inside, either their fuel tanks or their weapons from inside their bays. Maybe some screamed of pain or from the dread of their end, but no one would hear them scream with the state of their avionics once they flew inside the ionized zone.

From Pixy's perspective, it seemed like these fighters had hit an artificial wall in mid-air and collided on it. Like those shields they somehow used in these great sci-fi franchises. He had quite a high perspective, from where he had gotten up after being sure he was in the green, out of sight and out of reach of the damaged survivors.

"Where is that damned Ustian now?" The Osean leader swore, as his badly damaged plane, and barely flyable was getting out of the no-fly zone in which radio communication were useless due to the insane level of EMIs there.

"I lost it commander." Blue Monarch 4 replied, having lost not only the sight of his enemy bust most of his avionics as well, this causing him to be unable to see once more the F-15C.

"He can't be that far" added a third one, who wasn't entirely false in his assumption : the F-15C they were searching was not right under their nose, but right over their nose.

And from right over their nose, Pixy finished those last Osean pursuers, firing his classical solution to a 1-vs-4 situation : two QAAMs on the extremities of the enemy formation, and deal with the enemy center with standards and guns. This was ludicrously easy to fire at them as they did not expect such surprise attack and could not see him coming as their missile detectors were offline and were not able to run with their neutralized afterburners.

The only consolation the Osean commander had when dying from bullets that had not only shattered his left engine and set his craft ablaze but also pierced one of his lungs was that those cowards - or those men that simply had no intention to go right to their death - would be sent to hell very soon and met their maker in a few days or weeks.

Pixy had just gotten rid of a dozen Avengers. But another dozens of fighters were coming for him, Yukte Sea Fulcrums that would be a bit harder to trick than those Osean morons. However, he had already another plan ready for them. A plan that would have made his former squad leader proud of him, he knew she would have been, as he descended toward an impressive six-lane highway. First, flying at such low altitude was making the tracking harder. Furthermore, it was even harder as there was a few indicator panels fixed on metallic horizontal poles, hanging between pylons from each side of the highway. Pixy did not hesitate to fly beneath those obstacles, but most of his hunters did hesitate. One or two tried to follow him, but were imprecise when they leveled after diving below the metallic structures, and thus ended up exploding on the highway, the small but bright orange light contrasting with the blue artificial northern lights of the ionosphere. And these panels showed to be a disturbance to the radars of those Yukte Fulcrums, as they tend to lock their standard missiles on these instead of on the F-15C skimming at only a few feet above the ground.

But this wasn't his final plan for them. The final plan was involving what was written in the last warning panel "1.500 Kilometer lang Überbauungen" (1.500-kilometer-long cut and cover section). Such underground structure was wide enough for a fighter to fly through, he knew it, as he had once some training to use such structures as base in case of emergency. Besides, this one was not bearing any turns, and surely no blast doors. Thus, he flew at high speed inside of it, sure that they would follow him, but maybe at a slower pace.

And they had good reason to follow him through this tunnel, because a plasma curtain just appeared over the highway, tilting toward them. So, most of them chose to listen to their commander when he issued the order in a stern voice:

"All aircraft, follow him in the tunnel. Half on each side so we will trap him a crossfire once we're out of it!"

"That's a bit risky." A Yukte expressed some concerns but stayed on his trajectory toward the tunnel.

"Always less risky than flying straight in a plasma curtain." Another added, mocking a bit the useless maneuver of the Osean a bit sooner.

"Besides, we're an elite aggressor unit. Challenge are our thing, right commander?" A third pondered their chances at flying through this tunnel and judged that they were pretty high. If, of course, nothing unexpected added itself to his previsions. He wished no such thing happened as he entered the tunnel.

By that time, Pixy was already half-way through the tunnel. At this precise moment, he had to bank hard to avoid some truck that had been parked there. For an instant, he thought he would hit the ceiling at high speed, and that would certainly have not been a happy ending. Now he was understanding why Iskanda was such a nerve-wreck when he arrived at Directus. Flying through that kind of thing was quite tiring for the mind. It required constant attention, and a single distraction could end your career instantaneously. Of course, the constant beeping of the "pull up" alarm did not help either.

But what helped him was this very obstacle that had greatly bothered him a few instants earlier. He had not the time to see what the cargo of the truck was, but he was sure it was not a cylinder truck. For him, it looked more like the LKWs the Belkan army would use for logistics and weapon transport.

And the help was these stored weapons onboard detonating, activated by a two-time pressure sensor he activated when cruising in the tunnel near the LKW. As such, a dozen second later, as the Yukte had also to bank hard to avoid a collision with the very truck, they were all blasted on the walls of the tunnels, crushing themselves on the hard ferroconcrete voussoirs. None of the attackers coming from the same side than Pixy would survive such fate.

Inside the left tunnel, the Yukte felt the shockwave too, but here only a few of them met their end against the voussoirs. But as they had to avoid their fallen comrades or the blast of their death, they lose some time. Quite a lot of time to be honest, while Pixy which had gone through this tunnel at transonic speed was already out of it, and circling around the end, trying to see inside if the Yukte were approaching.

Sometimes life is like this dark tunnel they were advancing in. They could not see the light at the end, but they hoped to find a better place as they kept their forward motion. Yet, the darkness had fooled them, had made them slow and hesitant, and they would pay the price of their lack of will.

And as the Yuktes, all exhausted they were due to how hard it was to do inside flight for standard pilots and not for crazy mercs with matricidal thoughts, thought they could allow themselves a bit of relief as they saw the end of the tunnel, they were met by four missiles, two pair of standards that Pixy managed to launch while staying aligned with the tunnel exit, with his airbrake fully extended and at the verge of stalling to his death, but it was crowned with success.

This time, the few Fulcrums that had survived the shockwaves were unable to go around, as they were flying in pairs inside the tunnel. If they had flew in a single line, they might have gotten a chance. But here they did not, and as the first met their death on the hardened voussoirs, the others were met by others pairs that Pixy kept firing inside of the tunnel. The fact that they were not locked did not account for much, as they forced the Yuktes on the walls quite easily.

Only one Fulcrum survived, only to be gunned down from above by Pixy, tearing off his tail by a long gun burst, and making the out of control jet impact one those highway panels, shattering in a thousand pieces on the hard metallic structure.

"That was definitively too risky for my taste." Pixy said to himself, as he was still trying to escape this overcrowded airspace. Iskanda would have surely tried to stay, and said that it was only a environment with target-richness above the usual, but he wasn't flying a crazy prototype, and had only less than a third of his total ammo.

"Follow him close, Rapira (Rapier) squad. If we stay close, they won't be able to use their Wunderwaffen." The Yukte leading the squadron of Sea Flankers analyzed, considering their previous losses against these deadly technological marvels.

"Good Idea. I'm going with Rapira 5." Rapira 4 transmitted, as he was pushing the engines of his Su-33 to its maximum thrust. They had a two-tone light grey camo along with blood-red streaks on the cutting edge of their wings, with white radome and wingtips, an elegant one. Their emblem was a bit less elegant, being a rapier embedded in a bird of prey, with small sparks of blood.

Pixy knew that if he overused his afterburners, he would be bingo fuel before the clock hit ten. He had no interest in running, to be honest. Much in letting them get closer and use his superior mobility. Both Su-33 and F-15C were good compromise between mobility and stability, he could agree with that, but the first had to be less flexible due to carrier-compatibility, while the latter had been intended as a cutting-edge dogfighter from the start.

Soon, the Yukte had the relief to see the F-15C in their scopes and were able to shoot a few XMAAs at the defenseless fighter. However, none of them reach their target, as Pixy pitched a bit his aircraft, before entering in an artificially created spin. One in which he had enough control on his plane to keep evading more volleys while in the spin. Besides, the XMAA had great trouble to lock properly on the fighter due to the high level of EMIs everywhere in the vicinity, and not only in the ionized no-fly zones.

"Get closer. Go in gun range." Their commanding officer ordered, and the two Su-33s went in full afterburners, while the four others were remaining a bit further, but know at XMAA range too.

"I'm almost getting in range." Rapira 5 indicated, as he was less than a kilometer away from the enemy fighter. But both fighter pilots knew that against such an agile fighter and a well-trained pilot their effective gun range would be below five hundred meters, and even at this distance they might not hit the Eagle.

"Come, my little Kameraden." Pixy threw some invective at the Yuktes, while beginning to extend his airbrake. But that was not visible for his pursuers, even when they began firing at him from four hundred meters. Yet they lacked the precision to achieve decisive hits.

"Almost there…" Rapira 4 said as he was only two hundred meters away from the rogue Ustian.

"Just a bit more." Rapira 5 added, as he was getting below the two hundred meters of range. But by then he could have seen the airbrake that was slightly extended, but he was not focused on such details. They intended to overwhelm the F-15C with fire, not to be refined in their approach, unlike their squadron name could have let their enemy to think.

"Now we're following him close." Rapira 4 stated, as they were almost getting right behind the F-15C. That was when he saw the airbrake fully extended, and too late to do anything. Hundred meters was a distance covered in less time that saying it with supersonic fighters.

A few seconds later, they were leveled with Pixy on a horizontal line, yet unable to fire since they had no plane with wide radius of fire. Obviously, this caused their commander to yell at them in exasperation:

"Not that close, debils!"

As such, when Pixy hit the brakes, and tilted his fighter, they flew harmlessly in front of him, while he flew through his pursuers, almost flying backward from their point of view. Still, this quick decrease of speed caused his plane to oscillate a bit on his roll and pitch axis, but as he gunned them while oscillating, he gunned them all over. The two of them exploded as they were trying to turn away from Pixy's line of fire.

Then Pixy decided to charge them head on, having to twist his plane like a madman to evade their volleys of XMAAs and standards. He had no more QAAM, so he could not take them all in one round. He was a bit below then on his final approach, and quickly tilted his airplane to dive faster and evade their gunfire, but in doing so he got a solid tone on the two at the left of the four plane formation. Both were severely damaged by his missiles that exploded close to their air intakes, and thus, were unable to evade his gunfire when he zoomed in back from his dive, and exploded them sky high, before executing an horizontal loop toward the two last survivor of the Rapira squad.

Yet, amongst the two were the commanding officer, and he had no intent to let a single merc end him. He let Pixy closed in to achieve some gun kills, but then masterfully executed a Cobra. This left Pixy a bit unphased, as he had not anticipated that, and thus received a bit of gunfire on his exhaust. His afterburners would not hold for long. He only needed one push of thrust and one idea to kill the two last Yuktes. He got the idea as he had to dive to evade a pair of standard missiles. But an idea that were not supposed to let his plane unscathed, he knew it. But this idea would have surely earned him the praise of his former and now gone commanding officer, and moreover his squad leader.

"Can't you just die ?!" The other Yukte pilot furiously shouted, being a bit further and having just fired two XMAAs that Pixy countered by resuming his dive, and suddenly inverting his plane which increased his negative climb rate.

"I won't. There's only one rule in war: to survive." Pixy replied, well convinced to follow this rule to the end, despite all odds he would survive.

The lead Su-33 began to dive too, following the mercs. He was expecting him to try to climb back, and then he would finally destroy his afterburners and suppress his chance of escaping his wrath. But what Pixy did was almost the opposite. Well, the opposite in matter of vector to be precise, as Pixy when completely the other way, performing some kind of head-to-tail maneuver between the Herbert Manöver and the Himmelman.

Yet, it was far more painful for both him and his plane than it was for Iskanda when she was doing this crazy maneuver onboard her far more mobile X-29A. For his plane, the mechanical stress was too much for his airbrake that was ripped off and the damaged part ricochet on his right rudder, and further damaged his right afterburner chamber. For him, it caused a few seconds of redsight, in which he try to fly straight toward the Yukte, if he remembered correctly where his plane was and was going to be, as he wasn't seeing anything but red in his field of sight. Furthermore, just extending his finger to the trigger seemed a hard task, as the G-forces were taking their toll on him. He even fired two missiles without locking them, on a hunch.

It was a good hunch, because one of them penetrated inside the duct of the enemy Sea Flanker, and thus exploded him. Still, Pixy had heard a few bullets passing by his fighter, and as the Yukte was above him in their joust, he was mostly hit on the back of his craft, suffering additional damage on his engines.

"I swear I'll kill you ! Suk* Blyat" The Yukte swore, as he closed head-on the distance with the F-15C that had decimated his whole squadron. But once again, his fire was for trash, as the Belkan merc taunted him for his inabilities:

"Swearing is unpolite. Besides, what do you know of my mother, useless and aimless pilot?" Pixy said with a voice filled with righteous indignation, even if the three last word were only filled with disdain more than anything.

Still, the Yukte managed to escape his fire head-on too, but he won't escape when he would come back, using the last push of his afterburners, whose associated light had turned red on his screen. Furthermore, it was quite hard to have a good trajectory and turn well on the Yukte without his airbrake, but he managed to slow his aircraft down by pitching a bit, not enough to stall, but enough to bleed his own speed. And after a few more seconds and a few less rounds in his ammo, the Yukte's plane exploded in a ball of fire and fell to the ground.

Pixy was now out of harm, as the F-14Ds and F/A-18Cs were too slow to even hope to catch him, and their standard XLAAs and SAAMs were fairly slow too. Still, he was not ready to pick another one-vs-ten fight, and thus chose to rush out of the area, going back to Hoffnung. He kept flying above the highway, but when he encountered other tunnels and cut and cover section he only fly over them and not fly in, since there was no point in going in, besides freaking out for the duration of the inside flight.

Furthermore, Pixy knew he would have even more difficulties at catching up with these bombers, from one conversation between some bomber pilots he intercepted while cruising toward the city of Hope:

"Sir, they have increased the power of their Merlin satellites, and Now our fire is for trash." One pilot reported.

"Besides, we have already lost ten bombers out of fifty-three, without taking into account the B-2As." One other added, fostering the fact that they were not in the best situation right now.

"Our engines might keep working if we go through, but I fear that some other avionics would be disabled." A Third One shared his thoughts about what the A-12 just did, and with pretty deadly results against them.

"Fine. Stop releasing your cruise missiles, we gonna fly around these curtains and then drop our heavy bombs on the last defensive structure of Hoffnung, and then on their logistical convoys." Their leader agreed with a bit of bitterness, knowing that on the way they would suffer some losses. But they still had their Tomcats and Hornets flying top cover with them.

Pixy saw some of these losses from far away, the bombers being light up and turned into a big flying torch, while their destroyed escort fighters were more like distant shooting star. However, he was a bit dumbfounded to find that the convoys were their target. Because these were not for logistics, but mainly the last civilians that had left their now burning city. This only foster his resolve to catch them and kill anyone he would be able to.

Henceforth, he forced himself to fly through some tunnels to gain some time on the bombers. If he was right, the highway was going at the North, going around the mountains surrounding the valley of Hoffnung. If the bombers wanted to circle around, they would almost go the same path, but maybe twelve or fifteen kilometers above him if they wanted to use the fact of the decreasing hazardousness of the Merlins with the altitude. It would put him in a good position to perform Schräge Musik on the bombers, though he realized it would not be easy to just survive. He knew he would never be able to win alone, but that was not a good reason to stop trying.

Valais Air Base, Ustio, 11/06/1995, 21:10, Weather: clear

Henri, the radio operator on the ground was quite surprised to see only one F-35, or at least what their radar was identifying as an F-35 but could not get a precise answer on which variants it was. After all, the squadron that was scheduled to refuel now was supposed to be made of five Osean F-35C with a light grey camo with blue lightnings on their bottom.

So, he was quite surprised to say the least when he saw only one F-35 approaching the runway silently. It was odd. Those Oseans had never come here, and this pilot landed here like a charm, like if this man or woman, he could not know, own this place. This pilot had the habit of mountains wind, which Osean often lacked, as Osean Air Base were mostly close to important cities that were in flat areas or high plateau at best. Not at high altitudes when scissoring wind could cause the doom of rookies. It had happened a few times in the history of this place.

Furthermore, he was now understanding why the radar did not pick it as a F-35C. Because it was not. It possessed a X-shaped empennage, sharklets and canards. Everything about this plane was screaming that it belonged to South Belka, or that its design was influenced by their ideology, putting mobility other stealth. Such feature could be understandable, as their Merlins satellites would nullify the stealth of pretty much any aircraft. Unless Osea created optical camouflage, but he knew that was not something realistic for this era.

However, he was not the most flabbergasted by the arrival of this mysterious pilot. This envious place was reserved for Herr Steller, as he had stepped toward the plane with a few Ustian resistance fighters that had come from Directus at the same time than the Osean major. He ordered to bring a ladder for this pilot to step down, but before he could have done that, the canopy opened, and the pilot quickly stepped forward. With the Belkan-looking uniform and the helmet on her head with the oxygen mask still in place, hiding the pilot's face, he could not get a glimpse at the pilot.

Pilot who take a few steps on the wing to gain momentum, causing the plane to tilt a bit, before jumping from the plane, as if she wanted to dive in some pool.

"Wie?" He said out of blunt surprise, stepping backward to avoid being hit by this mad pilot, trying to figure who would want to jump head first into solid concrete that was three meters thick and below it was a solid granite. Definitely not something you would like to dive into.

He was ready to call for a trauma team if this pilot injured himself in this crazy dive. But no impact happened, as the person performed a perfect roll on the ground that allowed to keep her momentum rather than hitting the ground hard. As the person jumped back on her feet, he felt a tight hold on his throat, and next a stingier feeling, as a cold blade was pointing at his jugular.

A single look at the color of the blade as well as its form bearing two rows of barbs allowed him to instantaneously recognize the person who spoke the next second.

"Gib mir the Griffon!" Iskanda threatened the old mechanic, which replied with an abnormally calm voice, due to the situation.

"You know where the hangar is, Iskanda." He indicated, slightly surprising his interlocutor by the strange lack of surprise within his voice, like if he had been expecting her. They both steadily walked toward the old and rusty hangar, flanked by the two resistance members which kept their submachine guns trailed on them, but not openly pointing their gun at their heads.

Iskanda noticed only one thing as they walked toward the hangar, the lack of Oseans. Were they somewhere else, doing some dirty jobs such as that man, if she could call him a man, did with that self-propelled artillery train? Maybe. But this was not the time for her questions. Not yet.

Steller was again the first to talk, as they arrived in front of the hangar, asking to walk freely :

"It's not that I don't trust you with that harpoon of yours, but I have a rather low platelet count and I wouldn't want to bleed too much if you accidentally grazed my throat." He justified with some health issue, which was true according to his last blood exams a few weeks before.

"If they let go of their weapon." She argued, and as the two other Ustians walked in front of them, he nodded, and they nodded back, why putting their weapon near the wall of the hangar, but still keeping their handguns on their belt.

"I have a good intuition to kept it in good shape, armed and ready" Steller said, as the two Ustians were opening the door for the hangar.

"Indeed. It will serve its purpose well, at least I hope." Iskanda added, wanting to at least end this day fighting once more. And this time, she would once again fight on her own terms. With her own strategies. That worked wonders against the Hexen.

"It's not because the city of Hope is burning that all hope is lost. It might even be the contrary." Steller completed, as he has now understood the purpose of the Griffon, which was now in plain sight, its cockpit standing proudly above its massive air intake. That Perrault guy had bragged once or twice about the fact that high altitude fighter-bombers would lay waste on its remains. And the Griffon was the perfect tool to save the day, like it saved the day a few months before, against those Valkyries.

"Whatever… I just want those Osean to burn. Speaking of Oseans, where are them?" She asked as a small tractor moved across the runway, from another hangar, to carry the Griffon, as it was not very good at taxiing.

"Well, they left with your former wingman to Fato where a temporary HQ had been set." Steller explained the almost emptiness of the Air Base. What was left was empty hangar and empty barracks, and a few warehouses filled with ammo they had gotten but could not use since the Ustian Air Force was literally a one-man army.

"I see. They have tossed aside their so-called aggressive neutrality then?" She had a bit of trouble believing that the people who had sacrificed entire fighter wings to get her and the Sixth Ustian Unit were fine with Osean invading their land, using their base to refuel and moreover using their cities and their citizen as shield to prevent strikes from Excalibur.

"Honestly, I don't know how they pulled that off. Maybe Osea promised them some territories of Belka, or from Gebet and Recta that are neutral but without real government since the beginning of this war." Steller emitted a few hypotheses, feeling relieved as she didn't ask him to dwell further in why the Osean weren't there to greet her.

"Usual Osean crap. Create an ally, and then dumped them under the bus once they have no use for them." Iskanda replied, knowing from this morning that this country of traders and liars was ready to do anything to obtain supremacy.

"Yeah. These were your allies." Steller closed that subject, intentionally using the past because he had heard of her so-called betrayal from Hervin. But for him Osea were the betrayers. For this reason alone, his voice was filled with disgust as he was talking of such men. Such men that did not deserve victory. And he hoped sincerely that Iskanda would rob them of such victory now and for the battles to come.

"Speaking of allies, do you know anything about a craft named R-020?" She asked with renewed curiosity, having considered during her flight that of all people he might have an answer to this question.

"That's not an Osean plane. It's a Yukte prototype, from the same era of the Griffon. Trisonic nuclear bomber was its supposed purpose, but it never reached that speed. They preferred ICBMs to bombers, but I guess that with their ICBMs being only strikes in the water, they are forced to use such kind of planes. The Griffon should be able to handle it. Especially if they outfitted them with heavier weaponry than what they're intended to carry." Steller answered while giving a few specs about this plane, with its shape being one of a long narrow fighter, in a similar fashion with the F-104 Starfighter, however instead of the small and thin, straight, mid-mounted, trapezoidal wing that had missiles on its wingtips, the R-020 had longer and slightly thicker trapezoidal wings that had their engines on their wingtips like the SR-71. However, Yukte never seek to obtain such craft since they focused more on ICBMs than high altitude fast recon crafts, and thus never manage to create a circle-combined engine for the Tsybin, forcing those craft to use jet engines that would limit their abilities.

"I see. Their number doesn't matter. They'll just be more to die." She answered with a shit-ton of cynicism, knowing her chances of survival. Furthermore, Wunderwaffe were more or less on her side, and that was already less to worry about and hinder her capacities.

"I trust you'll keep it in one piece?" He rhetorically asked, which she only responded with a small nod. Sure, the F-35X she had landed here was pretty messed-up, but he had heard that fights above Hoffnung had been pretty grueling, so such state of damage was expected. But against Widowmaker, Oxcarts and Tsybin, he hoped she would survive. Otherwise he knew his relative would surely feel ashamed to see their flying piece of art dying in a useless battle

A few minutes, she was ready to take-off after having looked on a few maps to figure where those high-speedy boys would come from, and where she could intercept them. If they were on time, according to Steller's Intel je said to have obtained from the last briefing, she needed to go fast and right now, if she wanted to intercept those fighters before they got in range of anything above Hoffnung. Their armament would mainly be some very long-range missiles so they could bullseye from the stratosphere, so she had maybe better luck if she could get in range and use her rockets or guns.

Thus, at 21:15, the Griffon took off once more in a deafening roar, due to his unstable jet engine. A few dozen seconds later she would have gotten in supersonic and set on ramjet mode.

Henri, Steller and Hervin had watched her took off with a bit of anxiety. Could she be trusted? Sure. Could she be trusted with the victory that would change all? They could express some doubts.

"Soon, their role will change. Or to be fair, they'll assume their true role. And we'll do too." Hervin said, as the base was quiet again, while looking at some of the Ustian resistance members that were roaming around another rusted hangar.

Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 21:45, Weather: little bit of rain

His F-15C had come up the highway quickly enough to catch up with those bombers. On the way he saw multiples B-52 being blown up sky high, but no small explosions. Apparently, their escort fighters were agile enough to evade the Helligen Kolumne. And some of their bombers might be, or at least some pilots were smarter than others, because Pixy did not see that many explosions. Maybe a dozen. Still, pulling these evasives was slowing them down, and to a great extent.

Now, he had successfully caught up with them and was climbing from behind them, trying to find the best position to perform Schräge Musik. Even if he had only enough ammo to take half of these bombers, he was fairly convinced to make every bullet count. Even if he had trouble tailing them with his afterburners in a dire state, he would follow them. Durch Himmel und Hölle (through heaven and hell), if it was necessary.

Right now, he was climbing below a bomber at the extremity of the formation that was only thirty aircraft strong, willing to do the same to this line of bomber than what he did to the B-2s. Even if B-52s could withstand much more punishment than Spirits.

Still, the Concerto of Schräge Musik would begin. He did not switch on his radar, so no passive detectors could reveal his presence. Of course, he did not need it, with the B-52s being such massive targets. Missing one of those, even without locking on, would be like missing an elephant in a corridor.

And so, this bomber fell, after a precise gun burst exploded his center right engine, and with two unguided missiles aimed at the wing-root fillet succeeding in ripping off his right wing. Pixy had just made another Solo Wing, but he doubt that such a massive airplane could remain stable with a wing less.

But their crew had enough time to report what they saw as the Ustian fighter flew by them, avoiding the falling craft and leveling at the bottom left of the Line of bomber.

"A F-15C just hit us. Bomber in distress."

"I confirm. Escort, hurry up!" Another bomber pilot added, being quite imperative in his demand of escort. He knew they had no defenses but flares. For a moment he was envious of the Belkan bomber crew that had at least their rear cannon to protect them.

"Skeleton 1 here, I have him on my radar. ETA three minutes." The Osean leader of the F-14D escort squad announced. Their planes had a dark grey two-tone camo, with skeletal talons on their wingtips

"Can't you go any faster? We are getting chewed up here!" A Bomber pilot complained, as he saw another B-52 getting down. He had managed to fool Pixy's missile with his flares, and the Ustian flew over him after gunning his engines a bit. The Osean pilot felt some relief as he saw the Ustian going straight ahead, away from his craft. But it was only to perform a Split-S and gun the canopy from the front, and launch two missile in succession, with the first blasting a massive gap and the second detonating inside the bomber that was shattered in a thousand metallic pieces.

"We can't. Servos of our swing-wings were damaged as we got out the way of an Helligen Kolumne, and as such they are blocked in an open position." The WSO of Skeleton 1 answered to the bomber pilot, desperately trying to reboot the small motors that were dead by now. Now they were forced to go at low speed, or they would all end up in spins of death.

"I didn't think that was possible." Pixy smirked, given how laughable their situation was. He had the time to down a few more bombers before the arrival of their escort.

Another bomber managed to lose one missile by banking quite hard while releasing a cloud of flares, but by doing so the B-52 was tilted in a way that put the center of the craft right in Pixy's crosshairs. Two more unguided missiles later and the Stratofortress was falling, split in half.

"Damn, this escort is useless." A bomber pilot ranted, as he saw the Ustian rogue gunning another of his squadmates while yawing a bit, setting all his engines on fire.

"It's not our fault that all of Hornets died to Excalibur." Skeleton 3 countered, as the six damaged F-14D were trying to go as fast as their now fixed wing could allow.

"We have been punctured. Losing pressure and thrust." A very damaged B-52 said in a laconic voice, as most pf the crew was now dead, and himself died a few minutes later when the fall would end up on the ground.

"Damnit. Another one just bites the dust." The Osean in charge of the bomber squad could only see the spot disappear on his radar. Two more spots disappeared after Pixy heavily damaged their tail sections and ailerons. They could still fly, but not evade the Helligen Kolumne that grew right in front of them.

"ETA one minute. Just hang in there." Skeleton 1 indicated, as their radar was now tracking very well the F-15C, but they doubted of the accuracy of their XLAAs in such an environment.

"Hang into what?" A bomber pilot asked, as gunfire grazed his canopy, wrecking his engine, before a pair of missiles was locked onto the burning engine. The strength of the explosion was enough to blow up the engines and the wing above them.

"Hang into your stupid hopes. And burn with them." Pixy harshly replied, as he attacked a pair of bombers that were flying pretty close. Knowing that they would surely use their flares if he fired missiles, he chose to gun the first from the side, aiming for where the bomb bay was. He did not expect the bay to open after a few gun bursts, but he took the opportunity, nevertheless. He did a quick dive, before climbing right below him and fired a single missile into the hole, which was enough to trigger some internal chain-reaction that turned the bomber in a flying torch.

Pixy barrel-rolled out of the way, before resuming his climb. He had taken one line of bomber, or almost. Only one was remaining and had suffered a bit of damage when the burning B-52 blew up and sent flying overheated debris everywhere. As he approached an altitude high enough to dive on this last bomber, he leveled for a few seconds, looking at the approaching Tomcats. Another thing he took the time to look at was the blueish light of the Helligen Kolumne that were now creating lightings here and there, sending lethal discharge to the bombers and the few transports they had at the front. For a glimpse he thought having seen some burning chutes of airborne troopers, but it was time to finish this bomber then.

"Escort, do something. DO SOMETHING FOR GOD'S SAKE!" The pilot bellowed as he saw the Ustian fighter diving on him at high speed. He tried to turn out of the way of his missiles, but his damaged wings prevented him from doing this evasive successfully, and thus the B-52 was split in half

"We're all going to Hell today. Stop praying and act." Pixy challenged the damaged F-14Ds who were approaching head-on, flying recklessly head-on despite his own damage. But if he could still master the flight of his F-15C without airbrakes and with badly damaged afterburners, these new foes would have a very bad day with their wings locked in an open position.

"You're going first, traitor!" Skeleton 3 shouted with hatred filling his voice, as he was firing a XLAA on the lone Eagle, followed by all his squadmates.

But all were avoided when Pixy suddenly dived and entered a violent spin, that make him fall toward the ground at high speed. He saw XLAA grazing me, losing his track by a few meters. Hopefully, he would not be against anyone bearing ERAAMs this evening. Or he would be dead. In his fall, he was a bit less conscious as the G-forces were taking his tall on him, but he was satisfied enough to hear the Osean ranting about their shots being fired for trash. After all, they were trash.

His next step was a bridge with had once bore some structure that was now wrecked and with some black fumes pouring from it. As he got closer, he recognized it as a RTLS. That must have wreaked havoc amongst the allied forces sooner in the morning, but now it was just a symbol of Belkan pride still standing in face of defeat. At least the massive structure that was still partially burning fooled the XLAAs, and Pixy was able to climb back after the bridge with no more missile locked on him. Besides, he had only six F-14D to battle here. And what is more, six damaged one.

His strategy would be simple. First, he flew right in front of them after his climb. They tried to fire at him, but he make sure of avoiding their fire by tilting his aircraft more than safety would demand, and thus swaying from side to side, out of their firing arcs, as their mobility was greatly hindered but not his. Then he fired a missiles on the extended wings of the F-14Ds at the right of the formation, before gunning the one at the far left, snapping his wing, while mocking them for not being able to achieve what he once did :

"Having trouble flying with one wing ? pathetic."

"Your end will be pathetic, I can ensure that!" Their leader barked at him, despite his powerlessness against this much more determined enemy, a few seconds before the F-15C crossed their first line of fighters, which had been greatly depleted, with three falling out of control to their death.

His second assault on their second line was even easier. They did try to fire some XLAAs, but they had poor mobility when fired at close range, and so avoiding them through a small dive was a simple formality for Pixy. They managed to avoid him as he zoomed in on them, but they did that by banking hard, and thus were still stalling when he descended back on them, and terminated then by firing his gun on their cockpits, killing mercilessly the four men inside.

"Your end is close, Solo Wing." Their now lone leader tried to appear threatening, but failed to do so, even if his voice was filled with exasperation caused by his powerlessness. After all, the F-14 would be always powerless against his Eagle for Pixy, with the exception of these F-14W Schnee had in B7R.

"Yours is near. And far more pathetic." The Belkan mercenary replied, having carefully thought his last maneuver against this Osean. He would not need to fire a missile to end this damaged F-14D. Just a simple use of the laws of aerodynamics. That would surely have made Herr Thesermeister proud, who reported having scored a skill in this manner.

Again, the Tomcat tried to engage, but his fire was avoided by the more mobile Eagle. None of his fire hurt the enemy plane or the enemy pilot. And to be fair, nothing hurt his Tomcat either. Pixy had not fired a single missile, and still the Tomcat was going down after their joust.

What Pixy did was flew very close to him as their crossed each other's, flying a few decimeters above the extended wing. But as he flew, over, he pitched a bit, making the thrust of his engine act like a gigantic fan that caused a nice boundary layer separation. This precious layer that was more or less creating the lift on the wing of the F-14D was dispersed in a split second by the powerful twin engines of his F-15C. Instantaneously, the Tomcat stalled hard, and fell to the ground, spinning out of control.

Having gotten rid of all his nearest enemies, he entered the city airspace, ready to take down any new opponent, would they be dishonorable allied forces or foolish Ralders.

So, I decided to cut this long battle here, between two skirmishes that are almost independent, to make these final chapter of the Hoffnung arc. Here we had some more betrayal, but I believe that such actions were expected, if we follow the last chapter.

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