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.

27. Chapter 124: Operation Cannibal 2 part2

Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 21:50, Weather: heavy thunder

Now the weather had followed once more Pixy's state of mind, going from threatening to openly deadly. From the dark black clouds, only lighted by these far away artificial northern lights and the raging fire from the ground, lightnings were striking at the few high buildings of Hoffnung that had not yet being burned to the ground. But what struck Pixy was not the frequency of those lightnings but their color. Usually lightnings were white. He had seen these weird blueish colors associated with the Helligen Kolumne, but seeing red lightings was giving a more hellish taste to even the air, while the soil seemed to be nothing but flames burning everything in sight in the valley.

He was now going back toward the Stratofortress when he got a call from one the last person he expected to hear today. Even if he had already heard his voice, but he was not sure. Besides, if it was him, what was his purpose here? Surely some piece of a plan that was far beyond his understanding, whether he was part of it or not.

"Solo Wing, we need your help. The Dunkle squadron had neutralized our Lichtswirbel TFLS tank. A second attack would be fatal to the Bienenstock." Oswin asked, his demand being more of a desperate one that did not match the image Pixy had of his well-tempered and serene base commander. In his voice, like in any people on those skies or on the ground subjected to this utter chaos, chaos could be felt. Almost distress.

"I'm coming." Pixy executed his former commander's order without hesitating a single instant. The Dunkle squad was made of 12 Gripen Cs with dark camo and a blood red line on their wing tips and rudder and was known to be an efficient group for both long-range sea strikes and ground strikes, operating from Anfang. Their usual formation would be half bearing SODs and half bearing XLAAs, that Osea had copied for their new A-12 Avengers.

In only a few dozen seconds, he flew over the western limits of the valley, flying toward the smaller valley in which the Bienenstock base was located. It took him such little time because the direction he was heading was not that far from the base, as he was once more heading to deal with the last of the Stratofortress. Even if he did not know if these were the last of today. Maybe there was a second wave a bit further that he had not seen.

When he arrived, he found once more utter chaos. Most of the warehouses of the base had been burned down or gutted by the doing of Dunkle squads, or previous attackers which for some were laying on the ground, shattered by laserfire when the Lichtswirbel were still active, or filled with Belkan lead for the following attackers. The runway looked like a picture taken from the moon, for there was so many craters on it. Even a harrier would have a hard time landing there with the state of the runway. There was still a bunch of conventional AA guns firing their tracers into the night, trailing the Gripen C close, even with their dark camo they could fool the accuracy of the CSB gunners operating those. Pixy did saw a few Gripen down or fleeing, spewing orange flames instead of the more indigo color of afterburners. For now, there was only four Gripen Cs in each configuration.

Pixy did notice some static tanks that did not move from time to time to repositioned themselves. These did not look like current AA-guns but more like the old Wirbelwind AA guns, but scaled up a bit, yet nowhere near the gigantic Maus and E-100. Hence the name Lichtswirbel, he said to himself, as he was approaching the Bienenstock Base.

"We only need some aerial cover while we bring the emergency power cells to the Lichtswirbel." His former commander explained from the armored walls of the control tower; whose windows had already been shattered by nearby gunfire and small explosions. He had already wounded and deaths to count, but if he could reduce that number from growing, it would be nice.

"I see. Target sighted!" He acknowledged, setting his sights on a Gripen bearing SODs stirred toward one of the inactive laser tanks.

"Beware, Dunkle fünf, he's coming for you!" Dunkle drei warned his wingmate, trying to fire some XLAA do deter the Belkan merc, but they were easily avoided, and the salvo shot for trash.

"I'm ready to evade anything." Dunkle fünf answered, confident in his and his craft's abilities. Besides, this Eagle was heavily damaged, he saw that as he had not seen using his afterburners to get here.

"Galm 2, Fox 2" Pixy announced, firing one missile at his foes, only for this one to evade by pitching high. But his almost telegraphed attack was only but a trick. A trick that the North Belkan did not see coming, as he was bragging about this temporary success.

"You see? I can handle a traitor."

"And even some traitorous ground forces." He inflated his ego as he was now in range of a currently deactivated Lichtswirbel. He slowly locked it with his SODs and fired. But he was not the only one to fire at this moment.

"Too low, Solo Wing." Dunkle zwei commented the fire from Pixy, as he seemingly missed the Gripen one more time. But he was not firing at the Gripen in the first time. Thus, from the two aircraft firing at this very moment, only his was a success.

And his success was of immediate effect. His well-aimed missile, fired without locking-on had struck one of the SOD the Gripen had just released, setting off a chain reaction that blew up the second SOD and the aircraft that was coming behind with the intent of watching the damage he would create from up close.

"Schöne Trickschuss (nice trickshot)." Oswin commented, as his men were carefully moving the specific emergency generator they had to rely. Those were desperate measures, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Because what they were moving to resupply those tactical laser systems were nuclear generators, that had been experimented a few years ago on probes made for the deep solar systems, were solar panels tend to be inefficient due to the distance.

"Danke. Aber es ist nur der Anfang des Ends für diese Anfänger (thanks, but it's only the beginning of the end for these beginners)." Pixy mocked his current opponents, using the word describing both beginners and the inhabitants of Anfang, where this squadron was based.

And indeed, it was only the first of his trickshots for tonight. The second, it was a bit riskier than the first. He saw another of those SOD bearing Gripen heading for his target, ready to strike. He did not go for his sixes this time. But for his twelve and inverted his plane. A pair of missiles grazed his plane he had quite some trouble maintaining stable in this position at low altitude, but he managed to evade them by climbing a bit -or diving as he was still inverted-. However, his salvo struck, his missiles being slightly quicker when fired inverted.

"Damn, this merc is the devil." Another Gripen pilot said, as he saw just two very precise shots that for him would have been impossible to pull out.

"Then cling on to some angel cuz' devil's coming!" Pixy replied with some harshness in his voice, seeing honorable squadrons that usually only took part in destroying armed forces in enemy territory before they could be deployed, thus they often begin with taking out runways, which they did here.

Pixy rushed on this next victim, but he was a bit too fast. He knew that without his airbrakes he would not have the time to reposition himself in his sixes. So, he only attacked from his three hours. A long gun burst set out his unique engine in flames, as both crossed each other path, but with only Pixy scoring hits. A few seconds later fire from a nearby AA guns achieved the badly damaged Gripen C.

Now there was only one enemy threatening the most their ground-based laser systems. But the four others were still as dangerous for the small AA guns and for the fighter covering them, which was not in a win-win situation. More in a very harmful one, as the Gripen C were firing their XLAAs from time to time, and as Pixy had great trouble avoiding those with his reduced speed.

However, at one point he saw the last SOD-equipped Gripen C mounting an attack, but with two other Gripen C about to cross the path of their wingmen as Pixy engaged him. He successfully evaded their XLAAs by a streak of sharp turns, and their standard missiles through a short spin that brought him pretty close to the ground, but he manage to recover quickly, and as he climbed to their altitude, shot one down one with a pair of missiles and the other with a gun burst that went right through his air intakes.

But as he was enjoying his short success, he realized that he would not have the time to get in position to fire at the attacking Gripen C properly. So, he rushed at the top of his currently limited speed, ready to use his craft to protect those Lichtswirbel tanks.

So, instead of trying to attack the enemy Gripen, he flew right below him, before climbing right in front of him, breaking his angle of attack.

"Was?" Was the sudden reaction of the Belkan, as he had to pitch hard to avoid the collision with this foolish pilot.

But the surprise vanished quite quickly from the mind of the Belkan pilot, as he pitch even harder to align his gun on the F-15C. He did fire two missiles, but they were not locked and thus were shot for trash. Still, Pixy felt his aircraft vibrating a lot as he was hit by gunfire, before a red message appeared on his HUD "Gefahr. Links Reaktor Überdruck."

Thus, Pixy had to shut his left engine off, or he would blow up in a very near future. Instantaneously, he fell, the thrust from only one engine being not enough to lift his fighter in the air. In his fall, he saw the Gripen was not in a better situation. Maybe in a worse. He had the advantage of falling from some altitude, so he could always glide a bit much than the Gripen. Besides, Pixy was not the one stalling right above AA guns that were just threatened the second before his stunt. And so, he shared this kill with the AA guns operators

"Hanging there, Pixy! The emergency power supplies are almost online." His former based commander tried to foster his former student's will, as he was seeing the badly damaged F-15C having great trouble maintaining a stable fight.

"I would almost prefer having one wing but two engines." The latter commented his current state. Solo Wing was better than Solo Jet anyway. He knew that if he made it out of this battle, if he survived this hell of a battle, he might need to change his aircraft. F-15s were known for their reliability and resilience, but he might have reached and gone over his aircraft's.

And fifteen second later, the last two Gripen in flying state had positioned themselves for what they supposed to be a perfect shot of their XLAAs on this rogue merc that dishonored the fatherland in their eyes. Two volleys of XLAAs left their pylons to murder a single craft, almost an overkill, but given how many Osean, Yukte and North Belkan this man had killed today, it almost seemed a fair trial for the two last members of Dunkle squad.

Yet, five second before they fired their missiles, the technicians in charge of carrying the slightly hazardous emergency nuclear fuel cell for the Lichtswirbel had made it to the advanced anti-aircraft weaponry, and linked them to the tank power line, once inside of it. It was not a complex task, just put a cylinder into some cylindrical hole, and then lock the system with a simple rotation to prevent any radioactive leaks, even if it was the last of the concern of the operators. Radioactivity would kill far slower than those Gripens and the others planes that the now allied North Belkan and Osean forces would very likely send in a very near future.

Thus, only four seconds after the XLAAs were dropped from their pylons and began skimming toward the F-15C whose pilot was readying himself to do evasive maneuvers, the XLAAs blow up in mid-air, and then the Gripen pilots saw their wing, cell and overall fuselage being ripped apart from laser fire, which only lasted a split second before they blew up, hit in critical components.

"Damn, I'm happy to be with the guys who have Wunderwaffen today." Pixy said as he saw the missiles heading for him as well as the Gripens being blown sky high.

"I won't say that we are the good or the bad guys. Just those doing what's necessary to win." Oswin added, allowing himself to feel some relief as the short range radar wasn't showing any hostile, while on the medium range radar there was less and less B-52s above the airspace, with one disappearing every fifteen second, with both the fire from Excalibur and the Lichtswirbel obliterating the heavy yet slow bombers.

"Why are you still here? Wasn't Hoffnung supposed to be evacuated?" Pixy asked, a bit puzzled about the goal of staying here while the entire city was already nothing more than a sea of flames with nothing left to defend or conquer.

"The operators at Tauberg are in need of our radars here. With the thunderstorm caused by the fire, their satellite become less precise." Oswin agreed on the fact that he was only a mere scout in this whole operation. A bit more than a pawn, but not more.

"I see. I'll keep flying a bit around here then." Pixy decided to stay here until the end if he could even live to see its end. But these Lichtswirbel had shown some weakness compared to the RTLS that had more turrets and these were more widespread on the railway vehicle, unlike on those tanks where they were concentrated on one turret and thus more vulnerable to single aircrafts.

Bienenstock Base, Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 21:55, Weather: heavy thunder

But a few kilometers North of his position, a few F-15E with ultramarine blue wing and rudders as well as white wingtips and rudder tips were approaching the area, and with obvious intent toward the Bienenstock Base. The ones armed with sub-munitions had already raised their altitude, hoping that they would have more success against these new laser tanks and their meager escort of one single aircraft that the eight bearing SAAMs would have to deal with.

For these pilots bearing an emblem made of a blue falcon in flight with bloodstained talons in circles of white, black and yellow, this fight might bring them some memories. And why? Because they were none others than the former colleagues of Pixy when he graduated, that had been incorporated in a single squadrons as the squadrons they were part of suffered losses in the last weeks of combat against the CSB and the allied forces, with the first inflicting more damage right now on the North Belkan forces than the later. After all, they had a common enemy for now. Of course, those Belkans weren't less eager to engage any Oseans if they had one in sight, but they were not going to let go of this chance to enact revenge on this pilot that had always dominated the Belkan DACT of their class.

Still, they might have tried to be discreet by shutting down their afterburners a few kilometers before their arrival and as such could only watch from afar their former brother-in-arms dealing with the Dunkle squad. However, even before they had the time to release any SFFSs, two fighters exploded in mid-air.

"F-15Es detected. A lot of them." A Lichtswirbel operator reported, as they were trying to focus their fire on the ones bearing specific air to ground ammunition. Their armor allowed them to take a few hits from missiles and guns, as long as it wasn't from the gun of a A-10 Warthog and LAGMs.

"I agree. And they are targeting me too." Pixy said, as his missile alert was ringing due to the high numbers of SAAMs incoming.

"Here we are. You were supposed to become a test pilot, Larry. Not a traitorous mercenary." Blau Falke accused of blatant disloyalty against the fatherland his former comrade, as he was firing a SAAM.

"At least I didn't choose a Balder, Herr Jaschah "Sternchen"." Pixy roughly replied to this Yukte-originated pilot that only rose through the ranks through politics and not through skills, something that hardened pilot like him. Furthermore, he never understood why fighter pilots wanted to choose a F-15E over an F-15C. Sure, it was a bit more modern, but if they truly wanted some modern stuff they would have gone for a F-15S/MTD. But maybe F-15S/MTDs, as well as many prototypes planes, were only produced at Hoffnung as much prototypes had ties with the Pendragon Projekt, more or less, and thus this deprived the North of high-tier fighters.

"Klappe zu and Stirb, Ustian Knecht (Shut up and die, Ustian servant) !" The enemy pilot let his anger express in a more literal form, and his WSO released one more SAAM on the F-15C.

"Nein, du bist der Knecht der Radler. Und wie alle du wirst versagen. (No, you are the servant of the Ralder. And like all of them you'll fail)" Pixy evaded their missiles, jousting both with his words and his planes against this Ralder Regiment, zigzagging over the small mountains that surrounded the valley of Hoffnung. This was no easy task for him, as each turn was making the whole hull vibrating, as the slightest of displacement was resulting in huge unbalance for the now single-engine F-15C.

He entered in five uncontrolled spins as he got closer to the Blau Falke squad, with each getting him closer to the ground, as he managed to level right on time after evading volleys of SAAMs. His only relief as he was getting closer to his enemies was the sight of exploding F-15Es, as their hull was peeled off by laserfire from the Lichtswirbel until their fuel imploded from overheating.

"One by one, we'll get them!" A somewhat happy laser operator exulted, as the semi-automated canon was shredding a F-15E into a cloud of metallic dust.

But their mutual relief that had only lasted less than a half-minute had to come to an end, as Pixy was now in range of standard missiles for the eight SAAMs-equipped F-15Es, while the four remaining F-15E with submunitions having accelerated greatly unlike the ones hunting Pixy. Those did not need accuracy with their weaponry, and the fragmentation was rendering close interception almost impossible for the Lichtswirbel laser weaponry. And as Pixy was climbing to engage his ex-comrades, he had the displeasure to see a blue dot disappearing from his radar. Besides, he only had ten missiles remaining and a bit more than a hundred rounds. Again, he would have to make every shot count.

The first four ones facing him were Jaschah and three other pilots. He could understand a bit of their resentment toward him back then, as he was the best of the class and thus could integrate the Kellerman group the next year and have the pleasure to fight alongside him abroad while they would get boring flight patrol over the arctic sea. Even if this choice had only been determined by his skills, and nothing more.

"Feuer an diesen Verrat!" His nemesis shouted as his three wingmen, but this is where their choice of Balders above the F-15Cs revealed to be a bad choice, definitively.

"Probiert weiter, RRs (Rald-Regiment)!" Pixy returned verbally, returning fire as he avoided their standard missiles and SAAMs they tried to use at short-range. However, using fox-1s at close-range against an aircraft oscillating on all three axes was not a good idea. Still, Pixy suffered too from this instability, as only the first missile he launched had a solid tone, with the second missing the frontal lock-on and vanishing in the night. His gunfire was more successful, as with his aircraft Gebet-rolling (Dutch-rolling) he had a more widespread cone of fire on Blau Falke vier.

So, he saw one fighter exploding behind him after he crossed their line, and another being greatly damaged, as his missile had blown a big portion of his right wingtips, and projected shrapnels in all of the control surfaces and right engine, putting him in a similar state of damage than his fighter currently was. He saw another thing as he was approaching the second wave of hunters, seeing as he rotated his head backward the SFFS-equipped F-15Es being surrounded by explosions. But those explosions were not FLAK explosive shells, but their own hull being sublimated and reducing their craft to flying wreckages.

Three of those detonated in very short succession, but they had obtained what they were looking for : they traded their lives for the Lichtswirbel, and as there was more than two crewmembers inside of it, the victim-to-death ratio was almost in favor of North Belka.

The last member of this fighter-bomber team was now retreating with a heavily wounded WSO and his back canopy blown into pieces, and with the back of the plane having maybe loss a third of the external plating and his rudder pierced like Ustian cheese. All had happened as the pilot enacted a very large turn to perform a second bombing run, but while doing this, as he tilted a bit too much his aircraft to turn faster, he showed his upper side to the last Lichtswirbel, who didn't hesitate to fire. If the WSO survived with only third degree burn it would be only through sheer luck.

Now, Pixy was climbing in quite a dangerous manner, hoping to arrive below the second wave. Thus, he was climbing after having banked hard, and so was now tilted, almost like he was following some surface that would have been set between the two F-15E at the right of their four-plane formation. The major advantage was that in this situation, he was presenting the less visible side of his plane, for both the second wave and the three survivors of the first wave that had enacted U-turns to avoid flying above the Bienenstock and its powerful anti-aircraft defenses. The bright lights coming from the ionosphere or the closer flames were quite hindering the night vision, and EMIs their radar, and thus Pixy gained a bit of stealth here. This approach required it, and he was quite satisfied to hear them looking for him.

"Verdammt, wo ist diese Verrat (damn, where is this traitor)?" Jaschah bellowed, frustrated that he had not been able to land a single hit on the barely flying F-15C. And if Pixy was that good with a severely damaged, he was now glad to engage him in such a state, or he would have already been blown sky high.

"Ich weiß nicht. Und diese elektromagnetischen Interferenzen sind so stark wie zwei E-767 oder mehr. (I don't know. And those EMIs are as strong as two E-767 or more)" One pilot from the second wave complained, not knowing any of Pixy's intent towards him. They hadn't set the Merlins to their maximum power that could have been dangerous for both side, but even in this lesser powerful use, this Wunderwaffe was jeopardizing the task of the Blau Falke squad.

Pixy wanted to reply "bereit, dein Männer zu Töten (about to kill your men)" but he restrained himself from giving his position. It would have been a complete waste, as he was finally where he wanted to be, right below the two at the right of their small four plane formation. Sometimes using two four-plane formation was efficient when the squad counted eight planes. But he only knew one squad that knew how to use this tactic, and it was the Schwarze squad, who was now loyal to the CSB, and thus almost new friends if he was now considering his own change of alliances.

The plane at the far right was sprayed with gunfire from below. The pilot and the WSO had their lower member pierced, with blood spraying on the cockpit. But what ensured them a quicker death than hemorrhages were the few bullets that went through their entire torso and thus, their lungs and other vital organs. And what achieved to kill them was a single missile from the same F-15C. It did not target them, but the closest Balder. And as its pilot tried to evade it by doing some aileron roll, he impacted with the loose fighters containing the two agonizing pilots.

Then, Pixy pitched up a bit, orienting his back toward the ground and accelerated as he flew very boldly between the two survivors of the second wave, which performed evasives as they had now come to fear this pilot that kept flying and killing when most pilots, including them would have already bailed out.

"Diese Söldner ist verrückt. Haben wir keine Chance gegen ihn (this mercenary is crazy. Do we have any chances against him)?" One of the WSO from the craft that Foulke had almost hit in his climb, having trouble to keep sight on the F-15C in this harsh environment.

"Eigentlich. Ihr habt keine. (indeed, you don't have any)" Pixy sealed their fate after a short horizontal loop that brought him directly in their six hours.

And as they leveled, a single missile struck both fighters, before gun bursts set their engine ablaze, making them plunge toward the ground and an unavoidable death, while Pixy smirked, somewhat happy of his achievement here.

Still, there was something that diminish his happiness a bit : with his prior missed shot, he only had 5 missiles left and only a bit more than fifty gun rounds. Another fact diminished further his joy, when one of the hunters flew either too high or too close from the Bienenstock Base, and thus was targeted by the last LW. The two men onboard could have tried to bail out, but they certain death than uncertain death on the ground, as no one was safe when hell was unleashed on earth. They set their afterburners to their peaks, and despite the fire of the Lichtswirbel reducing their fire to a burning piece of metal, their sacrifice was worth it, as it disabled the not very strongly armored TLSs set on this new model of tank produced by ZHI and not even tested nor completed this morning.

"Crap, that won't help." Pixy swore, as the Bienenstock had once more lost its heavy defenses. Sure, the few remaining AA guns could inflict damage on slow attackers but not fast one.

This sudden shift in the fragile balance between the CSB and the North Belkan forces caused another shift, but a shift of mind. The mind from the crew of the SFFS-equipped F-15E changed, and its vector too: from out of the denied battlespace, he was no rushing toward the Bienenstock. They knew they would get perforated by AA guns on the way, but for them the death of all those traitors that had turned their allegiances to this bunch of anarchist was a fair trade.

"I'm on them." Pixy exclaimed, falling from the altitude of the second wave of fighter. He knew the damaged airframe of his eagle would not like to be put under pressure one more, but he needed it to last for a bit more of time.

"Denn schnell!" Oswin asked for his full attention on this life-threatening issue for him.

In the tower, Oswin felt a bit of panic gaining him. The F-15E was approaching fast, and this despite his engines being damaged and now only spewing bright flames in the air due to the fire of their anti-aircraft artillery. A pair of missiles preceded the aircraft and hit the tower hard, causing many to fall as the floor on which they were standing shivered hard. Oswin did not know what he would give to see the DW-2 that were supposed to pick him up once this battle would have met its end.

Then they heard another explosion, nearby. Almost everyone had been ready for the worst. Their end would not mean the end of everything, but they wanted to see the end of this battle at least, for the death of the AA guns operator and the Donner squad members would not be in vain.

Next, the floor shivered again, but not like it would have if the loose F-15E had crashed on it. Or in this case, it would mean that the ferroconcrete of the tower was stronger than it was expected. The operator managing the cams immediately confirm the happy news : the F-15E had hit the runway, or at least its remains.

Indeed, Pixy had had the time to catch him soon enough, and sprayed bullets all over their canopy, hearing very satisfying scream of agony. Still, killing the pilots and WSOs did not cancel the momentum of their plane, and he had to fire one missile to finish what the Lichtswirbel had started -destroying those fighter-bombers-.

"Nice Shot, Pixy. Just mob the rest now." Oswin tried to foster the resolve, with some renewed optimism, as he only saw three planes still threatening his former student. Besides, the long-range radar was showing what he interpreted as what he wanted to see.

"Easier said than done. But it will be done" Pixy noticed the mauling circle the last three survivors of Blau Falke had enacted as he was dealing with their last potent attacker.

"That should be easy. I'm going in!" Blau Falke sieben broke the mauling circle and his chain of command only fifteen second after they had begun the engagement, fed up by the arrogance and above all the success of this merc.

His ill-aimed fire was easily avoided by Pixy, despite the best efforts of his WSO to try to optimize the guidance of their SAAMs. However, it resulted in his almost always unbalanced F-15 entering in another nth spin. Even if he had a harder time recovering due to another pair of SAAMs that he had to fool in the process, he managed to achieve it. And as he had gained quite a lot of speed in the spin itself, and not lost too much as he recovered from it, he was able to get out of the mauling circle.

"Herzog, du Dummkopf! You give him the chance he needed to evade us!" Jaschah blamed the incompetence of his men, rather than blaming his lack of authority. After all, these RR pilots only recognized the authority of the party and their own had sometimes trouble respecting the chain of command, as most old commander didn't respect their ranks given by politicians away from the battlefield.

And Pixy didn't lose any time capitalizing on this single chance. Using his newly gained speed, he pulled out an Himmelman and surprised the third fighter that was still circling. A simple gun burst was enough to neutralize the fighter, as he was approaching it from its third hours.

The number sieben, followed a bit behind by his leader, tried to climb back at the F-15C. However, Pixy saw this attack coming from a thousand miles away at least, and evade the missiles with ease, diving inverted to increase his descent speed, while firing two missiles that ended another Ralder's life while his fire grazed harmlessly his Eagle.

"Du bist dran, Jaschah. (it's your turn)" Pixy threatened his once brother-in-arms that he had grown to despise as his ascension was only through politics. Not as much as he hated Ashley, but he would not hesitate to fire on his chute if he even tried to bail out.

"You'll die, Knecht. (servant)" Jaschah tried to muster some threatening tone in his voice, but the shiver it showed had the opposite effect.

"Du bist den Knecht. Und ich bin der Meister. (you're the servant. I'm the master)." Pixy replied with a much harsher tone, really sending shivers to his nemesis's spine.

The two Belkan pilots went for an aerial joust now that the verbal joust was over. But both trials showed the same results, as Pixy managed to spray his gun on the enemy aircraft, scoring several hits on both canopy and engine, while the F-15E gun's only cut a small piece of his rudder.

At last, in a desperate attempt, the RR pilot tried to hit the rogue mercenary. However, Pixy had learned of a new way to cross the path of an aircraft head-on since the beginning of this war, learned from the best. The best being his former leader.

"Have a nice stay… in Hell." Were his wishes for the Belkan pilots, as he tried to crash into his F-15C but failed, with Pixy's left wing passing between his rudders as the mercenary flied tilted for a while.

Then, he executed a small horizontal loop, and fire one of his two last missile on his unworthy adversary. The F-15E instantaneously burned with its two Ralder followers onboard, leaving no print of them in the air or on the ground.

"Bienenstock to Pixy, you'll have to hold a bit more." Oswin announced, as he was still uncertain of the nature of those aircraft incoming, that were not responding to his calls. Maybe they wanted to create some surprise effect on the oncoming Oseans, North Belkans and Yukte coming from the north-western and all eastern parts of the valley.

"I'll try then." Pixy said, sighing a bit as he had now little ammo left. Only one missile and less than fifty rounds. Maybe he could still shoot one or two aircraft if he made every bullet counts. But outside of jettisoning the canopy and using his handgun, he was not seeing any other means of defending himself besides evasives right now.

Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 21:55, Weather: heavy thunder

However, for Pixy, his troubles were not over, as he thought he could have some rest, having successfully shot down his former brother-in-arms. Volleys of XLAAs, XMAAs and SAAMs fired by MiG-31s and F-14Ds of Belka and Osea, F-16Cs from Osea, Su-33s of Yuktobania and Mirage 2000s of Belka , and by more MiG-29s and F-15Es of this unholy alliance caused him to fly out of his trajectory toward the valley, and especially its eastern limits that more bombers were about to cross. Which were followed by more. He would need an area with obstacles to hinder the lock-on capacities of these damn missiles if he wanted to survive.

So, he headed southward, toward what was once a beautiful city and was now only but a field of reddish flames destroying everything in sight. There, he hoped that the few burning skyscrapers that had not collapsed yet could provide him some cover. Besides, the gigantic fire was messing with his thermal sensors greatly, so it would mess with theirs too. They would have to get up close and personal if they wanted to have a shot. Which would not be easy, as those gigantic heat sinks could create rogue waves in the air currents above the airspace

And what he saw next only cemented the hellish feeling that this destructive battle was bringing to earth. The entire valley looked like a door of hell opened on earth, or one of those pictures taken of this catastrophe movies with super volcanoes. The bright oranges were acting as colored opposites to the blueish lights of the ionosphere. Massive clouds of burn dusts were covering some areas, acting like clouds of cinders, and reinforced the impression of volcanic eruption. He had already seen the peak of the Mt Ivrea being decapitated and turned into a burning caldera, but this was limited to a small area, while Hoffnung was quite a big city. Illuminated from time to time the heavy clouds of dust were sanguine red lightings, as if the air itself was now bloodstained.

"To hell with those ideas of sane and good war", Pixy swore as he was arriving over the burning city. There was nothing left to fight for, absolutely nothing. Only the symbol of what once the center of Belkan engineering feats, maybe. Thus, it had maybe some importance for the CSB, who was now fighting with the technological marvels built in these now destroyed factories.

Valaisian Alps, Ustio, 11/06/1995, 21:20, Weather: clear

A bit sooner, an agent of chaos who was far away from all this chaos she had contributed to create was now filled with questions, as she was now at thirty kilometers of altitude and above the three thousand kilometers per hour.

Why the Griffon had been ready could be explained through ties in all military forces. Then the question was not to which extent were Kupchenko's links in foreign militaries running, but which military had not been infiltrated yet and housing within their walls the eyes, ears and hands actively working for the Pendragon Projekt? Maybe none was, and amongst those agents many were in armies and countries not directly involved in this war, but whose support through simple supplies could shorten its duration or favor one side.

Why there was no Osean on the base had already been theoretically answered by Herr Steller, but his explications seemed to be vague, as if he was hiding something. She was not saying the truth nor asking for it, but there she had clearly detected some lies. Of course, she was not envisaging the possibility of the Ustian staff having brutally murdered all Oseans in their sleep or violently enough so they would not have the possibility to fight back. Such behavior could have been hers, but she knew Steller to be a bit more of a considerate man than she ever was.

Valais Air Base, Ustio, 11/06/1995, 20:45, Weather: clear

Perrault was looking cautiously at the radar, hoping for the Stormbreaker to show up anytime soon, or at least to call on the radio when they would have cleared the pass between the smaller valleys and the main one where this hiking station -since there was not enough snow around to do some skiing right now- was located. It was now standard procedure for any flight coming here, to fly through the mountain with radio silence, or at least limited to short-range intra-team radio, in order to decrease the likelihood of being picked up by the enemy Merlin satellites.

He had received some news about the North Belkan agreeing to use their ASAT missile against these deadly devices, but he was once more suffering from the poison of doubt that had sapped the morale of the Osean army ever since the EMP disaster, and especially his due to personal losses. Thus, he had some doubt about their capacities to even damage a single one of these spacecrafts. At least they could distract them for a while, he considered.

Himself despised those people as much as those who had joined this rogue faction that the CSB was. His superiors had used the term faction to describe them in their last call. They had grown in power or respect, if they had gone from "a bunch of anarchist and fools" to a military faction.

The few data that he was receiving from the frontlines were not indicating a bright news. Some B-52s had stepped too close of Hoffnung and had been shot down by modified F-35s. How Belka had gotten their hands on those was a mystery for the all OIA, and now a sentiment of suspicion was adding itself to the doubt, and that would not help boost the morale of the allied forces. Who should be renamed the Oseano-Yukte alliance from his point of view, as Ustio was basically just one pilot, a few cargo ship and some ground troops, and Sapin lacked long-range bombers for such attacks, as this small country had not deemed necessary to invest in such kind of weaponry when fighters-bombers were cheaper to maintain and more versatile. Maybe they were right in some ways, as B-52s, Tu-95s, B-1s and Tu-160s were now only target practice for the operators of Tauberg's Wunderwaffe. B-2s weren't faring well either, just a bit above the rest thanks to their stealth.

Lost in his thoughts, he barely noticed the small noise produced by the metallic door being opened, due to the spring in the system that would close it automatically being a bit old. And changing it or getting a new one that was not the priority of the people maintaining the base. Maintaining the planes and the defense system.

Still, he heard someone advancing behind him, and turn his head toward the newcomer, being the chief mechanic of this base, Herr Steller. He seemed concerned about something, there was something a bit off about him at first glance, Perrault thought, as he asked him the reason of him coming in this small room of the control tower that the Ustian had arranged for the Osean personnel, to give them a bit of privacy for important communications :

"Have something to report, Steller?"

"Yeah, something to show to you. You don't have to stand up, I'll explain to you." The Ustian replied with a falsely chilled tone.

"Then sit and we will discuss this matter." Perrault designated with a hand gesture a chair near his monitoring screen, trying his best to appear polite to this Ustian. Which wasn't easy given the fact that their minister Kerzen tasked with the allied forces relation had pointed out that he was considering peace talks with the CSB as Ustio had no reason to fight them, and most Ustian had no good reasons to fight after the liberation of their capital.

Steller nodded, and Perrault readied himself to go into long and boring conversation about the issue he was coming to tackle. But that never happened. Steller never sit down next to him.

Instead, he fell something metallic and cold on the back of his neck. The muzzle of a gun was pressed against his nape, creating some unpleasant feeling, as well as a bit of fear from Perrault, who risked asking:

"What the hell are you doing?"

But to this small outburst of violence the only response was that the force applied on his neck was increased, now hurting him. He tried to put his leg on the floor but then the force was increased once more.

"Do not try anything if you don't want to be a cold body that we could easily disposed of in the mountains." Steller implied, knowing very well how scarce the people in those mountains were. Sure, there was a few relays for hikers and some hamlets, but nothing more. With luck, he would be found by some archeologist three thousand years later, in a block of ice.

Then he took the handgun of the Osean from his pocket and put it in his own, before letting a choice for the Osean :

"I can do this the hard way or the soft way. The hard way is with a little souvenir on your temple." Steller specified, not wanting to lose too much time dragging his unconscious body around

"I won't obey a mere technician." The Osean retorted, now knowing that not only their pilot might turn traitors, but their mechanics as wells.

"The hard way it is, then." Steller decided not to wait, removing his Luger from the nape of the Osean to strike at his temple, pistol-whipping the Osean into unconsciousness. He called for some resistance members that were waiting out of the room with their submachine guns ready to fire at the Osean in case things took a bad turn.

Valais Air Base, Ustio, 11/06/1995, 21:15, Weather: clear

Perrault was awakened by the strong noise of a fighter taking off. But he could not recognize the noise of any known allied nor Belkan plane. As he woke up from his involuntary thirty-minute nap, he realized where he was and who he was with. Where was in some cell, maybe in the basement of the base. It was in similar cells that they had put that Nühmer pilot under bars. Who he was with were just all Oseans assigned to this base, who were making the cell appeared to be overcrowded. Most of them were sleeping, as if they had been drugged with some sleeper agent. Sleeper agent that had been easily put in their food by Steller's wife as she was the chief cook of the base

Of course, when he put his hand on his temple, he felt some pain there, as this technician had acted softly on him.

A voice shook them out of their apathy, coming from a mike set over the metallic door:

"You should have obeyed me, Perrault. That wouldn't have changed anything but at least you wouldn't have this bad bruise as a reminder of your incompetence."

"What are you going to do to us?" Perrault asked, worried of his fate in those hostile mountains.

"Oh, nothing. You see, we put a breaching detonator on the door. When we'll leave this base, it will detonate, and you'll be free to go. Of course, we will have taken all the supplies and shut down all means of communication. The closest mountain relay is at only two days of intensive walk." Steller indicated, having no harmful intent toward those Osean. At least this Perrault would be a bit thinner if he had to walk without having much to eat.

"What was that noise?" Perrault asked, trying to understand what was happening beyond the betraying of those Ustians.

"The Griffon taking off. Soon it'll take out your high-altitude attackers. And the victory of the CSB will be complete." His tormentor specified, having no shame in admitting that he was a double agent. One of the main reasons why Kupchenko was warned of the assassination tentative and survived it.

But he was not the only member of A World With No Boundaries here. Hervin was, and had perfectly played his game at Directus, which was to ensure the death of the local Belkan commander. Furthermore, many of the leaders of the Ustian resistance had links with AWWNB, without denying the fact that they had willingly fought for Ustio despite their true loyalty. Most of the simple members were not and were mainly simple citizens wanting to liberate their nation, and once the occupation had ended, most of these had returned to a more peaceful civilian life. Indeed, all of the resistance hard-liners and main leaders that had become new Ustian soldiers and for some were former soldiers that had only wanted to avoid becoming POW by entering in the resistance, including Herr Bronsted for example, were all AWWNB members. And all were ready to deal with the Osean contingent when time would come...

A dozen minute passed before anything happened. Then, the roaming of four turbopropeller achieved to wake up the last Oseans. The A-400M that had brought them here was setting for a course that they could easily deduce: Tauberg. On board were all the Ustians of the base, as well as the Belkan prisoners, even if they would not be treated as such anymore once they would have landed.

And a minute later, as the roaming of the turboprops was vanishing, some electronic noise was heard, beeping to be precise. The beeps intensified in intensity and frequency, worrying a bit the Osean that were still under the side effects of the sleeper agent, or for the case of Perrault with an heavy headache that was scrambling his thoughts.

After a final high-pitch beep, the breach door explosives finally blew up, opening the door in the process. Now the Osean were on their own, stranded in the middle of hostile mountains, with little to no supplies and a long route ahead of them. Furthermore, few had made high altitude survival training, and the fact that the Ustians took every weapon while leaving would not help them a single bit. But to be honest, did their tormentors care about them? No, they did not.

Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 22:10, Weather: heavy thunder

Pixy was now where the last skyscrapers of Hoffnung were still standing, despite being ablaze. They looked like gigantic torch sticking out of the ground. At least this was only asserting the resilience of those building. So, there would be something left here, more than darkened stones and distorted metallic pieces.

Still, Pixy did not get much time to think about the becoming of this place, as two MiG-31s with a light grey two-tone color paintjob approached his location and opened fire from afar. They were surely guessing that against an enemy that had killed dozens of their friends and new allies, entire volleys of XLAAs was not too nice.

In usual times, Pixy would have considered their attempt to be foolish at first, and then laughable. But not now, with a damaged fighter, limited mobility, and speed, that was not the time to be cocky or become reckless. So, he took this threat on his life with the utmost seriousness. After all, his was barely hanging by a thread right now.

But he had not much time to device great schemes to defeat those two fighters, as the XLAA were getting close on his tail. From short distances, they had not been too hindered by the EMIs, and as they were EM locked, they did not suffer from the massive heat waves coming from the fire below. This raging fire was shy he could not just do some spin, as he was too low. If he did not recover fast enough, he would end up in the inferno. And he had great doubts about his craft being capable to survive flying through a wall of flames. That A-12 squad had not succeeded in going through a plasma curtain earlier, so he was not going to tempt the devil by going through hell, literally speaking.

He set his sights on a pretty tall skyscrapers that was only a burning tower of metallic pieces, slightly shivering due to the air current created by the raging fire. Air current that he was feeling each second, and that complicated greatly his approach. He only hoped that these would hinder the MiG-31s in their approach, as they were a bit less stable than his F-15C in subsonic.

What he did was still foolish in the end : to skim vertically less than a meter away from the burning tower. But the way he pulled that out, pitching suddenly as some of the XLAAs that had been fired slightly sooner than the others were catching up on him, allowed him to lose some of them. However, the seekers of some missiles manage to correct their trajectory, despite the small explosions caused by the loose XLAAs slamming into the burning tower.

As he was at the three fourth of his ascension, he felt his plane vibrating like if he was a giant cell phone set on vibrate. His survival was almost a success until then.

"Damn piece of metal, can you just hold on for a bit." He asked without speaking, as the plane was becoming less and less stable. Or was this the effect of some of those rogue currents produced by the overheated air near him. Maybe he did tempt the devil here, and he was now claiming his soul. And as the soul of a warrior was his weapon, he would claim his fighter with him inside.

"Diese Verrat wird schon brennen. (that traitor will soon burn)"

"Einverstanden, sein Flugzeug zitterte wie Espenlaub (agreed, his plane his shivering like a leaf)."

"Please, just hold on, old pal. If I survive this one, I'll sold you to the Technische Museum of Directus and give the benefits for the war orphans." He promised, hoping that whatever fate had stored for him, he would at least see the end of this war. Or at least this battle. Or, maybe, just the end of this small skirmish. After all, did money really matter to him? Not that much. Maybe it came from his Belkan origin, but he was still holding, and would still hold honor and pride above money, despite being a mercenary.

Apparently, there was maybe some god or goddess of war looking out for him, or just dumb luck, because his badly damaged afterburners on his remaining left engine came to life for an instant, giving him the thrust he needed to escape those XLAAs. He even managed to do an aileron roll that somehow tricked the seekers into a collision. Well, that is what he believed. the truth was that his sudden added thrust had caused some metallic pieces that the heat had weakened to fall on those missiles, effectively destroying them.

Soon, he saw the top of the skyscraper below him, with the antenna looking like a burning treetop that would have been struck by lightning. Speaking of those, he had seen those red lightnings near these high buildings, but not a single one recently.

He was only two hundred meters higher than its limits when he was struck by what he feared the most, as a stall at low altitude meant death here, whether or not you could bail out. Maybe crashing and dying in the explosion was better than burning while hanging on your chute, he guessed.

Hopefully for him, his afterburners that had had his swan song in this ascension helped taking his severe blow to his craft. A thing that surprised him as he was blinded by the red flash, was that he did not see the lightning coming from above him. He guessed it was too fast to be seen. Besides, he needed to care more about the physics of his falling plane right now, than electrostatics.

However, for the two MiG-31s catching on him, this was visible : the lightning did not struck from the sky, but ascend from the metallic structure below him, and then resumed its path into the dark sky. Still, as they were pretty close too, the lightning did blind them a bit. Not enough to rend them blind and discourage them in their chase, but enough to make them lose the F-15C when it fell from the sky; having momentarily lost his thrust.

Thus, they made the mistake of flying by the same burning skyscrapers, as from above this building they sought to get a good views of their surroundings, and of where this damned Belkan mercenary, this servant of Ustio had fallen, to either confirm his death or carry out this definitive sentence. Maybe they were fooled by the lies of those that believed that lightning never strikes twice at the same place.

Which was, obviously false. Like most of these instinctive thoughts, it was just lies, taught by people fearing what they do not understand. And it was just proven to them right now. Once more, the lightning was shot from the burning building, like if the last remains of this city were denying victory to the people seeking to destroy it.

Unfortunately for them, those red lightnings were not the only thing climbing to ensure of their doom. The second thing was a mercenary that had barely managed to recover, but recover, nevertheless. He had seen the fire from very close, too close for his taste. And now he was going to make them taste hell as well. Coming from their side, the diminished eagle killed his two enemies, one with a missile and a gun burst with their impact making it fall, leaving a clear window of fire on the second Foxhound. This one met his end as well as Pixy's ammo, bullets piercing its reactor, resulting in the MiG-31s being set ablaze.

"Never believed those fools who think that lightning never strike twice." Pixy stated, as the two MiG-31s kept burning for a few seconds, before exploding sky-high.

He expected their pilots to have accepted their death and die in their planes. But no, they had bailed out, maybe with even more foolish hopes of survival than his Ustian brother in arms against the Helligen Kolumne during operation dynamo. At least they accepted their death with honor, every one of them. Not those Ralders.

Today, he could say he had gone through Himmel und Hölle. But those two chutes headed straight to hell, as a rogue air current engulfed them. Pixy saw the two chutes being set ablaze as they descended far faster than what could be expected to be seen, sucked in the inferno. Then they vanished in the raging fire, without a trace. If they were lucky maybe some bones or tooth would survive. If not, their cinders would be dispersed, and they would disappear from this earth completely.

Pixy realized that this fate would be shared by any allied pilots or crewmen from the bombers than had been shot down by Excalibur early on, if other air current sucked them into the inferno. If he were still allied, that would have brought dread to his heart, to think about this horrible death. He did not enjoy it either, only mad people could.

And above all, he did not have the time to enjoy it because the other fighters had caught up with him, as he had tried to run away from this area to avoid those almost blood red lightning. Again, he was pushed against the wall, with the main difference being that this time he had nowhere to flee, and no more opportunity to retaliate.

With each missile he had to avoid, he felt his reflexes becoming slow, like some deadness taking over. He had since a long time come to realize the uselessness of this war. He had grown tired of this. On other continents he had already seen the same, people fighting for useless reasons. Maybe he should have gone with his other half over Directus. At least his end would have had a meaning. Now, it had none. His end would not change the fate of the world, nor of this senseless war

A bit of gun fire interrupted his chain of thoughts. Three Mirage 2000 were closing on him, and one pierced his right wing. This caused him to stall and enter a spin that brought him closer to the fire than what he wanted. He felt the heat of the inferno raging below. He even saw sparkles forming around his wings, and some part of his wingtips beginning to burn.

But it was only the external layer that was burning, along with the paint on it. He got rid of those nascent flames as he dived above the river, which was surrounded by fog, created by the combustion of some container-carrier. He got a bit of water as he went through the low cloud, but it was better to have water on the canopy than heavy cinders. For a short moment he was safe from his opponent, only to be pursued again as he went out of the cloud.

"Ich werde bei dir bald sein (I'll be with you soon)." He said to himself, and above all to his dead lover, as a few more bullets severed the upper part of his left rudder, making his plane very sluggish.

Now, he could feel the fear again, that he had felt during operation dynamo. But Kupchenko had let him live, for an unknown reason. He had received a conditional sentence that day. For a few weeks he was allowed to live and fight, but he knew that this sentence would be applied, despite his best efforts to escape this judgment. He was like those knights that had fought in their fortress but had not died alongside their brothers when he would have liked to. Now the fear was almost choking him like a rope if this death sentence would be by hanging him. He could feel it even if there was nothing on his neck.

Soon, all would be over. His strength had failed him. His fighting skills too, or met their limits, and he should not have tried to cross those limits. Death was what was waiting for everyone that tried to push their limits too hard. Death and chaos had ruled his life and he had lived through them, and now he would face death in the middle of this chaos. He only wished this slow walk in the death corridor to end.

He even saw some missiles incoming from head-on. From where they were coming, he did not know. But that would end his sufferance faster. He was ready to jump with the rope around his neck and die. He tried to toss some final epic line, but could only swear a:

"Verdammt. Sie sind zu viele! (damn, there're too many of them)"

But no. Something snapped in his destiny. The rope that his enemies wanted to hang him with snapped. Or, in a more realistic manner, the missiles that were coming head-on did not strike at him. No, they flew harmlessly, before resuming their way. Way toward his pursuers, who were completely taken aback and were all shot down. Others, MiG-29s and F-16Cs tried to fire at him, but numerous volley that had come from afar slaughtered them.

Then he heard his voice :

"Aber es gibt vielmehr Mut unserem Innern (But there's much more bravery within us)" A commanding and chill voice said, bringing a bit of hope in the heart of Pixy despite the city of Hope burning.

"I thought I would never say that, but I'm happy to see you, Anton." Pixy replied, almost crying from joy as he had finally snapped out of his deadness, for good. There was now a Chance for survival for him. He would take it, and the next one, until they would win this

"Erben, cover him. Schwarze, cover the DW-2 for Oswin's extraction. Gault zwei zu vier und Ich wird die letzten Bomber zerstören." Kupchenko laid out his plans, and thus rushed to the North-East, where a second wave of B-52 was approaching at high altitude. It was no big deal, they would reach the stratosphere with ease, as each of their engines were heavily tuned up and produced one point five the thrust of the mainline Berkut.

"Ver." Schwarze one to four said, as they went for the North, where airborne troops were being moved in an effort to capture the last personnel in the Bienenstock base. Often, he would fire at fleeing transport, not incoming. But in both case Zubov would feel nothing for the soldiers inside of those flying coffins. Their targets were a group of C-130s that had already been half depleted by fire from Excalibur. Their only advantage was that their turboprops were slightly more resilient to EMIs, or to plasma being sucked into the intake, but that wouldn't save them from the ERAAMs of the DW-2 nor their XLAAs they had taken full load.

"Hang on tight, we're coming for you" Zveda announced to Pixy, rushing toward his plane at Mach 2, while some F-14Ds were hot on his tail, and had begun peppering the F-15C with gun fire, damaging his right rudder this time.

"I'm barely hanging on by a thread." The Belkan mercenary specified, as minor, and major structural integrity warning were appearing on all of his screens, invading his field of sight with a bit redder, if it was not already red enough with the inferno spreading in all direction.

Still, he almost wanted to do an evasive maneuver when he deduced what this Erbe was up to: crossing his path tilted at a ninety-degree angle and fly between his now very damaged rudders. He was just a bit afraid that the much more powerful jet wash of the ADFX-01 -compared to the small engines of the X-29A- would destabilize his craft. But he did not move, a bit reluctant though, and the ADFX-01 left wingtips grazed his plane, passing only mere centimeters from his canopy. It was almost a miracle that he hadn't been hit once on the canopy, actually.

On his rearview mirror, he saw the power of their new weaponry, this built in TFLS that replaced their already very efficient gun. It did trade its power for a small two second readying delay, but for those two second of delay the power it could bring to the battlefield was impressive, enough to disable most fighters, even the mighty A-10 Warthog. Pixy saw the first exploding instantaneously as the shot went right for his left inlet. The second tried to counter-attack but his fire was avoided by an aileron roll. This maneuver had raised the ADFX-01 a bit, so he was not straight ahead of the Tomcat, but over it. And its pilot only had to pitch down to land a shot on the back of the plane, igniting its rear fuselage fuel tank and a few seconds later, the whole plane.

The second Erbe did not lose time either. He flew nearby while his wingman was dispatching one more F-14 by firing on its wing, with the energy transferred being enough to cause the wing fuel tank to implode. And she fired twice, snapping both wings of the enemy plane with ease. What his colleague did remind Pixy of his second former leader, as he flew below the Su-33s, maybe five hundred meters, skimming above the Löre, then pitched up a bit and fired a shot of his Energiewaffen (energy-based weaponry, shortened in Ew) while firing two missiles on another one, making both aircraft plunge into the inferno while being on fire.

But what remind him the most of his leader, he saw after he did some U-turn to have a better view on those modified ADFX-01s. Maybe ADFX-02 was a better name, if they had such disparity with the first Morgans, that obviously Pixy did not know of their demise by the hand of his leader. The two other Su-33 were dealt by a pair of ERAAMs from Zveda, freeing the other Erbe two engage another group of three Mirages. Flying in line astern, he evade with grace their XMAAs and missiles, before firing a couple of missiles on the leading craft at the center of the formation and evading the gunfire of the two others with an half aileron roll, inverting back after crossing the path of his enemies.

Then, what he did was a perfect head-to-tail maneuver, while the Mirage were trying to quickly turn around to engage him, but lost a great deal of speed by doing so. Henceforth, the left one did not have enough energy to evade a pair of missiles, while the second one suffered an Ew shot on his nuzzles, with destroyed and partially sublimated parts being sucked into his engine. Both Mirages exploded five seconds later, as the two Erbe were leveling on Pixy's craft, who was looking closely at these prototypes with a certain bit of envy.

"This last upgrade his quite nice." The female pilot identified as Zveda spoke, now getting used to this weapon. Of course, it had been efficient here because their enemies were not aware of it, and because the inherent mobility of their ADFX-02s was enough to overpower them in this field. Any plane with enough mobility to escape gunfire would be able to evade Energiewaffen. Besides, now they had to fire straight, where their enemy is, and not where it will be.

"Well, Wunderwaffen are only good when they're on your side." Pixy agreed that such plane could turn the tide of battlefields, like they just did today.

Above the Bienenstock, the battle was even shorter. Despite not being able to carry ERAAMs yet, the four Schwarze survivors of the previous battle over Blumenberg slaughtered the assault airborne force, with the added fire of the DW-2s. Oswin and his last mens were picked up as the C-130 were laying in pieces on the ground, or for the luckiest, were trying to escape the wrath of Schwarze. But like some fleeing Belkans which had learned the hard way that Schwarze's MO was "no survivors", those Oseans learned too. They had had a pretty good flight until them, as they only flew above the cities of Fato to be protected of any long-range strikes. None of them made it further than the Northern limits of the valley. Some exploded with all of their crew and airborne troops, while some had enough structural integrity left to allow their troops to use their chute. Yet, even if the Schwarze squadron had not emptied their guns of their chutes, their fate would have been sealed: the few survivors of this cruel slaughter were sucked by rogue air currents in the inferno.

"It's what they deserve." Zubov said, before letting a small and cold forced laugh.

"They wanted to unleash hell. Only for them to fall in it, though." Karkov added, trying to foster the irony of the situation. What should have been another Osean victory was just a nasty defeat, another heavy bloodshed. Osea had not had hemorrhages yet, still. But soon they would've, both internal and external.

"Schwarze Falke vier, we confirm the area has been sanitized of allied presence. The slaughter of their B-52 is over." The co-pilot of the other DW-2 that had followed the four Gault squad members in their bomber killstreak announced, as the last bombers was taking three SAAMs after having his left wing blown off as he flew too close to an Helligen Kolumne.

A few minutes later, the Schwarze squadron had begun its withdrawal, as they would be the escort for the DW-2s carrying Oswin, his troops -that contained twenty percent of wounded, with some in critical state-. Meanwhile, all other planes had joined above the Southern part of Hoffnung.

"It's almost weird to see you two using tactics of my fallen leader." Pixy commented their flight, which was a bit more chaotic than usual. After all, Iskanda had quite an erratic and unorthodox yet efficient fighting style.

"She might be fallen, indeed." Kupchenko said, using a neutral tone. She could be considered as a fallen allied pilot. She was pretty close to fall definitively, lately.

"And it makes me mad that Osea is using a fallen one as a scapegoat." The mercenary expressed his anger that had born during his little unkind talks with the OIA member.

"I think... Wait, you didn't hear the mayor's speech this morning?" Kupchenko did not want to spoil immediately their new ally. After all the damage he had inflicted on the allied forces, he could consider Pixy to be a new member of the CSB aerial forces.

"No. Was war's (what was it)?" Pixy asked, curious to know what this had a link to his fallen leader.

"It ended with "in these uncertain times, look to the future where hope burns bright." Kupchenko quoted, which caused Pixy to look at the sky, far above him, seeing a streak of small explosions.

"That may not be hope that's burning bright above us. More like Tsybins and Starfighters." Pixy corrected, knowing what kind of fighter could fly at such height amongst the allied forces' arsenals.

"Egal. Die Überbringerin von Mord und Chaos ist dort. Wir können nur abwarten und sehen (Whatever… the bringer of murder and chaos is there. We can only wait and see.)." Kupchenko specified who he was waiting for. What he was waiting for did not need any explanation: victory. Victory was within his grasp, and soon he would take it from this almost heretic alliance between the Ralder and the Osean-led allied forces.

South of Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 22:15, Weather: heavy thunder

Iskanda had finally caught up the Osean and Yukte high altitude infiltrators. Below her, on the North was a gigantic ochre serpent, that she could partially see due to the clouds of smoke and cinder covering the skies of Hoffnung. She could count twelve airplanes with similar radar signature, which could come of the fact that both the Starfighter and the Tsybin had a long fuselage and a pair of narrow trapezoidal wings.

As she was getting closer to compensate for her lack of lockable weaponry, she was quite surprised to have a clear view on her preys. Of course, she knew that sometimes clouds of cinder could hinder flight, but it was due to volcanic activities, not giant fires. Besides, they would surely need some time to reach the altitude of thirty kilometers. What explained the extraordinary clarity of her field of view was coming from above: the ionosphere was light up by the fire of the Belkan Wunderwaffe, creating an almost supernatural light despite the late hour.

Getting a bit excited at the idea of fighting again with the Griffon, she felt the adrenaline rushing into her system. And this time, she did not have to counter some Kalium Chloride, so she could feel the whole thing. After these attackers, some modified SR-71s would be a fine dessert. She guessed they were modified because their radar signature was slightly different from the signature of a standard SR-71s. She proceeded to trick her prey into engaging her, flying below slightly above them so she would not be in their blind spot.

One noticed her. The leader of the F-104 did. That was to be expected, as the Starfighter was more of a fighter than a bomber, unlike the Tsybin.

"Red leader to all, we have a bogey behind us." He said, beginning to tilt his wings with red wingtips. The other part of his craft that had received a red paintjob was the upper part of their T-shaped tail.

"Gold squadron on standby. Bogey's for you, red." The Yukte leader answered from his R-020 with a grey camo and gold line on their wings, and the tips of its empennage in the same color. They would stay between them and the other aircrafts, as a second line of defense.

"Come to your doom, Allied forces!" She taunted them, chuckling maniacally afterwards.

"And set me to hostile." She stated, as the line of F-104s slowed down in order to turn around and face her. She almost felt insulted to be considered as a mere bogey and not an imminent death threat.

"All right, set to hostile." One of their pilots reported, as his radar was trying to engage this unidentified craft he had never seen and was on supersonic approach.

"Such target-rich environment." Iskanda whispered, rolling her eyes to the blueish ionosphere for a second, a bit taken over by her envy of murder. One of its expression that showed that was to lick her lips like she was hungry, like a predator having already tasting the blood of its prey upon seeing them. After all, Luchs were predator, and she was intending to eat those F-104s raw.

She did slow down upon arrival to the battlespace, and thus her "Grenze" indicator was illuminated with a blaring red color as the Ramjet engine ceased to produce thrust. And she was far too high to use the very flawed jet engine of her Nord 1500 Griffon. Her plane quickly stalled and fell. The Osean were quite satisfied to see this attempt failing, apparently. They were almost getting ready to turn back into position. It would be a great achievement to score a kill only due some high-altitude stall from their adversary.

However, she had learned the lesson since her highly risked interception of those Belkans XB-10 Valkyries. She just had to use physics at her advantage, and thus further crossing the gap without endangering her aircraft as they would not have a good window of fire due to the very poor mobility of those planes. This was their trade-off : trapezoidal wings allow stability at high speed and a somewhat average mobility at this range, while her delta wings would allow her more mobility, especially in her little spin.

"This is red two, she's not going down. She's climbing right at us." One Osean pilot indicated, as he saw the radar signature getting bigger as the enemy plane was coming back from his induced spin -when they all thought it was an unwanted one-.

"What? How did she accelerate this quick?" Another pilot, their sixth member expressed his utter and whole surprise as she had far reached and gone beyond their climb rate.

This was of course, due to the sheer power of the good ramjet engine she had onboard. Otherwise, if she had a similar plane than theirs, she would not have even been sure to succeed in recovering from her voluntary fall. What mattered was not how she did hit, nor what she did. What would set the score was what she did next, as she was climbing at a high angle of attack toward the enemy team.

She had been climbing back at the left of their formation. Henceforth, as she was arriving in range for her HVRs, she began a slow yawing motion while in her climb, and firing one rocket from time to time, when she deemed that she was at an interesting angle. The first was surprised and hit on the wing he had tried to tilt to evade, but too late. The sixth was the only one to suffer another direct hit. however, the fourth and third plane did share their fate, as they both stall out of control. And as they were pretty close at the peak of their arrowhead formation, they impacted each other following the loss of control. The three others had survived, but barely as her fire was of an accuracy they had never seen from any man in their career. Which could be understandable, as they were facing a woman.

So, while they were fighting with physics to keep their planes in the air after having to evade her rocketfire, she had had the time to level her plane, but she did it on a line that would be parallel to their ten hours. She then had to evade some missiles as she flew in front of them, but as they were fired on the limits of their fire radius for the second and fifth member, only the missile fired by Red seven were a threat. Threat that she nullified by swaying her plane from side to side, which wasn't very pleasant for her body in transonic flight, but it was much better than having to deal with psychopaths.

"Red two to Gold, we might need your help." One of the Osean was now slowly being taken by anxiety as he saw the unknown delta-winged craft perform an Himmelman, and with her direction, she come back at the tenth hours of the craft that had desperately tried to fire his missiles at her.

Only a few hundred meters away from the Osean, his colleague red seven was pierced by multiples bullets, dealing fatal blows to both the planes and the pilot in hit, and the damage being further aggravated by the depressurization at such high altitude above the Armstrong limit. A single perforation above this line, and all water in your body would vaporize, if the pilot had not fully pressurized stratospheric suit. And obviously, if the sealability of their suit was not compromised by some other bullets. Just the water in your eyes or your saliva was enough to kill you.

"Red five, reform with the Gold and fight to live another day. I'll deal with this Belkan scum myself." The now angrier Osean ordered to his wingman, who lose no time in getting out of the engagement zone, even if it was fairly slow for a F-104 to do a U-turn. Then he set his course on the twelve of these enemy fighters.

"Run if you want. You're just delaying the inevitable. And your death is." Iskanda tossed, trying to instill a bit of fear in the heart of her enemy. Seeing the F-104 of red five go in full afterburner to go as far as possible was proof of it.

The two supersonic interceptors rushed onto each other. Both managed to evade each other's missiles and rockets, using tight turns so they would not stall or get too much black or redsight at this speed. A gunfight would decide the issue of their joust, then. If Iskanda managed to evade most of his fire, with maybe only a few impacts on her left wingtips, as she climbed suddenly while enacting an aileron roll. She would strike back as both closed back, completing her aileron roll and diving on the F-104 that tried to pitch up, but at this very moment an HVR struck his rear, snapping the tail off and causing his engine to burst in flames, and later the whole craft.

"Another pathetic death." Iskanda commented with disdain, while she was getting in pursuit of the last Starfighter. By then the number two had ceased to burn to the low pressure, and its burned remains were now falling in the night.

"Help me, Gold squad." The Osean desperately pleaded for help, as the Griffon was gaining the speed competition. After all, it had some advantage, one was not being bearing an heavy belly fuel tank, that they needed due to their base being located outside of Excalibur range, but this location was far beyond their F-104's combat range. This was partially why the number one and six had gone so quickly when they suffered only minor hits from the fragments of the HVR exploding in what they would call non-viable areas, but the warhead of those HVRs had been powerful enough to go through a Bm-335N's armor, so it had no problem dealing critical damage to weaker planes in matter of structural strength.

"No force will help you, red five." She laughed at his attempt at getting away. He tried to sway from side to side to lose her because he thought she would try to lock on to him when she needn't to, and only lost speed when he should have gone for the easier tactic of fleeing in straight line.

"Gold squad, ETA 20 seconds." Their Yukte commander announced, this delay also due to the poor turning speed they shared with the Starfighters. Of course, this was enough for Iskanda to finish her kill and get ready for a new type of enemy.

She first shot an HVR. He could have gone for the easiest solution and tried to roll away of its trajectory, but he preferred to pitch up with a high angle to have the rocket overshoot him. This maneuver brought the Griffon closer to him though, as he was slowed down by his sudden shift in trajectory, and all that Iskanda had to do was to imitate him and pitch up, then press the trigger. The canopy was shattered to a thousand glass pieces, while the engine was pierced on all its length. The pilot burned before dying due to the depressurization.

"Red five is down." A new voice reported. Maybe this was the voice of an Osean in their modified SR-71 since she had not heard him until now.

"And you'll follow him soon." Iskanda assured them, as the five R-020 were charging her head-on. They had some cruise missiles below their fuselage, as well as what she thought to be a targeting pod for those heavy-duty missiles.

They fired a few missiles that had been fixed on pylons below their long trapezoidal wings. Iskanda evaded them with ease, making her plane oscillate on both roll and yaw axis. Then she understood what those pods were, as they fired on her: those were gunpods. Luckily for her, only one land a successful hit, and it was on her wingtips. Sure, those holes would decrease her lift a bit, but she preferred dealing with that than the water of her own body boiling. Besides, as she made their missiles be fired for trash, she had climbed a bit, and thus was out of their firing arcs. But they were not, and as such she had no trouble retaliating at the ones in the middle, firing two HVR on ones, before climbing a bit more, only to dive the next second on the cockpit of the other Tsybin. She saw the plane tilting to move away from her, but by that time it was too late, and a single gun burst in his canopy was enough to end her life.

"What can we do?" Gold 4 asked, as two of them had been shot down so fast that he had not much time to react, and the best option was to run, if they wanted to survive. All could feel the air within their cockpit getting colder, as fear was taking over. However, they had not the same acceleration capacities as a ramjet-powered craft.

She was now enacting a horizontal loop toward her enemies, decreasing her altitude a bit in the process. But this was voluntary, as she had seen that their gunpods had some cannon pointing rearwards, and as she wanted above all not to suffer too much damage in the Griffon. So, she performed a bit of Schräge Musik on two of them, firing her gun and one HVR toward their gun pod. For the first, something unexpected happened: her fire triggered the stored shells to explode below the plane, and as there was a lot left, it was enough to deal critical damage to the Tsybin. The Yukte burned quickly, while she neutralized the gun pod of the other with her gun only this time, wanting to try something else.

"Gold 3, flee toward the Oxcarts!" The now harmless and helpless Tsybin pilot ordered, with the other pilot obeying immediately as he was seeing the Griffon getting higher than the unlucky Gold 5, moving for the kill. The name Oxcart rang a bell in Iskanda's mind, this name being for the armed interceptor variant of the SR-71, often dubbed A-71.

"Let's cut your wings. Don't you want to become a Solo Wing? Or even a No Wing?" She asked rhetorically, while laughing like a madman. Silence followed her proposition ensuring her that they were so afraid of dying since they did not dare to respond her, while she climbed a bit more, then pitched down, aiming at the right wing-root. One HVR later and the engine was cut off along with the trapezoidal wing.

"Just be quick." Her enemy demanded, not wanting to suffer more than it was needed. After all, death was more than often instantaneous and painless if he was lucky enough.

"Oh, just for you it won't be." She denied him his last wish, before executing a streak of two sharp turns leftwards. G-forces took their toll on her, but not as much as her next shot on him. She fired on the left wing-root this time, and the Tsybin fell pretty soon, entering an uncontrolled spin. He would be almost unconscious due to this spin, but conscious enough to feel his death twenty-five kilometers below

"We have her locked. Fox 3." One A-71 Oxcart indicated, firing a pair of XLAA rearward. Of course, he was not expecting her to intercept both missiles instead of trying to evade them.

Some other pairs followed, but none were successful, with Iskanda depleting a bit her ammo as a way to actively defend herself, and not lose too much speed as she was chasing the last Tsybin. Soon he was in her crosshairs. He saw that, and ready himself to roll out of the way, since he could not counterattack with her being higher than him. Furthermore, his plane was good to do high angle of attack climbs, while small angle of attacks would only slow him down and made him an even easier target to shoot at.

She did fired a HVR the next second, and he did roll out of its trajectory. He thought this maneuver had put him out of harm's way. But he was seriously harmed, as she had fired both her twin mounted guns and an HVR on him, with the gunfire aiming at his starboard engine. And while he rolled, she fired again, igniting the portboard engine. With both engines ablaze, his R-020 was reduced to metallic powder and cinder when the flames got to his wing fuel tanks, thanks to another HVR from his enemy.

Now what was left where ten Oxcarts. For an unknown reason, some seemed to carry something with an exhaust between their engine, linked to both. Before she clearly identified the exhaust, she thought it was some defensive armament, maybe even some laser armament. Then she remembered that these were Osean craft and not CSB prototypes. If they had been, she would have already lost this skirmish and her life.

Some other backward XLAAs were fired, but to no avail, as her plane was a bit more agile than the heavy interceptors its was supposed to go against, with the MiG-31s and Tornado GR4s being good example, who had both worst mobility than the Griffon, despite the latter being not a marvel in this matter. So, the Osean pilot decided to rely on the four that were carrying those strange things strapped to their engines. From the nearly thirty-meter long spy planes were launched thirteen-meter long UAVs. They were not that much smaller than her own craft, if they removed the cockpit of the Griffon.

They flew below their mothership for some seconds, before accelerating greatly and overshooting them. Then they enacted U-turns to go toward Iskanda, who was momentarily put at bay by other volleys of XLAAs. Obviously, their small size and thin fuselage made them able to carry only short-range weaponry, even when those D-71 had never been intended to be used as a defensive armament. They were supposed to be recon drones to limit the damage if they were taken down by interceptors, protecting their carrier. Thus, their anti-air armament was QAAM, but their bay was so small that they could only fire them one at a time.

This forced Iskanda to dive out of the way, having to fly without thrust for a while as the ramjet engine was again inoperative during those steep dives. Two of the drones decided to follow her, or rather their human operator on the backseat of these M-71 variants. They had a bit of autonomy as recon fighters, but never could it be advanced enough to engage enemy fighters. Besides, they did not offer much more resilience to G-forces than a nugget on his first flight.

Also, when Iskanda regain her thrust after having gained enough kinetic energy, but having to bear with an unhealthy amount of G-forces as she climbed back, those UAVs were unable to bear these forces, with their remote pilot having tried to follow her closer and thus turn tighter. One drone was completely lost, as its ailerons were snapped by the acceleration. This caused the Osean operators to rant on those uncompleted drones:

"I knew this was going to happen. Those drones are meant for recon, not dogfight !"

"We tried to convince the higher-up four times." Another added, sighting in exasperation.

"Now I doubt we'll be able to bring to link them back and bring them back home." A third one pointed out, as the second UAV that had followed her had been destroyed by gunfire after she performed an impressive horizontal loop.

"What I doubt is that you'll be able to go home. That seems a bit preposterous to me." Iskanda intervened, while she had now leveled with the two UAVs, but as she had maneuvered a bit more during her climb, she had arrived on their third hour. Both were set to their maximum acceleration to avoid her fire, but both failed to do so. Worst, their transmitters were damaged by her twin gun burst. Thus, they only flew straight after this critical damage.

"Sadly, I might agree with you." The fourth Osean operator said, as she destroyed the now fully harmless UAVs with one HVR each. Soon it would be their undoing too.

The Oxcart, both the A-71 and M-71 variants, tried to run away, thinking that their superior speed would allow them to outspeed any of their pursuer theoretically. But they were some conditions here than their theory did not account for. One was that two Merlins satellites had been activated, which silenced their plane's radio, as the EMIs became too strong to allow any communication for both sides. Still, if they only loss was their radio, they would have been fine. However what they suffered the most was for their engines, with some mobile parts being stuck, and not in their position allowing the ramjet flight.

Thus, what should have been a hasty chase for Iskanda became a slaughter of those Oxcart, her fight being made easier by the fact that she didn't need any radar to aim at her targets while they needed theirs to aim at her with their backward firing XLAAs. It was made even easier, and maybe ludicrously easier, by the fact that Oxcart, like Blackbirds, were basically filled with fuel to the brim. Sure, it was not the most flammable thing and was a bit harder to set ablaze than acetylene, but her HVR had enough power to achieve such results. Besides, since both attackers and prey were flying above Mach 2, this negate a bit the low flammability of their specific fuel. In less than a few minutes all were shot down, with those massive ablaze falling objects being what Pixy was seeing almost twenty kilometers lower.

As she descended in altitude following her slaughter of A-71s, she got a good glimpse at some Helligen Kolumne, above Fato according to her orientation senses. Far away, she saw a few explosions near the blueish lights, as the last Osean B-52 were burning with their payload they hadn't the time to drop on the still burning city of Hope.

She also saw some other lights a bit more at the South of Fato, more toward Gebet and Recta. These two countries were partially in civil war since the beginning of this war, with Both allies and North Belka paying both fighting side, while their official government had stated a neutral status in this war. Neutrality resolved in those civil wars, as both sides were trying to force their hands. Without real army to stop them, they had to let pass the Osean troops that had been sent to invade the CSB through Hoffnung and its railway station, with this building being the only thing they would spare. However, the Belkan Wunderwaffe had rendered many metallic bridges fragile by overheating them, when it was not the work of envoys from the CSBs. Thus, seven armored trains housing a bit more than three thousand men had fallen in flames in the narrow valley those bridges were overhanging. A few luckier soldiers were stuck between two bridges for examples, or in partially crumbled tunnels. But none of that was concerning Iskanda as she began her slow descent toward Hoffnung

Hoffnung, Belka, 11/06/1995, 22:30, Weather: heavy thunder

Her descend lasted quite a lot of time. But after all, she could not just fall from twenty kilometers and then activate the airbrakes just above the ground. She had to do some large circles around Hoffnung, pitched down, which was quite boring to do, compared to all she had done today.

During her descend, she saw the burning city becoming more and more visible, even if the heavy clouds of cinder where hiding most of it at high altitude. The city of Hope was definitively burning brighter than she expected, but the Osean cities would burn even brighter when the counterattack would come. It was something that she knew would come, one day or the other. The arsonist would soon be consumed by their own fire.

Of course, her arrival was noticed by most of the CSB-aligned fighters, with their leader speaking first:

"Hello there Schwarze Luchs." Kupchenko greeted her, with great interest. This bringer of chaos and murder had played her role perfectly, and maybe better than what he had planned in some ways.

"It's nice to be alive and victorious." She agreed that for once she had no interest in killing him. Had her allegiance changed? Sure, she was not part of the allied forces, that was an absolute certainty. However, she had a bit of trouble considering the man that had caused the death of all her friends but one her ally. At least, they were both fighting against the same people for now.

"The evacuation to Blumenberg was a success. People and assets are now well protected. Those losses we suffered, both soldiers and civilians are tragic, but below the five thousand. Osea almost lost more men in this operation than we do. After all, the Merlins have totalized sixty B-52 downed, as well as a great number of B-2s. Their number of losses for their fighters on all front is above the two hundred, so our exchange ratio is below one to twenty. Besides, we have a certain number of downed airmen that survived their chute, while their have much less hope to do so. We can all agree this operation is indeed a stunning victory for us, and a stinging defeat for the coalized North Belka and allied forces." Kupchenko resumed the exchange of live, well in favor of the CSB. It would either push Osea to more extreme extents or reduced even more their capacities and allow them to go on the offensive. Still, total victory was not within his grasp, but a few critical steps had been crossed today.

"Now, we just have to go back to Tauberg, I guess?" Iskanda said, as her radar indicated no other dots but four Su-47, two other forward-swept wing aircraft she deduced were Morgans, along with a last bigger spot. A red lighting light that last craft, which was two craft linked when she looked closer, a Dunkle Wing and a F-15C being refueled.

"Indeed, we're going back home to celebrate our victory with our new friends, Schwarze Luchs. You're coming too, Galm 2." Kupchenko specified what the end of the very busy day of slaughter and killing for Iskanda was. Friends was a good term for his point of view. After all, the adversary of your enemy is your friend.

"It will be a tough landing, but I should made it to." The voice of Pixy spoke, that she had not heard since the second operation Battle-axe. To learn of his survival brought a bit of warmth to Iskanda's heart, as she was joining with the DW-2s to identify this F-15C. She had guessed it could be him but was not sure until she saw the red wingtips and heard his voice. They had both obeyed the first rule of engagement. And she was intending to follow it to the end of this war.

"Refueling complete." the boom operator stated, his voice sounding happy to have finished with this one. The very damaged Eagle vibrated more than ten thousand cell phones on vibrator mode as he tried to connect to the DW-2s. At one point he feared that he could damage the boom, which would have not led to major fire hazard as they had good onboard emergency systems. But for the Eagle that had already performed buddy-buddy refueling over Glatisant after the disaster of operation dynamo, this was nothing impossible.

"Roger. Disconnecting and forming with Schwarze Luchs." He replied, not seeing the need to use her former callsign. Both Galm 1 were dead now, and only Schwarze Luchs had survived and lived. Which was not far from the truth, with the very near-death experience of Iskanda in the early morning of this day.

"Gut. All planes, RZB" Kupchenko ordered, confident that this time Schwarze Luchs wouldn't try anything foolish. She had already shown what was the ranks she would get in a very near future last time. He looked one last time at the burning city, only lighted by the raging fire, with the blueish light slowly disappearing into the night.

As all planes left the airspace, he proceeded to take a small picture of his wife and daughter out of a small pocket on his flight suit. The picture itself had aged a bit with the years, but not his hatred nor his will of vengeance. Even if he knew that what he was doing now was far above his simple wish of revenge on Osea, he still renewed his vows he had taken in the Mausoleum a few years ago:

"Meine Vergeltung ist Nahe. Schon werden Sie leiden wie ich gelitten habe. (My vengeance is near. Soon they'll suffer like I have suffered)" He swore, like he was ready to burn Oured and turned her into the same state than Hoffnung was now.

Tauberg, Belka, 11/06/1995, 23:00, Weather: heavy thunder

After an eventless flight, they all had the one-kilometer high tower in sight. The reason why this flight had been so calm was that all allied planes which once were in the vicinity of Hoffnung and on the way had been destroyed on the way in, and other planes that had to do CAP in the area had been taken out by the other members of Gault that hadn't accompanied the others to Hoffnung.

No one amongst the squadron was surprised to see the Helligen Kolumne right above the tower, as it was doing its ultra-long range fire on the Ulysses asteroids, protecting earth and winning them the opinion of many threatened countries, if their interceptions was to be success. Which was the only thing that Kupchenko expected from the technological marvel that made the pride of Projekt Pendragon.

The approach was pretty silent on the waves, with the exception of order from the control towers to guide the two new "friends" to the runway in the night, until Pixy asked something that was on his mind for the whole trip, and he had tried to find reasons all the way, resulting in him being even more silent. Iskanda hadn't been verbose either, but it was only due to her advanced state of tiredness.

"What was the point of this last stand at Hoffnung? Just a symbol to give hope, or more?"

"Well, yes and no. Of course, we weren't going to let them any hopes of winning there. This is why Neugel ordered the Western side to be burn, especially the railway station that the Osean intended to use to send recovery teams to some of the factories before they would be burned to the ground." Kupchenko began with the justification of their scorched earth policy, which caused the death of an entire Osean marine corps as the incendiary charges they had planted there detonated precisely upon their arrival of their armored train. Osea wanted to obtain some Belkan secrecies, and they only got cinders and death instead.

"About the last stand itself, it was easier to shot down those B-52 above Hoffnung than above the Fatoan cities they are using as base. Fato might be under North Belkan influence, I preferred to give Hoffnung than to reduce an almost neutral country in cinders. It might be a hazardous gamble, but having more allies, or at least neutral-aligned countries will do us better than having more enemies."

"I won't say no to having more enemies." Iskanda intervened, enjoying seeing enemy planes falling all around her and standing in the thick smoke of blood and death.

"You'll have your fair share of targets, do not worry about such trivial details. Besides, Hoffnung is at the limit of the reach of their X-51 waverider hypersonic remote-control cruise missiles. And since no launch was reported, while Merlins operator report Osean planes carrying them, destroying those planes had deprived Osea of the more potent threat they had against us. If they had managed to cross the Löre and fired them, we could have suffered some damage." Kupchenko finished his justification of their last stand. And as the factory that produced them had been destroyed in the EMP disaster, those were likely their whole stock that had been depleted, according to the data his eyes and ears at the allied GHQ had sent to him prior to their night flight.

"Schwarze Luchs, you'll land on the right Landebahn. Pixy, on the left one." The Tauberg ATC operator said, as both planes were flying toward the air base with her open scissors-like runways.

"Ver." Both replied, and with this Belkan affirmation they lowered their gears. Iskanda was stunned to see how much damage her former wingman had taken and was still able to fly, fight and even land with it. Her, it was not the state of her plane that made her landing hard. But her own state, as her body was showing signs of tiredness, yawning every ten seconds.

To be fair, she did not remember the landing that much, as she was drifting into slumber. The shock of the runway did not even wake her up. Later, she would guess that she landed in subconscious, and for some people liking myths in her future "friends" that the hand of Saint Viktoria guided her or other funny things like that.

And so, this ends the Hoffnung arc, that took me quite a lot of time to write, with some writer's block, the whole covid-19 lockdown and some scholar stuff to do.
Here, I decided to further introduced the ADFX-02 equipped with a TFLS and ERAAMs, but it's not finished yet (and to be honest I haven't chosen a cool name for it yet).
I guess that those nuclear emergency power cells are something similar to what the Voyager probes have, but oriented toward power output instead of duration. Nuclear power will be a bit more used later on.
I'll agree that I don't like Perrault, thus I decided to bully him a bit more. Who will complain ?
About the whole high altitude sequence, I introduced a bit more of hardware to my alternate universe: the R-020 Tsybin, the M-21 and A-12 Oxcart (that I identified as A-71 to avoid confusion with the A-12 Avenger) and the D-21 recon drone. I hope you'll like those additions.
And we got to see a bit more of the Griffon. To be honest, we'll see a lot more of it in the next chapters.

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Und bis nächst Mal, Lesern und Leserinnen.