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.

28. Council of war

Tauberg, Belka, 12/06/1995, 09:30, Weather: overcast.

Right now, the grey eyes of Anton Kupchenko were looking at a sleeping girl through the small window on the door of her hospital room. That she was still sleeping now could be understood, with everything she had gone through yesterday. Himself had quite a tiring day, but he could safely guess that killing all of the infamous "Hexen" was a bit more tiring than having to spend the last hours of last night and today very early morning trying his best to negotiate through his agents in their respective governments. Of course, he hadn't tried anything with the Oseans. He knew that if he had done the mistake of revealing his undercover agent there, it would mean a death sentence for them. Still thinking about how to make the best use of those assets, he leaned slightly toward the doorknob, ready to awake his "new friend" and tackle whatever issues would need to be dealt with.

However, a small noise interrupted him. His second-in-command and scientific leader of Projekt Pendragon was standing right behind him, with his face displaying a bit of unease.

"Do you think it's sure to trust this new, ahem, friend of yours? Has she really turned her allegiance fully?" Hellenseite asked, still unphased that this enemy was allowed to be free and not restrained, at least for their safety rather than hers.

"Trust is something you gain by putting some weight in one's balance of interests. And I have the right quantum to reach the specific level for this one." Kupchenko countered his first issue and readied his arguments to tackle the second.

"Giving what people want might work on the short run. But what about in the long run? We both know that we're playing the long game. Besides, she was still our enemy the penultimate time she was here." Hellenseite pointed out while pointing at her room, not raising his voice but definitively trying to raise his friend's concerns.

"Enemy, no. An adversary she was that day. She was never my enemy. If she hadn't revealed to be a worthy adversary both of them would have died months ago over B7R. My enemies are not worth my time, and my sole wish is to defeat them." He recognized her worthiness, and that his supposed defeat back then was mostly due to her worthiness. He wasn't angry toward Hellenseite for his concerns, but his scientific and straightforward approach tended to deprive him of other points or views which could subtly change many things. So, he resumed his diatribe, as his friend had nothing to oppose his arguments yet.

"But, you see, adversaries are often people who have derived from their primary function. And sometimes this primary function can tend to follow a common goal, even if most adversaries do not always see beyond their disparities."

"Interesting way to say it, even if it's the functions that derive toward the same thing and not the other way around. Adversaries would be asymptotic limits." Hellenseite corrected his mathematical explanations, which Kupchenko almost ignored as he resumed his more philosophical explanations.

"Nevertheless, those who have achieved this level of understanding always need to think about the costs and gains." Kupchenko stated, knowing that in life everything had a cost. Nothing was free, and rarely were things done without interest, even by people claiming to act selflessly.

"The cost of her last act here is more than a million Belkmarks." Hellenseite specified since those prototypes cost roughly six to seven hundred thousand Belkmarks. That was not a small amount of money.

"Genau. But this has almost as much value in the equations which govern this war." Kupchenko said, while pulling out a small plastic bag -similar to evidence bags-, which contained a jade harpoon with two rows of barbs. A bit of flesh and blood was still visible on it. Furthermore, clotted blood was staining the bottom of the plastic bag. This weapon had been used to commit acts of horror, Hellenseite understood that immediately. Still, he tried to push away those horrors from his thoughts.

"I didn't know that the price of jade had reached such a price." He did try to ironize upon sight of this tool of murder, but failed in the end, turning his gaze away from blood. He always hated dissections in biology after all.

"It's not the weapon that is impressive, rather what his wielder has achieved with it. All the "Hexen" were slaughtered using this." Kupchenko explained, which caused his interlocutor to wonder how he knew of such facts, but such facts caused a bit of joy to appear on the face of his introverted friend.

"That might influence some variants in the grand schemes of things. That's enough to convince me of her worthiness, but I still have one last issue about this new "friend" of yours." Hellenseite pondered what was the best gain in this matter, doing air quotes as he used the word "friend", and finally agreeing that losing two prototypes that had now been replaced by the ADFX-02 was a good price to get rid of the Hexen. Otherwise, they might have managed to neutralize some of their hands, ears and eyes and jeopardized their operations a lot.

"Ich höre (I'm listening)" Kupchenko wanted not to have any misunderstanding from Hellenseite in any regards, for misunderstandings could lead to infightings.

"What do you expect from her? I know the old adage "one should keep one's allies within view, and one's enemies within reach" for one needs to read their strengths and weaknesses, and how to exploit them in an optimal course." Hellenseite gave this little quote, as well as a small interpretation. He knew Kupchenko was quite fond of these kinds of quotes, and that this one was perfect to illustrate the situation. But he also knew that he would find or even create some other quote to counter or rather supplement his point of view.

"A valid statement. Again, your straightforwardness that drives you to finish your projects with a great level of passion might hinder your open-mindedness. About friends, or adversaries that you tend to befriend with, I have made my own quote: "A friend need not be kept within sight or within reach. A friend must be allowed the freedom to find and follow his own path. If one is fortunate, those paths will for a time join. But if paths separate, it is comforting to know that a friend still graces the universe with his skills, and his viewpoint, and his presence. For if one is remembered by a friend, one is never truly gone."

"So, you expect some level of collaboration, but not loyalty." Hellenseite summarized his point, rubbing his chin in a perplexing manner, beginning to understand the extent of his wishes.

"Indeed. She might leave afterwards, but I won't restrain her. I cannot deduce everything about her. I mean, she's gone through such an unexpected path that I don't know what to expect with absolute certainties." Kupchenko conceded to his friend that such a woman with chaotic behavior was a dangerous asset. Chaos was always a two-edged sword, and while it is beautiful, it cannot last.

"But doing the unexpected is what we all must do to survive in those dire times, if we want to stay two steps ahead of our enemies." Karl was now fully convinced of the good in the efforts of Kupchenko to recruit this agent of chaos. While he couldn't foresee her path either, he knew hers and theirs were joining right now.

"You're right. Doing the unexpected will keep us on an edge. And it's definitively better to be on an edge than on the edge." Kupchenko asserted that their tactics would not be a single push, but rather a sneakier approach, with a small smile on his face as he was satisfied to have succeeded in convincing his friend. Now there was the one on the other side of the door to convince, and if success were met again, he would allow himself to feel happiness.

"Good luck convincing her, then." Karl wished him success in his doings. He was about to say something about unexpected events but restrained himself the next second. Kupchenko wouldn't be the only one to surprise the other, but his surprise might be less difficult to cope with.

"Or not" the scientist thought as he wished him luck in Belkan this time, as his friend entered the room in which this dangerous mercenary was resting by now.

Iskanda's room, Tauberg, Belka, 12/06/1995, 09:43, Weather: overcast.

Kupchenko entered the room silently. It was a simple hospital chamber. Of course, they were underground, as most buildings outside Excalibur were below ground level. Still, the numerous skylights -far too small to let any aircraft in- allowed a bit of light to come around the curtain, and it was enough to see in the white room.

He had been a bit surprised by her look at first, not expecting Eruseans nor Salvatorian to be this tanned and with dark hairs, but the Usean continent had welcomed many refugees from the Verusan during all of the prior conflicts, so it could be explained. Besides, her look had nothing to do with him recognizing her as a worthy adversary.

She was, with absolute certainty, more surprised than him when he pulled out the curtain, leaving the light to fill the room. The white sheets contrasted even more with her body lying in the bed. It wasn't long before she woke up, with the sun striking at the right side of her face.

Immediately she wanted to stand, stunned by surprise. It was the second time she was awakening in a hospital bed, and she didn't like that a lot. Of course, having her adversary staring at her was not how she was expecting to begin the day. He was standing still, drinking some water, after having poured her a glass on a nearby nightstand while she was getting out of Morphea's arms.

"You should drink a bit. It's pretty uneasy to talk with a dry throat." He engaged the talk with a simple request, that he had already done himself, as he had talked quite a lot with Hellenseite.

"Thanks for the water. I suppose you're not here to bring me lunch." She agreed to follow this small advice. Besides, he had drunk this water too, so she has nothing to be worried about.

"Well, I did bring you some lunch, but I'm not here as a mere waiter." He said while giving her a small kraft paper bag, whose content was a few croissants.

"I did hear a bit of your oral dissertation through the door. Talking in such a passionate manner definitely decreases your stealth." She stated, having heard their last tirades very well.

"Great, for I won't have to repeat myself." He was a bit surprised that she caught bits of their talks, even if they hadn't evoked anything critical. He had a main topic to treat here, so he wasted no time as she was taking a bite in a croissant.

"First, I shall thank you for having murdered the Hexen. My loved ones have been avenged, and I'm quite grateful for that. Besides, through the removal of this asset you crippled the infiltrators of North Belka." He expressed true gratitude toward this assassin. When Neugel's scouts that he had sent to the Verzweiflungsberg had confirmed the news, he had felt a great amount of joy. He didn't know what could take him to such heights, other than seeing Oured's Home fleet in flames and a Belkan flag on the Bright House.

"So, I'm not the only one that their death had caused joy, then." She added, finishing one croissant, which resulted in some bits of puff pastry falling on her sheets. But that stuff was easier to wash than blood, so she kept eating this small lunch he had kindly brought. "I guess it was Neugel that reported my acts?" She supposed, not knowing how he could have known that. Yet, with the feeling of her harpoon gone, she could deduce that he had deduced what used she made of that.

"Naja. (Yes and No). Don't you think that there was a bit too many conveniences when you arrived at the Verzweiflungsberg? The fact that you found some kind of light body armor and what you needed to survive their use of Kalium Chloride did not tickle you in any way? Nor the fact that the encrypted message which sent you on the hunt was encrypted using a very old code than only the elder pilots of the Belkan Air Force would new?" He pointed out some of the details that she had kept wondering all the way from Hoffnung to Valais.

"I agree that there were some nice circumstances. But it's always better to be favored by circumstances rather than being a victim of circumstances, right." She nodded, beginning to understand what had really happened yesterday. She knew something was off regarding all of this.

"I made you do it. I didn't order you to act, but you executed the order and the Hexen perfectly. I sent the message. I put those doses of adrenaline and acetylene there. I even put those Sicherheitsschuhe so you would be a little bit more protected." He explained, his gaze still focused on this tanned girl surrounded by white. She hadn't the look of a hardened serial-killer for sure, but he knew how much looks could be deceiving.

"And except your words, what can prove that?" She asked, out of curiosity. Not that she wasn't very happy that this whole situation had made her feel in charge when she wasn't, but she was indeed feeling a bit unphased to learn that she had just been a pawn in his game. She wondered how Espada 2 will appreciate having been used as such, since her pain was far beyond what she suffered. For sure she wouldn't be happy.

"I have this for first." He brandished the small plastic bag housing her bloodstained weapon.

"That would require some time to find out every DNA on it. Besides, there's not just the Hexen's on it." Iskanda had learned that DNA analysis were a bit longer than in TV shows, just a tad longer, a tad meaning weeks instead of a few hours. So, she was openly discarding his proof, especially as it was her own.

"I did not ask my forensic service to look for your entire killcount." He replied with a bit of disdain, recognizing that such a task would need to look in Osean, Belkan, Erusean and Salvatorian files as well. Then he resumed his explanations with a far more tangible proof.

"You said I had only my words as proof. But I have yours too." He retorted in an almost funny way. Well murder was maybe funnier for his interlocutor… He then proceeded to take a small voice recorder, and chose one of the tracks, which was to be taken in the context of the act, he guessed.

"Soon you will wish I was that kind of pervert." The words she had told to the Mutter were said, a bit distorted, but she remembered this instant in a split second.

Another track was played:

"Soon, you'll scream for only one thing. Your death."

This one caused a bright smile to appear on Iskanda's face. After all, the joyfulness of her voice as she felt the despair of this woman who fed on despair had been recorded quite well by the device. She wondered where the mike was hidden. Not in the place, as nothing was left after she had gone a bit fired up and set them on fire. Maybe in the stuff she found, then.

"I could go on and on for more than an hour. It was hidden between the two metallic soles of your shoes." He added, having heard enough of it when Neugel sent him the data they extracted yesterday morning to be a bit frightened by her acts of horror. He had ordered their murder, not their torment. Of course, they deserved such a horrible end. Who lives by horror need to die by horror?

"That's interesting. Is it possible to give me a copy of those files? I would like to hear their suffering a few more times." Iskanda inquired, very happy to learn that their torment had been recorded. Some people need to count sheep to go to sleep, but for her, listening to those screams of agony would be enough.

"I think I can get you that." He let a small sardonic laugh, realizing how chaotic she really was. Henceforth they would have enough chaos to destroy the old words' order.

"Any other things that you used to watch me there?" She wanted to know how far he had gone to set up this Hexenjagd.

"I do have another proof." He responded, while taking a small, elongated box from a pocket in his pants. He switched the device on, and a few seconds after, as he approached the device toward the mercenary, it emitted a few bips.

She had already heard those bips back in physics class. Those were from a Geiger counter. This immediately caused her to shout at Kupchenko:

"What did you inject me with?"

To which he replied with the greatest of calms:

"Me, nothing. Besides, adrenaline doesn't require to be injected through the heart. A vein is enough." He clued her enough hints for her to deduce why she had some radioactive tracer in her system.

"A radioactive tracer. Not deadly, but enough to be detected. Clever." She agreed that everything had been planned for her to succeed there. Obviously, she had brought the nailgun from the Mausoleum, but since it was housing the tombs of his beloved, who could know if he hadn't let it there on purpose or not.

"Then you already know who hired them to kill your wife and daughter." She added, if he had listened to the full recording of her "Questioning".

"I do. Be sure that I'll tear to shred everything that Schröder has made. Though it doesn't make the Osean less guilty." He had immediately deduced, at the second he heard the word "Künstlich '' that the Mutter of the Hexen had been referring to the KI Projekt, his opponent for the main investments.

"Why would they be, then?" She asked, not understanding what the role of Osea in this dark event of his life was. She knew that this event had happened while he while doing an airshow in Osea but didn't see the Osean responsibility in the murder of his wife five years ago.

"They are not responsible for the murder. However, they are responsible for the escape of the Hexen. Some Belkan envoys had managed to track them to the Apito International Airport. But due to either the incompetence or lack of collaboration from the Oured custom officers, they manage to get on a small jet. Said jet was shot down by Osean forces, and as they blew up sky high the bodies were never found. And they were never found because the Osean paid some low-life mercenary to fly that plane and get shot while they hide the true Hexen. That's one thing than the few Osean defectors in my squadron revealed to me." Kupchenko explained why he couldn't get his revenge back then. He wished he could have shot the plane himself, to see them burn, but obviously it wouldn't have changed anything. They would have escaped anyway.

"And so, this is why you needed to set this up for a psychopathic murderer like me." She understood what his point was. Osea allowed those murderers to live. And it takes a murderer to take down all of those murderers.

"More or less. I have very good pilots amongst our ranks, good infiltrators and spies that are in a good number of governments, but we lack killers." He agreed that if he had good eyes, ears, and hands, they lacked some armed hands to do the dirty work here and there.

"So, instead of having to burn Dinsmark to the ground, I guess my new ultimate goal will be to burn Oured to the ground?" She expressed her destructive wills. Which wouldn't be stopped by anything if they agreed to collaborate.

"Brennen Oured nieder? Warum nicht? (burning Oured to the ground? why not?)" He pondered this nice proposition, who would surely bring an end to the Osean supremacy. A new age could come to life. But he didn't want to turn Oured in an Osean Hoffnung, a symbol that they would use for means of propaganda, to show how horrible Belkans could be.

"Even if I wouldn't burn the city itself. Unlike some Ralders and some Osean extremists, I don't revel in killing the people. But I could surely destroy some ugly buildings as well as their Home Fleet." He pointed out, after having analyzed what he would do at Oured to humiliate Osea, holding his chin with his left hand as he was a bit lost in his train of thoughts.

"Of course, I agree that we can't have the pleasure to walk as winners in the Bright House if there's no more Bright House left." Iskanda agreed that there was no glory in conquering dust and cinders.

"I recognize this fact. You know now that revenge takes some time to be reached, planning and insights. But be sure that you'll have your revenge against the weakling that disregarded you once." He promised her what he knew she wanted to hear. He knew how little interest the Osean high ranking officers had shown toward her.

"Their weakest man will pay for having tried to enact some ill-planned revenge for his seamen I wasn't able to save. That only revealed how weak this Weeker is." Iskanda was pretty pleased by his promise. However, she was a bit uncertain on how they would achieve such a goal. She had no difficulty at admitting the formidable defensive capacities of Excalibur, but on the offensive side, she was still left to be convinced. And of course, not all their targets were in range. If the top North of the Oured Bay was in range, the South, where the Home Fleet had been relocated after suffering losses due to the fall of the SOLG, was not in range. Futuro would be, but ships were far more resilient than C-5s or E-767.

"What are you going to do to either diminish our attackers' strength, or increase ours?" She expressed her little strategic dilemma.

"First, through some deep infiltration on key targets. That will greatly diminish their forces, or at least alleviate us of some of the pressure on our defensive net. You know that wars are seldomly won without allies. And our new allies will also help in that regard. They have already helped you get your Griffon yesterday, for example." He stated what their strategy would be: a long multi-pronged campaign that would not ensure victory before Christmas for sure, but would guarantee one in the long run, if everything ran smoothly. Or at least ran as smoothly as her murders of the Hexens.

"You mean that those Ustian resistance fighters are members of your organization? Or that they have at least close links?" She guessed, this intel partially fulfilling her interrogations that had lasted throughout her whole back trip from Valais. That could explain why she hadn't seen a single Osean there. Or why the Griffon was ready to go.

"Both are valid assertions. After all, how would small resistance groups be able to mount an operation like at Aarlon involving high-tech stealth choppers, or high-tech quadcopters for the cell of Directus under the leadership of Herr Brønsted? These assets were already mine, unofficially speaking. They will just become official assets and liaison agents for our new allies." Kupchenko specified, revealing a bit of his secrecies, but she had the right to know. If he wanted her to trust him and fight alongside him, he first needed to install a trusted relationship with this dangerous mercenary. He doesn't want to have her ire to face as well as the Osean and North-Belkan forces.

"Because you're expecting the alliance to break apart. Which is fairly possible with Osea having chosen to side with the North Belka for the sole reasons that you are a more dangerous foe than the Ralders." Iskanda did not hesitate at hazarding the most plausible guess. Ustio and the other newly independent countries, alongside with Sapin, would not agree to side with this far-right dictatorship. Yuktobania might tag along until they had no more interest or until another faux pas of Osea.

"I expect this, indeed. But now has come the time to ask you the big question: what are you expecting to achieve?" He sought to know if their interests were converging or not. If not, he would be pretty disappointed.

At this moment, Iskanda reminded herself of what she had told the apparition of Ste Victoire. Her mindset hadn't changed since. Her answer was a bit of the same:

"I want to be more than a mere name on an Osean report. I want that sweet glory that history, this crude lady had not brought me yet. I don't care about your politics or your great schemes to be honest. But I do care about the people living in the countries I'll be fighting for."

Her last sentences could either be interpreted as a selfless thought, or a more earthy one. After all, it was coming from her point that there was no glory in conquering cinders. Likewise, if you kill everyone or let everyone die, there will be no one left to fear you, to remember you and worship you beyond death. She was investing in her immortality, from a certain point of view.

"You'll for sure fill more than one report with your casualties alone. You'll have your glory, I promise." He responded with a smirk. If he was relying on her previous kill count per battle, then the Osean military would be able to fill multiple annuals with the names of all the killed, if of course the body were identifiable.

"Second thing, do not expect blind allegiance from me or oaths. I'm a mercenary, not a knight." She added, wanting to have something to say in the battle to come. She had conquered her freedom at a hard price, and she wouldn't give it for anything. Freedom was still higher than having Hypersthene in her scale of values.

"I was expecting such demand. You have shown talents for improvisations and quick thinking in battles. You'll have your freedom. We won B7R's and Hoffnung's battle with simple cooperation. That's what I expect from you, your collaboration in battle. Nothing more, nothing less. Together we can change more than the tide of this war?" He approved that a bit of a newer approach could be useful in battle, tending his hand for her to shake it. Sure, not every battle could be solved through inside flying, but some that would come sooner or later could be facilitated by such a bold strategy.

She shook it firmly, accepting their collaboration. It seemed a fair proposition to both involved parties. He was right not to fear that she might live. After all, she had so much more to gain at his side than against him. As he was shaking her hand, he said her, in a formal manner:

"Willkommen zum Projekt Pendragon, dann (then welcome to the Pendragon project)"

Then he added, on a less formal tone:

"Osea is now dead for real."

His final sentences set her timetable for the day, after he put what seemed to be a metallic watch on a table near her bed. He was wearing a similar model, she noticed, as she took it in her hand. for a closer look:

"This watch has a magnetic signature that will allow you to go outside this room. Just put the underside near the handle and it should be enough. However, it won't open all areas. You're free to tour the outside and the air base." He summarized what pilots were authorized to enter. He might raise her level of accreditation after a few other victories. He was not, and he knew she wouldn't either, expect anything less than victories. Or their enemy would only have pyrrhic victories like Hoffnung, if they could consider it a victory when it was nothing more than a very, very stinging defeat.

Tauberg, Belka, 12/06/1995, 14:30, Weather: overcast.

Iskanda had spent the remaining hours of the morning touring the place. Of course, even if the base were several kilometers North of Excalibur, the gigantic dark tower could be seen from any point of the base. The dark monolith was almost surreal in some ways, and she was pretty sure that there were already conspiracy theories claiming that the tower was an alien spaceship and its operators E.T. in disguise.

Speaking of disguise, she was now wearing a Belkan uniform, composed of pants and jacket in their trademark verdigris green color, with a white blouse underneath. Right now, there was only the Projekt Pendragon insignia, on her left shoulder, composed of Excalibur in a circle with two stylized forward swept-wing planes coming from behind it. She found it nice, but as she toured the place a few ideas came to her mind as replacements for this patch. They needed something to symbolize their appurtenance to this new country they were fighting for.

Of course, once, or twice her curiosity was stopped by doors which her magnetic identifier couldn't unlock. Much of them led to underground facilities. So, maybe she could have done inside flights here, but there was maybe no way of getting inside in a fighter jet.

Right now, she was resting in the mess hall, after having toured the entire scissor-like runway. The defenses surrounding it were still standing strong, proven by the few craters and plane wrecks here and there. Some had been removed, others not yet.

Then, there were the numerous hangars that were situated along two circular paths, making the base really look like an open scissor from the sky. Those were not the simple metallic rectangle of Valais, rather cupola-shaped ones. Half of their structure was actually in the ground, as those hangars had been set on two small hills, thus minimizing the damage in case of bombing. Of course, there were not all of the same size, with some of them being larger or longer, and others having openings on their roof -maybe those were for the VTOL variant of these DWs crafts-.

At one point some MiG-31s and Su-47s took off, saturating her ears with the roar of their engines as they left the airbase. For which purpose she didn't know, maybe a bit of CAP. But she did notice that they were not carrying their standard XLAAs but larger missiles. She guessed those were ERAAMs. Furthermore, they had now X-shaped empennage and their engine outlets had not a fully circular shape but a more geometrically complex shape. Thus, they reminded Iskanda of the modification that Pixy's former lover had made to her own MiG-31, dubbing it "MiG-31X/V''.

And what was best to rest her mind than a heated conversation between the representatives of each allied country, transmitted from the Ustian embassy. They weren't the only ones doing this discussion online, as the only two representatives who were speaking from the allied GHQ were the Osean and Yuktes, while the Sapin representative, an aged man in his late sixties known as Alfonso Azana, and the representatives of Gebet and Recta, being a woman with curled red hair slightly older than her named Hannie Belifante and an old bald man named Henrik van Hoof. Other people in the mess stated that both were for the reunification of their two countries, with the girl being an anti-corruption activist and the other a former attorney. All names were written in black letters on small pieces of folded white plastic in front of them.

And of course, the Osean was again the one to begin the unkind talks. Of course, there was no Ursula Reutner to humiliate them publicly once more, but there were no reasons indicating that they would be spared of this fate:

"Today reports came of our soldiers in your capital that they witnessed some of your officials entering in the former Belkan embassies that have claimed to join the rogue state known as the CSB. Can you specify for what purpose?" The Osean representative, a high-ranking officer identified as the counter-admiral Louis Harrow.

"Your snitches are right. Some of my countrymen did come into contact with people belonging to the CSB." The Ustian minister Kerzen replied, intentionally using this negative term to describe those Osean soldiers that were pretty useless, stranded in Directus as the Airport was still under threat of Excalibur strikes. The attempt to bring back those soldiers and pilots using V-22 Osprey had only brought anything but casualties.

"And to which purpose, again?" The Yukte representative insisted once again on the main topic of the discussion. He was a blond man in his late forties that the piece of folded plastic identified as Major Varitch. He was maybe appearing a bit older due to the intense stress induced by their bad results in this conflict.

"Simplemente (simply) to speak." Alfonso Azana replied, having retreated back to his embassy because he feared the reaction of his allies once they discovered the topic of their subject.

"And to speak of what? Rain or good weather I presume?" Harrow inquired, beginning to lose his patience. Maybe it was a good thing they were doing a videoconference.

"Not really. More of how to achieve peace." The Rectan representative Henrik van Hoof spoke with his deep but calm voice, that he had time to master during a certain number of trials. Even if he had the feeling that he was more of a defense attorney at this very moment.

"Ahem, I did not know that arbiter states were so good at convincing warmongers to surrender." Varitch commented with sarcasm, finding his own words almost unrealistic as he was pronouncing them. He had all the reasons to be sarcastic against two states that had refused allied guidance and were still unstable.

"We have not convinced your two warmongering countries yet." The anti-corr activist interrupted them with a similar amount of sarcasm aimed toward the Yukte representative.

"What do you mean?" Harrow added, more in a rhetoric manner than to have more explanations, raising his eyebrows as his concerns did the same.

"My esteemed friend means that we are not seeking their surrendering but yours, Harrow." Kerzen indicated, even if he knew that such demand would be meant by a total ban from the two superpowers that were now the only two countries having interest in keeping the wheel of war turning.

"I guess this is an example of the legendary Ustian Humor?" Varitch rolled his eyes after having almost choked himself from the surprise, and above all, the foolishness of such demand.

"Not a single bit." Kerzen replied in a harsh voice, cutting every word in his sentence. The moment to make jokes on this war had ended a few weeks ago, when one of their journalists had been considered a terrorist for stating and defending the truth.

"¿- Puedo yo? (May I?)" Alonso waited for Kerzen's authorization to reveal the goal of those talks, which had been much kinder than their current one.

"Of course, if our friends Belifante and van Hoof had nothing to add." Kerzen agreed on his term and waited for the allowance of the two arbiter states' representatives.

"You may proceed." Hannie nodded, after another nod of approval from his almost-compatriot.

"Proceed to what? Spit it out, Azana!" Harrow's limited patience had reached their narrow limits.

"To announce one thing." The interested proceeded with a solemn voice, as it would set them on a hazardous path. He paused two second, and then resumed his announcement:

"Ustio, Gebet, Recta and my country have decided to leave the allied forces and have already begun peace talks with the CSB, with the purpose of setting a white armistice between our countries as well as recognize this new country."

"You can't do this! It's an act of treason!" Harrow shouted, now realizing that their only allied country was Yuktobania, which was the only one present in the deserted war council room of the allied GHQ.

"Not as much as siding with North Belka and their puppet state of Fato, mister Harrow." Henrik disclosed with a similar anger level what his "friend" Kupchenko had revealed to him that night.

Of course, it was not the only thing he had revealed to Hannie and him. One other thing was the role that both North Belka Geheimnisservice and OIA had played in the financing of the troublemakers that kept their two countries unstable since they refused the help of both, only wanting true neutrality. Said troublemakers had been less violent and demonstrating less strength for a few weeks, since those two countries' armies were met with grievous losses in each battle, and thus could not spend too many resources in another proxy war.

"Besides, such action against countries seeking only peace when the war should be over would not be seen well at the Assembly of Nations." Hannie stated, trying to hustle the Osean and Yuktes. They wanted so dearly their alliance with the Southern Usean states, and she had gotten so much dirt on them as an anti-corruption activist that she would have no problem to turn the world's opinion against them.

"You'll regret this!" Varitch threatened them, knowing these countries to be currently weakened on a military scale. And Excalibur had not enough range to protect all those traitorous states.

"Maybe you'll too, in due time." Kerzen replied to his very angered interlocutor with the utmost indignation.

"Then I suppose our next meeting will be when your states will have been liberated once more?" Harrow implied, letting few things to wonder about Osean intentions.

"Being liberated is not trading one master for another but being your own." Azana countered, still a bit stressed by his own words. Sure, this would cause losses. But staying in this unwinnable conflict would only cause more. It had already cost too much to these four countries, anyway.

"We shall see, we shall see." Varitch commented, still in a threatening mood, before cutting the transmission. He knew there was nothing to gain by talking to such kind of people. They would only accept to be put at their place after a proper and utter defeat. Their countries would burn soon.

Of course, the opposite was true for those two belligerents. Even if those two would need more than one or two defeats to be put back into their place. Much like a dozen or so, leaving their economy, military, and demography in shambles.

"I now understand why they wanted to do this meeting from their embassies." Harrow added, with a great amount of sarcasm.

"They might have feared our retaliation. And they're right to fear them." Varitch added, certain that they would win in the long run.

"However, we cannot retaliate right now. This will need some time, but their betrayal will be dealt with and paid in blood." Harrow was forced to admit that they could not just rush in and needed to think this through if they wanted to force them back into the war. Access to Gebet and Recta was an absolute necessity if they wanted to launch a large-scale land attack on South Belka from the East.

"I see. We'd better let them act first and defend, it's always good to be on the defensive side." The major considered, knowing obviously that being on the offensive with the enemy having Wunderwaffen made for a defensive purpose was foolish, and thus out of the question for both of them. If North Belka wanted to send more people to their death, it would only be their fault to blame.

"Therefore, we will appear as the defenders of order attacked by those coalized anarchists." Harrow approved of this plan of action since it wouldn't ruin the now slightly jeopardized accord with the Southern Usean states.

"Besides, such change of thoughts amongst our allies may indicate why the Air Base of the Valaisian Alps is silent since yesterday evening's." Varitch realized, with a strike of Excalibur or the use of their Merlin satellites being suggested as reasons why it went silent so suddenly back then.

"Damn those Ustians. Even their journalists are dangerous…" Harrow sighted, ending their small reunion that had seen the alliance getting torn apart by the will of one man: Kupchenko. Or maybe the idiocy of the now triple alliance between Osea, Yuktobania and the Rald-controlled area of Belka.

Theoretically, their talk with their now former allies had ended a few minutes ago. But through hackers of the CSB, they had managed to keep the transmission going without the Osean or Yukte representative noticing it a single bit. Thus, the allied plans were known by all, which caused Iskanda to laugh at the idea that Steller and his men had managed to get rid of those Oseans. Surely it was not something as Machiavellian as her questioning of Herr Zeichner, but she still expected a bit of creativity from the chief mechanic. After all, she suspected that something was amiss yesterday, and her pretty long talk with Kupchenko had achieved to cement that thought.

Thus, she was in a pretty good mood when the four pilots of Schwarze that she had seen took off a bit sooner entered into the mess hall and she went to meet them. There were two thin and tall mens with dark hair, who shared similar facial traits. Maybe they had some family links between them, or maybe just some coincidence. The two walking behind were a slightly more muscular man with blond hairs, and a slightly shorter one with brown hairs. If the two in front of their four-men formation had definitively a Yuktobanian type, the two others were more Belkan-like looking. But they all had a thick Yukte accent, maybe a bit less for their leader as he presented them after having shaken her hand:

"So, miss Schwarze Luchs, I'm Dimitry Zubov, this one right here is Sergei Karkov and the two behind me are Harald Brehme and Sepp Bonhoff. Schwarze ein zu vier."

"Name's Iskanda Rayien, by the way. Happy to meet you on the ground rather than trailing me in the sky." She greeted him equally, feeling nice to have people of dark background around her. Those Oseans who were always crying because they had one brother or sister killed in battle were a bit annoying to her, especially when they did not use the passion born of such losses against their foes.

"I think we had the most boring job we ever had, today." The blond one, Harald, engaged the conversation as they sat around a circular table after asking for four coffees and one mint tea for her.

"And to think that I was so eager to test those ERAAMs on some unaware Osean." Sepp added, sounding disappointed not to have had his moment of glory today.

"What was this boring mission? It sounds like it was pretty boring, hearing you ranting about to such an extent." Iskanda asked, pretty curious about what they could have been sent to do above Belka.

"Protect a bunch of water bombers from Gebet and Recta while they had to take their water at the Kreuzbergsee and then escort them to Hoffnung so they can limit the expansion of the fire to the limits of the city." Zubov explained, before taking a long sip of his hot coffee.

"I almost fell asleep during the operation. Give us something to hunt, not to mothball." Sergei expressed his light frustration of the day.

"War is not always glory twenty-four hours a day, sadly." Iskanda sighted, knowing this feeling of impatience that tended to appear when she didn't kill anyone after a few days of rest.

"That's right. But I bet we will have enough glory for two decades if we survive this war." Harald intervened, hoping dearly to survive this conflict.

"There's only one rule in war: to survive. And I intend to follow it." Iskanda quoted Pixy, which by the way she had not seen a single bit today. But that was understandable, giving the sheer size of the facilities here.

Tauberg, Belka, 13/06/1995, 10:30, Weather: overcast.

Iskanda and Kupchenko were waiting in the hangar where the Nord 1500 Griffon had been parked. small scaffolds had been set around it so the parts that needed removal or repairs would be more accessible. There were indeed some missing metallic panels, especially the part covering the jet engine, which had been removed as well. The canopy was open, meaning that work on a true, proper HUD and other indicators might be in process.

"I guess that one of the modifications is to improve the jet engine for low speeds." Iskanda observed, interested to know that one of its main flaws would be corrected soon.

"I think so too. But I'm waiting for the opinion of the "expert" that Hellenseite had recruited." Kupchenko answered, not knowing with which engine they would replace this one. It would need something small, but powerful, and they hadn't the time to design a new if they wanted the plane operational asap. Rocket booster would be fine for take-off and getting to the required speed to use the ramjet but those were quite heavy and not suited for a small fighter, without counting their limited autonomy.

Their waiting was interrupted by the step of someone running outside, toward their area since the intensity of their sound was increasing. Iskanda went for the large hangar door, which was six meter large and three-meter-high and was now retracted in the walls. She saw someone in Belkan fatigues running toward them, but there was something off about her way of running. She was more jumping than running, like if she had put some springs under her shoes. Hence the noise. From a bit far away, she could also see that this "expert" must be a fairly old person, as her long white hairs -far too long for military standards- were moving during her run.

By the time she arrived - Iskanda had definitively ruled her as a she, if of course she wasn't faking her gender like she did once-, Kupchenko had come too, and as soon as he could recognize her, he took his forehead in his right hand and sighed heavily. Iskanda couldn't tell if it was frustration or a bad surprise.

"Sorry for the little delay, I thought our meeting would be at 10:45." The unknown aged woman excused as she stopped her run just three meters in front of Kupchenko, smiling at him.

But the Unknown didn't stay an unknown for very long, as Kupchenko asked, his voice betraying his total yet genuine surprise:

"Mutti? Was machst du hier?" (Mother? What are you doing here?) He showed truly utter surprise here. Nothing could have surprised him more, or only Osea surrendering right now and scuttling their whole fleet.

"Well, some scientist of your Projekt needed an opinion for upgrades on the Griffon, and since I'm one of the only alive persons that worked on this plane, I volunteered immediately." The unknown now identified as the mother of Kupchenko replied, now right in front of the two of them.

"I'm quite surprised to see you walking out of the retirement house." Kupchenko stated, insisting heavily on the verb walking.

"Oh, that same scientist offered me to test this exoskeleton Projekt. To walk by myself again is so good." She honestly replied, sharing none of his cunningness and tortuous way with words. That was something he inherited from his deceased father. As she spoke, she opened her military jacket to unveil the metallic braces on her torso which were joined with other metallic pieces linked to her arms and legs. Such kind of equipment might justify the heavy backpack she was wearing. Iskanda had no way to know its weight, but it seemed heavy to her.

"And me who thought that some thirty-years old bearded guy barged into the retirement house and said, "Stand up, take your mat, and go home»?" Kupchenko tried to make some fun of this very unexpected situation. This funny question caused Iskanda to chuckle slightly, not expecting such words from the tactician.

"Well, I didn't bring my mat here. But this is your home, now." His old mother replied kindly, possessing a bit more humor than her son.

"I agree on the last part." He said on a more serious tone, before adding as he saw her having some trouble breathing:

"You shouldn't have run like that, Mutti. You know you're quite often subjected to asthma."

Iskanda thus expected her to use some Ventolin or other similar medication, but she produced a tube a bit larger than a pen out of one of her inner pockets. She switched this cylinder on and inhaled deeply. As she inhaled a few more times this caused Kupchenko to scowl, as he knew what she was using. Iskanda did not, but the smell was reminding her of some essential oils her "aunt" used sometimes. But the effect of this mixture seemed to be a bit more than what the usual essential oil would do to people in their eighties.

"You're still using this? Even when you know what the third ingredient can do?" He exclaimed, not understanding why his mother couldn't behave like a normal elderly. But he wasn't behaving as a normal forty-years-old either. By now he shouldn't be fighting on the frontline. People of such age had some fights, but usually it was only verbal or small disputes without any actual danger with their future sons or daughters-in-law, yet he had been deprived of those possibilities some years ago.

"What's this third ingredient?" Iskanda asked with renewed curiosity, finding this weird Mutter of Kupchenko sympathetic.

"Belladonna. It acts as a light euphoriant, nothing that bad." Kupchenko's Mutter replied, diminishing slightly the danger of this extract in her words.

"It's a poison, and you know it." Kupchenko corrected, not liking to see an eighty-year-old woman acted like a junkie.

To this she stopped inhaling and put it out of her mouth, before adding on a relaxed tone, not taking his son's frustration into account at all:

"You should try it sometimes, relax, unwind."

"I'll relax when this war is over." He cut short her suggestions.

"Wars don't end and you know it, Tonio. But I'm not here to dither with you, rather about the craft behind you." She acted in a similar way than him, not liking where their conversation was heading to.

"Then talk to the main interested. I think I have some meetings to attend." Kupchenko suggested, as he now had a very good subject to talk with Hellenseite: what he was thinking when he brought Mancina, his slightly crazy mother, here. But on the other hand, he had brought a former arch-nemesis.

"Gut." She agreed as he exited the hangar, frustrated that his mother hadn't been made any saner by more than two decades of retirement house.

"Maybe I can have a proper introduction?" Iskanda said, as the tension in the air decreased with Kupchenko leaving.

"Natürlich. I'm Mancina Gault, mother of this cold tactician that my little Tonio has become through the years." She introduced herself, moving her hand forward for Iskanda to shake it.

Which she did, while introducing herself to Mancina:

"Iskanda Rayien. Former nemesis of your son and new friend."

Of course, the diminutive Mancina had used, as well as her more singing accent suggested Iskanda what her origin was.

"You're from Emmeria?"

"Genau, born in Vitoze in 1905. My little Tonio has always more appreciated his Belkan heritage, than his Yukte or Emmerian one. Even if only his father's mother was Belkan, he will always consider himself as a bred and born Belkan." She explained that this man who was now holding the future of Belka within his hands was not that much Belkan. He wasn't Belkan by blood, but by his way of thinking.

"Maybe I'd better not call him Tonio while on mission or even besides the private sphere." Iskanda gauged, knowing that the man was not to be underestimated. She might have joked about that if they were still nemesis, but now that they were friends, they had to respect each other.

"Oh, very few know that name. Maybe he revealed that to his closest friends, and I'm not even sure of that." Mancina was convinced that no one in the Belkan army knew of his real first name. He had made himself known as Anton Kupchenko, not as Tonio Gault.

"At least he chose your name for his squadron." Iskanda pointed out, which was now explaining the un-Belkan like name of Kupchenko's squadron. Apparently, everyone had hidden secrets in this war, and she was not sure that she would have disclosed all of them before its ends if she ever lived to see the end of this war.

"That's a nice touch coming from him, I guess. But maybe it's time to speak a bit about your fighters' new abilities?" Mancina wanted to stop lingering about the past. Sure, she had not a very bloody past compared to her current interlocutor, yet she would need sometimes to be a bit more open. Being for a bit more than three decades in a retirement house that were more than a death corridor for elders than anything did close her mind about her past a bit.

"That's a better topic than Anton's childhood. I mean, only blooded pasts interested me, and I doubt it can be filled with as much blood as mine." Iskanda agreed to close those more intimate subjects to go for a bit more of technical stuff.

"From what people have told me of you, I doubt even vampires shed as much blood as you do. Now to the Griffon." Mancina stopped, before taking a small light pointer out of her pocket and used it to design the place of the now missing jet engine.

"We have removed the weak engine that was here. After conducting some tests and other experimentations, we settled on a X-29A engine. First, it's a lightweight engine, and if I recall correctly, you know your way around the X-29A pretty well." Mancina presented what her new engine would be.

"It was my main fighter even if I had to fly the Griffon twice before it was fully operational after having taken a great share of damage at Bayes' Fortress. Then I piloted your son's former Su-47 above B7R with good results. However, mine had seen improvements and changes made by the Ustian repair crews that are not on the average X-29A."

"Then it will be the same as your advanced X-29A, since this one contains a great number of parts made of those recently discovered ceramics, which allow higher temperature of combustion and thus more thrust." Mancina indicated, reminding Iskanda of where those specific ceramics had been discovered, at Aarlon in Sapin. A few weeks ago, she would have suspected Belkan spies, but now that she knew about all the roots of the Pendragon Projekt, she was far less surprised.

"Still, it will always be like an elderly having some new limbs but an old heart. Will it hold long enough to survive the rest of the war to come? I mean, I don't think Osea will surrender next week." Iskanda expressed some concerns about the durability of the plane. She had already had one near-death experience in it, and she preferred avoiding a second.

"In a sense, its state is similar to my own current state. An almost paralytic that miracles of modern technology allow to run when even moving my fingertips was a hard task a week ago." Mancina compared herself, speaking almost her somewhat erratic breath. Indeed, Iskanda had seen that even her fingers were held by small metallic braces that allow them to move and have prehension. To be so dependent on a machine was frustrating to say the least.

"Why do you need this exoskeleton, if it's not bothering you to disclose that to your son's former nemesis?" Iskanda wanted to understand this tragedy she had been through. Being locked in your own body must be horrifying. And it was the fate the Hexens had planned for Espada 2.

"Untenbewegunglichkeit (undermobility). It's a rare disease only passed on to women due to some bad double X chromosomes. It's a particularly nefarious disease, which slowly severed the connection between the motor neurons and the muscles. In my case, they managed to stop its effect before it could affect the more vital muscles, like the diaphragm or the heart. This state was reached in 1963 for me. Since that day I could only talk and breath, but not walk. To be able to finally walk after all those years is pure bliss to me." She explained without any expression in her voice. She knew to laugh sometimes, when all those other people in the retirement house were only waiting for death, but she couldn't find anything laughable at this moment.

For a few seconds Iskanda remained silent, now understanding that this family was definitively cursed. Kupchenko's father had very likely died in battle, maybe not during the second Osean-Belkan conflict but his death was surely related to this other grim period of modern history. Then, Kupchenko himself didn't have a good life either. Maybe the luckiest were his Erben by now.

"But like the Griffon, I have a new chance to help achieve victory. I haven't been called from the retirement house just to run around in this exoskeleton. My job is to allow you to fly this fighter at the best of its capacities and kill lots of Oseans and Ralders." Mancina added, knowing what her role in all of this was. Sure, it was a reduced role compared to back in the 1950's, but the new generation had to play her role. And she was hoping that they would play their role better than what their predecessor did.

"Speaking of killing, what kind of weaponry will I have on this fighter?" Iskanda was satisfied from her precision about her current health state and was now setting the talk toward something she had a greater degree of understanding than in medicine. Maybe Kupchenko's daughter would have suffered the same troubles if she had lived this far, she realized.

"We managed to greatly upgrade the radar, but it still cannot have standard missiles onboard." She began her explanations, using the same pointer than before to point at the nose of the craft.

"That's fine, I was pretty good with the guns and HVRs. Did the other upgrades have a bit of Hypersthene in them?" She interrupted Mancina a bit abruptly, but she had made one demand at her third battle of B7R. And she wanted that sweet Hypersthene badly. She had seen what those MPBMs could do at her first engagement, and wanted to do the same, to cause squadrons to run off at her mere presence. Of course, she might obtain similar results if she disclosed what she had done with the Hexens.

"Well, ERAAMs don't have Hypersthene, but your new land attack missiles will have. As well as your "static" FAEBs." The old engineer answered, doing some quote-on-quote about this last weapon that she had had some trouble understanding who would create such close-quarter armament. What she had the most trouble at understanding was the use of such weaponry, which she immediately asked to the one who thought of the weapon in the first place:

"What use do you make of those statics FAEBs? I mean, they don't cause much more damage than the normal ones."

"Against ground targets, yes. But for now, they were the only thing that can neutralize an ERAAM. Or terminate a Terminator." Iskanda replied, chuckling slightly at the thought of this Su-37 being obliterated as she tossed her one-liner. Those were the good times, when this war was still one-sided with good allies against evil Belkans. Yet she knew she would have a hell of a good time in future missions, which would very likely see them take down dozens and dozens of Osean fighters until they either run out of manpower or resources.

"I was expecting it to be used as an aerial mine, but the time before the explosion is too short. Yet I heard Hellenseite talking about some EMP mines aerostats." Mancina added, smiling too after the funny line of Iskanda. She had heard that the Gelb squad had been shot down by mercs, but until now she did not know the how and the who. Of course, this woman was not alone up there that day, but it was a great feat in the eyes of the eighty-year-old engineer.

"That will be an interesting set of weaponry. I bet if I aim correctly, I could use those Hypersthene AGMs on bombers or transports." Iskanda chimed, rejoicing herself at the idea of making her killcount go over the thousand. Wait, wasn't it already above the thousand? It might, and she had stopped counting quite a long time ago. Maybe she would ask to add this symbol with the arrows and infinity symbol -which she learned its mathematical symbol by asking this morning to Kupchenko during the breakfast-. This symbol of an infinity flanked by three upward arrows on each side meant infinite power to infinity, and this power repeated an infinite amount of time. Of course, it was just a theoretical number, but it was quite huge, even compared to infinity itself.

"That's something people could expect you to do." Mancina rolled her eyes at the mercenary, finding her to be a funny person to talk to, but really crazy behind her mask of horrifying and merciless merc.

"I'm just afraid of one thing. The Griffon might get new engine, HUD and avionics, the cell is old. Like me, it has indeed received a new chance to fight. Though you cannot win against time itself." Mancina set a worrying point, which should not be ignored.

"I'll try to keep it in one piece." Iskanda promised, for pure politeness and because if she did trust the bail-outing system, she doubted that if she had to bail-out over Osean territory that the locals would be very kind with her.

"That would be nice. I'm sure you'll do wonders once a modernized variant will be available." Mancina disclosed her second reason for being here, as she had worked on the older variants, she was judged able to work on future aircraft with a renewed cell. Of course, she wouldn't be alone in this task, but she was one of the most qualified for the job, for sure.

"Yeah, with some circle-combined engine and a Femtolaser I could slaughter entire legions." Iskanda rejoiced herself at the idea of combining the best that old and new tech could offer for the sole purpose of killing your next one. Others would have found such interest to be morbid, but it was one of her only purposes in life, and the main thing she was good at it.

"That will be a nice achievement, indeed. Even if I think you can already slaughter entire legions without such futuristic tech, right?" Mancina was pretty sure of the answer to this question she asked while rolling her eyes at her interlocutor, knowing the danger this person was.

"Of course." Iskanda nodded.

The two of them kept talking about her past, with Mancina describing the capital city of Emmeria, Gracemaria with enough talent that Iskanda added this city to her list of places to visit after the war. The Erusean merc described her childhood to the old Emmerian lady, and then the slaughter of the Hexens. It pleased Mancina deeply to learn that the persons who had robbed her child of his family, and her of her grandchild had paid the ultimate price. In the end, when they were done talking about their past, present, and future, it was the time to eat, and they left the hangars.

Unbeknownst to them, two other people had talked about the past and future, and the specifications of a new airplane. Those two persons being Herr Steller and Larry Foulke. There was his new plane, an ADFX-02. If the ADFX-01 Morgan was outright deadly, this one was more than deadly. It would be a terror on the battlefield.

"I have some trouble understanding how you manage to neutralize the whole Osean garrison at Valais." Pixy shared his trouble with the former chief mechanician of the place.

"Like I said, we drugged most of them. The most dangerous part was to arrest Perrault." He recalled that this last part could have gone quite wrong for him if this stupid Osean had been a bit more cautious. But he was a stupid Osean, so he had to pay for his and his superior's lack of vision.

"And right now, what's going to happen to him?" Pixy wondered what could become of those stranded soldiers in the middle of literally nowhere.

"The locals have been authorized to provide them with food supplies. If they made this far with the conditioned bears roaming around in the Valaisian Alps, of course." Steller replied, adding a little chill-spinning laugh to his hypothesis.

"They better be in need of a lot of luck to survive, then." Pixy guessed how difficult it would be to survive almost daily bear attacks. Given than most of the Osean that tried to infiltrate South Belka had been dealt by the conditioned wolfpacks, the survival chances of the Osean where very thin at best, if not nonexistent. This caused Pixy to smile at the thought of their horrific demise that could make for a good horror movie, for sure.

"I haven't asked you to come here just to talk about their demise." Steller changed the subject, as he was a bit troubled to talk about that. He had sent those mens to their doom, and that was slightly bothering his conscience.

"But about the ADFX-02, I know. I suppose its name is Vivian, since the first was Morgan?" Pixy guessed what the name of his new aerial ride would be. He had said he would let his F-15C to rest, and he was going to. Besides, his plane was barely flyable right now.

"Wrong guess. The ADFX-02 designation is Melwaz." Steller countered the most expected name someone could have thought about the successor of the Morgan.

"That's the cursed and traitorous knight in the Parsifal legend?" Pixy tried to recall that Belkan interpretation of the Arthurian legends.

"Yes, in the variant in which the Grail is not some holy relic but a shining stone that belonged to Lucifer itself or something like that." Steller confirmed Pixy's second guess, that they were talking about Eisenach's version of those legends. A darker and sinister variant, but a more fitting for Belkans.

"He was that cursed knight that left the round table after trying to kidnap Arthur's wife, and his attempt contributed, in the long run, to the birth of Galahad. He was exiled by Arthur if I recall correctly and died far away from the land of his ancestors." Pixy recalled partially this part of those Legends. He wondered if in those times the battle of good and evil wasn't simpler. Good and evil had a face back then. Now they hadn't because both sides made good and evil deeds.

"Yes, but in the last novel that Eisenach hadn't disclosed to the public as he wrote it on his deathbed, he added a slightly different ending. At the battle of Avalon, it was Mordred who had won, and not his father, forcing Galahad to do a pact with the devil using this Grail to bring back Melwaz from the dead. He knew he was the most formidable opponent his father ever had, and who knew of the dark arts Morgan had taught Mordred." Steller recalled this lesser-known end, which was maybe not disclosed as its end was not judged good enough.

"He had already walked in the dark and thus knew how to take down someone walking in the Darkness. The traitor knight was given a chance to clean his name and took it, like Zubov did other B7R. Now I understand the new choice of name." Pixy interrupted his story, realizing that this version of the story was almost repeating itself today. Or maybe a mixture of this story and the story of Ste Victoire, who could know…

"It's fitting, considering that the whole CSB and our new allies are considered to be traitors. But we will clean our name once we'll have won this war and saved the world from Ulysses' fragments." Steller added, having some renewed confidence since he knew who would be fighting for the CSB.

"You seem to have great confidence in what those planes can do." Pixy said, while observing the Melwaz that had a grey paintjob but his trademark red wingtips. From the outside it seemed similar to an ADFX-01 Morgan. But only from the outside, of course.

"With an onboard Femtolaser, the capacity to carry ERAAMs, and the new HZM, which stands for Hypersthene Multirole Missile, which has a slightly reduced blast radius but cause more damage to heavily armored targets and is shielded against external EMPs and any other weaponry more fitting for the user or the mission, those planes will deal devastating blows to this almost heretic alliance between North Belka, Fato, Yuktobania and Osea." Steller introduced the advancements made by the Projekt Pendragon. With EW onboard, every one of those planes was becoming a Wunderwaffe that would do wonders on the battlefield. And caused nightmares to every allied pilot.

"That might be enough to convince me of its abilities. The Allied Forces will learn to fear us." Pixy concluded this small talk, before looking a bit closer at the plane. One more difference he could see was the reduction in size of the air intakes. Maybe it was to decrease the hazardousness of frontal attacks against enemy planes, as one missile in the big air intakes of the Morgan would have very likely resulted in its destruction. Now, with such planes available, Pixy genuinely began to believe in their chance of Victory.

Another news was announced this day through a simple press statement: that Wieldvakia was stopping its fuel supply to North Belka. Sure, the Osean would very likely supply their now forced allies, and this would not hinder North Belka this much, but this had shown that the CSB wasn't alone. And had some allies that would help once they recognized its power was enough to protect them from Osean retaliation.

Mess hall, Tauberg, Belka, 13/06/1995, 14:00, Weather: overcast.

After a small lunch shared with Mancina, Iskanda had only more questions. She had learned while eating that Kupchenko had a pretty peaceful childhood, being born after the second Osean-Belkan conflict, when both countries had still spark of hope that they could rebuild together and end the cycle of conflict that had plagued this continent for centuries, if not millennia. Hope was still burning bright back then, for Hoffnung had not burned as much as in this conflict. In 1975 Anton Kupchenko was still called Tonio Gault and was supposed to become a philosophy teacher.

All changed when he discovered what his father's ultimate demise had been, after a trip to see his last living relative on his father's side, a Belkan exiled in a faraway country at the east of Yuktobania. That the Belkans had fought against Yuktobania in this war was a bit surprising for the native of San Salvation. She knew that Yuktobania had some border conflict as well as internal trouble in that era, but she didn't know about the involvement of Belka in the past of Yuktobania.

"Which interest had Belkans there?" Iskanda inquired the old lady, knowing she might have some lack of knowledge about this dark period of the twentieth century, that was brought to an end by the Osean drop of the first nuke on the Belkan prototype factory in area B7R.

"Well, there was some old Belkans settlements in the Verusan continent that had managed to stay independent from the Yuktobania Union of Socialist Republics, with Yuktobania fearing the Belkan might before this second conflict." Mancina began her explanations, and what she said caused a stunned look to appear on Iskanda's face, caused by the simple fact that a country that was much greater than Belka could fear them. To fill her curious mind, she simply added: " You must know that even if the first Osean-Belkan conflict ended up in a status-quo, it ended up with Belka having acquired a great renowned for their air force. Greater renown that it even had before this third war."

"That still doesn't explain what the interest of the principality of Belka were there." Iskanda pointed out, a bit surprised that such little territory could cause so much tremor.

"Right. That was the history lesson on this first conflict. Now let's go to the Zwischenkriegszeit (the inter-war period). In this period, Yuktobania transitioned from a decaying empire to the YUSR. This transition was more than often enforced on the people that once lived in the satellite states of the empire, or amongst its minorities. One of those minorities who had served the empire for generations and refused to follow those new masters joined with the Belkan cities there, and they created the temporary Land of Jillaheim, that comprised the few fertile areas of the Jillachi desert, as well as a few cities, with the capital being Dresdene. It grew in population as Yuktobania enforced more and more restrictive policies." Mancina then went to explain shortly this period that saw almost more death due to famines in the YUSR than due to the prior conflict, and the luckiest one that could avoid those famines or getting thrown into prison camps where the worst had happened would increase the population of the Jillaheim.

"So, Yuktobania entered the war on the Osean side to remove this Belkan enclave that was almost an asylum for the rebels." Iskanda figured the reason why a communist and a capitalist power could join: their sole hatred toward Belka. Of course, like all hatred-based alliance, it did not last and caused the cold war that saw the birth of the giant Yukte ICBMs that had caused the EMP disaster a few months ago, and on the Osean side it caused the creation of the SOLG, that was also destroyed by Belka's Wunderwaffe recently.

"Yeah, more or less. Also, to conquer some bordering countries that had shown sympathy to the Jillaheim. In the first year, we managed to hold them as we Blitzkrieged our way toward Osea. Oured become a battlezone, half-scorched by our bombers. The Ceres Ocean was filled with cargo ships that our Wolfpacks sunk by the dozens. But as our foolish leader overstretched our armies when we could've obtained swift victories at some point, we allowed Osea to recover and unleash all their industrial might. They quickly outproduced us, and despite the successful deep strike attacks made using the prototypes being produced non-stop in the B7R factory, we couldn't change the tide of the war once again." Mancina recalled with pain those times where she had hopes of victory. Her voice which had expressed bits of humor and joy this morning was now only filled with sorrow.

"Then the Osean nuked the factory and as continental Belka surrendered, Jillaheim was defeated by Yuktobania I presume?" Iskanda completed, knowing the event that had ended the war on this continent. Decades of potential technological advancement were lost that day. This advancement was maybe now only more glaring though if one were to look at the more advanced craft of Osea and the ADFX-02 Melwaz.

"Yeah, more or less. However, until this fateful day, the armies of the Jillaheim and some state neighboring Yuktobania that I don't remember right now had managed to link. Thus, a big margin of those overseas Belkans were able to evade a sojourn in the Yukte jails." Mancina added, only remembering that if there were not many battles in the area, the ones that did occur were the most gruesome of the entire war, with entire regiments of Belkan sacrificing themselves to protect those corridors and taking whole legions of the Yukte army with them.

"So, this is why they are Yuktes with Belkan-sounding names, for example amongst the Schwarze team?" Iskanda asked, almost certain of the response to something she had thought odd when she had met some member of Schwarze. And it could also explain why some Yuktes she heard over the waves in prior missions had Belkan-sounding accents.

"Yeah, more or less. Yuktobania wasn't very kind with the Belkans that had chosen to stay in the Jillaheim. Many of them were sent to the gulags or had to help in the rebuilding of the cities of Yuktobania as forced workers. Later, entering the army was one of the only opportunities for the descendants of the former Jillaheimers to have a better life." Mancina summarized the reasons for those young men to enter into the army. The Yukte army would judge them less if their results on the battlefield were good. However, slaughtering civilians due to misinformation could never be seen as good results for the Schwarze Team.

"And how does all of that lead to the change of career of your son? Some relative that fought there I presume?" Iskanda made the very plausible assumption that Kupchenko's inheritance had caught up with him, and thus made him pull his 540-degree turn in life.

"Well, his father's family were part of that minority that served the Yukte empire, and they were amongst the first to immigrate. His father and uncle both become fighter pilots, but if his uncle chose to fight over the lands of his ancestors, his father stayed here, maybe motivated by some young Emmerian engineer." Mancina disclosed a bit more of the Kupchenko's family tree. Family tree of fighters and soldiers. That's all they were.

"I will make another guess, that Tonio Gault went to that other country, met his uncle there and came back as Anton Kupchenko?" Iskanda tried to see what could have happened. Fighting your past left more than often deep scars that run through generations.

"It's what happened. We had a pretty unkind talk when he came back…" Mancina concluded, before adding on a more joyful voice, somehow relieved to have shared the tremors of her past:

"But I won't bother you too much for too long. It's time for your generation to fight and win. You have some people of your generation around the table over there. You should spend some time with them instead of too many history lessons."

"It was a pleasure to talk with you. I'll go meet them then. Auf Wiedersehen." Iskanda stood up and wished a good day to the old lady.

Mancina quickly left the mess hall, being needed where the parts of the Griffon were being modified with the latest tech available to the Pendragon Projekt, who were very likely the most advanced in the world right now. And joining design of the 1960's and what she considered to be futuristic tech that she didn't think to see in her life was tricky to say the least.

Meanwhile, Iskanda had approached the table Mancina had led her to, around which four people were set. One man was leaning a bit on the table, apparently focused on something, while the three others, two men and one woman were chatting. For some second, Iskanda seemed to hesitate, not recognizing the face of one man and the woman. However, she was certain to have already heard their voice. And of course, she instantaneously recognized the face of the third man, who was beaming at her, looking at her with great intensity, almost stalling in his action, like he was seeing some ghost.

"Pixy." Iskanda rushed toward him, as he was only standing. One second later and he was caught in a hug with the mercenary. What surprised him was maybe more the gesture than her presence. He had heard of her the day of the battle of Hoffnung, and even heard her over the waves. What surprised him was the sudden display of feeling, opposed to her usual self, who would only show feeling while tearing her enemies apart and not much afterward.

"It's nice to see that you survived. You worried me so much after the attack on Excalibur." He said, reciprocating the friendly hug. He was on the verge of tears, but those would have been tears of happiness. Happiness that both had survived this war, and they may survive longer if they were together again in the skies for the battles to come.

This hug was short but meant much for the both of them. Of course, for Pixy it didn't have the passion of what he once shared with his former lover, but he was happy with his situation so far. It was always good to be alive when everyone or almost everyone had died around them or had gone missing for so long that they might be considered dead.

"So, care to introduce me to those new friends of yours, Pixy?" She asked, while turning toward them.

"I don't think I need any introduction." The one that was slightly leaning on the table spoke, with Iskanda recognizing his voice instantaneously: Günthar Nühmer, aka Herr Zeichner. Before, she would have been greatly surprised to see him as well, but since there were quite a lot of Pendragon's operatives amongst the Ustian resistance and that Valais Air Base was housing a great number of them, his presence here was almost something she could have expected. She did not expect to bump into him so quickly, but after her talk with Kupchenko she had understood that the entire personnel of Valais Air Base had defected to the CSB.

"I owe you a Stracciatella ice cream, I know." She recalled what he had said during his very special "questioning". Which could be now considered as a friendly chat in comparison to what she did to the Mutter of the Hexens.

"As long as it's not liquid azote-cold, I'll gladly have one." He replied with a chuckle, now laughing at his misfortune. It was always better to laugh about it than to cry about it anyway.

"Then who are those two? Your voices are not unknown to me?" Iskanda inquired, as she looked at the two young people who seemed to be around her age. Maybe a bit older, but they were of the same generation.

"You already know us. You're the one that kicked our asses in our Morgans." The girl talked with a lowering voice, still having to digest the humble pie they had got that day. Getting shot down while having the technological advantage was not a good souvenir. At least the technical disparities were not as glaring as the F-86 pilots who got shot down by a Po-2 in the 1960's.

"So, you're Zveda and he's Cipher? Happy to meet you and sorry for trashing your old toys." Iskanda extended her hand for them to shake her, which they did, while she added: " But it seems you got some new shiny toy that wreaked havoc over Hoffnung, from what I could tell from up there."

"Oh yeah, the ADFX-02 Melwaz is a technological marvel. That'll be my new ride too." Pixy intervened, having had an explanation of its fantastic capacities just a few hours ago.

"So, did your parents didn't like you, or …?" Iskanda tried to ask for their real name in a somewhat funny name.

"No, those are nicknames that we almost consider to be middle names. I mean, you're calling him Pixy all the time and not Larry." The man identified as Cipher replied, having gotten used to people not using his real first name.

"You got a point, Erbe. So, what's your real name, folks?" Iskanda asked once more, expecting some Belkan sounding names.

"He's Zephyr Silvester and I'm Freyja Wilhelm" The girl introduced her partner and herself, trying to look at ease even if she was not. Who would be in front of your former enemy that had enjoyed seeing your plane going up in flames?

"Well, a wind and some goddess." Iskanda described what the names of those two people with dark short hairs inspired her. Those were old names of course, but names with power. Now that she was closer, she could see something that could differentiate them: the boy had small green eyes while the girl had hazel eyes a bit more open. Or she was more focused on her, maybe trying to pierce through her mask of merciless mercenary.

"I do think it's you who were blessed by some war goddess and not us." Cipher commented, looking at her with a bit of admiration mixed with fear. Sure, he was a good pilot, but he still lost to her. And her achievements on the ground were horrifying enough to frighten anyone.

"Yeah, you don't need to be protected, you're the protector of Ustio after all." Pixy quoted from a local Ustian magazine that had called her that after the liberation of Directus, that had been almost liberated by her own hand, especially taking the first squadrons, and being notoriously noticed after the termination of the Terminators.

"After all, your name means "defender of the people" or something close." Günthar intervened, having studied a bit of etymology during his free time as a prisoner.

"I don't need to be defended, anyway. But they can count on me to defend our new allies." Iskanda agreed that they would have had to defend, and not only, to attack. Osea would not sit still while they would kill their men and devastate their country.

"That might be true." Freyja recognized, given the insane amount of luck she had had until now.

"But there's one thing you will need, and that is new wingmen. Seldom can one attain victory in warfare without friends, or without allies." The cold voice of Kupchenko broke the short silence that had followed Freyja's assumption.

All turned toward the man who was approaching their position, at ease. The negotiations had gone well. Soon, they wouldn't be alone anymore. And there was no reason for Iskanda to be alone either, even if lynx were solitary predators. Though solitary predators might sometimes join forces when a bigger target is available for the kill, or when other predators are threatening their apex position in the food chain.

"You mean those four will be my new wingmen? I understand why Pixy would like to join me, but why the others?" Iskanda had some trouble getting why the three others would collaborate with her when she had tried to break them in spirit or in body. Yet she had also agreed to work alongside Kupchenko even if he did the same to her.

"Well, sometimes having a bit of numbers can help. Our enemies will undoubtedly outnumber us one to five and even one to ten when we will launch deep strikes in Osean or Belkan territory. I know you can resist being outnumbered both on the ground and in the air, but you will run out of ammo at one point, and thus you'll have to rely on allies in those dire situations." Kupchenko went into a bit more detail about why she would need help. She was without a shadow of a doubt fearless and powerful, but she had found some limits against the Hexens or on her first fight against the ADFX-01 for example.

"So, why do you want to join me?" She asked nevertheless to the three would-soon-be wingmen, with a curious gaze.

"Well, if there's one thing your little questioning session has taught me, it's that it's better to be on your side than against you. I mean, even that Osean officer was frightened of what you were ready to do on me." Günthar replied first.

"A mixture of fear and admiration. I see. What about you, the Erben?" Iskanda was waiting for their response as well. She had bested them, humiliated them. Like Kupchenko did to her, she realized again. At least she had Kellerman support to grow beyond this failure. But they very likely had Kupchenko's to grow past theirs as well.

"It's a bit the same. You showed us who the alpha was in our new generation. We might have gotten lazy fighting solely masses of Oseans. But you kicked the chessboard on which we were getting set by Kupchenko. In suggesting the use of Excalibur to fend off against Ulysses and reveal ourselves much sooner than what was the plan, you gave us a new purpose. Is it a good one, though?" Zveda chose to go for the long explanation rather than one suggested by fear, or some sense of pride or loyalty.

"It's a better one, if one wanted to judge it." Cipher added, trying to show some confidence in their now common future.

"I'll make it better. Count on me, guys, and girls. It doesn't matter if it's the good or the wrong choice. For we will make it become the good choice. Winners write history, right?" Iskanda chimed, agreeing that they needed to be confident about anything the future would throw at them. It was just a headwind they had to fly through. The path might be hard ahead of them, she wouldn't stop at anything. Even making the Bright House brighter by making Oured burn bright.

"I see that everyone seemed to be happy about your new assignment, then. But I think Herr Zeichner has something to show to you?" Kupchenko rejoiced himself of seeing the former antagonist and protagonist getting together in what would soon become the Hecht of the CSB, that would stab Osea for the heart.

"Indeed, I do. I was doing some drawing that might interest you as our future squadron leader." He went to the table, on his place, and handed Iskanda a piece of paper.

On this piece of paper were two circles, a dark one and a gold one. They were surrounding the head of a dark spotted lynx, with his fang sticking out of his mouth. It wasn't as intimidating as the head of a lion or a tiger would be, but it would have its effect, Iskanda recognized as she gazed upon the picture with great interest. Of course, It would have more effect once he would have made some changes on the picture, she was already planning to do to make her enemies recognize her easily. A symbol that would brough fear and chaos to her enemies, and hope to those she would fight with.

Thus, the following hours of the afternoon were spent with Herr Zeichner trying to adapt his drawing to the wishes of his new leader, to make it a more frightening logo. One that caused him to look at it with fear once it was completed. Sure, that would cause Oseans survivors to cry away at night, asking for her to end their life instead of punishing them with the heavy burden of survivors.

But it wasn't the only artistic idea she expressed that day. In her mind had appeared the idea of a symbol for the craft of the CSB and whoever would join them. That would be far nicer than the simple letters in a circle and added more significance to what they were fighting for, and whose path they would claim to be following. The path of an old lady that once tried to make Belka a better place. But they wouldn't try. They would make it a better place. Because today they had the power to turn the tides in their favor, and this in a decisive manner. Then, tired of artistic debate, they settled to paint their plane the next day.

One thing that they noticed for the rest of the day was the notable absence of Kupchenko. Even his mother that they saw at the mess hall for the evening meal had noticed that. What he was doing was even a mystery for his Erben as they spoke about his absence that was bothering them a bit.

Seventh underground level, Tauberg, Belka, 14/06/1995, 10:30, Weather: overcast.

Both Hellenseite and Kupchenko were in a gigantic room that could have housed more than fifty Bm-335Ns or one hundred DW-2s. Yet, despite the room being gigantic, there was not much space left in it, as numerous massive metallic objects were being built in it, with the two of them watching over from a catwalk on an upper level.

The place was a maze of metal encompassing big metallic rings, with the sea of metal being composed of multiple levels to help in the building of the metallic toroidal structures. One of them was gigantic, the ring's external diameter stretching up to almost four hundred meters. There were others of those cores of course, all linked to the main one by other gigantic metallic structures, on which a few trucks could have been standing, with four of them on the same level as the gigantic one, one of them situated below it, right now out of their view, and the final one on top of it. Theoretically, only the main core would be used to power the facility once it would be finished. The others were needed for extra power, experimentation, and production of a specific material that would render the CSB economically viable once the war would be over.

All over the metallic structures there were cable harnesses of massive size, with some of them being superconductive cables in harness that were not of metals or thermoplastics, but of ceramic to remove the need for liquid nitrogen that such technology usually required. Those would be necessary to transfer the massive output power that would come from these installations and reduce every enemy of the CSB in cinders for the luckiest, and a mess of particles for the unluckiest. At least that was what both leaders of the Pendragon Projekt were hoping to achieve here.

Of course, like all operators and technicians in that area they were both wearing long white clothes which only let their eyes appear. In some ways it was anonymizing them to the eyes of the simple workers whose role was as important as the aces defending the airspace above. There were maybe more than a thousand people in this room, and in the whole complex, more than a dozen thousand working here, each a piece of a greater system that needed to be aligned perfectly to work at their utmost efficiency.

"With this new power unit, we will soon have the power to do anything." Hellenseite commented, while looking at some schematics of this metallic structure, specifically focused on the gigantic parts used for the magnetic confinement field, and whose alignment on those cores were a matter of microns, if not nanometers at some point

"Indeed. Now we are merely playing on a three-player chess board. Soon we will act on a three-dimensional chess board with our enemies stuck in only one dimension." Kupchenko admitted that if Osea had thought to be fighting an even war until now, they were gravely mistaken. Though they would acknowledge it in due time, when they would need to choose between the thorn in their foot or the sword on their throat.

"Is 3D chess even a thing?" Hellenseite rhetorically asked, trying to mentally picture such a thing. Maybe with some hologram, he guessed.

"They say we couldn't build this before decades, and we had already built one at Hoffnung. So, expecting 3D chess to become a reality is merely in the order of things." Kupchenko replied, his focus on a great metallic part being carefully inserted in the superstructure. It was of those D-shaped electromagnets that had been previously used at Hoffnung. They had been the first thing to leave, even before the inhabitants could. Now they had a price of a few thousand dead civilians. Hence, they needed to save way more to be worth the sacrifice of their people.

"I agree that it could be a good game to play in peacetime." Hellenseite recognized that such an unconventional game that would require entire new sets of rules would be interesting, if they had some free time. Free time was obviously a luxury they couldn't allow to have in these dire times. They would have a lot more in a few months, if all of those pieces that were here were set in the right motion. For both of them would only accept success and victory.

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 14/05/1995, 16:00, Weather: overcast.

Right now, another group of people were removing some white coats as Kupchenko was removing his on the way out of those facilities. But theirs were no more in a plain white. They had quite a lot of colored dots on their once clean clothes, mostly black and greyish ones, with some other more colored dots here and there. Yet they had a common mindset with Kupchenko: they were also expecting great things from what they had contributed to create. Of course, they expected more killing than saving from those technological marvels.

"That paintjob is definitively a nice one. And I don't care if it's not that stealthy." Iskanda commented on their nice work on their ADFX-02 Melwaz and her Nord 1500 Griffon. It was a simple paintjob, made of a two-tone grid of small parallelograms in a very dark shade of black, Vantablack as they called it, and a rather dark metallic grey. The lower half of their fighter had also been painted with the same colors.

"And your suggestions about the new blazon were excellent. I find it to be fearsome enough by myself." Günthar expressed his views on their new emblem. When he showed her yesterday, it was a simple head of a dark lynx with her trademark jade harpoon next to it. That was nice artistically speaking, but not epic nor intimidating -what Iskanda was looking for-.

In the end, the only thing that she kept was the shape of the medieval blazon, this shield with a pike at its bottom and a flat surface on the top, where their squad's name was. "Schwarze Luchs" was the only thing written there. The CSB forces were not numerous enough to use tactical squad or unit numbers as a designation.

What was below was indeed an intimidating thing to see, everything was agreeing with Iskanda when she disclosed the new design sooner this morning. It was the head of a lynx in dark lines seen from the face, with a few colored details, such as the green eyes. Eyes that were normal for all the members, and blood-filled for their leader. The other piece of color that stood out of the black lines and the metallic dark blue she had chosen as background color to emphasize that specific part standing out were the canines of the open mouth of the lynx, that were covered in blood. Again, in her case, the upper canines had been elongated more than on the real animal and turned into two bloody harpoons with their barbs. They were ready to bite at any aircrafts of what was now called the unholy alliance amongst the personnel of the CSB. She was going to make Osea bleed.

Those blazons were on their angled rudders and on her straight one, on both sides for her aircraft. They were completed by what she had suggested to be the new symbol for all craft belonging to the CSB of their allies, and that was partially behind the blazon, being the lance of Sainte Victoire, with its specific two-part cross. Bottom of the blazon was standing a medieval-like short scroll with the words in gothic writing "Primo Victoria". Kupchenko had agreed that was a nice symbol. This lady of ancient times had been the first chance of Belka to show that they were more than warmongers. That they were people who would challenge the world if needed, to achieve victory. They might not be fighting the world in this conflict but fighting two superpowers was enough for their current power.

There was another bit of color on their planes. Those bits being two green slanted felines eyes on the middle of their wings. And of course, to stand out amongst the five of them, Iskanda had chosen to paint those eyes of doom with blood surrounding the eyes, like if the fluids usually around the eyes had been replaced by the crimson liquid.

Finally, her four wingmen had chosen to have some individual finishing, so their aircraft had a bit of a distinctive look between the four of them. Pixy went for his trademark red wing tips, coloring all the forward-oriented parts of his wings in a crimson tone. Freyja chose to paint a single gold and white line on her wings as a reminder of her time in the gault squad. Cipher did create something similar, but he painted the space between the two gold lines in a dark blue. Herr Zeichner went for a more artistic trademark, doing three lines of small squares on his wings that had a mixture of dark, white, and gold, the three colors of Belka.

As they were painting it, Günthar had the opportunity to explain to Iskanda what those colors meant. The gold represented the nobility of their warriors that had fought before and would always fight for the mainland. Even if the nobility of some of the youngest generation had diminished in some ways, according to their mutual mind. White and dark were a good representation of Belka's story, mixtures of dark periods of conflict with few periods of peace and prosperity. Right now, they were in a very dark period of conflict. But would they achieve peace and prosperity for the CSB and their new allies? That was still up to them.

They all settled to test their aircraft the next day, Iskanda wanting to test her Griffon new abilities and especially its new engine, and to see if she could hold her own against the ADFX-02 Melwaz. She knew its theoretical capacities, and that theoretically she shouldn't be able to stay alive against it, but she often liked to throw theoretical limitations in the garbage chute and do some crazy stuff instead.

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 15/06/1995, 10:00, Weather: overcast.

At this very moment, the four new ADFX-02 Melwaz were taxying on the runway, while the Griffon was already in the air, watching over their take-off. Hers had been pretty quick, pushing her jet engine to her peaks, appreciating this new and more powerful iteration of the Griffon. Right now, she hadn't tried the ramjet. She would during their travel toward their training room, the lake named Kreuzbergsee, where she had fought those Ralders with Netz squad, and where the history of the Heirs of Kupchenko had officially begun.

As the eight engines were roaring like a thunderstorm down below, she got a better look at her new indicators. The simple grenze indicator had been remade to handle the two engines better. Of course, Mancina told her there were plans for a next gen of Griffons to be produced, that would be called Super-Griffons I or SG1 to make it short. The jet engine and ramjet would be replaced with a high-power circle combined engine allowing for scramjet mode but conceiving such a highly advanced piece of technology would take more time than they had right now, so she would have to make for this and use the most they could get from this nearly forty-year-old plane.

Another change she noticed was a small HUD that had been set on at the bottom of her windshield, hindering the view a bit, but not too much. To be fair, she wasn't expecting a true HUD to be set in the cockpit. And indeed, it was more of an advanced targeting computer to lock on the air-to-ground Hypersthene missiles, or the ERAAMs. When she was using the latter, it displayed something akin to what there was in an X-wing cockpit, a circle being held by triangles, however her Griffon was with two circles moving to indicate the lock-on circles. If she used the HGMs, which were also fired by pairs, it would use onboard cams to allow a better lock-on to the ground and display partially what was below her using a combination of radar and other sensors. One of the costs of this new sensor suit was to remove one of her guns. And she still had plenty of ammo with one. Besides the HVRs and Hypersthene-powered FAEBs didn't need lock-on to turn fighters into smithereens

The final major change was the light goldish color of her visor which they had expressly ordered her to wear it down during battles. The Melwaz's pilots had the same, and all aircrafts of the CSB were getting similar helmets. Rather than tainting the whole canopy, which they knew would not protect the pilot in any way in case of EW friendly fire, they used specific glasses that had the ability to opacify more or less. They were meant to protect from the simple light that the sublimated metal of enemy planes hit by this weapon would cause, as said light was bright enough to behave like a flash grenade. She thought it might get her some trouble if she had to do internal flights, but since they explained to her that the taint could change, it was almost fine to her.

She wasn't alone watching them, but maybe one of the only one in the sky right now, not taking into account the two DW-1s and some Schwarze pilots that departed a quarter of an hour sooner. They were doing combat patrol again, and she wanted none of that. Of course, she knew that war couldn't be constant fighting, and there were those times of boredom that she was lucky to avoid. Besides, Kupchenko would rather see them defending in the first time, as it was better to be seen as the small resistant nation against a superpower than aggressive terrorists.

The other people watching them could be considered to be Kupchenko's only family and friends. Well, the only family that wasn't lost forever or on continents far away. Other people that he could consider his friends were the chief scientist and the new chief mechanist. Steller had adapted to Tauberg pretty easily, after all he had readied himself for this day since the plans for the A Word with No Boundaries Projekt were almost reversed with the creation of the new state that the CSB was.

Of course, such perspective didn't bother the old Belkan technician, who was always happy to hinder the Osean supremacy. But was everybody so welcoming of the change in plans in the Pendragon Projekt? That was left to be seen, but that was none of their concern. Their concern was making sure that these new enforcers were ready to fight anybody and anyone, in any given situation.

Since they would be doing pure training, their Femtolasers had been set to a negligible level so they wouldn't blow their own fighters into pieces. To ensure they would get some feedback, the maintenance crew had added some finish that was supposed to turn red if hit by EW fire. They also had the standard charge for the training, these shockwave charges that were only supposed to shake the enemy craft, making it stall due to the sudden air displacement. In the past, the charge was set to a higher magnitude, but since incidents like Pixy's they have decreased it. They didn't want to have wings to repair after every Belkan DACT.

"Schwarze Luchs squad, you're free to leave for the training ground." The radio operator of Tauberg indicated with a clear voice. The sky was clear and still in dozens of kilometers around Tauberg, and from what their satellite network was transmitting them, the Osean were quite still too. After all, Hoffnung was only one more example that just sending one gigantic formation wasn't the plan to enact again the CSB if they wanted to succeed. And so, for the time the two sides were lying in wait, waiting for the pawns to be set up on the board.

"Schwarze Luchs one to Tauberg, everyone is in the air and ready for our little wandering around. Ready to go." Iskanda replied, as the four Melwaz were forming around her with the two Heirs at her left and Pixy and the Zeichner at her right.

"Gut. Just try not to run into some Osean stragglers." Kupchenko added, not wanting to scramble all their defense in case there was an Osean incursion.

"There's no need to worry. We would take them down before they could send a message to their GHQ." Iskanda shrugged those worries off, having got the point of Kupchenko about being the defender rather than the aggressor. Even if the best defense was always the attack.

"Ich habe keine Sorge. Just stick to training and do not wander too much." Kupchenko sent his advice once more. He knew that she was impulsive, and under the impulsion she could want to engage some Osean or more likely North Belkan patrol cruising at the limits of their radars. He just wanted simple training for them, not a full-on battlefield.

And as he saw them leave the area of Tauberg, he wished he were a bit younger and could be at their place. He wasn't afraid of the fights, but he couldn't get as close as they could, for a tactician needed to preserve himself, as his guidance was and would be necessary to win the battles to come and end this war. Obviously, all was a matter of complementarity. They had the drive and also great plans to end the battle or to help tilt it in their favor, but he was necessary to change the course of the war. Aces couldn't fight alone, they needed their logistical support, and much more. Much more that he was going to discuss with some other operatives as he exited the control tower for another destination.

Kreuzbergsee, Belka, 15/06/1995, 10:00, Weather: overcast.

If it were not for the war, there would have been quite a lot of people to watch this unofficial airshow. After all, the lake and the surrounding mountains had always been a great hiking spot, and many water sports could be done on the lake, our white-water sports in the streams born from the water descending from the lake and through the limestone.

A few days ago, there would have been the Water-bombers that could have watched them as they did their water landing to replenish in order to extinguish the fire of Hoffnung. But considering the fact that a gigantic amount of ammo exploded once the flames reached the storages, the fire was not that hard to extinguish.

So, right now, only the wildlife and far away satellites were watching them over.

"So, what are the rules of engagement? You and Pixy against us three or something like that?" Zveda asked, a bit emboldened at the idea of getting revenge against her former nemesis. Even though it was just training, she wasn't going to hold back. She knew Iskanda wouldn't. She never did.

"Nein. I'm supposed to be your leader. Henceforth I should demonstrate this fact once more by winning against all of you." Iskanda replied nonchalantly, with full confidence that almost three generations of planes mattered not today.

"Fighting four Melwaz with a Griffon? That's almost suicidal." Cipher commented with a bit of sarcasm, knowing that technically they shall overpower her plane in every way.

"If going alone against the thirteen Hexen was truly suicidal, then facing the four of you should be a walk in the park." Iskanda shrugged off how hard it was going to be to outmatch those last generation prototypes flown by quite talented pilots.

"I do think that Iskanda seems to take walks in some strange parks. Last time I walked in one, they did not contain dozens of killers hidden behind the bushes or the fountains." Günthar intervened, almost unphased by the horrors Iskanda had recalled when she described how this event went. He had already begun to understand when she interrogated him that whatever he had faced, it was nothing in comparison to what she faced. Now, he had the absolute certainty that she had become much more horrifying than horrified that day, the opposite of what a normal human should have felt.

"I don't think our future leader will take "no" as an answer. So, let's get started girls and boys." Pixy added, knowing that if she wanted a fight, she would get it no matter what or how. And it would always be better to give her what she wanted.

"I agree, Zeichner, my parks are not full of nice flowers and boxwood, rather thorns, dead trees and cactus. And Pixy, you're right." Iskanda described what her secret garden was. Some barren empty land that had never seen a nice flower. Then, it was said that there were some cacti that had really nice flowers, but they flourished very rarely.

"So, what will be the rules of engagement?" Zveda asked once more, being the more eager to fight amongst the four Melwaz pilots.

"Simple. We will begin with me and you at the opposite sides of the lake, and then engage head-on. Then whatever happened, happened." Iskanda set the rules for their not so friendly dissimilar training. They knew they couldn't kill each other since she had received special tracers that would leave marks like their Femtolasers on her finish.

"Alright. Everyone on the eastern coast." Pixy said, as Iskanda was flying toward the West of the Lake.

The four planes circled around the shores clockwise, while Iskanda went counterclockwise, until her compass showed the bearing 270. Then she rotated her craft to face the four ADFX-02. She blatantly knew these craft could not be defeated using common tactics. Trying to go for attrition wouldn't be useful either. Melwaz were made to endure a lot of punishment, and she wasn't expecting those pilots to suffer from too many high-Gs in a short duration.

She might not have a great plan for this fight. What she had planned was to cause some chaos and improvise. She liked to do that.

"Bereit (ready)?" Iskanda asked, as she began to turn her craft toward the center of the lake, setting it for an attack course on their little group of four Melwaz. She reduced a bit the opacification of her visor, as she knew they would not fire on each other, and thus the likelihood of getting blinded by the lights born of their fire was pretty low.

"Bereit." The four pilots answered as one, all determined to show her what they were made of. They kept their opacification high, since they thought they would hit her a few times at least, relying on their technological superiority.

"Ohne Gnade (without mercy)?" She stated the obvious of what this fight was supposed to stimulate, a fight to the death, even if she needed to stop before that, just for the sake of this being a mere training.

"Ohne Gnade." They acknowledged, knowing full well she would just restrain herself not to hurt them too much.

And with those words said, the four planes turned to face their future leader. Both Griffon and Melwaz were going for the center of the lake at full speed, gun, or EW ready. But neither of them fired the first shots of this battle. The first shots were from Iskanda's HVRs, which were quickly followed with two ERAAMs and two HGMs. She knew all of this armament could theoretically be intercepted by their EWs if they were accurate enough. So, instead of locking onto them, she fired right at the middle of the lake toward which they were all converging. Henceforth, quite a lot of water was turned in steam, creating some improvised cover for the Griffon.

"Do you really think a bit of steam will hide you from radar?" Cipher pointed out the obvious and cemented this statement by firing two radar-locked missiles at her. Even Osean radars that were less advanced could track planes flying through clouds. There was only if it were a cloud of thunder such as a gigantic cumulonimbus, so big that there would be lightning created between parts of the cloud, that a cloud could hide you from radar. But that was almost as dangerous as flying through the plasma curtain of a Merlin satellite.

"I know it won't." Iskanda recognized that unlike optic camouflage would be one of the upgrades of the modernized Griffon, she wouldn't have an invisible aircraft.

"But last time I checked your EW will lose its efficiency in such an environment." Iskanda added, after having avoided his salvo of missiles by gluing her craft to the water level.

"It depends on the wavelength." Zveda countered, heading for the cloud too. In real battle they could have switched the wavelength to adapt, but here they had only training mode which had quite a high dispersion coefficient in this kind of scenario. And of course, their single Femtolaser was not enough to ionize the entire cloud.

"Whatever." Iskanda snickered, having achieved what she wanted: to distract them a bit. Or that's what she thought when a second pair of missiles was fired upon her craft.

Those two were fired from above with a pretty high angle, so it meant that Zveda was above Cipher. Iskanda saw exactly where they would strike and fire two more HVR in blind, hoping the small shockwave warhead would neutralize the incoming projectiles.

However, she had a bit more trouble heading her way, with some long-range missiles incoming from the other Melwaz. She had to get more speed if she wanted to evade those and escaping two head-on salvos had slowed her quite a lot. So, she needed to get rid of one of the Heirs if not both, and quickly.

Cipher was the first to suffer hits. He did fire another pair of missiles while Iskanda climbed, but she climbed with a greater angle than what he anticipated and thus he missed his shot. It didn't matter to Iskanda that a long-range missile was getting dangerously close to her sixes. Because she lost it while diving tilted on the unsuspecting Melwaz, gun blazing.

The training bullets had little effects on his engine. However, the missile that followed the Griffon's left wing as it passed between his engines, like she did with Kupchenko's Su-47 a few weeks prior, did hurt a lot.

"Cipher out." He acknowledged his defeat. He knew that in a real fight she would have made some downward U-turn to finish him.

"She's still in the cloud. Zveda just got out" Zeichner observed, as the Griffon was changing its course on his radar.

"She might try to fire from below." Pixy commented, as the Griffon was now climbing toward the ADFX-02.

"Then try to evade it!" Iskanda interrupted their exchange, while firing her HVRs from quite close to the underside of Zveda's Melwaz.

"There's no need to try here." The main interested replied to this almost friendly chat. It would have been friendly if they weren't in warplanes.

And so, she pulled the stick hard, like she wanted to put the plane on its back, but interrupted the backward motion midway while pushing the throttle to its peak to zoom in. The HVR passed nearby and missed, however the Griffon climbed with her, and its pilot was not intending to miss her next shot.

"Damn, that was close. Next time it'll be far closer." Iskanda threatened, as she was following the ADFX-02 in her hard climb.

The two crafts climbed vertically, with the ADFX-02 keeping her distances so Zveda could do some aileron rolls or barrel-rolls whenever Iskanda fired anything at her. That lasted for only half a minute.

"HyperGeschwindigkeit auf!" Iskanda shouted joyfully as she activated her ramjet. Indeed, one of the upgrades she hadn't disclosed to her teammates was the greater flexibility of her engine. Sure, it wasn't as efficient as circle engines, but right now it was more than enough to catch and even outspeed the jet engines of the Melwaz she was hunting.

"Now the hunter has become the hunted" Günthar commented, a bit doubtful about Iskanda's tactics.

"Sometimes the prey might endanger the hunter, and even overpower it if smart enough." Pixy counter-argued, having seen Iskanda theoretically outnumbered and won. Like they had taught him than being surrounded by enemies having solely numerical advantage meant that he was surrounded by fear and dead mens. With Iskanda being obviously better at instilling fear than he was.

Nevertheless, the first feeling to take over Zveda wasn't fear or dread but anger and frustration. Frustration because she had that single Griffon in front of her, with an EW pointing at the said craft, and she couldn't get it in her crosshairs. This was pure pain for the Belkan girl, to see her enemy twirling around like some mosquito she was trying to smash. The Griffon, despite its lower mobility, was never in her cone of fire directly, and thus any true damage she would have inflicted, hadn't she been in training mode, would have been minimal.

Iskanda on the other hand was enjoying herself, toying with her future wingmen like she had toyed with death so many times. This was so much fun, to do those little turns here and there, using her ramjet from time to time as an afterburner but with less fuel consumption to get a little boost of speed, as she had the possibility to use both engines on this upgraded variant. She knew that in real condition, she would have surely lost some bits of metal here and there, and maybe even had some pretty big holes in her wing or fuselage, but nothing that would have been detrimental to her flying.

"Just stay still so I can hit you?" Zveda asked out of sheer frustration, not expecting any positive answer.

"You should try, still." Iskanda mocked her a bit, denting her resolve that was fractured by frustration. However, Iskanda knew that the jet engine would lose its efficiency at high altitude, and she couldn't rely solely on the ramjet. This little moment of pleasure wasn't going to last if she wanted to overpower the Melwaz before the true weight of the Griffon's age took its toll on her combat capacities.

She let this little game of prey and hut go for a short while, before letting her ramjet fully replace the jet engine, causing her to be thrown back on her seat by the sudden acceleration. This time she had put her mask on, as she didn't want to suffocate when thrown back by high-Gs, and her next maneuver would put her under some high stresses, it was a certainty.

Because her next maneuver, once she had gained enough distance to be sure that the Melwaz wouldn't have a window of fire during said maneuver, was a vertical Himmelman. She did decelerate a bit before making this dangerous choice, but it didn't reduce the intense pain she felt in her eyes when they turned red due to the negative Gs.

Back in her ADFX-02, Zveda tried her best to shoot the descending Griffon, but despite her best efforts, and Iskanda's vision being partially filled with red she managed to evade her fire by flying in a spiral around her EW's line of fire. Sure, she was tossed around in her fighter, but as she had set her straps to tighten her body to the seat, she resisted the pull of G's that those not very conventional maneuvers were submitting her to.

"Gott Verdammt, missed again!" Zveda exploded with rage as her opponent had just dodged a pair of missiles while spiraling toward her, flying as easily as a leaf gliding in a whirlwind. For her opponent, such maneuver seemed so natural that it was all the more frustrating. She bet Iskanda had surely a wide grin on her face as she was doing that, enjoying herself fully from such a dangerous situation.

"Aber ich werde nicht (but I won't)." Iskanda retorted, grinning under her mask as she was in her final approach on the Melwaz.

For Zveda, she had no time to realize what happened next. For Iskanda, it was crystal clear, like if she were having an out-of-body experience, or more of an out-of-aircraft experience, she could conceive what she was doing from some outside point of view, and for this reason she executed her last maneuver against the second Heir perfectly. She shut the engine down and extended all air brakes that suffered from the high speed and were surely distorted if not snapped for some parts. Instantaneously, the Ramjet shut off by itself, with the air entering at a speed below its limits. This further decrease of speed allowed Iskanda to tilt her airplane on the yaw axis, tilting from a downward vector in which she was spiraling toward the Melwaz to a more horizontal turn. Again, such hard turns induced great pain in her, and she was glad that those Belkans anti-Gs suits were a bit more efficient than her old. Otherwise, she would have already passed out.

So, she did not. And while Zveda was stuck into a state between being mesmerized by the magnificence of Iskanda's assault and being stunned by the fear it instilled in her system, Iskanda fired her gun at the cockpit of the craft, painting it with the colored training bullets that were harmless to the canopy and overall structure. She really hoped they were, as depressurization at such height would ensure a very quick death, as their crafts were now far high in the stratosphere. Then Iskanda tilted her plane and flew beneath her opponent, with the tip of her wing flying in the gap between the ADFX-02's massive engines.

"I… did not see that coming." Zveda admitted, her voice tainted with frustration but also a bit of relief, from being forced to recognize that this lady who had bested them in a Su-47 could do the same with a nearly forty-years-old modernized prototype, and relief that this crazy hunt was over for her at least. It seemed she may have a second slice of humble pie to eat, and she might still eat a bunch more during the battles to come.

"It came. Descend with caution, I still have to win over Pixy and Zeichner." Iskanda replied nicely, admitting that this girl could be a tough opponent for someone of her league. Henceforth, she was sure those Heirs would still kill hundreds of Yuktes, Nord Belkans and Oseans while fighting at her side.

"I'll. Viel Glück." Zveda wished her, as she stabilized her craft, having suffered little to now damage from her fire, except a slight loss in stability. And since she fired her paint bullets on the upper side of the canopy, it would bother her too much on her way back. Of course, seeing the direction of fire was not reassuring her in any way: her future leader had fired for the kill on the pilot, unlike most pilots who would fire at the craft, on the fuel tanks or the engines. She might have to learn to do the same, as they would soon be fighting too many enemies to afford to face one multiple times.

Iskanda's descent was relatively short, as she went with a great angle of attack toward the lake to reactivate her ramjet engine with the speed gained from the fall. In comparison the descent of the Melwaz was much slower, as she had no need to trail the Griffon, and because she wanted to watch the battle unfold from a bit farther away. She was waiting to see what Schwarze Luchs 1, or Zluchs 1 -they had agreed for this code to shorten their squad's name on the waves- had in store for them, with almost a bit of compassion toward those two Belkans.

The initial fight between Pixy and Iskanda didn't lead that far. Both were locked in a turn fight that favored the older Belkan merc slightly, with the better turn rate of his forward swept-wing fighter over her delta wings.

"I almost got you." Pixy sighted, after she evaded two missiles very closely by making a small dive, then a barrel-roll to the left and getting back in the chase.

"There's always an almost." Iskanda smirked, happy to be once more the hunter, giving hell to her teammates. And he had to know she was slowly catching up to him despite his turns getting sharper and sharper, as some bullets began not only to graze but hit his fighter, adding a bit of color on his red wingtips.

This attrition fight was something Iskanda had now seen its end closely. Even if her aircraft was on the verge of stalling every five seconds she was winning over Pixy, slowly but surely.

Unfortunately for her mixture or chaos and plan she was supposed to enact, Zeichner chose to intervene. He went for what his former leader did to Iskanda over that park in Directus, an "aerial guillotine", diving right on her plane. His leader had named this maneuver after he performed it once on an Osean F-5E, with the result being the cockpit being separated from the rest of the fighter by one well-aimed missile.

Still, it had the same effect as back at Directus, as he lacked some low cloud cover to hide his descent: nothing, or just a minor disturbance.

Iskanda evaded the salvo of missiles by banking hard right, but she stalled the next second, falling from not that high. Still, it was high enough to reach transonic speed as she pitched even lower and rebooted her ramjet. She then quickly leveled thanks to her newly acquired speed and pulled out a horizontal loop that would make her trajectory match Günthar's at one point.

And at this one point, she fired, deciding this time to fire a pair of training missiles. He needed to learn the great risk of resorting to this strategy.

"Damn, I'm falling. And the shockwave seemed to have stalled the engine for some reason." Zeichner reported as he was heavily shaken by the twin explosion, a bit worried that despite their weaponry being qualified as non-lethal for this training, its lethality was now debatable.

"Just keep falling like I did, and you shall gain enough kinetic energy." Iskanda suggested, having suffered from the same issue during the battle over the Fortress of Bayes. She was wondering if anything else had happened since there, but maybe they'll have to return there as Fato was now a de facto part of the "Unholy alliance", with Fato being more or less reduced to a proxy of North Belka.

"All right, I'll try to survive." Zeichner said, following her advice.

Now the only left to fight, and to defeat, was Pixy. He wasn't going to run. He knew there was no point in exhausting someone who had survived a Kalium overdose. So, he went for a head-on attack.

For an unknown reason, she didn't seek to retaliate. This caused him to shout:

"Fire away, coward!"

Of course, he wasn't meaning it, he just wanted to have something to face, when she was just avoiding his fire with a maddening ease. He doubted his Femtolasers shots would have hit anything vital, as she was flying toward him in the opposite of a straight line. She was using both her roll and pitch axis to move around his line of fire, and sometimes her micro-dives in combination with small barrel-rolls.

He fired his last salvo of two missiles as she was only fifty meters away from him. One was lost as she decreased her altitude a bit, but the second shook her badly when its shockwave warhead exploded. So much that she was more than badly shaken.

It actually caused her plane to roll, but not around the roll axis. Rather more around a horizontal axis that would have been set perpendicularly to her nose, with the back of her plane turning around this specific axis. She saw Pixy climbing a bit to avoid the potential danger of her almost loose fighter.

She had only done half of this "Kulbit without post stall maneuver capabilities" that he was only a hundred meters away. Henceforth, instead of letting her aircraft follow its circular motion that would lead to her losing her prey, she chose to interrupt it, at the exact moment she had the head now toward the ground, having done a bit more than half a turn. She pulled the stick hard, causing her aircraft to roll suddenly, rotating so hard that her head almost hit the canopy. She hadn't fully recovered from this foolish maneuver that she was already launching herself against Pixy at full speed.

"Sie ist schon da? (She's already here)" He let out, surprised that she had already recovered -at least her plane had recovered even if she still had half of her field of sight filled with red after taking a few negative Gs- and this in such a short amount of time.

"Ja, Sieg!" (Yes, Victory!) She exalted as she rushed on him, gun blazing. She rushed so fast that she could use her ramjet, and thus rushed even faster on the Melwaz. And with all this speed, she just outspeed him instead of just catching up with him. There was no point in catching up with him since he was defeated. She had aimed for his engines, and in a real situation, he would have met the same fate than the ADFX-01 Morgans of the Heirs, either his engine burning or her fire causing some internal pressure issue that would have forced him to eject as the engine might blow up from the inside in such case like it happened to that Osean F-14D.

"Well, regroup on me. Training's over folks." Iskanda assumed that what she wanted to do today was done. She had asserted her position as the leader of the Schwarze Luchs squadron. Now, she had seen their strengths and weaknesses, and they would have some work to do to reduce the latter and increase the firsts.

Regrouping behind her with two planes on each side took some minutes as they had taken their distance from the fight to either watch her or because they didn't want to suffer from stray shots. She could read from their more peaceful maneuver as they turned to join her that their anger had died down a bit, especially Zveda. She might be the one that had the most grudges against her, but she knew that out of respect and help, they might even become good friends in the end. Of course, she could hear their little bit of sadness in their voice as they agreed to turn back to Tauberg. They could, as they had the most advanced fighters in the entire world, and they had failed to take her down. Obviously, they had both been limited in their capacities during this exercise, she could agree too. They had been limited, as their weapons had been limited to allow her to survive, and she had limited her aggressiveness to let them survive.

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 15/06/1995, 11:00, Weather: light cloud cover.

The five airplanes had landed smoothly, with no fighter having suffered any damage. Indeed, outside of the specific coating on Iskanda's Griffon that had burned and changed its color here and there, they were as good as new.

But the pilot's fighting spirit was not as pristine as their aircraft's. Thus, if they had gone to this training almost happy, they all felt sad right now, with Pixy being the exception. He knew from the start he wouldn't best her. He respected the hopes of the Erben that had dreamed to have their revenge though. Aber Vergeltung gibt sie nur Verzweiflung (but vengeance had given them only despair), he guessed. Those two Ver-words were the two words for the V in the V-1 and V-2. If North Belka used them, would it be out of desperation or for revenge? Maybe both, he thought, as revenge is often fueled by desperation.

Thus, it was sad or frustrated faces that welcomed Iskanda when she stepped down from her fighter. She expected that. She had known despair and sadness too, and not too long ago. And she had won over those negative feelings by letting Galm 1 die, with only Schwarze Luchs surviving.

"Do not feel so down. Those Melwaz, and especially their EnergieWaffen are tide-turners in this war. Only other highly advanced prototypes or highly skilled pilots will be able to survive you." She judged the results of this fight. Few would be able to survive them, or only because she would choose to let them survive to make them feel the heavy burden of the survivors.

"I guess you are in the second category." Zveda recognized what she, Cipher and Pixy had seen during their first encounter in B7R a few months ago. Back then she thought she was just a good merc relying on an advanced prototype. But there was much more that was setting Iskanda apart from the Belkan pilot and her other future wingmen. More than their intensive training, the undying flame of her will that some had tried to blow out, and without success: she might have shivered a bit, yet never died down.

"I agree that I'm talented. But you're too. You might have not hit the canopy, but some of those hits are on the engines or other critical parts." She tried to raise their mood a bit, admitting that if they had these Melwaz when she fought them in her Su-47 she might have not survived. Outside of training, she knew they might get higher killcount than her. But she hoped they wouldn't.

"So, we had almost nothing to worry about when we'll go against standard Oseans, Yuktes, Fatoans or North Belkans?" Zeichner said, relieved to know that they could, in real battle, defeat her. Or maybe they wouldn't since she wouldn't be restrained by anything either. What he could conclude was that without those training restrictions, they were going to make Osea bleed, and that a lot.

"Do not worry, but don't get too cocky either. This was merely your baptism of fire. And very soon, a baptism in North Belkan, Yukte and Osean blood will follow." Iskanda suggested what their role had been established to be: the armed arm of the CSB, that would be tasked with dealing the major blows in the battle to come, that were supposed to kill hundreds of enemies and make their enemies fly away in fear at the mere mention of their name. She completed this morbid proposition with a rather demonic laughter, that reminded Pixy of the first time she had laughed that way, when recalling her first time she had caused blood to flow out of someone's body. And from the intention he could read in her laugh, she was ready to make flow enough blood that soon Oured Bay would be called the red sea.

The following debriefing inside the main facilities was quite simple, and not that interesting for Iskanda, as she learned that her next assignment would be something quite boring: some CAP and then escorts. Both things that she hated, as most of the time it would be boring or almost impossible to accomplish perfectly. At least this time they shouldn't fear that any of their transports might get shot down by the long-range fire from a RTLS unlike what happened above Solis Ortus.

End of chapter.

So, the turning point is over by now. War will never be the same from now on, with allies turning on each other. Sure, war won't be easy, but people do things because they're hard and not the other way around. I tried to set up a bit of the lore of this equivalent of WW2 in Strangereal history, as well as some technological advancement that you might get what it is (and that I saw while on vacation in Verdon in France).

Of course, this Arthurian variant is a pure fiction by me, but they are often unfinished after the battle of Avalon. Which will happen too in this war …

I tried to take inspiration from the other blazons of AC0 for hers.

Well, good luck with the COVID and happy reading. With this chapter I tried to implement tabulation, if this please you, I might add tabulation to the previous chapters (I don't think it will take me much time). Though, I won't, cuz fanfiction don't like them.

Feel free to review, comment, favor, subscribe.

Und bis nächstes Mal, Lesern und Leserinnen.