Episode 1, Part II

Abdulin's radar warning receiver explodes to life. At least two heavily armed American F-15 Eagles swoop down on him from behind, their claws already soaked in the blood of his wingmen. The dreaded missile approach tone soon follows.

Lieutenant Abdulin pushes the throttle levers all the way forward. Fuel lines leading from the tanks to the twin afterburner cans in the back of the MiG open wide. The resulting forward acceleration tosses the young man into the backrest of his ejection seat and his head into the headrest. The Russian-made machine darts forward and narrowly avoids flying face first into the cloud of debris from the explosion of its R-73 missile shot. He barely notices, preoccupied with saving himself from those terrifying radar directed AMRAAMs a second time. Speed is life.

He doesn't get lucky a second time, a third time, or a fourth time. No amount of chaff, flares or defensive maneuvering would stop the three weapons fired at him by three different F-15s: two AMRAAMs fired at close range and one nine foot heat seeking AIM-9 Sidewinder. Straining his neck, he sees them coming up behind him from different pieces of sky. He also sees a burning F-15 wallowing away from the area where his missile detonated. The last thing that goes through his mind is bitter satisfaction.

Lieutenant Colonel Jack Carlton watches the MiG-29 get pulverized to dust without pity as his Sidewinder and two missiles from his wingmen converge on it.

"Splash four!" he growls.

He checks his surroundings. He puts his radar in Range-While-Search Mode and sweeps the sky for any other signs of danger. The last two Fulcrums have turned their backs to the fight and are on the run heading east. Two F-15s, Halos 5 and 6, pursue them to make sure the MiGs don't change their minds.

He also sees two aircraft in trouble, one with the President of the United States and the First Family streaming white mist over the Caspian Sea, the other, a fighter, flown by his wingman and friend, Major Francis "Luck" Drewfield, burning as it plunges towards the shoreline below.

Lieutenant Colonel Carlton has a decision to make, the most difficult one in his career.

President James Marshall has one hand on the control column and the other hand behind him locked with Grace's wrist so tightly their knuckles are white. He waits for the 300 ton jumbo jet to shudder violently from the impact with a nasty little R-73 Archer missile. He prepares for the rapid decompression that will probably follow, sucking most of the air out of the passenger cabin, which, mercifully, is mostly vacant. He expects to lose use of the flight controls. Their survival after that would be a miracle. What a band of Soviet ex-military officers turned terrorists, battle hardened from the war in Afghanistan of the last decade, failed, a lucky shot from a secessionist Kazakh Air Force MiG-29 fighter would finish.

Then it happens. The threat receiver falls silent without so much of the slightest tremor in the floors. No new lights or warnings appear on the instrument panels. For a tense moment that feels like a full minute, all four occupants of Air Force One's flight deck sit in stunned silence. As frantic calls from the fighter pilots start filtering in, they begin to grasp the reason they are still flying.

"Halo 2's hit! I say again, Halo 2's hit!"

"Two, you're on fire! Get out of there!"

"What the…" says Major Caldwell disbelievingly.

Grace Marshall stares into distant space and the color drains from her face. Her husband sees her lips move. He doesn't hear her voice but he can read the words coming out. "Oh my god…"

James Marshall, President of the United States, husband, and father, is at a loss for words. He wanted his wife and daughter to see the sun rise after last night. He didn't want it to happen like this.

Vice President Kathryn Bennett lifts a wrist to the bridge of her nose. The cloud of anxiety which has hung above her head for the last seven hours has finally started to wear her down. On the map display she sees five F-15s where there were once six. A flashing Last Known Position icon has replaced one of them.

"Not sure I could have done the same thing myself," says General Greely, standing nearby.

The Vice President's eyes don't leave the screen. "Forgive me, General, but I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Oh no, my apologies," replies the Air Force Joint Chief. He explains, "Looks like Halo Lead is covering the President, see. He's sent his wingmen to check on the downed aircraft. Any flight lead is going to want to look after their wingmen, by instinct, but then again most flight leads don't have to choose between their wingmen and the Commander-in-Chief of the United States."

The General's voice trails off while Bennett nods her head in understanding. She stares at the map, looking over the two dozen U.S. Air Force aircraft that had some part in the overnight wild goose chase across Europe. Tankers. One AWACS. F-15 and F-16 fighters. An HC-130 search and rescue plane. Most of them are returning to their bases in Germany or Turkey.

God, what a mess.

Then a call from the fighter pilot breaks through the silence, and half the world's problems are solved, even if just for a moment.

"Remaining MiGs are bugging out."

The Situation Room bursts into cheers, clapping, and a few hugs. Vice President Bennett stares at the map in solemn silence.

Major Francis "Luck" Drewfield is short on luck. Whether the R-73 Archer intended for Air Force One "glommed" onto his white hot F-15, or he just happened to fly into the missile, no longer matters. The world spins around outside of the jet, red and yellow lights flash in front of him, and the female computer voice known as Bitchin' Betty tells him, among other pieces of bad news, that the right engine is on fire. The irony of his nickname is lost on Major Drewfield. Self preservation flies to the top of his priority list.

Drewfield reaches down to trigger his ejection seat. The next five seconds morphs into five minutes. The glass canopy blows off the F-15 like the cap of a giant champagne bottle. With a blast of noise and rushing air, solid rocket motors under his seat hurl the ejection seat and its 200 pounds of human cargo clear of the plummeting fighter plane with enough force to compress spinal vertebrae together like an accordion.

Major Francis Drewfield comes to his senses in time to see a big round parachute blooming above him and the Caspian Sea coastline below rushing closer and closer.

Only then does the gravity of his situation set in. The country he has ejected over is in the middle of a practical civil war. He was flying an unplanned combat mission with no local navigation charts. The nearest search and rescue units are half a continent away.

Drewfield looks down and sees that he is about to splash into the Caspian Sea several miles offshore, and the survival kit containing his life raft already adrift in the waves surrounded by a cloud of greenish-yellow colored dye.

"Shit," he groans.

The distant, familiar howl of a fighter rattles the morning sky.

Author's Note: Hey! Sorry it's taken a while. The film this episode is based on is Air Force One, 1997, starring Harrison Ford. Wanted to end the chapter without spoiling the film's ending. Also did not want to fall into the rabbit hole of rewriting more of the film than I intended to.

What's changed:

1. The Kazakh MiG pilots have more than half a brain and working threat receivers now. Three of them are given names.

2. Halo Two has a name and has a second shot at life.

3. Character Interactions, particularly between President Marshall and the First Lady

4. Major Caldwell is an ex fighter pilot, reflecting his costume in the film where he originally says he has no flight experience

Thanks for reading! Be on the lookout for more installments! Suggestions are welcome.