In the waters of the Spring Sea, northwest of the Twinkle Islands, a lone aircraft carrier sliced through the water. The ship's name, Kestrel II, was painted in big white letters along her hull. The cutting-edge carrier had gotten its name from another aircraft carrier bearing the same name. Kestrel had seen plenty of action in its time, as it had served during the Belkan War and the Circum-Pacific War. Many years after it sank during the Circum-Pacific War, Osea built Kestrel II. A few short months after it's completion, it shipped off to Usea as part of the International Union Peacekeeping Force (IUPF). Given its namesake, many had high hopes that the new aircraft carrier would do great things. Ironically, Kestrel II had seen little to no action at all, which may have been because, at least in part, of the fact that many of Kestrel II's crewmen were mostly inexperienced, including the pilots of the fighters aboard the ship.

The sleeping quarters in Kestrel II were mostly quiet except for the waves bashing against the hull and a tacking sound coming from one of the rooms. Hunched over a small metal desk in front of a small laptop, a young woman sat in a steel chair that accompanied the desk. The woman had long, ginger hair tied back into a ponytail. Sunlight from the window above the desk lit up the small room and made her emerald green eyes sparkle a bit. The woman wore a green flight suit, but the top had been unzipped with the arms tied around her waist, revealing a white tank top. The laptop that the woman had in front of her was displaying a text document. At the top, there was a title centered in a large font and a byline underneath.

The King of the Skies

By Eva Kidd

She still wasn't 100% decided on the title. If anything, the more she read it, the more she cringed on the inside, but Eva felt so proud of herself when she first came up with it. The document she was typing was a novel that she had been writing in her spare time, which wasn't in short supply, for her at least. So far, her book was about a squadron of fighter pilots in a war that would change the course of history. Eva sighed, resting her head on her hand as she looked out the window. She envied these characters that she had created, which was why they existed in the first place when she thought about it. She had made some decent progress, having written 12 chapters already, but Eva just felt stuck at that point. A classic case of writer's block. She sighed and looked down at the corner of the screen. The date read 5/10/19, which caused Eva to crack a small, optimistic smile.

'Just a few more weeks, and we're back on land,' she thought to herself, eagerly awaiting the day she could get off of this ship.

Eva was about to try and continue writing, but her stomach intervened as it growled at her. She looked back at the time on her laptop. Luckily for her, it was just about lunchtime. She shut her laptop off and gently slid it into her bag before heaving the door to her room open and walking down the hallway after shutting it again.

Kestrel II's mess hall was surprisingly large, despite it being on a ship. It didn't have any windows, but the lights hanging from the ceiling more than made up for the lack of natural light. Eva looked down at the food, ham and cheese sandwich, and a surprisingly decent one at that. She wasn't a picky eater, but that just allowed her to appreciate good food.

"Hey, Diamond! Over here!" Eva was yanked from her thoughts at the sudden mention of her TAC name.

She turned her head toward the source of the voice to see a skinnier man with short blonde hair and brown eyes waving at her and gesturing toward the table that only he occupied. Eva rolled her eyes with a smirk as she sat down across from him.

"Hey, Lucky," she said, addressing him by his own TAC name. "What's up?"

Lucky had earned his nickname. He wasn't a bad pilot by any means, but he had his fair share of lucky calls in flight school. Missile Magnet also would have been an accurate nickname for him from the way he described it. However, it was a bit lengthy for a TAC name.

"Not much," Lucky finally answered. "I might've skipped breakfast, so I've been practically dying for lunch to roll around." He nodded to his empty plate, save for a few crumbs from the bread.

Eva shot him a glare, albeit with a massive grin on her face. "Again? That's like, what- the third time this week?" She asked before taking a bite out of her sandwich.

"Yeah, yeah," Lucky said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'm just not that hungry in the mornings." Eva had heard this same excuse about a dozen times.

"Y'know you realize that you wouldn't feel as hungry when lunch rolled around if you just had something to eat for breakfast, right?" she asked sarcastically, the smirk from before still present on her face.

Lucky shrugged. "I just don't like what they have for breakfast most of the time," Lucky protested. "And don't even start with the whole 'expand your palette' crap." He tried his best to feign annoyance, but he wasn't very good at it. "Hey, have you seen Magic?" he asked, trying to change the subject.

Eva shrugged. "Not sure. She hasn't been back to our room, at least. That's all I know," she answered.

Magic was Eva's roommate. Although several other female crew members were aboard Kestrel II, Magic was the only other pilot who was a girl. She had gotten her nickname from her ability to do a myriad of card tricks, several of which were quite impressive.

"Guess she's probably still on patrol with the others then," Lucky speculated.

Eva's good mood instantly vanished at the mention of a patrol. She envied Magic and everyone else in her squadron, including Lucky. In the two weeks since they departed Usea in Kestrel II, Eva had yet to go up into the air once. Despite her best efforts, however, she still had yet to discern why she hasn't flown.

Lucky picked up on Eva's change in mood and gave her a sympathetic look. "Hey, I'm sure there's gotta be some reason you're not flying, and if there isn't, you'll probably be going up soon," he said, trying to cheer her up.

"I don't know. I'm gonna talk to Vortex once they all get back," she said. "Honestly, I should've done that ages ago."

"Well, I was just about to go topside to get some fresh air. If you wanted to come with me, we could wait for the others to get back together," Lucky offered as he stood up.

It was moments like this that made Eva appreciate Lucky. It was like he was incapable of showing negative emotions, and more often than not, his positivity was very contagious. At times it was kind of annoying, but not right now.

"I suppose some fresh air would do some good," she admitted after finishing the last of her sandwich. "Alright, let's go." She stood up. Together, the two of them made their way out of the mess hall and toward the flight deck.

As they made the two made their way through the winding hallways and up the steep staircases, Eva untied her flight suit's arms and slid her hands through them so she could zip it back up. No matter how warm it was outside, going onto the flight deck was almost always cold. Lucky heaved the metal door open, and sunlight poured into Eva's eyes, causing her to raise her hand to shield her eyes instinctively until they adjusted. Just as she predicted, a chilly breeze blew through the air as they stepped out, tugging at Eva's ponytail. Despite the wind, however, the weather wasn't too bad. The sun was out, and there weren't many clouds in the sky. At first, there wasn't a lot of activity on the flight deck, but people suddenly started running around. All of them were performing different tasks. Eva looked to her left and saw what had changed. Four F/A-18 fighter jets had begun their approach. Their landing gear was down as well as the tailhook. One by one, they all gracefully touched down on the carrier, coming to a complete stop within seconds. Eva could tell which plane was being flown by who as she looked at each pilot's small emblem on the tail of their aircraft.

The first plane to land had a red spade with a black outline on it, Magic's emblem. The next two had a lightning bolt and a quill, which belonged to Charger and Poet, respectively, the other two pilots in Eva's squadron. Finally, the last one to land had a cyclone emblem, Vortex, their squadron leader. In the same order that they landed in, the pilots all got out of their planes. Magic took off her helmet as soon as she came down, revealing her short black hair that was barely above her shoulders as she rested her helmet in her armpit. Charger, with this shaved brown hair, got out and waited for Poet to do the same. Once Poet had his helmet off, he undid his ponytail, allowing his dirty blonde hair to fall to his shoulders. Together, the two pilots followed Magic as she made her way over to Eva and Lucky, Charger gave Poet a friendly punch on the shoulder, and the two laughed, probably about some joke Eva was too far away to hear. Last but not least, Vortex came down from his plane. He took off his helmet and scratched at his crew cut, brown hair.

Eva took a deep breath. All of a sudden, she felt incredibly nervous. Suddenly, Lucky gave her a reassuring nudge on the shoulder and a smile, which instilled some confidence in her. She nodded to Lucky and made her way over to lucky, giving the other three pilots a friendly wave as they passed each other.

Eva cleared her throat. "Hi, Vortex," she said, trying to make herself sound as confident as possible.

Vortex looked over from what he was doing and smiled at her. "Hey, Diamond, what's up?" he asked.

Eva's heart pounded. She was incredibly nervous, but she had to do this. "Can I tell you something?"

Vortex's smile lessened a bit after hearing the seriousness in her tone. "Sure." The two of them walked over away from his plane and over to the flight deck's side.

"I want to fly," she finally told him. "I've been more than patient."

Vortex sighed. Something in the way his expression changed made Eva feel like he knew this was coming. "Diamond…" his voice trailed off as he tried to look for the right words to say. "You're just a kid."

"I'm not 'just a kid,' I'm 22 years old!" Eva protested, raising her voice slightly, although nobody else seemed to be watching, except for the other pilots, who were too far away to hear. "Besides, Lucky's only a year older than me, and you let him fly," she added.

Vortex was caught off guard by Eva's change in tone. "A year can make a lot of difference. You get a lot of experience in that time," he defended himself.

"But how am I supposed to get experience if you don't let me fly?" Eva asked rhetorically.

Vortex fumbled over his words, trying to figure out what he wanted to say. It took him a moment to realize what he needed to say. He let out a heavy sigh. He had hoped that he wouldn't have to remember the memories currently in his mind, but he had no choice. "Let me tell you something," he began, avoiding eye contact with Eva. "It was a few years ago, and I had just become a squadron leader. My wingman was a lot like you. She was young and a bit impulsive at times, but you could tell her heart was in the right place, but above all that she was a great pilot, probably even better than me."

Eva looked up at Vortex and saw him wipe away a tear with his sleeve. She didn't know about any of this. "What uh… what happened to her?" She asked hesitantly.

Vortex took a deep, albeit shaky, breath. Despite all the time that had passed, it still wasn't any easier talking about it. "Fate played a cruel joke," he answered. "There were four of us on patrol over a mountain range. Everything had been going fine until suddenly, one of her engines failed out of nowhere. She tried to recover, and after that proved too difficult, she tried to eject, but…" his voice trailed off as he wiped more tears away from his face. "But it was too late," he finally managed to finish.

Eva was at a loss for words. She had thought about how this would've gone before she walked up to him, but this wasn't what she expected. "Vortex I-" Eva didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry," was all she could say.

"We had been with each other since flight school. She was like a sister to me, so it was only right that I carried on in her name. That way, I knew that she would always be flying alongside me." Vortex looked back at his plane, being taxied back into the hangar.

"You changed your TAC name to hers?" Eva asked, tilting her head to one side.

Vortex nodded. "Yeah, she was uh… she was really somethin'." He sighed. "When you first got assigned to my squadron, I didn't notice much, but the more I got to know you, the more you reminded me of her, and I guess I just felt… scared," Vortex admitted. "Scared that I would lose you the same way I lost her." He looked over to Eva. "But I guess I can't hold you back forever, huh?" he asked, a small smile appearing on his face.

Eva's eyes lit up. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?" she asked excitedly.

Vortex chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, you can go up on patrol tomorrow."

At that moment, Eva felt a rush of so many positive emotions. She reached out and hugged Vortex's arm. "Thank you so much, Vortex, I won't let you down!"

"Just promise me one thing, ok?" He asked her, the serious look on his face returning.

Eva nodded. "Name it."

Vortex sighed. "Promise me you'll be careful," he told her.

"I will, I'll be careful," Eva promised.