As Kestrel and Mage Squadron accompanied Lynx back to Fort Grays, a large, dark cloud began to accumulate overhead, and with the wind picking up speed, the pilots made sure to expedite their landings. One by one, the planes touched down onto the runway and slowed to a halt before taxying into the hangars. As Eva shut down the engines on her F-35, she lowered her oxygen mask from her face and threw the canopy open, climbing down the first few rungs of the latter before jumping down to the floor.
"That was some impressive flying back there," Lynx said as he emerged from his F-4. "I guess the rumors about you are true." He looked at her with a smirk.
Eva opened her mouth to reply, but she stopped herself upon seeing Pierre feebly crawl out of the plane and collapse on the floor, panting heavily. "Mark my words, Jason. You are… never getting me in a fighter plane ever again."
Lynx looked down at Pierre on the floor and laughed. "Aw, come on, Pierre. You gotta look on the positive side. You're alive, at least."
"If that's how low the bar is, then we've got some issues," Pierre replied, finally starting to get his breath back.
"Well, I suppose you've just gotta take what you can get," Lynx said with a shrug.
"Trust me, that's basically been our motto for the last five months," Magic chimed in with a snicker as she and the others joined the group.
"Quite the base you've got here," Lynx remarked with a smile as his eyes wandered around the hangar. Then, his gaze rested on the Skyshard, sitting vacant and distanced slightly from the rest of the planes. "What's that thing?" he asked.
"Some sort of Erusean fighter; it's called the Skyshard," Eva answered. "Zero was the test pilot and stole it when he defected," she added, nodding to the former mercenary.
Lynx shifted his gaze over to Zero. "You're from Erusea too?"
"Born and raised in Voslage," he replied with a nod. "Although, I heard that they're trying to fight for their independence."
"Y'know… I've gotta ask; why would you not fly this plane if you have it?" Lynx asked. "Seems like it would be pretty effective."
Suddenly, the mandoor to the hangar opened, and David walked in. "Because up until now, I've been analyzing it to get as much information on it as possible."
"David's an analyst from the OIA," Lucky explained.
David nodded as he approached the group. "I take it you're the one with our intel, then?" he asked Lynx.
Lynx shook his head. "Nah, I'm just the pilot. You can call me Lynx. Pierre, the one crumpled up on the floor like a used tissue-" he smirked as he nodded in Pierre's direction, "-is the one you wanna talk to."
"Go to hell, Jason," Pierre grumbled as he got to his feet. "It's not like you made it any easier for me."
David walked over to Pierre and helped him up. "So, Pierre, I hear you have intel you're looking to share with us."
Pierre's expression darkened as he gave David a solemn nod. "That's right. With what Free Erusea has at their disposal, they could do a lot of damage. Hell, they could probably even win the whole damn war on their own. That's why I'm here… I don't want that to happen."
The sound of additional fighter jets coming in for a landing interrupted their conversation. "Sounds like Gorgon and Centaur are here," Charger remarked.
"David, why don't you take Pierre and Lynx to see Knight?" Clown suggested. "That way, you can start going over his intel. We'll wait for Gorgon and Centaur to get settled, and we'll meet you in the briefing room."
"Alright. I'll see you all there," David replied before turning to the two Eruseans. "Come on. I'll show you to the base commander." After that, the three of them all left through the mandoor and started down the path to the base's main building.
"They're probably gonna be set up in the next hangar down since it's getting so crowded in here," Eva realized. "We should head over there and check."
The group gradually made their way out of the hangar, only to be caught completely off-guard by what awaited them. A cold breeze swept through the air, and floating down from the sky were small white flakes. They all melted as soon as they made contact with the ground, but the ten pilots all knew what it meant: winter was coming.
"Looks like the snow is here early," Footpad said, looking up at the sky. "Usually, it doesn't get here until November."
"Eh, I'm from Heierlark. I'm used to cold and early winters," Lucky said with a shrug. "Besides, it's not even that cold out."
Magic rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on, Lucky. Don't tell me you're one of those people." She leaned over and gave him a friendly nudge on the shoulder.
"It's true!" Lucky protested. "You can't seriously be cold right now, can you?"
"I wouldn't say cold, but it's at least mildly chilly," Poet chimed in.
Eva laughed at the exchange. "I did my flight training in North Point, so I think it's safe to say I know a thing or two about cold weather, and this isn't really that cold."
"Thank you, Diamond," Lucky replied with a small gesture toward her. "I'm glad at least one person here understands me."
Eva smiled in return, but deep down, she felt something nagging at her. Ever since the mission over Comona when Lucky almost died, talking with Lucky just felt strange. Eva knew why that was, though. She knew what she wanted to say to him, but she couldn't get the words out no matter how hard she tried. Besides, whenever she thought about approaching him, it never felt like the right moment to do so. Granted, she also didn't know what her mind thought 'the right moment' was, but by this point, she had found that trusting her gut was a wise choice, so she stuck with it; even if it meant distancing herself from one of the people she cared most about for the time being.
As the pilots walked into the next hangar, they saw the remaining pilots of Grogon and Centaur climbing out of their planes. Now reduced to almost half their original size, Eva couldn't help but sympathize with what they must've been going through. After all, she was no stranger to losing those she was close to.
"Good to see y'all made it back alright," Clown called out as the two groups of pilots met each other in the middle of the hangar. "That was a mighty brave thing you did."
Centaur 1 waved his hand dismissively. "The mission was to get that defector home safe. We were just doing our jobs."
"Speaking of which, where are those two anyway?" Gorgon 2 asked, looking through the group as if trying to find Pierre and Lynx. "That engineer or whatever go puke his brains out?" He cracked a small smile.
Eva shook her head. "They both went to see Commander Knight so they could go over this intel Pierre has. They wanted all of us to be there too, but we wanted to wait for you to get here so we could show you the way to the briefing room."
"Well… no point sitting around, then," Centaur 4 decided. "Let's get going."
"Agreed," Gorgon 2 replied. "I, for one, wanna see what all this fuss is about."
"I think that's something we can all agree on," Charger added. "Come on; we'll show you to the briefing room."
As the group left the hangar and once again left the hangar, they began the long and quiet walk into the main building of the base. Luckily, Gorgon 3 decided the break the awkward silence. "Sooo… what do you guys think of our new guests?" he asked.
Boggard was the first to reply. "Lynx seems like a nice guy, but I'm not really sure what to think of Pierre, to be honest."
Brownie nodded in reply. "It almost feels like he's scared of something," she agreed.
"Well, whatever it is probably what motivated him to defect in the first place," Zero speculated. "Something tells me it won't be good news for us, though," he added as they started navigating through the halls of the base.
"Seems like this war is finally reaching its end," Charger said. "Which means everyone is starting to make their last plays. We've just gotta make sure we make the right ones."
Eva nodded. "Exactly, whatever this is, we can deal with it as long as we do it together," she agreed as they started walking up to the briefing room. She pushed open the door and poked her head in. "Commander, we're all here, sir," she reported as the pilots flooded in.
Commander Knight turned around to reveal a far more distressed expression than usual. "Good, good. Everyone, take a seat." He looked away from the blank briefing screen and toward the pilots. "You're all going to want to hear this."
Eva took a seat between Charger and Torch. "So… what's this all about?"
"The intel Lynx and Pierre have provided us has been a game-changer," Knight began. "But it's not all good news." He powered up the briefing software and displayed a map of Usea, zooming in on the eastern region. "For starters, we learned that the largest cell of Free Erusean forces is located here," he zoomed into the Altoora Desert area. "Galar Fortress."
"During the Independent State Allied Forces counterattack in the Continental War, they feared that the Eruseans would use the rocket launch facility Megalith against them in a massive offensive," David explained. "Their solution was to build Galar Fortress in the Altoora Desert. However, before it could be completed, the war was already ended, so it remained unfinished until the first Free Erusea uprising."
"What does this history lesson have to do with the situation?" Gorgon 4 asked before quickly getting silenced by an elbow to the ribcage by Gorgon 2.
"For the first few months of the war, the fortress was firmly in Erusean control. However, when Arsenal Bird Liberty was destroyed by Stonehenge, it allowed our forces to advance. The only reason we didn't secure Galar Fortress was that an Erusean officer feeding us intel reported that the Erusean army had entirely abandoned the north-eastern part of Usea to focus their attention on the front lines. However, it seems, whether intentional or not, that intel wasn't entirely accurate."
Pierre cleared his throat and stepped forward. As he turned with his body perpendicular to the briefing screen, a 3d model of an Arsenal Bird appeared. "This is Arsenal Bird Justice, the second of the two Arsenal Birds built by Osea to protect the Space Elevator. It features several improvements over Liberty, like a more advanced shield system, a forward-facing tactical laser cannon, and a pair of pulse lasers under the wings."
"With all due respect," Eva spoke up. "We already know about Justice. Hell, we've even fought the thing several times," she added, looking over at her squadron.
Pierre's expression darkened. "You didn't let me finish," he murmured. At that moment, he turned around and entered a few keystrokes onto the computer. The briefing software then displayed another Arsenal Bird, almost twice as big as Justice, and the room fell dead silent. "This… is Arsenal Bird Freedom. Before the war even started, Erusea was trying to create their own Arsenal Birds. When this plan failed, though, they decided to highjack the ones built by Osea. That's when they realized they could use the blueprints from the original to create this."
"Freedom features a variety of improvements over the other two Arsenal Birds," David continued. "Its larger wingspan means it can carry up to 125 of Erusea's new drones, MQ-103s. It also has four pulse lasers, two on each wing, and its tactical laser system was replaced by a 100 caliber rail cannon, which explains where the railgun shells were coming from during Operation Cold Breeze. The most important thing that Erusea upgraded was its active protection system. Arsenal Bird Liberty needed to charge its shields up before being able to keep them on for several minutes. Meanwhile, Arsenal Bird Justice could deploy its shields almost instantly, but at the cost of having to disable its shields temporarily to recharge. Arsenal Bird Freedom has the best of both worlds. It can deploy its shields almost instantly and keep them up for up to 10 minutes at a time."
"Jesus Christ…" Footpad murmured.
"How in the hell are we supposed to fight that?" Magic asked. "Even ignoring the fact that this thing is supported by the largest cell of Free Erusean forces, if we even breathe on this thing, we'll be blown to smithereens! That thing alone makes us completely outgunned and outnumbered."
"Which is why we'll need every edge we can get. Clown, Lynx will be flying with you as Mage 5," Knight said. "And Diamond," he continued, turning his attention to Eva. "David has finished his analysis of the Skyshard, so starting tomorrow, you're going to be doing practice flights in it to get used to flying the thing, and Zero will be giving you pointers on what to do."
"Sir, with all due respect…" Eva replied. "One extra pilot and a new plane won't be enough. This…" She didn't want to say the words, but she felt like she had to. "This is a suicide mission."
"We've been trying to make contact with Osean High Command to request backup, but the general communication network is still down, so we have yet to receive a response. We're also keeping our eyes open for any units in the area, Osean or Erusean, to make contact with. After all, if we could find Gorgon and Centaur, there may be others."
Charger took a deep breath. "So, what's the plan? How are we taking this thing down?"
"Well, for starters, we don't have the fuel for you to get to Galar Fortress and back in one sortie, so Kestrel and Mage will leave on the OFS Falcon, while Gorgon, Centaur, Sky Keeper, and Warlock move to Los Canas, pick up any ground forces stationed there, and move ahead," Knight explained.
"The day of the operation is October 31st," David added. "Pierre will explain why."
"One of the problems with Arsenal Bird Freedom's advanced shields is that they consume a lot of power," Pierre said. "Now, the other two Arsenal Birds counteracted this by getting their energy directly from the Space Elevator, but up until now, Freedom has been limited to using the power supplied by the base. I say 'until now' because, on October 31st, Free Erusea is moving west toward the Space Elevator. They plan to synchronize the Arsenal Bird with the Space Elevator to supply it with practically infinite power. Needless to say, we can't let that happen."
"So… this is it," Eva said. "After everything that's happened, all the people we've lost, and all the progress we've made, it all comes down to this."
"Remember, we still have a few days to find additional friendly forces," Knight reminded everyone. "There's still a chance we could do this under less dire circumstances. Until the time comes, however, prepare yourselves in any way you see fit."