April 1, AC 426

The south of the Republic of Ireland

'Why do they call him the maester?' Comic asked within the five-ship flight as Hitman Squadron crossed the Isle of Man to reach their target area. At the far end of the right echelon formation Monarch remained quiet as the others conversed.

'From what I can see of his dossier, he was a doctor before the whole insurrection happened. Now he's flying for the innies, taking out RAF aircraft left, right and centre.' Galaxy was explaining.

'A maester was a kind of medical specialist most prevalent in the Long Cold. Of course they're all but extinct now.' Ranger was also adding to the conversation.

'Huh, right. Think we'll find him over here?' Comic then asked a question related to their mission.

'Brits haven't been off with their intel so far, got no reason to think that he isn't.' Talon, as was usual for him, was on topic with the mission.

'Alright guys, you're entering the area of operation. Friendly forces aren't present this deep into the country, so you're weapons free on all designated targets.

AIRCRAFT

Hitman 1/Talon: F-16C Viper

Hitman 2/Diplomat: MiG-35D Flanker

Hitman 3/Ranger: F-16C Viper

Hitman 4/Monarch: F/A-18E Super Hornet

Hitman 5/Comic: F-15C Eagle

As their heaviest fighter and therefore dedicated missile truck, once the formation split Ranger led Monarch into a position able to hit the targets on the airfield they were approaching. Not that there were many ground targets to worry about; a few scattered 88-millimetre flak cannons, some SAM batteries, infantry fighting vehicles in defensive positions and grounded fighters and helicopters. Talon, Diplomat and Comic assumed a safe orbit within air-to-air firing range to catch anything that might have taken off.

'Alright Monarch, let's get this show started. My laser des is on code 1-1-1-1.' Ranger said to Monarch, letting the latter know what frequency his underslung Sniper XR target designation pod was shooting its laser on. Monarch nosed on towards the target airfield.

'Light 'em up.' Monarch waited for Ranger's lase, keying over to his AGM-65E Mavericks. He spotted a lase on his own targeting pod, locked onto that lase and started firing missiles at whatever Ranger was pointing at. The latter first targeted the aircraft that were littered around the flightline and tent-style hangars; the majority of the fixed-wing aircraft were varieties of Tornados, but there were a couple of Typhoons scattered around the airfield. No matter, they were gonna be destroyed. The first kill of the day was a clustered group of four Tornado F.1s. One missile in the middle of them was enough to sufficiently destroy all in a catastrophic explosion. Before anybody could ring an alarm six more aircraft were destroyed by missile strikes. Personnel started running to their planes in an attempt to get off the ground before they were hit, to no avail. Ranger kept designating targets and Monarch kept firing missiles. A Typhoon that had managed to roll to the taxiway got hit and detonated catastrophically, blocking one of the main ways to get to the runway. The three Tornados that had followed the Typhoon were forced to stop and as a result were easy pickings for Monarch.

'Fuck, this is too easy.' Monarch admitted. Not that it was a bad thing considering he was wiping out the Insurrection Air Force almost on his own and that mercs were paid per kill. While Monarch was talking he hit a Tornado GR.3 that had been connected to a fuel line. The explosion and flames from that shot up the line and before he knew it there was a line of fire that could be traced all the way to the base's fuel depot.

'Nice fireworks.' Talon pointed this out. He was pulling away from Diplomat and Comic to join Ranger and Monarch, because he was the only person within Hitman armed with AGM-88 HARMs, or High-speed Anti Radiation Missiles, weapons specifically meant for eliminating surface-based radar systems. His merge was well-timed, because the enemy had brought up the first of their air defenses. Talon saw and fired at the radar of the aforementioned SAM site, knocking it out with a single missile and bringing an entire battery down via that action. Monarch on the other hand had switched from shooting at grounded aircraft to hitting ground vehicles that were set in fortified positions protecting the airfield. There were a pair of Warrior IFVs at the front gate that were hit by individual missiles and exploded spectacularly. South of the front gate was a vehicle pool, however, Monarch didn't want to attempt to bomb it while the base's air defenses were still mostly active.

'Ranger, shift your lase onto the triple-A.' Monarch requested. Ranger didn't reply but he saw that the designator had switched from other vehicles on patrol or in defensive positions to the 88-mil guns around the base. Monarch fired at those AAA guns, disabling or destroying all of them in swift and precise strikes. With the air clear of any potential return fire, Monarch cycled to his GBU-24 two-thousand pound bombs and moved in towards the base.

'What are you aiming for?' Ranger saw Monarch move closer to the airfield.

'Vehicle pool.' Monarch replied. Ranger shifted his laser to paint the middle of the vehicle pool. Monarch dropped two bombs and felt his aircraft get lighter as they departed from their pylons. Via his own camera pod Monarch watched as the bombs spiralled towards the target.

BOOM. BOOM.

Two giant explosions and the entire vehicle pool with all of its utility vehicles, armoured personnel carriers and trucks disappeared in the smoke. Monarch could tell that most of the vehicles had been destroyed however because a lot of black smoke was rising up through the brown and gray dust and concrete powder. Secondary explosions further confirmed that fact for him. Monarch chuckled deviously.

'Vehicle pool in tatters.' Monarch reported. 'Ranger, re-target the vehicles protecting the base.'

'On target.' Ranger quickly shifted his lase from the now-destroyed vehicle pool to more IFVs randomly scattered around the perimeter of the airfield. One by one they were all popped and destroyed by Monarch's Mavericks. A couple of them figured out the smart thing was to pop smoke and start running, but Monarch was equipped with IR-guided AGM-65K Mavericks which could track the vehicles clearly through the smoke screens. The three Warrior IFVs that had tried to smoke and run were quickly destroyed.

'Hold on, three new bandits, approaching from the north. Typhoons. Hitman, you're clear to engage.' Galaxy reported the presence of three hostile air contacts.

'Comic, Dip.' Talon delegated to Hitman 5 and Hitman 2 to break off from the formation to deal with them. As Monarch continued to rip apart the defenses and ground-based aircraft, they flew through his line of fire and started firing at the very obviously hostile delta-canard fighters. With longer-legged air-to-air weapons than the enemy, by the time the lead Typhoon had fired Hitman already had three of their own missiles halfway there to the target. To the surprise of the nearby Monarch, when the leader was swatted out of the sky the other two were maintaining a steady course trying to edge into weapons range. They didn't get the chance, Comic's AMRAAMs found their way on target and eliminated the rest of the air threat. The single enemy missile missed, Diplomat swerving out of the way outside of its blast radius. All the while, Monarch had finished off the last of the airfield's admittedly meagure defenses.

'All priority ground targets have been destroyed. I guess the maester wasn't as cooked up as he was supposed to be?' Monarch gave his longest sentence this operation so far.

'Hold that thought, Monarch! One bandit just popped up from the mountains at high speed, prepare for contact!' As if to prove Monarch wrong, Galaxy interrupted that sentence to alert Hitman Squadron of the presence of one more enemy fighter. 'Incoming, break!'

Monarch pushed the throttle forward, rolled and dived as a short-range IR-guided missile flew overhead, narrowly missing the body of his Super Hornet. Tracers from the Mauser cannon of a Typhoon then slipped through behind him. Monarch jinked and managed to evade long enough for the attacker to fly past, putting Monarch in the attacking position. He turned to bear on the target and let loose a Sidewinder. Much like how Monarch had evaded the missile fired at him, this man evaded the missile Monarch had fired at him. With the F/A-18E's twin engines both roaring at afterburner, the chase was on. The Typhoon brought the chase to a ninety-degree up angle, which Monarch happily followed. He let off another missile that was deftly evaded by the Typhoon flaring and pulling out of the climb. The radio crackled to life. Whoever this was, he could break their radio encryption.

'You don't get away with killing me that easily, Sicario.' The withered and crackled voice of an old man, who somehow had made himself known on their intra-squadron net. An encrypted channel.

'Who the hell are you? And how did you break into our channel?' Diplomat asked puzzledly, earning a scoff from the old man.

'Oh, please. You know who I am.' The old man retorted. Monarch nosed on towards the Typhoon in a dive and fired a cannon burst. The Typhoon jinked successfully.

'It's the Maester.' Monarch pointed it out. He had figured as much when his target had appeared out of the blue. The two engaged in a turnfight; despite the Super Hornet technically having a lower thrust-to-weight ratio, this was an aspect of dogfighting that Monarch had an advantage in. Even when Maester brought the fight up Monarch had enough energy to get his gun on the target and fire. He scored a couple of grazing hits, not enough to detriment the short-term performance of the Typhoon, before Maester built up enough energy to get out of the way.

'He gets it. Now come, show me what you mercenaries are made of.' Maester invited Hitman Squadron to try and take him on. Instead of attempting to take on Maester in a climb fight, Monarch broke away from the dogfight and circled around slowly at a level altitude to build up some energy. Maester took this as an invitation to attack and swooped in like a hawk for a high-aspect gunshot. Cannon shots zipped through the air that were deftly evaded by the stubbornly evasive Monarch. The latter initiated a dive that Maester was forced into the defensive position for because of how fast he was diving. Monarch let off a Sidewinder as soon as he had his enemy in his boresight. As expected, the missile was evaded, but Maester's jink away from the Sidewinder had brought him right into the path of one of Talon's AMRAAMs. A puff of smoke appeared in the sky next to the maester. The Typhoon came into line of sight quickly after, belching black smoke of its own and wobbling in-flight.

Monarch came in from above and would have gotten an easy gun kill if it weren't for Comic firing one of her AMRAAMs at near-within minimum firing range. At that distance there was no way Maester would have been able to evade or survive. The AMRAAM directly impacted the side of Maester's Typhoon and the aircraft exploded mid-flight, leaving trails of smoke and shattered pieces of a former RAF aircraft to fall out of the sky. Monarch flew through this field of debris; pieces of metal bounced off his canopy, leaving a few scuffs in the plexiglass cover. He pulled back on the throttle, dropping out of afterburner, and levelled out. He looked around for the Eagle-flying Comic. She passed overhead.

'Nice shot, Comic.' Monarch complimented his fellow wingman.

'Ta.' Comic's reply was quick and short. 'So there goes our target. Does that mean we can RTB now?'

'Not just yet, Comic. Hitman, new tasking. A British special forces team is under fire ten kilometres north of the airport. Their evac is on the way but they're under heavy fire. I'm marking targets on your heads-up display. Give them some cover.' Galaxy directed Hitman Squadron to a new tasking. The moment Monarch saw where friendly forces were on his tactical display he was full afterburner out to the location. A couple of minutes later he was overhead. The men they were supposed to provide cover for were in a forest clearing with enemy infantry and light armoured vehicles converging on their position. To solve this problem Monarch resorted to a flurry of IR-guided Mavericks to eliminate the vehicles. Four missiles left his wings and buried themselves in those APCs, exploding spectacularly. At his back were Ranger and Diplomat, who followed up on Monarch's missile strike with gun runs on enemy infantry. This dispersed them and made it easier for friendly infantry to stand their ground. All the while, Monarch came back around and fired more Mavericks into the forest, going as far as to ignite a section of forest with the catastrophic explosion of a Bulldog armoured personnel carrier. He slowed down and gunned down a line of infantry that were advancing towards friendlies.

'Evacuation helicopter is one mike out.' Galaxy reported. The friendly helicopter was a CH-47 Chinook, a large twin-propeller type. Hitman Squadron continued to pound enemy forces with repeated strafing runs that disorientated, dispersed and outright eliminated infantry and vehicles. A Warrior appeared from the treeline with a clear line of sight on the friendlies, but one of the British SF troopers had an anti-tank rocket launcher and fired upon the IFV, disabling it with a single hit. Dismounts that attempted to get out of that IFV were quickly cut down by Talon diving and firing on the ground rear to the IFV. Overhead, the evac Chinook arrived and touched down. Immediately the special forces team started boarding via the open ramp door. To provide cover for the helicopter while it was on the ground, Hitman Squadron started dumping on the treeline with their cannons, shaking the very ground, obscuring line of sight, killing anybody that was within the treeline and convincing anybody not in the treeline to stay away from the treeline. The Chinook got its wheels off the deck and started flying in the direction that it came from. '

'AWACS Galaxy, Condor 1, we are out!' The pilot of the Chinook reported to the AWACS. 'We're clear. Thanks for the assist.'

'No worries Condor, out to you. Alright Hitman, now we're done here. R-T-fucking-B.'