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.

33. Chapter 142: Operation Aldernest part 2

Wieldvakian Economic Exclusive Area, Arctic Sea, 24/06/1995, 22:15, Weather: medium cloud cover and sea fog

The eight black and red planes had finally flown over the cliffs bordering the icy waters of the Arctic Sea in this area, punctuated here and there by small beaches. They wondered if people bathed there, as it was said that in those iced waters, no one could survive if one bailed out. Survival rate in the barren empty land of B7R was higher than in this area.

It wasn't long before they caught sight of the battle that was raging on for the control of the air and sea space, with Wieldvakian Su-25Cs fighting outnumbered against much more agile fighters. Though, air supremacy was not the main concern here. The main concern was a group of seven Super-tankers of Wieldvakia that had been sent to deliver fuel to Belka before their government had a change of thought, and now North Belka and their allies wanted to take it by force.

Their Czarty squadron had a light red and brown camo with the more common blue belly, and their emblem was a red coronated devil with a trident in a black circle. They also had red trident on the upper side of their wings, and dark red stripes on their nose and wingtips

"Kepinski to Schwarze, we're glad you're finally here. We need to re-establish air supremacy here if we want our towing ship to bring those supertankers to the harbor. Belkan picket submarines damaged their main propellers using micro-torpedoes, our military replied by sending anti-sub choppers, they sent fighters and more maritime units, and struck our military bases with cruise missiles." The Wieldvakian leader exposed to their newly arrived CSB allied the slightly complicated situation - understatement of the century-.

"We will handle their fighters and bigger ships closing on the location of those tankers. How much time until the towing operation begins?" Zubov replied, seeing the two dangers that would be deadly for the Frogfoots: A full squadron of Yukte Typhoons spotting an artic camo that was quite visible in the sky illuminated with the dim light of the polar day, and a few Nanuchka-class missile destroyer now at the edge of the operational airspace. They were able to launch heavy air-to-air missiles as well as low flying sea-skimming cruise missiles able to bypass Osean CWIS.

"Czarty (devil) 3 here, we have some jamming blimps, so these ships won't cause much issue from where they are, but we have already lost half of those due to enemy fighters and small gunships and missile boats." Another Wieldvakian gave some more intel on the situation here, with the blimps being currently hung to the Supertankers, acting as a meager protection. But Wieldvakia did not have enough wealth to invest in proper jammer airplanes, so they would have to resort to such antiquated technology.

"Well, Schwarze 2 and seven, you took some damage, so your job will be to assist the Czarty squad in their anti-gunship duty. The others, with me, we will eradicate those Yukte, Osean and Belkan fighters." Zubov decided what the battle plan was.

"Tauberg here, your enemies are for now only a dozen of typhoons, but then we have Belkans Tigershark and some Osean Avenger IIs" Their operator inside the sword of kings indicated, as the smaller frames of the two over fighters that would arrive in a few minutes in the area were easily recognizable on satellite imagery.

"They still have enough of those old prototypes stored at the solo islands? or are they producing them through some third party?" Schwarze five asked, wondering where those new planes could be produced when the Osean industry had only recovered sixty-five of its capacity from before the emp disaster.

"That's the five Zollar question, Helger." Their operator joked about this subject, not knowing everything about Osea's supply chain. He only needed to know the intel on the mission he was supervising to do his job, after all.

"That's a question for another day, five. We have people to kill here." Zubov cut the conversation short, while his six-plane squadron was turning westward to engage the Typhoons.

"Ver, let's sink these!" Schwarze two replied, cruising at low speed toward a group of missile boats, which had moved between two supertankers to have some cover, with the giant ships outsizing the tiny missile platforms by a thousand at least.

But this also prevented these Belkans sailors to get a lock on Karkov's plane, as he approached hidden below the boat, seeing with a bit of regret his squadmates engaging the Typhoons with their last ERAAMs to thin the crowd of Yukte fighters.

"The mass of that tanker is shielding him from our radar. Be ready to fire heat-seekers as soon as he pops up!" One officer on a missile boat ordered, forcing his operative to lose some time as they switched the armament from the launchers.

"He just did, sir!" A sailor noticed, as the MiG just climbed from behind the tanker, having turned a few meters from its hull.

Immediately, missiles were fired, streaking into the night sky, barely lit by the distinct light of the arctic day, which seemed to put this place in a perpetual penumbra. Although his engines had suffered damage, they could still outmatch those meager attempts at taking him down.

And while they were distracted by this fighter that kept soaring upward, evading their short-range missile with ease, they didn't notice the number seven that had used a similar strategy to cover his approach, flying above the isle of one supertanker before almost slamming himself on the deck, skimming over its metallic surface far wider than those of Osean supercarriers.

On his way, he gunned down a few marines of hostile origins, with some trying to aim a stinger at him. A small yaw maneuver made the missile fly loose toward the isle, missing the structure by mere inches. The Schwarze pilot on the opposite side did not miss his target with his gun, not wanting to use anything more powerful on a target filled with crude oil.

Then he pulled out a very sharp turn, almost stalling as he fly out of the supertanker's bridge, but thankfully this height and the ground effect of the bridge allow him to recover above water level, before turning to engage the trio of missile boats that were firing at their number two from a certain distance.

He gunned a gunboat on his way, which caused the Belkan sailors to notice him, but it was too late: he was too low, and their launchers set too high to have any impact. Their missiles tried to curve to follow the fast fighter rushing on them, but their launchers had still too much of an angle. The trio was destroyed by a missile each, and a gun burst that filled the crew and ammo rack with bullets, causing the last to explode, killing the already wounded men.

The remaining gunboats tried to aim their guns at the red and black MiG that flew above them as they were mixed with the missile boats. But the smoke of the burning missile boats infringed greatly on their accuracy.

"Sink and die, Belkans!" One Wieldvakian pilot shouted at the enemy, while him and two over red and Blue Su-25s, which had also approached this little group of enemy ships from the outer side of the supertanker Schwarze seven flew above, but far slower than the Schwarze's advanced plane. Thus, they arrived in time to open fire in a sky clear of missile fire, with their armor being thick enough to fend off the enemy counterattack.

"Good riddance." another Czarty pilot said, while they reduced the enemy surface ships to smithereens by using their heavy caliber guns.

"Czarty leader to Schwarze 2 and seven, those ships are free of threats, four more to secure." The Wieldvakian officer announced, while he was literally detonating dinghy boats that some larger missile boats had unleashed, with one having sunk by crossfire from multiple Su-25Cs. But the other missile boats were firing at full swings, causing the Su-25C to fly circles around them, and fire their shots without much precision as they could only do rushed assaults on their enemies.

"We should be able to take care of those bigger ships. Just wait a little more." Schwarze seven ensured the Frogfoot pilot, as both MiGs streaked toward a pair of Supertankers that were cruising in single file, with four of those bigger missile boats and more gunboats surrounding them.

Meanwhile, Schwarze squadron had finally engaged the group of Typhoons which bore the usual Yukte arctic camo, a very white grey with red lining around the wings and canard's edges, and pale red stars on their wing's trailing edges.

Only three of them fired their ERAAMs, though it was enough to decimate the dozen or so fighters that had come to face them, and thus, their death. Killing a squadron of equal strength head-on wouldn't be hard for a flight trained to kill their kind.

"Something's wrong, I can sense it." Schwarze four pointed out, remembering that the dot they had seen on long range was much bigger than just a dozen fighters.

"Watch out for infiltrators surfing on the waves." Czarty three warned them, having seen two of his comrades die to a F-14D that infiltrated their defensive net by flying extremely low. The fragile swing-wing airframe didn't last long against his 30mm cannon, still, with the F-14 slowed by the ground effect increased at such low altitude.

"Good thing the sea is quite dark in those cold waters." Schwarze six reminded them, which should render the white typhoon fairly visible even from their relative high altitude.

"Ja, guck mal da! Ich hab ein paar (yeah, look there, I've got a pair of them)." Schwarze three noticed a pair of Typhoons gliding at low altitude and fired his last ERAAMs toward them.

But, for once, The ERAAMs were tricked by their enemies: tiling their planes upward for a few seconds, they fired a pair of GPBs that were enough to create a big wave behind them, as they flew faster than their dispersed ammo. And the missiles hit the wall of water and malfunctioned, exploding away from their intended targets.

"You like to play with the water? That's something we can do too!" Schwarze eight sent them a serious threat, as he fired a pair of his HGMs toward a group of Typhoons, on a point situated in front of them.

"Is he firing at the assault fleet?" One Yukte pilot wondered, as he saw the missile going toward their missile and gun boats covering their marines.

"I don't thi..." Another said, the one that had avoided the fire of the third vulture, only to have a pair of MiG-31 pursuing them, with one firing missile downward to damage them, and the second filling them with lead from above, aiming at them vertically. That ensured them that his fire reached the canopy, and the pilot insides, without any doubt.

And indeed, these fairly large missiles weren't going for their ships. Just for the water. And unlike the small warheads of their GPBs that just created a small wave behind them, those Hypersthene-primed missiles cause powerful geyser of steam and water that hit their engine nozzles pretty badly, causing their craft to stall, and the agitated surface of the once pristine sea canceled their ground effect. All four exploded as they hit the water.

In the sky, the other six typhoons didn't last longer. Two to one was never enough to hope to win against Schwarze.

Their number sixth just went through his pair of enemies, with both sides succeeding in evading each other's fire. Then the two Typhoons used their greater mobility to quickly get in his six, but bleeding their speed greatly as they did so, and allowing the much faster Advanced Foxhound to outrun them greatly.

"You bled your speed. And now you'll bleed, literally." Schwarze six said, as he pulled the stick hard before using his vector thrust to help him achieve a head-to-tail maneuver he had seen the Wrath doing so many times. And now he understood why she was silent after doing this kind of maneuver. The extreme high-G this maneuver put him into, at the limit of the human body, almost caused him to choke. At least he would have, without the oxygen mask.

And despite having his eyes blurry with the red sight, he got very fast on his enemies, filling both planes with lead, causing the two to catch fire instantaneously as their air intakes breathed incendiary bullets.

Schwarze four applied a simpler maneuver, evading the XLAA by climbing vertically, before enacting a vertical U-turn and firing a single missile from above on his Yukte enemies. Most of the time, two missiles were needed to fully destroy their enemies. But from above, the impact of a sole missile killed both white typhoons, sending them plummeting toward the dark iced sea.

Zubov repeated the maneuver he did over the Ellya's river, turning very sharply without slowing down a single bit, before using their great newer mobility to turn once more at a very sharp angle to assault the pair of typhoons from their nine hours. He felt some satisfaction as he saw the two of them exploding. No one had ejected. He knew were to attack to kill the pilot first. That was what he had been the best at in those last years.

"First wave defeated." He announced, with this new satisfaction setting his voice on a smoother tone than his usual threatening mood.

One thing that could show the mission beginning to succeed was the sight of the unarmed towing ships that appeared toward the two ships that his damaged wingmen had protected. Those supertankers wouldn't give North Belka more energy to fight on.

"The battle is far from finished. Schwarze one. We have only secured a third of the fleet." Czarty leader limited the cheers of his peers, as they were approaching the second group of tankers, surrounded by the heaviest ships in the close vicinity.

"Czarty 1 ist recht. Avengers und Tigerhai in der Nähe." Tauberg's operator confirmed that this operation was only in its beginning, despite their first success.

"Ver. I, 4 and 6 will fight those Avengers. They have far too much firepower to let them close to these supertankers." Zubov began to send his order, setting his sights on those little flying wings, these pathetic Osean attempts at reviving unsuccessful prototypes, like old nobles would send these squires that had shiny armor but failed to reach knighthoods.

"And we focus on those Tiger-Hai?" Schwarze 3 guessed, seeing that the F-20As were trying to approach at low altitude, while the Avengers were coming at high altitude, were the drag their big shape induced was lower.

"Recht. They all need to die, anyway." Zubov agreed on how this little fight would be conducted.

"Blue rider to Weiss Hecht, be ready to engage the Vultures!" The Osean leader in his flying wing warned his de facto allies, somehow worried about their survival, after witnessing these deaths from afar, and having learned on the radio about the disaster at Casina and Ellya.

"Good luck up there, Oseans." The North Belkan leader reluctantly wished to those unlikely allies.

And it would be two opposed squadrons that would try to fight together, while their targets were getting slowly away from them. To see what both nations considered to be an insignificant country, Wieldvakia, resisting them, was an affront. An affront they would soon make them pay once they clear those few defenders, which both squadrons thought with oblivious unconsciousness that they might win.

While this next aerial battle was in the starting block, the second naval engagement was about to begin, and end in pure brutality. The MiG-31s and Su-25Cs had formed two groups, which were difficult to maintain, with the great speed disparity between the last gen interceptors and the old CAS fighters, who were approaching the heavy Yuktobanian missile boats. The MiG-31s had to fly in circles around the Su-25Cs so they could match their approach speed, but in doing so they protected the slower aircrafts, as the missiles were aimed only at the Vulture's craft.

"The Glorious Yuktobanian navy will not be intimidated by some locals and anarchists! Intensify missile fire! shoot all those planes out of the sky!" One Yukte captain boasted, as their fire had been unsuccessful at harming a single craft until now, which frustrated him greatly.

"We might not have EWs here, but we have skill." Kepinski encouraged his men, while firing precise shots to damage the vertically launched missile from very close, as they were only a few hundred meters from the enemy ships, and succeeded in this task, with the disabled missile flying harmlessly in the sky like peaceful fireworks.

"Yeah, show those inglorious bastards how good we are!" Czarty three added from his side of the battle, helping to shield the MiG-31s which were now climbing to fire their air to ground missiles from above.

The Su-25C did pepper the enemy ships with their heavy guns but were bested by the Yukte heavy armor. They knew they were solely a good distraction, causing some minor losses as they sent a few lighter gunboats to the bottom, but not without taking nothing back in return. They didn't know how much time they could resist such engagements, but they needed to, to protect those sailors and little groups of their marines onboard of those supertankers about to be overrun by Osean and Yukte elite marines, and obviously slaughtered if they resisted.

"Our marines are climbing on your ships right now. Surrender and we might not harm their crews." One Osean on board a heavy missile boat proposed to the Wieldvakian, thinking they could at least get an edge, or even a slight something to bargain for their own survival.

"Don't surrender then, because we'll definitively harm your crews." Schwarze two harshly replied to that Osean, denying him the single hope that they could and would win anything in this battle in those iced waters.

And with those words their last volley of HGMs fell from the sky to critically struck the heavy missile boat, sending them ablaze as if they contained as much fuel as the tankers they were desperately trying to conquer. Whatever was left of them was reduced to smithereens by numerous missiles from the Su-25Cs.

The threat posed to the Wieldvakian supertankers was not finally suppressed yet, as Yukte marines that had left the boats on dinghies were now climbing on both sides of their hulls using ropes and grappling systems.

All fighter pilots could see the furious fights that were going on the supertankers deck, with mens using only light rifles and smoke grenades in the fear that heaviest armament might set some fuel tank on fire, and none of the combatants on those ships wanted to be set ablaze by a trigger-happy soldier. Tracers were exchanged between both sides as they illuminated a bit more than the dim light of the arctic day.

"Do something, Vultures. If the security forces are pushed inside, we'll lose the ships. And our heavy 30mm would do too much damage to the hull." One Czarty pilot asked, witnessing the limits of their powerful yet not very versatile armament.

"We already did something similar when we had to catch a ship trying to flee through Futuro. This should be done quickly" Schwarze 2 explained, while turning toward the tip of the second ship, closely followed by the second MiG-31X/V in the close vicinity.

"Ver." The number seven understood what he had to do, flying toward the tip of the linear formation, on the opposite side, compared to his wingmate. If they succeeded, they would do only minor damage to the pretty thick hull those modern tankers were supposed to possess if they were up to the latest norms.

Going to the tip only took them mere seconds, as they went there at their maximum speed, before turning back, and skimming very close to the hull, gun blazing. It didn't take them a lot of time to cut through the Yukte marines and reduce their dinghies to scraps of burned plastic filled with dead corpses. Sure, they saw some climbing, but they had lost their momentum. And those who weren't shot and almost cleaved in half by the aircraft guns that far outmatched their bullet-resistant gear, they fell from their ropes as the jet wash blasted them away, amplified tenfold as the two MiG-31s had just done their very fast gun run at transonic speed.

"The ship's listing heavily. Seven degrees! eight degrees!" One sailor announced, a bit worried by their safety, as men fighting on the deck were forced to stop their fighting so as not to fall.

"Those fighters just grazed us at Mach 1, Pavel. Just calm down." The captain of the ship informed his subordinates, as getting grazed by transonic fighters was not the kind of issues they were trained to deal with. For fairly obvious reasons.

They had no report from the security forces composed of volunteer sailors, a few Wieldvakian marines, and some ground mercenary forces coming from abroad. That was understandable, as the massive sonic boom had deafened most of them, but since there were fighting from the central axis against enemies on the side of the ship, they didn't suffer the worst. And none of them fell to the ship that listed heavily after the very risky flight of Schwarze 2 and seven. On the other hand, some of those Yukte that were assaulting their ship fell in the cold waters, while the security forces observed with cold rudeness.

Those who had managed to stand were quickly lighted up and targeted mercilessly. Some more fell due to the knock back of the Wieldvakian concentrated fire, other died were they stood, while a very few threw their weapon as they had witnessed all their comrades dying in the cold water, as they were cornered next to railings very close to the deck's limits, and not very high.

And as the sound dissipated enough, with the two MiG-31X/V having rejoined the formation of Wieldvakian fighters, the hopeful message they were waiting for arrived:

"Sec Forces of ship number 4 is in control." One officer announced, as they were rounding up the few Yukte survivors.

"Ship number three is free of threats. Waiting for towing ships to help us in the maneuver." The captain added, sighting heavily, while the listing motion was dying down slowly due to the ship's immense inertia.

"Ver, Kapitän." Schwarze 2 said, feeling this weird sensation of accomplishment.

"Kepinski here. Let's liberate the last two before it's too late." The Wieldvakian leader ordered, as the SOS one had begun to send through the radio was not indicating great success on their side.

"This is good news, Czarty. We are engaging the second wave of fighters. Don't let any of them escape men. Vulture over." Zubov cut the Wieldvakian officer a bit abruptly, as his six-men squadron was engaging two groups of very different fighters, though none were deemed to be a serious threat in his eyes.

Zubov had only seen the explosion of the heavy missile boats and received the radio comms, but he was satisfied with what his two men had been doing there, using the best of what their damaged fighters could do. At the moment, while they were skimming toward the last thorn in their feet, he was climbing toward his new targets with his number 4 and 6, a group of eight A-12 Avenger II. The other three of Schwarze were diving to meet a few F-20A Tigersharks that were trying to sneak at low altitude and spread chaos and murder into the Wieldvakian ranks.

He was the first to be in range, with his two wingmen flying slightly behind him. A few XMAAs were launched from the Osean flying wings, but through micro-dives, he and his wingmen evaded them.

"Do they think they are a threat with their subsonic fighters?" Schwarze 4 pointed out, as they entered missile range, and didn't waste a single moment firing on their targets straight away.

"No, but they have some good low speed mobility. Sei nicht arrogant, vier. (don't be arrogant, four)" His leader judged the Osean prototypes, while he managed to gun one in his twelve hours while firing his missiles to another target, which he finished with a quick gun burst as only one missile had connected with the Avenger.

"Got one from below!" Schwarze six said with a bit of joy, as after avoiding enemy fire he kept diving, only to climb right on the belly of an Avenger, gunning his air intakes while sending a missile straight to his weapon bays.

But he hadn't seen the Osean wingmen who were flying a dozen meters below his target, which reciprocated what the black and red craft just did to his ally. Though, he only hit one of the two engines, and while the MiG-31X/V kept climbing vertically, the Osean pilot was struggling to even get the proper inclination to finish the damaged South Belkan plane.

"Come on, don't stall now!" Blue rider three said out loud what he was thinking of his unperfect prototype in his two-tone dark-blue camo.

"Du bist zu langsam, (you're too slow) Osean." Schwarze six said, after outspeeding him, and now diving on him after a one-kilometer fast climb.

And the almost stalling Osean didn't resist very well the impact of a pair of missiles, which made him fall into a flat spin, one he had no hope to recover from. However, Schwarze six wasn't in the most ideal position, as he did stall too after enacting this vertical head-to-tail maneuver, and one more Avenger 2 decided to pursue him while he was briefly activating his afterburners to recover his speed.

"Don't let them do more damage to your craft, six." His leader warned him, while he flew below an Avenger at high speed, having successfully damaged this one head-on while avoiding the retaliation shots.

"I will do this one without taking anything more." Battenberg replied, having just avoided a pair of XMAAs from the Avenger pursuing him at his maximum speed.

Indeed, he didn't take anything more, except a few high-Gs as he performed a great looping, in which the Osean tried to follow him. But his greater speed and power allowed him to outfly the Osean, with his MiG-31 looping around the enemy craft, resulting in the South-Belkan getting in a perfect firing position.

"He just flew below me. What's that fleeing killer up to?" The Osean pilot who had just suffered high damage

"Well, killer's gonna kill" Zubov replied, while he began a loop to climb above the Osean. He was going to catch up with that flying wing very quickly and then death would catch up with the enemy pilot too.

"Somebody help meee..." The Osean pilot screamed, while seeing the augmented MiG-31 diving on him while he tried to leave the area as fast as he could.

He didn't receive any help. The only thing he would receive would be an ERAAM Schwarze leader fired as a rocket, aiming for the center of the cockpit right in front of him. The explosive mass and the speed broke the flying wing in half, while his Foxhound flew around in a spiraling motion.

He wasn't the only one to use their missiles as rockets. Schwarze four used one HGM to blow up a pair of fleeing Avengers that had tried to get in SOD range -the Belkan pilot saw them opening their long-range missile bay below the cockpit a split second before he fired his weapon-. The first was engulfed in the explosion and was reduced to a cloud of debris propelled in all directions at amazing speeds. And the second had his plane shattered by debris and went up in flames toward the iced sea.

Meanwhile, Schwarze three, five and eight dealt with seven F-20A spotting arctic camo, however it wasn't a pure white like the Yukte, but rather a dark grey that made them slightly harder to spot on the lead-colored sky that the sea reflected below them. Though, this wasn't as darkening as their pitch black they chose to keep.

It was funny that those planes named after one of the greatest predators in the sea fell prey to the three foxhounds. Diving from above on the Belkan plane skimming over the sea, they gunned three of them, before they could pull any evasive maneuvers.

"Fly faster! Only one of us needs to reach the Wieldvakian squadron to do a killing on them!" The Belkan leader exclaimed, as he witnessed the death of three of his brothers in arms, but still remained focused on his mission firsthand.

"Do we even have a chance against the vultures? They were already ready to kill any of us before they betrayed us." Another Tigershark pilot commented, feeling himself uneasy about his chances of survival, while he looked behind him using a small rear-view mirror only to see the three black fighters leveling over the waves, and releasing their missiles from close range.

"Shoot to kill. Live no survivor." Schwarze three ordered, being the lead plane amongst their sub formation, firing a total of three missiles on a single enemy fighter to ensure the pilot's death.

"Oh, you tried to pull up an evasive? Choke on your pride, Ralder!" Schwarze eight laughed at one North Belkan pilot as he managed to climb and slow while the foxhound was rushing to gun him.

But the Tigershark hadn't leveled that the Foxhound had already flown a small horizontal U-turn and filled the air intake of the F-20A with lead, effectively choking the smaller fighter. He saw it explode as he flew right by, as he climbed to meet up with the rest of his squadron.

"Czarty leader, we have some trouble dealing with the last strike force. Care to send one of your craft with those nice HGM of yours?" The Wieldvakian officer asked for help, as this last situation had proved to be more troublesome than the last two ones.

"I'll go. I have already suffered a good deal of damage; better give them some support there." Schwarze six indicated, turning away from his squadron that was slowly turning to the Northwest corner of the operational airspace, where those Yukte missile destroyers were.

"Gut. Czarty also transmitted that the enemy assault teams have neutralized the jammer blimps. Be ready to intercept the cruise missile sent from those Yukte ships on your way there. You should be seeing them on your radar, along with additional reinforcement from their motherland to disturb you and get those cruise missiles to their intended targets." Their operator from Tauberg informed them, with the very recently launched cruise missile having a red box all around them on their HUD to emphasize their destruction's priority.

"If they have only destroyed these ships' blimps, and if they're firing to destroy them, that means at least one of these ships is free." Schwarze five pointed out, as they were rushing to destroy the threat to those supertankers, which wouldn't tank more than one of these heavy-duty missiles made to destroy Aegis ships in one shot.

"Yeah, but it's now a bit damaged, so we can't afford to lose more time here." Schwarze 2 limited the enthusiasm of his comrade, having seen how the captain of this tanker had managed to get rid of a small gunship trying to assault them, but at great risk.

And while Schwarze six streaked toward the place where the two last tankers were waiting to be rescued, Schwarze 2 could only salute the bravery of the fifth tanker's crew. Indeed, as they arrived in the area, they were met with the toughest adversary they had met so far, an helicopter-carrier, which had trade some room on its deck for small anti-air vehicles, with enough self-propelled CWIS to give this usually lightly armed ship the firepower of a battleship, and prevent them to get any hits, especially for the slow flying Su-25Cs.

It had already launched a mixt of Mi-24 Hinds and AH-64 assault choppers, as well as a few Mi-26 Halos transport choppers against one of the tankers, and a few gunboats filled with marines toward the second. Most of the AH-64 didn't make the trip toward the tanker, but turned back to fire missiles at the Frogfoots, which gave the Mi-24 as well as the transport flotilla ample time to get to the tankers and began their assault.

On the other hand, the gunboats were less lucky, being slower than choppers, most of them were slaughtered by the heavy guns mounted on the Wieldvakian crafts and could not hope to evade the very fast red and black aircraft supporting them. Furthermore, the two Schwarze craft pursued them relentlessly, using their guns only had some had CWIS replacing their anti-aircraft gun. It was a hard task still, with them flying at the water level and the gunboats using RPGs at some point to create waves high enough to endanger them if they flew too close to them.

One managed to evade them, the first that left the protection of the assault carrier, a few minutes before they arrived on the scene, and thus succeeded in their approach of the fifth tanker, and be close enough so its massive shape would hide the small vessel.

"Tanker number five, we have a gunboat that is ready to board us at any moment, they are very close to the hull." One sailor emitted, frantically panicking, as he knew the aircraft could just gun a few men climbing there, they would need to sink the ship, and even a small ship like this one would leave a big scar on their hull if it exploded.

"We were trying to defend the sixth one a bit more, they have five Hinds and four Halos close enough to drop their marines." Czarty 4 defended their choice of action, although limited it was, as a few SAMs attached to the assault carrier, added to the sacrifice of the AH-64 heavily hampered them. Only the MiG-31X/Vs were successful against them, attacking them from above with a very sharp angle.

"Continue your support of the sixth tanker, pilots. We are outweighing that cockleshell by a few thousand. All power to port." The captain of the fifth supertanker ordered, quickly analyzing the situation.

"We might risk hull integrity if their ship explodes, sir." One sailor pointed out, worried for the few millions of liters of crude oil in their tanks.

"These new triple-hull tankers are supposed to resist collision with cliffs, or reefs. Let's remind those fools that sometimes, size does matter. All power to port, immediately!" The captain shouted, covering the voice of all his subordinates, who didn't waste a single time to apply full power to the still intact auxiliary propellers used to complement the rudder, overcoming the great inertia of the ship.

Of course, the Osean gunboat that had hid at a few meters of the ship, saw the behemoth turn at what seemed an appalling pace, for a ship of its size. They tried to turn and outspeed it, but they were matched by the giant. Some marines jumped into the iced water before the hull of the supertanker rammed them, bruising only its outer hull, while the small gunboat capsized and went below the far wider hull of the supertanker.

When the crew of the ship finished their hard turn, grinding to a difficult halt that made the ship list a bit, no gunboat was to be seen, nor any survivors. It sank very fast, without any under marine explosion to notice, nor hear from their low-level sonars made to detect whales, but who would have picked an explosion for sure.

"No sign of them, sir." One Wieldvakian sailor said, while patrolling the deck on a bike - necessary when you have a deck of more than six hundred meters long-.

"Good riddance." The captain celebrated their small success, while in the distance a few explosions were happening between the sixth tanker and the assault ships, as the last Apaches covering the troop carrier chopper were making their last stands.

Indeed, while the fifth had fared very well against its attackers, the other one, wasn't so lucky. The powerful machine guns of the Mi-24s had decimated their defensive forces outside the bridge, and in the small space, the atmosphere wasn't great. On this specific ship, the security forces were some former soldiers of the Romneyan republic, who weren't going to surrender to Yukte forces which had now annexed their country five years ago.

"Damn, they intercepted your RPG on the rooftop" The sixth ship's captain cursed, as the missile exploded in mid-air, caught by the powerful guns of the Mi-24 that had circled around to clear out a path as their forces onboard Mi-26s landed on the deck.

The retaliation shot didn't wait much to come from the hind still behind the deck, and not very far from the propulsion systems. The next second, a rocket blew their rudder to pieces, damaging their rudders heavily.

"Wait for the three to go around the bridge, that should leave one free." The commander of those mercenary marines guessed what could work better this time.

"That still makes a whole lot of marines to fight. How much did your sniper count?" The captain pointed out while looking out one of the windows of the bridge, to the deck illuminated by flares fired from the choppers to light up any defenders who had spent a bit of time adjusting to the dimed light, blinding many of them.

"Far too much for the dozen or so we still have in fighting shape. You have a point. Once that chopper is out of the picture, your sailors can get to the escape boats. We are ready to die to focus the attention of the three remaining elsewhere rather than on your solution of escape. Besides, your men ain't soldiers." The former Romneyan soldier recognized this sailor's point of view, and ready his grasp on his shotgun, a good weapon for the small alleyways and corridors of a ship.

"Schwarze six here, just climbed over the target, firing HGMs now." The third MiG-31X/V to be dispatched to help Czarty squad announced his arrival, while diving on the assault carrier, firing his standard missile and an ERAAMs as well to ensure that the three HGM he fired during his dive would reach his target. A few Su-25Cs fired their own missile to saturate the enemy defensive armament, and a few seconds later, a massive explosion shook the assault carrier.

"Damage report! Now!" The captain that had been thrown off his seat with a radar projector by the power of the blast asked with a weak voice, his breathing rendered heavy by a few very likely bruised ribs, if they were not outright broken.

"Ninety percent of the vehicles were ripped off their tethers. The remaining are burning." A now very afraid sailor that also painfully stood after his fall confirmed, before he, the captain and everyone still alive in the aisle were shot by the converging fire of five Wieldvakian attack planes, which had participated in the saturation attack right before. They also dropped the few bombs they had taken in case there was any big target to destroy

But the slaughter of the allied forces didn't stop there. Many crews of the amphibious AA guns and CWIS self-propelled vehicles were only concussed from their violent fall after being blown off from the ship like wisps of straw. A few didn't make it and drowned right after they hit the sea level, but quite a few survived their endeavor, at least for a time.

"Finish those big fishes, Czarty, we are going to defend this last one ship." Schwarze 2 said, while turning away from the now fuming assault carrier, who was burning at a relatively quick pace, with the bombing having gone through its deck, and having set a few choppers stored their ablaze as well as their ammo.

"It'll be a pleasure, Vulture. Act fast." Czarty's leader complied, while the three foxhounds streaked toward the supertanker, where a small explosion could be seen behind its bridge.

On the North-East fringe of the map, the five remaining Schwarze in top fighting shape had arrived in front of a volley of cruise missiles sent by the Yukte missile destroyers, as well as a few Su-33s that might have hoped to occupy them long enough to allow the cruise missile to reach their target. Those had a two-tone jungle green camo, indicating they weren't in their usual environment. It had a good meaning, which meant that Yuktobania was coming short of specialized squadrons.

"Just one missile needs to go through, decoy crafts." A cruiser captain indicated with the usual false sense of mightiness that the supposedly glorious Yuktobanian navy officer always had.

"You ain't decoys. Rather target practice." Schwarze 4 criticized how low his former comrades had fallen, with even more disdain than the Yukte officer that seemed in charge of the operation, with his commanding tone.

"I'll show you target practice, Traitor!" An infuriated Yukte pilot groaned at his former comrade that was taunting them, as they didn't even slowdown in their approach. Their group of Sea Flanker fired a volley of XMAAs, but all were lost to the water as the MiG-31s flew below their line of fire, closer to the flightpath of the cruise missiles.

"Feuer." Zubov replied, coldly and disdainful toward those Yuktes.

And with those words the five MiG-31s opened fire, using both missiles and gunfire to harm the Su-33 facing them, with many of them having their damaged engines spewing only black smoke after this brutal exchange of fire. Furthermore, the two Foxhounds on the flank of their five-plane formation, went to flank the Yukte craft in their jungle camo, contrasting with the dark icy waters in which they fell, gunned down from their side.

"How did they tear through us so quickly?" One Yukte pilot questioned their chance of success, while everyone around him was dying quickly to over-accurate fire from the deserter killer.

"You are burdened by the truth. The truth, that you cannot win." Schwarze 5 replied as he got to the six of the sole survivors of the deadly flank he enacted with Schwarze 8, while their leader and their number three and four were still skimming toward the Yukte missile cruiser.

The two Schwarze finished their enemies, then flew above them before hunting the cruise missiles as they accelerated toward the tankers they had targeted. While they were doing so, the three others caught up with their targets, and managed to neutralize their cruise missiles as they were in their most critical phase, in the few seconds in their vertical flight as they were fired out of the Yukte's missile bays.

They only grazed the missile with machine gun fire, fully knowing that this light fire wasn't going to cut through the missile's warhead and cause any explosion. What they aimed at were the small reaction control systems on their sides that would make them turn and set for their final course.

"Damn it, only one is away." A missile operator on one of the Yukte ships complained, as their missile flew vertically and would need to be detonated if they didn't want the missile to have uncontrolled ballistic descent on their own ship.

"Was away." Schwarze three corrected, after firing a pair of ERAAMs at the cruise missile, which was still in its boosting phase. The two heavy-duty missiles caught the sea-skimming missile, and the burning remains of the three missiles fell into the sea after a fairly noticeable explosion.

The conversation between the Yukte missile destroyers and their attackers was cut short when one of the intercepted missiles didn't just splash into the water. The RCS thrusters that Schwarze one aimed at didn't shut down, but exploded, and the sudden reaction sent the missile back to the sender. The CWIS and AA guns that were locked on the black and red craft were instantaneously rerouted to fire at the fast and large projectile, but to no avail, and thus the heavy missile made a hard impact with the Nanuchka-class missile destroyer.

"Great shot. I can even see it from here." Their operator from Tauberg observed the destructive outcome of this missile interception.

"This should weaken their CWIS network. Let's wait for fünf and acht to come back, and they will help us send those ships under." Schwarze one commented on the situation, while the three Foxhounds were slightly retreating to evade the heavy anti-aircraft fire coming from the three enemy ships, helped in their partial retreat by the thick smoke pouring from the ablaze Yukte ship.

"We just killed the last cruise missile, back on our way." Schwarze five answered the call of his leader, readying his last HGMs for what they thought to be their last targets of the day.

"This is the missile destroyer Zutakov to GHQ. Unable to comply with cruise missile launch. Requesting for ASM planes to be dispatched on aera immediately! Do you hear me, command?" The captain leading the now three-ship strong flotilla asked with despair, as the last Schwarze planes were approaching fast, while the other three had climbed out of reach of their defensive armament.

"GHQ to Zutakov, we have already inbound ASM planes. ETA, thirty minutes." One liaison officer from the allied GHQ transmitted, seeing the Bm-335s on his screen slowly creeping toward the target area. Thankfully some of those reflectors had been destroyed when their enemy had decided to intercept the nuclear warheads at high altitude, or only a fraction of this anti-ship squadron would have made it to the area of operation.

"We won't see them, but it's a relief to know this operation won't be a total failure." Another Yukte officer sighted, as the black and red crafts kept drifting out of the way of their fire, mocking their power.

"Rest assured we'll do everything for it to be one total disaster, Yuktobanian." Schwarz 5 crushed their hope as he and the other Schwarze had finally regrouped with the three others and were opening fire with all their remaining HGMs on the three missile destroyers, while also firing a few standard missiles to oversaturate their defensive grid.

A few missiles and one or two HGMs detonated from the heavy defensive fire, but what went through these defensive countermeasures also went through the hull of those enemy ships. All Yukte ships went under quickly, with one exploding before going under, as the Nanuchka-class missile destroyer was hit by a total of five Hypersthene missiles, detonating every munition onboard.

"Cruise missile threat has been silenced." Schwarze one announced, while the fuming wreckages were sinking into the icy waters.

"But we're pretty low on ammo." One member of Schwarze pointed out, as this was the third operation they had undertaken without rearming. One good thing was the very great range of their fighters that meant they still had a good amount of fuel, enough to wait for some reinforcements.

"I have some good news and bad news." Their operators at Tauberg began his report, as planes were approaching the AO from opposite directions. And from opposite sides of this war too.

"Tell the bad news first." Schwarze eight said, wanting to know what potentially worst reinforcement could arrive for the allied forces that they would have to face.

"Gut. We have Bm-335s in ASM configuration incoming, supported by a shadow group and some standard hornets." Their operator read the few pictures that their satellite network had captured.

"And the good news is?" Schwarze eight resumed his question, hoping some reinforcement of Wieldvakia or South Belka could even the matchup in fire power they would lack after this prolonged engagement.

"We have the 302nd and 301st group of the third Wieldvakian unit incoming. Small squadrons of light fighters, but enough for what they will go against, with your support of course." Their operator explained to them who their new allies for the oncoming last battle of the AO would be.

"Anything with missiles and guns is worth something in a fight against overwhelming odds like this one. Let's wait around here, so their shadow group won't open a path for the ASMs while we have our back turned." Schwarze leader said, having good hopes that this little help from Wieldvakia would be enough. After all, those men had seen their countrymen die to those so-called allied forces and would have plenty of reason to be thirsty for Osean blood.

But in the other theater of operation, conditions were a bit more severe for their forces. From where the chopper carrier had sunk, the Su-25C witnessed a violent explosion, as a lone Mi-24 was struck by multiple RPGs.

This left the back of the tanker free of threat, and thus its crew was beginning to disembark, while the intact Hinds and Halos were doing the same on the front of the ship, keeping their distance from the isle of the ship, in case more RPGs would be fired while they were vulnerable.

"We can gain you some time, should be enough to be out of their range and under friendly support." The Romneyan soldier indicated to the captain, as he received some radio message indicating that the doors had been locked, blocked, and trapped. They wouldn't give any gifts to these invaders that had already invaded their homes.

"I'm staying with you. It's my ship." The captain stated stern in his will to go down following his duty.

And with his stern look, he went to have a look through a window at the advancing assault forces, slightly delayed by some well-hidden snipers. He was ready to help those brave men to do the ultimate sacrifice for his country. Actually, he would've, if the next second, something hadn't hit him hard in the back of his head, and he felt unconscious.

"Sorry captain. My contract forces me to leave your ship so you can live." The mercenary sighted as he spoke, a bit sorry for his act against a man of good will. But one brave sacrifice wouldn't change their fate, when there were now more than 500 Yuktes on this ship. Only a miracle like the Belkan Wunderwaffe could do something, and that would still destroy the tanker.

"We'll transport him to the lifeboats. We'll never forget your sacrifice, Romneyans." The second in command of the tanker said his goodbye to those last standers. Him and another sailor went to fetch the captain, and lifting him up, went down the back of the isle, while the Yukte forces were slowly creeping forward.

"Good luck, sailors." One Romneyan soldier wished them, knowing that luck would serve them better than his team. He then proceeded to crack a window to fire at the Yukte forces, which were still three hundred meters away, but closing.

"Be ready, people. Let's show those Yukte that they won't get through this easily. Open fire." Their leader tried to boost the resolve of the mere dozens of men and women that had left Romney after the Yukte invasion in the 1990s. Some were still fighting there, but without Osea to finance this rebellion against Yuktobania, they had not many resources.

"Damn, those Romneyan have some good fire power." One Yukte officer commented, while his men took cover behind some railings. They couldn't use their choppers to clean the command post, as they needed to take it, not blow it up.

"We weren't expecting such heavy weaponry. I have four Spetsnaz in heavy armor down. Cuka." One other officer complained, having seen the big soldier in their bulky armor fall one by one, pierced by some very likely illegal weaponry their enemy were using.

Indeed, they had been pierced by bullets of depleted uranium, which was coming from some old storage abandoned by foreign Osean operatives in their country. They had such a need for those men in the war against Belka that they forgot the promises they made to every nation Yuktobania had subjugated. And now their allies were paying the prize.

"Return fire. We need to pin them down while our men reach the isle." A commanding officer ordered, following the scene from a Mi-26 that had a mini command post onboard, with slightly heavier armor and better sensors.

"We might have some more threatening enemies to deal with, commander. Fighter incoming!" A scout shouted, as he had barely seen the black and red Foxhounds skimming over the sea, toward their position.

"All men, take cover. Run for the choppers and use the RPGs!" Was their commander's response, not knowing how to act as all their choppers were powerless against such firepower.

"Look, Schwarze is coming." One Romneyan noticed too, and observed the Yukte running scared, while the still flying Hinds were turning to engage these new enemies.

"Interesting. We might have to improvise a bit, but their arrival is welcome, for once." Their leader commented, having other memories of those planes, associated with dread. They had caused enough dread in this war against the true Romneyan resistance for him to remember them five years later.

A few seconds later, gunfire rained down on the ship, scattering Yukte marines that hadn't had the time to get to cover, wounding and killing many of them. Some managed to take cover inside the Mi-26s, but that didn't protect them fully from the fire of the three foxhounds. Here and there, small fires had been created when fuel lines or tanks were hit, forcing the Yukte even more to neglect the threat of those mercs.

"Return fire, ret..." Their commander shouted at the top of his lungs before a missile impacted his Mi-26. A lot of shrapnels entered the small command post, and some hit their commander critically, making him stop his shouting as he fell to the ground, bleeding heavily.

"Try not to crash on the bridge. You don't want to set the fuel tanks below on fire!" His second advised the three Hinds that had fired some missiles in the direction of the Schwarze craft, only to see their shot lost themselves in the sea, as the fighter pilots had not much difficulty to evade these.

And the retaliation shot came just after this order, with two Hinds struck by missiles, and the other hit by gunfire as he was trying to align himself out of the enemies' line of fire. The two hits by missiles managed to keep their craft in the air long enough so they would crash into the sea, not wanting to risk their allies' life in a hazardous landing.

But the third one had only suffered low damage, and thus the pilot tried to land through autorotation, with the chopper sliding slightly toward the isle as it touched down. It had only landed a mere dozen meters from the isle, where a collision would have been a disaster.

"We managed to land. Exiting the co.." the copilot announced over the waves, as he was opening the canopy to exit his now out-of-commission craft. He sighed as he did so, having been really close to death. Though he didn't realize that death had never been nearer, as the pilot was beginning to leave his seat.

The reason why his radio transmission was cut was some fifty-caliber bullet in his chest that had gone through the two sides of his bullet-resistant vest, and only got stuck in the metallic water bottle he had behind his seat. His pilot wasn't luckier, getting headshot by a sniper operating from one of the cranes, where he had been hidden and firing on Yukte soldiers before they ran away temporarily.

"All hands, rappel down. We have only one shot at this. Snipers, keep them busy." Their leader said, as himself was fixing some cable they had in case they needed to climb in the variety of missions such ground mercenaries could do in their contract.

"These Schwarze are doing a nice job of keeping them busy, in all honesty." One sniper replied, shooting a few soldiers as he spoke, his eyes catching a glimpse of the action far at the stern of the ship, were gunfire and RPGs were being exchanged between the two factions.

It only took them a few seconds to rappel down and get to the chopper. They ran for it, using its shape to hide their approach. Also, the smoke coming from the two burning choppers that had crashed in the nearby sea was a good partial cover. A few Yukte were still breathing in the cargo compartment of the Hind, though most of them had taken bullets from the 23 millimeters cannons of the Foxhounds.

"Finish them and empty the chopper. They're dead weight." Their leader sentenced those Yuktes to a quick death, as he was going to the back of the chopper so he could have a better view of any incoming soldiers.

He heard some Yukte wounded complaining, begging for mercy, as his men were cleaning the chopper. One woman of his team replied harshly to one Yukte before she coldly executed him:

"You're all dead on this ship. I'm doing you a favor here."

"These Yuktes. They burned the fields of our peasants and burned every crop so our starved people would yield. Let's pay them back." Their leader reminded them, as he was marching toward a column of Yukte soldiers, with a pretty big grenade in his hand. Some more mercenaries followed him, as they knew what they would use soon. Snipers that head that call ready the grenade launchers on their rifles, and five seconds later, they fired this very special ordnance, as their leader, launched his to some Yuktes.

And with this ordnance came a heavy cloud of white particles, that caused some of the Yukte soldiers engulfed in it to choke as thine particles entered their trachea and lungs. This made them stall in their advance but didn't harm them so much. They thought it was only some tear gas, nothing more. Their enemies were mere mercs, not professional soldiers with great arsenal.

"Those sec forces are using some pretty annoying tear gas, but the wing should disperse it in a few minutes." One commanding officer pointed out, being fine with waiting while they were still exchanging fire with the Schwarze planes.

"Let's get these Yukte fired up." The Romneyan leader joked about the fate he deserved to the Yukte invaders, as he fired a flare gun toward the cloud that wasn't made of tear gas, but of flour. And now those who had burned his people's crop would really have the backfire.

Immediately, a ball of fire was created when the flare went through the cloud, before spreading very quickly through the air, turning the cloud in which a small hundred Yuktes were into an inferno. The flames were brutal, burning them in every inch of exposed skin, and overheating their guns, which burned their hands.

The Romneyan didn't look for long, as they retreated toward the chopper, joining up with their snipers that had come out of their hiding spot as the fire was raging. If they had looked backward, they would have seen several soldiers jumping into the water as they tried to escape the flames, or for some, to extinguish themselves to avoid a death by fire, one of the most horrible ways to die.

The damaged chopper waited for them, with the reignited turbine spewing a thick black smoke very noticeable, proof of the shots of some Schwarze plane that had reached it. The one that had gone for the pilot seat greeted them with a bit of uncertainty, as he was not that optimist about their chances at flying this thing up to a safe spot.

"We only have one good turbine, and the counter-rotor is a bit damaged. It will be a rough flight, sir."

"Always better than being defoliated." Their leader appreciated the warning but would be fine if they died as free men that had gotten a shot at some Yuktes rather than executed, as they weren't regular soldiers, and no official laws protected them for this reason. Also, what he said had a specific sense, with those Wieldvakian ready to use everything not to let Osea get this fuel.

"Czarty leader to Schwarze two, what was this fire on the tanker 6?" Kepinski worried that their support might have fired one HGMs at the Yukte forces, which could endanger the crew if they hadn't evacuated yet.

"It wasn't us. I think it was the security forces." Schwarze 2 replied, looking backward as he was going away from the ship after a short strafing run, evading some RPGs.

"Schwarze 6 here, I've got one Hind taking off. I was pretty sure I gunned it, but It won't take long to finish it." One other Foxhound pilot noticed the damaged chopper taking off, almost colliding with the isle of the ship, before heading toward the direction of the fifth tanker.

"Alsikan one to Tauberg, please set that hind's IFF to friendly. We are leaving the sixth tanker and will try to land on the fifth. That pile of Yukte metal won't get us further." The Romneyan leader prevented this little friendly fire, using a name he knew the Schwarze would recognize. After all, it was a name they knew too, when they were on the other side in the Romneyan conflict.

"You're still alive, Alsikan? I thought we blew you up inside that town." Schwarze 2 exclaimed with great surprise, not necessarily happy to meet those men he helped slaughter, but it was like some guilt of what he did there was going away.

"You almost did, Sergei. Almost." The Romneyan admitted his survival was more due to luck than anything that day, as he remembered having his wounded body dragged away from some debris, losing two toes in the process. Their losses were eighty percent that fateful day.

"What did you use, Alsikan one?" Kepinski asked, wondering what they had used to create that ball of fire that didn't ignite the tanker, luckily for them.

"Poor's white phosphorus. Or Flour if you want to be precise." Alsikan indicated, revealing one of their secrets of guerrilla warfare.

"Tauberg to Alsikan, your survival is great news. Wieldvakia just sent me some message regarding how they would deal with the lost tanker. Schwarze, you might regroup and wait for their reinforcement, you'll need them to destroy the oncoming ASM planes. Czarty, resume your marine patrol and keep an eye for any threats." Their operator at Excalibur transmitted, while he could see on his screen the progression of the towing ships that had already reached the two other groups of super tankers. This operation was going to be a resounding success. And the little victory the allied forces thought they had for now would be ruined.

"Schwarze 2, six and seven, come back with us, let's welcome this Shadow group. That'll only be the third we have slaughtered this far." Zubov relayed the order, ready to take down some more Growlers.

"Ver, they won't live long." Schwarze seven complied, as he left the vicinity of the sixth tanker to rejoin with his squad, a dozen kilometers north.

"Kepinski to Tauberg, Roger. Resuming patrol over the target area until tankers are in the safe zone." The Wieldvakian leader resumed his first mission, before things escalate a bit too much, and required the help of Schwarze.

And now, there was only one final battle left to be fought over this area. Both sides were moving their known pieces, and some hidden ones too. Though, which one would win the final fight wasn't left to fate. But to the great strategy they were part of, conceived in the heart of the Sword of kings. This strategy had only met success today, and all those affiliated with South Belka were pretty keen on keeping it that way.

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 24/06/1995, 22:30, Weather: light cloud coverage, risk of thunder

On board the B-2A which had been watched very closely by its very unfriendly escort, the atmosphere was pretty tense. And seeing the huge black shape of the one-kilometer tower of death illuminated by the artificial northern lights dwarfed them to a point that they did not feel any hope.

"We have no chance of doing anything here" Her copilot wrote on his phone, and she looked it up immediately.

"WE MUST ACT OR DIE" Amy Pitt replied, having let her cap locked as she was not focused on her writing but on the luminescent column above the tower itself. She has no way of knowing what they were shooting at. She only wished it wasn't at any of her still alive friends - whose numbers were slowly diminishing as the war was dragging on without a visible end-.

"I agree, but the weapon in additional bays won't do much against the tower." Their last crew member added to their conversation, still using this silent means of communication, who was also mesmerized and terrified by the weapon of terror standing in front of them.

"Oseans, lower your gear and follow the ILS on your HUD." One operator in the control tower of TAB indicated them. He hoped they would just surrender, for their sake rather than his.

"Roger, beginning the landing procedure." A reluctant Volcan 1 complied with the order, and began her descent toward one of the runways wide enough for a B-52 to take off

As she got closer and closer, she could see the air defense of the airbase. Excalibur was an impossible target for one craft alone, and she thought the airbase would have only light defenses, thus making it a realistic target. But the two railway that were linking the main complex to the airbase had two of those RTLS on each way, and many AA guns and SAMs were lining the runway and surrounding the multitude of domed hangar at the North of the base, with some having weapons on the hills they were embedded into.

"Saw cranes fixing their solar panels. The Allied did damage. We can do more." The copilot reminded them, having noticed this as he looked at the bottom of the superweapon while they were turning toward the runway.

"One solar panel, insignificant. We should surrender." Their third crewmen advised them, not wanting to be obliterated by those otherworldly weapons.

Though, all three of them lost it when a message of unknown sender appeared on their screen:

"That one is right. Also, lying is bad."

"Zorn to Volcan, I ordered you to use all your ammo on your Osean friends. Why did you disobey me?" Iskanda spoke on the waves this time, visibly angered by the false cooperation of the Oseans. Not that she had believed them to be genuine defectors a single second.

"I don't think your uncle would be really happy to hear that you have failed in your infiltration, Amy." Pixy mocked her, with the souvenir of the very unkind conversation he had with Chris Pitt still recent in his memory.

"You sent people I knew to a cold, inhuman death, mercenary!" Amy Pitt shouted at the merc, who had, like Iskanda, lined up with the B-2A to disintegrate it when Iskanda would say the word.

"And I'll send some more people you knew to a very hot, inhuman death." Iskanda threatened the OIA operatives with a rude voice without an ounce of femininity in it.

Maybe they were right to say on the first day they met those killers don't have gender, Pixy realized when hearing this horrible threat. At least, cold suppressed pain.

"You wouldn't waste the data of this stealth bomber." Amy Pitt tried a little bluff with this infuriated opponent.

"Zorn zu RTLS siebzehn bis einundzwanzig, (Furry to RTLS 17 to 21) Feuer." Iskanda sentenced the crew of this B-2 to be burned alive if they didn't surrender immediately.

"Ver, Feuer." The operatives in the railway artillery units opened fire without mercy on the B-2.

Onboard the B-2, the situation went from hazardous to deadly. In mere seconds, the lower half of their plane was shredded, with their own plating getting sublimated by the very powerful energy Waffen firing from what could be considered point-blank for such heavy platforms with more than one hundred kilometers of reach. Alarms blared in all directions, with the damage control system displaying a big sign in red letters "DANGER".

The three men crew didn't waste any time and punched their ejection seat, with the canopy being blown off by explosive bolts, before their own rocket propeller seat kicked in and propelled them out of the now burning bomber. Very quickly, they did the man-seat separation, and were falling to the ground, while their enemies were finishing the burning bombers, which was going to burst in a few moments.

"What should we do for the crew?" One RTLS operator, as his targeting computer had locked to the chute of one of the men descending from their stricken bomber.

"Send them to hell. I'll deal with Miss Pitt." Iskanda didn't hesitate as she issued the order, having no qualms executing those men.

"Roger. Targeting chutes." One other operator complied, a bit bothered by what they were asked to commit, but Oseans didn't have many qualms firing at their civilians when they exited Hoffnung.

"It's a bit extreme, I'll admit it." Zveda commented, while she was firing a missile toward the burning bomber, to be sure it would blow sky high and not impact the ground. Also, setting her craft in this direction spared her the execution.

"It's no different than Hellige Kolumne. Only a faster execution." Iskanda argued, remembering how many of her own friends died this way. At least most of those accepted their death. Not those Oseans.

The third crew member didn't have much time to regret his life nor his decisions. He felt some heat as his chute burned, then he burned. A small flash of light was seen from the ground as his side arm exploded when some EW fire landed on his body, shattering him into a million pieces.

The second had more time to see his death coming, a bit pushed around by winds that were stronger than anticipated. Nevertheless, he witnessed his chute going up in flames very quickly, and at one point, saw his comrade explode. He didn't want to have such an excruciating death. He chose his own way to go down.

Gravity would be his death, he chose, as he managed to pull his knife out of his leg pocket, and cut the harness of his chute, struggling against the thick fabric made to resist such an attempt. He had some burns on his back and face as the burning artificial fabric of his chute melted partially and fell on him, but before the fire reached him, he was already falling toward the ground.

"That's brave to take his own life like that." Günthar recognized that this Osean did display some level of bravery here.

"We'll bury his remains with honors if they don't scatter too much on impact" Iskanda laughed at this remark, though she respected that Osean's choice.

"I wonder if Amy has enough guts to do the same." Pixy wondered, as he saw his leader close with the chute of the third crewmen.

A few seconds before the Griffon reached the chute, their B-2, and its hidden payload they hadn't had time to activate exploded, and the blast made the Osean pilot let go of her knife she had taken reluctantly after having seen her dear friend and copilot take his own life with it. She didn't know if she was brave enough to kill herself in order to spare the pain of this very hot death. None had ever survived it to tell how it felt to have your own body blown up by their Femtolasers, but she was pretty sure it would hurt like hell.

As she approached the chute, Iskanda climbed over it, hoping to set it on fire with her engine, as she didn't even want to look at this weakling that tried to trick them. Not that seeing her filled with lead would be a hard thing to look at, but seeing the chute go in flames toward the ground would be a nice sight in her rearview mirror as she climbed toward the Azur.

Though, she had forgotten one thing, that was specific to her plane: the Griffon had no post-combustion, as the RAMJET engine was used for the high speed, suppressing the need for such a system.

"What? Don't tell me I missed setting that annoying Osean girl on fire." Iskanda rumbled, slightly frustrated to see the intact chute going a bit further to the ground, as her thrust had only pushed on its fabric without igniting it.

"Du fehlst, (you missed) Zorn." Kupchenko commented, as he was there too, arriving from his assignment, while the Netz squadron had stayed in their patrol area.

"Do you want us to target her? Her chute is going over the forest." One operator asked, only to be replied to a bit harshly by the main involved person.

"Bring her back alive. I want to deal with her personally." Iskanda stated with murderous intent, licking her chops at the idea of doing a good old beating down to death on the ground. She was like these vicious predators that had hurt their prey and made it bleed enough to follow them, but not enough to instill some false hopes of survival in that weak prey mind.

"You heard the "Zorn", set out a manhunt." Kupchenko ordered, while his flight was rejoining with the Schwarze Luchs squadron to land following them.

"Roger, transmitting the orders to the forest teams, sending predicted fall areas." One operator replied, following on a close proximity radar the small silhouette growing a bit closer each second as she was nearing the ground.

"Also, no debris has endangered the runway, you're all clear to land. Schwarze Luchs, you're first. Schwarze Falke flight, you can land in your specific hangars."

"Roger, don't take too much time finding this damn OIA operative." Iskanda set herself on a landing pattern, with her wingmen close on her. Some rookies find those kinds of landings to be dangerous, as other planes could render their planes unstable at low speed, but this was no hurdle for her.

"Don't take too much time indeed, if we don't want this girl to fall prey to other predators than yourself, and that you know very well." Kupchenko advised his men to hurry, as the area had its own patrol that would be as merciless as the bane of the Hexen, like his mother now called his new "friend".

"Ver, Herr Direktor." One team on the ground relayed, as the men were running on the terrain they knew very well, while they knew for certain that this Osean lady had few chances of running away for long. If her chute hadn't gotten her stuck into some treetops, as it could happen when falling over dense forest like these.

Wieldvakian Economic Exclusive Area, Arctic Sea, 24/06/1995, 22:40, Weather: medium cloud cover and sea fog

By this time, most of the tankers had been joined by towing ships, which made them execute U-turn maneuvers on the water, and began tracking them toward the Wieldvakian territorial waters where they would have protection from shore-based batteries, as well as long-range SAMs situated further inland. The Mi-24 had landed safely on the fifth tanker, were he rejoined the sailors that had fled while they covered them in what they thought initially to be a self-sacrifice. Their captain hadn't regained consciousness, but both mercs and sailors would know that he would be in a pretty bad mood when they would tell him that they abandoned his ship to these Yukte marines.

"This is Pelikan squadron, joining the fight patrol" The 302nd group leader announced, in their F-16C armed to the teeth with air-to-air missiles, as they were in an anti-ASM plane mission. Their livery was one of two shades of blue, with the body and wings in a darker blue, and the wing tips, leading edge and tail in a lighter blue, with a yellow line separating the two shades, and black radome.

"This is the 301st group, Paf (peacock in polish) squadron. We'll show them what we can do more than display some nice feathers." The leader of the MiG-21 fighter squadron showed his eagerness to fight despite their squadron being only used for acrobatics and aggressor roles. Their paintjob was a simple grey with peacock feathers painted on the bleeding edge of their wings.

"Yeah, let's burn theirs." A younger pilot exclaimed his equal will to fight to his elders. This was the other feature of this squadron, which had half of older pilots, and half of aggressor pilots in training.

"I see that everyone here is in a very good disposition to slaughter some Osean and Belkan forces." Zubov stated on a rather calm tone, while the three squadrons were joining together in a super formation, with the eight Schwarze on two separate lines of 4, flanked on one side by the six F-16C and on the other six Fishbeds.

"All forces annihilate these ASM planes and their escort. Not one is allowed to go through." The operator at Tauberg indicated, as both their formation and the enemy formation were getting closer and closer. He had the advantage that satellite data of this resolution were not affected by the ECM pods on the Growlers, which made them hard for the fighter pilots to see beyond their jamming.

"We'll deal with this small shadow group, then you're free to hunt as you wish, Wieldvakians." Zubov set up for how this battle would unfold, as he tried to see the small hornets on visual range, since radar wouldn't be of any help for now.

"So, visitors first, and then the locals? Fine to me." Pelikan 3 interpreted this order like a sport announcer would do, readying his XMAA for when the jamming would be cleared.

"If you black their radar long enough, we'll be in range." One Bm-335N pilot recalled himself, as the Growlers were flying in front of them, acting as a radar screen, while the three lines of four Lindwurms were flanked by standard hornets, with only one hornet at the back of the formation. Their escort was not very impressive, though it might have to do with all the losses that Schwarze had already inflicted to the allied forces here and elsewhere sometime prior.

"We'll show you what real darkness is, when we'll send you to the abyss." Schwarze 6 snapped back at the North Belkan, which went silent for a bit after this serious threat.

"Just fire at them. They can't evade everything." One Growler WSO suggested, as the MIG-31s were getting closer, almost at XMAA range. They were surprised that none of those CSB craft had fired their extreme long-range missiles, but they knew those planes were almost out of ammo.

"They have not anything more to throw at us, and the others can't reach us with their jamming!" One Osean pilot displayed some joy, as a few of his targets had to do complicated dived while flying astray to evade their fire, and thus gave them some time to advance.

"One can have a gun jammed, but you cannot jam guns." One old member of Paf squadron quoted, countering the argument of these Osean pilots, which had the entire Schwarze flight lined up on them, and ready to use this very weapon.

"You're right, Wieldvakian. Make these Oseans choke on Belkan lead." Zubov agreed, while he was accelerating toward the leader of the shadow group. It would only be the second group they would wipe out, but maybe not the last.

"Are they just weaving through our missiles at Mach 1?" One flabbergasted Osean realized that their volley of fire was not as successful as they thought it would be at first.

"Yeah, they are. Ready for their assault." One slightly afraid WSO noticed that the interval between the two formations of black crafts had gone shorter and shorter.

And less than a minute after they started their XMAAs volley, the EA-18Gs had to face the retaliatory shots. A few of them tried to fire back, but the MiG-31s went too fast for their missile to connect, while theirs did wonders, with Schwarze five managing to land a perfect missile shot as he fired his pair of standard missiles inverted and inverted back after flying past his burning target.

"I'm on the leader." Zubov announced, as he had the lead plane right over him at his twelve.

Announcing his kill did spoil the surprise a bit, but it didn't give the enemy leader much time to face this threat. only a bit of time to face death. The Foxhound was advancing so low and so fast that he had trouble figuring where it was in the first place.

The Osean captain began to dive to engage his South Belkan enemy in an aerial joust, but the vulture wasn't a man relying on chivalrous behavior to win his battle. Zubov went vertical right below his target, spraying bullets on the ECM pod strapped to the belly of the plane, and through it, setting the engines on fire.

The burning Osean screamed as he kept diving toward the sea where he ended in a geyser of metal and vapors, while Schwarze 1 just flew around, before leveling above the Lindwurms so he could claim some last kills, while waiting for the other to kill their jammer.

Though, the Wieldvakian hadn't fully committed to the engagement, as one more Growler was still flying. This one had been attacked by Schwarze six and seven and had taken advantage of the little damage they had sustained during the previous part of their mission.

Thus, the Osean had decided to go for a long climb, managing to evade the first gun burst of the two Foxhounds. Partially, to be honest, as he felt some ailerons become inoperative as he had some trouble keeping his stability while in this long climb.

"Keep climbing, their engines might have some issue at high altitude if they suffered enough damage." His WSO, a brunet-haired woman in her thirties, said, looking for the two Foxhounds that were at the limit of missile range, but closing. Her task was challenging, as the two black planes were not that visible with the little light at this time of the day.

"I'm not sure. Our engines are not made to outclimb foxhounds. We might suffer engine damage too." His pilot conceded, seeing a few gauges here and there not that happy with the current strain they were imposing on their fighter.

"I think your flight won't be the sole reason for engine damage." A Wieldvakian from Paf squadron pointed out, as he leveled his gunsight on their engine, having climbed a bit faster than him. He was amongst the young aggressors and was definitively going to get a good point from his elders for his daring maneuver.

And with these words, Wieldvakian bullets tore through one of his engines, and the Growler fell almost instantaneously after a mere second of struggle against gravity, the inevitable force of the universe. The two Foxhounds following him quickly move out of the way, leveling and darting the hell out of his flightpath, not without firing a missile each at the falling Growler.

Struck in more critical systems than it possessed, the Growler exploded one or two kilometers before the waterline, while his three murderers were joining the furball that had just begun, as Pelikan leader fired his XMAAs once the jamming was fully cleared out. The whole squadron followed.

The Bm-335Ns that had already suffered some damage by Schwarze pilots that had finished their targets and fired on the ASM-repurposed planes with their guns or unguided missiles fell in droves. Their defensive armament, which could only throw back one lone fighter were quickly saturated, and even their sturdier airframe, which was made to grant the crew more survivability, didn't resist this firepower much than C-130s entering an Hellige Kolumne.

And while the Lindwurms were burning, the hornets were getting blown up into bits by the agile MiG-21s. A few went down head-on, while running away from their escort position, as the black and red craft were harassing them without end.

One older pilot in MiG-21 managed to get three kills, as they were running right in his path, firing one QAAM on the two at the outside of the three-plane formation, while he fired his gun at the middle craft.

Of course, the last hornet, the one that was tailing the Lindwurms, thought he could attempt to flee. But fairly quickly, he found himself tailed by a Fishbed, which fired a pair of missiles in quick succession. Only one of the two hit, but it was enough to damage his engines greatly, and caused his speed to die down.

"Surrender, Osean." The young Wieldvakian tried for once to save an enemy instead of outright killing him, flying at the left of the Osean and oscillating from left to right on the roll axis to give the "follow-me" code to the Osean pilot in case his radio didn't work anymore.

"I don't surrender to anarchist-aligned third world countries." The Osean pilot replied in a very impolite manner, while trying to use his damaged rudders to pivot onto the Fishbed.

"I gave you a chance. Farewell, Osean." The Wieldvakian pilot let this insult slide, knowing that dead people' words hold no meaning, and this Osean would be amongst the dead people very soon.

The Wieldvakian shut down his afterburners that had allowed him to outspeed the F/A-18C, then slowed down to align himself with the enemy plane. He saw the Osean do him a bras d'honneur, and to this insult he replied with lead. He pulled out a very sharp turn that made him arrive in the nine hours of the hornet and riddled it with his gun. The already damaged plane shattered even before touching the waves, while its dead pilot filled with lead didn't eject for fairly obvious reasons...

"It was a nice try, Paf 4." Schwarze six acknowledged the genuine intent of this young pilot, that unlike them, had seen less horrors, and thus could show more restraint.

"These Oseans don't like to see some minor country resisting their grasp, especially when said country has a lot of oil." Pelikan leader commented on the Osean mindset against smaller countries that weren't equal superpowers or a Wunderwaffen-owning new country.

"Speaking of oil, we don't have that much fuel in reserve. How much time do we have to stay there, Tauberg?" Zubov intervened, seeing that all this rushing-on from one place to another, and the sole duration of their mission was slowly eating at their fuel reserve.

"Well, the tankers two and one have been reached by the towing ships, and the other towing ships are nearing on the other tankers still under our control. About the last, Wieldvakia has just launched an ASM plane of their own to deal with this issue. You have to stay until the matter is resolved." Their operator at Tauberg indicated

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 24/06/1995, 22:45, Weather: light cloud coverage, risk of thunder

The Osean brunette-haired girl had run as soon as she had hit the run, after falling from one meter as her heated chute got stuck in treetops. She hadn't seen the blast of her B-2A exploding, shattered by weapons of another world. A world she had now landed on and was being hunted by everything that inhabited it.

This fact, she realized it as she tried to get to the woods which surrounded the black monolith of death. It was in the hope that their numbers were limited, as, as far as they knew, most of the ground army was still loyal to the main government of Belka. Though, the sound of pads closing on her position worried her. She couldn't see them in those thick woods, but could hear them closing, both slowly and quickly. Not stealth enough to hide them entirely, but loud enough to confuse and scare her.

It made her stop running. She ignited her lighter in a flamethrower setting, hoping to scare whatever animal was chasing her. If the beasts of the ground were as vicious as the beasts of the air, then she was in a pretty dire situation.

To her fears, only growls replied. Growls expressing hunger, she thought. Or were they expressing hatred, like the pure hatred she heard over the waves from that pilot they named "Zorn"?

"Back off, wolves!" She shouted, while emptying her handgun toward the eyes that were reflecting the bright light of her flame.

Her munition quickly ran out, as she fired erratically, not knowing if she had hit any animal. What an irony, she realized. To score as one of the best shooters in the whole agency, and have fear deprive her of her abilities.

She heard the growling increase in intensity, like if they were expressing more aggressiveness toward her. As she saw the shadows crept toward her, she heard something being fired, but not live rounds, more like the sound of a grenade launcher.

She looked around and saw shadows surrounding her in these dark woods. Was she going to die here, alone and forgotten from history? She would only be a MIA on some list of the OIA.

Though, none of these horrible thoughts she was having were realized in the following seconds, as the grenade she had heard being fired landed nearby, spewing a thick gas that had the effect of making her collapse quickly, as if she was suddenly very tired.

"This soothing gas is quite effective, Recht?" One of the two patrolmen contemplated the results, her voice slightly distorted by his mask.

The Osean girl tried to shake off the tiredness that was getting to her, only to be met with a sight of horror. Seeing the vague forms of these enemy soldiers with their eyes illuminated in red, as they were using masks equipped with infrared glasses, which gave them a sense of surrealism.

"Recht, Anna. Now put her in shackles, and let's get going." The leader ordered, while he illuminated the now motionless Osean girl, surrounded by now sleeping wolves.

The South Belkan woman executed the order, and those were the last sentences the Osean girl heard for a long time, afterward she fell unconscious.

"I could kill you here and now." The Belkan woman whispered, with those cold words having some cold feeling in the skin of the back of her neck, like the barrel of a gun.

"I could avenge my parents, my family, so many of your kind killed without any consideration." The woman kept talking, while pressing the barrel of her gun into the Osean's skin a bit more.

"But that would be a death far too merciful for you. You'll soon understand there are predators here which are far worse than those wolves."

"Is that done, Anna?" Her superior asked, a bit annoyed to be here hunting some Osean that should have already been killed way sooner. He hadn't seen any of her gesture nor heard what she said, as the gas was partially hiding her and their target.

"Ja, alle fertig. Aber she's a bit heavy. It'll be long dragging her back to base." The Belkan patrolwoman replied, holding an arm of the now fully unconscious Osean operative.

It took the team of two a good ten minutes to drag the inanimate body through the woods to some position on the runway, where her final fate would be settled. She had wanted to unleash her wrath on these Belkans and would face The Wrath.

Wieldvakian Economic Exclusive Area, Arctic Sea, 24/06/1995, 22:50, Weather: medium cloud cover and sea fog

"Camael to Czarty, we are getting near your position, readying the defoliator." An officer on board a Falcon 2000 -bought of Erusea's stocks as they demilitarized some ASM planes under the current King's reign- indicated, using satellite data from the Pendragon Projekt to acquire their target.

"What's this "defoliator»?" Schwarze 4 asked, curious why a pesticide-like name was used for a weapon of war.

"Some anti-black tide armaments. Almost a green weapon in this regard." Kepinski replied in a joking manner, remembering how their missile manufacturer had introduced the weapon system the first time.

"Basically, it'll burn the fuel inside the tanker at super high temperature to be sure there's no pollution afterwards." The officer in command of the Falcon answered.

"Hoch Interessant (highly interesting)." Zubov commented, seeing the interest of such a weapon to destroy a refinery or a fuel depot like they did at Casina.

The conversation dragged on a bit on this topic, with the fate of the stranded Yukte mentioned as a bad joke for them. It dragged on until they got a notice from the satellites of Pendragon watching over this area.

"Warning, shots incoming. From a dozen kilometers." Their operator said, while sending to their radar the dangerous area, which appeared as red lines.

One shot pierced the starboard engine of the Falcon, which caused it to fall toward the sea. The pilot kept their craft falling a bit, as they needed to regain some speed to regain stability.

Though, In the end the worst was aborted, it was at a price, as some Su-25C took the shells with their lives, as well as Zubov's plane who lost his right rudder. But this kind of fire they had just been subjected to made him immediately identify their enemy:

"Schützen (snipers)" he said quickly, before adding:" I thought your squadron had long been disbanded."

"Deinetwegen! (because of you) We were the best escape killers of Belka, before they recruited some crude war criminals." Schütze leader replied pretty harshly from the cockpit of his Su-32, while his long-range gun was trying to re-acquire the other leader.

"You were the best until you let Amiral Koenig escape, only because they took a prototype transport going above 800 kmh." Schwarze 2 recalled, also giving their one weakness, speed.

"So, we just have to fly over 800 kmh. Feasible even if we have one engine down." The pilot of Camael one deduced from this little point of history. It would damage the mainframe, and make them fly astray for a while, but flying in such a way would also reduce the effectiveness of their enemies' armament.

"All Schwarze, it's time to show them who's the best. Erase those we replaced." Zubov ordered, wanting this last engagement of the day -he really hoped it was the last, because both gun and fuel reserves were low, and missile counts was below the dozen for all of them- to be something personal.

"Schütze leader to all, Feuer!" The North Belkan officer screamed to his wingmen, which did not wait much to fire at the eight oncoming aircraft.

Their fire was not that meaningful, as the MiG-31's HUD accurately depicted their shot based on these Su-32's position, with these gyroscopically mounted sniper rifles good only efficient against slow moving targets, perfect to harass choppers or transport, not cutting-edge interceptors. Besides, their only advantage was surprise, and they lost it after the first shots. They did have some low observation camouflage in grey and dark lines but weren't stealth. And they knew very well what the outcome of this fight would be, as the eight pilots and copilots watched their enemies closing in on their position.

"They are faster than what we can track." One copilot, also in charge of this specific armament observed, with their bullets grazing the fast modified foxhounds.

"Don't target just them, target their objective." The pilot of Schütze 6 said, as the payload of the Falcon 2000 was much more dangerous than anything these fighters had under their pylons. But the small frame of the jet made it difficult to aim at it, compared to other ASM planes.

"Try again, glass cannons." Schwarze six taunted them, even though he was assaulting them with a damaged fighter.

"Wir sind Präzisionsschütze, nicht Glaskanone!" (We are marksmen, not glass cannons) One infuriated enemy argued, but without doing anything more than shots in the water.

"Getting missile lock. Fire." Was one of the numerous messages the Schwarze pilot transmitted, as they finally got into the good distance to fire back at their opponents. Their formation was simple, a double flank, to reduce the capacity of the "Schütze" to use crossfire against their aircrafts. They got their missile lock at the extremity of their arcs of fire, but the advanced tracking did the job, securing good hits on most of the enemy units, when the enemies only got minor hits.

"How can we lose?" One Belkan copilot said, as he was trying to set his sights on the enemy leader, while the pilot turned to engage the enemy plane.

"By getting shot down." Schwarze five gave one response to his north Belkan counterpart, managing to turn quite sharply to evade some shots from other planes, and ripping the rudders from the Strike Flanker with his guns, before finishing it with a missile.

"And ignoring the high ground." Schwarze eight said while firing a pair of missiles on his pursuers that were unable to climb quickly enough to follow him as he evaded their sniper fire. Both missiles were fired as he was descending from his vertical Himmelman, and both struck their canopy, blowing four crewmen in total.

"I have their leader on me. Please assist." One Su-32 called for help, as the MiG-31 of the vulture himself was getting closer with him, and their heavy armament was weakening his mobility a lot.

"You won't escape me. None ever does." The cold voice of the Vulture cut short his hope of survival, as the Su-32 was trying to turn in a way to get his gun toward the black and red craft. But Zubov turned sharper, profiting from the mobility difference in his favor, and gunned the turreted long-range gun of his target.

The next second, the sudden explosion made the Su-32 stall, and this caused Zubov to outspeed the now very slowed down Flanker. The next second, Zubov tilted his plane leftward and executed a horizontal loop to finish his target by gunning them from their nine hours.

One thing that one wouldn't expect from the squadron leader of escape killers, is trying to escape. But that was what Leo Karlsberg decided to do anyway, only to find himself pursued by a somewhat angry Schwarze eight, which had all the reason to be furious, and not just for a matter of point of view.

"Don't let them flee and don't flee. That was what you taught me, Leo." Maximilian Werner aka Schwarze eight quoted the one man that had once mentored him. This young Belkan could have joined their little squadron according to his grades and very good gun accuracy, but Rald interferences said otherwise, as this young man had some idea about freedom of speech and whatnot, the usual stuff that the far right or any extreme don't like at all.

"I will not have my fate be dictated by an anarcho-terrorist." The fleeing enemy leader insulted his former student, having no consideration for all that had betrayed the Rald and thus Belka to his eyes.

"You don't have much freedom. Tell me, Ralder, how do you want to die? Combat, or on your knees?" Zubov spoke, his cold and rude tone increasing by a lot the fear in the North Belkan.

The Vulture had spoken while he helped his number two escape a pair of pursuers, by flying below, then climbing between the two Strike Flankers, and falling back like a bird of prey on the two scattering fighters. The other was picked off by Schwarze three, which had come from above after harassing one other Flanker that had dived to evade his fire, but fell prey to a missile of Schwarze four, and thus the plane couldn't recover from the dive and fell into the iced waters.

"I have another solution." The Belkan proudly retorted, reaching for his handgun with a shaking hand.

"Was ..." His copilot screamed on the waves, before gunfire could be heard the next second. Five second later, the enemy lead craft was dead in the water, having escaped dishonor by taking his own life by himself.

"Damn, that was cold." One Wieldvakian judged, having heard the ruckus on the wave from afar. Settling counts between escape killers was not something that could go nicely, after all.

"Serves them right." Schwarze four commented, having no qualms with killing North Belkan pilots. He didn't have before they changed their allegiance and wouldn't grow this dubious concept of a "morale" just because they had some new markings.

"Threat to ASM neutralized. Resume the mission, Camael one." Their operator at Excalibur observed with a bit of detachment from the little conflict there once was between the two escape killer squads of Belka, before one was put to shame and disbanded, until the other went rogue, with only the rogue being left now.

"Roger, set a new course to release payload." The officer in charge of the small jet complied, while pushing a few buttons to set some last parameters.

"Ships are in the safe zone. You have the all-clear signal." His superior at some HQ inlands in Wieldvakia authorized this use of the power of destruction.

"Target has been locked." The Falcon pilot informed, taking a last glimpse at the ship filled with Yukte marines he was about to destroy with just a flick of his fingers. He felt a bit tense as he pressed the fire mechanism and had to breath a bit before he could announce "weapon is away."

"Estimate time to impact, fifty-six seconds." The Tauberg operator transmitted, as the satellite was tracking the weapon.

Now, nothing could save these Yukte men. They had only a bit of time to regret their action. The "Alsikan" merc group were certainly cheering after their survival, thinking that their invaders were going to be incinerated. Finally, this long evening of battle was meeting its closing.

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 24/06/1995, 22:55, Weather: light cloud coverage, risk of thunder

Far away from the North iced sea, another scene was catching the eye of some operators at Tauberg who were usually tasked with the ATC duties. The powerful lights which were usually illuminating the end of the two-part runway were used for another purpose that day.

One Osean was laid on a stretcher, receiving an antidote to the effects of the soothing gas, so she would regain consciousness. The antidote was mainly an adrenaline injection, from what the doctors had told Iskanda when she asked them about it, when watching over this motionless enemy who was now regaining some level of motion.

Only one minute after the injection, the Osean girl sprung to her feet, a bit surprised to come to life without any restraint on her. Were they not afraid that she might try to attack them?

Also, the great amount of light was a stark contrast to the shadowy woods where she had lost herself and was being hunted by these savage beasts. She was about to thank them for allowing her to survive a few minutes prior, but the sight of a tall man with cold grey eyes looking at her caused her to be silent. That man was Anton Kupchenko, Osea's current number one enemy.

"Amy Pitt. Welcome to Tauberg, my dear." He greeted the niece of the OIA with some false friendship, looking at the knife she had let fall at some point, which had been found during the manhunt -or woman hunt in her case-.

"I don't appreciate your way of welcoming us, terrorists." She replied in a very impolite manner, with the souvenir of her dying comrade very fresh in her mind.

"I am relieved to see you survived. I was wondering how much time a lone wolf would survive against true wolfpacks." He played once more the indignation card, and the false care he had learned a bit from his new friend.

"Stupid Belkan, I'm not just a ..." She tried to defend herself, but his interlocutor stopped her in her tracks, while the interested walked a bit closer to the OIA operative.

"Your copilot showed some bravery when he cut his own chute to choose his way to die. Apparently, you were afraid to do the same." He purposefully ignored her insult as he looked one more time at her weapon, then at this young woman. The world was so full of these kinds of people. Young ones that think that everything is given to them, when they don't deserve much.

"You burned them alive! Who does that, if not terrorists ?!" She resumed her angry insults, looking at the weapon that had slipped between her fingers as she struggled to find the will to end her life rather than face eternal humiliation for her failure.

"You chose to sentence them to death, while my people strictly acted to protect themselves from your attack. Have you only surrendered; they would be still alive?" Kupchenko argued against her feeble mind and its excuses she was making up to cope with her own failures.

"Give me that and I'll end you here and now." She said between her teeth, tired of this little conversation, when the only thing she wanted right now was to see him die in some painful way to make up for the horrible death her companion suffered.

"Take your little blade if you believe it has any importance relative to the sword of the kings." Kupchenko sighed, equally tired of this meaningless conversation, before throwing the knife on the ground, making it fall one or two meters from the Osean -throwing knives was clearly not his best hand weapon on the ground-.

Then Kupchenko turned his back on the Osean, and began to leave the scene, as she picked up his weapon. She was about to ask him to turn back and face her like a man. But once more, her desires were denied by a voice she had already heard too much today, a voice whose sole tone had a smell of blood and murder:

"If you really want to join your little comrades, I'll be very happy to help you achieve this goal."

"You! It was your job to kill him, not to join him! To give Osea victory in this war, not slaughter my brothers and sisters." Amy pointed at the Erusean mercenary with her knife, quoting her multiple treasons. She was present at a meeting when her superior discussed her case, their greatest ally turned into their greatest enemy.

"Killing your kind is so much funnier. You have this little thought of hope which I enjoy annihilating every time I annihilate one of your fighters." Iskanda defended her acts with more folly than the reasonable arguments Kupchenko had used. She wasn't a woman of thoughts, but of acts.

"I'll kill you." The Osean girl said, now infuriated by how these two people had insulted her and her now very-dead brother-in-arms.

And with these words she darted toward the mercenary who had stayed calm, concealing her intentions. This calm while she was boiling of anger infuriated her even more. But she hit nothing.

"Usually, I don't hit little girls." Iskanda joked around, as she deflected the thrust of the Osean's knife, and then retaliated by an uppercut with the other arm below her chin, which caused the Osean to fall backward.

The Osean who had managed not to harm herself too much in her fall sprung back to her feet and try to muster the most threatening voice she could:

"If you oppose Osea, we'll make sure no one in your family will be safe."

"Be my guest. Though, let one or two alive so I can kill them myself, right?" Iskanda retorted, shrugging her shoulders while shrugging this one off, on the verge of dying from laughter as she replied to this empty threat, as her fratricidal and matricidal thoughts were still as strong to this day.

And with these words, Iskanda produced her weapon from her flight vest, ensuring a solid grip on her jade blade as she looked at the Osean fool attacking her once more.

A single step aside was enough to evade her assault, and with a swing of her blade, she cut the Osean lady at breast-level by at least a dozen centimeters. This time, Iskanda was sure the Osean felt pain, while she felt only joy, a sick joy as she could feel some bit of blood dripping from her blade onto her fingers.

The next second, The Zorn followed by a roundhouse kick at the Osean's stomach, making her fall backward. She didn't manage to recover that well, and fell badly, injuring her hands on the hard ground of the runway.

The OIA operative struggled to stand from her injury, which wasn't bleeding heavily, but was in a very sensitive area, and thus made the pain coming from it harder to bear than it would be. Of course, she knew that merc did that on purpose, being of that kind of sick people reveling in causing pain.

"I could gut you, but I don't think you have enough guts for it to be funny." Iskanda joked in a very dark manner, wondering what would cause this Osean to break. It wouldn't be necessary to go as far as with the Hexens, but a bit more than a bruise was already in order.

"How can you be so cruel?" The Osean girl asked, seeing no mercy in the eyes of her tormentor. She had ordered her comrades to be shot to death without any regret in her voice, after all.

"War changes people, I guess." Iskanda laughed at the girl in pain holding her now blood-soaked breast.

"I'll kill you. I swear I'll kill you." The Osean girl stammered, lost between pain and anger, with both confusing her mind and cutting down her resolve.

"Don't try impossible things. Wait for the medics if you don't want a fir frock-coat." Iskanda dismissed the idea that this girl could do much against her. The Hexens, for all their sins, were worthy enemies. Amy Pitt had no worth in any fight.

And with these words, Iskanda turned her back on the OIA operative, ignoring this worthless and spineless opponent. She almost felt pity for this girl.

"Die, you Belkan scum!" The OIA operative who had run for her target shouted, while trying to stab her target in her back below the shoulder blade.

But she only met air on her way, as her target had slightly crouched down, and caught her extended arm in the process. She expected to be thrown at the ground once more, but what happened was much more violent. The Erusean mercenary who had her right arm extended sideways folded it on hers, pulling down her extended arm with great strength, so strongly that her elbow was dislocated. She felt great pain in her arm before she was thrown over her foe, without any hope to recover from this fall.

Standing up was the greatest sufferance the Osean intelligence ever felt. Just a look at her right arm explained it: her elbow had been dislocated but had also caused an open fracture in the process, causing another grievous wound. Despite all of this, she tried to set herself in motion to flee in a last desperate attempt.

"You won't flee far, sore loser." Iskanda sealed the fate of the now very badly wounded OIA operative, who had blood dripping from her wounds onto the ground.

These words were followed by the Osean's own fighting knife which Iskanda threw at her, but it only hit her right shoulder, and fell afterward as it didn't penetrate her target deeply enough.

Iskanda didn't let this first shot undermine her resolve. She then threw her small harpoon toward the middle of the back of the Osean lady, knowing she might get a better shot with it as she has more practice with wielding and throwing this very weapon. Also, the barbs on it made it fairly easier to stay in its intended target.

And it stayed deeply embedded in her target once it reached it right on some fairly high point on her spine. The Osean let out a small scream of pain as she felt the sharp object going through her back, before falling to the ground, overcome by intense pain pulsating from this new wound and her others. Also, as she drifted once more toward unconsciousness, she felt something strange, like she was losing some sensations.

"Medics are on their way, sir." One of the soldiers who had taken part in the woman hunt informed Kupchenko, having quickly reached for his radio as the first blood was spilled on the runway.

"It's better that she stays in good health. Especially now that her only value is as a hostage. She wouldn't have taught us anything more than what my spies have already provided me with." Kupchenko gauged what little value he gave to this operative. She was just one of those youngsters who thought everything was entitled to them until they met the hard truths of life head-on.

"Now, we only have to wait for Schwarze, and we can finally do the debriefing for today's victories." Iskanda said, as she was heading to the main building with her wingmen in tow, while the medics were rushing to the Osean girl in dire need of medical care.

"Today is indeed a day of victories. And I intend to keep that streak going until the ultimate victory." Kupchenko recognized that every achievement they made this day had great importance for the day to come.

All pilots and flying personnel left the runway, leaving the wounded Osean to the care of a medical team, who proceeded to stabilize her. Now, only Schwarze was waiting to end their last operations of this now longer and longer day.

Wieldvakian Economic Exclusive Area, Arctic Sea, 24/06/1995, 22:55, Weather: medium cloud cover and sea fog

From their occupied supertanker, many Yukte watched the last explosions fade into nothingness. A few of them had hoped to see the Erusean-made Falcon fall into the sea after seeing it surrounded by fire, but it withstood this dangerous situation. Of course, everyone that could see it had already understood its purpose, and its fairly large payload under its fuselage.

Furthermore, the distraction attacks that allowed those damn Romneyans to sleep through their fingers had damaged most if not all of their chopper force, they managed to land here.

"We have no hopes of being rescued, and no prisoners to bargain with. We all are sentenced to death here." Their commander explained to his men who had gathered around his damaged Mi-26 Halo where he had watched over the battlefield. He thought they could send some new choppers to get them out of here, but the GHQ had made it clear that further reinforcements would only end up being further casualties at the end of the day.

"Their missile is away, sir." One of their scout teams a bit further away on the lightly damaged tanker transmitted, with the Falcon disengaging afterward, going home.

"Choose your death, people. Fire or ice." The Yukte officer looked at the light of the missile's engine, now skimming over the waves.

"To think they promised us an easy victory…" One Yukte whispered, as he was holding himself to a railing, hearing the sound of the missile louder and louder over the waves.

"And that those Romneyans managed to slip through our fingers once more is a great frustration. Not that anything matters now." Another soldier added, watching at the other tanker where these mercenaries were now in safety and ready to join their country so they could keep resisting their occupation.

"We might go to hell. Though Osea will join us soon, I believe. Goodbye on this final journey, troopers." This was the final speech of their commander, before a giant explosion tore the ship in half.

If only the missile had just torn the ship apart, there would have been survivors. But its secondary warhead exploded a few seconds after the first, as thousands of cubic meters of fuel were rushing out of the ruptured tanks. What could have become a black tide became an open door to hell, as the second detonation created a burst of flame that ravaged everything in their wake, like a shockwave made of pure heat.

From the perspective of everyone, it was visible. From the furthest away tanker, and even the satellites, the giant burst of flame was in plain sight. Maybe, if someone stood on the moon, he would have seen the giant flash of light that burned the contents of the supertanker in mere seconds.

"The defoliator can create a wave of supersonic flames. Not much can stop it from spreading, other than large bodies of water." The officer onboard the Falcon who had briefly turned to look at the violent scene explained in simple details how this terrific weapon worked.

"That's a horrible way to die. Even worse than being trapped in a fire tempest that would suck you into the inferno." Schwarze three commented, having seen such a catastrophe happen once, when they bombed a fuel refinery in Romney, which ended up turning an entire city to ash and vapors. They had later said that the first hit set off a chain reaction that the rebels purposefully created, when Yuktobania had to explain why they had annihilated a city of more than twenty thousand people.

"You won't have our oil, you dirty Osean Vultures nor any of your allies...I hope you don't mind if we use that word, Schwarze." Czarty leader allow himself to threaten a superpower, that had showed today that he was vulnerable, and ready to attack other nations to gain any advantage they could get

"Naja, you can." Zubov said, finding the word fitting for these greedy individuals, who could kill the whole world and feed on its carcass to satisfy their greed. They had no honor, just interests.

"Your mission is finally over, Schwarze. You can return to the base." Their operator transmitted, having verified time and time again that there was no more threat in more than five hundred kilometers.

"Ver, Tauberg. Though, we might take a bit more time, as half of us have suffered heavy damage to engines and control surfaces." Karkov reminded their operator that it was a very good time to end this mission, otherwise there could have been losses for their men.

"I'll relay that. Have a safe trip, Schwarze team." Their operator wished them good luck as all MiG-31s were heading back home, leaving the secured airspace in the hands of the local squadrons.

"By the way, Schwarze, I have a word from a high officer, Major Sobieski. He's expressed his gratitude. When you destroyed those cruise missile launchers at Casina, you stopped the bombing of the base of his CAS squadron. He said he's in your debt and will be happy to offer support whenever you need it, to repay you." The officer onboard announced this rather good message, which was quite unusual for the escape killer squadron to hear.

"We'll think about him if we ever need some help." Schwarze leader thanked him back for this unusual kind message.

Thus, it was with pretty unusual sentiments that Schwarze flew back to Tauberg. None of them were used to have anyone be thankful after any mission. Most superior officers hated them, and the ones that didn't hate them were so afraid of the squadron's trail of death to express anything.

Tauberg Air Base, Belka, 24/06/1995, 23:35, Weather: light cloud coverage, risk of thunder

The debriefing only took place after Schwarze had landed and taxied their airplane, with the sky scanned in more than a thousand kilometers. It was judged to be clear of threat, as the threat indicator on the displayed screen in red lines and red text over a black font showed them.

"All of the intended operations have been successful. They have greatly weakened the forces loyal to the puppet government of Fato." Kupchenko described what had been the great goal behind the destruction of all these assets in this country.

This was shown on the screen by the icons which meant "deep strike", a half explosion symbol with five pikes, with the central one being slightly bigger than the others, like the explosion of an underground charge or an undermine would look like in some way.

"We have some news on more local assignments. At Bayes, we had total success and total destruction of enemy forces. Same for Casina Airport. Near the Ellya river, our new Wieldvakian friend have informed me that the Osean and Belkan attackers are surrounded, and their total annihilation is only a matter of time" Kupchenko resumed the briefing, showing some more pictures of each area, with all of them showing destroyed landscape filled with craters where building once stood, and the few still standing were in flames.

"We weren't fully successful in our defense of those supertankers, though." Zubov pointed out, as Wieldvakia had had to sacrifice one of those sixth giants full of fuel.

"The fact that none has stayed in Osean hands is a victory in itself. Also, the casualties were very low thanks to some very good circumstances. '' Kupchenko defended his more positive point of view.

"We have gained some Wieldvakian allies in the process, indeed." Zubov agreed that their friendship might be worth one supertanker. After all, a squadron of attackers with light air-to-ground weapons might have the need for some ground pounders in the battles to come.

"And seen some old acquaintances too." Schwarze 3 completed, still surprised that the Alsikan mercenary group had survived Romney.

"Interesting. Allies are a need in wars." Kupchenko interpreted this news, paramount for the end of this war and the ones there would be in the future.

"On a more technical side, there are converging clues that Osea is mimicking us. Flying wings, laser systems. We should expect space assets to be put into action." Hellenseite gave a bit of a more scientific summary of the news of today, showing some of those new weapons.

"These weapons are less powerful than most of what they try to copy, no? So, what do we have to worry about?" The leader of the Netz team shared what he thought to be a good state of technology in their favor.

"A fair point. Though, our spies don't know every one of their projects." Kupchenko approved that they shouldn't let their level of awareness low if they didn't want to avoid bad surprises.

"I'm not afraid of their technology. They should fear it instead." Iskanda spoke, having seen first-hand some of these prototypes at the battle of Hoffnung, as well as never used aircraft they tried to find a use for.

"Why should they fear their own technology?" The scientist asked her, a bit puzzled by this strange point of view of this chaotic woman.

"If we destroy it in a big explosion, it'll very likely kill more of them than any of us." Iskanda snickered, letting out a small laugh that could send chills to anybody's spine.

"A funny point of view, Zorn." Hellenseite considered this possibility to be a rather possible likelihood, with the example of the EMP they suffered due to Yukte nukes the Merlins satellites triggered over Osean territory.

"I'm looking forward to blowing up anything they will churn out of their factories, and then every one of their factories." Iskanda expressed her will of murder and mayhem, raising her fist in a threatening manner to better express her intents.

"I'm sure you'll have ample opportunity to do so." Kupchenko added, zooming out on the map to show the entire continent, with the major harbor and industrial cities of Osea highlighted. They had already suffered from the consequences of these nukes' mishandling, and soon would suffer even more.

"Before this evening, the balance of forces was favoring the Osean federation. Our global actions have shaken this fragile balance. And when balance will come back, it will be inclined toward us, the most powerful power of this continent." Kupchenko concluded this briefing, shutting down the software, and allowing himself a little sigh, with the tiresome hours of flying taking its toll on him.

"Today, we've shown our allies we could not only just defend ourselves, but them too. And soon, we'll show them that Osea isn't capable of the same." The tactician added, underlining what would be the next mission: retaliation in Osean territory.

After this final congratulations for their good work, most pilots left the briefing room, either heading for hangars, mess, or a bed. Of course, the four Schwarze pilots with damaged planes went for the hangars for some short exchange with the maintenance teams, hoping to learn how much time they'll have to wait before their planes would be fully flight- and fightworthy.

The only one who remained was Iskanda, which had something to ask the leaders of the Projekt Pendragon.

"I've looked into one of the targets you showed me in the strategic review two days ago. I found some intel about an unexpected vector of approach."

"I'll look into it tomorrow and asked some of our specialists of the Osean geography." Kupchenko said as he took a glimpse at the small drawing that Iskanda had done on some aerial photography.

"It's a dangerous approach. One fitting for your dangerous approach to things." Hellenseite gave a somewhat positive approach to something that theoretically wouldn't be even probable. This woman had taught him that improbable was just unexplored points of view, and just proved this fact once more.

The three persons separated quickly after some more exchanged words, with Hellenseite hoping to consult some geologic studies, and Kupchenko planning to ask the former Osean amongst his team about these specific pieces of landscape his "Zorn" wanted to use to greatly increase the potential damage of this future raid. Osea didn't know what they had in store for them. Only that it would hurt them badly, very badly…

Well, the 31st chapter has just ended. I actually cut some parts that'll make some filler chapter, though it won't be filled with just filler, there'll be some action in it.

I admit, it took much more time to write this one. Funny thing, I found it more difficult to find the will to write with less free time than with more free time. Ironic, isn't it?

So, we've had some links here and there, and a bit more hints to where this is leading. The "unholy alliance" is getting weaker but won't back down yet. They'll fight to the bitter end, and believe me, their end will indeed be bitter...

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Und bis zum nächsten Mal in Strangereal, Leser und Leserinnen.