In the years after the end of the Circum-Pacific War, Hans Archer Grimm had chosen to remain in the Osean Air Defence Force, the only member of his squad to do so. Alex - Blaze - had gone into an aircraft-related profession as a mechanic. Marcus - Swordsman - was still a member of the Maritime Defence Force's inactive reserve but he wasn't on the front lines. Kei - Edge - was in space leading the Pilgrim I space mission against planet-killing asteroids.

In a fit of irony, Grimm had found himself assigned to a squadron that was based out at Sand Island - the 242nd Tactical Fighter Wing. When he was shipped out to Sand Island in early 2011 as a First Lieutenant, he had been put into the 242nd's Wolf Squadron. He served in a capacity for that squad for a couple of years until he was promoted to Captain and transferred to Titan Squadron, the counterpart to Wolf.

April 3rd, 2016

Airspace east of Sand Island

Ceres Ocean

Grimm had been a captain back in 2013. Now he was a major; promoted to fill the vacancy left by the wing's previous executive officer. Doubling as Titan's squad leader, Grimm was currently reflecting on the fact that he had reached a rank higher than any of his old teammates while he and two other pilots flew alongside him over the tropical waters off the coast of Cape Landers.

'Titan Squadron, Command Room, target is approaching Sand Island. Weapons cleared hot.' The personnel back at the mission control room on Sand Island gave him and his squad permission to open fire.

'Titan 1 copies. Starshooter, Dawn, divert to point 1-1-5 and intercept.' Grimm passed that order onto the two pilots with him.

AIRCRAFT

Titan 1/Archer: Typhoon F.3

Titan 4/Starshooter: Typhoon FGR.1

Titan 7/Dawn: Typhoon FGR.4

Twin engines roaring as they kicked into wet mode, the three Typhoons swung to change their course to the south-east. Grimm wasn't fully clear on the circumstances surrounding the intercept, but from he had gathered from the briefing some aircraft had attacked an Osean city and were now retreating over the Ceres Ocean. Grimm and his two aircraft were the only three available in the skies able to intercept before they got out of Osea. Three Typhoons of different variants against two C-130Hs and five stolen OADF F-16C Block 30s.

'Hercs have been spotted. Bearing 1-2-0, sixty clicks out.' Dawn reported what his radar was showing him. Grimm looked at his own radar. Dawn was indeed correct. Two C-130s tagged as hostile. The F-16s were somewhere close by.

'Take the shot. I'm gonna look for those Falcons.' Grimm declared, moving ahead of his squad to go look for the escorting fighters. They hadn't appeared on radar yet, probably the result of having a small radar cross section. Behind him, two AIM-120C-7s shot over Grimm's head, fired from Starshooter and Dawn's aircraft. Moving much faster than a fighter, they crossed the distance to the enemy C-130s in roughly 30 seconds and scored hits. One of the Hercs created a large radar return as it disintegrated and was destroyed and the other was hit but continued to fly. A second missile fired by Starshooter fixed that problem, shooting down the second C-130.

The perpetrators of whatever incident had happened were gone, now it was time to deal with their escorts. As it turned out, the F-16s were a few kilometres behind the C-130s. They saw the transports they were meant to escort get shot down and now they lit up their own radars looking for the offenders. They saw the two Typhoons that had fired and went to go chase them with their limited air to air loadouts. They didn't see the Typhoon fly underneath them, climb up and get on their tails.

'They've seen us, sir.' Starshooter pointed out to Grimm that the F-16s were making a beeline right for the two FGR Typhoons.

'Not gonna matter in a second.' Grimm replied, locking onto the centre three F-16s and firing a three-shot salvo of missiles. 'Archer, Fox 3.'

The F-16s were flying in a tighter-than-normal formation, never a good idea in air to air combat. They were punished for their mistake when two of the aircraft that had no space to maneuver were hit by the AMRAAMs targeted at them. They both went down in flames, their airframes crippled. The third managed to evade the missile fired at him, but he happened to be the aircraft that Grimm targeted with a Sidewinder when he shot past above the formation. The AIM-9X didn't miss. What had been a seven against three was now a two against three dogfight. That changed to a one against three when a missile fired by Dawn destroyed the left-most F-16C in the formation. A similar missile fired by Starshooter missed, the F-16C diving to evade.

Grimm turned around and went after the last remaining fighter aircraft. He fired a Sidewinder. The F-16 pilot evaded the lethal zone by a bare few metres. Grimm resorted to his cannon and after a short little chase clipped the man's cockpit, shattering it. The pilot was disorientated by sharp cold winds hitting him at high speed. That disorientation was enough for Grimm to kill the pilot via cannon burst into the cockpit that turned the pilot into a bloody red sauce. Without a living pilot at the controls, the F-16 fell out of control and hit the sea, ripping apart the aircraft as it slammed into the water at 600 kilometres per hour.

'Command, Titan 1, target has been destroyed.' Grimm reported to the command room back on the island.

'Roger. Stand by.' The command room confirmed and ordered Titan Squad to loiter for a moment while they discerned the situation. Grimm returned to Dawn and Starshooter's position and flew in a barrier formation between the mainland and Sand Island while they waited. They did this for five minutes.

'Jeez, what's command waiting for?' Starshooter asked in his southern accent after those five minutes.

Right on cue, the base commander piped up.

'Titan, crisis has been averted. Return to base and report for debrief.' Their base commander, Colonel David Averson, a veteran of the Belkan War, ordered them. Grimm gave hand signals to his wingmen, directing them to follow him back to Sand Island.

In the years since the Circum-Pacific War, Grimm had changed a little bit. He was no longer the uncertain rearguard pilot that he was as part of Wardog Squadron. Now he was confident with his piloting skills, some would even say charismatic. An odd word to use for a 25-year old captain, Grimm had thought to himself when he went on service leave a couple of months prior. One thing hadn't changed. He was still good friends with his old squadmates.

January 21, 2016

Oured, Osea

'I feel bad for Marcus. Sitting in the middle of the Spring Sea bringing up a derelict cruiser.' Grimm mused to his old squad leader, Alex Blaze Williams, as they drove down to a pub in downtown Oured in Alex's Unimog 437. Alex chuckled.

'He's probably having a field day. Guy loves the ocean.' Alex replied. Marcus was working for a salvage diving company that specialized in raising downed ships. Diving had been one of his big hobbies outside of the military.

'Good point.' Grimm admitted as they pulled up to a parking lot across from the pub they were going to visit. Alex turned off the engine and directed for Grimm to dismount. They waited for the traffic to thin down before crossing the road.

'How's the mechanic job treating you?' Grimm asked Alex, referring to his civilian occupation.

'Thought I was done with the military. Nope, I got dragged into a contract with the NAS up at the naval base.' Alex replied jokingly. An avionics mechanic, his company was part of the workforce that maintained OMDF aircraft. They crossed the road over to the pub. There was a pair of security guards standing watch at the front door. They stopped the two pilots before they entered.

'Welcome to the Imp Tavern.' The senior of the two greeted them. 'IDs please.' Alex showed the guards his driver's license, while Grimm showed them his military ID. The senior guard nodded in approval and let the two through. Once they were past the door, Alex shrugged his shoulders.

'They're getting more stringent with ID checking these days.' He mentioned. Grimm scoffed.

'Fucking kids.' Grimm suggested. Alex agreed. They found a table in a corner near the front of the pub and took a seat there. The two waited.

'You hear about the coup in Fascia?' Alex asked Grimm while they did wait.

'I did. President got ousted by his own military.' Grimm answered. Fascia was a fairly small country north of Osea on the same continent. The country had been suffering from low stability for decades, but only recently did that instability manifest.

'And executed. A few guys I know reckon they're gonna start attacking other countries.' Alex mentioned. Grimm scoffed again.

'Who the hell are they going to attack? Everyone surrounding them could probably crush them within a week.' Grimm asked. To their south was Osea, the biggest military power in the world. Elsewhere were other countries with a larger, professional military.

As it would turn out, Osea was exactly the country they had decided to attack.

Sand Island Air Force Base

Back in the present day, Grimm and his two wingmen touched down on the main runway at Sand Island. The base had seen some modifications in the time since the last war. The island was artificially expanded upon to make space for another runway. More hangars were erected. Storage facilities were created for the mass storage of fuel, parts and weapons. Even the port was expanded, facilities created to accommodate a sizable fleet directly at Sand Island.

Titan Squad was directed over to the line of hangars next to the runways. Grimm led the other two into that hangar. He shut down the engines and opened the canopy. The strong smell of spilt fuel and oil hit him in the face. Nothing new. Grimm unstrapped, stood up and slid down the ladder to the ground. His crew chief walked up to the major.

'Have you managed to break your aircraft this time?' The chief, Chief Warrant Officer 1 Norman Terry, asked. A massive beast of a man, Terry had served in the Air Force for over thirty years as an enlisted man and now as a warrant officer. He was one of the most knowledgeable mechanics Grimm had met in his time in the defence forces.

'Didn't give the enemy a chance to.' Grimm replied with a smile as he walked past to the debrief room. Dawn - Second Lieutenant Daniel Rupert - and Starshooter - First Lieutenant Jake Tyrell - weren't far behind. The trio of pilots entered the debrief room where their squadron commanding officer and the base commander were waiting. Two colonels, a major, a first lieutenant and a second lieutenant all in the same room.

'Welcome back, Titan, but don't rest now. We have a busy schedule ahead of us.' The base commander, Colonel Averson, dumped quickly on the three some information. Grimm stood near the front of the room.

'Sir, what's going on? Those fighters came from within Osea.' Grimm asked what the situation was. He personally didn't have a clue.

'You've heard about the situation in Fascia a few months ago.' Grimm's wing commander, Lieutenant-Colonel James Renshaw, said. He had a TV remote in his hands with which he turned on the TV near the front of the room. Grimm looked up at the TV. There was a news announcement playing. There was a man of Arabic descent in the frame. Grimm knew the face. He was the general who had orchestrated the coup in Fascia.

'Good evening, Osean citizens. You may have heard about a terrorist attack in your cities. The Free State of Fascia claims responsibility for these attacks. Osea is a vile state, and we will not be happy until military forces are withdrawn from our country. Yours truely, the King of Fascia.' The man gave a speech before the TV was turned off. Grimm grit his teeth. The prediction he had made in Osea had just been proven wrong.

'Are we deploying?' Grimm asked. There was no way the Osean Defence Forces were going to let terrorists get away with an attack.

'Nothing's been officially confirmed, but I think you know what's going to happen.' Colonel Averson said. He looked to Colonel Renshaw. 'Renshaw, Grimm, prepare the 242nd for a wartime deployment.

'Yes sir.' Lieutenant-Colonel Renshaw and Major Grimm both said in sync to the order. They left the room, the two lieutenants in tow.

As Grimm left the room, he felt a sinking feeling. Once again, he was being thrown into a war.