8 days have passed since the surprise attack on Beta-8, everybody is depressed from the loss of their fallen comrades but that doesn't stop them from continuing on with their duties. Chris and Glovanni go out to patrol and find something...surprising.

War of the Skies

Chapter 3

After the funeral Joseph, sorry I mean Commander, ordered us to take a week off for so called 'vacation'. I just stayed at the base, helped rebuild it and relax. I wasn't the only one who stayed. Commander, Glovanni, Megan, and Taylor stayed also. Commander stayed in his office the whole time working on boss crap. Glovanni worked on his English the whole week and is very fluent in it and speaks a lot more than he used to. Megan and Taylor stuck together either in their room or helped rebuild.

Riley left as soon as possible. Losing Mathew must have been hard and losing the previous commander to must have been more devastating, so he left the country, didn't write, call, anything. He just stayed quiet and laid low. He arrived later than a week but commander didn't care, he's like that, he cares more about other people than himself and knew the pain Riley must be going through.

Kody, Josephs brother went back to see their moms and spent time with her. They live somewhere in America, I think Texas. They have a big ranch so that kept Kody busy. He arrived a week after the funeral, it was really early and we didn't recognize him from the dark tan he got.

Layne went to California to stay in a hot place and forget about war for awhile. She sent lots of postcards which annoyed us at some points because a lot of the cards were her just bragging. We used those for target practice. She arrived a day after the week and she was also tanned.

Oh and Brett. (Sigh) Brett was devastated; he didn't know what to do for a couple of days. He finally decided to go back to where he first met Emily, England. He wanted to cherish the memories of when the war didn't bother them. He sometimes sent a postcard but rarely. He arrived sooner than we thought and wanted to work, work, and work more.

Kaitlyn when she got back from the hospital had changed. Her hair was gone, buzz cut style, and she also grew a couple of inches so at first we thought she was a guy. When she got back she went straight to the HQ, handed commander her transfer forms got in her plane and flew away, after she left commander told us that she transferred to Echo-1 down by the Zambezi river, she didn't even pay her respects to Brett. I always knew she was a selfish bitch.

Now were just sitting around. We do missions that are assigned to us every now and then but we have to do drills to keep us as sharp as ever. We don't want the TOU bastards to surprise us again. Next time we'll be ready.

"Hey Chris commander wants to see you," shouted Riley from outside.

I pop my head out of the window "What for?"

"I think you're doing a scouting mission, you'll have to get the details from him" and he walked away to the hanger. Riley seems to be off at points, staring at nothing or just hanging in his room alone not wanting to see anybody.

I roll my eyes, these scouting missions are sooo boring, most of the time you're just flying, and you'd get lucky if you found a TOU plane just to have it running away like a scared pup.

"Glovanni you almost done in there, Joseph wants to see us in his office ASAP," I say as I knock on the bathroom door.

"Chris that's Commander, you're not suppose to say his first name he's the general of this airbase not some pilot anymore," he responds back casually. As he says that I mimic him in a childish way. Lately he has to remind me of that detail but I don't give a rat's ass.

"Whatever just hurry up," I go to close my window when I see Brett outside leaning against the hanger smoking. He never used to smoke but since Emily's death he took up the bad habit. Glovanni comes out of the shower all ready to go.

"Well c'mon what are you waiting for, I thought you said the commanders waiting for us," he finishes off with a teasing smile. I clench my fists then start after him but he knows what's coming and i'm chasing him through the living quarters, outside and into the HQ. We stop running as soon as we hit the doors.

We arrive at Josephs office. We walk in and salute. He salutes back. "Sit down boys," he says.

"Joseph we've known each other for a year," Chris says.

Glovanni puts his hand to his face and sighs. Joseph looks up and smiles. "Yes I know that Chris but i'm the commander, i've got to start playing the role you know that"

"Yea whatever, so what's the 'mission'," I say while putting two fingers up and bending them around the word 'mission'.

Again Glovanni puts his hand on his face and shakes his head. I look at him and roll my eyes.

"The mission is to scout over Mumbwa and check for any TOU forces"

I nod, and as i'm about to getup Glovanni asks a question "But Mumbwa is in no man's land, I thought that was fair game to anybody"

"Yes it is but I don't want the main HQ breathing down my neck because I didn't do this simple mission. Please just do it," He finishes and we both get up and head for the door.

"Oh and try not to get yourself killed, were understaffed as it is"

I do a thumbs up to him without looking back.

"Your planes all ready to go," Brett says while wiping oil off his hands with a rag.

I nod to him then go to the plane. But Glovanni walks up to him and asks how he's doing. I don't hear the rest of their conversation i'm already in my beauty and warming her up.

By the time i'm ready to go Glovanni enters the cockpit. "So how's he doin?" I ask him.

"Ok I guess, how would you feel if your wife died right beside you?"

"Well first off i'm not getting married," I begin watching Glovanni as he's about to go on a rant "But my life would be a living hell," I finish. Glovanni relaxes and prepares his gun.

We then take off leaving the quiet Beta-8 behind. We travel east towards no man's land making good time. We should be home for supper. I check that all systems are working fine and at their best.

"Hey Chris," Glovanni says over the mic.

"Ya what is it"

"Have you ever thought of what your going to do when the wars over?"

"Man you think this war is ever going to end?"

"Ya it has to eventually...right?"

"I have no clue, but we're probably going to die before it ever ends"

"Way to think positive," Glovanni snorts

"You know me, I never thought positive, I always think practical. That's the problem with everyday pilots, they think that everything is going to be ok but it probably isn't. We are either gonna win the war, lose the war, or just blow this whole planet up"

Glovanni doesn't respond. "And whenever I make an awesome speech you go all 'uhh I don't care blah, blah, blah," Still Glovanni doesn't respond. "Hey what's going on back there?"

"We just flew over a TOU base," he responds.

"Bullshit, your just pulling my leg," I remark back.

I'm about to forget what he said when a shower of bullets comes towards our plane. "Shit," I turn the plane left and prepare to fire on who shoot us. My eyes widen when I see there is a TOU airbase, it's as big as ours but still if the TOU are getting this aggressive that could mean...

"Hey wake up there we got bogies coming from below," Glovanni shouts as he starts shooting his gun.

I drive those thoughts back and come back to the battle. I count all the planes and figure out what were up against. 1 Spitfire, 1 Hurricane, 17 Carlum's which most of them are parked at the hanger but I can see pilots running towards them. 3 new planes that I don't recognize must be new models, and 6 Kalash's half of which are also parked.

"We have to turn back," Glovanni tries to say over the gunfire.

"Glovanni do you remember what I said when we first met," I say casually ignoring his comment.

"No...Wait you can't be series," he looks in his mirror.

I smile "Of course i'm series, it's time we make a name for ourselves," and I turn to go straight for the base where death is most likely waiting for us.

Even more bullets come whizzing towards us but as I dodge the bullets I never lose momentum and come soaring over the base blasting my guns and rockets into the buildings, planes, hell anything that's down there. I pull my joystick up and as soon as my nose is in the air I continue pulling until i'm flying upside down. Glovanni just peppers the ground and manages to blow up quite a few planes. I turn over and start flying after a Hurricane.

I destroy it with ease but then get three planes on my tail. Glovanni manages to shoot down one but they dodge his bullets and manage to shoot some of their own.

"Awww shit i'm hit," Glovanni says.

"How bad," I respond worried a little.

"Just the shoulder, I can still fight but I won't be as fast"

"Ok, just don't kill yourself trying," I finish as I quickly brake and get behind the planes that were behind us. One tries to veer left but I peg him, and the other one tries to do what I did to him but I hit him with a couple of rockets.

In about five minutes all but two planes are destroyed. The two that escape are the new brand. We check the base and it's in ruins. All the buildings are destroyed and are on fire. I turn to head home when Glovanni says "I can't believe we just did that"

"I told you it would be fun," as I relax in my seat, then I remember "Hows your shoulder?"

"Shit I forgot about i,t" then I hear a small cry of pain. "It hurts a lot but I'll live"

"Good," I smile then speed up to get us home faster.

WE arrive home just after supper. Earlier when I got in range I called the base to prepare and ambulance, so there's one ready with everybody standing around it. They all gap at us for some reason, I get out of my plane and know why, the plane has immense amount of bullet holes and is smoking on the far left wing. Every one rushes to the plane when they see Glovanni get out. A couple of paramedics rush towards us, even faster than my co workers.

They all start asking me what happed when Commander walks up and everybody goes silent. "What the hell happened," as he looks at my plane.

"Glovanni saw a TOU airbase that was based in no man's land so we destroyed it," everybody looks to us with surprised faces.

"Describe this base," Commander asks.

"Big as ours, no bombers but there were 28 fighters in total, we managed to destroy 26 of these planes and the 2 that escaped were new models, not the best planes i've seen but still new"

Joseph nods to himself then address the team. "I've got reports of TOU being more aggressive and somehow managing to place airfields in no man's land, but we could never detect were they were, HQ suspects there using new technology to hide their presence but it's only a prototype, but none the less all of you should be alert whenever you fly out of here"

He starts to walk away but stops and turns to address Chris again "Good work i'm promoting both of you, Chris you'll get one rank up, Notify Glovanni he gets 2 ranks up" he salutes to us and we salute back, then he leaves. After he's gone everybody asks for the details and of course I have to give in and explain what happen.

I prefer to be left alone after a fight to rest but I can't help but feel happy as everybody is so interested in me. It's a feeling that i'm starting to get used to.