Hi ya'll. Okay I've been thinking of new ways to torture Paul and Mieke and I've been enjoying it. Once again I would like to thank the people who decided to read more than the first sentence of the first chapter. Since no one was given me a review as of yet I don't know if any one is reading my story, but I like to think there are some people. Good news though, I have a mock dogfight so there is a little action. I think this is going to be a long story so stay with me, please. I still don't own Ace Combat or any of the planes, guns, equipment, vehicles, and blah blah blah. Seriously I could never buy a company like Heckler & Koch or Lockheed-Martin.

Chapter 3: D-Day +1

Morning at last. The day after she arrived, D-Day +1 in military terms. I smelled a damp sweet smell which told me Mieke must have taken a shower. My heart stopped. The bathroom door was open and I nervously looked inside. There was a wet towel hanging to dry and there she was. Mieke's hair was wet, but thank god she was fully clothed in flat-grey pants and light-grey button shirt like mine.

"Guten Morgen" I said. She couldn't say anything because she was in the middle of brushing her teeth, she only nodded.

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"Guten Morgen Wolfgang, what you making for breakfast?" I asked, I was starving.

"Something that I think is sausage, something that looks like beacon, and imitation scrabble eggs." He answered without looking away from the stove. Oberleutnant Wolfgang Foulke (AN: same last name a Solo Wing Pixy, Larry Foulke) also know as Blau 11 aka Frying Pan, is a C Flight pilot and does most of the cooking. He can make disgusting Wehrmacht issue ready to eat meals into something eatable.

"Hey. Vogel I was looking at the board and I saw your new wingman's…" Said Herr Hauptmann Freiman who stopped dead at the sight of Mieke. "So your wingman really is a girl. Er…" An awkward silence ensued as everyone stared at Mieke and she slow turned redder and redder not meeting anybodies gaze. Krauss started to question her. "Hi Mieke I'm Deodar Krauss, so how old are you?"

"18"

"Where are you from?"

"Dinsmark" So she is from the northern part of Belka; naming the capital as her home.

"So how do you like Blau Squadron? You like your room? What do you think of Paul? How do you feel about sharing a room with him? Does it scare you? Make you feel nerves?" His questions were becoming too rapid for Mieke to answer. Oh well, not my problem.

"Hey, Paul" Now it's my problem

"How do you feel about Mieke? What was it like to share a room with a girl? Do you know her cup size?" That last question caught me so off guard I couldn't answer. Then, my well honed senses told me danger was near. Mieke's face was bright red, her grey eyes showed rage, and the coffee mug in her hand was slowly being crushed. Krauss was in mortal peril, neat.

"Krauss" He's so owes me "don't you have paper work to do, now."

"Oh, Ja." He said looking a little disappointed. He has no idea his neck is going to be crushed like that mug.

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After breakfast I decided I would take my new Fishbed up. Also it would be a good idea to take Mieke with me.

Suited up in our grey flight suits we head down the tarmac to the B flight planes. Mieke had returned to her quiet, nerves self. I had to rethink my image of her. 'A violent temper underneath the surface' I thought to myself.

"Have picked a call sign yet?"

"Tempest, what do you think?" It almost sounded like she needed my approval. I thought about the torrent of rage in those eyes of hers.

"Well? What to you think?" I asked. I thought it was good.

He smiled a little and said, "I think its fitting." He climbed in his plane and I into mine.

"Tempest this is Grey Wolf do you read me? Over."

"Ja. I hear you Grey Wolf." I responded. It was beautiful flying 8,000 feet above Süden Belka. The land below us was pine tree covered mountains, but most of Belka's borders were covered in mountains.

"Grey Wolf aren't we near air space B7R? Over"

"Roger that. It's only a 30 minute flight south of Sudenberg, but we're more west. Over." Paul sounded not only alive, but sounded happy to be in the air.

"You sound happy Grey Wolf. Over"

"You sound confident and brave. Over" I blushed a little. He was more friendly in the air I could only hope we could be better friends on the ground.

"We're loaded with paint rounds and training missiles. I wanna get a feel for your skills in dogfighting. Understand? Over."

With a devilish grin I answer, "Understood. Let's see what you can do. Over." He laughed at that and broke right and accelerated. He then dove into a cloud and I lost sight of him. "We're beginning now. Prepared yourself. Over." He sounded pretty serious at that.

I looked up. There aren't any clouds to allow Paul to get above me unnoticed. I rolled my plane 180 degrees and looked down. Not sign of him. I rolled up, paused, and rolled 180 again. There he was in full after burners coming right at me. I jinked right and dived into a vertical spiral with his plane in the middle of my spiral.

He fired off a burst from his twin 23mm cannons. I broke left and we past each other.

"Not bad. You can handle the basics, now let's try this." He sound amused.

Out of the corner of my I saw something. 'Attacking from the side?' That wasn't an easy task, but Paul seemed to have lined up and fired a burst at me. "Shack on a target" Looking to right there was orange paint on the side of my plane.

"I wouldn't call it a splash, but I did hit you. My instructors told me to be prepared because a good ace will attack in unexpected ways. Confuse your enemy and be deceitful." He said.

'Deceitful eh?' I thought with my grin returning, 'I can do that'. I turned into him in a head on pass. We raced towards each other at full throttle, no after burners; I then heard the beeping of my radar lock warning system. A few seconds later a loud buzz, my HUD turned red, and I saw a training missile coming at me. (AN: in real life no one in their right mind would shoot a missile turning a mock battle because it's a huge waste of money and if any projectile hits a plane in flight it would rip the plane apart, but what the hell this is my story.) I sent my plane in a corkscrew and at the height of the move I dropped counter-measures. "Flares!" I yelled.

I saw my chance and fired a burst from my twin 23mm cannons while angling left. "Guns! Shack on a target." I knew I hit his wing a little.

"Hee hee that was pretty good" he laughed a little, "form up on me Tempest so I can see if you can stay in formation with me at high speeds. Over"

"Jawohl, Grey Wolf. Over"

We spent the rest of the exercise maneuvering sharply around the mountains at low altitudes.

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Someone had left a pot of coffee in the kitchen which I drank gratefully. Paul was in the smaller square building that was someone's office.

"Mieke! Someone needs to see you!" Paul yelled from the door, "follow me."

Getting up I said, "Jawohl."

Meike was walking, took one look at the door, and froze upon seeing the words 'Hauptmann Joseph von Klein Intelligence and Analytical Wing'. Everyone is scared of von Klein because he could report anyone to the Grey Men for re-education. The only thing about him the scares me is he's the only person who can lie to me and I would never noticing. We'd got to know each other because of our motorcycles, but he owned a 1944 BMW (AN: I personally don't know if it exists, but picture a World War II era German motorcycle). Herr Hauptmann von Klein's office is a large square office. A bed, bathroom door, hotplate, mini-refrigerator, microwave on top, trunk, a hook with a winter coat, a hat and officer's jacket. The walls had maps of the world, one map of Belka, one of Ustio, one of our continent, and one of the area around B7R aka Round Table. Pictures of foreign pilots with information on the planes they fly, call sign, an notable actions. He had two desks, one with a work lamp and files on it, the other with a computer, communication radio, and other machines I didn't recognize. File cabinets and files were all over the room.

"Leutnant Mieke Ruhrman?" Asked a slightly weary, but powerful voice. Von Klein was sitting in his swivel chair and stood up to greet Mieke. Herr Hauptmann Jesoph von Klein was a 23 year old Osten Belkan and he'd been in the Luftwaffe for over five years now. He was 5' 11" or maybe even 6' tall, short flat-black hair which he keep up on the front, dark brown eyes, he looked like someone who shaves every other day, and he had two scars on left check and one on the left side of his neck. He rarely showed emotion other than his eyes which made you think he had a lot on his mind, but he wasn't sharing.

He wore the same uniform as us, but his officer's jacket was unbuttoned and hanging opened. The way it was hanging lower on one side made me think more than once he kept a gun hidden in there. He also wore his gun belt of his pant's belt. When he adjusted his pants it relieved an H&K Mk. 23 and similar knife to mine.

"That's right mein herr." I said and look to my right expecting to see Mieke. She was gone. I looked left, but she wasn't there either. "Guten tag mein herr." Said a small terrified voice behind me. Rolling me eyes I side stepped, but she hid behind me again.

Von Klein rolled his eyes and started to talk in a flat military tone, "I'm Hauptmann Joseph von Klein, intelligence officer, Blau 13, but in the air volks call me Shepherd. I provide information to the 23rd AFR and sometimes fly sorties with Blau Squadron. Most people are too scared to approach me and send Vogel because he's the only one with enough of a backbone to face me."

"Mein Herr" I asked, "You said earlier to me that Braun and Grau Squadrons' fighter flights are getting Fishbeds too. Why?"

Von Klein sat down again and rested his chin on clasped hands. "Their fighter-bomber flights are getting new planes as well. Also all squadrons are getting pilots to fill in the missing spots." He said without answering my question. "But why?"

His raised an eyebrow, "You can't guess? Well it doesn't matter because I'm not allowed to tell you."

"I see. Well I better get going then." I said. I had a hunch on why, but I wanted him to confirm it for me. He knew I had guessed, but he wasn't going to tell, yet.

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"Where does everyone go at this hour?" asked Mieke as we ate diner alone in the kitchen.

"Into a small city near by called Sudenberg." I answer calmly still wondering if my conclusions were correct.

"Is the base named for the city?"

"Ja. They usually are."

"Do you think the fact that an auxiliary regiment is being better equipped is a sign of war." She was sharper then I thought. I looked at the Belkan flag hanging on the wall and quietly said, "Ja."

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I was reading a mystery novel in my bed. Mieke was in hers typing away on her laptop. Neither one of had spoken a word since diner and the sun had long ago set. In the back of my mind I was still thinking about what war means. Oh well.

"You okay Paul?" asked Mieke while she was typing.

"hm… no one has ever asked me that" I said thinking about what she just asked.

The typing stopped, "Really? … that's too bad… huh? Are you okay?"

I thought about that a little, "I guess I'm fine."

Silence and then, "Liar."

She is full of surprises, "I've got a question. If I hadn't told Krauss to do his paper work would you have crushed him like that coffee mug?"

"Maybe just break his nose" a pause and then she said, "People always made fun of me because of my small timid appearance and so I started to practice some material arts. I got in trouble a few times in the past for breaking peoples' noses or knocking teeth out. Once in high school a guy ran his hand up my skirt and I crushed his hand. giggle He'll think twice about feeling-up girls before doing it again."

"'sigh' at least people remember you." I said flatly.

"What do you mean?" Mieke said a little surprised.

I thought about answer her and said, "Nothing. It's late go to bed soon."

"… liar."

I didn't say anything. I just let the silence continue.

"Guten natch Paul."

"Ja, guten natch Mieke." And with that I went to bed while she went back to typing whatever she was typing.

To Be Continued

Sorry if the you hate the end of this chapter. I've got some fun idea for the next chapter, but I'm still open for ideas here. Also I'm starting to hate the title for this story, it was late and I was tired. I don't care what title someone comes up with, as long as it was something to do with this story. Oh, if you don't speak German just check out http://wolfram. and enter the word you don't understand. I don't speak German either, but I've watch so many World War II movies I've picked up some words.

Respectfully

J. H. Kamiya