Area 88: The Return of the Razgriz

by KnighteWolfe

A preview of this chapter. Its not finished yet. Just wanted to let y'all know that it hasn't been abandoned.

3. Transfer to Heierlark Base Training In

Here it is, the third chapter of my Area 88/Ace Combat 5

The Unsung War crossover. To those who've sent emails

reviews demanding that I keep working on this story,

this chapter's for you!

Y'all demanded that I bring it on back. Well here ya go,

enjoy the story, youse mugs !

Disclaimer: TV Asashi owns Area 88

while Ace Combat 5 is owned by Namco.

Area 88

Return of the Razgriz

Chapter 3:

Transfer to Heierlark Base. Training Intensifies!

Heierlark Air Base. 1125 Hours.

Major Blaze Thomas, Osean Air Defense Force Reserve was bored. It was lunch and he was sitting in the base messhall watching the young pilots he was in charge of training as they ate lunch, joked around with their friends, studied for exams, reviewed aircraft manuals, or sat and stared out the windows at the swirling snow outside. He'd been here for the past few weeks training newbies in advanced flying techniques. In addition to those classes, Blaze was also schooling the young hot dogs in basic, advanced, and doctorate level dogfighting skills. There had been many a day when one of the many young aspiring airedales wanting to be the first to beat their top instructor were humbled in mock dogfights against the multi-ace.

Glancing around the warm room echoing with the laughter and good cheer of young adults who thought they were invincible in the air, Blaze saw through jaded eyes, memories of himself and his wingmen fellowshipping the same way back in his days as a nugget trainee. Unlike these nuggets, the twenty-seven year old pilot had already been awarded his callsign. Sighing to himself and bringing his attention back to the conversation of the other instructors at his table (a table reserved exclusively for senior instructors, one of three such tables in the entire messhall. The junior instructors sat at a table near the back of the room while he and the rest of the Razgriz sat at the reserved black marble table engraved with the Razgriz emblem in the absolute center of the room. No one was allowed in the messhall whenever the Razgriz ate except the combat veteran senior instructors). Blaze poked at his triple bacon cheeseburger and seasoned curly cheese fries. Usually he ate with gusto and sometimes went back for seconds and thirds. This time, Blaze wasn't that hungry.

Bringing his attention back to the young pilots going in and out of the hall, Blaze spotted one of the trainees he'd been keeping a very close eye on. Airman 1st Class Alina H. Davenport had just entered the messhall with three of her classmates. Observing the five foot eleven inch brown haired woman, Blaze could see that she was nearly the spitting image of her father. Her voice even sounded like his deceased wingman's voice, even though it was more of a low and melodic alto than Chopper's loud and obnoxious tenor. Blaze kept watching as Davenport and her friends: Airman 1st Class Kimberly Carson, Second Lieutenant Nicolette Waters, and Airman 1st Class Cindy Decker, made their way to the buffet line, grabbed plates, and started filling them up with mountains of food, Blaze wondered how they were as pilots. Turning to his fellow instructors, he asked.

"Well, that Davenport is a natural flyer; however, she just won't shut up over the radio. Carson and Waters are okay and just need a little bit of extra training to improve their skills. On the other hand, Decker isn't that good. She does well in some facets of her training but needs plenty of help in others. Along with Ostenhaus, Sterling, Fredericks, and Sanderson those four are some of the best female aviators we've come across in a long time. None of them will be as good as Edge of course but they'll come close.", answered Sundowner, an instructor and Vigilante recon plane backseater with the Osean Naval Air Forces.

"Yeah Blaze, those ladies are continuously in the top twenty cadets here. None of the other female cadets come anywhere near their skills.", added Rumrunner as he took a gulp from his soda.

"I see, interesting. Which, if any, of those eight cadets do you recommend I take under my wing?", asked Blaze as he took a bite from his burger.

The instructors conversed for a minute before coming up with their answers. Captain Ben 'Stormy' Weathers spoke for the other instructors.

"Well, we all agree that Davenport would be our first choice. But since we know that you only take maybe four or five cadets out of all the ones on base as your personal students, we believe that Carson, Ostenhaus, and Sterling would best be served by learning from your hand directly in addition to Davenport. I also know that whatever they learned from you they would pass on to the other four. Why do you ask, Blaze? Are you thinkin' about being their instructor?"

Blaze thought for a moment before answering.

"Davenport yeah, the others I don't know about. I flew with Davenport's old man Chopper and the way she carries herself reminds me of the bum."

The chatter between the instructors died down a bit as they remembered before restarting on a different topic. Blaze appreciated the gesture of respect from his peers and went back to his lunch. He'd think of a way to help Davenport and her friends as he observed them chow down on their meals.

Suddenly, Blaze felt like dancing with the sky that afternoon. Calling over a parka clad ground crewman, he questioned the man about the status of the Su-33 Super Flanker he'd seen the repair crews futzing around with on his way to the messhall. Getting a positive report, he told the man to inform the crew working on the bird to get it prepped for a flight after lunch. The tech nodded and hustled out of the room with his purchase. Feeling his hunger return at the prospect of getting some flight time, Blaze wolfed down the remainder of his meal.

Same Time. Sand Island. Hanger Twelve

Kitori Palvanoff was in a world of extreme ecstasy. Her instructor had allowed the baroness to fly her Super Hornet for the first time. And she'd loved it!

For the past few weeks, Kitori had been flying the aircraft chosen by her hosts to get a feel for one to have as a replacement her beloved Mirage F-1. Palvanoff had loved the nimble Fighting Falcon and its F-16N Viper derivative but something about it had left her unfulfilled. Being able to pull a 9G turn appealed to her but the twenty-five degree recline of the ejection seat and the side stick were hard for her to get used to. The tall, long-haired Asranian Baroness had even flown the F-16C block 60 Falcon, the imported F-2, and the F-16XL with its 'cranked arrow' delta wing and could only get mildly excited at the most.

The Mirage 2000 had been a dream to fly and was the closest to her old F-1 so there wasn't as much prep time for her to climb right in and fly. The F-15 Eagle had just been too damn big and she couldn't get the hang of handling the oversized bird. For the Eagle's size it was very nimble and the sensation of breaking Mach 1 in a straight vertical climb had been thrilling, but the rest of the Eagle's assets had left her numb.

Kitori had asked Edge to let her try the Tigershark but in an uncharacteristic vehemence, the shorter woman had flat out refused. Nagase had told Kitori there was no way she could handle the -20. It was too hot a bird for her to handle. Of course Kitori had gotten pissed and wanted to prove to the major that she could when Nagase had handed her an autographed photo of their duel in the trainers. That reminder had cooled Kitori's anger down a bit. It was shortly after that when Kitori inadvertently first placed her hand on the side of Nagase's Super Hornet to keep her from stumbling over something in the hanger.

The minute her hand touched the side of the grey airplane, some sort of electricity shot through Kitori and she unconsciously found herself longing to fly the deadly little aircraft. Later that same day, Kitori had come up to Nagase and had demurely asked if she could fly the Rhino. Edge had refused but allowed her to take one of the regular -18's up for an introductory flight. Disappointed but hoping to impress her instructor enough that she may allow her to take the Rhino up, Kitori had climbed into the cockpit of the Hornet and settled into its Martin-Baker ejection seat. As soon as she'd strapped in and closed the canopy, something started to come over her. Receiving clearance from the tower, she'd taxied out to the runway and launched for her introductory flight.

Kitori hadn't even been in the air ten minutes when she felt the hole that had been in her heart when her F-1 had been destroyed was filled. The baroness felt like a little girl again. Her time flying this aircraft reminded her of the times she'd taken her Mirage up just to feel the freedom of flying. It was with a great reluctance when Palvanoff had to return the plane to the ground and taxi back to the hanger. When she'd climbed out of the aircraft and saw Nagase standing with her arms akimbo and a mysteriously knowing smile on her face and a wicked gleam in her eyes, Kitori had walked over to see what the younger woman was going to say. The only things spoken by her sister multi-ace were seven words.

"Welcome to the Hornet Mafia, Baroness Palvanoff."

Confused, Kitori watched as Edge stepped up and extended her hand. Kitori accepted it, then watched as the other woman strode away with a light step. It was only when Nagase had vanished from view that the taller woman felt a piece of fabric in her hand. Looking down she saw that Nagase had subtly slipped a Velcro patch into her hand. Turning it over, Kitori saw the image and read the words.

The image was of a cartoonish hornet wearing a fedora, sunglasses, and a trenchcoat while smoking a cigar and carrying a smoking Tommy gun in its hands superimposed over a front view of its namesake fighter loaded for bear. The words embroidered around the edge of the patch in red thread on the white patch's yellow border said: 'F/A-18 Hornet' at the top and 'Hornet Mafia' at the bottom. From that point on, Baroness Kitori Palvanoff felt as if she and Kei Nagase were long sundered sisters of the air.

In the ensuing weeks after her choice of aircraft, Kitori had found herself coming under an increasingly demanding workload and more stress than ever before. Nagase quizzed her every chance she got and there wasn't a day that went by that saw the baroness not flying but in a classroom either enduring another lecture or facing another exam. Nagase had turned into the strictest (and bitchiest) instructor Palvanoff had ever had. The younger woman made some of Kitori's previous instructors look like incompetent preschool teachers. There were times when Palvanoff wanted to rip her hair out and scream in frustration. There were also times she contemplated getting rid of Nagase but those thoughts always disappeared when Nagase praised her on her expanding abilities and offered up one of her rare smiles. Those mental musings vanished completely during the few times she was aloft in the Hornet honing her skills. All of those trials and tribulations had come to a head in the mock dogfight that had taken place the day before yesterday.

For the first time in all of their exercises, Nagase had piloted the Super Hornet. In all of their other training, Kitori's instructor had either flown a regular Hornet, or a different aircraft. The dissimilar air combat training (DACT) had helped Palvanoff develop better intuition and situational awareness in the air combat arena. Kitori became a better pilot because of it and the feeling felt great. Palvanoff felt invincible in the air. That dream came crashing down in flames when Kei Nagase had flown her F/A-18E Super Hornet and utterly demolished Palvanoff's new found confidence in her skills, her training, and her aircraft.

That day, watching Edge had been like watching much sped up replay of their duel in the Hawks. However instead of five flights, Edge had verily and ruthlessly cleaned her clock three times in forty-five minutes. Upon landing after the class, Kitori had climbed out of her fighter and made her way over to where Edge stood by her aircrafts' side talking to one of the fuelers about refueling her fighter. Kitori had been depressed about her performance and expected to be chewed out. Imagine her surprise when Edge tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at her plane.

"This aircraft needs another check flight and I can't take it up. I have a phone call holding for me in the hanger office. Can you take her up for me instead? Just take her up and touch the sky. Jot down anything you need changed and we'll talk when you get back.", commented Edge as she turned towards the hanger.

"But… but….. but…. Why me?", stammered Kitori.

"You're the only pilot not flying or sleeping right now. Just remember one thing?"

"What's that?"

"You damage my fighter and I'll kick your ass. Now get goin'."

Reeling from the words she'd just heard. Kitori jammed her helmet on her head and scrambled up the boarding ladder as if she was a small child. Climbing into the cozy cockpit, Kitori saw that while she had been moping about her performance, Edge had had the ground crew lower the ejection seat so Kitori could sit comfortably. Strapping in and closing the canopy, Kitori had radioed the tower-who, she suspected, had been in on the deal-and gotten immediate permission to taxi and take-off.

That had been four hours ago and Kitori had enjoyed every bit of piloting Edge's fighter. To her, the Super Hornet exceeded the flight envelope of every aircraft she'd ever flown. It was nimbler, faster, and easier to control. Everything she'd loved about her Mirage F-1 was intensified in this twin-engined aircraft. To top off her excitement, Kitori was flying Major Nagase's personal aircraft so everything she'd already liked about the Hornet was exponentially enhanced in this one plane and she fell further and further in love with it. Midway through her exhilarating flight, Kitori had glanced out her cockpit and saw that somehow several other Hornets and Super Hornets had joined on her wings and were mirroring every move she made. Palvanoff yelled in excitement and led the fifteen-strong formation through every maneuver she knew. They stayed glued to her wings as if they were one plane.

Finally low on fuel and getting tired, Kitori headed for home. As she watched her fourteen wingmen break off in pairs and return to wherever they had came from, the leader of the bunch slipped closer to her wing and flipped up his visor. When she was close enough to see his face clearly, he called her on the radio.

"The Hornet Mafia welcomes its newest sister. You take it easy now."

Kitori had nodded and given her wingman a thumbs up. He returned it and saluted her before breaking away, kicking in his burners and heading back to where he'd came from.

Now back on the ground and taxiing back to her parking spot, Kitori opened the canopy and let her oxygen mask drop to her chest. Flipping up her visor and using minimal power, she followed the directions of the linesmen until they brought her to a stop next to an aircraft covered in a tarp. Shutting down the engines and going over her post flight checks (Edge had verbally beat those into her during her accelerated Hornet ground school), Palvanoff climbed out of Nagase's fighter and headed for the hanger. She stopped when she saw her Area 88 wingman and her betrothed standing with the Bartlett Colonels next to the heavy tarpaulin. Wondering what was going on, she changed direction and made her way towards her friends. The closer she got to the group and the covered object, the more she wondered. Two steps from the gathering of pilots, a whistle blew and the tarp fell away to reveal a brand new F/A-18E Super Hornet with a familiar marking on the vertical stabilizer.

Dropping her helmet to the ground, Kitori stared slack-jawed at her chosen insignia; a bow with three arrows notched. Whirling around to face the others, Kitori noticed that Nagase was standing there with the group. She saw that Nagase was holding a bottle in her hands along with something else. As she stared, Edge spoke.

"Well are you gonna stand there gawking all day or are ya gonna christen it?"

"Huh? Whaddya mean?"

"It's the replacement for your F-1 and it needs a name. Only the pilot assigned to this aircraft can give the aircraft its name. You're its assigned pilot. Whatcha gonna call 'er?"

Kitori thought for a moment before coming up with the perfect name. Telling the gathered pilots she took the bottle of champagne from Edge, popped the top, and vigorously sprayed the foaming liquid over the nose of the Rhino.

"I christen thee 'Desert Vixen'!", stated Kitori firmly and with a smile on her face.

Those gathered around exploded into applause and cheers for the newly named fighter. Accepting the congratulations from Shin, and the rest of her Area 88 compatriots as well as those from Wardog, Kitori reveled in the adulation. She listened as Major Snow commented to Major Grimm.

"Pay up Grimm. I knew she was gonna choose the Hornet. Baroness Palvanoff's a tailhooker at heart!",

"Aww man, I was sure she was gonna pick the Eagle. Damn that bites!", returned Grim good-naturedly and with a smile on his face.

"Don't worry about it, Grimm. Somewhere out there's somebody who's a fan of the Eagle.", commented Edge who was standing next to the six-four muscular black Tomcat pilot.

Kitori nodded in agreement and gave Archer a smile. Wrapping an arm around the young pilot, she kissed his forehead and gave him a sisterly hug. When she stepped back the group laughed at the goofy, yet smug look on Grimm's face.

"Well Snow, it looks as if I don't owe you anything now!"

More laughter followed as the Eternal Swordsman had the grace to look suitably forlorn. Kitori backed away from the raucous crowd as Mickey tried to wrap up Snow in a friendly headlock. His six foot two inches and two hundred and twenty-five pounds was no match for the Super Tomcat pilot who was two inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier. It turned into a brotherly dog pile on the big pilot as even Kim Aba joined the raucous tussling.

Gazing back at her aircraft, Kitori felt a light weight on her shoulder and turned to find Edge handing her the other item she'd been holding. Kitori's eyebrow lifted as she realized what it was.

"I heard from the prince that you fly and fight wearing this. Don't you think it would be appropriate to put some on now?", asked Edge as she handed Kitori the little bullet shaped container.

Taking the item in one gloved hand, Kitori placed her other hand on the bottom of the object and twisted. A vibrant red column of lipstick easily rotated to the top. Glancing at the shorter pilot and seeing her nod, Kitori applied her trademark color to her lips. Looking into the mirror that Nastasya Bartlett (who'd joined the two women beside the plane) held up, Kitori felt rejuvenated and reborn as both a woman and as a fighter pilot.

"It's been so long since I last wore any lipstick that I've forgotten how it feels.", the baroness stated quietly.

On a whim, Kitori walked up to her new fighter and pressed her brightly painted lips against the cool metal. As she backed away, Nagase and Nastasya examined the red lipstick smudges that remained with critical eyes and nodded in approval. They liked the personal touch that Kitori had made. It suited the brash and loud, yet sophisticated aerial killer to perfection. The three women shared a glance before turning their attention to the group of guys on the tarmac. Somehow Colonel Vashtarl had been enticed to join in the friendly mugging. As it was, he and Jack Bartlett were the two guys on the top of the pile.

"No matter how old they get, men are just young boys at heart, right?", commented Nastasya Bartlett in her lightly accented voice.

"And that little boy personality that shows up every so often is why we love them so much, isn't it?", continued Nastasya softly as she turned her attention to her companions.

Both Palvanoff and Nagase nodded. They agreed most whole heartedly with what the older woman said. Sharing knowing grins, the trio of women left the guys and headed for the messhall. It was time for there own congratulatory celebration; one where no men were allowed.

Three Days later, 1345 Hours. Sand Island Base.

Major Marcus 'Swordsman' Snow was frustrated. For the umpteenth time since their training of the Area 88 bunch had commenced training, he'd fought against Kim Aba.

And for the umpteenth time, the teenage pilot hadn't been able to get any advantage on the Tomcat driver.

"Gawddammit! He's still doesn't get what we're trying to teach his young ass!", roared Snow as he slung his helmet the length of the locker room.

"Give it a rest Snow! The kid's young and this is some of the most intense training he's had other than the O-J-T he's received up to this point. Maybe he's never had anyone describe VIFF'ing to him.", commented Archer as he reclined on the bench wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a towel.

Marcus glared at his old wingman with the glare that had frozen many an aircrew when he was a squadron leader and deputy air group commander aboard the old Kestrel. Seeing that the glare had no effect on the Archer, Snow sighed and started to slide out of his G-suit. Once the chaps-like garment that wrapped around his lower body had been discarded and lay at a pile at his feet, Snow plopped down on the bench and untied the laces on his size fifteen flight boots and set them aside. Undoing the zippers and climbing out of his sweaty fireproof green Nomex flight suit he opened his locker and grabbed a towel off the top shelf of his locker.

Hans 'Archer' Grimm glanced at his old friend as he sat in front of his locker with his head down and wearing a black t-shirt with the Tomcat patch on the front, a pair of boxer shorts, and a pair of green socks. Sitting up and rotating to face his locker, the cherubic face of the young pilot reached in and grabbed his own t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

"How'd you do today? What's it like flying against the prince and Kazama?", asked Snow from his spot in front of his locker.

"Hell, what isn't it like? They're good, damn good. That colonel is a dammed surgeon in the air and that Jaguar is his scalpel. The first times I flew against him I was able to work him over pretty good, but lately he's been carving me up like a dammed Christmas turkey. Shit, I'm lucky to even win one match against him now. Man, I don't even wanna talk about facing Kazama. In the weeks since he's been here I have only beaten him once. Kazama reminds me too much of Blaze before his Razgriz transformation."

Before Snow could comment, Edge ran around the corner with an ecstatic expression on her face.

"Blaze just called! Bartlett is video conferencing with him as we speak. If you wanna get the chance to talk to him then the two of you need to hurry up!! Umm, pardon me for asking but what's wrong guys?"

It was obvious to Archer and Swordsman that Edge didn't realize that she was wearing only a pair of panties and a t-shirt. Even sitting a good ten feet away the two men could tell that their number two wasn't wearing her bra. Snow was the first to speak.

"Umm Kei? Dontcha think you need to cover yourself up? I can't speak for our young friend here but what you have on now is kind of distracting."

Nagase looked down at her present attire (or to be more precise, her present lack of attire) and realized that she was giving the other two pilots a peek at which she only showed her husband and then only in the privacy of their own bedroom back home.

"Shit!! Oops sorry guys.", exclaimed Edge as she dashed behind the nearest locker and stuck her head around the corner.

Snow shook his head and grinned. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it before. Aboard the carrier, only the flight crew locker rooms (unlike those in their own quarters) were co-ed and accessed through the squadron ready rooms. In his career, Snow had seen a lot of skin in those locker rooms and it didn't faze him. In fact none of the female carrier pilots he'd known had been fazed by the fact that during flight ops it wasn't unusual for a male pilot to inadvertently walk in to the locker room while they were getting changed. In fact one female Tomcat pilot he had known had taken a perverse pride in the fact that every time Swordsman himself was changing she'd casually walk into the locker room and catch him in flagrante delicto. It had taken him two cruises to realize that Lieutenant 'Sunshine' Hill had had a wicked crush on-the then lieutenant commander-Snow.

Marcus sighed as he remembered Hill. She and her radar intercept officer (RIO) had gotten zapped while stooging around at angels 25 (25,000 feet of altitude) trying to catch a Yuke sneaky Pete in a recon-equipped Tornado scud running through some clouds trying to snoop on the OADF as they prepared for Operation Desert Lightning. In addition to his camera pod, the bastard had a pair of Sidewinders on his wings and had popped one of them at Sunshine as she'd inadvertently turned her exhaust in his direction. The heatseeking missile had hit Sunshine's 'Cat in its number two engine and started a fire. Before she could either activate the fire bottle or punch herself and her RIO out, the fully armed bird had exploded. Two minutes later, Snow had sent the sanctimonious prick to hell when he nailed him with a Phoenix from eighty miles away. The unlucky sonuvabitch never knew what hit him when the big hypersonic fire-and-forget radar guided missile had blotted him out of the sky. All that was left of the transgressor were pieces no bigger than the name patch on Snows' flightsuit.

The big pilot acknowledged the nearly naked Nagase and told her he'd be up there to chat with Blaze in a few minutes. The extremely attractive female pilot nodded once with flaming cheeks and ducked back behind the row of lockers in her embarrassment. Archer and Swordsman didn't so much as exchange a look when a loud "damn" echoed around the locker room accompanied by the sound of flesh hitting metal in exasperation. Shortly after that, Hans Grimm exited the changing area in a pair of sweats from his alma mater and a tank top. Archer was going to say a few words to Blaze before hitting the gym and working out a bit. Snow bid him farewell then went about his own business of changing into his own exercise clothes (a pair of Kestrel sweat pants and t-shirt that said 'DCAG' on it given to him by the members of his squadron before the war).

As he finished changing, Snow saw Edge-now fully clothed in a fresh flight suit (she had a flight against Simon planned for later)-go dashing out of the locker room at a full sprint. Marcus took a second to admire her form as she darted past. When she ran, Nagase was as swift as a gazelle, a trait that had helped her out tremendously after she was shot down according to Blaze. Paired with a woman's natural tendency to be sneaky and duplicitous, Edge's speed had given her the advantage when the Sea Goblin rotorheads had found her and their missing gunship crew after they'd crashed trying to save her after they'd pulled off a daring POW rescue in the mountains.

When Blaze had told him that Edge had captured the enemy platoon out hunting for her and the wounded gunship crew with nothing but her .40 caliber sidearm, he didn't believe it. When Blaze told him that the only wound his wife had was a crease caused by a near miss from a Yuke assault rifle, Snow was even more astounded. Weeks after he joined up with Archer, Blaze, and Edge after Chopper's death, Snow often would think about the scar on Edge's upper left arm he'd seen while they were aboard the carrier. It was one of the extremely rare times Edge had slid her arms out of her flightsuit and tied the flightsuit arms around her waist out of habit and he'd seen the white of scar tissue just beneath the sleeve of the squadron tee shirt she wore under her flightsuit to keep the Nomex from chafing her fair skin.

Shaking the memory away with a quick left-right movement of his head, Snow prepared to close his locker. Glancing at the large object sitting on top of its case as he closed the metal door, Snow wondered if he'd ever get the chance to wear it under his arm again. Putting it out of his mind for now; Major Marcus Snow, 'The Eternal Swordsman' walked out of the locker room with his head held high and headed in the direction of the communications shack to see what his flight lead had to say.

Fifteen minutes later there was a small crowd in the communications shack as Snow, Grimm, Nagase, and the Bartlett colonels squeezed closer together in front of the wall-sized monitor where the image of Blaze Thomas peered out on the crowd of friends. Marcus got concerned as he saw that Blaze was dressed like he was about to go out on a combat mission. Blaze saw the look in Snow's eyes and nodded.

"Hey Snow. The Penguin assigned me a recon sortie in a combat area. Perrault wants two TARPS equipped T-cats' and a pair of Viggies to take a look at the situation in Asran. It seems that somebody's been shadowing the fighters of Air Wing Twenty-One aboard the OFS Egret as they performed their routine duties and stayed out of the contested airspace. CAG 21 and his pilots are worried that whoever's doing the shadowing plans to hit our aircraft sometime in the near future. I just happened to be in operations when the order came down and I rounded up some crews. I got a couple of the trainees flying Typhoons as wingmen. I had planned to take up a Typhoon myself, however, we just got a new freelance RAN and none of the pilots want to fly with him. Genette personally vouched for the guy and still no one wanted the freelancer in their pit. So I get to fly a Viggie with an FNG on a possible combat sortie so you know how I feel.", commented Blaze as he adjusted the sidearm under his left shoulder.

F.N.G. – figure it out. It ain't a compliment!

"Blaze you be damn careful out there. You know the Viggie's unarmed and it's only advantages are its speed and its altitude ceiling. Use those to your advantage and make sure that the other Viggie crew does the same. Who's pushing the other -5C?", asked Marcus as he pinched the bridge of his nose and wracked his brain trying to remember the name of the air wing twenty-one commander.

"Hehehe, Snow you don't have to worry about that. I made sure I got Scarface and Sundown in the other Vigilante. In the Viggie community they're acknowledged as the best of the best. I also have Wildman and Photodawg on standby along with Ghost and Gryffen. But enough about me and the things I gotta deal with how's the training going?"

Edge gave the others a quick glance before answering that everything was fine. Blaze, having seen the look his wife cast the others in the room, didn't buy it and waited for the truth to come out. Snow sighed and went ahead and detailed the problem.

"It's the kid. He's not advancing as fast as we'd hoped he would. I mean, Aba is a good stick and that means a lot since he's pushing a capable VTOL aircraft like the Harrier. It's just that he's not learning that well and he's not taking full advantage of what that aircraft can do. Now I see why Kitori doesn't particularly like to fly as his wingman although she says he is a very capable pilot.", stated Snow resignedly.

Blaze thought for a moment before asking Nastasya Bartlett a question. She looked taken aback at his request and answered in the positive but then she asked a question of her own.

"Why do you ask about Yuri Smolenski? That crazy bastard has crashed more airplanes than anyone has ever flown! It's no wonder they call him the 'Mad Dog' of the air. I do not see what you want with him.", snarled Nastasya.

"Yeah, Yuri is nuts but no one here can deny that he's the best Harrier pilot in either the Yuktobanian or Osean Air Forces. That 'crazy bastard' as you call him can make a Harrier do tricks that it wasn't even designed to do. We need him to kick Aba in the ass and get him to flying his plane to its fullest extent. And to do that, we're going to have to be a bit severe with him. Problem is, I don't know how Colonel Vashtarl will take it. Jack, can you get the prince to come to the communications shack, I need to speak with him."

"Yeah sure, Kid. I can do that but what's your plan?", asked Colonel Bartlett.

Blaze started to explain and by the time he finished, everyone in the entire room had turned a shade of white so pale that it looked as if they were dead. What Blaze was postulating could probably backfire on them. What's more, it would put Kim Aba in a life or death situation. In the end, the all agreed since it was for Aba's sake they did this.

Several Days Later. Sand Island Air Force Base 1230 Hours.

Mickey Simon was in heaven. Here he was piloting his Tomcat against the woman known as Edge and he was doing pretty well against her. Things had been hostile between the two groups the last few days because of some actions taken against Kim Aba that he considered high handed. It was like they'd singled the teenager out for some reason and that wasn't fair in his book.

When it happened, it caught the Area 88'ers by surprise and caused a lot of worry. Simon remembered the day when he'd confronted Major Snow about it and the major had simply picked him up by his neck, slammed him into the nearest wall, leaned in close, and growled that Simon needed to mind his own damn business.

It had all started when that asshole Blaze Thomas had arrived at Sand Island after a long photo-recon mission he'd been assigned. His aircraft had taken some shrapnel from a SAM near miss. Blaze had flown the damaged aircraft several thousand miles to Sand Island, performing aerial refueling when he needed extra gas, until he landed. Everyone had gathered around the plane as it sat on the flight line and waited for Blaze and his backseater to climb out of the aircraft. The pilots had not been allowed anywhere near the plane until the photo specialists had unloaded the camera pod and wheeled it away to develop the film.

Once that had been done, an exhausted Blaze had climbed out of the aircraft and nearly fell into the waiting arms of Major Snow and Colonel Bartlett. Major Grimm and Mickey had been assigned the task of helping the backseater unstrap and egress the airplane. The helmeted figure had started to offer his thanks but had clammed up when he caught a glimpse of Mickey. It didn't dawn on the Tomcat pilot who the backseat photo systems operator had been until he'd doffed his helmet and familiar brown hair spilled out around his face. When he recognized the backseater as the freelance photographer Shinjou Makoto, Simon felt his ire burst and he swung a fist at the man he considered a traitor. Mickey's fist fell short of Shinjou's face as Blaze exhibited a surprising strength and stopped the taller pilot's fist from making contact with the traitors' face.

Colonel Bartlett had demanded to know what was wrong with Simon when the prince stepped up and pointed a pistol at the face of the photographer. Thomas had then unlimbered his pistol and pointed it at Saki and ordered him to lower his own weapon so things could be organized. For a few seconds it seemed that the reserve major was indeed going to kill the prince until Saki had lowered his pistol and stalked off.

Hours later, Simon was flying Kim Aba's wing in a mock dogfight against Major Grimm when the trio found themselves locked up by an unknown aerial radar system. The three pilots had split up but the unknown radar had stayed glued to Kim's' Harrier. Kim couldn't shake his pursuer and was running low on fuel when he made a call to the base asking permission to land. Simon remembered the conversation as if it happened yesterday.

Flashback

"Sand Island, this is Kim Aba requesting permission to land and refuel."

"Request denied Flight Lieutenant Aba. You are prohibited from landing. Take a heading of two-one-five and follow the aircraft at your six o'clock. If you do not, you will be fired upon.", came the voice of the air traffic controller.

There was absolute silence on the channel before it exploded into a maelstrom of comments, mostly the rest of the Area 88 contingent that was flying at the time. Conspicuously absent, although Mickey didn't realize it at the time, was the voice of Commander Saki.

"Sand Island Base, what the hell is going on? How come Kim can't land, for Christ's sake, he's low on fuel. If he doesn't land and refuel now, he will die! Are you just going to sit there and let him be killed?", roared Kitori over the radio net.

"You are out of line Flight Captain Palvanoff! Clear this channel at once! Flight Lieutenant Aba, I reiterate, you are prohibited from landing at Sand Island. If you do not follow the directions already given you, you will be shot down. Wardog Three you are cleared to activate your radar and lock on to Flight Lieutenant Aba's aircraft. That's an order major. If you do not comply, you will be considered insubordinate and will be immediately court-martialed when you land.", replied Colonel Bartlett.

"Gawddammit, what is wrong with your people. I thought you were here to help us. Now you're refusing to help us out when one of our pilots is in need. Fuck y'all then!", yelled Mickey as he reefed his Tomcat around and pointed its nose at Major Grimm's Eagle and at the same time activated his radar system to get a lock on the transgressor.

Ignoring the squawking of the other voices, Mickey armed his weapons and called the Eagle pilot on the radio.

"Major Grimm if you so much as fire one missile at my friend, I will blow you out of the sky.", Mickey commented grimly with his finger inches away from his finger.

"No you won't Captain Simon. Check Six.", replied an emotionless voice to Mickey's challenge.

Mickey felt his blood run cold as he recognized the nose of Major Nagase's Super Hornet directly behind him and heard his radar homing and warning (RHAW) gear scream as it registered the radar painting his aircraft. Edge Nagase-Thomas was saddled in the perfect firing position to riddle his Tomcat with 20mm cannon shells. Knowing that Kazama was out there to protect him while he made his attack run, Mickey felt that he was in a superior bargaining position. He felt that way until Major Snow came over the net and dashed his hopes.

"Captain Simon, this is Major Snow. I know you know what the radar in a Tomcat can do. At this time I have both Flight Captain Palvanoff and Lieutenant Colonel Kazama locked up on my radar. I also have one AiM-54 Phoenix locked on to your aircraft if for some odd reason Major Nagase misses. Don't make me pull the trigger, captain. Do the right thing and disarm your weapons."

In his Harrier, Kim felt that he had no choice but to follow the orders of the air traffic controller if he wanted his friends to live. Depressing his microphone switch, Kim placed a call.

"Mickey, Kitori, Shin don't do anything. I'll comply with their orders. Disarm your weapons. Aircraft at my six, I will accompany you. Changing course to two-one-five, I guess my fate is in your hands."

Mickey watched as Kim changed to his ordered heading and flew off. Within seconds he was gone from sight and Simon slammed a fist down on his knee. He wanted to land and get to the bottom of this travesty and didn't care what it cost him. Something wasn't right and he wanted to find out what it was. Even if it meant he butted heads with Major Snow physically.

Mickey landed his aircraft with all intention of jumping out and storming up to Colonel Bartlett and punching the officious bastard in the face. What he saw when he taxied in was Major Blaze Thomas standing with Colonel Vashtarl. Shutting down his engines and finishing his post flight checks, the blonde Tomcat pilot eschewed the ladder and lithely jumped from his cockpit to the ground. Mickey stormed up to the colonel and demanded to know why he didn't say anything about the situation. Vashtarl didn't answer and Mickey was about to grab the front of his flight suit when Thomas spoke up.

"It was on my orders that the tower denied permission for Aba to land. If you need somebody to take your anger out on, take it out on me.", Blaze said resolutely.

"Why you……", shouted Mickey as his eyes flashed and he punched the smaller pilot in the jaw.

To his credit, Blaze didn't flinch. He just took the punch and accepted it and turned to walk back to the tower where his friends waited. Before he took a step, Blaze looked over his shoulder and gave them all a pitying look.

"This is for the kid's own good. He'll be back. I didn't send him off to his death. I don't operate that way.", stated Blaze in a tone full of pity that angered the big American to no end.

Mickey reached out to grab the smaller pilot by the shoulder and yank him around to deliver another punch when Colonel Vashtarl's voice whipcracked through the air, stilling Mickey's actions. The three Area 88 pilots looked at their commander with eyes full of anger at his interruption of what they thought was some deserved justice.

"All of you, my quarters now! We'll discuss this there!", snapped Saki.

"But highness!", started Kitori.

"No buts, Baroness Palvanoff! I want all of you in my quarters immediately! The rest of the flight schedule for today is scrubbed!", the prince bit off before whirling and storming off.

With nothing else to do, the trio followed him. When they arrived at their destination still attired in their flight gear, they found their commander sitting pensively in a chair by the window. Before the questions could begin, Saki brought up the mock dogfight where Kitori got pissed at Kim for calling him her superior. She bristled but before she could elaborate on her reasoning, Saki pinned her with his glare. After waiting a moment and lighting a cigarette, Saki spoke.

"Kitori, do you realize that if Kim knew how to fly his aircraft to its limits, you wouldn't have beaten him that day. In fact, if Kim knew every little thing about the Harrier, he could've have easily made his 1.5 million and been released from his contract."

"There's no way that kid could beat my F-1 then and there ain't no way he can beat my Rhino now!", exclaimed Kitori.

Mickey watched as Saki glared at his cousin before settling down and getting to the point of this meeting.

"Our hosts see something in Aba that none of us except possibly Kazama has seen and they brought in an outside instructor. One who will teach young Aba to take his aircraft to its limits and then some. When Major Thomas first told me this, I felt the same was as you do. Yet the more I observe them, the more I see that these people know pilots and planes much better than we do. Between the four of us, we've faced off against each of their pilots numerous times and we, as well as they, have learned from it. However, not one of us has faced their best pilot. We don't know what he's capable of. What we do know is that he wants to help us, all of us, become better pilots. This Blaze sees something in Kim and can guess that Kim could become one of the greatest pilots of all time. However, before he can help us reach that next level, Blaze has to be sure we can handle it and Kim is lagging behind. Not in skills, because the young one is extremely skilled. Kim has yet to figure out how to take his aircraft to its ultimate limit. Major Thomas thinks, and I concur with him, that this extra type-specific training for Aba can do nothing but help us and the rest of our friends. Once he masters this training, Kim can then pass it on to the other VTOL pilots at Area 88. Now I want the three of you to just continue your training. Kim will probably return before we know it. When he does, Kitori I want you to fly against him first. That is all I wish for now. Please excuse me; I have to go study the photos Blaze brought back. And Mickey, leave Shinjou alone. He feels bad enough as it for his actions years ago. Don't make him feel worse."

Mickey had grumbled but acquiesced to the request and stormed out of the Prince's quarters in a funk.

End Flashback

Bringing his attention back to the situation at hand, Mickey saw that Edge had regained the advantage against him and was making him work harder to negate her advantage; just as he was about to do so, she called him and ordered him to knock it off.

"What's going on major? Are that afraid to lose to me again?", taunted Mickey over the radio.

Edge frowned as she heard the taunt in her opponent's voice. She knew that Mickey still rankled about the way Wardog had treated their young Harrier pilot and took every chance he could in the mock dogfights to make them pay for it. His skill had taken an exponential leap because of that but he still was held back by his attitude. She wasn't worried about that though; Kei knew that once Blaze was ready, he'd knock the cockiness right out of the smartass and enjoy doing it. In her professional opinion, Blaze was the best because he could take a very disadvantaged situation and turn it to his advantage and he wasn't cocky about it.

Blaze was just that damn good.

"Well the smartass still needs an answer, so I guess I won't disappoint him.", thought Edge as she maneuvered her aircraft so Simon could approach her wing safely.

Glancing over at the larger aircraft, Edge shook her head before keying her mic.

"Lose to you again? How long did it take you before you could even somewhat match up to me? I just called it off because Blaze and one of his students are inbound to Sand Island and I wanted to see how well you compare to her in dissimilar aircraft formation flying. If you compare favorably with his student, I'll see how well you've advanced and will consider you my semi-equal in the air.", commented Edge as she checked her radar to find her husband.

Over in the Tomcat, Mickey Simon glared at his radio and gritted his teeth. He still hadn't forgiven the major for his actions in bringing that traitorous photographer to this island. Nor had he forgiven his actions the day that Kim had been banished from this base for extra training. Yes they'd heard that Kim had landed safely and was being treated professionally but the messages had always come through either Colonel Bartlett or Colonel Vashtarl and Mickey was sure that Bartlett wasn't passing on everything he learned.

Checking his radar, Mickey saw that the two ship formation wasn't that far off and it would just take a couple of minutes for him and Major Nagase to join on them. Activating his Television Camera System (TCS), he slewed the camera around till it was focused on the same bearing as Blaze's flight as the radar indicated. Focusing the camera on the distant pair of aircraft, Mickey saw that Blaze and his wingman were piloting planes similar to the one Razgriz One had shown up in so many weeks ago. Deciding to show the arrogant pilot what he could do, Mickey turned his radio down so he could barely hear it and advanced his throttles to the max power setting. He was going to make a high speed pass and see if he could cause Blaze Thomas to loose control of his aircraft for a split second. Ignoring the muted cries of warning from his flight lead, Mickey made his move.

Major Ian Thomas was cruising. Earlier today, Blaze had buttonholed Airman 1st Class Davenport after class and asked her if she wanted the chance to receive extra credit. She'd jumped at the chance and her eyes had lit up when he told her to grab her flight gear and meet him on the Heierlark flight line along with a pair of Aardvarks. Davenport's enthusiasm dimmed a bit when she was informed that she was flying with her instructor to pick up his children and take them to see their mom at Sand Island. But she bounced back after Blaze had told her that Sand Island was where he'd met her father and he wanted her to be able to feel closer to her late predecessor.

Right now, Blaze was flying at angels 12 with his daughter Kita strapped into the co-pilots' seat beside him. Kita was wearing a custom-made flight suit, g-suit, and helmet with a boom microphone in place of the oxygen mask. Blaze grinned to himself as he saw that his daughter was intently watching the instruments and asking questions.

"Flying with my daughter, it's a good feeling. Who knew that Kita would be this interested in aviation? Kei will be pleased and I know that my darling wife will subtly direct our daughter into this field of work as she grows older.", thought Blaze as he undid the left side bayonet fittings on his oxygen mask and let it dangle.

Folding the boom microphone from its position on the side of his helmet in front of his mouth, Blaze called his wingman and checked on his son.

"Sled Dog two, this is Sled Dog lead. Everything okay over there Davenport, is your passenger behaving himself?", Blaze called.

"Lead, this is two. He's behaving himself, looks like he's dozed off for now. Want me to wake him up so you can talk to him?", replied Alina Davenport.

"Negative, let him sleep. He'll be awake soon enough."

"Copy that, Sled Dog two out."

"Sled Dog lead, out.", returned Blaze as he returned his attention to his flying.

"Daddy, is Allen alright over in Auntie Alina's plane?", questioned Kita Thomas. She'd heard the conversation between her father and her adopted aunt.

"Yeah honey, your brother is fine. He just fell asleep. Why don't you try and get some rest yourself, we'll be seeing mommy soon.", said Blaze easily as he reached over and patted the top of his daughters' helmet.

"Okay daddy. I'll try.", yawned Kita as she leaned back and closed her eyes.

Blaze looked over at his daughter and smiled. If they'd have to eject, at least the two of them could stay together since the entire cockpit of this aircraft was ejected and the flight crew stayed together. Blaze hadn't told Edge about this but the Aardvark was the only military fighter he'd allow either Allen or Kita to fly in as a passenger. Seeing that her torso harness was loose, Blaze reminded his daughter to tighten it.

"Remember to tighter your harness like I taught you, okay honey?"

"I will dad.", Kita answered while suiting her small hands to her words.

Blaze nodded once Kita's harness was tight and he switched the intercom system from hot mic to cold mic (from always open for communication to where it had to be activated by a switch to allow the crew to talk to each other).

As he returned his attention to his task, Blaze's sharp eyes caught the glint of sunlight off of the canopies of fighters and figured that they were from Sand Island and planned to join on him and his wingman for the remaining flight to the base. Reaching down to the radio switch while watching the formation, Blaze began to get a feeling that something wasn't right and it worried him. Casting a glance at the sleeping form of his daughter in the seat next to him, the ace fighter pilot and father of two reattached his oxygen mask to its fittings and prepared himself for whatever may come.

"Lead this is two. I have a visual on two fighters closing our position.", called Davenport.

"I have a tally on those fighters myself two. Go 'loose deuce'", snapped Blaze.

By now, he could recognize the two fighters as a Hornet and a Tomcat. Hoping against hope that Snow was in the Tomcat, Blaze waited for the other pilot to make his move. As the 'Cat blew past, Blaze's hopes faded as he saw the graphic on the tail.

"Shit, its Mickey. And he's still pissed at me for what happened the other day. Dammit, I'm at a major disadvantage here. What can I do? Waitaminute, if Kei is in the Hornet, maybe I can get her to talk Mickey out of this. If not, well….", thought Blaze as he cast a look at his sleeping daughter.

Keying the radio, Blaze made a hurried call.

"Edge, if that's you in the Rhino, I need you to call off Mickey. Davenport and I are carrying a couple of special visitors that can not be exposed to extreme maneuvering. Please call him off for me baby.", pleaded Blaze.

Edge listened to her husband and wondered what he meant. It took her a second to realize what he was talking about however it was too late as Mickey made his first aggressive move.

Blaze watched as Mickey committed to his first move. As he went to counter it, he whispered a prayer for his daughters' safety and pushed his throttles forward then outboard and forward again to activate his burners to give him the speed he needed. Blaze knew that he couldn't maneuver too violently. He didn't want to think about the affect on Kita if he did. Kicking in full left rudder and rolling his aircraft to the left, he barrel rolled away thus ruining Mickey's firing solution.

In the Tomcat, Mickey cursed as his gunsight pipper danced off the spot he'd just managed to put it on to frighten Blaze into apologizing for his treatment of Kim. He'd heard the radio call about the special packages but it didn't stop him from again trying to put his pipper on the other aircraft. Ignoring the major's wingman, he waited for the right moment to again attempt to gain the advantage. He wanted to show this major who was the better pilot.

On the ground, Marcus Snow sprinted from the control tower's radio room to the flightline where he knew Shin Kazama was finishing up his post flight checks. Stopping by the blue and white Tiger, Snow caught his breath before speaking.

"Shin, you need to launch and keep Mickey from causing Blaze to crash.", he panted.

"Why should I, major? Major Thomas refused to allow a friend of mine to return to base when he was low on fuel and threatened to shoot him down if he even attempted to do so. Why should I stop him, tell me that?", commented Shin calmly.

Now most people knew that it was hard to get Marcus Snow to blow his top and showcase his infamous temper. But when Snow did explode, it was a sight (a great one to see some opinioned) to see. Marcus glared at Shin and grabbed the front of his flightsuit (not an easy feat considering that Snow was balanced on the boarding ladder of Shin's aircraft) and dragged his face close.

"You should help Blaze out because he has his daughter in the aircraft with him. And if something happens to either one of them you will get to find out why we call Major Nagase, 'Edge'", answered Swordsman angrily.

The implications of what the six-four pilot meant broke through Shin's stubbornness and his eyes went wide. Ceasing his checks, Shin hurriedly motioned for the ground crew to move away from his aircraft so he could start his engines and keep things from further spiraling out of control.

Meanwhile, in the air, Edge was desperately trying to get Mickey to halt his aggressiveness by any means possible short of putting a missile up his ass. Edge didn't want to be the one that strained relations between Wardog and Zero-Zero Section. With her heart in her throat, Edge cut across Mickey's flight path so close she disrupted the airflow into his engines for a minute and caused him to break off for a bit. Mickey, however, knew how to counter that and pushed his shuddering fighter into a shallow dive. Once the turbulence entering his engine intakes ceased, he pulled out and looked for his target. Spotting Blazes' aircraft, he lit out in pursuit.

In his cockpit, Blaze was pulling every modified maneuver he could. Kita had woken up and was screaming in fright because of the semi-violent maneuver. The moves eventually scared her into silence and that worried her father and Blaze felt the incendiary temper he was named for rising to the fore. Mentally he was cursing up a storm but there was no outward sign of his inner turmoil except for the intense glare that was showing on his face if anyone had been able to see it.

Trying to calm his daughter as she shrieked in fright, Blaze spotted Mickey making another pass. Knowing that he couldn't pull any of his emergency evasive maneuvers because the tremendous g-forces they would entail would be harmful to his daughter, Blaze waited. He was about to give up when he saw Mickey break off his pass and wondered why he would do that. A second later the answer became clear when a blue and white streak shot past him on a collision course with the Tomcat.

Recognizing the emblem on the vertical tail, Blaze gave a sigh of relief and turned his attention to bringing is plane in safely and calming his daughter down. With his nerves as taut as violin strings, Blaze was able to bring the Aardvark in for a slightly rough landing and taxied to a spot next to the hanger. Shutting everything down and forgoing his post flight checks, Blaze hurriedly unstrapped himself, raised his cockpit canopy and jumped out of his aircraft. Once on the ground, he ran around to the other side of the plane and climbed up the integral boarding ladder built into the side of the plane and triggered the canopy release.

Impatiently waiting for the co-pilot's canopy to raise, Blaze looked across the way and saw his wife sprinting in his direction. When the canopy had stopped its travel, Blaze reached in and gently unstrapped Kita from the ejection seat and lifted her out of the cockpit. Using his free hand, he brushed back the lever used to raise and lower the helmet's eye shield. Seeing the dark eyes of his daughter blink as she realized that she was safe, Blaze cradled his six year old daughter to his shoulder and allowed the ground crewmen to help him climb down from the cockpit.

Refusing to relinquish his grip on is daughter, Blaze made his way over to Edge. Edge reached her husband and thanked god that her child was safe. She'd already held her son close and thanked Davenport for keeping him safe. Telling the pilot trainee to keep an eye on her son, Edge had rushed over to where Blaze was extracting Kita from the cocoon of harness straps and gently lifting her out of the cockpit. When she saw that Kita's eyes were open and she blinked, Edge almost fell to the ground crying but refrained. She'd wait till later to release her emotions. Hearing her husbands' voice, Edge realized that Blaze was speaking to Kita in a calm voice and apologizing for what putting her through all of that. Glancing around at the gathered crowd, she saw that the other pilots had arrived and were waiting to see what was going to happen. Even Mickey Simon had rushed up and had a look of regret on his face.

Only her time living with and loving Blaze allowed Edge to pick up the tone of his voice that told her that he was trying to keep his own tears from falling.

"Kita, are you alright?! Come on, talk to me! Are you okay?", pleaded Blaze as he hugged his daughter close.

"I'm okay now dad. I was scared earlier but now I'm okay.", answered the six year old in a soft tone of voice that calmed Blaze down a bit.

Just holding his daughter and allowing his breathing to come back down, Blaze gazed around at the gathered pilots. When his eyes landed on the instigator of the whole incident, the anger blazed up again. Carefully passing Kita off to Kei, Blaze slowly strolled up to the taller pilot and looked him over once. Turning away for a bit as if he was going to drop it, Blaze whirled around before anyone could stop him and punched Mickey dead in the jaw. Continuing his actions, he grabbed the taller pilot by the front of his g-suit and lifted him up on to his toes and rammed him against the wall of the hanger with such force that the entire hanger shook.

Blaze rammed Mickey against the wall twice more before Swordsman could grab him by the arms and stop him from doing anymore damage. The last thing Blaze told Mickey before Snow and Grimm dragged him off was that he'd made the biggest mistake of his life by putting the life of Blaze's daughter in danger like that.

"I was going to give you another week to prepare for your dogfight against me Simon, but because you screwed the pooch so gawddammed badly today, you and your friends have only seventy-two to ninety-six hours to get ready to face me in your final exam. Even though you fucked up seriously today, I'm going to tell you what I had planned to tell you today anyway. Your friend Kim, you know the one everybody accused me of singling out and refusing to let land for fuel, well he's coming back and he's going to be here tomorrow. Kim's been training extra hard and whomever fights him first will be in for one helluva surprise. It may be the first but it won't be the last surprise I intend to visit upon you.", snarled Blaze as he stalked off.

When Shin tried to follow the angry pilot, Swordsman warned him off. He told the Area 88'ers to let it drop for now and to leave Blaze alone for the next hour or so.

"Blaze will have calmed down enough to approach by then.", spoke the big Tomcat driver.

Everyone watched Blaze until he was no longer in sight and returned to their business. Edge took her children to the messhall so they could get something to drink and for Kita to calm down a bit more from her experiences during the flight. Worrying about her husband (she'd never seen him that angry before), Edge cast along glance in the direction Blaze had went before ultimately surrendering to the inevitable fact that she'd probably see her husband later .

On the other side of the base, Blaze was talking with Pops about what he wanted painted on the vertical stabilizer of his Tigershark.

"Are you sure you can do this Pops? I mean, I know you do good work but I want to make sure.", asked Blaze as he held a picture of his idea in his hand.

Pops had heard about Blaze's blow up at the Area 88 Tomcat pilot and knew about Blazes' temper from experiences during the war with the Yukes and later the Belkans. Pops also knew that the young pilot's temper led to his being tagged with his current callsign.

"Let me get this straight, Blaze. You want me to paint the spine of your T-Shark bright orange. You also wanted to paint the vertical stabilizer the same orange to match then put a dark red dragon breathing white fire to spell out the your callsign?", asked Pops.

"Yeah, that sounds about right. I was just looking at the aircraft the guys from 88 brought with them. I especially like the unicorn on Kazama's Tiger II. It looks a lot like him in the way it was drawn then painted. Think you could do it?", Blaze said.

The old fighter pilot looked at the illustration and rubbed his hand over his beard in introspection. Pops was sure he could do the painting but he needed somebody to draw out the pattern on the tail of the aircraft. He figured that it may have to wait until they returned to Heierlark.

"Of course I can do this Blaze. However, I need somebody to go ahead and paint the vertical stab the shade of orange you want it. Then I'll have to get somebody to sketch out the rest of the design before I can even start with the detail painting. Anything else you want me to do?"

"Yeah, paint red, orange, and white tiger stripes on the nose of my plane to match the tail. I think that would be fairly intimidating to an opponent who gets close enough to see it. Not that they'll get that close though.", commented Blaze knowingly.

Pops looked at the young pilot with a concerned look on his face. The young buck was starting to get a bit cocky and that didn't bode well for his surviving another aerial battlefield. Figuring that Blaze needed a lesson, he patted him on the shoulder and told him to keep his flight gear on. Pops nodded as he saw the younger man's eyes widen at the implication in his words. During the entire time he'd known the young man, Pops knew that there were two pilots who Blaze had never beat more than once. Colonel Jack 'Heartbreak One' Bartlett was one such pilot.

The other pilot was the one legendary Belkan Ace and Pops' alter ego: Huckebein 'The Raven'.

"Awww shit.", groaned Blaze. He knew when he'd fucked up bad enough to have Pops promise to teach him a lesson in aerial humility.

Pops just smiled and pointed at the door to the Personal Equipment (P.E.) room. Blaze slumped his shoulders and headed in the direction indicated. He knew he was up for a very humiliating flight.

Next Day. 1000 Hours. Sand Island Base.

Seventeen year old Kim Aba was feelin' pretty good. His type-specific training had done wonders for his confidence as had his time away from his friends. It gave the young man a chance for a kind of temporary independence and he'd reveled in it. In the weeks since his temporary exile to the carrier, Aba had learned more about his chosen aircraft and what it could do. He became intimately acquainted with his engines, avionics, and weapons systems. Aba's fighter had been even given an overhaul and his airframe, engine, controls, avionics, and weapons systems had been given substantial upgrades. However, the most important thing Kim had learned in his time being tutored by Captain Yuri 'Mad Dawg' Smolensk was how to VIFF his bird.

Cruising through the air at a healthy 500 knots with 27,000 feet of sky beneath him before the cerulean blue sea, Kim exulted as he returned back to what had become his home away from home. Kim thought back to his introduction to carrier operations when he'd landed aboard the Yuktobanian carrier with nothing but fumes in his tank. Shutting down his engine as the deck crew bustled around his bird with alacrity; Kim had opened his cockpit and turned his head to look at the Harrier on the deck next to his.

The other aircraft had been painted in what Kim would soon come to learn as 'lo-vis blue' that allowed the murderous looking fighter to blend in with the color of the ocean's surface as it approached its target at low level. Unstrapping and allowing the plane captain to help him out of the cockpit, Kim climbed down onto the non-skid covered deck. As was expected, the motion of the ship had his inner ear turning somersaults and he vomited (much to his embarrassment) the remains of his breakfast right then and there. Luckily it avoided his flight boots and landed where it could easily be washed off by the sea spray. Until someone slapped a motion sickness patch behind his ear, Kim felt nauseous enough to not want to attempt to enter the ship through its island and head below to get some rest before meeting his instructor.

The next day had started off with a bang, literally, for the young Harrier pilot as one of the catapults had been tested before flight operations had commenced. Aba laughed as he remembered his reaction. He also remembered almost falling out of his rack when the explosion had gone off right above his head. Kim remembered that his first impression of his instructor wasn't complimentary (he'd inadvertently grabbed the guy's coffee while eating breakfast in the dirty shirt wardroom with the other pilots).

"That was a meeting I'll never forget for as long as I live.", Aba told himself as he checked his heading on his map.

A few minutes later, Kim began to get an eerie feeling and started looking around. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing up and Kim never ignored that feeling. It had saved his ass many times while flying out of Area 88 during the earlier Asranian Civil War. Switching his air to air radar from standby to search, Aba started varying his altitude by thousands of feet a minute. He also began cutting back and forth along his heading to get a look and see if anyone was following him.

It was on his fifth jink that he spotted his antagonist, a fighter coming hell for leather from below and behind. Kim cursed as he recognized the angular silhouette of a Hornet. If this was who he thought it was, he was in for one hell of a fight.

"Hehehe, just you wait Major Nagase; I'm not the same pilot I was when I first arrived here. I'm gonna give you the fight of your life.", thought Kim as he programmed his radar to track the ascending aircraft.

As the Hornet came closer, Kim narrowed his eyes as he tightened his oxygen mask. If this was Edge Nagase, she wasn't flying her usual way. The attack profile looked familiar but for the life of him, Kim couldn't remember where he'd seen it before. Pushing over in a dive, he racked his memory as he tried to remember where he'd seen that style of attack before. As he prepared for the head on vertical pass with his opponent, Kim's RHAW gear alerted him to the fact that his enemy was tracking him and trying to get a lock. Dropping chaff and flares, Kim leveled out and broke to the left. He knew that in doing so he'd expose his tailpipe to the enemy where they could get a solid heatseeking lock.

------------------------

In her Hornet, Kitori Palvanoff yawned in resignation. Kim was doing the same thing he'd done before when she'd first attacked him.

"His claws are still weak. The type-specific training he received must not have taken. Oh well, I can end this quick and return to base.", thought Palvanoff as she set up on Aba's tail again.

Following her opponent with her eyes, Kitori listened as her radar tried to lock on to the wildly maneuvering Harrier. In focusing so hard on trying to end this quick, Kitori ignored everything else going on around her and concentrated on her target. So intent on her opponent was Palvanoff that she missed it when Kim made his move.

Over in the Harrier, Kim finally recognized who he was fighting. His mind flashed back to that day where Kitori had humiliated him while he was showing her the area around Area 88. Licking his lips in anticipation, Kim vowed to make Palvanoff experience the same humiliation a thousand fold. Wrapping his left hand around his thrust vector lever, Aba prepared to spring his first surprise on the unsuspecting Palvanoff. When the time was right and he estimated that Kitori was close enough, Kim firmly wrapped his hand around the lever that orchestrated the movements of his exhaust nozzles and pushed it forward.

To the uninitiated viewing the Harrier from the outside it looked as if the Harrier had jammed on the brakes and accelerated straight up. In the time it took the unwary Kitori to blink, it looked as if Kim disappeared. One moment he was in front with her about to get a lock, the next he was gone. Yanking her head from side to side, Kitori looked but couldn't find the Harrier. Her first inclination that something was waay wrong was when her RHAW gear sounded off with the tone indicating that an enemy had gotten a lock on her aircraft.

"Kitori, if I were an enemy MiG, you'd be dead by now.", commented Kim over the radio.

"Huh, wha…!!!! How so? Where the hell are you Aba?", growled Kitori.

"Look behind you, baroness."

Kitori looked over her shoulder and for the first time saw the business end of the GAU-12 Equalizer 25mm five barrel Gatling cannon. The female ace imagined that she could even see the barrels of the cannon spinning in preparation to spit out a hail of armor piercing depleted uranium cannon shells that would shred her Hornet (and her with it) to pieces. Faced with such an untenable position, Kitori Palvanoff did the only thing she could.

"Knock it off, Kim. I lost this one. Let's set up for another run."

"Copy that."

The two planes broke in opposite directions to set up for their next joust. At twenty miles separation they turned towards each other and charged. Kim knew that with her superior speed, Kitori would try and blow past to set up for an energy fight. That was a fight Kim was sure his Harrier wouldn't win. He wanted to keep it an angles fight and use his superior maneuverability to his advantage.

As the two planes screamed towards each other with a closing speed in excess of a thousand miles an hour, Kitori mentally mapped out her strategy. She was going to have to start taking this fight seriously if she wanted to win this round. At the merge, Kitori pulled into a chandelle to try and reposition herself on Kim's six o'clock. At the top of her maneuver, she pulled back on her throttles and ruddered over. Looking out the top of her canopy, she watched as the Harrier reefed into an extremely tight left break.

"There's no way, no damn way he can pull that tight a turn in that aircraft and still remain in control! He'd stall and lose control.", muttered Kitori as she dropped the nose of her aircraft.

Situated below the Hornet jet, and therefore out of Kitori's line of sight, Kim had his nozzles pointed ninety degrees down again and was using the extra boost to increase the speed of his roll and was edging around to get his nose pointed at his opponent. Pulling his exhaust lever back, Kim positioned his nozzles all the way back as he came out of the break. This time switching from guns to missiles, Kim got a very good lock on Kitori's Hornet. Again, Kitori cursed. The little bastard had nailed her again. And he'd made it seem easy. Gritting her teeth, Kitori called for another head to head pass and the start of another dogfight. This time she vowed to win.

In the end due to low fuel states, Kitori and Kim split several mock dogfights. Instead of trying to muscle her plane around like she usually did, Kitori managed to finesse her Super Hornet into superior positions where Kim couldn't easily shake her. Using the Hornet's slow speed cornering ability, Kitori was also able to catch Kim a few times as he maneuvered. However, with the Viffing ability of the Harrier and Kim's already impressively substantial skills, Kitori had to admit to herself and to the others that night in Colonel Vashtarl's quarters that Kim had soundly defeated her. After they'd landed, Kitori saw her instructor step up and prepared herself for a lecture. However all she received from the younger woman was a smile and a pat on the shoulder.

"You did good Palvanoff. Harriers are hard targets. Their ability to Viff on the pilot's whim makes them difficult to fight. One thing that Kim didn't get to do because you didn't allow him to do was settle into a hover and do pedal turns to keep you in his radar's sweet spot. Every Harrier pilot I have known have told me that the hovering and trying to line up your target using just your pedals is nerve wracking, especially when you're taking fire and the only thing you want to do is pull your thrust lever back and get the hell outta there. Don't worry; even Blaze had troubles with Harriers during the war.", Edge consoled as Kitori finished her postflight, unstrapped, and egressed her aircraft.

Kitori nodded and thanked Edge for her critique of the mock battle before heading for the locker room to shower and change into a clean flight suit. Behind her, Kitori didn't know that Edge was watching and judging her on how she took this defeat.

"Seems like the baroness is shaping up to be the kind of fighter pilot I want her to be.", mused Kei to herself.

Then the aerial ace stuck her hands in her flightsuit pockets and strolled off towards the hanger. She had a few things to take care of before retiring to her quarters for the evening.

Two Days Later. Heierlark Base. 0445 Hours.

Blaze Thomas glanced at his watch as he finished tightening the laces on his flight boots. It was fairly early and the temperature was dropping rapidly. He saw that it was nearing the time for him to make the walk out to his plane and launch for Sand Island and show the guests of the OADF what he could do. Of course Blaze wasn't going to expose all of his tricks but he planned to make the mock dogfights coming up as memorable for the Area 88 crew as well as for himself. Hearing the door to the locker room open, Blaze turned his head and saw 'Tommy Gun' Thompson leaning against the door frame. His fellow war veteran and senior instructor grinned slightly but not for long. Blaze nodded an acknowledgement.

"It's almost time."

"I know."

"You ready for this?"

"Somewhat. I've been raring to find out how good these pilots actually are. I mean they were good before but I want to see them at their best."

"You know the rest of our fellow instructors are out there waiting for you. The guys are counting on you to pull this off and show them your aerial prowess."

Blaze nodded as he lithely rose to his feet. Reaching into the olive drab metal locker, he grabbed his g-suit and began the arduous task of wriggling into the chaps-like garment. Thompson waited a second before reaching over and helping the most decorated and highest scoring fighter jock in the entire Osean Air Defense and Maritime Defense Forces.

"What about the fleggies?", asked Blaze as he reached in and grabbed his helmet.

"Some of them are out there watching this hanger from the mess hall. With classes canceled for the day, they suspect something's up. I told 'Jammer' that his story about a bad storm approaching wouldn't hold water but he persisted in telling it. A lot of the others are crashed out trying to get some extra sack time. We, especially you, have been pushing them harder than before and they want to recoup their lost sleep.", replied Thompson., an old squadron mate of Snow's from back in the day.

"I see. How are Davenport and the rest of my students taking it?"

"Davenport's been crowing like a hound dog in the middle of the night ever since the two of you returned in those 'Varks. She's been telling the story of how you denied an ace 'Cat pilot a shot to anyone that'll listen. She and her Valkyries know something's up and they ain't buyin' the weather story. Her and her seven partners in crime are bundled up in heavy parkas with facemasks and standing by the runway to watch your launch. She's a chip off the old block. Davenports been yakkin' at anyone and everyone that you're about to kick some major simulated ass. Damn, she takes after her dad too much. I may have not particularly liked his loudmouth ass, but I'm surely missin' Chopper's wisecracks about now.", admitted the Tomcat instructor.

"Yeah, me too T.G., me too. Come on old friend it's time to get aviatin'."

Thompson patted Blaze on the shoulder and together they exited the P.E. room. Walking down the hallway, their boot heels clomping along the concrete and echoing in the silence, the two pilots headed for the hangar where Blaze's plane: Tigershark Zero-One-Six, sat hooked up to a start cart and waiting for its sundered half. Blaze stopped at the doorway and admired his ride from afar. The new paintjob on the vertical stabilizer glistened in the harsh lights of the hangar environment. The crewdogs had put many hours into getting the design right and Pops himself had flown in to supervise the final touches. Now they stood around the plane at parade rest. Blaze narrowed his eyes for a moment them widened them in large grin as he saw that the grounds crew attired in brand new coveralls that matched the design on the tail. Even from his present spot, he could see that they had bags under their eyes. Some were sleep-standing. Years of drill instructors and company commanders pounding into their heads the commands so repetitiously that it wasn't a surprise that these guys could do them in their sleep. Blaze turned to Thompson and lifted a questioning eyebrow that Matt 'Tommy Gun' Thompson saw, understood, and just shrugged his shoulders in answer. Dropping the subject, Blaze headed towards his fighter.

"Detail ATTEN-Hut!", came a growled command from a grizzled master gunnery sergeant standing in front of the gathered groundcrew.

With the practiced ease of many years of training and never forgotten harassments from boot camp, the crew of four females and five males snapped to the ordered position with parade ground crispness.

"Sound OFF!", yelled the senior non-commissioned officer.

The nine sounded off with their names and ranks in order as Blaze approached. Five paces from the veteran NCO, Blaze came to attention and snapped out a quick set of commands.

"Tigershark Zero-One-Six groundcrew team reporting as ordered. All present and accounted for, sir!", bellowed the former drill instructor as he snapped a salute so perfect that it would've made a general cry.

Blaze returned the salute and started his walkaround inspection. As he made his way to the nose of the fighter, the sergeant snapped out more commands in a rapid-fire cadence and the members of his detail exploded into action; racing to their assigned positions around the deadly aircraft. Blaze nodded approvingly and started his inspection. As he approached each position, its assigned crewman snapped to attention, saluted, and reported on the condition of that particular spot. Even though he listened to the reports and knew they were good, Blaze still inspected each part of his plane. The groundcrew didn't mind. They were used to pilots doing their own visual inspection to make sure their plane was ready even though the crewman already knew it was. Finishing up his inspection, Blaze returned to the sergeant and nodded again. The sergeant handed Blaze a clipboard with several sheets of paper on it. Blaze read and initialed each one before returning the clipboard to its rightful owner.

"Gunny, I'll bring this plane back to you with no damage.", Blaze stated.

"You'd better sir or you, me, and the crew here will have a very long, very painful discussion about each and every ding you managed to get on my bird.", growled the sergeant , malevolently.

Blaze chuckled then dismissed the groundcrew and turned his attention back to Thompson. Making a decision, he told the other instructor to wake up every dammed sleeping student on base and get them outside to line the runway for his take off.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I want every one of those screwball fledglings to observe. I don't care if you have to use the air raid siren to get em' up but I want every swinging dick and bouncing tit out there and I'll give em' a show. Maybe they'll learn something. I gotta make a stop. Have the groundcrew tow my plane out to the runway. Izzat clear?", asked Blaze as he strapped on his helmet and checked his survival gear stowed on his harness.

"Yes sir. Very clear sir!"

"Quick being a wiseass, T.G., it doesn't suit your cavalier personality.", teased Blaze.

"Sit on it and spin, Blaze!", returned Thompson good-naturedly.

Thompson offered up a wry smile and spun on his heel and headed out to carry out his orders. Seconds later, the sound of the air raid siren could be heard winding up to its trademark and unforgettable shriek. It went on for a full five minutes before it shut down and Thompson's voice came over the base wide public address system. By then, Blaze had made his way to the secured Razgriz hangar and using the code given to him by Pops, deactivated the security system and walked inside.

Walking over to the life-sized portrait of his old friend, Blaze came to attention and saluted the painting before going over to Choppers' old record player. Turning it on and setting up the song he wanted played, Blaze piped it through the P.A. system and cranked the volume to the max. Soon the deceased fighter jocks' favorite song was blasting out and encompassing the entire base. It echoed off the hills and through the icy valleys. With one last glance at the portrait, Blaze tossed a thumbs up to the painting with a reasonable facsimile of Chopper Davenport's 'devil-may-care' grin and headed out. As he exited the hanger, Blaze tossed a remembered phrase over his shoulder.

"The Area 88 guys don't know it but there's a storm comin', old friend."

Cue: "Storm Coming' by Gnarls Barley

Outside, in the swirling snow and icy temperatures, Airman 1st Class Alina Davenport was talking excitedly with her seven friends. Ever since she and Major Thomas had returned to Heierlark, Alina took every chance she could to tell her seven suitemates about how the major had eluded that Tomcat. Right now, with her teeth chattering and her nose starting to run, she couldn't help but start the story again. Her roommate Airman 1st Class Kimberly Carson rolled her eyes and burrowed a bit deeper into her issue parka. Unlike the others, Carson hated cold weather and was only suffering in it because she wanted to fly like her idol Edge Nagase.

"Oh come on, 'Lina, don't start that again.", complained Carson.

"Look, I'm tellin' ya, Blaze is gonna do something today. Why do ya think he basically spent the majority of last night somewhere near the hangar where his plane is? I mean, isn't it obvious?", retorted Alina angrily.

Carson just snorted and turned her attention to the far end of the field. If nothing happened soon, she was planning on returning to their eight person suite and crashing hard. She had an avionics and aeronautics test on the Tornado F-3 coming up in a week and it was a make or break exam. Turning her attention to the shortest women in the bunch, Carson asked Second Lieutenant Kindra Ostenhaus and Second Lieutenant Nicolette Waters what they thought. The two women thought for a bit but before they could give her an answer, their roommate A1C Cindy Decker piped up with her thoughts.

"Maybe 'Lina's right, Kim, I mean last night the techs were loading the exercise Sidewinder, AMRAAM, and Sparrow exercise missiles on his plane. You know the ones with the smoke filled warheads that explode when they come in close proximity to your aircraft and scare you shitless each time. Yeah, they're dummy warheads and they won't harm or kill you, but they do give you an example of what an exploding missile looks like."

"I agree. I even heard that Major Thomas had the gundogs load his M-39 cannons with four hundred fifty rounds of those 20mm paint filled simu-nition rounds. I had a bad experience with them when my instructor, that bastard Captain Hammer, stitched me with a burst from his Falcon during a 1 v 1 a few weeks back.", pouted petite A1C Brittany Sanderson as she wrapped her glove covered hands around a mug of hot chocolate a concerned passerby handed her.

Second Lieutenants Nadine Fredericks and Daniella Sterling nodded in commiseration. Captain Bradley 'Sledge' Hammer had done the same thing to them when they went against him in a training exercise. To add insult to injury, Captain Hammer had asked them to explain their mistakes and how to avoid them in combat in front of their entire class as they watched the video from the battles.

Davenport was about to say something when she instinctively turned towards the end of the runway and spotted the plane sitting there awaiting its pilot. Glancing up and down the runway, she saw that nearly every trainee had gathered along the runway. Some were still wiping sleep from their eyes and cursing the idiot who'd set off the air raid siren. Returning her gaze towards the lone Tigershark, her heartbeat tripled when she spotted the lone flightsuited figure making his way towards the patient bird.

From her vantage point, Davenport and her friends heard the huffer cart ignite when Major Thomas was five paces away from his aircraft. The pilot chatted with the groundcrew-who she noticed were wearing matching coveralls that imitated the paint job on the plane-a bit before accepting something from another instructor and making his way over to his aircraft. The groundcrew left him alone as he again inspected his aircraft before mounting the boarding ladder and climbing towards the cockpit.

As she watched the major drop into his ejection seat, Alina recognized the plane captain strapping Major Thomas in and removing the ejection seat safety pins as the one who'd helped her the other day when she was having a hard time understanding a mechanical part she needed to know intimately for her next exam. He hadn't came out and given her the correct answer but he gave her enough hints that she was able to figure it out on her own. When Davenport glanced up to thank the man, he was gone and in his place he'd left a model of the part she had been studying on the desk.

Over in the airplane, Blaze was talking to his crew chief about some minor inconsequential things on another topic. With the record player blasting at max volume, it was getting harder and harder to hear the older man. Blaze tugged on his harness for a few seconds and pronounced it good to go. The crew chief slapped him up side the helmet and slid down the boarding ladder after lowering the canopy. Stepping around to the front of the aircraft where the pilot could see him, he raised his right hand above his head and started waving it in a circle.

Blaze acknowledged the engine start sign with an upraised thumb and moved his throttle to the start position before pressing on the igniter switch beneath. Holding the button for a few seconds and releasing it, Blaze heard the low whine that told him his engine was starting. Within seconds the noise from the engines had ramped up into a demonic shriek and he signaled that he wanted the huffer cart and ground power cart unhooked from his plane. Taking a quick glance at his instruments to make sure everything was in the green, Blaze lifted his head and gazed out of his cockpit and waited for the next hand signal.

With his head out of the cockpit and looking around, Blaze saw that the crew chief had cleared everyone away from his plane except for the guys kneeling by the chocks and waiting for the signal to pull em' out. Cycling his stick and checking his control surfaces, Blaze saw the master sergeant giving him a thumbs up signifying that his control surfaces were free and clear of any binding that may affect his handling of the aircraft. Waiting for the signal to hold his brakes, the pilot glanced around to do a visual check on his wings. Satisfied that his de-ice and anti-icing gear was on, Blaze waited for the next few signals.

Soon all that was left holding the plane in place was Blaze's pressure on the brake pedals as he slowly advanced his throttle to max power short of afterburners. A quick glance outside told the pilot that the decision to launch or not launch was now in the hands of the lone man standing in front of his nose. Blaze watched as crew chief moved to the left side of the cockpit, saluted Blaze, waited for an acknowledging salute, and turned his attention to the length of the runway. Blaze's eyes followed those of the crew chief and he saw that the runway was lined with dozens of trainees awaiting the very microsecond the pilot lifted his feet off the brakes and started his roll out. Halfway down the runway, Blaze spotted Alina Davenport and her partners watching him intently. Mentally telling himself to lift up right across from them, Blaze returned his attention to the crew chief.

Two pairs of eyes gazed intently at each other, affirming and reaffirming the bond between pilots and their ground crews and the trust they shared. Nodding ever so slightly, Blaze showed the other man he was ready. Setting his position lights to 'bright-flash' the multi-ace turned his attention towards the stretch of black runway in front of him. Blocking everything out except the essentials, Blaze waited for the signal he wanted. When it came, the crew chief extending his arm towards the horizon as he knelt on one knee with his extended hand touching the ground and pointing back towards the horizon, Blaze got off the brakes and let the plane move.

Glued in place with her friends, Alina H. Davenport watched as the glistening fighter started its take-off run. Something deep inside her told Alina that Major Thomas was going to try and lift off right in front of her and her friends. She pointed in the direction where she believed he was going to lift off to her friends.

"There. He's going to lift it off right there.", she stated.

From the peanut gallery came the cries of 'how do you know!'.

"I just know.", she answered with a knowing shrug.

Returning her attention to the rapidly approaching plane, Alina felt more than heard or saw when Blaze lit off his burner. The massive increase in thrust as raw fuel was poured into the afterburner can caused the plane to skid a bit on the icy runway but Blaze's delicate handwork saved him from a bad accident. As the plane passed the point Alina had indicated to her friends where their instructor was going to lift off, everyone looked on as Blaze pulled up in a low transition. A few hundred yards further down the runway, Blaze sucked the stick into his gut and the F-20 Tigershark responded like the true aerial carnivore it was and pulled straight up into a screaming vertical climb.

Blaze started to relax the back pressure on his control stick as he passed twenty-thousand feet. At thirty thousand, he started reducing power. Nearing fifty thousand vertical feet, the Tigershark stopped its climb and started to fall towards the Earth backwards. After letting it drift back on its own for a few feet, Blaze gave it a boot full of right rudder and sliced the nose down while finger tipping his control stick. Down on the ground, all of the trainees and some of the senior instructors cheered as the ace pilot executed a perfect Vertical Reverse.

(Author's Note: I want to thank author Bob Gandt for correcting me and explaining to me the difference between a 'Hammerhead' what I originally had here and a 'Vertical Reverse'. Thank you Mr. Gandt and I can't wait until Book Seven of your 'Brick Maxwell Chronicles' to come out.)

Bottoming out at around angels ten, Blaze poured on the speed and cranked his bird over in a ninety degree angle of bank and came screaming down the runway at just over Mach 1. Over the next few minutes the observers on the ground were awed by the complete repertoire of tricks in the bag of the ace T-Shark driver.

For the finale, Blaze again came screaming over the runway at around seventy-five feet in full blower. At the end of the runway facing the ocean, there was shock as the Tigershark suddenly whipped into a series of ever tightening barrel rolls. Blaze kept his bird rotating in the victory roll the entire ten thousand foot length of the runway until he reached the end pointing towards those killer cliffs. At the far end of the runway, Blaze rolled wings level and yanked back on his stick and, once again, sending his Tigershark screaming in joy; a verbal challenge blasted out through the air to inform every other fighter pilot in the world that the man pushing this Tigershark was not one to be fucked with in the air combat arena.

Everyone on the ground watched as the Tigershark reached a respectable cruising altitude and headed off into the distance. Then in ones and twos or groups of ten or more, the crowd dispersed. Finally the only ones left beside the runway were Alina Davenport and her friends and a group of five senior instructors. One instructor turned to his buddies and commented. The words drifted the hundred or so feet to group of eight women standing by the runway. When they became clear, the women looked at each other and nodded in agreement at the sentiment espoused by the man.

Daniella Sterling turned to Alina and asked her to repeat the instructors' words. When Alina did, Sterling could only shake her head and agree.

"He's right. Major Thomas is truly one sierra hotel pilot!"

(Sierra Hotel – S&t Hot! Highest compliment you can pay a pilot.)

Sand Island Air Base. Same Day. 0900 Hours.

There is one thing about combat that every fighter pilot agrees on, no matter if it's an exercise or the read deal: it's the waiting that gets ya.

It was the same for the Area 88 crew as they awaited their long sought after air to air duel with the best Osean Air Defense Force pilot on his way in their direction. None of them could sleep, the waiting was killing them.

The previous night, they had observed as Pops had overseen the loading of exercise missiles on each fighter and paint filled simu-nition rounds for their cannons. When the loading was finished, the old pilot and grandmaster aircraft mechanic gave them an in-depth brief about the armaments now mounted on their respective aircraft. Afterwards they tried to loosen up by hanging out in the lounge but it didn't work. One by one they each drifted off to their rooms with their own thoughts tumbling through their heads. None of the Asranian pilots got much sleep and breakfast was a quiet somber affair. Colonel Vashtarl tried to light a cigarette but it broke in his fingers. It took him five tries to get a cigarette going to his satisfaction without breaking it.

Kitori Palvanoff jumped five feet in the air when Kim dropped his plate. She glared at the younger pilot as he tried to stammer an apology but ultimately gave up and walked away. Realizing that she'd scared the teenager to death, Palvanoff leaped up and ran off to the lavatory and cried until she was able to get her nerves under control. Nobody commented when she returned with puffy eyes and a red nose.

Mickey Simon was vainly trying to shuffle a deck of cards. He kept dropping them midway through the shuffle and spent most of breakfast running around trying to retrieve the scattered cards before the colonel bade him to stop with a single icy stare. The big Tomcat pilot dropped into his seat and sat down heavily. He barely touched his breakfast.

Kim Aba, still shaking from Palvanoff's gaze, sat a good distance away from his friends and fearfully watched them for some action taken against him. He finished his breakfast but only got three steps towards the dishwasher when his stomach rebelled and he charged from the messhall in a valiant attempt to make it somewhere he could throw-up in peace.

Shin Kazama spent the time with his eyes closed organizing his thoughts. He fought his own stomach nerves down and settled for a mug of tea. Opening his eyes, Kazama reached into one of the pockets on his flightsuit and pulled out two pictures. One was of him and his wife on their wedding day. The other was a picture of a care-free, swimsuit-wearing Ryouko Sugumo-Kazama reclining in one of the many chairs around Area 88 and catching some sun. Shin had taken it with a camera borrowed from McCoy (the greedy bastard had charged him sixty bucks an hour for its use) and snapped the photo without his wife noticing what he was doing. She found out about it later and chased him around their quarters for an hour trying to get the picture from him. In the end he had relented and given it to her and she'd hidden it away.

"My darling wife doesn't know that I had the photo redeveloped from the negatives she conveniently forgot about.", mused Shin as he sat waiting for the scramble to be called.

A few hundred yards from where the Area 88 pilots were collecting their thoughts, another group of pilots tried collecting theirs.

In Bartlett's office, the three Razgriz pilots sat pensively waiting for their flight lead to arrive. By an unspoken agreement, Edge, Swordsman, and Archer had avoided all contact with Kazama and the others fearing that an innocuous comment would have serious repercussions. The trio had arrived at the office within minutes of each other with Swordsman Snow arriving first. Snow had been followed a few minutes later by Archer who was vainly trying to balance a plate on top of his squadron mug. The mug was full of hot coffee and the young man was having a time trying to keep his fingers from being burned. Snow had taken pity on Grimm and lifted the plate off the cup so Grimm could take a sip of the steaming hot black liquid and get his caffeine jolt for the morning.

A few minutes after Archer had finally situated himself and was taking his first bite, Edge Thomas had shown up. Both Snow and Grimm glanced at each other before quickly averting their faces as they noticed the dark bags under Kei's eyes that testified that she hadn't gotten much sleep. Snow handed the young woman his handkerchief and jerked his head in the direction of Bartlett's office lavatory so she could wipe the remnants of sleep from under her eyes and regain some semblance of the attractive woman he'd known during the war. Edge had accepted the fabric with a thankful nod and hurried towards the sink. As she passed Archer, the younger pilot offered her a sip of his coffee to perk her up. She declined knowing full well that Archer lived on a high octane brew he called supa-java.

As the time passed in silence, the three wingmen communed quietly with each other. Snow relinquished his position at the large window to Edge while Archer finished his meal and moved to one of the comfortable chairs sitting in front of Bartlett's desk and propped his feet up on the coffee table. The young pilot hadn't been in the chair for five minutes when he dozed off. Edge and Swordsman noted the soft almost feminine snores coming from the recent college grad and shook their heads. Archer was known throughout the fleet and the air force for how fast he could fall asleep in any situation where he wasn't flying. Thirty minutes later, Jack and Nastasya Bartlett entered the office and stopped short when their eyes landed on the snoozing pilot. Jack looked at Snow and Nagase before shaking his head in resignation and moving behind his desk. Taking a seat he turned to his pilots.

"Blaze has left Heierlark and finished his first refueling. He has another in two hours. That refueling will put him approximately an hour away and give him enough fuel for one, maybe two, mock dogfights. After that he'll land, refuel, and rest a bit before launching again to finish up the schedule.", commented Jack as he noted the concerned looks on Nagase's and Snow's faces.

"Who'll he face first, boss?", yawned Archer as he stretched a bit before opening his eyes.

"I don't know, Hans. I don't know. However I do suspect that Vashtarl and Kazama will sit back and observe Blaze to see if he has any weaknesses. If I had to take a guess, I'd place my money on Simon wanting to take him on first. We suspect that Simon may still hold a slight grudge with Blaze over his actions concerning Aba."

Everyone nodded at that and began mentally praying for their friend as he faced the cocky American Tomcat pilot. Nastasya perched her lithe figure on the edge of her husband's desk and made to pick up a stack of papers until Jack cleared his throat and shook his head at her curiosity. Nastasya glared at her husband for an instant but it dissolved as she remembered what had been passed on to her from Mad Dog Smolenski.

"Well I do have a bit of good news. It seems that Smolenski was so impressed by the young man we put under his not-so-gentle tutelage that he came up with what he thinks is the perfect callsign.", stated the intelligence agent while ignoring the subdued laughter flying directed her way when she mentioned the Yuke Harrier ace.

"The words gentle and Smolenski do not go together in any way, shape, or form. All of us gathered here know how harsh an instructor Mad Dog can be. Gentle does not describe the kind of hell we know he put Aba through.", sniggered Archer as he dropped his feet to the floor.

Kei and Marcus nodded in agreement. Bartlett glared at the two and told them to stuff it. He turned to his wife once the two pilots had finished their snickers and asked what the kid's callsign was going to be.

"Smolenski asked me to tell you to refer to that young man as 'Merlin'. Smolenski says that once Aba learned to push his aircraft harder than he had ever done before, he was a veritable dogfighting wizard."

The others nodded and Jack made a note of the new callsign on a slip of paper he'd found on his desk. Then listening to the others as they discussed what other callsigns could be awarded, Bartlett wrote them down. Once the discussion had reached its climax, he cleared his throat and announced what the callsigns were going to be.

"Okay, settle down knuckleheads, here's what I came up with for the others. You're all in agreement that Vashtarl should be named 'Doc' because of the way he flies and fights. Simon gets tagged with 'Playboy' although 'Wildcat' is a good alternate. The baroness gets tagged with 'Vixen' because Snow and Grimm think-and I agree-she's a hottie while Nagase and my lovely wife think that 'Hellion' fits Palvanoff better. That just leaves Kazama and from the looks of it, none of you could come up with a good running name for him."

"Yeah, he's too damn good. We can't think of any name that would fit him. I don't think anyone could come up with a callsign for that guy!", commented Swordsman (who'd been tagged with 'Hothead' during basic flight before receiving his present callsign during his first cruise).

Archer and Nastasya agreed while Edge put her chin in her hand and sat down. At the moment, Edge was of two minds. She was thinking about what kind of art she wanted on the vertical stabilizers of her Super Hornet and couldn't choose between two separate images. On the other side, Edge was coming to the conclusion that her husband would be the only one who'd be able to come up with a callsign for Shin Kazama. She mentioned this to those gathered and they nodded in agreement.

"Blaze is probably the only pilot in the entire world who could come up with a name for Kazama. Shin's just too damn good. I don't even think that Chopper or Hamilton could equally match up with Kazama.", stated Archer as he shifted his attention back to the window.

"Yeah and Blaze outflew and shot down Hamilton over Sudentor while Chopper was downed over November City. The only other pilot who would even have even half a chance against Kazama is that damn gold-helmeted bastard Mobius from Belka and nobody has seen him since Blaze popped him on our way to take out the SOLG. Although, he has been known to return when you least expect it. Hell early in our training, you shoved a Sidewinder up the ass of his Fishbed. He ejected and later Chopper dropped him with an AMRAAM through the fuselage of his F-35 Lightening II. ", commented Edge.

"Yeah I know. Archer busted up his Falcon with a Sparrow in a run over the desert and Chopper nailed his Tornado F-3 again during the Yuke retreat after the Osean Amphibious landing. Hell, I ever heard that Blaze gunned his Berkut down during the attack on the Fortress.", added Bartlett.

(Berkut Su-47. Wicked looking Russian Forward Swept Wing fighter analogous to NASA's X-29, only bigger. Occasionally called 'The Terminator'. IMO Berkut sounds better)

Edge and the others nodded. Even Snow remembered the shoot down of that persistent sonuvabitch during the mission where they'd rescued President Harling. Marcus had shot down Mobius's F/A-23 Black Widow II with a Sidewinder that snowy morning. But like Archer and Edge, the Swordsman knew that Blaze had a particular enmity with that pilot. Mobius had been flying a Typhoon when he'd shot down Chopper Davenport over November City the fateful night of the Vice President's speech. He'd toyed with Davenport's Hornet, first shooting him with a missile then using his cannon to pepper the mortally wounded aircraft as Chopper commenced his final landing. Blaze had been furious and vowed to kill Mobius the next time he saw him in the air. When Blaze used his Tomcat to shoot the enemy pilot down before hitting the SOLG, everyone believed then and still believed that the Belkan multi-ace, Ofnir student, and reserve Grabaecr pilot was dead.

Listening in on the conversation and not drawing much attention to herself as she'd been trained, Nastasya Bartlett stifled a gasp. As the best Yuktobanian intelligence expert during the war and leader of a combined Yuke-Osean intelligence organization after the end of the war, she'd kept abreast of former Belkan military leaders, and politicians who hadn't committed suicide, been assassinated, or arrested. Nastasya knew of whom her husband's pilots were speaking about. Unknown to the pilots, Mobius had once again ejected and survived being shot down. Some of Nastasya's informants had learned a couple of years after the war that Raymond 'Mobius' Sampson had again survived his ejection and been rescued by those Belkan leaders who'd escaped the aftermath of Sudentor. He'd been hospitalized for wounds sustained in that battle including a badly broken arm.

Nastasya also knew that Sampson had been trying to find out exactly who the Razgriz were. He was especially interested in the leader of the Razgriz and had done all sorts of searches for that legendary pilot. Using her own exceptional skills, it had taken Nastasya several months of digging deep into highly classified files to find out the reason 'Mobius' Sampson was searching for the man who'd shot him down on that fateful day. It turned out that Sampson wasn't angry at being shot down. On the contrary, he admired the skills of the Razgriz leader. Nastasya found out that Sampson was searching because he wanted revenge against the pilot for shooting down and killing his fiancée, Kitty 'Havoc' Steele, in the vicious dogfight down below the ridges of a certain ravine.

Nastasya's best informant had gotten word to her three days before the Strizhi left port that 'Mobius' Sampson had been spotted boarding a Boeing 767 heading for a country at odds with Asran several months before. Going back over all the information gathered, Nastasya found out that Sampson had been making that flight several times since the end of the war and after his recovery. It became readily apparent that Sampson and others of his ilk was behind the sudden increase in well trained pilots for the air forces of Asran's enemies. It also wasn't a shock that several Grabaecr and Ofnir reserve pilots, students and their personal equipment had disappeared and along with surplus fighters had started popping up in the hands of Asran's enemies. A sobering fact about those surplus aircraft disappearances was that several Fulcrums, Flankers, Foxhounds, Gripens, and Rafales, and other advanced fighters had been among those missing aircraft. It was a chilling fact that there had been several Typhoons and MiG 1.44 fighters missing as well (a half squadron had been reported but Nastasya-by habit-rounded that number up to a full squadron just to be on the safe side).

Raymond 'Mobius' Sampson's chosen mount was either the awesomely fearsome MiG 1.44 or the extremely maneuverable Typhoon. He preferred the Typhoon.

"I hope that no one close to Edge and Blaze find Sampson's declaration of intent to kill the leader of the Razgriz and anyone close to him. I also hope that Sampson will never find out that the man who shot him down after Sudentor is married to the woman who damaged his F-16XL over McNealy and downed him and his Hornet over Apito International Airport.", thought the spy as she gazed around the room.

The chatter stopped when the familiar roar of jet engines resounded through the air. Everyone looked towards the window and watched as the first of the Area 88 fighters taxied towards the active runway. Colonel Bartlett had called it; Simon's F-14A with the playboy bunny on its vertical stabilizer was in the lead. The Tomcat was followed by the Palvanoff's F/A-18E. Behind the Tomcat and the Hornet came the rest of the Area 88 contingent. Each aircraft looked ethereally deadly with the exercise missiles on the hardpoints and the full load of simu-nition ammo ranging from 20mm up to 25mm. In the back of their minds the Razgriz knew that their leader was on his way with a similar load on his Tigershark.

One hundred and seventy-five miles away and cruising at an altitude of twenty-eight thousand five hundred thirty-two feet, Blaze started psyching himself up for the battle he knew was coming. During his refueling, the multi-ace had been philosophizing about the order of battle for the Area 88 pilots coming up to meet him. Like his friends on Sand Island, Blaze knew that there was a ninety-nine point nine percent chance that Mickey Simon was going to be his first opponent. Blaze still hadn't forgiven the cocky bastard for his actions the other week and decided to launch his Sparrows the minute he got a substantial lock on Simon to put him on the defensive and take him out of the battle early. If his missile did as it was programmed and splattered paint all over Mickey's aircraft-thus taking him out of the exercise-all the better. If the Tomcatter was adept enough to avoid it, kudos to him and Blaze could go on and merrily humiliate him later.

"After Simon is either out of the battle or busy, Kitori will be my second opponent. She's going to be headed this way with a bone in her teeth and Edge trained her well. That fight will be like fighting Edge herself. I hope that Edge trained Kitori and got her to keep her emotions in check. It would be pitiful to beat the baroness that easily. After Kitori, I'll either face Aba (that's gonna be a hell of a match), Colonel Vashtarl, or Shin Kazama himself. Hmm, can't postulate that order of battle right now. Will have to wait and see.", mused Blaze as he tightened his harness and activated his radar in search mode.

Blaze had a feeling that Mickey Simon was on the prowl and looking for payback.

As the miles counted down, Blaze armed his weapons and waited for the attack he knew as coming. He knew that Simon was going to attack first so it didn't faze him when his RHAW gear started chirping. Checking the display, Blaze sighed as his radar system catalogued the searching radar as an upgraded AWG-9. Now all the Tomcats in The OADF and the OMDF had gone through an upgrade and were now equipped with highly advanced variations of the APG-77 radar set so this attacker had to be Mickey Simon. Turning his head in the direction indicated by his RHAW system, Blaze caught the glint of sunlight off a canopy as the aircraft the canopy belonged to broke in and tried to maneuver to set up a shot.

"He's eschewing missiles. He wants to go gunzo. No problem, I can do that. I just gotta be careful of the squeeze play I have a feeling they're setting me up for. Okay, time for me to screw their plans to hell and gone.", commented Blaze as he pulled aggressively into the descending Tomcat.

Mickey Simon was grinning behind his oxygen mask. He figured that Thomas would take the bait and come after him when he purposely showed himself. So during their climb to altitude, Mickey and Kitori had been planning a response to Blaze's possible actions. In the end, they had agreed that the Simon would dive down and make it look like he was attacking from above. Once he saw Blaze commit, he was going to pull up and change direction as if he broke off to try and gain another advantage. When his opponent started to chase him, Kitori was gonna come diving out of the sun and try and slip in behind the major's aircraft for the easy shot.

It was a good, solid plan. Unfortunately, Blaze saw through it the instant Simon made his break.

Blaze watched as the Cat broke off its attack and sped east to get a better advantage. Shifting his eyes from the Tomcat to the silhouette now diving in on him (he'd spotted it as he'd made his climb and had kept it in sight even when it looked like he was starting to chase the -14). Switching his missile switch from AMRAAM to Sidewinder and getting a lock on the diving Hornet (oh the growl from the 'Winder sounded so good in his ears), Blaze squeezed the trigger.

"Fox Two, missile away at Hornet diving down at my eleven o'clock.", called Blaze

In the cockpit of her Hornet, Kitori swallowed a curse as she heard Blaze's call and saw the flash as the all aspect heat seeking missile slid off the wingtip railing, did the little snake dance that gave the missile its name, and came unerringly in her direction.

"Shitfuck… Mickey, get your ass back here, now!! Blaze has me locked up and I gotta avoid the dammed 'Winder he's cranked off!", screamed Kitori into her oxygen mask as she broke off her attack and started maneuvering wildly to avoid the deadly little missile.

"Wha…how the hell did he see through our attack so quickly? I can't fucking believe this!", growled Mickey as he reversed his course and came roaring in to try and help his wingman.

Unfortunately for Mickey, once Blaze had launched at Kitori and confirmed that she would be busy for the next few seconds, he'd returned his attention back to Mickey and switched from his heatseeking Sidewinders to his semi-active radar homing Sparrows. With Mickey at about thirty miles away and coming back fast, Blaze needed to distract him while he searched for the Harrier he felt was out their watching the action. Getting a lock on the Tomcat as he bored in, Blaze gritted his teeth. If there was one thing he hated about the Sparrow missile, it was the fact that he had to fly in a straight line and keep his radar trained on his opponent till the Sparrow was in the terminal stages of its flight. With a sigh of relief, Blaze squeezed the trigger after waiting for the Sparrow to 'see' its target.

"Fox One. Missile away at Tomcat coming from my twelve o'clock.", called Blaze over the radio as the big missile came off the missile rack on station two.

"Aww dammit! He got me good. Kitori, I gotta break off and evade a Sparrow.", grunted Mickey heavily s he broke hard right to try and defeat the Sparrow.

"Beam it and get the fuck back here! I can't shake this damn heatseeker!", replied Kitori as she dropped some more flares and again jinked to avoid missile actively seeking her out.

"I'm trying, dammit! Get offa my case!!", replied Mickey as he dumped chaff then reversed his turn.

Blaze listened to the pair of pilots on the radio as he used his radar to search for Aba's Harrier. Ian knew that the kid was out there watching this little fracas and waiting to make his move. Something caught his interest at the edge of his radar screen and he changed modes so that it searched farther out. Watching the blip on his screen for a few seconds while keeping an eye out for more attacks from Simon and Palvanoff, Blaze debated whether it was the Harrier or someone else. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a flicker of what he knew was cannon fire and instantly flipped his aircraft over as the tracers zipped past his canopy.

"Those chintzy bastards, they tried to sucker me into a bout of complacency. They used another plane, either Kazama or the prince to distract me while Aba snuck up within gun range. It's a good thing I caught the flicker of his cannon. Now this is a dogfight.", exulted Blaze as he broke hard into the Harrier attempting to get within cannon range again.

Blaze called Aba on the radio and told him that that was a good move on his part but he still missed. Keeping an eye on his radar, Blaze saw that, while he had been talking to Aba, both the baroness and Mickey had evaded his missiles and were now screaming back into his direction to reengage him. Kitori was ten miles away while Mickey was about twenty-five miles further behind. Deciding to leave Aba alone and take on the Baroness, Blaze slipped the missile Aba sent after him and broke in to Kitori's flight path. She pulled up and inverted to avoid a collision but in doing so, Kitori left herself open for a zero-deflection stitching from the Tigershark's twin M-39's.

Kitori realized that she was well within Blaze's gun range and paid the price. She felt several 20mm thumps as his guns rattled her airframe and left gloriously hideous splotches of bright pink paint from just aft of her cockpit all along her port side and port wing.

"Kitori, you're outta there. If I was firing live rounds, your bird would be smoking heavily and you'd probably be looking for a safe bail out area. Return to Base and we'll debrief this flight later…. Ahh shit.!!", cried Blaze as he maneuvered wildly to avoid the incoming Sidewinder fired by Mickey Simon.

Seeing the Tigershark avoid his missile with the extremely nimble handling that gave the fearsome fighter its reputation, Mickey cursed. He'd had his throttles pinned to the max and was trying to get back in the fight. Mickey arrived in time to see the simu-nition rounds splatter across Kitori's fuselage and in a fit of pique had fired the instant he heard the familiar growl of a locked on Sidewinder.

"Sonuvabitch, the bastard avoided it!! Fuck me sideways!!!", screamed Mickey mentally as he honked his big fighter around for another go at the smaller pilot.

Blaze grinned to himself as he watched the Tomcat maneuver. The movements told the ace pilot that the Tomcat driver had lost some of his cool and was now emotionally-driven to regain the advantage. It was the moment, Blaze had been waiting for. Mickey Simon was way overdue for a lesson in the fact that cockiness kills in the aerial battle arena. Keeping an eye out for Aba's Harrier, Vashtarl's Jaguar, or Kazama's Tiger sneaking in for a shot, Blaze concentrated the majority of his attention on Simon's aircraft.

"Simon, your attitude sucks and I'm about to give you an attitude adjustment. You're good, damn good, however, I can see now that your attitude is holding you back from taking a giant leap in your combat skills. I guess that with no opponents pushing you to your limits, your skills stopped advancing and started to atrophy. Are you ready for this?", radioed Blaze as he turned his Tigershark around to face the menacing silhouette of the twin-engined fighter ten miles away.

"Bring it on you second rate schmuck of a pilot, Blaze! I'll take anything you can dish out and give it back to you a hundred fold.", growled Simon as he reversed his direction and pointed the sharp nose of his Tomcat at the smaller aircraft.

Blaze sighed as he heard the note of cockiness in Simon's voice; the smartass still thought he could beat him. Switching his weapons system from missiles to guns, Thomas asked Simon if he thought he was good enough to take him on in a 'guns only' dogfight. Simon replied that if it decided who was the better pilot then he was all for it.

"Call the merge then, Simon.", stated Blaze as he checked his fuel gauges.

"Right side to right side, Blaze, I'm gonna show you how dogfighting is done.", crowed Simon.

In two of the other three aircraft in the air, the pilots frowned as they listened to their friend. Both Shin Kazama and Saki Vashtarl had the exact same thought.

"Mickey's about to get his ass thoroughly kicked by Blaze Thomas, hopefully it'll knock him off his high horse. He deserves this."

After landing at the base after her defeat, Kitori raised her cockpit canopy as she taxied her Hornet towards its revetment and shut it down. Kitori was disappointed and did her postflight checks slowly. She didn't want to talk to anyone at the moment with her loss to her instructors' husband weighing on her mind. Unfortunately as she lifted her head from inside the cockpit in preparation for dismounting her aircraft, Kitori caught sight of Kei Nagase-Thomas standing beside the nose of her aircraft. With slumped shoulders and a groan, Kitori climbed down the pilots' boarding ladder telescoping from its stowed position built into the left-side leading edge root extension (LERX). She really didn't want to talk to Edge now. When her booted feet touched the ground, Kitori kept her face pointed at her plane and waited for the silently observing eyes to go away before turning around and finishing up her post flight. It wasn't to be as Kitori felt the familiar grasp of her shorter instructor on her shoulder.

"Don't worry about the loss, Kitori, it happens in training. The outcome of your match was decided the minute my husband arrived in his Tigershark. There is no one in our world that can beat Blaze in a Tigershark. He's just that damn good. In a -20 I'm considered one of the top three pilots and according to Nastasya Bartlett, other pilots consider me to be the number one female Tigershark driver in the world. But you know what, in a consensus from fighter pilots all around this planet of ours, Blaze is considered THE top Tigershark pilot. Even in the small, closely-knit community of exceptional F-20 pilots, Blaze is considered to be equal to and, in some cases, superior to the leader of the Razgriz, Razgriz One. In a one on one dogfight in Tigersharks, I can't beat my husband. I'm the best Super Hornet pilot out there, female or male and I still have trouble taking Blaze on when I'm in my Rhino and he's in his 'Shark. I trained you in this fighter and I trained you to be a better combat pilot. You, Baroness Palvanoff are good. The top ranked female Mirage F-1 driver in the world, yes we'd heard about you before you arrived. Baroness Kitori Palvanoff, the only female pilot at Area 88: deadly with the Mirage F-1 in any situation. You already had exceptional skills-as do all of your friends- I just polished them. Why do you think I took you through that island base your first day here, it wasn't to humiliate you, it was to discover the hidden skills you had-but didn't know about-buried deep within you. You lost to Blaze, my loving husband. Hold your head up high; you did damn good to last as long as you did. The strategy you planned out with Simon was good and would've worked in any other situation, Blaze just saw through it. He's always seen through things like that. Now come on, let's head to one of the conference rooms where you and I can debrief your flight. We're going to walk through everything you did and look at it in depth.", commented Kei in the most words Kitori had ever heard her speak.

Almost against her will, Kitori felt her flagging spirits lift. Nagase was right; she had nothing to be disappointed in. Kitori flew a helluva mission and fought a good fight. She'd kept the faith invested in her by her instructor: Major Kei 'Edge' Nagase-Thomas, Osean Air Defense Force Reserves. Squaring her shoulders and lifting her head; Baroness Kitori Palvanoff, the betrothed of His Royal Asranian Highness Prince Saki Vashtarl; Heir Quaternary to the throne of Asran, followed the woman she considered to be a superior pilot and a good friend.

Back in the air.

Mickey Simon was starting to get a familiar sinking feeling. It was a feeling he'd long forgotten. Last time he'd felt this feeling, his Navy superiors-acting on orders from their superiors-had resigned themselves to the fact that there was no way they could win in Vietnam. He remembered the day well, the flight schedule had been significantly lighter and no sorties were planned into the North like they had been not less than thirty-six hours before. Simon remembered storming up to his operations officer and asking about the schedule. Ops had only referred him to the orders saying they'd came in late last night from somewhere a lot higher up the chain of command than him.

Simon had gotten so pissed he'd gone on a cursing jag all the way up to the flag spaces (where he was forcibly restrained by the marine orderly). From his position on the steel deck with the marine's knee in his back, Simon had called the admiral every name in the book before asking why. The admiral had leaned down on one knee and looked Simon in the eye and told him in a calm and quiet voice that there was nothing he could do except follow orders from his superiors. As Mickey lay there on the deck, he could've sworn he saw a tear in the old fighter pilot's eyes and instinctively knew that the old man was grieving as much if not more than he was about the pilots they'd lost. Understanding that even if he hated the orders himself, the admiral would-in an instant- order and possibly lead a massive alpha strike on every target in the Area of Operations if he could. Sighing to himself and letting the corporal who'd been holding him down yank him to his feet, Mickey had apologized profusely and the admiral had dismissed him with a wave of his hand. Simon had saluted the admiral, left the flag spaces, and had returned to his shared stateroom where he, his roommate, and a few other pilots from his squadron and the other squadrons aboard had proceeded to go through two bottles of Jack Daniels whisky. Late that night, a drunken Mickey had awoken from a whisky induced nap to a prolonged knocking on his door. He'd opened it with bleary eyes and saw the leather jacket clad person standing there with a harrowed look on his face. It had taken Simon a good five minutes to recognize the two silver stars on the owners' nametag. When he did, the first words out of the admiral's mouth were:

"You still got some of that whisky left, son? If you do pour me a drink and I'll get out of your hair."

Now, many years later, that feeling was back and stronger than before. It was a feeling he loathed:

That feeling of defeat.

Once they had commenced their dogfight, Mickey had watched as his every move was countered and turned against him. Every maneuver was brutally and effectively countered by the ace pilot in his smaller, nimbler fighter. Blaze was kicking his ass, big time. Mickey had watched as, even when he was at a disadvantage, the other pilot turned it in his favor. Granted, Mickey had his own flashes of brilliance that Blaze had complemented him on as they'd fought but they were few and far between.

Several times during this mini-marathon dogfight, Mickey could see Aba sneaking in trying to get a shot at the Tigershark on his tail. Kim's actions relieved the pressure on Simon and gave him a bit of breathing room but it never worked out. And one of those attacks, had lead to the Harrier ace almost getting a bellyful of paint rounds but Kim had used his new found VIFF'ing capability to evade and escape. Mickey had lit off after Blaze when the other pilot had decided to turn his attentions to Kim in an effort to help his friend out. That fight had been short and to the point, Kim had done a good job in evading Blaze but had forgotten that Blaze knew all about his ability and had trimmed the nose of his Tigershark to fly in a slight nose up attitude. When Aba had VIFF'ed again, Blaze had hosed him down with an arcing stream of paint rounds. A brief wave of acknowledgment to the younger pilot as he passed by, and then Blaze was back on the offensive as he bore head long towards Mickey's Tomcat. Steeling himself, Mickey turned to engage his opponent again.

In his Tigershark, Blaze could see that Simon was still up for battle although both had been using fuel prodigiously with their jaunts into and out of afterburners. Ian knew he was down to about twenty-two hundred pounds and figured that Simon had to have slightly more.

"He probably has no more than three thousand pounds left in his tanks and he knows it. I bet he's casting glances at his fuel gages everytime he starts to maneuver to avoid me. ", thought Blaze as he set up for another attack.

Blaze had been a little surprised at Simon's skills, once he'd gotten over his initial outburst of anger and confidence. All during the battle, Blaze had been taking notes on Simon's abilities. Several times his overconfidence got him in trouble but his exceptional skills always managed to save his ass. Blaze was enjoying this match. It was pushing him almost to the limits of his skills without pulling out any of his special tricks. One thing Blaze had noticed though was that Simon would fall for the little traps he set every so often and get into an angles fight. He always managed to get out of it when Blaze was about to pull lead on him.

Glancing at his radar, Blaze saw that both Kazama and Vashtarl were awaiting their chances and observing his every move. Both were casually snuggled up to the big KC-10 Extender refueling aircraft twenty miles out at thirty-five thousand feet. They weren't tanking yet but Blaze knew that they were getting antsy. Deciding to see if he could sucker Simon into another angles fight, Blaze waited till the merge then pulled a move that went counter to everything every pilot had learned in basic Air Combat Maneuvering.

Instead of pulling up and climbing with the other plane, Blaze pushed forward on his stick and dove.

Every pilot watching this was astonished. This fool was giving the advantage to his opponent; practically giving Mickey the open and inviting shot at his tail. In the radar room, Kitori was dancing a little jig of happiness (her dance did wonders for her bust and many of the men in the room were paying more attention to her bouncing globes of flesh beneath her flight suit than to the radar repeaters screen), Kim Aba was looking smug as he heard the radio comments, and all of the Wardog contingent were groaning in exasperation. Bartlet and Snow were cussing up a storm at Blaze's stupidity while Mickey Simon couldn't believe his luck.

In all the jubilation or agony, only two pilots weren't thrown by the sudden movement of the Tigershark. Shin Kazama wasn't fooled because, unlike every one of his friends; Shin knew instinctively that Thomas wasn't one to give up that easily. He concentrated harder on the fight; here was something that could actually help him in his fight against Thomas. Blaze was opening his substantial bag of tricks. Shin called Saki and told him to pay attention. When the Prince asked why, Shin told him.

"This is where the real fight begins and ends. Within the next five minutes, Mickey is going to lose."

On the ground, Kei Nagase-Thomas sat back in her seat with a catlike grin on her face and crossed her arms over her chest. She knew what was about to happen. Edge had seen this move before and had even pulled it once with extremely limited success. Waiting for Kitori to finish her little dance, she called out to her.

"Don't Snoopy Dance yet, Baroness. I say within the next five minutes, Mickey's fighter is going to be wearing a lovely shade of pink."

The room went silent at her pronouncement. Even Nastasya Bartlett was looking at her kind of oddly. In all their experiences, not one of the gathered pilots had seen somebody win any dogfight after purposely showing their exhaust to their enemy. How could the so-called invincible, Blaze Thomas win this fight.

Up in the air, Mickey had a big grin on his face as he committed nose down. He had the bastard in his sights and a quick press of his trigger would end the legend of Blaze Thomas in lurid hues of bright green and yellow paint splatters. Mickey advanced his throttle forward wanting to get this done with quickly. He even began a descending turn to keep his target in sight and get a better angle on the smaller aircraft.

Over in the Tigershark, Blaze saw that Mickey had committed and was intent on ending this fight quickly.

"Come on come on! Ya know you want the shot with the maximum amount of time!", thought Blaze as he watched Mickey's flight path.

When he saw the start of the slow spiral, Blaze mentally rejoiced. He had the cocky sonuvabitch where he wanted him. As the Tomcat got within gun range, Blaze gazed intently at the position of the wings on the aircraft with the variable geometry wings. When, he saw the wings start to come forward, Blaze risked a glance at his airspeed indicator and saw that he was dropping below three hundred knots. Yanking his throttles back to near idle and pulling back on his stick while simultaneously slamming the stick to the left and giving it a helluva lot of left rudder, Blaze neatly pirouetted the Tigershark around so that instead of being the prey of the Tomcat, it was its predator. Squeezing the trigger the instant the bigger aircraft filled his gunsight; Blaze milked three bursts of 20mm in Mickey's direction.

For those in the radar room or over in the radio shack, the emotion over the radio waves and the position of the fighters on the screen explained it all.

"GOTCHA!!", shouted Blaze.

"OH SHIT!!!", yelled Simon.

In the radar room, Kei leaned forward in her seat and relaxed with a knowing grin and looked at Kitori's crestfallen look. Across the room, Kei could see Marcus mentally reviewing the fight in his head and nodding as he realized what Blaze had done. The six four pilot glanced back at Kei with a questioning look and saw her answering nod. Kitori caught it and asked her instructor about it.

"Snow, since you realized what Blaze did, could you explain it to those gathered here since right now you're the resident Tomcat expert."

"Sure Edge. I will. It was a simple thing really. Kitori, Kim, Blaze just waited until Simon's speed dropped below three hundred knots. At or around that speed, the wingsweep computer of the Tomcat is automatically programmed to bring the wings forward. If you've flown around Tomcats for awhile, you can almost exactly tell what airspeed he's at by just glancing at the position of the wings. Now most Tomcat pilots also use this to their advantage. We know at or about what speed our wings are going to come forward and we also know that a good enemy can tell the same thing. So to fool our opponents, we use the wingsweep override switch. Depending on the occasion, it makes our enemies think that either we're taking a turn faster than it looks or we took the turn too fast and screwed up." , responded Snow in a teaching tone of voice.

It took a minute for Kitori and Kim to digest the information imparted to them but when it did, they nodded in an acceptance of their teammates defeat.

In the sky, Mickey Simon was exhausted. He'd just fought the best fight he had and he'd lost; lost to an exceptional pilot in an exceptional, yet under-looked plane. Undoing his oxygen mask and letting it drape haphazardly from the side of his helmet, Mickey realized for the first time that he was drenched in his perspiration. That dogfight had been one for the record books. Fifteen minutes of turning and burning, using fuel at a prodigious rate, and pulling every maneuver they'd learned, knew, or invented on the spot. As he thought back to the engagement, Mickey Simon cracked a weary grin. Even though he'd lost, the Area 88 veteran had loved it. Simon had enjoyed every minute of the exercise. Now he knew what Blaze meant when he explained to him that he was too cocky. Making a decision, Mickey made a radio call.

"Blaze, Simon. That was a good fight. Congratulations on your victory. I defer to your experience in this field."

"Simon, don't denigrate yourself like that. You did good, damn good. You forced me to open my bag of tricks. Not many pilots have done that. Take this as a learning experience. In our business, you can't take anything for granted. No matter how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always someone out there who is better than you. Keep that in mind, and lose the attitude when it comes to other pilots and your skills will take an exponential leap. If you don't believe me, just take a look at Palvanoff and Aba. In air combat, you're only restricted by your imagination. Now come on lets hit that tanker and land. We'll debrief these sorties and I'll rest a bit before heading back up to take on Colonel Vashtarl and Colonel Kazama. Besides, I gotta take a wicked leak.", replied Blaze with a chuckle.

The air waves were silent for a moment before they crackled with an unknown noise. Edge, Archer, and Swordsman looked at each other in confusion. It was Kim Aba and Kitori Palvanoff cleared the confusion up. They explained that the noise they were hearing was Mickey's laughter. When the light of understanding entered the eyes of their instructors-no their new friends- the radar room rung with the resounding laughter as the five pilots headed out to meet the two returning aircraft.

A few hours later, after debriefing Kitori, Kim, and Mickey on their actions in the air and receiving the reasons why the three did what they did, Blaze launched for his final two dogfights of this exercise evolution. As his Tigershark climbed to a safe altitude, Blaze thought about how each of the three pilots had bore up under the pressure of defeat and was impressed by the way they upheld their professionalism.

"I believe those three will make great instructors to pass on what they learned here to the other pilots of Area 88. With their teachings, the experience and skill of the pilots there should increase drastically. Once we get them up to Heierlark, teach them new ways of fighting the enemy, familiarize them with the equipment that their opponents will probably be using and the abilities of that equipment, Mickey, Kitori, and Kim will be better prepared to face any enemy: Ofnir, Grabaecr, or 8492.", thought Blaze as he waited for his opponents to climb to altitude and head off in the opposite direction.

Caging his thoughts and bringing his mind back to the present, Ian prepared for the difficult dogfights ahead. Calling Shin and the prince to see if they were ready, Blaze brought his plane around to face his two opponents. (In the interests of time, Shin and Saki had decided to make their flight against Blaze a 2 v 1.)

Thirty-five miles away, flying in a welded wing formation, Shin Kazama and Saki Vashtarl were debating strategies. Since all three fighters were full of fuel, this sortie could go for quite awhile as the three ace pilots jockeyed for position to gain the penultimate advantage on the other. Shin and Saki had the starting advantage because it was two of them against a lone pilot plus while Blaze had maybe a sidewinder and a sparrow left on his rails and maybe a hundred and fifty rounds of 20mm per cannon, the two of them had a full complement of missiles and cannon rounds. Shin and Saki could be prolific with their weapons load while Thomas could only hope to work himself into a position of advantage to use either his long-distance AiM-7E Sparrow or his short-range, heatseeking AiM-9N Sidewinder.

"We both know that his only advantage is to get us split up and engage us 1 v 1 and take us out each in turn. He only has two missiles and maybe a third of his bullet load remaining. I say we stick together and use our numerous advantages and defeat him with sheer numbers.", argued Saki as he and Shin set up.

"Yes we know that. But he also knows that would be in his best interest to split us up. However, we also know that Blaze is extremely unpredictable and may attempt to take us both on at once. Yes he has two missiles left, remember how he broke up the attack by Kitori and Mickey; he wasted a missile and prosecuted an attack on your cousin, who had the altitude and speed advantage, and took her out of the fight before turning his attention to Mickey. Then he only loosed a missile at Mickey to keep him busy while he went back at took Kitori out of the fight. Even with us sneaking in to provide a distraction for Kim so he could get close, Blaze defeated the guns run and turned his disadvantage into an advantage for himself. We'll have to play this one by instinct and be completely impulsive in our fighting.", replied Shin calmly.

Saki growled a bit to himself but saw the reasoning behind Shin's words. Blaze Thomas was an enigma, they couldn't fight him on regular terms; they had to get him dancing to their tune before he changed the music. There was one good thing going for both of them this fight though. No egos and emotions were involved in this sortie like they had been for the fight between an overly emotional Mickey and the cool, calm, and rational Blaze. Nodding for Shin to make the call, Saki tightened his harness, cleared his mind, and got ready for the intense action that was about to commence.

"It promises to be the most intense dogfight I've ever been in. Even though we're using exercise weapons, all three of us are going to take it as if it were the real deal. No altitude hard deck, no airspace restrictions. We can treat this as if it were a real dogfight. We can take it to the edge of the envelope and further. This is what fighter pilots live for; this is the dogfight all pilots dream of; This. Is. Our. Olympics!!! LET'S GET IT ON!!!", thought Saki as a flicker of pride flowed through his body.

All posturing, and chest beating was done. It came down to this: The Best of Area 88 versus the Best of the O.A.D.F.

Forty-five minutes later, Saki Vashtarl watched as the familiar pink paint splotches that decorated the fuselages of Mickey, Kitori, and Kim, splattered against the fuselage of his Jaguar. For him, it had been a battle worthy of remembering. As the three jets had screamed towards each other in excess of fifteen hundred combined miles per hour, Saki's heart started beating triple-time. At the merge, all three had immediately pitched up into the vertical to try and gain the advantage. For the first few minutes after the merge, the advantage shifted between all three of them many times a second. Shin had gained the initial advantage because of his twin engines and topping out of his climb a few feet higher than either the Tigershark or the Jaguar. As they rolled out, Saki had seen Blaze ignore Shin at the top and concentrate his attention on him.

As Blaze pursued Saki while letting Shin drop in behind him, Saki led the three maneuvering fighters in the ubiquitous furball old-school dogfights were known for. As he and Shin worked in tandem to try and trap the lone pilot, Saki was able to hold a tracking solution for a bit and even launch a missile. Unfortunately, Blaze beamed it by dropping chaff and flares and peeling away from the AMRAAM at a ninety degree angle just outside of its seeker cone. Seconds later, Saki's RHAW gear went off as it reacted to the probing by the radar of the Tigershark. Immediately dropping countermeasures and breaking off, Saki saw that Blaze had feinted with his radar going for a lock on his SEPECAT Jaguar while Blaze himself went after Shin with a bone in his teeth.

At the forty minute mark, Blaze made what everyone thought was a mistake and held his right break past the time he should've reversed his turn as Shin popped off a Sidewinder near the limits of its range. No one noticed until it was too late that Blaze had intentionally held his turn for a purpose. Saki knew the reason as soon as the orange and white painted Tigershark passed him at Mach 1.2 and he saw the orange streak of the exercise missile heading in his direction.

Blaze had just suckered Shin into taking a rushed shot.

Maneuvering wildly to avoid the missile, Saki stumbled right into the gunsight of the Tigershark. Somehow, as he completed his pass on the Jaguar, Blaze had used the maneuverability of his Tigershark to its fullest extent and had swapped the nose with the tail and saw that Saki was breaking right into his firing arc. Saki saw the developing shot but couldn't do anything about it as he continued to evade the missile that had lost its lock on the T-shark and acquired his Jaguar as its viable target.

"Awww shit!!", called Saki over the radio as he successfully evaded the missile only to find himself being saluted by a hail of 20mm pink simu-nition rounds.

"Colonel Vashtarl, you're out of there. That was a good fight. See you on the ground, sir. We'll debrief this fight as soon as this exercise is completed. Colonel, you almost had me a couple of times. So far, you've come the closest to downing me on this exercise today; Happy Landings, colonel!"

"Thanks for the workout major. It was fun while it lasted. I can't wait for the debrief. See you on the ground", returned Saki as he broke off and headed back towards Sand Island.

Shin Kazama watched as the Jaguar containing his commander and friend broke away and pointed its nose in the direction of the base where the rest of their cohorts waited the results of this, the final ACM sortie of the training. He allowed himself a slight chuckle as the pink splotched aircraft glistened in the sun as it headed home. Taking a deep breath and checking his gages, Shin was a bit surprised to see that he had maybe three thousand pounds of fuel left in his tank. As he continued checking his instruments and psyching himself up fo the upcoming battle, Shin took stock of his armament and saw that he had maybe three Sidewinders, a full load of Sparrows and AMRAAM's, and maybe half of his gun rounds remaining. Glancing outside the cockpit at the afternoon sky, Shin saw that Blaze had brought the T-Shark alongside his Tiger II. The two similar but different aircraft inscribed an arc across the sky as they flew side by side. It was the type of formation that would go on a postcard if anyone in the area had a camera.

"Shin before we start this last sortie, let's hit the tanker and top off our tanks. That way we can go all out, balls to the wall and give everyone watching a show to remember.", called Blaze as he was going over his own cockpit instruments.

"Copy that. You wanna go first?"

"Negative, we can both fill-up at the same time. You wanna call the merge before we set it up?"

"Ahh, that's a negative. Let's do this with an altitude separation and go from there."

"Copy that, do you want the high position or should I take the high spot?"

Shin thought for a moment then decided that whoever finished first should have the altitude advantage and passed it on. His opponent agreed to it and that set the starting positioning. Shortly after that, the two planes snuggled up to the KC-10 Extender (who's crew would have a lot of stories to pass on to their buddies when they returned back to base with their B-767 (E-3 Sentry) AWACS partner orbiting at forty-five thousand feet about seventy-five miles away.)

Twenty minutes later, the two protagonists were ready. Shin's Tiger II sat at thirty-two thousand feet while his opponent was stooging around at about fifteen thousand feet. Kazama was a bit miffed and figured that Blaze had purposely delayed his connection with the tanker so as to give the Area 88 pilot the obvious altitude advantage that could be converted into an airspeed advantage as the Tiger dove down like an avian raptor diving for its food. Shin checked everything to make sure he was ready for this. All his switches were in the correct position, no infernal red 'you-gonna-die' lights flashing on his instrument panel, altitude, weapons, etc; all were in their ready position. His radar was in active search mode and was continuously probing the sky for the telltale signature of his opponent.

"Shin, you ready for this?", came the call.

"I was born ready, Blaze. Are you ready for it, is the question."

A friendly chuckle was heard over the radio.

"Well if I'm ready and you're ready, then let's do this. Fights On!"

And with those words, Shin advanced his throttles to their max power setting and dropped his nose. As his aircraft screamed towards the nose of the ascending aircraft in full burner, Shin offered a prayer up to his friends who weren't there in person but were there in spirit.

Boris, a fellow Crusader pilot who taught him about being the Shinigami of Area 88; Smiley, the Skyhawk driver with the ear to ear grin as he gave a puppy a bath before falling victim, mentally, to the MiG-23 Flogger D with the lizard on its nose. Greg, the gruff, bearded Skyhawk veteran who always came back no matter how many times his bird was damaged and always went back out. Gustav, the mechanic who, with his own crew, fixed every bird at Area 88 whether it is in pristine condition or a total wreck. McCoy, the greedy bastard who always had everything a fighter pilot needed, for a price. Shinjou Makoto, the photographer who originally came to an isolated base in the middle of nowhere to take a picture of the death of the lone Japanese national, and for his wife, Ryouko Sugumo-Kazama, for waiting patiently for him to return home so they could be married. The one who always worried about his safety the most but always pushed him to go out fly and fight to protect their fellow Area 88'ers.

Down below, the mind of Blaze Thomas was following in a similar vein. The two planes merged on the radar screens being watched and the fight was on. Everyone knew it was going to be one for the ages.

Blaze checked his fuel level again and noticed with some alarm that he was done to about fifteen hundred pounds of fuel. As he calculated the time remaining before his tanks went dry, the Tigershark driver knew that his opponent had a fuel level just as low if not lower than his own. Their battle had been waging for almost an hour. Neither of them could get a clear advantage over the other and both had pushed themselves to the limit and then some.

Blaze didn't have to look at his weapons status to see what he already knew. He was out of missiles and had less than seventy-five rounds left for his cannons. Glancing across his cockpit to the left, he saw Shin circling around trying to pull lead. Blaze figured that since he hadn't seen a missile drop off of Shin's jet in the past thirty minutes, the ace pilot had to be down to just his cannons.

"So here we are, almost Winchester and no clear advantage in sight. If we keep this up, he'll be on my tail within two more circles. And with my low fuel level, I can't do much to evade or escape. Think genius, what are you going to do in this situation?", thought Blaze as he used the spare second to flex his hands and get the blood flowing to his extremities again.

On the other side of the Lufbery Circle, Shin was thinking the same thing as his opponent was. However, being a tad bit more observant than the other pilot, Shin saw Blaze's aircraft straighten out a bit before resuming its bank in an effort to get behind him. Correctly guessing that the other pilot had taken his hands off of the controls, Shin dropped his flaps to tighten his turn and pull his nose around quicker. When he straightened out, there, right in front of him was Shin's quarry just outside of the max range of his twin cannons in the nose of his F-5.

"I got you now, Blaze", thought Kazama as he increased his speed to close the range.

Blaze returned his hands to his stick and throttle and looked around to see what his opponent was doing. Blaze's mouth dropped as saw that Kazama had regained the advantage and was closing in fast. Pushing his throttles to the max and knowing that it took a second before the influx of fuel gave him the power he needed, Blaze knew that as soon as he was in gun range, Shin would fire and riddle his plane with dark purple paint. Keeping and eye on the other aircraft, Blaze ran through idea after idea in milliseconds while trying to find the strategy that would help him bring the fight back to a neutral level. None of the ideas would work in the amount of time he had left. Yet in the back of his mind, Blaze remembered a maneuver made by a pilot in the same predicament as he himself was in now. Unfortunately, the maneuver was brutal and could possibly strain the airframe beyond its limits. What made matters worse, is that Blaze had only heard of this move being discussed but never demonstrated.

"Well it's the only move I have left. There's nothing else left to do except see what happens.", mused Blaze as he tightened his harness and prepared for whatever was coming.

Casting a look behind him and seeing that Shin was just entering gun range and would start shooting in seconds, Blaze took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, and cut the power. As his aircraft started to slow, Blaze pitched the nose down for a second then immediately yanked it back into his stomach and shoved it to the right. At the same time, he was adding power and stomping on the right rudder pedal with all the force he could manage.

In his aircraft, Shin Kazama watched with an increasing sense of glee as he bore down on his persistent and expert opponent. There was no way, no fucking way, Blaze could out maneuver him and avoid the barrage that Shin was milliseconds away from releasing. Licking his lips and gritting his teeth, Shin started to pull the trigger…..

…..only to gasp in horror as the aircraft he had been so diligently stalking and setting up for this moment went out of control and started to back flip. For the first time in his flying career, Shin froze as he just knew the pilot of the aircraft in front of him was about to die.

If anyone was watching, they would have been completely astounded as the F-20 Tigershark being piloted by Blaze Thomas flipped end over end as if it was out of control before returning to a level plane of flight with one main difference, the fighter that had been pursuing Blaze, the F-5E Tiger II flown by Shin Kazama had just gone from hunter to hunted in a matter of seconds. For Blaze, one moment he'd been looking at nothing but the blue sky ahead of him, the next, the ground and sky violently reversed themselves as his aircraft did a maneuver thought to be so impossible that it was only discussed and never demonstrated.

As his eyes steadied themselves, Blaze gazed forward. There, well within his gun range sat Shin Kazama who was just now starting to realize what had just happened and started to break out of the firing cone of Ian's aircraft. Gently squeezing the trigger on his stick, Ian felt his fighter vibrate for a bit then stop. A quick glance at his counter confirmed his suspicions: the pair of M-39 20mm cannons situated in the nose of his aircraft had just spat out their last rounds.

Major Ian 'Blaze' Thomas of the Osean Air Defense Force was Winchester. He had no weapons left.

However, his last few rounds had done their job. The F-5E Tiger II of Shin Kazama was riddled with great big splotches of a hideously bright pink paint from the side of his number two engine all the way out to the end of his right wing. In his cockpit, Shin Kazama felt the severe thumping as the paint hit and knew in his heart that if those rounds had been real, his number two engine would be holed like Swiss Cheese.

Shin called his opponent over the radio.

"Blaze, what did you do? I can't explain what I saw. I'll have to watch my gun camera recordings. That was a good fight. Let's knock it off and head for home."

"Copy that, Shin. I don't know about you, but I could use a long break. I have a package for his highness from Razgriz One. After we land and go through the debrief, I'll pass along the message."

"Copy that. See you on the ground, major."

"Same to you, Shin."

Two hours later, Blaze had debriefed both Shin and Saki about their progress in the exercise and the trio were headed to the galley to grab some life-giving food to replenish their energy reserves. As they entered the galley, the rest of the Area 88 contingent was waiting for their two aces to arrive with their Sand Island counterpart. As they sat down with their plates of food, Blaze reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a familiar black envelope with a red border and the seal of the Razgriz on the front and passed it to the prince. Vashtarl accepted the envelope, opened it and proceeded to slide the familiar parchment paper inside from the envelope. Like before, there were only four lines of flowing calligraphy centered in the middle of the thin parchment sheet.

"The Demon Soars through Dark Skies,

Fear and Death Trail its Shadows Beneath.

Until Men United Wield a Hallowed Saber,

In Final Reckoning, the Beast is Slain."

Saki read it once, then read it again before passing it to his pilots. Each of whom wore a confused expression on their face. Looking questioningly at Blaze Thomas as he took another bite of his thick Porterhouse steak, Vashtarl asked what it meant. Before he received his answer, Saki watched as the major finished chewing and swallowed his bite before turning to the five person group and giving them some news.

"It means pack your bags, you guys are coming north with us."

"North with you? What do you mean by going north with you, major.", replied a still confused prince.

Blaze was about to answer when Colonel Bartlett cut in. He'd entered the galley with his wife and the rest of Wardog just before Saki had asked his question.

"What it means, your highness, is that you, your cousin 'Desert Rose' Palvanoff, 'Wildcat' Simon, 'Merlin' Aba, and Shin 'Enigma' Kazama are flying north to the lair of the Razgriz to make your request to all four members of the Demons of Razgriz. Oh yeah, as you've probably just realized, we've come to a consensus and given each of you Area 88 guys a callsign. So from now on, Colonel Vashtarl, you're hereby known as Saki 'Doc' Vashtarl to us.", Bartlett said with a grin on his face as he placed the box he was carrying on an empty table and started passing around what was inside.

When he received his package from the colonel, Saki looked on in awe as he opened his box to reveal a spare helmet done in vibrant colors with his newly given callsign painted on the front right above the face shield. Quickly glancing up and around at his pilots, Saki saw that each of them had been given the same kind of gift he'd been given and the quartet were admiring their new helmets.

"You can thank Blaze and his cohorts for the callsigns. Many had been tossed around by those guys but they picked-and my wife and I agreed-that the names you were given fit each of your personalities perfectly. Now I hope you and your people can rapidly pack because in thirty-six hours we're flying up to Heierlark. To have you and your pilots fit in up there, you'll be introduced as guest instructor pilots. So your people will have to wear the standard olive green, winter weight flightsuits of the O.A.D.F. to blend in. You and your people will be assisting my pilots in their classes and you may be given classes to teach on your own. While you're there at Heierlark, you'll also be familiarized with the possible equipment our enemies will be using. Do you think you and the rest can blend it with our instructor cadre?", asked Bartlett as he watched Vashtarl try on his new helmet.

"Yes, we can do it. I'll pass the word to my people once we return to our quarters later tonight. Now, I think its time for one helluva party.", replied Saki with a grin.

Bartlet returned the prince's grin with one of his own and held up a bottle of expensive Scotch and two glasses. Saki accepted and the two veteran pilots-and their people-proceeded to get extremely drunk.

Heierlark Air Force Base. Ten Days Later.

Shin Kazama walked rapidly across the Heierlark ramp towards one of the buildings where the classes he was helping instruct were held. Bundled up warmly in an insulated grey flight suit and wearing a thick parka with an Asranian Air Force Lieutenant Colonel's insignia on the collar of his jacket, Shin considered himself to be fairly warm. Unfortunately, the wind was howling and snowflakes were started to flutter to the ground.

Before coming to this lonely, frozen airbase in the mountains of Nord Osea, Shin had figured he was pretty well used to cold weather. That impression lasted all of five minutes the first time he exited the building without wearing a jacket. Five steps into the weather and the former Crusader pilot was dashing back into the building to where Major Thomas stood holding a cup of coffee with a humorous grin on his face and a thick jacket in Shin's size. Shin had grumbled his thanks before accepting both the jacket and the coffee before braving the elements a second time.

Entering the building, Shin mused on how both the prince and his cousin were taking to the extremely cold weather. With his usual stoic expression, Saki faced the weather head on and handled it with an élan only he could carry out. Only someone who had known Saki for as long as he had and could read his face like Shin could; would be able to tell that the prince was freezing his ass off. In Baroness Palvanoff's case, her reaction to the cold weather was even more severe. Every morning when they woke up to attend the classes they were assisting in, Kitori would bundle herself up in several layers of clothes and scamper to the warmth of the crew shuttle van that ran the instructor pilots from their barracks area to the main building, out to the hangers, and back every twenty minutes. Even though the building where the classes were being held was a spirited seven minute walk away. As many of the senior instructors chuckled at Kitori's antics, many of the junior instructors try to hit the exotic woman up for a date.

Today, the plan called for Shin to assist Blaze with a class of exceptional cadets in picking the airplane they were going to specialize in after graduation. The class was being held in one of the hangers and Shin was running late. He had to turn in a report on the capabilities of the MiG-29 Fulcrum he'd been assigned to study so he could provide a detailed intelligence brief for his comrades back at Area 88. Dropping the thick folder off with the junior officer assigned as Colonel Vashtarl's secretary for the duration of their stay, Shin made his way past several classrooms.

Recognizing the voice of Kitori Palvanoff floating through a closed door, Shin stuck his head in and saw Kitori standing at a blackboard in front of a class of female students while lecturing about some point or another that he couldn't quite make out. From the satisfied smile on the face of the baroness, Shin could tell she was having a blast with her instructor duties. Giving a quick nod to Kitori as she noticed his head peeking through the open door, Shin caught her acknowledging nod and continued with her lecture without missing a beat. He still had someplace to be and he was already running late.

Fifteen minutes later, Shin arrived at the designated hanger where Blaze was teaching. He'd inadvertently interrupted a class being taught by Kim Aba (wearing the bars of a captain in the Asranian Air Force) and Major Grimm. Quietly opening the door, Shin entered the classroom and took a seat in one of the chairs in the last row as he listened to Major Thomas give his lecture.

"…..today, you young pilots are about to take one of the biggest steps in your fledgling careers: choosing the fighter you want to specialize in. Gathered behind me are several examples of some of the fighters the O.A.D.F. and O.M.S.D.F. use. Some are carrier-based and some are land-based. Your job is to make a choice. Now most of you have probably already made your decision on what you want to fly. Before you place your top three choices on the sheet of paper in front of you, I want you to walk around this hanger and study each of these aircraft. Put your hands on them, sit in them, and get the feel of these aircraft. Don't just go to your favorite and pick that one, check them all out. Sometimes maybe you'll find that your choice will change. Let me tell you the story of how I got hooked on flying the Tigershark.", Shin heard Blaze say.

Leaning back in his chair, Shin continued to listen as Blaze stopped for a minute to take a sip of water before continuing:

"One day many, many years ago, before the war, I was sitting where you are sitting now. I had had my eyes set on flying the Tomcat, the Hornet, or the Eagle. However, my instructor at the time told me the same thing I'm telling you today. I went and placed my hand on each of the three fighters and I felt nothing from them. It confused me because those were the fighters I wanted to fly above everything else. Figuring that I wasn't meant to fly one of my top three choices, I went around to every fighter in the hanger and yet I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel the spirit of the planes. It just so happened that my instructor just happened to have a spare Tigershark parked in the hanger, however, nobody went near it. I saw the lone aircraft and to me it seemed lonely by itself, so it was with great trepidation that I approached it and placed my hands upon its cool fuselage. As I placed my hands on that aircraft, I felt a shock. It was as if the plane knew I could take it to its limits and then some. My heartbeat sped up and I just knew that this was the plane I was going to fly and master. You may laugh at this story now, but I tell you, among the planes in this hanger; there is one plane that will be such a fit to you that you'll wonder why you never thought of flying it before. So class, go ahead and walk around, see if you can feel the vibe from the planes gathered in front of you. Let me know what you think. If you have any questions, you can ask either me or Lieutenant Colonel Kazama and we'll try our best to pass on the information you desire. Oh yeah, for those of you who are curious, you can ask colonel what was the first fighter he flew and the story how he happened to chose it. Now go ahead and enjoy yourselves. Check out the planes, make your decisions, then come back and fill out your sheets with your choices.", Blaze finished as he watched his students get up and make their way over to the planes gathered behind him.

Taking a seat on the corner of the desk, Blaze observed his class as they walked around the gathered planes and making their choices. He didn't turn around when Kazama came up to the desk and sighed. Glancing at the veteran pilot out of the corner of his eye, Blaze saw the contented smile on his face as he observed the students himself.

"Well, Colonel Kazama how many of my fledglings do you think will pick the Tigershark, sir?", asked Blaze as he crossed his arms,

"I don't know Major Thomas but I believe you inspired them to not pick the obvious with your story. Shall we go mingle and be prepared for the questions we know will be coming?", replied Shin, as he stuck to the charade that he outranked Blaze Thomas to keep the cover story right.

Blaze nodded and got up from his perch before stretching and letting Blaze take the lead as the pair made their way over to the gaggle of students making their choices.

Mess Hall; later that same day.

Kei Nagase and Kitori Palvanoff sat at the senior instructors table in the mess hall chowing down on their lunch for the day. Their class of women had finished up forty minutes before lunch and the two pilots were taking a break before they flew a training sortie against some of Ian's chosen Valkyries. Edge was telling Kitori her duties as she rode in the backseat of the F/A-18F two-seat Super Hornet that was being prepped by the flight line crews.

"How do you think Davenport and Sterling are going to do today, Kitori? You think they'll learn what you were teaching in the classroom earlier?", asked Kei as she took a sip from her coffee.

"I don't know, Kei. Maybe they will and maybe they won't. You told me that Blaze has been personally training some of them so in the long run, they might get what I was trying to explain to them.", answered the baroness around the corners of her cheeseburger.

The two women went quiet as they thought about the women in the classroom who would be following their footsteps and hoped that none of them had to actually participate in an actual live dogfight for the remainder of their careers. As they sat and mused on other things, the pair saw Hans Grimm and Kim Aba entering the messhall after their class. Archer and Merlin went through the cafeteria-style line and picked up their lunches (four slices of sausage and pepperoni pizza for Archer. Fish and fries with a side of peaches for Merlin). The young pilots grabbed their drinks and made their way in the direction of the table for the junior instructors. Kitori could see that young Kim Aba was fitting in with the other instructors pretty well and was actually performing real well as a teacher. Like Shin from this morning, Kitori had occasionally stuck her head in to Aba's class room and listened to his lectures given in conjunction with pop quizzes.

Airborne over Heierlark Base. Same time.

Captain Marcus 'Swordsman' Snow (he'd reverted back to his naval rank when he returned to Heierlark in preparation for transferring out to the Kestrel II in order to fill the admirals' wishes) and Commander Mickey 'Wildcat' Simon were flying an A-6E Intruder around while keeping an eye on their students as they tried dissimilar formation flying. Sitting in the seat usually reserved for the bombardier/navigator (B/N), Snow was cursing up a storm and trying to give directions to the nuggets as they formed and reformed a ragged formation with the different types of naval aircraft available to the Osean Maritime Self Defense Force. Activating the intercom switch, Snow turned to Simon and complained.

"Jeez, these kids are not doing that well. I know the weather is bad but they need to learn proper foul weather join ups and formations. They're a few weeks away from graduating from here and shipping out to their respective squadrons. This chafes my hide. I know I've been gone for awhile but in my absence their flying has gotten sloppy.", grumbled Swordsman.

"Chill out and give those youngsters a rest, Snow. They're doing the best they can. Since I've been here, the weather has been triple uber dogshitty. I'm surprised that these advanced kids are flying in this crap."

Snow nodded in agreement but knew that, with graduation a couple of weeks away, these fledgling tailhookers needed to get it right. Sighing to himself and receiving another weather forecast over the radio, Snow called it and canceled the exercise.

"Students, the weather is too crappy today to do this formation join up. I want you to find your wingmen and set up for an instrument let down. Keep your spacings and keep your heads on a swivel. We don't need a Fox 4 (mid-air engagement/collision) today. You guys copy?"

"Raindrop Flight copies."

"Stormchaser Flight copies."

"Mousetrap Flight copies."

"Good. Stormchaser Lead, since your flight is probably the lowest on fuel, your signal is to Charlie now and pack it in. Mousetrap and Raindrop Flights follow in order. Observer One will land last. Make sure you nuggets land without cracking up your birds. We'll debrief in lecture hall 7-Charlie. See you guys on the ground.", said Snow as he finished his conversation with his student flight leads.

In the left seat of the durable all weather bomber, Mickey listened to the radio over the next several minutes as each trainee landed safely and finished their postflight checks. When it was time for them to land, the weather had taken a turn for the worst and the rest of that afternoon's flight schedule was scrubbed. Mickey got his landing clearance and made his turn to final approach. Marcus was giving him the speed of the wind and its direction as well as other necessary useful information. Everything was looking good till seconds before touchdown; a rogue gust of wind caught their Intruder and shoved it sideways by about six feet.

Then all hell broke loose.

The all weather attack plane touched down in an uneven posture and bounced from main mount to main mount as the nose gear was coming down. As soon as his nose gear slammed onto the concrete, Simon yanked his throttles to idol and jammed on his brakes. Unfortunately, the plane was still going a bit fast for the action and the nose gear broke off, slamming the Intruders' nose on the icy ground hard and causing it to commence a spin to the right as it sped down the runway while reducing speed. The crash crew vehicles rolled the minute they saw the nose mount break and arrived at the stricken aircraft seconds after it had stopped.

Inside the plane, Mickey and Snow were running through their emergency checklists at a calm but rapid pace to insure that everything was either disconnected or shut off so that a fire wouldn't break out. Snow hit the canopy release button but the Plexiglas cockpit canopy wouldn't budge. The Swordsman swore at the new problem.

"Mickey, the canopy's jammed and if we're not careful we'll suddenly find ourselves riding the rocket seat while trying to get out of this bird."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. It looks like we'll have to jettison the canopy.", yelled Mickey as he yanked the throttles all the way to the rear of the throttle quadrant.

"Don't talk, just do it!", shouted Swordsman as he prepared for the sudden chill as the canopy was jettisoned.

Mickey nodded and yanked on the lanyard that detonated the explosive bolts that would cut the canopy loose from the airframe. That was a loud pop and the jammed canopy went vertical. As the canopy was whisked away by the strong winds, the two pilots struggled to get out of the harnesses attaching them to the Intruders' ejections seats. They were having a hard time until an agile ground crewman clambered up the nose of the stricken aircraft, around the protruding air-to-air refueling probe, and used his utility knife to slash through the straps of the harness and freeing both pilots. Before Mickey and Marcus could climb out of the cockpit the crewman leaned forward over the remnants of the canopy bow and cut the gas lines leading to the ejection seat rockets with a pair of heavy bolt cutters passed up to him by one of his emergency crew teammates. Once that was done and the ejection seats rendered useless, the crewdog assisted the two pilots out of the cockpit and into the hands of the emergency med crews before jumping to the ground.

Both Simon and Snow thanked the young man before they were ordered into the back of the field ambulance by the on duty flight surgeon. They protested the orders but the young doctor wasn't having any of that and had his two biggest orderlies take a menacing step towards the pilots as a warning. The two combat veterans meekly submitted and climbed into the waiting ambulance under their own power (much to the disappointment of the orderlies). Within seconds of their taking their seats inside the boxy vehicle, the ambulance was speeding towards the base medical clinic with its siren singing its song.

An hour or so later, Mickey and Marcus were released from the clinic after a battery of tests to see if they had any injuries from their wild ride. The two pilots upon their release immediately headed for the main building for a thorough debrief and a few doctor prescribed shots of medicinal brandy.

Three Weeks Later. 2000 Hours. Graduation Reception. Heierlark Base Main Auditorium

Area 88 Mercenary Shin Kazama looked around the reception hall at the crowd of new Osean Air Defense Force and Osean Maritime Self Defense Force pilots and their relatives as they celebrated their graduation from Advanced Flight Training. For many it had been a rough three years of dealing with the extremely tough weather at Heierlark but the newbies had persevered and were now reaping the benefits. Brushing an imaginary piece of lint from his borrowed Asranian Air Force Lieutenant Colonel's Dress Uniform, Shin gazed at the happy faces of the graduates. He saw His Royal Highness Prince Saki Vashtarl conversing with a few of the graduates and their parents. Saki was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant general in the air force of his country with his many decorations and subtle insignia indicating his status as Heir Quaternary to the Asranian Throne. By his side was his cousin and fiancée Baroness Kitori Palvanoff attired in an Asranian Colonel's Dress Uniform also decorated with her medals and insignia indicating her status as a Baroness. The blonde pilot chuckled when he saw the discomfort on Kitori's face as she again tugged at her uniform skirt.

"Ah, Kitori doesn't like to wear skirts. That is understandable. It is a pity though, she's a very attractive woman.", mused Shin as he took another sip from his glass of champagne.

Continuing his observations, Shin saw Mickey and Kim chatting with each other. To Shin it looked as if Mickey was trying to goad the younger pilot into going and talking to an extremely attractive young lady who made no bones about her interest in the teenager. Shaking his head and letting his gaze wander around the room, the blonde saw Captain Snow and conversing with an older man in navy dress whites and wearing the four silver stars of a full admiral. From his vantage point, the conversation looked semi-casual. Shrugging his shoulders again, Shin continued his search for the person he was looking for.

"Now where is he? Where is Blaze Thomas? I see his wife. She's over there talking to Colonel Bartlett's wife while the colonel is talking to Pops. Where in the hell is Major Thomas, I wanted to talk to him and get his thoughts on what the Razgriz will do.", thought Shin as he decided to make his way around the room and mingle with the guests.

In a hallway outside the reception, a man in a midnight black dress uniform waited for his guest with his arms crossed. Twenty-four hours before, the pilot of Razgriz One had returned to Heierlark after a special request conveyed to him by Colonel Vashtarl by way of Jack Bartlett. It had been the typical milk run for most of the flight to and from the secret air base deep inside Asranian Territory to retrieve the princes' special guest until five minutes from landing when the awful weather had caught the executive transport jet and tried to slam it into the ground. If it hadn't been for his exceptional skills behind the controls of any aircraft, Razgriz One and his passenger would have been nothing but a smear on the tarmac.

The slight tap of a high-heeled shoe on the linoleum floor pulled the pilot out of his musings and he straightened up to his full height as his guest made her appearance. The pilot looked at the ethereally beautiful executive with interest before remembering what his wife would do if she caught him staring at another woman. Offering his arm to the guest of the prince, he inclined his head respectfully before speaking.

"Are you ready ma'am?"

The woman nodded enthusiastically, not trusting her voice to allow her to speak in a comprehensible tone. The pilot grinned beneath his black balaclava and approached the closed doors of the reception hall at an easy pace.

Inside the reception hall, Colonel Jack Bartlett clasped the hand of his wife as he returned to her side after his conversation with Pops. The grandmaster aircraft mechanic was a bit concerned about Blaze's latest request concerning newly graduated First Lieutenant Alina H. Davenport. It wasn't that Jack was concerned about the decision; the woman was an able pilot and just about equaled her late father in skills. Nor was it the fact that Blaze had made the request during the graduation speech given by Colonel Vashtarl. What concerned the senior pilot was the fact that Blaze had requested the particular aircraft he did.

The aircraft in question was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the O.A.D.F. Not even Bartlett's wife knew that sequestered in a far corner of the Razgriz Aircraft Hanger were five MiG advanced tactical fighters. Codenamed Wyvern the five fighters were the first offering of the next generation variable winged fighters. More advanced than the F/A-22 Raptors currently in the O.A.D.F. inventory, the Wyverns were undergoing extremely classified testing at Heierlark and were rarely brought out into the open. The only time they were flown was late at night when all four of the Razgriz pilots were in residence AND when all of the student pilots were either asleep or away from the base.

The Wyverns were that classified.

Shaking his head to collect his thoughts, Bartlett's attention was caught by a flash of black he caught through the windows in the reception hall doors. Recognizing the visible eyes, Jack subtly caught the attention of Saki Vashtarl and jerked his eyes to the doors to let the prince know that his very special guest had arrived. Saki nodded and gave a slight grin before gently disengaging from the conversation he'd been ensnared in and making his way to the dais at the front of the room. Jack followed a few steps behind in a roundabout path.

Making his way to the lectern with his glass of champagne, Saki looked around for his ace pilot and caught sight of the quiet man in the lieutenant colonel's uniform as he listened to a student who was introducing his parents to the guest instructor. Smothering a grin that had his cousin confused, Saki gently tapped his glass with the edge of a handy fork. The slight chiming of the crystal drew everyone's attention to the front of the room and several conversations in progress halted as those gathered wondered what the prince had to see. Saki waited a moment before speaking as he saw the black attired pilot enter the hall with his requested guest to the oblivion of those gathered. Gazing around the room, Saki caught the subtle surprised reactions from the Wardog contingent and the confusion from Simon and Aba as they caught site of the new arrivals. Aba opened his mouth to draw the attention of Saki's primary subject but was stopped by a hand over his mouth from Major Grimm. Hearing his cousin cough behind him in preparation to speak, Saki casually stepped on Kitori's foot. Muttered floated to his ears and he knew that the baroness would berate him later. Saki didn't worry; he had a pilot to surprise. Clearing his throat, Saki spoke into the microphone.

"Lieutenant Colonel Shin Kazama. Front and Center."

Behind his trademark poker face, Saki rejoiced at the confusion that flitted across Shin's face as he wondered what the hell was going on and why his commanding officer was calling him to the front. The pilot placed his glass on the table and made his way to the front of the reception hall and stopped five paces in front of Saki and saluted, his confusion still subtly evident on his face.

"Lieutenant Colonel Kazama reporting as ordered, highness.", replied Shin.

Saki returned his salute and started to speak. It soon became obvious to those who knew him well that Saki was stalling for time. When he saw that his guest was directly behind his target, Saki finished his short speech.

"Colonel Kazama, the other day I made a request to Colonel Bartlett on your behalf and he informed me that he would pass my request on to his people. Yesterday, the colonel informed me that my request had been carried out and that my special guest would be arriving today. It is with great honor, colonel that I introduce you and all those gathered here on this momentous occasion to my special guest. I would like to introduce Mrs. Ryouko Sugumo-Kazama."

Saki chuckled to himself at the look of astonishment that flashed across Shin's face at warp speeds. The prince's chuckling got louder as a pair of small and delicate glove clad hands reached up from behind his ace pilot and covered his eyes. Saki's number one mercenary pilot was in such a state that he almost didn't react when the light pink hair of his spouse came into his line of sight.

Shin was stupefied. His wife Ryouko was here! As the prince's special guest! He was about to say something when something covered his eyes and a familiar scent wafted into his nostrils. Inhaling deeply, Shin gently removed the obstruction over his eyes and looked down into the soft blue eyes of his Ryouko. As Shin realized that the beautiful pink haired woman in front of him was indeed his wife, a million thoughts sped through his mind and he wondered how Ryouko had gotten to this isolated base. Those thoughts were answered when Shin's eyes caught sight of the masked man in the black uniform standing to his left and in that instant he knew that the Demon King had flown to Area 88 to pick up his wife so she could be there to celebrate the graduation with him. Turning to the man with a look of extreme gratitude on his face, Shin effervescently thanked Razgriz One for bring his beloved. The pilot responded and Shin again recognized the fact that the pilot was disguising his voice. Yet there was something there that sounded familiar to Shin and he couldn't place it. Mentally shrugging his shoulders, Shin returned his attention to his wife and together Shin and Ryouko Kazama made their way to the prince and to Colonel Bartlett and thanked them both for doing this. Turning around and facing the applauding crowd with his wife on his arm, Shin reveled in the praise and honor being heaped on his by the graduates and students.

At their own table off to the side of the reception hall, newly graduated and promoted First Lieutenants Alina H. Davenport, Kimberly Carson, Cindy Decker, Brittany Sanderson, Nadine Fredericks, Daniella Sterling, Kindra Ostenhaus, and Nicolette Waters sat and toasted each other and their fellow graduates. The eight women had been looking forward to this day for the past few years and planned to totally enjoy it. At the moment, they were sipping on the celebratory champagne and watching the gathering at the front of the room where Instructor Kazama was introducing his wife to the other instructors. While the attention of her seven tablemates was on the gathering, Alina's attention was centered on the masked man in the black uniform trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. Davenport knew-as did all of the graduates-that the man in the black uniform was the most respected and feared pilot in the entire world: The legendary leader of the Ghosts of Razgriz.

In her two years of training, Alina had seen him around the base on occasion. He was usually testing different aircraft or observing the other instructors as they taught a class in the hanger. Each time she saw him, she was too far away to see his face and Alina guessed that it wouldn't matter anyway because he kept his balaclava on when he wasn't wearing a flight helmet. The closest she'd ever been to the legendary pilot was in one of the lecture halls where he was giving a lecture. Alina had known that the hall was going to be packed and had managed to grab seats for her and her friends in the second row in front of the speakers' podium. As usual, the man kept his face covered and used a device to change his voice the entire time. Then had come the night Pops had found her outside the barracks remembering her father.

She'd had a rough day that day and was depressed about a test she'd taken and not done so well on. Later that afternoon, her mom had called and reminded her about the date. It was late that evening when she'd heard what would turn out to be the Razgriz departing the base and Pops had stumbled over her. When the legendary squadron had returned, Alina remembered talking to Colonel Bartlett and he'd told her that her father had flown with the Razgriz before he'd died. She'd missed her chance to talk the Demons that night. Now the leader of the squadron was ten yards away from where she sat and Alina was dammed if she was going to miss out on this chance to find out about her father.

Telling her tablemates that she'd be right back, Alina had risen from her seat and started making her way to the black uniformed pilot. Alina was no more than five steps away from her target when her mind recognized that her name had been called. Tuning back in, Alina gasped. The colonel was requesting her presence at the front of the room.

"First Lieutenant Alina Harriet Davenport, front and center."

Growling her displeasure, Alina hurried up to where Instructor Kazama had been a few short minutes before and reported to the colonel standing behind the podium.

"First Lieutenant Davenport reporting as ordered sir.", Alina replied while saluting.

Jack Bartlett gazed intently at the young woman in front of him with her new silver pilot's wings gleaming on the breast of her uniform and again stamped down the uneasiness within him. He didn't agree with what Razgriz One was doing but felt that it wasn't up to him to contradict the pilot in front of the graduates. Taking a breath, Jack began to speak. No sign of his disagreement in his voice.

"Lieutenant Davenport, you've been called to the front of this gathering to receive a singular honor. This honor has never before been bestowed on any graduates in the years since the war. This is such an honor that only the person responsible for it can bestow it on you. Therefore I turn this podium over to him.", stated Jack as he stepped away from the podium as he became aware of the person approaching from behind.

Turning to face the wraith, Bartlett nodded to the man as a collective gasp rose from the crowd and an astonished look came over the face of the young lieutenant standing in front of the podium. Everyone knew or guessed that this was a moment they didn't want to miss.

The leader of the Demons of Razgriz was going to speak.

As he approached the podium and stood behind it, the leader of the Razgriz pontificated that he could've heard a pin drop in the silence. Looking at the young woman in front of him, he couldn't help but see some aspects of his old wingman's face in hers. Clearing his throat, he began to speak.

"First Lieutenant Alina H. Davenport, I want to congratulate you on your graduation from flight training. From what I've gathered from your instructors, specifically Major Blaze Thomas who couldn't be here tonight on this special occasion, you've become one helluva pilot; just like your old man Lieutenant Colonel Alvin H. 'Chopper' Davenport. I wish he was here today to see the pilot you've grown into. Chopper was a good friend of mine and a good wingman. His death was a blow to all of us. Earlier today, I talked to the rest of the Razgriz and made a suggestion. They thought about it for a minute before agreeing to my suggestion. Since today is the day the rest of the squad and I honor your father; I invite you; First Lieutenant Alina H. 'Banshee' Davenport, to fly with us tonight. In addition, I also would like you to, just this once, use the callsign 'Razgriz Three'. The Razgriz and I decided to bring your father's callsign out of retirement for you to use on this most special occasion."

The audience exploded into gasps of astonishment and conversations started up almost immediately but Alina didn't hear them, she was in shock as the implications of the honor she was being given became apparent. Tonight she, Alina Davenport-daughter of one of the most famous pilots in history, was going to fly with her father's squadron AND she was going to be able to use his callsign. Alina felt as if she was going to faint. The feeling was so strong she almost missed it when her idol, Major Nagase appeared by her side with a midnight black flight jacket. Razgriz One was still speaking and Alina brought her attention back to him.

"…. At the moment, Major Nagase is presenting you your father's flight jacket to wear tonight in his honor."

Alina accepted the soft jacket reverently and gently ran a hand over the dark grey and red patch on the left breast with its red embroidered number '3' on it. Closing her eyes and holding the jacket to her nose, Alina smelled the faint scent of her father. It was as if this jacket was linking her to him over the years. Feeling the tears welling up in her eyes, Alina didn't react when Major Nagase leaned in and told her that it was okay to cry. She knew exactly how Alina felt.

"He was a good man, Banshee, a good man. Your father was a good man and a damn good pilot. Don't let anyone tell you anything different.", Edge whispered in Alina's ear.

Alina opened her eyes and gazed up at the masked man standing at the podium and let her eyes ask the question she wanted to voice but was afraid to. Seeing his nod to her unasked question, Alina unzipped the jacket and prepared to slip her arms into its warmth. Before she could, she felt hands gently lift the coat out of her hands. Turning around to see who had the gall to do such a thing, Alina saw that Razgriz One had came down and was holding the jacket up so she could slip her arms in to its waiting sleeves. As the soft fabric was drawn on to her shoulders, a familiar voice echoed in her ear.

"Wear this jacket with pride, Davenport. Chopper would've wanted you to have it anyway.", came the voice of Chief Instructor Major Blaze Thomas.

Jerking her head around at the voice, Alina tried to see where her favorite instructor was. The only person she saw was Razgriz One. Confused, she looked at him. He winked at her and something slowly began to dawn on her. Before she could say anything, Alina saw Razgriz One give a quick shake of his head. Major Nagase quietly spoke in her ear again.

"You've just became privy to a very well kept secret, Davenport. Don't tell anyone that you know who Razgriz One is. Since its still a few years until our identities are released with the records as requested by former President Harling, us Razgriz members would prefer to remain anonymous for now. And before you ask, yes I am one of the Razgriz, as are Major Grimm and Captain Snow. Now turn around and share the honor you've just been given with the rest of the room."

Alina nodded as her mind made since of what she'd just learned. Turning to face the crowd behind her, Alina unconsciously zipped her father's jacket up to the applause of the crowd. Shaking hands with the leader of the Razgriz, Alina made her way back to her seat, accepting the accolades of her fellow graduates as she went. Still a bit in shock, Alina sat down. The minute she did, her friends gathered around her, gushing with pride and praise while admiring the jacket.

"Wow!" - exclaimed Brittany Sanderson.

"You get to fly with the Razgriz! Tonight! You're so lucky!" - sighed Nicolette Waters.

"Your father was Chopper Davenport?? Why didn't you tell us??" - stated Cindy Decker.

"That jacket looks good on you, 'Lina." - gushed Kindra Ostenhaus.

"What did Major Nagase tell you?" - questioned her best friend Kimberly Carson.

Not even trying to answer the questions and statements from her friends, Alina just shook her head and reached for her glass but put it down when she realized that she was going to be flying that night. Mentally grumbling to herself, Alina didn't acknowledge the glass of fruit punch that appeared in front of her at first. She only looked up at her benefactor when she heard the baritone of Captain Snow as he passed by her table.

A few hours later, the reception was starting to die down as tired graduates and their families made their way out of the reception hall to the front of the operations building. Many of the guests were staying in the V.I.P. quarters on base while others flying out on the passenger jets they flew in on. Shin and Ryouko Kazama were looking out the window at the gaggle of planes and quietly talking when the prince came over.

"Shin, Colonel Bartlett just informed me that since your wife is here, you don't have to stay in the barracks tonight. You can stay with your wife in the quarters set aside for her.", stated Saki as he slowed to a stop.

"Yes sir. Ryouko told me about those quarters earlier. But I want to be here when the rest of the Razgriz arrive.", replied Shin.

"Shin, we all want to be here for them. But for now, go spend some time with your wife. You have seen her since we left so many months ago. Go be with her. Jack assured me that he'll send somebody to get us they arrive. After I leave here, I got have to go and get in touch with his majesty, my father. Hopefully it that won't take so long and I can get some rest before meeting the rest of the squadron. You need to do the same."

Shin started to protest again but saw the look in Saki's eyes and-more importantly-saw the look in Ryouko's eyes and relented. He nodded and watched Saki return his gesture and head off towards the door. As he observed the prince, Shin's eyes caught sight of a figure in a black flight jacket surrounded by a small group of first year cadets six months away from their own graduation. Recognizing the figure as the specially honored graduate, Shin made his way in her direction. He'd seen a look of realization on her face when the Razgriz Leader had put the jacket on her and wanted to ask the new lieutenant some questions. Before he could get halfway towards Davenport, Shin felt a large hand on his shoulder and turned to face his (obviously slightly intoxicated) Tomcat flying friend.

"Shin, ole buddy quit ignoring your wife. She's waiting for you and from the look on her face; she's got something real good planned for you. Don't worry about Davenport, since she's gonna be flying with them tonight, you'll see her then and you can ask her whatever it is you want.", Mickey slurred slightly as he wrapped an arm around Shin's neck.

"But…but…but…", started Shin only to be cut off.

"Whatever it is, it ain't that important. Now go other there to your wife and reconnect. I'm gonna go over here and see if I can get Captain Snow back to drinking some more scotch! I bet him he couldn't drink me under the table. He said he could but he'd have to show me another night. For some odd reason he's not drinking. Oh well. I can still try and get him to drink more. Talk to you later my friend."

Shin grumbled good-naturedly but allowed Simon to convince him to be with his wife. Besides, Lieutenant Davenport had disappeared with her friends. Shrugging his shoulders and thinking that maybe Saki and Mickey were right, Shin allowed his Ryouko to drag him to her room. He later admitted to himself that Mickey was right.

Ryouko did have something planned for him and, oh boy, was it good.

Ryouko Sugumo-Kazama's V.I.P. Quarters. Heierlark Base. 0117 Hours.

Shin Kazama blearily opened his eyes as his subconsicousness recognized the noise coming from the front room as somebody knocking on the door. Carefully disentangling himself from the arms of his wife Ryouko, the multi-ace made his way across the bedroom to go answer the door. He was halfway there when he realized that he wasn't wearing anything and backtracked to the bedroom to throw on a pair of shorts.

Now properly semi-attired, Shin answered the door. At the door was an unidentified yawning junior officer who informed him that he had been sent by Colonel Bartlett to let the Area 88 party know that the rest of the Ghosts of Razgriz had arrived. Shin was to put on a spare flightsuit and meet the rest of his friends on the first floor to wait for their ride to the hanger. Shin thanked the man and said he would be there. The officer nodded and went on to inform the others.

Closing the door, Shin returned to the bedroom and turned on the light. As he did so, he saw that Ryouko was awake and sitting up in the bed with the sheets to her naked chest. The look in her eyes told him that she'd heard the junior officer and knew that he would be leaving in a bit.

"I don't want you to go, Shin but I know that you need to be there. More than that, you want to be there to meet these pilots. I hate the fact that I can't change your mind about meeting. All I can do is hope that you give them a chance to make a favorable impression.", murmured Ryouko quietly.

Shin saw the unshed tears in her eyes and mentally cursed to himself. He hated seeing his wife cry and he hated the fact that he was the one who'd brought the tears to her eyes this time even more. Opening the closet to grab a flightsuit, Shin fought a battle within himself. He wanted to meet these pilots. Meting them would be show him that being away from Ryouko these past few months wasn't in vain. Conversely, reuniting with his wife after this time made him want to throw it all away. He was about to whisper an apology to his wife when he saw a small, light grey flightsuit hanging next to one of Ryouko's heavy coats. On a whim, he reached in and grabbed the flightsuit before turning around. A grin was in his stormy blue eyes.

"Come on, let's both go and meet these pilots.", he said.

Ryouko Sugumo-Kazama leapt out of the bed and ran to her husband and pressed her bare breasts against his uncovered chest and crushed her lips to his. He wanted to share with her the one thing he loved almost as much as he loved her. The blue of the sky he flew in.

"Yes, let's both go meet these pilots, my love. Lets meet them together.", whimpered Ryouko as she felt his strong arms reach around her body.

Reading the look in her eyes, Shin let her flightsuit fall to the floor and carried her back to the bed. There was still a few minutes before meeting with the rest of the Area 88 contingent.. They'd spend it in each others arms.

Women's Barracks. 0120 Hours.

Alina H. Davenport quietly looked around the room as she got dressed. Her roommates lay passed out on the floor of the room. After returning to their barracks together, Daniella had reached into the back of her closet and pulled out a couple bottles of her private stash of booze and they had a small graduation party of their own. None of the other seven girls would let Alina take a drink as they partied in celebration and soon her friends were down to their skivvies after a few toasts and games.

The revelry had halted for a few minutes when Major Nagase, Lieutenant Colonel Bartlett, and Colonel Palvanoff had dropped by to pass on their congratulations and to share a drink with the eight women before continuing on to the quarters of the other female graduates. Alina guessed that Major Grimm, Captain Snow, Commander Simon, Captain Aba, and Colonel Vashtarl were doing the same. She'd asked Major Nagase about her husband and where he was but Edge had demurred and told the gathered women that they'd see him later. Her roommates had all said okay and let it drop before going back to their party while Alina had caught the subtle look of warning in Major Nagase's eyes. Nodding back at the warning, Alina watched as the three older women left the room. A few hours later, she'd nodded off listening to her friends talk about their personal lives (She'd learned that both Nicolette and Nadine had crushes on the young Harrier guest instructor from Asran).

Quietly stepping around the reclining forms of her roommates, Alina quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Ostenhaus and Decker asleep in each others arms. She knew that both had boyfriends back home but it was an odd sight to see. Reaching the front of the room, Alina sat down to put on her flight boots. Once they were on securely, she picked up the jacket given to her and looked at it before putting it on and heading to the door. As she quietly turned the knob to open the door, Alina heard a soft cough. Looking behind her, she saw that her best friend Kim Carson was giving her a look of pride. She nodded and continued out the door.

Walking down the hallway after closing her door, Alina made her way to the common area. Entering the vast room and gazing around, Alina saw that several of her junior classmates had gathered at the table to study and had fallen asleep. Going over to a nearby closet, she opened the door, took out several blankets, and draped them over the sleeping women to keep them warm. Gazing at them and remembering her time in their place, Alina headed towards the main door. Approaching the door that would lead her out into the cold, Alina saw a jeep pull up and sit idling quietly at the stop for the shuttle bus. Bracing herself for the cold and opening the front door, Alina headed out into the night.

As she approached the jeep and opened the door, Alina looked across at the figure sitting in the drivers' seat. The moonlight allowed her to see that her driver was a woman and she surmised that Major Nagase herself had come to pick her up for her flight. She was vindicated a few seconds later as her driver spoke and handed her a cup of hot coffee.

"Here you go Banshee. This oughta help you warm up.", came the soft voice of the most decorated female in the entire O.A.D.F.

"Thank major. I needed this.", replied Alina.

"Call me Edge, you've graduated and this isn't a formal setting. You're not a student anymore, you're one of the sisterhood. Be happy that you made it."

Taking a sip of her coffee precluded Alina from answering so she nodded her head. Edge looked at her once before shifting the jeep into drive and pulling away from the barracks. It took Alina five minutes to realize that her driver was bringing her to the most secure hanger on base. She turned her head to face Edge and let her eyes ask the rhetorical question.

"Yep, that's where we're going. You are going to be the first and only student to see what is kept in this hanger."

Alina felt her excitement rise as Major Nagase pulled up to the guardhouse and spoke to the heavily armed guard. Soon the gates opened and the jeep pulled through and headed for a parking spot at the end of the building. Alina climbed out when the engine was shut off and just stood there in awe as she waited for her escort to grab her gear from the back of the jeep.

"Don't forget the rest of your flight gear, Davenport. You'll need it."

Alina nodded as she turned to the back of the jeep and saw that her former instructor had stopped by the student P.E. room and grabbed her flight gear before picking her up. Shouldering the bag, Alina followed Edge to a steel personnel door and waited while the shorter woman knocked. The door opened and Alina followed Nagase into the waiting warmth of the hanger. Looking at the walls of the narrow passageway, Alina saw the many different awards the squadron had received. At the far end of the hallway, Alina saw what she recognized as the port side of an F/A-35 Lightning II fighter. The thing that caught her attention was that it wasn't in the usual low-vis grey she was used to.

It was midnight black.

Going through the door into the main hanger proper, Alina's mouth dropped as she took in the mural painted on the wall. After a minute, she turned to her escort with a questioning look on her face. Before she could ask, Edge answered.

"Yes, Alina H. Davenport; that is your father: Alvin H. Davenport, in his prime.", stated the instructor pilot quietly.

Alina looked at the painting in shock, taking in the facial features she'd only seen in family pictures when she was younger. For five minutes, the young woman stood there before becoming aware that they were not alone. Bringing her gaze down from the picture, Alina saw another figure in a black flightsuit approaching a locker against the far wall. Again looking at her escort, she saw Nagase indicate for her to go ahead. Slowly and with trepidation showing in each step, Alina walked across the hanger and made her way to the locker. Stopping a respectful distance away, she saw another picture of her father. This time she could tell it was a casual picture as evinced by the boyishly roguish grin on his face as he sat on a couch and leaned back against the wall.

Edge saw Alina strong reaction to the photo and gave her a small push. Alina stumbled forward and used her hands to catch the top of the locker. Looking down and noticing that there was no lock, Alina looked up questioningly. Seeing the blank face of Major Nagase, Alina felt her hands slowly, achingly making their way to the latch to pen the locker. When it was open, she saw that there was a black flightsuit with the number '3' hanging from a hook. Next to that hook was a missing space where she correctly surmised the jacket she was presently wearing used to hang. Shifting her attention to the shelf at the top of the locker, Alina's breath caught as she saw the scorched flight helmet and noticed the dark brown patches. Against her will, her hands slowly reached for the helmet. As they made contact with the hard plastic shell, a jolt passed through Alina.

"That is the helmet your father wore on his last mission. When the rescue crews recovered his body, he was still wearing that helmet. I had the rescue crews to return his helmet to Sand Island where Pops took care of it until the end of the war. Before we had to flee Sand Island, Pops had the helmet flown to Heierlark and placed in the safe in Colonel Bartlett's office. Every time we come here, we all stop by this locker and remember your father.", came the voice of Blaze Thomas from off to her right.

Alina turned to her former chief instructor and looked at him with unshed tears. She made as if to ask a question but he beat her to it.

"Go ahead. We'll leave you alone. Meet us over at by that Typhoon when you're ready.", continued Blaze as he took his wife's hand and led her away from the grieving pilot.

Alina watched them walk away before turning back to face the locker. Closing her eyes and putting her hands together, Alina mourned the pilot.

"Well dad. I made it. I'm a fighter pilot now. After two long and hard years I made it. I wish you could see me now, I know you'd have been proud of me to get this far. In my time here, I've met some incredible people, my roommates, my instructors, your old flight lead and wingmen, all of them. Even though I didn't know you that well, I grew up hearing about my father, one of the best damn pilots in the air force. Each time during my stay here when I felt as if I was ready to quit, I thought of you. Those thoughts helped me continue, even if only for a little bit. Now I'm at the pinnacle of my success and I consider myself extremely lucky. Major Thomas and the others are allowing me to fly with them tonight using your callsign and wearing your jacket. I don't know what I'll be flying but whatever it is, I'm going to enjoy it. From this day forward each time I climb into a cockpit, I'm gonna imagine you are there with me, sharing the sky, our sky. I love you dad, and I miss you. One day in the future all of us will be reunited in place far better than this.", thought Alina as she opened her eyes and looked at the picture on the locker.

Years later when she spoke to her children and grandchildren, Alina would swear up and down that as she looked at the picture of her father, it winked and gave her a carefree grin.

With one last lingering look at the picture of her father, Alina made her way over to where Major Nagase and her husband stood. As she approached, the two turned to her and grinned. In that grin, Alina could see the love the two shared with each other so openly. It was there in the tableau as Edge leaned against the EF-2000 Typhoon with her hands demurely behind her back while her husband leaned his shoulder against the plane and devoted his full attention to his wife. Chuckling to herself, Alina fantasized for a moment before coming back to the present.

"Davenport, tonight, we're going to fly a fighter your dad didn't get to fly. There are only five in the entire world and all five of them are here. Follow us and let me introduce you to the fighters we'll be flying tonight.", said Blaze as he came to his feet and started to walk around the aft fuselage of the delta-winged Typhoon.

Minutes later, Alina was standing with the rest of the Razgriz (who included, much to her surprise Captain Snow and Major Grimm) in front of an angular, twin-tailed fighter. Blaze was speaking.

"This, my friends, is the Wyvern; the next generation of variable-geometry wing fighters. The Wyvern is extremely fast and very well armed. It has the usual 20mm cannon mounted in the root of the starboard wing. I know that with everyone's experience in aircraft identification, you can see that the Su-47 Berkut and the X-29 FSW is somewhere in the Wyvern's family tree as you can tell by the reverse-swept wings. I bet you're wondering why this aircraft is so secret. I can't tell you right now but you'll find out as we fly. Since we're on a slight schedule and the Area 88 crew should be arriving shortly, I want everyone to go ahead done their G-suits and harnesses. Archer, Swordsman, Edge; you three know the routine. Your balaclava's are in your lockers. Banshee, since Colonel Vashtarl and his people know your face already you don't have to wear a hood. Edge will help you strap in to your Wyvern."

"Yes sir.", responded Alina.

Blaze grimaced and told her that she didn't have to call him sir since it was an informal setting and she was a part of the air force now. He did remind her to call him either Razgriz One or Razgriz Lead when the colonel arrived. When she nodded her understanding, Alina allowed, him to lead her to the Wyvern with the number three on its vertical stabilizer where Edge was waiting for her. Watching Blaze as he departed to talk to Pops about something or another, Alina did a preflight walk around her mount for the evening. Not seeing the approval of Edge Thomas, but knowing it was there nonetheless, the young graduate made her way up the boarding ladder after strapping into her g-suit and torso harness. Climbing into the ejection seat, Alina donned her helmet (she'd returned her late father's helmet to its resting place and closed the locker) and helped Edge make sure her belts were tight. When that was done, Edge gave her a gentle slap upside the helmet and climbed down the boarding ladder and made her way over to her own Wyvern. Taking a deep breath, Alina gazed at the painting of her father on the wall one last time before psyching herself up for this flight.

Jeep Outside Razgriz Hanger. Heierlark Base. O230 Hours.

Colonel Jack Bartlett glanced over at his wife sitting in the passenger seat of the crew van with a stubborn look on her face. In her lap was their sleeping daughter, Anastasia. Yuktobanian Intelligence Lieutenant Colonel Nastasya Bartlett was miffed. She'd woken up to find her husband trying to sneak out of their quarters to take Colonel Vashtarl and his contingent to the Razgriz Hanger for their introduction to the legendary pilots. When she asked if she could join him, Jack had said a hasty no. When he said that, Nastasya's sense of intelligence was peaked and she figured that he was trying to keep something classified from her. Even though The Osean Federation and the Union of Yuktobanian Republics were allies and usually shared information, there were things that both countries tried to keep to themselves.

Nastasya and Jack had gotten into a brief argument that was only stopped when Anastasia woke up and started to cry. The intelligence officer had sent her husband into the nursery to get the baby back to sleep (Jack was better at that than she was) and proceeded to put on a set of fatigues and boots. When her husband had reentered the sitting room and seen her sitting there fully clothed and waiting, he'd fumed before going back into the bedroom and picking up their daughter and dressing her in a warm outfit and placing Anastasia in her mothers hands before leaving their quarters and heading down to meet the Area 88 contingent. When they reached the front of the building, Nastasya had fought to smother a laugh as she saw Ryouko Sugumo-Kazama standing next to her husband in a light grey flightsuit tailored for her small frame. The look on Shin Kazama's face was one of quiet determination and Nastasya heard her husband sigh as he recognized the stubborn look on Kazama's face as well as the looks of futility on the faces of his comrades.

Bringing her attention back to the present when Anastasia shifted in her arms, Nastasya saw that their van had arrived at the hanger and her husband was gesticulating to the guard in the guardhouse to go ahead and open the gates. The van pulled in to the high security area and Jack pulled up next to a jeep parked in the front of the building. Nastasya heard Jack mutter something to himself before he shut off the engine. Zipping her jacket up and making sure that her daughter was bundled up; the head of intelligence opened her door and exited the van. Standing next to the vehicle, she saw the sliding doors of the van open and the six Area 88 guests pile out into the crisp air.

Jack looked at his gathered audience and snorted to himself. He knew that Blaze and Pops were going to be a bit perturbed at his wife for being there but ultimately would let it drop. It was their reaction to the arrival of Ryouko Kazama that was going to toss everything out of whack. Pops was going to have to hustle to get one of the two-seat aircraft in the hanger prepped for the flight and Jack didn't know which of the Razgriz two-seaters was going to be able to be used. Sighing to himself, Jack decided to let things play out and he'd flow with it. Placing his hands on his hips, Bartlett began his short speech.

"Alright, listen up you guys. Behind me is the most secure facility in the entire world. This hanger has more security than anywhere else in the world. You've probably noticed the heavily armed guards here. Those guards have permission to use lethal force to ensure that this hanger is never breached by unauthorized personnel. Consider yourselves extremely lucky to be able to see inside this hanger. This hanger is also a shrine to a deceased pilot so be respectful. Once you're inside, I request that you never tell anyone what is contained behind these doors. I can't tell you what will happen if you because I don't know myself. So please consider yourselves warned and no writing reports about the equipment contained herein, Nastasya. Now that all that legal and important stuff is out of the way, welcome to the lair of the Ghosts of Razgriz.", growled Jack as he opened the personnel door and headed inside.

There were a few grumbles from both Baroness Palvanoff and Commander Simon but they were silenced with a look from his highness. Jack started up the small hallway and explained to his guests the history behind the squadron. Shin noticed that the colonel didn't mention the names of the pilots as the group made their way to another door at the far end of the hallway that opened up into the hanger proper. Once the group entered the hanger, the first thing they saw was a mural of the five Razgriz pilots, four of which had their faces covered with a tarp so that their identity could be kept. Saki glared at Bartlett as he saw the tarp and wondered if they were ever going to find out the identities of the pilots. Colonel Bartlett was going to great lengths to keep those identities a secret from Saki and his pilots. Before he could comment on it, Saki saw the colonel walk towards a row of lockers against the wall and stop in front of one. He remained there for a few seconds before heading in the direction of a lounge area.

Remembering what else the colonel had mentioned, Saki realized (as did the rest of his pilots) the locker was a shrine for the Razgriz to honor their deceased member. Stopping a respectful distance away from the locker, Saki inclined his head and muttered a short prayer for the soul of the deceased before lighting one of the incense sticks. Glancing inside the locker before he stepped away, the colonel saw a black flightsuit hanging from a hook and a scorched flight helmet sitting on the shelf.

After all of the Area 88 crew had paid their respects, they found the planes that they'd been assigned. Much to Bartlett's relief, his old friend had switched out the EF-2000 Typhoon he'd originally had for Kazama to fly for a spare F-111 Aardvark. Soon everyone was settled and waiting for the big double doors of the hanger to open.

In the cockpit of his Wyvern, Blaze was having a scrambled conversation with Edge, Archer, and Swordsman. Davenport and the others were locked out of the communications loop for the moment. Blaze figured that Colonel Vashtarl was doing the same thing as he was.

"Should I let Davenport lead us out or should I just keep the lead?", he asked his teammates.

"We should do this the same way we always do. There's no sense in changing everything up just for Chopper's kid.", replied Archer as he glanced at his instrument panel.

"Archer, you gotta take into account the fact that she's being given this honor to fly with us. We should go ahead and let her lead us out for takeoff but let you lead us over November City. That way, this would be something she would remember for the rest of her life. The one time she was allowed to fly with us and use the Razgriz tactical callsign. I wouldn't begrudge her that. Besides its her father we're honoring.", returned Edge.

Blaze didn't say anything and just listened. He knew that ultimately it was up to him and his wingmates would back him up regardless of his decision. Sighing to himself, he made his decision.

"Okay, here's what we're gonna do. This will be our usual honor flight. I'll lead it till we get to November City. There I'll turn over the lead to her and I'll peel off as we form up for The Missing Man Formation. That way, everything will be just about normal.", started Blaze before Swordsman cut in.

"No, you lead the formation as usual. Let her do the maneuver. Like Edge said, it's her father we're honoring so what's better than letting her do the actual honoring. That way, she gets the best of both worlds.", voiced the carrier pilot.

There was a slight silence after Snow's statement but eventually everyone concurred with the decision. Now all Blaze had to do was pass on the information to Davenport. A few minutes later the group of airplanes was taxiing out of the hanger and towards the runway. Once every aircraft was in its correct position for takeoff, Blaze glanced around at the fighters to his sides and saw that his closest friends were ready; he gave the command that they'd been waiting for.

"Razgriz, Launch!"

Five hands in five different cockpits advanced their throttles to the sops and released their brakes and five advanced fighters stormed down the runway two at a time before activating their afterburners and streaking into the air. Behind them, five more airplanes taxied into position at the end of the runway and waited for their turn to take off. Blaze listened to his radio as his fighter climbed to a safe cruising height and heard Colonel Vashtarl give his people the command to takeoff.

"Zero-Zero Section, Launch. Once airborne join up with the Razgriz, we'll be under the direct command of Razgriz Lead."

Leading his flight in a circle so that the Area 88 pilots could join up, Blaze waited until the formation was ten aircraft strong and issued his next command.

"Razgriz,, Zero-Zero Section. Altitude Restriction canceled"

And with that, ten pilots yanked their control sticks to their stomachs and went ballistic. Over in Wyvern Three, Alina Davenport felt a spiritual presence wither in her cockpit and smiled at the moon. In her mind she knew that no matter where ever in the world she was, her father would always be with her. Pushing her throttle to the stops, she followed her fathers squadmates into the night sky.

A couple of hours later, Jack Bartlett heard his pilots returning to the nest. He grinned to himself as he listened to each pair of engines as they made their final approach. Looking out towards the far end of the runway, he saw the landing lights of the first aircraft and recognized them as the Lightning II being piloted by Kim Aba followed by Baroness Palvanoff, Mickey Simon, Saki Vashtarl, and the Aardvark carrying Shin and Ryouko Kazama. Once those five planes had taxied in to the hanger and shut down, the group waited for the first of the Razgriz pilots to land. First came Razgriz Five, followed by Four, then surprisingly by Razgriz Two, and Razgriz One before Davenport landed in Razgriz Three. Bartlett figured that Blaze had given the honor of landing last to Davenport because he wanted her to feel a certain link with her father.

Once all of the planes were in the hanger, Bartlett met up with Saki and his crew and escorted them to a lounge area and bade them to take their seats. Telling the group that the Razgriz pilots would be there shortly, Bartlett left them to their own devices while he went to ask the Razgriz pilots which fighters they would be taking. He found them holed up in one of the hanger offices. When he entered the room, Jack found out that Edge had asked Davenport to wait in the Razgriz locker room. Jack turned to Blaze as he took off his helmet and lifted his balaclava.

"Are you accepting this mission?", asked Heartbreak One.

"Jack that was a stupid question, of course we'll help them. We decided that shortly after they arrived at Heierlark with us. We've just been discussing which planes we're going to take. As you can guess, Snow wants us to take the Razgriz Tomcats, Grimm prefers the Razgriz Eagles, while my lovely wife would appreciate it if we took the Razgriz Hornets. I've already made my decision but I know that they are gonna balk.", replied Blaze as he looked around the room.

Jack knew the discussion that would come. Each pilot would want an aircraft to showcase their own expertise. Yet since they were a team, they knew they had to fly the same plane. Crossing his arms over his chest, Bartlett gazed around the room at the subtly stubborn looks on everyone's face. Leaning against an available wall, Bartlett waited for the outcome of this discussion. It wasn't long in coming. Surprisingly, there wasn't much argument about the chosen aircraft when Blaze announced it.

"We're taking the F/A-22's everybody. The Wyverns are out because they're top secret. The Eagles, Tomcats, and Rhino's are out because of the fact that for the three of you, your separate and disparate flying styles are complemented by those aircraft. The Tigersharks are out because of the same reason. So it has to be the Raptors. The Lightning II's aren't fast enough, though they would match up well with what the enemy is flying. I would've chosen the Typhoons' since they are fast, well-armed, and extremely maneuverable, I just feel that we-as the Ghosts of Razgriz-would make a better statement with Raptors than with Typhoons; especially in the 'Beyond-Visual-Range' envelope. I know that most of our fighting and flying is going to be up close and personal, I just want the advantage that the Raptors/AMRAAM give us.", stated Blaze with a finality.

Everyone thought about it for a moment before agreeing to the decision. Propping up his wall, Bartlett approved of the choice. If he was the one going to Asran and had a choice of fighters to use, Jack would take a Raptor in place of his beloved Phantom and Tomcat any day of the week. Of course his next choice would've been either a Hornet or a Falcon, but he wasn't the guy going to fly, fight, and possibly die for another country.

"Since they're going to be mercenaries, I bet the money's going to be damn good where they're going. And with their individual skills, they could make a lotta tax-free cash to put away for a rainy day.", mused Bartlett as he watched the four legends conceal their faces for their meeting with the Area 88 contingent.

Shin and Ryouko waited with the rest of their friends in the lounge area Bartlett had directed them to. In his mind, he was running the possible identities of the mysterious pilots he was about to meet, yet no matter how much he denied it, the identity of the one known as Razgriz One could only be Major Blaze Thomas. Shin hadn't told anyone of his suspicions yet because he wasn't completely sure of that point and it was sticking in his craw. Leaning back in his seat with an arm around his wife, Shin pondered his dilemma as he watched the others. Colonel Vashtarl was conversing with his cousin in the corner about some miscellaneous point or another. Both drank from mugs of warm coffee as they chatted. Kim Aba was gazing at the framed aircraft photos that were situated around the room while Mickey absently flipped channels on the television as he waited for Bartlett and the mysterious Razgriz pilots. As for his wife, Shin looked down and saw that his darling beloved was resting her head against his chest and yawning. Shin didn't particularly care for Ryouko being up this late but he knew she was as determined as he was to meet the people who'd kept her husband away from her for nearly six months.

Shin's musings were interrupted as the door opened and the four Ghosts entered the room. With their faces covered by the ever present balaclava hoods and their ominous black flightsuits, they were quite a sight. Behind the four came Colonel Bartlett and his wife followed by Pops and the graduate who'd been given the honor to fly with those who'd flown with her father. Rising to his feet, Kazama made his way to Vashtarl's side. Deciding to ignore the lead pilot since he'd already met him before, the top scoring pilot of Area 88 cast his gaze on the other three pilots. Already, his mind was buzzing as he cataloged the images of the legends made flesh.

The lithesome figure and fluid movement told Shin that Razgriz Two was a woman. He could barely make out the feminine curves underneath the flightsuit but they were there. Razgriz Four walked with the remnants of the awkwardness that Shin was noticing was evident in Kim Aba's demeanor that signified a man recently out of his teens and entering his early to mid twenties. Razgriz Five walked with a swagger all his own as he towered over his wingmen by at least three inches. The confidence radiating from him told Shin that he was an older pilot, possibly in his mid thirties. There was something else there that took Shin a moment to realize but when he did, he cast a sideward glance at Mickey and noticed that the American had noticed the subtle trait as well. Razgriz Five was a member of the elite fraternity of pilots who catapulted off the pointy ends of aircraft carriers.

The four legends came to a stop in the center of the room before the leader spoke.

"Double Echo, The Razgriz and I have discussed the situation you face and the request you make and have come to a decision. The four of us will help you face the enemies your comrades face. We'll fly missions with your pilots as well as train them in the tactics used by your enemy as well as new tactics to prevail in the aerial combat arena. We'll also help your supply personnel by shipping in whatever you need to keep your Mercenary Air Force flying. That assistance includes brining in new aircraft for any pilots who need them as well as any training they'll need on their new aircraft. Now certain aircraft are exempt from this part of the deal. For those aircraft, members of the O.A.D.F. will bring them in for us, The Demons of Razgriz, to use for a particular mission. Is that understood? Now before we discuss anything else, this is for you, highness.", came the disguised voice of the Razgriz Leader.

Saki Vashtarl nodded as a look of relief he couldn't quite smother floated across his face. Extending his hand to the King of Demons, Saki accepted the now-familiar envelope with its stark crest in contrast to the midnight black of the envelope. Opening the envelope and slipping out the familiar sheet of parchment, the prince read what was written:

"As The Demon Sleeps, Man Turns on Man,

His Own Blood and Madness Soon Cover the Earth.

From the Depths of Despair Awaken the Razgriz,

Its Raven Wings Ablaze in Majestic Light."

Once he was finished reading the note, Saki looked at his people and then at the four legends in front of him. Refolding the sheet in his hand, the Heir Quaternary of the Asranian Royal Family offered his thanks to the group of people in front of him. The leader waved it off and told Saki that they would've helped anyway. After seeing as much war and death as they'd seen, they wanted to see a lasting worldwide peace. The others concurred with their leader and although they weren't that surprised about it, the Area 88 crew noticed that each member of the Razgriz had a voice changing device sewn into the lining of their hoods like their leader.

When all of that was over and done with, the tension in the room lessoned and everyone started to loosen up. The Razgriz leader asked if his counterparts had any questions. Of course the Area 88 contingent had questions and the Razgriz spent another forty-five minutes or so answering questions relating to the subject at hand. Lieutenant Davenport even asked a few questions although most of her questions were about her later father. As the clock approached 5 in the morning, the question and answer session started to wind down. Nastasya Bartlett and Alina Davenport had returned to their respective quarters to catch a few hours of sleep. Since she didn't have any plans for later that day, Alina was assured of at least a solid eight hours of sleep if her roommates didn't wake her up. Nastasya Bartlett wanted to get some rest before Anastasia woke-up around ten in the morning or so. She knew that once little Anna was awake; her precious bundle of energy was going to run her ragged. Since they were going to the same building, Nastasya offered to drive the sleepy Ryouko Kazama back to her quarters. An offer Ryouko readily agreed to. She wasn't used to staying up so late was her explanation for her sleepiness. Nastasya just smiled her infamous mysterious smile and told the younger woman not to worry about it.

Now that is was just the Area 88 pilots and the Razgriz remaining in the lounge area, Shin quietly observed as a subtle message was passed between the four Razgriz members and decided to see if his hunch was correct. Clearing his throat, Shin stood up and approached the leader. With his compatriots watching, Shin crossed his arms over his chest and quirked an eyebrow.

"Isn't that you under that mask Major Thomas?", asked Shin much to the surprise of his friends.

There was a quick exclamation of laughter from Razgriz One as he leaned back in his seat.

"What makes you think that I'm Major Thomas?", asked the pilot nonchalantly.

Shin was caught off guard as he started to second-guess himself about his guess. But he quelled that thought before it could completely manifest itself and just shook his head to say he wasn't about to change his mind. The masked pilot laughed again before reaching up and pulling off his face mask to reveal, much to the surprise of the others, the grinning face of Major Ian "Blaze' Thomas. Before there could be any accusations of a lucky guess, Blaze asked Shin what gave him away.

"It was nothing specific, Blaze. It was just the way you carried yourself as the leader of the Razgriz. I wasn't sure at first and I've been trying to figure it out for the longest. Back when we first met the Demon King, it was apparent that he carried himself with a certain élan and panache. When we first arrived here at this base and started instructing, I noticed that you carried yourself in a way similar to the Demon King. I don't know what it was, your easy-going confidence, the way the senior instructors looked up to you and tried to emulate your style, and the way some of the junior instructors held you in a kind of high esteem. Tonight at the graduation, when you honored that graduate the way you did, I noticed that for a second after you presented Davenport with her father's jacket, she looked startled for a bit. Then it looked as if something had dawned over her and she realized who you really were. Even when we flew with you tonight, I observed you and still couldn't tell. Your flying style as the leader of one of the most feared squadrons in history is completely different from your usual style. It's different in the fact that in either guise you have no discernable and recognizable flying style. You are the true enigma here, Blaze, not me.", replied Shin as he stood in front of his counterpart.

Blaze nodded as if deep in thought before responding.

"I see, interesting deduction, Kazama; interesting deduction. Now that you've guessed that I'm the leader of the Razgriz, would you care to take a guess at the rest of their identities or is it so obvious that you're surprised no one of your compatriots have figured it out?"

Colonel Vashtarl and the rest of Shin's friends were still confused and trying to figure out that very thing when Razgriz Two walked over to Kitori and spoke.

"Baroness Palvanoff, didn't I tell you that the Razgriz number two was a woman and she loves seeing women perform in this male dominated career?", floated the familiar disguised voice of Razgriz Two.

Kitori's mouth dropped, she remembered Kei Nagase telling her that very thing. Realization caught up with her and she stammered for a minute as the lithe woman uncovered her face.

"I just didn't tell you that I was that woman, Kitori. And yes, I do love seeing women perform and excel in this career.", came the soft voice of Major Kei 'Edge' Nagase-Thomas as she smiled at the other woman.

Kitori reconciled the fact that the woman who'd taught her everything she knew about how to fly a Super Hornet was a member of the legendary Razgriz. Turning to the shorter lady, Kitori turned from an aerial Valkyrie into a star struck little girl. Even in Asran, she'd heard stories about the squadron and its number two. To see her toughest instructor standing in front of her in the colors of the squadron and wearing the ubiquitous number 2 on her flight suit, Kitori was struck dumb. Many of the other female pilots at Area 88 would kill to be in her spot at this very moment. In the women's locker room there were several posters of the woman in front of her wearing her familiar black flightsuit and with her face masked or turned away from the camera. There were posters of the masked male members of the Razgriz some of her contemporaries lusted and moaned over but the few posters of the daring Razgriz 2 were the most treasured of the locker room decorations. To the other female pilots of Area 88 it (along with the presence of the 'Virgin Baroness' herself) it proved that a woman could do the same thing as a man.

"I wonder what those girls would think of me if they found out I wasn't really a virgin.", thought Kitori as she brought herself back to the present.

Among the other pilots in the room, it was slowly dawning on Mickey Simon and Kim Aba that they'd been flying against the Razgriz the entire time. To both pilots it was a sobering thought: if flying against the Wardog Squadron members had been hard, flying against the Razgriz would be even harder still. Yet now the Wardogs they had been flying against were the legendary people they were supposed to meet, it was inconceivable. Simon looked at Aba and just shook his head before saying to himself.

"They were good when we knew them as Wardog. Now that we've found out that they're the Razgriz, man I'm happy that I never had to go against them in a real battle. We would've been dead if we had gone against them for real."

Colonel Saki Vashtarl looked down at the black with a red border envelope and ran what he'd just learned through his head again. So caught up in his concentration, Saki didn't realize that Colonel Bartlett had came up beside him.

"I told you that I knew who the Razgriz were back when we were on Sand Island. I just didn't tell you that the Razgriz were there as well. So what do you think, highness?", asked Jack with a humorous lilt to his voice.

"Jack, I think that you are the most connivingly slick bastard in the military. You've kept the identity of the Razgriz a secret even with all of my probing. Was President Harling in on keeping the secret as well?"

"Saki, former President Harling is the one who gave them the name 'Ghosts of Razgriz'. His last two years in office, they were his official squadron. Each time he made a political flight, one of those four pilots was the head pilot of the presidential aircraft while the others flew escort. No other squadron was even allowed near the president's airplane in flight as long as the Ghosts of Razgriz were there."

Saki looked at the man who was rapidly becoming a good friend. Slipping the envelope in one of his pockets, he grabbed Bartlett's hand and shook it. Then he headed for the door, he was tired and wanted to get some sleep. Before he exited the lounge completely, Saki looked over his shoulder and asked.

"Hey Bartlett, I got a bottle of twelve year old scotch that needs to be opened. And I hate to drink alone. You wanna join me?"

"I thought you'd never ask, Colonel!", replied Jack as he followed the man who was fourth in line to become ruler of his country out the door.

Wow, eighty-six pages of work!! I can't believe I wrote so much for this one chapter. That's nearly a record for me. Hopefully, my fans will still enjoy this chapter regardless of the length. I apologize for not following through on writing a shorter chapter. Maybe next chapter I'll get the length down.

Now before I thank anyone else, I again want to thank Mr. Bob Gandt for his help in clearing up my confusion about certain aerial maneuvers. Mr. Gandt, I thank you again with the help you gave me. I hope that the eighth book in your Brick Maxwell series comes out soon. I recommend that series for any serious fan of military aviation. It's up there on par with the Jake Grafton books by Stephen Coonts.

For my readers, I want to again thank you for sticking with this series regardless of the length of my chapters. I apologize most profusely about that. I guess I got carried away again :D. If you are a fan of any of my other stories and are reading this chapter to get caught up on what's new with your favorite story of mine, don't worry. I'm still working on them and haven't forgotten you.

For fans of 'Sylvia's Solitary Soldier', Chapter 5 is almost done. I wish I had finished it by Christmas or New Years but, alas, things happen and I couldn't finish in time. I should be finished with Chapter 5 and working on Chapter 6 soon. To those of you who are fans of my Totally Spies Story 'Totally Spies: Agents and Operatives', Chapter 4 is moving along smoothly even after a slight glitch that left me missing some of the chapter. I found it and am continuing to work on that one. Don't worry, its coming along fine.

Naruto Fans, 'Konoha Transporters' Chapter 1 is going steadily although I haven't worked on it for a short bit. I've been more concerned about getting this chapter and "Sylvia's Solitary Soldier' Chapter 5 finished and out to my fans. Don't worry. Everything is moving along slowly, but surely. Keep the faith and give me some time. It may be out sooner than you think.

If the story of mine that you like isn't mentioned in the above update, be sure that I haven't given up on them yet and I don't plan on it. I may have to reread some of them or just sit down and spend time on them when I get the time and am all caught up with all of my main stories. Keep the faith.

For now I must go. Keep the faith and continue to read, write, and review. Knightewolfe is gone for now. PEACE!!!

Knightewolfe's Lair.

2/08