The Deadliest of Birds...
For the crew of KG 15, the skies above Recta had gone from peaceful training areas, not even a year prior, to skies that one should watch with the utmost caution. Indeed, their heavier bombers; the B-52s, Victors, Vulcans and Lundwurms could penetrate the area with almost impunity, but for the smaller bombers such as their Il-28s, there was a constant feeling of dread.
In that time, the Rectan Liberation Army & Air Force (handily shortened by their commanders as the RLAAF) had gone from a small, disorganised force that would've taken only a single battalion to deter - let alone deal with entirely - to an armed force that would given most militaries some pause for thought. Whilst the Air Force element was known to be small - estimated by Belkan Intelligence to be less than thirty aircraft, most of which being hopelessly outdated or outright stolen from the Belkan Air Force crews that had manned them, and who had been brutally executed in the early days of the war - they were nothing short of vicious, and the most aggressive of them was a MIG-17 pilot, known only by a pseudonym: the Pitohui.
A genus of poisonous birds native to the Southern Hemisphere, there wasn't a single crew in the Belkan Air Force who didn't think that name fit them. They had not only become an ace in a day during the first day of the crisis, but made a name for themselves as a war criminal, gunning down ejecting crews and deliberately aiming their cannon shots for the cockpits of the aircraft they killed. At least one report from the front had told of them ramming a pilot who'd been left to float down to earth in their parachute...
Honestly, Max didn't believe that story. It was only a true monster who would ever consider such an action; not only would they be utterly barbaric, but it was beyond irresponsible for the pilot too, as they would risk severe damage to their own aircraft for an action that even their own commanders found reprehensible.
''Two minutes to target.'' The navigator called through his headset, as he scanned the skies behind them. The weather was particularly bleak on this December morning, and rain pelted their aircraft as they passed through the blackened clouds over Gebet, and in the Il-28, he was separated from the other two members of his crew aboard 19 Red - the design of the aircraft being such that the rear gunner was seated in an enclosed and armoured box behind the stabilisers, whilst the bomb bay separated the forward crew compartment and the rear of the plane. With no warning, the world around him shook, violent to the point of throwing the controls for the turret out of his hands, as his head struck the sidewall.
''Schisse!'' He shouted, as the sounds of cannon fire pierced the (relatively) quiet cabin. ''Evasive, now!'' He screamed into his microphone, as he witnessed a sight no airman ever wished to see - the familiar swept wing silhouette of the MIG-17 racing past his guns before he could even pull the trigger.
His desperate call went unanswered as he felt the world suddenly begin to tumble around him and he came to the realisation of what had happened. No doubt the enemy had fired on the weaker section around the centre wing section; the method of construction being somewhat weaker when put up against sustained enemy fire, or larger explosive shells, and prone to shattering in that area, the resulting damage snapping the Il-28 in half.
He was falling, the rest of the aircraft off in the distance somewhere, he knew that much. Even as G-forces pushed and pulled on his body, he'd managed to open the hatch underneath his position, and before he had chance to even think about his next action, the forces on the disabled tail pulled him away from the hatch and out into the freezing cold air, with absolutely no control of his position.
Even against the cold air, he clawed at the sky as if to regain some kind of invisible grip on the situation, though to no avail. Despite this, Max knew exactly what he had to do - they'd been at 23,000 feet, and if he pulled his chord now, opening the canvas canopy above him, the best he could hope for was hypoxia as he floated down to earth - the cold air at this height offering little in the way of breathable oxygen. Despite the terror he felt, he continued to let himself drop through the cold air, waiting until he was below 10,000 feet, where the air was at least breathable.
Time passed surprisingly slowly, he thought as he free fell from altitude, and despite the turbulent air, he had managed to spin himself around to see what had become of 19 Red - the bomber, sans its tail and rear fuselage continued to plummet as if it were a metal stone, before that MIG-17 had come back around and made another pass on it. His anger rose almost as he fell - what bastard would attack a crippled aircraft like that! The remaining crew of 19 Red stood little chance - the men he'd trained with, laughed with, shared drinks with... gone, as cannon fire tore through the cockpit of the crippled Il-28 and into the fuel tank of the bomber. The resulting explosion practically vapourised the aircraft, with only small items of debris continuing to fall towards Gebet.
It was then that he realised who had attacked them.
The Pitohui.
He felt the already growing panic increase exponentially. They'd just destroyed his aircraft, and he was now nothing more than a dot in the sky - an easy kill, if the rumours were true. They didn't even need to shoot him either, they could just circle and make sure he had no time to deploy his parachute...
No!
He pulled his parachute's cord, and the fabric canopy filled the sky above him... a clear target for any overzealous pilot with a bloodlust. Still, he was no coward, and, if by some chance, this was his time to go, he would be damned if he didn't go down defiant against the oversized chicken that the Pitohui was. After all, he still had eight rounds in his handgun, and he refused to die until all eight were in that bastard's stolen MIG!
At four o'clock, he spotted the MIG turning back towards him, as if to line up a shot, and he retrieved the revolver from his pocket. Against the frigid air, and high winds, he fought to steady his aim. This was not the stereotypical duel, no - most duels were usually considerably fairer than this, and usually didn't involve targets closing in at 500 miles per hour at a minimum - but he would fight it with honour. As the large nose intake of the MIG-17 came into view, he pulled the trigger back repeatedly, letting off his eight rounds way outside of any reasonable engagement range...
In the last split second, he saw the MIG's pilot, and witnessed her give him a sick grin, as he heard its NR-37 cannon fire...
Then, the world went red.
/-/
''Yeesh, some a' these Rectan pilots.'' Argo grimaced, as she put the newspaper down. Yes, they were at war with the Belkans (despite what anyone told her, attacking airbases and talk columns with an ever increasing frequency certainly looked like a war, even if that wasn't the terminology they wanted to go with - the Belkans weren't fooling anyone by calling the massing troops at the border a ''special military operation'', and you could fight on that her one, she'd decided.), but that Pitohui, there were just some taboos in aerial warfare that you did not break... especially if you wanted to not be shot on sight.
Murdering defenseless crew was one of them.
Still, she felt a twang of sympathy for the Belkan pilots there - the paper had listed their ages as only in their late teens and early twenties. They were green crews, and to be sent up against a maniac like that? It was hard not to have some sympathy for them, even if they were technically the enemy.
Of course, that attitude was soon to be put to the test, but she couldn't have known that.
