Chapter 23 – The Great Escape
T + 78 hours...
In their cell – though calling it that was probably a bit too charitable, given its state as a barn with a steel door – Eugeo and Medina had begun to strategise a way out of the prison camp, and one they could put into play before they were ferreted out of Adamas to wherever the Administration were hiding out…
The first problem they had now was something far greater – the constant torture they and the other prisoners were undergoing. If it wasn't starvation, it was beatings, and if it wasn't beatings, it was watching their follow prisoners be used for sick and twisted forms of entertainment, just to get their kicks…
The worst ones were when they picked the children out – both he and Medina had taken beatings and worse in trying to defend them, but there wasn't much they could do like this. They could stand up when they had the chance, but that didn't apply when they were already off being tortured for a previous act of defiance.
For once, he was glad Alice wasn't here – not because he didn't want her to see this, but because she was the type to speak wherever she saw injustice… and here, there was nothing but injustice. He didn't doubt she would be the most vocal of prisoners, and as such, their captors would make it a sick game to see how long it would take to break her.
He couldn't imagine how cruel they would be there, and if that had been the case, it would've been a race between them to see who would be the first to get themselves killed… if they were lucky.
He'd seen the cold, dead thousand-yard stares of people who had been thrown back in after the Jesters had finished with them, and he wasn't so sure that death was the worst outcome here anymore.
"They're moving things about." Medina, after being thrown back in, told him. "I suspect they are starting to evacuate the island. They know all is lost for them and so, they will leave the people here to suffer." She spat.
"Still, how are we going to get out of here?"
"I overheard an officer saying that prisoners are to be moved to the remaining airbase at X-4. We may need to wait until we are there though."
"I'm surprised there's still any aircraft left…" He admitted. Every single mission, bar their last, had resulted in at least one kill for the coalition forces, and that was when the Adamasians actually tried to challenge the steamroller that was that force. From what he could hear outside, that had almost entirely ceased to be the case, and if he were on the other end, he would have genuinely wondered if they had completely destroyed the Adamasian Air Force, or at very least, rendered it combat ineffective…
"There were a few hidden away on the islands surrounding us. Chudelkin thought they could be used for suicide attacks…"
"Suicide attacks?!" He exclaimed in shock. The Adamasians were desperate, sure, but were they that desperate? Oh right, yeah, desperation had been why he was now imprisoned here, so yes, they probably were…
"Yes. Stripped down MIG-23s with their armaments removed. I told him he was insane to even consider it, and he agreed…" That… didn't sound like the angry buffoon of a man they had encountered, he thought to himself. "Besides, he said, we have the chance to cripple their forces with a rain of fire…"
The Scuds. They weren't aimed at cities at all, they were aimed at Adamas itself… had they launched, they would have been a scorched earth policy…
"At least we stopped them." Eugeo admitted aloud. "I dread to think what someone like Chudelkin would have done with more missiles."
"He would have declared himself ruler, and threatened all who opposed his queen…" Medina snarled. "A queen we have never even met and who hides in the shadows… is not fit to rule, if you ask me."
"Agreed." He answered her. "Anything else though?"
"If we can take two of the MIGs, there is a chance we could escape. If not…" Medina trailed off, and he already knew what would happen. Their current treatment would look like a wine and dine service in comparison, and being dead would almost certainly be preferable to that.
"Then we have to escape."
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T + 95 hours…
X-4 was a small airbase to the extreme east of the island, Eugeo had worked out as they were smuggled in, away from the prying eyes of aerial reconnaissance assets and snooping radio equipment. Strangely enough, the trucks they had been smuggled in must have been struggling with radio interference, as the radios ended up tuned to a music station, rather than the communications frequency they should have been tuned to, and he wondered briefly if that was Liz's doing…
"Blasted things!" One of the soldiers grumbled, smacking the radio to retune it. "Stay on the right frequency!"
"It is, I don't get it…"
He raised a little smirk, knowing what was happening. Was it petty? Yes. Was it also the first amusing thing he'd seen in about five days? Also yes.
"I take it your friends have something to do with this?"
"Maybe. Maybe not. Who can say?" He told the guards, acting dumb. This had Liz's fingerprint all over it, but there was no way he was going to confess to knowing that…
Even Medina, the grumpiest person he'd ever met, raised a smirk at the non-answer. "It could be a problem with the user rather than the machine…" She commented. "After all, rubbish begets rubbish, does it not?"
"Oh you two can laugh all you like… you won't be laughing when the head bitch gets hold of you."
"What a way to address your superiors…" Medina rolled her eyes. "Come to think of it, all things are superior to you bottom feeders, so I suppose it fits…"
"Say it again…" Even with a gun held to her head, Medina remained stoic. "I dare ya…"
"It is not my fault if your comprehension skills are so poor as to miss it the first time." She told the soldier, before he smacked the side of her head with the gun, and she fell to the floor of the truck. "You hit like my grandmother…"
Before any more violence could happen to them, another soldier intervened – though clearly more out of concern for their own safety, rather than them. "Remember what he said. If they die, we die…"
"He said nothing about beating them to a pulp though…"
"Do you really want to test that theory?" The attacking one shuddered, probably picturing being subject to the same abuses he had been administering to others.
"You make a good point." He grumbled and ceased his attack, returning his attention to the "broken" radio, and ignoring them again. "Cheap Belkan shit."
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T + 99 hours. 51 minutes...
Eventually, they found themselves left exposed to the elements as the night wound on, and the "guests", as the guards euphemistically called them, found themselves put to work as either human shields or manual labour.
They must have learned their lesson from earlier in the day, Eugeo supposed; as a bombing raid had destroyed a number of the airliners on the ground and been basically unhindered by any kind of triple-A. A fact that Eugeo assumed meant one of two things: that they didn't have any, or that the crews were all too busy being forced to work as labourers and load up the Jesters' ill-gotten gains.
Still, the lack of supervision - other than one older man who seemed like a stiff breeze would knock him over anyway - meant that they had a chance to put their plan into action:
Across the apron, he could see a pair of MIG-23s, both unarmed, but with their engines started - probably there to divert attention from any potential follow up raids - and so, they struck now.
The guard was quickly overpowered, and the pair of prisoners ran across the tarmac towards the MIG, dodging the hopelessly inaccurate gunfire as they did. So inaccurate was the gunfire that they had hit more of their own forces than they had even come close to hitting them, but that was no relief - they still had to get into the MIGs and get them ready to launch, a task that he had no doubt was going to be much harder… and dropping into the cockpit, he finally understood how difficult that was going to be!
He had only been told by Medina what switches he needed to press or flip, not shown pictures of the cockpit, and so he was sure he made plenty of mistakes as bullets clattered around them. Some did actually hit the Floggers, but most scored direct hits on the unlucky ground crews around them.
About 20 seconds had passed, and he had managed to get the MIG moving. Outside, he could tell the Jesters were now seriously panicked, as the two "rogue" MIGs taxied to the runway, the R-27 engine behind him blasting anything behind them out of their ways; they had started to try and set up barricades…
Flimsy barricades made of wood that the MIG-23 simply rolled over.
Quickly, they'd decided against using the runway - it was too likely they'd have time to blockade it as they taxied, and so, lining up on the taxiway, Eugeo did a quick check of the aircraft's configuration, and following Medina's lead, pushed the throttle into afterburner.
About halfway down the taxiway, Eugeo spotted a fire truck that was now blocking their path - it was too late to dodge it, and so he heaved back on the control column to pull the interceptor into the air. Scraping metal behind him told him he was ripping up the already vulnerable fin underneath, but in that moment he didn't care; getting airborne was the priority!
He just about managed it, the landing gear clattering against it as they knocked the fire truck over, and he retracted the gear, figuring out that he was going to need to get as much speed behind him as possible!
Now airborne, and with no immediate threats chasing them, he took a look around to try and find Medina… with her being nowhere in sight. All he could see was a dust cloud off the end of the run… oh.
As much as his sense of honour demanded he turn around to help, his sense of self preservation overruled that - he was unarmed after all, so it wasn't like there was much he could do to help.
That would be what he told himself, anyway.
Settling on his current course, he closed the afterburner for the moment, and began to fiddle with the radios - if he could get an SOS out to anyone, maybe he stood a chance of escaping in one piece…
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T + 99 hours, 58 minutes…
Whilst Lisbeth, Yuuki and Philia did their best to get the special forces into Adamas, and get Jet and Alice out of there, Kirito, Argo, Asuna and Sinon had their own mission:
A decapitation of the Jesters, to make sure the problem never reared their ugly heads again.
Through some crafty signal intelligence, they had become aware of Operation Exodus, the Jesters' plan to evacuate themselves, anyone loyal to them and anything of value that they had pillaged and plundered from the island, and they had begun to formulate a strategy to ensure its failure…
Klein, leading Fuurinkazen, with Tiese and Ronye flying escort, would destroy whatever aircraft they could on the ground earlier in the day, forcing them into a more manageable number of aircraft, and then, when the Jesters attempted to break out in the cover of darkness, his group would be waiting like sharks circling in the water…
The mostly unescorted transports would be easy pickings for almost anything they had, let alone the advanced fighters that they now flew, and he believed the Jesters knew that too. The aircraft that had gathered on the ground had seemingly been "acquired" from the state airline, mostly older Boeing 707s, though with a small number of elderly DC-6s and newer Tupolev Tu-154B trijets, a collection that would make their lives a little harder than they had hoped for.
All of them were civilian types, and no doubt they'd be flashing civilian identities as they fled the island.
It had taken a lot of convincing for Bercouli to even let them take the risk of shooting down an airliner, but that had been alleviated when the risk had been reduced to practically nil, given that no airline was mad enough to fly over the top of an active shooting war, whilst even the militaries involved were a bit hesitant to overfly the area…
Still though, he couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable with the prospect that they weren't 100% sure on what they were shooting at, even if the AEW craft could verify enough details to confirm they were the Jesters trying to make a quick getaway…
"Black Blade One to Magic, we're all in position." Argo told the circling Hawkeye.
They would be positioned in the medium distance – the AIM-54s onboard providing a stand-off capability if it came to it, but they would be primarily relying on the AIM-7s and AIM-9s they carried tonight.
Asuna would close the distance, and relying on her Sidewinders and Sparrows, would be their hard hitter out here. Sinon, on the other hand, would stay well back, inside the coverage of allied AAA fire, lobbing AIM-47s out to any targets they painted for her.
"Magic to Black Blades, we have the first few flights on radar. Request you move to investigate. First target is heading 060, altitude 5000 and climbing. Climbing fast too?"
"Uhh, Magic, I see them too. Pretty sure that's not an airliner, it's doing 450 knots!" Sinon pointed out.
"Fighters then."
"Possibly." Magic responded. "Black Blades, be warned that fighters are still active in the area."
"Yeah, we know Magic! One of 'em just nearly took our heads off climbing over us!" Philia exclaimed from the OV-10 on the other side of the island..
"Hostile?"
"Maybe, but it could've killed us there and then… and they just waggled their wings at us?"
"Huh?"
"Something feels wrong about this, like the situation has changed…" Sinon thought aloud.
"I'm with Sinonon on this, I don't like it." Asuna agreed.
"Magic, we're investigating the bogey. Will confirm if it's hostile or not." He told them, as Argo grumbled from the backseat.
"Kii-bou, more bogeys. Four of them this time!"
"Confirming. They are climbing very quickly, so I would assume they are in pursuit of something…" Sinon added.
"Us?"
"Nah, wrong headin' entirely. Looks like they're after the first bogey…" Argo explained. "Magic, ya seein' this?"
"We are indeed, Black Blade One. Second group of bogeys are flashing Adamasian frequencies." Magic responded, and whoever or whatever the first group was, the second group was hostile – that much they could confirm…
"Argo…" He asked.
"Already on it!" She told him from the rear seat.
"Sinon…"
"Locked up, just awaiting the order to fire."
"Asuna…"
"Approaching the lead bogey. Can confirm, it's an Adamasian MIG-23, but there's something odd here. It's unarmed?"
"Eh?"
"Magic to Black Blade Two… confirm your last?" The radar controller in the Hawkeye asked.
"Bogey is unarmed and trying to signal me." Asuna confirmed, and she looked inside the cockpit of the MIG as she pulled into formation alongside it… "I don't believe it…" They could tell the astonishment in her voice just from that accidental transmission though.
"Asuna, what is it?" He asked.
"I think it's Eugeo flying that MIG!"
"Ya what?!"
"Understood, Asuna. Magic, mark that MIG as friendly."
"Working on it, Black Blades." The operator called back. "Bandits are twenty miles and closing from Black Blade Two. Permission to fire granted."
"Black Blade One, Fox Three!" In the night, one of the massive AIM-54s carried underneath their belly dropped away, the ignition of the rocket motor lighting up the night sky around it as it soared vertically.
"Black Blade Five, Fox Three."
The missiles covered the distance in less than twenty seconds – the AIM-54 dropping almost vertically onto one of the unsuspecting MIGs and reducing it to nothing more than a flash in the night sky, whilst the second, Sinon's AIM-47, reduced its MIG to a similar flash.
There was almost something deeply unsatisfactory about just how… easy this was. In the early days, it had meant getting within spitting distance of your opponent, and lining up the perfect shot…
Here though, it was just a matter of getting the switches set properly, and waiting for your missile to obliterate the target before it ever knew you were there. It wasn't the inherent unfairness that he was bothered by – it was just that it was boring.
There was no risk in it – which made a lot more sense in reality, as sending pilots into constant life or death dogfights either made exceptional aces… or a lot of dead rookies killed by the exceptional aces, but in a game environment like this, it just felt bland.
"Magic to Black Blades, you've got company! Flight of MIG-23s climbing to meet-" The message fell silent as another flash lit up the eastern side of the island.
"Asuna, defend Eugeo. Sinon, keep watch on those MIGs, Argo-"
"Already on it, Kii-bou. Working on locking them up now."
The new plan was exceptionally simple – and it had to be, because he'd thought about it for all of five seconds – he and Argo would engage any MIG-25s climbing to engage the high-flying Crossbow, whilst Sinon did her best to engage anything that she could, whilst Asuna did her thing, and defended Eugeo against the remains of this wave of fighters, and the probable next wave too.
All of this whilst he asked himself just a single question…
Why did he have to tempt fate by saying this had been boring?
/-/
Asuna wondered what it said about her that she was beginning to find the constant close in dogfights more frustrating than anything else.
Not that she was planning to let this become one of those situations, mind you, she thought to herself as she readied the AIM-7F's under her Eagle's belly. The other MIGs had scattered when they saw their wingmen disintegrate into clouds of metal and flames, but that hadn't sent them into a retreat unfortunately – it had merely forced them to attack her from a different angle and split apart to do so.
She couldn't help but envy Kirito here – he got to sit back and throw missiles at a problem until they ran out of Phoenixes, whilst she had to close the distance and put herself in the firing line in order to do, and not only that, but he got a back seater for that too! She had to watch the radar, ready the weapons systems and focus on getting herself into position to do all of that, all without any help now…
She was however thankful that the F-15 incorporated more sophisticated avionics than her Lightning, because the cockpit layout was infinitely better in the Eagle, she thought.
Still, all that could wait as one of the MIGs reappeared for a head on pass. At thirty miles, she scored a lock on the unfortunate victim, and fired one of the Sparrows straight towards it… "Asuna, Fox One!" She called as the missile streaked through the night sky, true as an arrow.
The explosion in the distance confirmed that it had hit home, and she flew past the dissipating fireball. Parts of the MIG still lingered in the air, the smaller sections almost floating to earth like a paper bag in the wind, rather than sheet metal, but she was able to avoid most of the potential shrapnel…
"One down, who knows how many more to go…" She said with a sigh.
"Asuna, Sinon. Four more MIGs are approaching, but… something feels weird here." That seemed to be the running theme of tonight, she thought. Nothing about this felt right, and everything felt just a bit off…
"Weird how, Sinon?" She asked.
"They aren't coming from the direction of Adamas, but rather Leasath." Sinon explained, much to her confusion.
Leasath wasn't openly hostile to them – though they certainly weren't allies either, the rhetoric coming out of the country was less "we don't like you", more "we will wait until we get a chance, and give you what you deserve in our eyes". Which had been why they had been trying to avoid the aerial borders around the country, to avoid getting into the exact situation they now found themselves in…
"You have to be kidding, right?" Kirito groaned. "We aren't anywhere near their airspace, are we?"
"Little closer than we should be, but still outside the exclusion zone."
"Great… so they're lookin' fer a fight then." Argo groaned.
"Commander, this is Kirito, how copy?"
"Kid, it's two in the mornin', what's the issue?" Bercouli grumbled, clearly a bit annoyed at being disturbed…
"We've got a flight of LAF MIGs approaching us, and they've got their-"
Argo interrupted him as he explained the situation. "Kii-bou, those MIGs have us locked up!"
"Scratch that, sir, those MIGs are locking us up. What do you want us to do?" He hated having to defer to someone when the obvious answer was to lock them up in response, and fight back, but considering that would be equivalent to a declaration of war… he really wasn't sure he wanted to be the one who lit that spark!
"Kid, if they fire on ya, fire back. That's the order now." Bercouli told them, giving him the order he hoped for – they weren't to shoot first, but return fire was perfectly acceptable…
"Have they sent out any kind of warning?" Sinon asked.
"Negative, just silence on the guard frequency."
"Osean aircraft, you have been warned. En guard!" One of the Leasath Air Force fighters called.
"Guess we're fighting our way out then…" Argo sighed. "Things can't ever be easy, can they?"
"We knew what we were signing up for, I suppose."
"Asuna, can you handle the remaining Adamasian fighters?"
"Black Blade Two, I'm on it." She responded. There were still four Adamasian aircraft out here, and she was on her own in this fight. Those MIGs were definitely out for blood, and she now had to defend the unarmed Eugeo as he broke out too…
A silent mark of thanks came out that she wasn't flying her Lightning anymore, else this may as well have been impossible - at least the F-15 carried a useful payload.
Checking her radar, she spotted the first pair of MIGs in hot pursuit of Eugeo, and worked to lock them up with the Sparrows. First things first, she needed to break into them, in order to get a head on shot with the AIM-7s, and she rolled the Eagle away from the unarmed Flogger.
Eugeo was just as good of a pilot as any of them, and she was reasonably sure that he could keep them off balance long enough for her to ensure they were no longer a problem anymore, and so, she tore around the turn, vapour pouring from the wings with her afterburner lit in order to maintain momentum…
Pulling the nose around into position, a shrill beep rang through the cockpit, telling her that the radar had locked up one of the MIGs, and that a Sparrow shot was now possible. A few flicks of switches later, and a dull thud came from the belly of the Eagle; the Sparrow lighting up the sky ahead of her.
"Asuna, Fox One!" She called, and within a few seconds, an orange flash pierced the night sky. "Splash one."
One down, three to go!
That was when her RWR began to ring out through the cockpit, a sign that one of the MIGs was carrying their own radar guided missiles; either R-13Rs or R-23s, neither were a good option in a head on pass.
Working quickly, she was able to gain a lock on the next MIG, and as its glowing afterburner became faintly visible, the lock tone rang out again, and the same routine as before was repeated - the AIM-7 dropped away… and nothing.
It had simply fallen off the aircraft, and would eventually land in the sea below…
Switching modes, she was able to get a lock tone with one of her remaining two Sidewinders, and the all-aspect missile detached from its pylon, and went straight into a sprint to the now too close for comfort MIG-23 that was coming head on at her…
At less than five miles head to head, the MIG exploded into two distinct pieces; the nose ripping away and careening off away from her, whilst the remainder of the MIG briefly carried on, passing her to the left and exploding about a second later.
She couldn't help but hunch in, as the shrapnel flew around her; it wasn't as if it would do much to protect her from a stream of burning hot and razor sharp metal, but it was out of reflex more than anything.
"Asuna, splash two."
She took stock of her current situation - one Sidewinder, one Sparrow, 240 rounds of 20mm ammo, two Admasian MIGs.
As long as those missiles did their job, she would be fine, she thought, as another MIG came for her. This time, the pilot had clearly thought better of the same head on mentality that had gotten their colleagues killed, and was coming at her from her 3 o'clock; having used the earlier skirmish to position themselves to maximise their advantage.
She went to break into the attack, but the RWR began to sound again, and so, she threw the Eagle into a high-G turn to break lock. The R-series missiles were a very real threat, but other than the short range Aphid, none were particularly agile, and so, tight turns into them would usually throw off the lock, and if not, then it was time for chaff.
Thankfully, the fired missile failed to turn into her, and careened off into the distance. Now on course to go head to head with the MIG, she spotted it breaking straight into the vertical and began to give chase.
The MIG-23 was a poor fighter, but it had one trick up its sleeve that most of their aircraft simply couldn't keep up with - which was to throw the Flogger into a vertical climb in full afterburner, and perform a four mile high loop. During the loop, any pursuing aircraft would simply lose the fight between thrust and gravity, and be forced to drop out of the pursuit, allowing the Flogger to break away, and come in for another pass at a more opportune angle.
Unfortunately for the MIG pilot, the F-15 was one of the aircraft that could keep up with it in the vertical. With a thrust to weight ratio of over 1:1, the Eagle had the raw power to keep up in the vertical, and Asuna intended to demonstrate that to the unlucky MIG. With her HUD showing a nose up attitude of nearly 75 degrees - almost vertical - and her afterburners glowing in the night sky, she gained a tone for her remaining AIM-9, and fired. The last of her close range missiles broke away from the wing rail, and within a short second, the expanding rod warhead detonated near the tail of the MIG-23.
Deciding she didn't want to get a falling MIG-23 to the wing (the F-15 was also remarkable in being one of, if not the only aircraft to have lost an entire wing and still landed safely) or face, she pulled the F-15 back to nose level, and then rolled back to wings level.
Just above her, she watched as the MIG fell out of its climb in flames, before a small burst of smoke - the pilot ejecting - popped out of the cockpit, and the aircraft tore in half and plummeted to the ground. "Asuna, splash three." She called out, whilst scanning the radar for the last of the four MIGs.
She'd lost track of them in the midst of the battle, a rookie mistake, and now she had no idea where the last one might be. "Sinonon, can you see the last MIG?"
"Negative, Asuna. Wait, I see him! Heading 270, turning and climbing towards you. Twenty miles out."
"Understood, Sinon." With that much distance between them, she could make use of the last AIM-7 on her aircraft, and she worked to gain a radar lock on the approaching MIG.
The shrill beeping tone of the radar lock rang in her headset, and she armed the missile - her last one of any kind - before giving it a split second of thought; should she retain this in case, or…
No, she wasn't going to try and get a gun kill out here tonight - that was difficult enough in broad daylight, let alone in the dark!
"Asuna, Fox One." The missile dropped away from the belly of the aircraft, and dove for the approaching MIG. Barely a second had passed before a flash of light lit up the ocean below it - score four!
"Asuna, splash four!" She exclaimed, scanning the skies around her and then back down to her radar. "Asuna to all aircraft, I'm Winchester at this time."
"Gotcha, Aa-chan. We've got the Leasathis under control out here, you and Sinonon head back ta base if yer out. We won't be far behind ya."
"Wilco." She told them, and for the first time since they arrived, she was able to breathe a little bit easier, and do the sums on everything that had happened this evening.
She'd managed to down a pair of MIGs in the first flight before the second flight of four had arrived, and then that flight of four itself… that made her an ace in a day!
The title of ace was already a difficult one to achieve, and was one that very few fighter pilots ever managed in their entire career - that required the downing of five aircraft. The title of "ace in a day" was one even more impressive than that, as it required achieving that particular career milestone… in a single day.
And she'd done it without even realising until afterwards.
Before she could think on that topic anymore, her radio crackled into life. "Is this working? Hello, hello?"
"We can hear you, Eugeo." She told him.
"Finally! I've been trying to get the radio working since I left, I think it took a bullet to it or something similar." It felt remarkably reassuring to hear the voice of one of their missing friends alive and well, especially after the stressful messes that had been the past few days. "Umm, guys… it's just me. The others are…" She could tell that Eugeo was barely keeping his emotions in check, and probably had been for multiple days now.
"Alice and Jet are en route back." She explained. "Philia and Liz managed to pick them up on the other side of the island."
She didn't get an answer, but a sigh of relief. "I'm glad they're safe, but we've got a bigger problem than just us. Two of those Scuds got moved, and Chudelkin had a load of stripped out MIGs at X-4."
"Stripped out, Yuji-bou?"
"Yeah, radars and weapons removed. They were supposed to be suicide attackers."
"What?!" Came the call from almost everyone. "'gainst what tho'?"
"I don't know, sorry. I thought it might have been against the invasion force, but…"
Bercouli interrupted them. "Nah, sorry kid. If I had to guess, Chudelkin's gonna try and make a move against Osea for ruining his retirement plan…"
"Medina reckoned they would be aimed towards something valuable to us."
"I've got a nasty feeling I know what that might be, but it's just a feelin' for now. For now tho', y'all deserve a break, so head back to Bana. I'll debrief ya in the mornin'." Bercouli ordered.
"Sir, what about the Leasathis?"
"Command has already hit the roof there, but they engaged us first, so… it's a diplomatic problem for now, not ours."
"Asuna, how copy?"
"Loud and clear, Sinonon, what is it?"
"If those MIGs are to be used as suicide attackers, what's the chance they'll be aimed towards Bana? Not to mention the Scuds too."
"The base?"
"The city." That thought filled her with a dread she hadn't quite felt yet; the thought that they would soon be defending civilians from an enemy that had shown no reservations against reprisal attacks on their own civilians, let alone their enemy's.
Defending against the MIGs would be a tiring business, but she doubted that Chudelkin had too many of them in the first place, and the number of escorts would no doubt be lacking now - those armed MIGs were likely to be the escorts, she reckoned.
The Scuds though? Last time they had tried to destroy them, it had led to one of their own being found dead, and another three captured or behind enemy lines, and they had no doubts that Chudelkin would be willing to fill the sky with lead and SAMs to prevent the destruction of a second and a third missile in the same vein.
Despite the rescue, she had no doubts this wasn't over - not by a long shot yet.
"Oh schisse!" Eugeo called out, interrupting her theorising. "Black Blade Four, I took more damage than I thought escaping. My fuel state is low enough that I won't make it to Bana."
"Understood Four, there's a landing field at Yenton that Philia's using to refuel the Bronco and get everyone onto a waiting transport. If I were you, I'd head for that."
"What's the heading?"
"Two-eighteen."
"Got it, thanks. I'll head for it and see you all back at Bana…" Eugeo told them, and they could only hold their nerves and hope he made it in time. "Oh, and everyone? Thank you for the assistance. I'd have been dead without you, so…"
"Ya really thought we'd leave ya behind?" Argo asked. "Ya wound me Yuji-bou…"
"Hah… no, but I wasn't sure I'd make it out without a miracle."
"Now you've done it Eugeo, her ego will be absolutely huge when we land…" Kirito joked, with a dull thud being audible behind him… "Friendly fire, Argo!"
For once, Asuna felt genuinely proud of herself. In the time since ACES had begun, she hadn't really felt proud of herself like this before, as even their successes usually came with caveats: Operatic Society? Led to an all out war. The Battle of Rechlin? Complete failure. St Callippo? Technically a war crime.
This though? They had managed to orchestrate a rescue that hadn't led to them all being wiped out, and to add to that, she had become an ace in a day!
She had no doubts that would change when the magnitude of their friends' experience came to light, but for now, she was simply content.
Content to watch the sun begin to rise as she cruised back towards Bana City…
{Author's Comments}
Bit later than planned - November was both extremely busy and extremely uneventful for me. If it wasn't uni, it was industry stuff, and if it wasn't that, it was personal stuff - relearning how to use Adobe Creative Suite after about a year of lack of practice. Result - one slightly ragged Midland.
But, the gaps meant I was able to get all of this and the next two chapters in some stage of completion, so hopefully chapters 24 and 25 will be up some time around Christmas and the New Year.
As always, thanks for reading and in case this does end up being the last chapter before Christmas; Happy Holidays! (It feels really wrong writing that at the beginning of December...)
Signing off for now,
Midland 2541