Chapter 15 – Thieves in the Night, pt.1

By the morning after the Battle of the Bay, the atmosphere at Hendon was one of palpable sadness. Not even when Rechlin had fell had there been such a response to a mission, Asuna thought to herself.

There was also an air of drunkenness that still lingered over the base, as people had spent the evening mourning their lost comrades – be they Air Force or Navy – and that had led to an almost surreal atmosphere that morning.

In the past thirty minutes that she'd been awake, she hadn't so much as heard another soul stirring on the base – no movements of aircraft, no early morning preparations, just… quiet. Even the birds seemed to respect the sombre mood, as the seagulls seemed eerily absent for once.

She looked around at the base - it was so quiet it could easily be mistaken for being abandoned, were it not for the wreck of the Viking still lying beside the runway, the still somewhat pristine looking planes parked up on the tarmac, and the fact it was still lit up like a Christmas tree – before looking at the aircraft of her flight lined up on the taxiway.

Despite having braced herself for losing a friend, especially after the Avalon Incident, it still felt like someone had taken a boot to her stomach repeatedly. She remembered losing her grandmother as a child, but this was different, she felt.

Losing someone to the passage of time was one thing but losing someone to what had been an obvious trap had left an extremely bitter taste in their mouths, and Argo, ever the diplomat, had them bluntly what she was going to do to Diavel when they made it back to Canaveral.

For the man's sake, she hoped he retired quietly… and ran as far away as he could. An angry Argo was possibly the most terrifying thing she'd seen yet – and she'd been nuked!

If she was honest though, the quiet had probably come from the fact that many of them hadn't gotten to sleep until the early hours of the morning anyway; either still awake from the mission prior or thinking about the disaster that it had been.

That quiet was soon broken by the noise of a horn – the horn used to gather everyone in case of a major announcement…

That was never good news, she knew that much.

/-/

After about ten minutes, everyone had gathered in the main command and control centre of the base, in various states of dress and tidiness. It was apparent that everyone had been drinking last night or had suffered a rather poor night from those who hadn't been drinking.

About the only two people who didn't look completely dishevelled and exhausted were Alice and Eugeo, who she'd noticed were noticeably more comfortable around each other now, even holding hands as subtly as was possible…

Good for them, she thought briefly, before turning her mind back to the task at hand.

Bercouli had gathered all of them; be they Black Blade, Samurai, Twilight, Solitaire, Idol or Knight flights, to explain what was going to happen now.

They had found Koharu's aircraft, though she was still listed as "Missing in Action", given her body wasn't found with the wreckage. Kirito, even in his tired state, had spared a moment to explain to her that the game didn't show the bodies of pilots who'd died, simply because, as real as ACES was… it also had to be age rated.

Showing amputated limbs, or dismembered people, in all that realism? Yeah, that would be going straight back to the development team for some cuts. She would've found that darkly amusing - a literal death game, full of the horrors of war was a-okay, but blood and limbs were a no-no – had it not been in the context of her deceased friend.

It meant they couldn't at least give her a proper funeral too, which left an even worse taste in her mouth, and no doubt she wasn't the first person to think that, and-was she holding Kirito's hand? And what was Bercouli saying now, she'd lost track…?

Re-joining the land of the living, she began to listen to what the Commander had to say next:

They had been officially removed from combat operations by the Osean Command, after the last mission, pending an investigation into what had happened, whilst VF-24 were officially stood down following the loss of the Harrier. Of course, that had gone down in a way that was akin to breaking wind in an elevator – badly, and everyone was beyond fuming, and they were calling for… well, they weren't calling for blood… yet, but they certainly weren't too willing to listen to Osean Command.

That was where Bercouli had come in – the man had pulled some strings with his knowledge of who's who in the command structure, and had put together a plan:

The Belkans were still sailing around the Bay of Oured, but a cruise missile strike by a flight of B-52s, and the coastal defences already in place had crippled the fleet as they'd attempted to break out of the bay and forced them to turn back towards a repair port at St. Calippo, where they were expected back by 12:30 tomorrow.

The plan was quite simple – sink the ships at sea, whilst another group struck St. Calippo to destroy the dock facilities.

Of course, in doing so, they were going completely against the instructions of their commanders, but one thing Asuna knew that they had all agreed on was that said commanders could go and insert their instructions somewhere uncomfortable – the American had said it far better than she could, but she wasn't planning on repeating what he'd said…

That wasn't the biggest problem though – that was obtaining any form of air cover. Given their numbers weren't exactly high on a good day, being able to put only twenty-eight aircraft into the fight, and when split across two completely separate missions, some two hundred miles apart… that meant only fourteen aircraft each, and not all of them were particularly well suited for the task; her Lightning would have only two minutes on station, and Tiese and Ronye would have the same problem too with their Drakens, and they had no IFR support for this mission either…

Not to mention that all of Solitaire, bar Itsuki, had no aircraft anymore – their planes being on the Harrier when it sank, and the Viking now a smouldering wreck besides the runway – which was a rather large problem, as it required a far greater level of skill to fly without an aircraft.

"Sir, I might have an idea…" She spoke up and with a nod from Bercouli, she took over the table. "St Calippo is too far for some of us to make it there and back safely, and over the fleet itself, we'd be torn to shreds as pure fighters, but that doesn't mean we can't keep the air defences busy elsewhere. There's a nuclear bomber base at Ruan Major, and we'd be able to keep an air patrol of at least fifteen minutes above them; that's a fifteen-minute window we can stop them from launching fighters…"

"That might just work." Bercouli agreed and drew a new arrow on the map. "Charlie element will maintain air superiority for the time needed for the strike package to get in and out of St Calippo."

"What about above the fleet?"

"The fleet is too far out for a QRA scramble to reach in time – most of the fighters based near there are old MIG-17s, and a few MIG-21s if we're really unlucky – and we did a pretty good job of knocking out their air wing too." Bercouli told them, drawing on a group of triangles, and a circle that showed the estimated fuel range of the MIGs. "And with any luck, we'll have destroyed them on the ground anyway."

"Still leaves us with the problem of having no air cover over the area though, especially if they start firing on us."

"I've been thinking about that – the Belkans are relying on GCI, aren't they? And without that GCI, well… we saw their performance at Rhinemartial, the only things that stood a chance of handling the incoming strikes was those already in the air."

"Hmm, so what are you suggesting?"

"I rigged up a pod on the Harrier, to use Cap's terms, I "bodged" an AN/ALQ-99 pod to act as a radio disrupter. It was crude, but I tested it on us – complete success, it made such a difference to situational awareness on the Harrier that they completely missed us making a simulated attack run… and that was with us telling them we were doing it." Sierra explained, and she noticed both Kureha and Jet wincing, as if they both knew exactly what he was suggesting… and neither of them liked it. "Send up an aircraft with that pod in each element, alongside an aircraft armed for SEAD, and we can escort ourselves practically. As long as Charlie keep the fighters busy, anyway…"

"How long would it take you to rig up two of those pods, Flight Lieutenant Gabriel?"

"A couple of hours each with some help. Can probably have them ready to go by midnight."

"Then get to it." Bercouli ordered. "Take whoever you need and get those pods ready ASAP."

"On it." Sierra saluted, and left the room with two of the members of Idol Flight in tow; a red haired girl and either a very short girl, or a worryingly young girl. Just how lax were the Osean Navy's standards, she wondered…

"Everyone else, get rested up and fed. We'll be doing this one overnight, and trust me, being tired is the last thing you want in that case."

/-/

The facilities at Hendon were not a patch on those at Canaveral, Kirito had decided as he found himself trying to sleep at 11am.

Sure, he had been asleep at 11am before; most people had at some points in their lives, and some spent more of their lives still being asleep that late than they did awake, but trying to drop off to sleep at that time was just difficult.

Especially when he had actually slept last night!

Granted, he'd found himself wondering where Eugeo had gone, but he'd assumed that he had been comforting Alice – God knows she needed it. Even last night, when he had been caught up in his own moping about the chains of command, and how hard it was to lose a friend to a decision he had potentially made, he had noticed that Alice wasn't herself.

She was always quiet, but outspoken (just one of many contradictions he'd noticed, thinking about it), but even from her radio communications, it sounded like she had had a part of her ripped out, a part of her that actually cared what was happening…

Never mind the fact that he'd unknowingly found himself comforting Asuna earlier, something he hadn't even realised he was doing until she had gone a similar shade of red to… Koharu's Hunter…

Oh great, he'd had to reopen that wound, hadn't he?

He couldn't tell you how he'd felt about their friend dying like that; anger, sadness, frustration, sorrow, hatred, all of them swirled around his mind like vortices off a wing. No matter what they did, it wouldn't bring her back, no, all they could do now was to get even.

And if that meant sinking the fleet that doomed so many, then that was a gamble he was alright with.

Or it would've been, if said mission didn't involve risking everyone's lives on. Unsanctioned and against all odds, in skies unknown, they were taking the fight to Belka.

Considering the fleet was damaged, and unlikely to put up much of a fight, he made that sound a lot more heroic than it really was, he thought.

Not that it helped him sleep any better, mind you. Still, based on the fact that he was certain that Eugeo was staring at the ceiling too as he tried to sleep, it was clear that neither of them was sleeping any time soon…

"Can't sleep either?" Kirito asked from the bottom bunk.

"Nope. I've counted that crack 65 times now, and I still can't sleep…" Eugeo sighed, resigned to not sleeping properly.

"I thought it was sheep, not building defects." He laughed a little.

"Eh?"

"You know, counting sheep to sleep." Kirito explained to a small chuckle from Eugeo.

"If there's any sheep on a military base, I'd be surprised."

"So would they, I think. There's a minefield around the perimeter." He joked, before he changed the topic. "Out of curiosity, where were you last night? Not to pry, but…"

"Ah, you noticed then?"

"Hard not to notice the empty bed."

"Alice-"

Kirito caught on immediately. Despite what Argo said, he wasn't so dense as to be utterly oblivious to everything going on around him – merely, he was easily distracted by everything going on around him. Too focused on the fighting side of things to pay attention to the human side of things.

And if Argo ever asked, that was his defence, and he was sticking with it!

"Ah, say no more. I won't tell Argo, don't worry."

"It's just… everything that happened last night. I'm still processing it."

Kirito knew better than to pry into someone else's personal life, but was it really prying when they were almost telling him to ask him about it? And why did that last sentence make him worry he was turning into Argo? "What happened last night, other than… you know."

"Alice got drunk, I found her wandering around, and... well, we slept together." Eugeo sighed.

Kirito found himself bolt upright faster than if he'd been launched off his own aircraft. They'd slept together?! Yeah, this one was never reaching Argo! "Wait, what!?"

"Not like that!" Ohh, he meant that he'd stayed with her. Still probably not something that should reach Argo either, but… "We are together now, though, so ummm…"

He groaned against the pillow. "Now she'll be insufferable…"

"Hey!"

"I meant Argo!" He countered. "She's been running a betting ring for the past three months…"

"Betting on what?" Based on the look of reservation on his friend's face, he wasn't sure just how much Eugeo wanted to know, so much as he felt obliged to know what was going on.

"Uhh… our love lives." He half-explained. "All of us."

"Of course she has." Eugeo seemed less than pleased by that discovery but kept exactly what he was thinking to himself. "What were the odds on us getting together… just out of curiosity?"

"I really can't say."

"Kirito…"

"About 250:1." He answered. Eugeo turned to face him, a completely deadpan look on his face, hiding whether he was angry or trying not to burst into laughter at the ridiculous odds… "It could be worse?" He attempted to comfort his friend.

"How?"

"The odds-on Asuna and I getting together are about 1500:1."

Given Eugeo suddenly burst into a laughing fit that nearly caused him to fall out of his bunk, he was fairly sure that had succeeded in comforting him.

Even if it had cost a small shred of dignity in the process.

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Asuna had found something out, as she tried to sleep – sleeping in the middle of the day was hard.

After about two hours of tossing and turning ineffectually though, she had given up and gone for a walk instead, only to find herself outside the hangar where the required modifications were being made to their aircraft.

It was a hive of activity as NPCs rushed around, gathering parts from across the place, as heavy machinery roared under the rapid turnaround times needed and as the more niche parts needed for the modified ALQ-99 pods were being made by the group of players...

Even when she'd seen Lisbeth's workshop at the highest pace, it was nothing compared to this. She felt as if even just standing there would be getting in their way, let alone asking anyone what they were doing…

"Can I help you, ma'am?" The red-haired girl from earlier, asked.

"Oh, no, I was just taking a walk. I couldn't sleep, so…"

"Rain! Ask her if she wants to make herself useful, could with some extra hands over here!"

"Umm, could you…"

"So long as you tell me what to do, I don't mind." Asuna smiled. She wasn't the most technical person in the world, but she also wasn't someone who would ignore someone who needed help either, and considering they were critical in making the plan work, it wouldn't have been in her interests to just walk away either…

"Okay, so I just need you to hold that there with these, whilst I solder it." The American told her and handed her a pair of long nosed tweezers.

"Got it." She held the small cylinder in place, as the solder was placed onto the metal wires beside it. "Thank you for yesterday, by the way."

"Huh? Oh, all that. Should've known the Cap would do something daft like that."

"At least he tried, sir, what would you have done?" The red-haired girl, Rain, asked, though with a tone of accusation to her question.

"Oh please, he's my friend, but one day he's going to get us all killed by being a hero, Rain."

"What if she'd still been alive? Would you be so blasé then?" Asuna asked, interjecting on their conversation. "Or would you have taken the credit?"

"No, but it was pretty obvious from the way Blondie worded it that she wasn't." Blondie? Oh, he was referring to Alice. "If I'd thought there was a chance to save a life there, I wouldn't be annoyed at our fearless leader's hero complex."

"Weren't you taunting the Belkans yesterday, sir?" Rain reminded them. "Captain Jet might have a hero-complex, but-"

"Rain, it's alright. He's allowed his opinion, even if we don't agree with it." Asuna told her, and the American rolled his eyes.

"Think what you want about me, Flight Lieutenant, but someone needs to keep the idiot hero in check." He (incorrectly) reminded her of her rank, before he shrugged and finished soldering the cylinder in place. Given she had been promoted earlier in the day, it wasn't a surprise that he didn't know, but it was still wrong, regardless.

"Alright then, I think you're jealous. And it's Captain Yuuki now." Asuna wasn't usually the type to try and pull rank – it felt tacky, and nothing more than attempting to show off that you could put a new word in front of your name usually – but in this case, she made an exception. If he thought he was going to talk to her in the same way he talked down to Rain, then she would remind him they were (on paper) equals.

"Hah-agh!" The American tried to laugh, before unwittingly placing the soldering iron a little too close to his arm.

"Wouldn't be the first time you've been burnt by a lady." Asuna put on her best impression of a diplomat and tried not to laugh at his misfortune. She wasn't doing a very good job, given she was sniggering into her free hand.

The American grumbled something about insolent rookies, and the rest of the modifications went by in as close to silence as was manageable, amidst the grinding and sawing of the workshop. Eventually though, that work had been completed, and Asuna decided that she would be getting in the way if she stayed in the hangar, and so, she had decided to get some lunch instead.

"Umm, ma'am?" She hadn't noticed Rain following her out of the hangar, apparently.

"Oh, Rain."

"I'm really sorry about him, he's not usually that bad. Honestly, I was expecting him to try and hit on you, not… well, that. I don't think he took losing the Harrier too well… and Captain Jet deciding to go help one person over everyone else on the ship, well..."

Suddenly, a wave of reality that had been almost suspended above her head came crashing down. They had spent all that time trying to look for Koharu, and yet, their own comrades were still in danger.

"For what it's worth, ma'am? I think he made the right call – the Harrier had its own lifeboats, she didn't - but I can see why Captain Sierra isn't happy at him too."

"Rain, you don't have to call me ma'am – or them "captain" either. Their names work just as well." Asuna told her, before continuing their conversation. "But yes, I can see how that decision wouldn't go down too well."

She just hoped that unit cohesion wouldn't be a problem when the chips were down later – the last thing they needed was two people sniping pettily at each other, whilst the Belkans were literally sniping at them with anti-aircraft guns and missiles…

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The next eight hours had passed by at a breakneck pace – from briefing to briefing, from checks on each aircraft to having to reload each aircraft manually, whilst Solitaire and Idol focused on getting the electronics equipment ready for the attack.

On the ground, it had almost looked like a disparate mess of aircraft – some loaded for air-to-air, some for air-to-ground, others for anti-shipping duties – but in the air, and formed up into their groups, it had resembled an actual strike force.

Not a large one, but still large enough to give the Belkans a really bad evening.

In addition, the weather over the Bay was still quite unpleasant, with low cloud cover proving a useful way of obscuring their approach against the black abyss that was the bay, and the slightly brighter void that was the night sky above them. The weather wasn't the only challenge they faced – nighttime flying was still a relatively new skill for some of them, and flying in cloud cover was rarely advisable, given the risk of becoming spatially disorientated in the horizonless void…

Still, the 40-minute trip across the bay had been uneventful, and they would soon be approaching the first waypoint… "Element Alpha, radio check." She asked and received callbacks from each of the element – consisting of her flight, Flash, Fanatio's flight, Knight, Ran's flight, Twilight and the makeshift flight of Alice, Eugeo and Itsuki, who went by their callsigns instead, and would prioritise clearing the airbase's airspace of potential threats instead, alongside dealing with any anti-aircraft defences on the way.

They had been briefed of what they needed to do on the ground, and despite the… clashes that she and Alice had had, she knew she could be trusted once she was up in the air.

"Good, is everyone clear on what must be done here? Keep their attention until the all-clear from Bravo and Charlie. Weapons free, all targets are hostile."

"Good, we owe the Belkans some payback!"

"All aircraft, you have bandits climbing out. Looks like they don't know we're here yet."

"Flash Two, Knight Two, weapons free." Asuna ordered. At this range, the Belkans stood little chance of understanding what was going on; let alone evading the missiles being fired on them. Those AIM-47s on Sinon's Crossbow, to quote Kirito, were broken – being able to kill a target at 50 was tough enough to defend against… 100 miles was beyond the horizon distance!

"Weiss Flight, wir haben Berichte über Osean-Schiffe, die sich der Flotte nähern. Verteidigt sie um jeden Preis, bis die Nimrods eintreffen ..."

"Verstanden, Weiss Flight, wenden sie sich an rubrik zehn." Static cut off the transmission, and the explosion in the night sky meant that Asuna knew that the fight had truly started then. They knew something was out there in the darkened night, and after the last stunt… Asuna felt a small degree of a vindictive streak come to the top. It would be her group that taught the Belkans why people were afraid of what lurked in the dark…

Especially when that darkness hid sixteen fighters, all armed to the teeth, and on the hunt for the Belkan Air Force and Fleet Air Division.

"Die Oseaner, das sind sie-" An unknown voice broadcast, before an explosion cut if off.

"Schisse! Machen sie Silber und Gelb startklar! Weibe, lass sie nicht in die nahe kommen!"

"Lead, they're readying more fighters." Ronye told her, translating the radio chatter for them. "I'd expect them to be here in two to three minutes!"

"You heard that, Alice? Get moving!"

"Knight Three, focus!"

"MIGs down low, 3 o'clock. I can see the burners." Tiese called out, before Asuna spotted her Draken breaking away, followed swiftly by Ronye's.

"Sinon, Liena, any more aircraft?"

"Two transports approaching, with comms chatter – patching it through."

"I think they're a VIP flight, ma'am. Apparently one General Richten is here to inspect the base. The other aircraft is carrying supplies and a valuable cargo."

As long as they weren't civilian, they were a target – and one such as the general and his cargo were a pretty big win for them, especially as it was a complete fluke! "Understood, Ronye. Pito, LLENN, engage the transports. Do not let them land!"

"How about landing vertically? And on fire?" Pito "asked" – in reality, she was going to shoot them down regardless, and at least this way, she could aim the woman's bloodlust somewhere… at a Belkan general, who probably deserved it, to be quite honest.

"Acceptable."

"Oh good. Time to go give the general our best wishes!" The pair of MIG-21s accelerated off into the distance, as Asuna looked down, a momentary glimpse of Eugeo's Mirage below her, the natural metal finish glinting against the night sky and the searchlights now lighting up the area.

"Schisse! We're being lit up down here."

"Hang tight, we'll deal with the searchlights!" Yuuki called out, and she briefly caught a glimpse of what she thought was the landing light of the younger girl's Sabre diving towards the deck and followed swiftly by the remaining members of Twilight.

"Much obliged, Twilight. We will cover you until then."

That left herself, Fanatio, Liena and Eydis to stand against the inevitable formation of aircraft that would soon be approaching them, with Sinon some way back and engaging with stand-off weapons. Five aircraft versus an entire formation…

"Ruan Major, sind noch flugzeuge frei? Wir werden heftig angegriffen!"

"Das 8 Geschwader ist unterwegs, Ruan Major. All von ihnen."

"Lead, this is Ronye, they've got a lot more fighters coming. A whole squadron of them." Taking a moment to really let the gravity of the situation set in, Asuna considered her options – fight or flight.

Fight to the very last missile, to the very last round, and if push came to shove, the very last bolt on her plane, or retreat, leaving an entire battalion of fighters to be only minutes away from the bombers…

That wasn't a choice at all – they would stand proud and protect their allies. At Rhinemartial, they had been the only ones mad enough to not question the orders to go in first and dismantle the air defence net, and at Avalon, they had been thrown into the furnace with little time to do anything else…

This would be like Avalon again, wouldn't it?

Asuna took a glance at the unit patch she had had Liz paint in Wind Fleuret's cockpit and remembered her brief Latin lessons to translate the text that had been applied: "Contra omnes dissident, in ignota caelum" … or "Against all odds, in heavens unknown".

Today, the odds were stacked well and truly against them – sixteen aircraft at most, versus easily forty or fifty, and that was assuming the others came back from their respective missions before the squadron reached them; if not, it was 5 versus 50.

10:1 odds, Asuna realised.

They were going to need a miracle, weren't they?

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About two minutes earlier, and fifty miles to the north, a small force of strike fighters were approaching the mouth of the Bay. One of those aircraft was an almost spotless Panavia Tornado GR.1; its camouflage not even so much as scratched by errant sworf in a hangar. For Sierra, it had been a major change to, not only rig up the avionics on the Prowler, but also to then have get familiarised with the new avionics on their new aircraft.

The terrain following radar was amazing though, he'd decided that much as they flew over the Bay at only 100 feet, without so much as a gentle buffeting… "All 72nd aircraft, come in." Jet asked from the seat up front, as the radios burst to life as all aircraft of Element Charlie checked in on cue.

"Good, now everyone's here, we can start the party."

In the back seat of the Tornado, Sierra scanned the avionics to ready everything. With everyone else approaching low and fast, and with dumb bombs, there was no real chance for a second run – not least because the Belkan anti-air system would have kicked in by then, and he'd rather not have to have them make a second pass over a dockyard protected by enough triple-A to give Saddam Hussein a glimmer in his eyes…

Not when they could sit at range and snipe the systems instead. Much safer when the first warning that the anti-aircraft guns and missiles had that they were being targeted was when an ALARM landed in their laps…

"Cap, we're coming up on the last waypoint now." He told Jet, who gave a thumbs up to the mirror.

They had the easy job, he supposed – everyone else was going in fast and low, they just had to keep the air defences attention for long enough to give them a real bad time.

"Kureha, you ready?"

"We're ready, just… don't miss please?" Kureha asked, a tone of concern in her voice. He couldn't blame her; she was leading them into the open jaws of a lion… and it was their job to keep prodding things in its mouth, so they didn't realise what was going till it was too late for them to do anything much about it.

"Relax, we're like Amazon, remember?" He said, trying to lighten the mood.

"That doesn't fill me with confidence Cody…" He forgot that Momiji was, to use a term he'd heard Jet use about one of his sisters when he was in a foul mood, "a right grumpy mare" when she was stressed. For obvious reasons, he was not about to call Momiji that to her face… not when she was armed with a 20mm Vulcan and twenty-eight 500lb bombs.

He liked living, thank you very much.

"He means we're on time and we never miss." Jet responded. "I think. Either that, or he means we're about to commit some serious health & safety violations." He added, raising a small smirk off him. They were about to drop at least five anti-radiation missiles in their general direction, so a few OSHA violations were par for the course…

"Idol, you guys there?" Jet asked.

In the darkness, they were relying on the terrain following radar of the Tornado to ensure they didn't become fish food over the bay or get blown to bits by flying into a hill… though he had his doubts where a hill would come from in the middle of the sea. Idol, on the other hand, did not have the same terrain following radar and so they relied on them to not get lost over the black void that was the Bay of Oured. "We're about a minute behind you, sir."

"Understood, we'll start the fireworks then." Jet said, before turning to him. "Let's give them our welcoming present, shall we?"

"On it." He worked quickly to lock up the radars located on the northern docks, a process that was almost painless considering he had next to no experience with the hardware… "Gotcha. Solitaire Lead, Magnum."

The massive white missile dropped off the rail and shot away into the distance, climbing as it did so. They'd have an approximately thirty second window before the Belkans knew something was amiss – having one of your radars obliterated by a high-speed pylon that had dropped from 40,000 feet in a terminal dive tended to have that result.

"Solitaire Lead, Idol, this is Watchdog. Looks like their radars just lit up. They have you on radar."

"Oh good." He could almost see the feral grin on his friend's face, and for once, a sense of unease came over him. "Makes our job all the easier then."

"Anti-aircraft sites are coming online Cap, I think they know we're here."

"Good, as long as they know we're here and not the bombers, we're doing our job right."

In the middle distance, and atop a hill, the search radar exploded, no doubt hit by the ALARM they'd fired. One down, only a million more to go, he thought as he worked to lock up the next target – a medium-range SA-3 "Goa" battery (and cursed NATO's ability to make the most terrifying of things sound ridiculous with stupid reporting names) that would no doubt prove a problem on exfil for the bombers.

"One more target. Solitaire Lead, Magnum." For the second time that evening, the ALARM raced off into the twilight, its target marked for destruction. "Like shooting fish in a barrel…"

"Don't say that!" Jet scolded from the front seat. "You just know something will go wrong now…"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." He shrugged, before spotting something in the distance, the tell-tale sign of a missile launch. A big one at that… "Shit, they've got S-200s out here!"

"I hate being right!" He narrowed his eyes, as if to say how much he thought that statement was utter garbage, before working to activate the countermeasures, in case the S-200 was firing on them. As it wasn't, they quickly turned the Tornado back towards the smoke plume, and he worked to lock up the radar guiding the long-range missile…

"Ugh, can't you Brits make something that works?! Stupid radar isn't tracking…"

"Switching to guns."

"Eh?" He asked in surprise, before realising what was about to happen… "Oh no." He shrunk into his seat, realising there really was very little he could do now. His captain was about to do something very stupid, and he was along for the ride… again.

Approaching the missile launcher, the Tornado went into a steep dive, and for the second time in two days, Sierra wished he hadn't gotten out of bed this morning… dive bombing a long-range guided missile site that was no doubt protected by triple-A with only the 27mm cannons to kill it… "Solitaire Lead, guns." Jet called out, and the muzzle flash almost blinded both in the dimly lit Tornado…

"Yeesh…" He groaned, as they pulled out of the dive… remarkably free of bullet holes, to his pleasant surprise, and with an S-200 site in disarray at the sudden Wild Weasel strike. "Huh, we didn't die. Colour me shocked."

"Ol' ye of little faith…" Jet was grinning at that victory, no doubt… the smug bastard. "Solitaire Lead, one S-200 site down."

"Idol, we've hit the search radars at the south, the path is clear! Beginning ECM now!" The ECM they'd worked out was quite simple – rather than jamming the Belkan comms, they'd simply override them. Honestly, he thought it was a pretty good deal for the Belkans, if he were honest – the Belkans got a free concert from the girls out of it, and they got a clear path to blow them up, a win-win situation if ever there was one in his books.

Granted, the sound quality was rubbish – the EA-6B was an electronic warfare bird, not a microphone, after all – but there was a reason they'd gained the callsign Idol, and it wasn't because they sat around doing nothing all day…

/-/

Onboard the Prowler, Nautilus briefly wondered how his life had led him on this course – circling the bay of St. Calippo, broadcasting the greatest hits of the 1970s and 1980s, whilst Yuna and Seven were preparing their best DJ impressions to confuse the Belkans to no end, and allow for their bombers to sneak in somewhat undetected.

"Helllloooo, Belka!" Yuna called out, and he fine-tuned the radio jamming equipment as she did. "We've got a brilliant show for you today! So first up is Blondie, with One Way or Another!"

"Hans, was zur Hölle ist hier los!" A Belkan voice shouted, clearly trying to work out what was going on, and who the new voices were…

" Woher soll ich das Wissen! Franz, finden sie diese Übertragung squelle, und-"

"~One way, or another, I'm gonna find ya, I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya! One way or another, I'm gonna win ya, I'm gonna get ya, get ya, get ya, get ya!~"

"Bingo, looks like their command centre just lit up! Nautilus, you'd better be on your a-game tonight, those radars are looking for us now." Sierra called out, and he confirmed the signal on his equipment. Nothing said "obviously unaware of an attack" like turning on every radar in the vicinity of the town, he supposed.

He just hoped that would be how they remained until-

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"Rain, missile alert. Nine o'clock."

"Understood, taking evasive actions." The Prowler was quickly thrown into a right-hand bank, and he spotted a missile trail – probably an SA-3 – heading for them. With little practice on the Prowler's enhanced countermeasures, he launched chaff to confuse the missile's guidance, and hoped that Rain could maneuver them around the missile.

"Solitaire One, we've got a lock on the battery targeting you. Magnum, I repeat, Magnum."

"Missile defeated, missile defeated." He called, as the missile trail passed almost a thousand feet above their heads.

He could only hope that their evasive dance around St Calippo would be enough to keep the Belkans attention on them, and not for their attention to go wandering around looking for the thing they were so obviously distracting them from…

/-/

For Kureha, the anxiety in the cockpit was almost physical – if she'd reached out, she felt as though she could cut through it. Despite leading the flight in the boys' absence, that hadn't been particularly difficult (other than when Paladin got ideas above his station, which were soon shut down), but this?

It felt as though she was in a war movie right now – one of those old ones Michael had shown them, what was it called now, she wondered… oh right, The Dambusters… or was it 633 Squadron? They were both about against all odds bombing raids performed by mad Brits who seemed hellbent on dying in a blaze of glory… she wondered what that said about the British psyche that such people were held as heroes, rather than lunatics volunteering for a suicide mission…

Either way, those movies had always ended with… well, a less than perfect outcome.

To put it bluntly, people died. In some of them, everyone died. Never the main characters – who were usually the commanders… on the ground, mind you, but people still died, and she really didn't want to imagine any of them dying. Idol were still kids in her eyes – even Nautilus and Yuna were still their youngers, even though it wasn't by much, and she'd rather not have gotten everyone killed on a faulty plan that she'd signed off on...

Still, they were good enough to take care of themselves, she knew that much. Jet and Sierra were both mad enough to think that this was a good plan (her opinion was rather less clear cut, but any plan that worked was a good one, she supposed.), and the guy and girls of Idol were all good pilots, even if they were a little green. Coming out of her thoughts, she checked the clock in the cockpit – 01:35.

Right on time.

"Solitaire Two to Element Charlie. Begin the operation."

"Samurai Leader to Solitaire Two, we'll be right behind you!"

Based on a photo recon flight earlier in the day, they had worked out an attack path through the harbour's mouth that would expose them to the least anti-aircraft fire, and hopefully, the least risk from whatever remained of the Belkan air defences.

Whilst the boys had replaced their Phantom with a new Tornado, she had chosen to replace her Skylancer with an F-105D, the Thunderchief (or Thud, as Sierra had called it, claiming it was after the sound it made when it dropped on your head.), a much heavier aircraft than her old Skylancer, and with considerably poorer air-to-air capabilities… but significantly greater ground attack capabilities, especially given she was currently carrying 28 Snakeeyes, plus a bomb-bay filled with a fuel tank to increase their range and the F-105 didn't feel particularly sluggish in that configuration.

Looking out the window, it was time to put her game face on – this really was do or die, and she wasn't too keen on the latter option!

"And now, we've got KC & The Sunshine Band, with Give It Up!" She could hear over the radio, and reminded herself that they had the duration of that song to make their passes, and that was it. That meant they had 4 minutes and 6 seconds to get in, release their payloads of nearly fifty bombs, and get the hell out of there before the Belkans knew what hit them, whilst Samurai took the command centre out with whatever they'd brought with them – mostly larger Mk84 with ballutes to avoid blowing the next aircraft in the line-up…

In order to do so, she and Zeliska had agreed that they would form an X-shaped attack pattern across the docks; herself going from northwest to southeast, whilst Zeliska took northeast to southwest, the Snakeeyes hopefully scoring the maximum damage on the docks in the time they had on target…

As the sound of trumpets began to fill the airwaves, she pulled the F-105 up from its dive at 200 foot; high enough to avoid clipping any structures, but low enough that the gunners on the hills surrounding the docks would struggle to depress the cannons low enough to hit them.

"~Na na na na na na, baby give it up, give it up, baby give it up!~" Blared the 70's disco anthem, as she hit the release point for her Snakeeyes. "Bombs away!" The volley of Mk82s peeled away from her aircraft at 500 kts, the tails deploying immediately and allowing her to yank the F-105 into a tight, climbing turn to the right as she watched the explosions rip through the docks in a neat line behind her.

Now that was a fireworks show!

"Good effect on target, Two." Sierra called from his vantage point above the city.

"Beginning my attack now." The Corsair dove down, its bombs peeling away in the dive, before the chubby aircraft pulled up. Perhaps it wasn't the best-looking aircraft, but she'd be damned if she found anything better as a bomb truck that could fit on a carrier…

Another line of fires and explosions broke out, forming a literal cross of fire where the docks had been. Infernos raged in what she assumed had been weapons and fuel stores, high enough that any additional attackers would run the risk of being turned into fireballs as they flew through. In the darkness, she struggled to see any of the facilities anymore, just the blazes where they had been…

"Good effect, Three. They won't be getting that back online any time soon!"

"Samurai Lead, bombs away!"

"Samurai Two, bombs away!"

"Samurai Four, bombs away!"

"Samurai Flight, all bombs hit their target. Doubt they'll be controlling much when they wake up!"

"If they wake up, anyway."

Despite the success of the attack, she couldn't help but feel sorry for people down there – she doubted many of them were awake, and those that were, were probably contractors rather than actual military personnel.

Civilians, in other words. They hadn't bombed the Belkan Navy, so much as they had bombed the civilians assisting the Belkan Navy to repair their currently absent ships… many of whom were now burning to death or being forced to jump in the waters to escape the inferno.

There was something to be said for the dichotomy between the upbeat disco music playing through their radios, and the horrors being experienced below them. It was almost darkly amusing, in the most horrible sense of the word; like someone had deliberately picked the most upbeat songs to fuck with the Belkans morale, as they tore apart the docks in the most violent way possible…

Wait, someone had picked the music - they had picked the music. She wondered what that said about them at that point, but decided that the soul searching could wait until they landed back at Canaveral in a few hours…

One thing she did know though, was that she was going to need a stiff drink to process all of this…

"This is Flash Lead to Solitaire, you've got trouble heading your way. A flight of F-4s on the deck, and they do not look happy to see you!"

"Silber Team, destroy the Osean dogs." An older man called out, with a distinctly English accent – something she'd gotten some practice with, being friends with Jet and all that entailed. Weren't Belka meant to be an analogue to Germany, instead… not Britain? Or at least, she'd assumed that to be the case, given the amount of German being thrown about in the radio chatter…

Mind you, they'd been flying British bombers and small numbers of fighters, so maybe it was an analogue to both. Either way, she was hanging back on that drink, because they had a job to do. "Boys and girls, guess we're fighting our way back home too."

"Oh good, because today had been too easy, hadn't it?" Sierra grumbled, but seemed as if he had his head down by now.

It was Klein who interrupted next. "Wait, did he just say Silber Team?"

"He did." Jet answered grimly, as if he knew something the rest of them didn't.

"We are fucked then."

{Author's Comments}

Another two-parter, and this one... wasn't actually meant to be one. It just ended up being that much longer than even the last chapter...

If you're enjoying this story, it has a Discord server now - https: double slash discord .gg slash BgQg4ZJaQk - where I'll be posting bits and bobs I write in between chapters, as well as reference photos (and just some photos I've taken from various museums) and artwork for the story.

Oh, and sorry for the possibly dodgy German in this chapter.

Signing off,

Midland 2541