Author's Note – Hello everybody, here is the first chapter of The Ribbon's Triumph, please see Chapter 0 for any context you need as to why this suddenly returned to the fold. The Dramatis Personae will only show up every so often now rather than every chapter.

Again, so very sorry.

-Jupiter Magnus

Dramatis Personae:

Sky Eye - Thomas "Sky Eye" Salvatore – AWACS for the Independent State Allied Forces (ISAF), the last AWACS ISAF has after the disaster that was the Stonehenge raid. Rank: First Lieutenant (1stLT.)

Mobius 1 - Johann "Florida Man" Reale (Pronounced: Ree-Al-EE) - Captain in the United States Air Force (USAF), our main character in the story. Rank: Captain (Cpt.)

Halo 2 – Tobias "Toaster" Trainer – A young nugget in ISAF, joined up with the retreating allied forces from Comberth, claims to be 18, in reality, a 17-year-old firebrand. Rank: Airman First Class (E-3)

Viper 9 – Kai "Marker" White – Another nugget in ISAF, just under 19 years old, was a trainee at Rigley Air Base and barely escaped its capture in an old F-4 Phantom II. Rank: Second Lieutenant (2ndLT.)

Colonel Brey – Allenfort AB's base Commander. Rank: Colonel (Col.)

Other persons of note will be added as the story progresses.

Chapter 1: Hard Shore Corner

September 13th, 2004 – 0936 hrs. – Allenfort AB, Newfield Island, Usea.

First Lieutenant Thomas "Sky Eye" Salvatore was not a very emotional man, one could say he was almost an anathema to both social conversation, and emotions in general. Today was an exception as he sat inside briefing room 1 at Allenfort Air Base. He was not really paying attention to the sit-rep on ISAF's desperate situation, he was more focused on what his buddy in prisoner of war services (POWS) had told him yesterday. Farbanti sent over a large number of letters and paperwork via the Red Cross to North Point last week, detailing an updated list of the POWs as well as what mail they could send to loved ones. Sky Eye himself got told that his buddy and fellow AWACS, Charlie "Cloud Watcher" Markos managed to safely bail out of his plane after taking heavy damage from the now infamous Stonehenge raid last month, ISAFs last chance at taking out the railgun turrets to at least force a stalemate and allow the line to solidify in preparation of taking back the mainland. However, that was not the case, indeed as Thomas looked around him, he could see the large 150-seat briefing room was almost empty, he counted about 56 of the seats filled including himself, a pitiful 4 squadrons, and his AWACS team. After the Stonehenge raid, and the total loss of the Hellhound ground attack squadron and the Saber tactical fighter squadron, ISAF was left with just 4 squadrons, Rapier, Viper, Halo, and Omega squadron. Halo and Viper squadrons just got supplemented with one member each, bringing each squadron back to full status of 12 planes a piece.

Thomas was looking at the two nuggets now, the new Halo 2, a smart-ass named Tobias Trainer, though everyone just called him by his TAC name 'Toaster', which Thomas was unsure why he was called that; and the 2ndLT of the month, Kai White, TAC name 'Marker', the new Viper 9. When Marker introduced himself to Sky Eye after escaping Rigley AB's capture, he said he was called that because he kept one with him since his high school prankster days. Thomas was not really sure what to make of the nuggets, especially Toaster, he looked like he wasn't even 18 yet, and his attitude to his superiors showed it if Thomas was to judge, and Marker didn't look like a day over 18 himself either, though, by his drinking habits, Sky Eye would beg to differ.

At this point the Base Commander, one Colonel Brey, a lanky man who looked like he was still a child with baby fat, even though he was well into his 30s, spoke up, getting Thomas' attention.

"All right, that pretty much sums up our situation, looks like the St. Ark holdout area won't be able to evacuate unless we get rid of that radar site over on Mt. Shezna, and if we can't knock it out, we'll have to evac under Erusean eyes by North Point's hardline of the 20th of October."

At that moment, one of Col. Brey's staffers, an E-2, or Airman by Thomas' reckoning, walked into the room looking green, or nervous, Thomas couldn't be bothered to tell. After a hurried, yet hushed conversation between the good Colonel and the staffer, Brey also looked a little green.

"Ok people looks like we got a situation on our hands." He said.

One of the pilots, sarcastically responded: "You mean besides the Fubar we find ourselves in?"

The Colonel responded, "Shut your trap Omega 11, this is serious! The rest of you pay attention!"

The Colonel continued, "About 35 minutes ago, Norwich city's long-range early radar popped an alert signal some 150 miles due East of its position, their meteorological balloon picked it up as well." Brey changed up the map of Usea on the projector to focus on the country of North Point itself and zoomed over to the Eastern side of the islands. "We picked up some kind of sudden electrical storm, and soon after that a single target popped out of said storm. After the storm dissipated, we were able to identify the bogey as a single fighter, possibly an F-16 based on radar pings, though it is not responding to our IFF."

Brey switched the projector again to show what looked like the middle of the ocean, with a single bogey steadily heading West-Southwest with a slow decline and speed. "After analysis by our boys out at Norwich, we've determined that the bogey is heading vector 252 West Southwest towards Allenfort, we don't know if it's an Erusean scout or not, but it's heading here slowly at about 247 mph and declining from Angels 12 about 100 feet every 2 minutes or so. Assuming it doesn't pull up, it'll crash in about 3 or 4 hours."

Thomas was again not paying attention, focusing on the back of Marker's head and in deep thought about what he was going to do to survive the remainder of this war. Marker, like most humans, felt someone watching him, turned his head and smiled at Sky Eye, who reciprocated before Colonel Brey called him.

"Salvatore! Listen up, I want you up and in this bogey's path in the next half hour, take Marker and Toaster with you, it'll do them good to have some mission experience. You three, Dismissed! The rest of you will be briefed on your patrols for today in just a second."

Thomas, Tobias, and Kai all stood, saluted, and left the briefing room to get ready for their flight. 10 minutes and a change into flight suits later, Toaster, Halo 2, climbed into his Mig-29 Fulcrum armed with two Aim-9 Sidewinder missiles and two ASRAAM Aim-132 missiles, plus a full 30mm cannon. The young 17-year-old, though 18 to everyone else for fear of repercussions, was of medium height, about 5 foot 8, with short brown hair, peach fuzz, and a round face. Considered one of the more handsome lads at one of Comberth's high schools, he joined up with the retreating forces at the harbor and joined the air force, faking his age to get a chance to face his guilty conscience after abandoning his family in the retreat. He looked confident enough and began preflight checks as AWACS Sky Eye took off ahead of the fighters.

Marker, Viper 9, hopped into his F-14D Tomcat, armed the same as Toaster's Mig, and ran his preflight checks. The 19-year-old was a bit taller than his fellow nugget, 5 foot 10, with black, buzzed hair, no facial hair, and a trimmed-looking face with a cleft chin. He was an all-around comedy genius with a rather unhealthy drinking habit that developed after his hectic escape from Rigley AB in nothing but an unarmed Phantom with half a tank. After both got their preflight checks completed, taxied to the runway, and took off, Sky Eye ordered them to stay close and vectored them into the flight path of the bogey. Along the way the two got into a chat about the mission, shooting the shit and whatnot as well as discussing their TAC names.

"See, I got mine because a rival of mine tried to pull a Moraine on me and drop a toaster into a pool I was swimming in at the time, but, like Moraine, he forgot to plug it in first. Suffice to say he was not amused after I walked out and beat the shit out of him with said toaster before handing him over to the cops." Toaster's explanation didn't exactly sound like the truth to Sky Eye, but he wasn't going to say anything about it until after he could confront the kid alone and learn the truth.

Earlier, around the area of disturbance on a similar, yet different world

February 14th, 2023 – 0825 hrs. - Over the North Atlantic, Earth

Captain Johann "Florida Man" Reale was not having a very good day, sure, listening to Bismarck in honor of the king of the sea's launch date kept him calm as he soared over the North Atlantic, but it was why he was on patrol was what was pissing him off.

'If only my Lt Col Wasn't such a hypocritical bastard, I might have actually liked the guy.'

Reale, who was flying in his F-16C Fighting Falcon with 4 AMRAAMs and 2 Sidewinders, was only out here because his superior, one Lieutenant Colonel Horace Applefaerth, had sent him out on patrol alone after he managed to blame the captain for his fraternization with a much younger 2ndLT. After the Captain caught him in a rather compromising position, the Lt Col blamed Reale and punished him with this solo flight.

What really got Reale pissed, however, was that General Logan was on base at the time and sided with Applefaerth, despite the evidence of Reale entering the Lt Col's office well after that barracks bunny entered the office with the Lt Col.

'Oh well, at least I get to transfer to Luke AB next week, hopefully Arizona is a better environment than the dreadful East Coast'

Johann was an upstart Captain, only 22 years old, yet he had proved that he could hold that responsibility after he was discovered doing all of his Colonel's paperwork after the Colonel was on medical leave due to crashing on landing during a hellish storm. He was 5 foot 10, Handsome in his own way, with a square face and a cleft chin, he usually acted aloof on base, though his few friends knew him to be a kind and caring soul. That didn't stop their teasing of him, however, on his TAC name. He earned such a name during a training flight back when he was still a 2ndLt after he let slip his Floridian accent during a rather harsh mock dogfight. After the flight touched down, someone came up to him and started speaking like a hillbilly to him, and to get back at the bastard of a nugget, Reale dropped a remote-control crocodile into his barracks, chasing the stupid nugget across base before Reale got tazed and sent to the bases' detention center. Since then, everyone knew to avoid teasing the 'Florida Man' about his upbringing.

After his song ended, Reale's radar picked up something ahead of him, he wasn't worried, probably a flock of birds or something. However, as he neared the radar blip, he noticed a great deal of electrical activity coming from the formation of clouds ahead of him. As he tried to bank right to avoid the strange occurrence, his controls started to short circuit and fire, and his plane headed straight towards the swirling clouds, once he entered the disturbance, his plane started jolting and rolling, without Johann's control. This freaking him out to the point of actual terror, Johann tried to radio into his home base, Hanscom AFB in Massachusetts, but instead, nothing but gremlins came out and he realized he was along for the ride through the storm.

Suddenly, the shaking and rolling stopped, and Johann breathed out a sigh of relief, though as he tried to take back control of his Falcon, he realized that it was just a short respite, and soon a massive amount of flashes of light occurred around him. Before he could so much as think of a way out of this mess, a sudden and total whiteness pierced his vision, and he blacked out.

When the Florida Man woke back up, he almost broke his fingers as he jolted awake and slammed his right hand into the front screen of his cockpit. Checking his surroundings, he noted the time was now 0940 hrs, and that he was at a slow speed and decline, and when he tried to right his plane, fear came back to him, he couldn't control his plane! Worse still, his radar was out, and he was essentially blind.

'At least my radio seems to be working, hopefully I can get someone on the radio to hear my mayday call, who knows, maybe I'll survive my impending crash in what? 2 hours?'

He smiled at that fact, wondering just how he was going to explain to his Lt Col why he lost his bird in the world's slowest and most controlled crash ever. Deciding now would be better than never, he tuned his radio to an open frequency and began speaking in a calm voice for all who were listening to hear.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is Captain Johann Reale of the USAF, my plane is inoperable, and I am in a slow descent to the water, my last known position was around 43 North, 45 West. Repeat: Mayday, mayday, mayday..."

On and on it went, and after a half hour he heard a response, albeit garbled and hard to understand.

"AWACS...Read...Position...On...Way...2...Help...Way."

Reale was thankful and sent back a short acknowledgment of the transmission and decided to just sit back and enjoy the ride while it lasted. He didn't really understand the transmission, aside from the fact that an AWACS was out in the middle of nowhere, and was 2 something away or some such, and that he was bringing help.