"Excalibur Four to Eight, thanks for the compliment. Tell your WSO that Evy-I mean Everett sends his regards. Out." Zola replied over her mic as the Fencer pulled into a steep climb to carry out another attack on the enemy bomber formation. With the element of surprise gone, the bombers were now actively taking measures to make the lives of their attackers very difficult. Most of them were trying to jink - to move so erratically that getting a lock or bead would prove challenging enough to buy their fighter escorts enough time to destroy the attacking aircraft. However, it proved to be ineffective as Excalibur Seven soon downed another bomber. Still, the turrets were putting up a hail of cannon fire and, for a moment, it even made Everett hesitant to attempt to break through the bomber formation.

However, if he had any thoughts of turning back, it was too late for him to do anything of the sort. Split-seconds later, his Fencer came up above the bombers. He continued to gain some additional altitude before banking hard to the left while descending to make another run. The Ghost of the Straits came screaming down for another high-speed pass at the bombers. "Firing missile." Zola reported and pulled the trigger, releasing another R-77 missile. This time, they hit their target in a more vital region - the area just behind the cockpit. Even if that did not kill most of the piloting crew, it certainly severed or disabled the on-board flight computers, and sure enough, the Tu-95 soon dropped out of formation and began a slow crash towards the ocean below. 

"Nice shot," Everett commented, sounding genuinely impressed. Over the squadron frequency, he reported, "Excalibur Four splash one more Tu-95."

"That's the nicest thing you've said to me all day. Now let's go bail Excalibur Twelve out of trouble, eh?" Zola said with a laugh, but her mood was quickly dampened when alarms began to sound in the cockpit. She immediately looked at the rear-view mirrors mounted to the sides of their cockpit; an old-fashioned instrument of questionable usefulness, but this time it allowed her to see the sunlight reflecting off the enemy fighter which had gotten a lock on them. "Shit! Enemy has a lock on us!" She shouted out over the squadron frequency.

"Excalibur Four evading!" Everett said and pulled the aircraft into a steep climb, away from the bombers. At the same time, Zola fired one of their flare-and-chaff countermeasures, throwing off the enemy's lock. The alarm stopped, but that did not mean that they were out of any danger. He glanced out the window, just in time to see Excalibur Twelve streak past with a bandit hot on his tail. Seven had just eliminated one chasing Eight, but the enemy had plenty more fighters to throw at them. There was no time for Everett to even weigh the benefits of calling from help from their fighter cover - they were possibly too busy fending off the enemy's own air superiority fighters.

Without informing his squadron, or even Zola for that matter, he pulled the aircraft into a turn. The move caught Zola off-guard and she let out a yelp of surprise. "What the fuck are you doing?" She asked once she had recovered from the surprise.

"Dogfighting." Everett replied plainly. As he had expected, the enemy fighter followed, slowing down and banking into a turn to stay on the Fencer's tail. It quickly became a deadly game of seeing who would die from a stall first. With both sides playing with their airspeeds to get an edge, neither could get into good firing position or even get a lock on one another. "Zola, prepare cannons and the R-74s." Everett said grimly.

Zola immediately caught on to Everett's plan. It was risky - there was a chance the enemy fighter could handle well at slow speeds, but if Everett played it right, he could make their pursuer choose between either giving up the chase, slowing down to the point of a terminal stall or to overshoot and place itself right in their crosshairs. "R-74s armed and cannons are ready to go." Zola reported. Everett's only response was a nod before leveling out the aircraft, pretending as if he had just made a basic error when it came to a turning fight. However, almost instantly, he raised every drag-inducing device he had on the plane, rapidly killing the Fencer's speed. Its wings rotated back to their landing configuration, inducing even more drag and slowing the Fencer down even more. 

The enemy fighter had evidently not expected that as it overshot the Fencer, streaking past overhead. "Burn the fucker!" Everett yelled as he lowered the spoilers and pushed the Fencer to get more airspeed, not that it was necessary. The R-74s quickly locked onto the enemy fighter's hot exhaust, and the fighter's speed meant that it lacked the time to get out of the way before Zola released the missile. It streaked forward and quite literally went up the enemy fighter's exhaust nozzle. The enemy aircraft erupted into a ball of flame and went crashing down to the sea below as a shower of debris.

Everett let out a sigh of relief and turned his plane around to return to attacking the bombers. "Excalibur Four splash one fighter." He said, then remembered that he had not told his squadron about what had happened. For all they knew, the Ghost of the Straits simply disappeared midway through the fight. "Sorry about our absence. We had a bogey on our tail. Took care of it. Returning to engage bombers, out." Everett said curtly and increased speed to rejoin their squadron.