June 25th, 2015 Thunder Town, Thunder Island The Bahamas 07:35am Scott leant one arm on the door of the Mustang as he guided it smoothly along the cliff-top road that ran around the back of the short range of hills that ran down the spine of the crescent-shaped island Thunderbolt Black called home. One of the two main roads on the island, this one was much smaller, and was almost a relief road for the main one connecting the expansive airbase at the southern end of the crescent that ran east-to-west, with the town and harbour at the north end. Most of the barracks and accomodation for the Mercenary Group, as well as for workers in the town and dependents were at that end of the island too. With a briefing scheduled for 10:00 hours, he'd decided to take a leisurely breakfast in town after his morning exercises, and the drive on down to the base. St. Helen, his co-pilot, was due to meet him before the briefing, where they'd meet the rest of the pilots for the squadron, who had all been notified of their assignment. In the meantime, however, he was enjoying the moments' peace. He was excited about his assignment to squadron leader for the 101st, the Black Knights squadron, and was looking forward to meeting the men and women he'd be working with. He'd had a chance to briefly look over their service jackets, and was impressed with the range of skills. But right now, he was just enjoying the warm, summer air and the wind through his short blond hair as he drove. Despite the music blaring through the sereo and the roar of the Mustangs' engine, he cocked his head and sat up as another sound reached his ears; the roar of aircraft engines. "Odd," he muttered to himself, checking the clock on the dashboard. "Not usually any flights this early in the day..." The sound was coming from the East; out to sea and away from the island. And it was getting loud quickly. The roar grew to a rumble, the sound of multiple aircraft. His radio hissed, popped and fuzzed with static, before dissolving into screaming white noise. Wincing, he quickly snapped the stero off, and then gaped in amazement and shock - he'd looked up at just the right moment and glimpsed black, blurry dots zipping overhead. Moments later, there was the rumbling thump of multiple explosions in the distance. He looked back to the road in alarm as the car swerved, before another explosion dazzled his eyes; a fenced off compound on the clifftop adjacent to the road containing one of the SAM sites guarding the island had been hit. "Shit!" he swore loudly, before getting the car under control and flooring the accelerator. As he drove onward, the skies overhead began to cloud with smoke and contrails. Aircraft roared overhead as he rounded the last turn toward the base, stamping on the brakes and screeching to a halt to show his ID. Air-rad sirens blared, and people were running everywhere; firefighters and base personnel fighting to bring blazes under control, while others dragged aircraft into or out of shelters. The guard checked him off, and he carefully drove into the base, stopping as he saw St. Helen frantically flag him down. "What the hell is going on?" he yelled as the redhead tumbled into the passenger seat. "Fuck knows!" she replied. "We're under attack, and ain't no one owned up to it yet, or knows why. Commands' ordered everyone inta th' air to fight back, or disperse. Radar's just picked up an inbound amphibious force too. Not a big one, but enough to make things miserable. We're tasked to intercept it, and its' air cover. Get t' the hangar!" "Right," he grunted back, guiding the car to the apron. Max, the squadron engineer waved the car into the hangar, where the Black Knights' planes were waiting. The ASF-14 was ready, fuelled and armed already, with the crew rapidly removing warning streamers and covers from the bombs and other ordnance under the wings. "I got it ready to fly as soon as I heard," yelled the burly, stocky middle-aged man. "We're working on the others too, they'll be up right away! Only ords I could get at this notice were a half-load of Vulcan ammo, snakeyes, rockets and a pair of Sidewinders, think you can make it work?" "I'll manage somehow!" he yelled back, climbing out of the car. "Look after this for me too!" He caught his helmet as it was thrown to him, and quickly dashed into the nearby office to pull on his G-suit and survival vest over the flight suit he already wore. It wouldn't be pretty, but it'd do in a pinch. St Helen was already in the plane when he got back, and the aircraft had been towed out of the hangar onto the apron. He mounted the ladder in record time, and went through the quick-start checklist and flipped switches. Thumbs-up were exchanged and the Intruders' turbofan engines came to life with a howl. "Tower, this is Knight One. We're rolling for takeoff now. We'll be in the air pronto" "Roger, Knight One. The rest of your squadron has been directed to link up with you ASAP. Be advised, bandits have flown one pass of the island and are looping around for a second pass. Other squadrons will engage. Surface hostiles are closing from the east; reading ten craft overall at closing range with slow-moving aircraft overhead. Advise you to expect fast-movers also". "Roger, tower". Scott rolled the ASF-14 to the end of the runway. Other aircraft ahead took off in pairs, or more. Ahead of his plane, a dirty grey KC-130 tanker lumbered into the air to escape the attacks with its' propellors roaring, followed by a pair of swing-winged MiG-23 fighters decked out in desert colours and markings for the 103rd squadron. Then it was his turn. Giving a thumbs up to St Helen in the mirror as their own display of good luck, he toed off the brakes, and pushed the throttle to power. The large, swing-winged advanced Tomcat chomped at the bit, before rolling forward. Gathering speed slowly, the jet came unglued, and he quickly pulled back the stick as the gear cleared three green and locked. He banked east as they reached altitude, buckling his mask into place, the familiar smell of stale rubber intruding into his senses and overriding the smell of warm plastic and stale must that pervaded all aircraft cockpits. "This is Heartbreak. Black Knight squadron, form up on my aircraft. Apologies we didn't get a chance to meet and greet on the ground first, but it looks like the day has other things planned for us. We've been directed to intercept an inbound surface force, closing on the island." In the rear seat, St Helen glanced up from her radar and readouts, her head swivelling to the left and right, above and craning over her shoulders to check around them. For now they were clear, with no bandits on their tail, despite the scrawling contrails across the skies. Scott had set the aircraft on the right bearing to the invading force, keeping them at medium height for best balance of fuel efficiency and speed. He could see wakes in the water up ahead, and St Helen fed him a steady stream of info as she worked the controls for the big AESA radar in the nose. "I make twelve surface targets closing. Looks to be approx six assault landing hovercraft, with the same number of amphibious APC's riding outboard. Air cover looks to be gunship helos, and expected fast-movers in the area too. The surface targets and helo's are the priority; I'm loaded for air-to-surface. Any of you loaded for air-to-air, keep 'em off our backs. Remember, watch your six on approach and climbout after releasing weapons - the triple-a is gonna be thick over that landing force". Nervous and tense, he took a deep breath from the mask, quickly giving a check to all points of the compass, and then a look into the mirror to St Helen. She looked back, her green eyes and a few freckles visible above her mask. He nodded and slid his visor down. Time to get serious.

Out to sea, it was a calm, quiet day for the sea-life near the surface of the ocean. Shrimp and fish were swimming about, a flock of migrating birds passing by. A sperm whale climbed from the depths, surfacing for air and blowing a fount of water particles skyward. Just as he was about to dive back down, the sound of whirring engines could be heard. A flying feline-featured Thunderbolt tore the quiet asunder, dashing by the sperm whale as he dove back down into the sea. Kat flicked her wing flaps back and forth very slightly, in a playful manner. She loved to fly. It was so exhilarating to watch the ground below zoom by, seeing everything below in a faction of a second up close. The flipside is combat in her Thunderbolt, Twilight. It was intense and almost nerve-breaking to rake enemy convoys with a rotary primary and Rockeye clusters, never knowing if they would turn their small arms on you, or even if they had anti-air weaponry. But Twilight had taken hits before, and the girl kept Kat alive. Coming into Thunderbolt Black airspace, and straightened out before reporting her presence. But before she got a word in, her radio crackled to life with a report of the island under attack. She listened intently, her feline ears twitching behind her slightly altered headset. "Looks like I'm not gonna get a hot shower for awhile." She muttered to herself, before flicking her comm on "This is Kat in the Thunderbolt II, Twilight, entering Thunderbolt Black airspace from the north. I read you, Heartbreak. I am outfitted for air-to-ground. Requesting permission to flank from the north. They won't expect an aircraft from this way and my Rockeyes can deal some punishment to those hovercraft."

"This is Heartbreak. Black Knight squadron, form up on my aircraft. Apologies we didn't get a chance to meet and greet on the ground first, but it looks like the day has other things planned for us. We've been directed to intercept an inbound surface force, closing on the island."

"Copy, Heartbreak, this is Stalin. I'm shadowing a couple of bandits over the gulf in a Flanker, eastward of the island. Give me a few secs." The reply came from a friendly contact indeed flying over the ocean in a frantic chase; the voice was calm, rough, nasal, heavy with a slavonic accent, but otherwise, he knew his grammar and pronunciation. Indeed, there was a Flanker coming around two enemy gunships, trying its best to ward them off the coast and away from the base. It didn't manage to score any incapacitating hits yet, but it managed to land a few 30 mm rounds on one of the bandits, although it wasn't enough; Dmitry's jet, however, remained unscathed for now, since there was no real threat for him to fear. His eyes were running all over the place, from the displays of his cockpit up to the outside world, back down to his buttons, reticles and navigational instruments and then to the skies, catching the wingtip of one of his targets. With all the G's pushing him around his seat, the adrenaline filling his chest with goo compressing his heart and lungs, his guts pulling up against the diaphragm and the constant, dynamic fight for dominance, the man found a small window to yawn wide enough that made him force his own eyes from closing. To think, he only woke up half an hour ago. 7:01 AM The alarm tone on his cell refused to switch into snooze mode, its small loudspeaker blared with the default ringtone, forcing the man awake. Dmitry woke up to his own bed, laying in his bed on his belly with his laptop at an arm's reach, half-covered and half-naked; he lifted his head, barely cracking his eyelids to locate the small annoyance and shut its mouth. He battled to keep his heavy eyes open, but his sleepy mind allowed for four more minutes of laying in his bed; with that in mind, he checked the screen of his laptop, which was in standby, and lazily wiggled the mouse with his wrist, only to find that the server had kicked his character out of the world for being AFK for over one hour. He sighed into the pillow, closed the game's screen and powered off the laptop. He rolled off his bed and planted his feet into the ground, having to push really hard against his sleepiness in order to get up and going, but when he did succeed, he went over to the shower. The stream of lukewarm water splashing his face and body woke his senses a little, but when he turned the faucet to cold, he woke up properly. Minutes later, Dmitry was all dry and walking down from his apartment, wearing light clothes to survive the incoming heat of the day, as he never really got used to the warm weather of the tropical island. He remembered he had the briefing at 10:00, but if he would have allowed himself to let himself sleep some more, he would be dead and dizzy; instead, he took a trip at the bistro at the corner of the block, where he ordered a coffee, a soft drink and breakfast with bacon, eggs, a sweet bagel, two crispy sausages and some beans. Reclining in his seat, Dmitry took a moment to enjoy the cool morning breeze, the calm sounds of the morning and the sip of his coffee. The rest of his was rushed, the man being able to eat whole meals in roughly five minutes, so fast that the information from this stomach didn't quite reach his brain in time to tell him that he had satiated his hunger; he was already jogging his way over to his workplace, thinking that he'd might spend some time there before the briefing time arrives, but his own arrival was one of the best timings he had in his life. He just passed the checkpoint when he heard some passing jets, a very odd thing indeed, but then the rumbling and the boom came, which quickly drew Dmitry's attention towards a cliff only to see a SAM site being blasted off into oblivion by what seemed to be a bombing run. He found that ridiculously ironic to the point he snickered, shook his head and rested his palms on his shoulders. "Good job, you dirty motherfuckers." He replied to the attack Air raid sirens started to wail, the pilot was dashing to get his G suit on and reach the hangar to get his fighter up in the sky. He didn't really have time to think about anything, about who were the attackers, how come they were so quick to disable a SAM site and what was their beef with this base. He changed into his suit and equipped a vest he didn't count on saving him, but he heard enough scoldings to convince himself to strap it on. It took him roughly a minute or so to get himself fully equipped, he only needed to retrieve the helmet from the hangar where his beauty was about to be woken up. He didn't lose any time chatting with the technicians finishing up the arming process, he only nodded to them as they yelled over the siren. "You've got four missiles, four rockets and two bombs on ya, all laser-guided. Canon's loaded, you're good to go!" He took a final moment to perform his good luck ritual of drawing a cross over his body with two fingers, snort his nose and spit out the phlegm and finally mutter to himself nekhaĭ shchastīt' before he'd climb into his baby: a fresh Sukhoi-35, bought with his own blood money. She had its maiden flight a few months back, but this was the first time he would lift the girl for a rough flight. The AL-41F1 twin turbofan engines came to life, but they were only a rumble in the background as Dmitry still had to taxi the aircraft to the strip; he shut the cockpit around him after he strapped himself in his seat and powered on the plane's navigation and armament instruments. He then made contact with the tower to announce his liftoff. "Tower, this is Stalin, preparing to take off and engage, over." "Copy that, Stalin. Be advised, you've been attached to the 101st Black Knights, you are under the command of Knight One, Scott Valentine. He's flying an A-6F Intruder, hard to miss. Scramble and ward off anything you can find, further orders will come from him. You're clear to take off on runway 3. Over." "Rog'." Dmitry approached the runway, rolling his fighter on the taxiyway until he found a clear high-speed twy to access the runway designated for him. Once on the center line, he waited for a couple of fighters to take off first before he would; finally, he increased the thrust in the engines, feeling himself being pushed back into the seat as the craft's speed was growing rapidly and as soon as he saw on the altimeter that he was climbing steadily, stream of air pushing the 30 ton beast, he retracted the gears and leveled the flaps. After he cleared the runway and made sure that there weren't any other aircrafts near him, he pitched the nose of the jet up and ascended vertically for a few seconds until he reached a desirable altitude, then pitched the nose some more until he was once again parallel to the ground, but upside-down; to correct that, he completed a half roll and darted off over the land below. The ground seemed to move relatively slow underneath him even if he was moving at a considerable speed; from up there, he saw some bogeys both through the panes and on the radar, immediately identifying them as the enemy threat and the first targets he considered to take out were a couple of gunship helicopters. As there were no enemy fast movers in the area just yet, he pitched down and approach the helos with a dramatic, shock drop. As soon as he was in gun range, he struggled to get a fix on the choppers that were now doing their best to avoid getting hit by the jet; once he got a one second lock, he first noted on the radio to make sure there would be no friendlies interfering. "Guns, guns, guns." He released a few bursts from the GSh-30 internal cannon without confirming a clean hit or kill. He pulled back up before it would have been too late to save himself from crashing into the sea and began to maneuver around the targets and approach from their six. By then, the leader of the squadron he's been attached to called out, getting a reply both from him and two more pilots. Catching up on the choppers, Dmitry first banked slightly to the left to align himself to the target and unleash more 30 mmm bursts, then banked on the right to catch the other helo and fire at it. "Guns, guns, guns." He pulled away from the engagement, having the visual confirmation of incapacitating both of the targets; he was very tempted to unleash his rockets on them, but he thought against it as the SAM site must have been destroyed by an enemy bomber, of not a fighter. Taking down enemy helicopters is a cakewalk, as they are pretty limited in their maneuverability and evasion due to the fixed rotor lifting the vehicle. Static targets, training dummies. A dogfight with an equally able pilot and a good jet, on the oter hand, was a completely different story.

"We have twelve surface targets closing. Looks to be approx six assault landing hovercraft, with the same number of amphibious APC's riding outboard. Air cover looks to be gunship helos, and expected fast-movers in the area too. The surface targets and helo's are the priority; I'm loaded for air-to-surface. Any of you loaded for air-to-air, keep 'em off our backs. Remember, watch your six on approach and climbout after releasing weapons - the triple-a is gonna be thick over that landing force".

"Two helos incapacitated on Eastern shore. I've got combined munitions, mostly air-to-air. Continue engagement on other tangos, or maybe you need a wingman?"

The newspaper hit the small tabletop with a small thud, breaking the silence of the near empty lounge area. Marciano sighed as he leaned back in his own seat, it was early, and he felt it. A drowsiness that seeped into his mind, not overpowering, but enough to make him want to lean back and take a short nap. He was halfway inclined to do just that, a few minutes at the most, just something to get the shadow of the early morning out of his head. As he leaned back however a resounding boom echoed through the small room, making Marciano snap open, and the pilot jump to his feet. As the klaxons of alarms began to ring out throughout the base, Marciano broke off into a sprint. Weaving his way past people who were all scrambling to positions, he shouldered open an access door to the locker room and retrieved his suit and helmet, after which he took off in a dead sprint towards the hangers. As he arrived he began to pull on his G-suit, pulling the familiar zippers into place and scanned the deck for his craft. Seeing it the pilot moved his way to it, and swung himself onto the ladder. "Good to see ya' boy!" One of the mechanics shouted to him as he climbed into the cockpit "We got you loaded up as best we could on such short notice, you got yourself some sidewinders and a pair of AMRAMM's, use them well. Now get up the-!" The last part of his sentence was cut off by the cockpit closing, but Marciano got the spirit of it. Starting up the Hound, he couldn't help but smile at the rumble of the craft, it sounded like a chained dog rearing to go, to hunt. Slowly working his way to the runway, Marciano saw a mig take off, a fine looking aircraft. But now it was his turn. "Tower this is Charnel, am I clear?" It wasn't quite the protocol way of asking, but this wasn't quite a protocol situation. "Your clear Charnel. Heads up, your squadron leader is already up their, callsign Knight-1." "Received and understood" was Marciano only quick response before moved the throttle up, sending the Hound screaming down the runway. As soon as he was clear and high enough up he began to move his wings back, making his Tornado more aerodynamic, banking towards the coast he got word of the surface targets from Knight-1. Keying his own radio he sent his reply "This is Charnel I am in the air, im not loaded for ground targets, but don't you worry ill keep the air off your back."

Scott let out a brief sigh of relief as he heard the other three pilots check in one by one. That would certainly make the prospect of hindering, if not outright halting, the amphibious force and their cover less daunting and far more achievable. "Roger, all callsigns," he replied to the other three pilots. "Glad to have you in the air. Stalin, good job on downing those two helos - two less for us to worry about. We'll sort out your positions in the squadron once things are ah, a little less 'exciting'. In the meantime, let's proceed as follows: Charnel, buddy up with Stalin. Both of you take care of the helos, and any fast-movers that show up. Kat; hit them from North to South. I'll position to hit them from West to East just after. Your run should shake them up enough for me to avoid taking too many hits, and to get a good BDA on your first pass. Then we'll reposition for a run in tandem depending on the results. Glad you're all here, pilots - I think this is going to be a pretty busy morning". Scott's mention of fast-movers was on the money; moments later the radio channel came to life as the radar showed two new inbounds at a higher altitude. "Black Knights, this is control - be advised, we show two hostiles moving in to your area. Looks to be two MiG-35's. Stay alert, over" "Roger," replied Scott with a grimace. The MiG-35 was no easy opponent at the best of times, in the best of aircraft. He was confident that his new allies could at least keep them off of their backs, if not swat them out of the skies. Angling his aircraft toward the approaching fleet, he got a better look at them at long range, and St Helen called out the radars' identification of the craft as she followed their movements. "Four helicopters remaining; looks to be two Ka-52's... could be dangerous, they're super-manoeuvrable and can carry air-to-air missiles. Seems like we've got two troop-carriers as well, look like Panthers, they might be armed too. Swimmers look like BHT'sin military config. Watch out for triple-A or shoulder-launched SAM's. APC's look like AAV's, more small-arms to worry about from them". "Great ID of the targets," he replied to his co-pilot, raising an eyebrow under his visor as he rolled the Super Tomcat out into his approach. "Kat, ready for your run. We'll commence our attack as soon as you pull out of your own. Watch for triple-A and SAMs, over". High above, the two MiG's broke into a descending bank, circling lower toward the battle, hunting for the Black Knights' aircraft. Sighting Stalin and Charls' planes, they dived in toward them from on high, staggered in their formation and separation to pounce on the waiting jets and their pilots.

Once given the orders, Dmitry nodded to himself and banked away from the Intruder's bearings to circle around and search for the other attack helicopters. They were later ID'd, which made him consider the possibility of being hit by one of their air-to-air missiles; sure, he had flares and his skill to dodge his death, but he still had to conserve his munitions and energy for when the fighters and bombers eventually return to the engagement. There was another fighter out to help repel the airborne enemy vehicles, codename Charnel; he looked for it a while until he saw the Panavia Tornado, the jet fighter he quickly recognized from seeing it a few times before. Initially, he didn't feel like communicating with him since he was pretty sure that he could handle himself well, but thinking twice, it would be better if he could at least announce his intentions to avoid any blue-on-blue incidents. "Charnel, you copy? This's Stalin. I'll engage one of the Panthers and Ka's, the transporters can carry a maximum of 10 grunts. Way too many guests, too little food and drinks, da?" After that, he felt a little awkward for some reason. The thought nagged him somewhere in the back of his mind while he maneuvered his jet in air to catch up with the rest of the choppers. This time he was descending upon them from their right side to avoid flying at low altitudes that close to base. As he was approaching them, he let the computer on board do some calculations and come with a solution to engage the targets with maximum precision without resorting to his precious rockets or missiles; a target vector came up on the screen that was slowly moving away and in front of the Panther Dmitry decided to take out, so he rolled at a seventeen degree angle to the right and to match the jet's own level indicator with the target prograde vector, he pressed his boot against the pedal and pulled the control stick back to yaw and pitch until he hit the sweet spot. "Guns." He quickly muttered, instantly squeezing a trigger under his index distal phalange to release a healthy 30mm burst from the internal gun, the lives of eleven or twelve men at the complete mercy of aerodynamics, bullet flight path and a Ukrainian's rather nonchalant gesture. He never took a moment to properly reflect over what he was actually doing, never attempting to dissect the situation and try to put himself in his own victim's position; like most, he copped out by dismissing his targets for people who chose this kind of a lethal life and career, he himself was in as much danger as any of them. And danger finally arrived. The Ka's didn't quite got the chance to react to the assault as a couple of more able enemies dive down upon Dmitry's Su-35 and Marciano's Tornado. As soon as the computer alerted the pilot of an imminent lock-on, he growled under his breath in frustration and switched the Khibiny-M countermeasures on for a brief amount of time in order to focus on a maneuver to pull out of the chopper engagement and quickly get into a dogfight; he used everything, ailerons, flaps, lifters and the thrust-vectoring capability of the engines to pull up and meet the descending MiG's halfway. He didn't have the chance to try to fire at any of them, but as the two jets were forced to pull up and prevent from crashing into the water, Dmitry then gained altitude advantage over the two fighters after he rolled and leveled with the ground. "Charnel, I'll chase and keep 'em bitches busy, hit 'em when you have a clear shot! Oh- be a good man and tell me when you fire foxes on 'em, oke?" But the MiG's were smart. They quickly reacted to the situation, cancelling Dmitry's attack window; forced to give up on his advantage, the Ukrainian started to chase and shake the bandits around him. Forces pushed, pulled and yanked at his body, but he remained undeterred, kept his focus and his patience unbroken. "Knight One, this is Stalin, Charnel and I've been engaged by bandits, two MiG's, state of the art."

Kat flicked her safeties, making sure her load was hot and ready to serve. "Copy, Heartbreak, Kat's moving to position." She called, tugging her stick to the left into a banking turn to realign herself properly, her eye fluttering from her panel to the sky and sea in front of her. "Alright, babygirl, you ready for this?" The feline pilot asked her plane, clearly not waiting for a response. It was something she found comforting to think about, that her plane was able to hear and respond to her. Many people do this to many different objects, of course, so Kat didn't feel the fool for feeling the same. Checking once again for the status on her weapons, she took stock of what she had, and what targets she'd use what on. The Rockeyes would most likely be used on the BHTs, since they were the largest things she was going to be running into on the sea. Her Mavericks were going to be released on the AAVs, naturally. Those things were literal tanks. Lastly, her SUUs as she likes to call her SUU-23 gunpods, were going to be saved for the helicopters, if she got the chance. Kat knew gunpods were not known for accuracy, but she didn't want to use her rotary on helis when it might be needed to peel enemy aircraft off friendlies. An empty nose gun meant she was useless to stop aircraft. All this went through her head in a few seconds, having flown Twilight before in such situations. She only had this specific loadout due to her near worthless dogfighting skills. It wasn't something she was proud of, but at least many other pilots preferred heat seeking or conventional bombs, thus giving her favorite weapons a more unique position to fill... Kat righted Twilight as she sighted the incoming amphibious forces approaching the island. "Kat's going in for a strafing run!" She reported over the radio a moment before she dipped her Thunderbolt into a dive. Tapping her airbrakes, she released her Rockeyes once she was lined up with a pair of BHTs. She didn't wait for contact while at the same time giving them a good half second of the SUUs. Tilting upwards slightly to align the Mavs to the assault vehicles, she let loose with those a second before pulling up from her dive and zwooshing the water a few meters from the surface, banking to the right and up at a diagonal from the enemy ground force. It usually helped keep AA off her tail when she was moving diagonally and up from where they were firing, makign her a very hard target to get a bead on. "Kat's done with her strafe! Preparing to meet up for the second run." She reported, and she noticed suddenly she was breathing a bit heavily. She took her head slightly, blinking her eyes. Adreniline. Nothing to worry about. She thought to herself as she busied with double checking her instruments and banking high in the air to fall in with Scott.

"Charnel, you copy? This's Stalin. I'll engage one of the Panthers and Ka's, the transporters can carry a maximum of 10 grunts. Way too many guests, too little food and drinks, da?"

"Copy that" Marciano replied, a small grin on his face, he had the feeling that he was going to like this pilot. Banking right to keep with the rest of his squadron, the Tornado's pilot kept his head on the swivel, looking for the bandits Knight-1 had warned them about. He hoped to see at least a glance at them before they got the drop on him, however as the alarm that began shrieking at him warned that today, was not going to be the day where that happened. Gritting his teeth he saw Stalin pull a few hard G turns to face the incoming threat and throttled his own engines up. As he entered into a hard left bank, Marciano keyed the safeties on the Sidewinders, leaving the AMRAMM's on standby. As he pulled out, Charnel saw that Stalin was still tangoing with Bandits, but they seemed to have gotten behind him. Throttling back a bit, to stop the Tornado from overshooting the pack, Marciano pulled his targeting reticule over one of the MIG's the slow beeps of the lock on began sounding as the computer acquired the target. Almost as if that was queue the MIG suddenly broke off, rolling to the right, trying to brake the Tornado's gaze on it. Swearing softly Marciano pulled to keep his aim on it, as the beeps turned into a long continuous note. Keying his radio Marciano broadcast a message to the only friendly MIG in the sky "Stalin, It's Charnel. Heads up launching Fox-2's, watch your tail." As he said this he thumbed the firing button on his stick, a dull thump sounding as the Sidewinder detached and launched, the contrail streaking out towards the MIG. The Bandit took a hard left, miniature suns being launched from its under belly, drawing the Sidewinder away from the fighter. "Shit, looks like this might take a bit. But I'll keep on 'em. How are you holdin up Stalin?"

Scott watched the battle unfold through both his own eyes, and the radar coverage as the squadron went to work. Already he was impressed; despite the completely unexpected attack and their being thrown together in the heat of battle, the pilots were showing their skills and those of their machines as they swung into action. Already Charnel and Stalin had chopped a bloody trail through the skies. The big Sukhoi and the rapier-like swing-wing Tornado ADV swiftly cut through the air in a haze of contrails and missile smoke. Two of the helicopters, the sleek little KA's, were cut down by bursts of gunfire from the Sukhoi, before it scythed away to lead off the pair of diving MiG's, leading them off on a merry chase. He heard the chatter as Stalin co-ordinated with Charnel in taking on the twin-finned, shark-nosed MiG-35's and tore his eyes away reluctantly as the Tornado powered up, using its' big twin engines and impressive interceptor speed to match up with the attacking bandits. He turned his eye instead to the approaching invasion fleet, and the rapidly growing dot of Kat's warthog as it thundered in on a well-executed attack run. She slowed and peeled up slightly as he watched, bombs separating cleanly from the underside of the straight-winged A-10 and their submunitions spraying in a neat pattern along one of the hovercraft, which brewed up into a firestorm moments later. The rubber skirt around its' hull pierced and shredded, the front corner of the machine dug into the waves, and spun it sideways, dragging it partially submerged and sinking moments later. The second hovercraft in the pattern was caught mostly at the bows, the pattern of bomblets slightly wide. Most still hit, and much of the cargo on deck was blasted apart or incinerated, and a fire broke out. However, the craft itself was still afloat, if rendered useless for the invasion; with the fire, if it wasn't controlled it may not survive. The 20mm fire from the gunpods only added to the carnage, shredding the control cabin of the already stricken hovercraft, it going off course moments later. Tracer fire from mounted machine-guns licked up at the Warthog, but even as slow as the attack jet was, by comparison it was still fast enough that manually-aimed heavy machine-guns were too slow to track it effectively. The red lines criss-crossed the skies, trying to hunt down the nimble straight-winged jet, but to no avail as he watched the Mavericks leap from rails under the wings and cross space to the swimming APC's, blasting two of them apart. Scott felt a momentary pang of regret for the soldiers he assumed were caught inside, but it flowed away quickly; after all, they had been attacked violently and without warning. "Good run, Kat. Targets destroyed with good secondaries. Heartbreak rolling in for my run, over!" The hasty outfitting of the ASF-14 had lead to Scott and St. Helen taking off with a less advanced warload than the A-10, and considerably less so than they normally toted. But firepower was still firepower. The hardpoints in the fuselage 'tunnel' between the engines carried six 500lb Mk.82 Snakeye bombs, while the wing-glove hardpoints each carried a triple ejector with two 7-tube Hydra rocket pods attached. The outmost shoulder pylons on the gloves each carried a single sidewinder, for self-defence. Like the other aircraft, the F-14 carried an internal cannon, but a lighter 20mm M61 Vulcan cannon - But Scott recalled the crew chief had declared they had a half-load of ammo, only enough for a few seconds' worth of firing. Lining the Tomcat up on a head on pass at the small flotilla, he weaved side to side as he dropped altitude, before thumbing the weapon release at St. Helen's word. Four of the Mk.82's dropped from the underside of the swing-wing jet, the tail fins springing open and guiding them down to bracket another pair of the hovercraft with precision. The 500lb bombs blasted great spouts of dirty, smoky water into the sky as they impacted and the craft turned into smoking wrecks. Kicking the twin rudders port, and the wings fully extended, the targeting crosshairs drifted onto a pair of the AAV amphibious APC's. Tracers ripped through the air around the Super-Tomcat, and St. Helen let out an involuntary gasp of momentary alarm over the intercom, before Scott squeezed the trigger for the rockets. Projectiles flashed out in a rapid whoosh-whoosh-whoosh, drawing smoky grey trails across the sky. Gouts of water blasted skyward, and hits were marked with columns of erupting smoke, before Scott heeled the Tomcat up into a climbing bank, rolling half inverted and reversing the turn as he climbed out to evade any SAMs he hadn't seen or registered. "Shit hot!" hollered St. Helen over the intercom, turning in her seat to observe the damage. "We gave 'em a bloody nose that time! That Kat girl sure knows her shit too!" Scott clicked the mike in reply as he rolled out to form up with Kat for their next pass. Below the jets, the invasion force lay in disarray. Most of the hovercraft were sunk or damaged, and the APC's had fared little better. Above them, the MiG-35's rolled to attack Stalin once again, the rearmost of the pair attempting to peel off and reverse the tail Charnel had, trying to turn the tables. The leader of the pair heard a good tone as he aligned his crosshairs with the Sukhoi, and let fly with a missile. Below, Scott rolled onto Kat's wing after climbing out. "We hit 'em hard. Only a few left. One more pass ought to finish it, but we need to watch out for those helo's. And this time they'll be waiting for us too!"

Kat tilted Twilight slightly, so she could look at Scott through their windshields as she said "You think they wanna tangle with two jets after seeing us tear through their forces on all fronts? I'm saving the rest of my SUUs' ammo for the choppers." She saluted cockily before tapping her airbrakes, letting Twilight fall back a bit from Scott's wing. She was fully aware of her weapon's lack of accuracy, but she wasn't going to be at sniping range, and it wasn't like she was an escort to Scott anyway... "Last time I'm gonna tell you, freak!" Raymond was yelling at her "Keep that slow wreak of a plane outta my way or I'll take you down myself!" "Yeah? I wanna see that fat hunk of metal you call an aircraft make anything resembling a turn to do it!" Kat shot back through her headset. It was only a training exercise in escorting a cargo plane, but this pilot was riding on the fumes of Kat's patience. What did he want? A kissass girl who fell to his every whim? Last she checked she was paid outside the payroll of whatever company this guy was working with. She was literally only there for the money to train this jerk in working with his escorts. Which, she had heard down the grapevine, is because he was hated by every last one of his peers. "Now shut it and fly, or I WILL fail you!" The feline pilot warned, falling back from the plane's head to watch from above... The memory came out of no where, and it made Kat chuckle. She had indeed failed the man, since he nearly crashed his aircraft into her multiple times with sudden tilts of his plane. She shook her head as she fell in with Scott for the second run on the enemy forces. God she had a terrible record in keeping her head in the game.

The engagement was under control in Dmitry's perspective, he's got the attention of the two fighters on the big fat Sukhoi flipping in the air like a thin sheet of rice paper. But it seemed that its famous high maneuverability would be soon put to test as the on-board missile alert blared inside the cockpit, Dmitry's first instinct was to release a salvo of flares to ward off the incoming missile; suspecting that it wouldn't be enough to shake off the fox tailing his jet, he pulled the stick hard and tensed his whole body as his fighter plane lowered its nose to plunge towards the waters below, followed by a hard pull to level with the sea once again, coming dangerously close to a stall. The pilot felt the forces push him hard, blood pouring into his brain to the point that he felt a slight headache building quickly somewhere behind his eyes. The G's weren't enough to have him hiccup for air, but he definitely felt a fat elephant comfortably sitting in his lap during the maneuver. He determined the success of his dodging attempt by acknowledging that he was still alive, only noticing the absence of the alarm afterwards; the ordeal was yet to be finished, he still had to fight off two modern MiG's, maybe score another kill. He realized that he was under his enemy at that point, a very dangerous place to be should the one jet still following him decide to open cannon fire on his expensive fighter ass. He waited no more and pulled diagonally in order to bank to the left and ascend at the same time; he shot his head upwards to try and find who was chasing him and as soon as he realized that one of the MiG's went after Charnel, Dmitry decided to take a potshot at his own target then try to intervene in the other dogfight. He kept his bearing enough to give time to his tail to catch up to him and once he was sure that the bandit was nearby, he killed the thrust in an instant and pushed the nose of the jet down for a few seconds, then pulled back up to align with the passing fighter; he only needed a few more seconds to properly center and match the reticles and unleash his fury. "Guns, guns, guns." He announced through the comms as he closely tailed the fighter. Then began a quick fight for supremacy, Dmitry doing his best to keep himself locked at the hind of the fighter until he had a clear lock-on tone. "Fox-three, fox-three!" With the squeeze of a button, a white dart shot from the side, leaving a contrail as it started cruising towards the target. He let the AA-12 Adder annoy the fighter and disengaged, not being too confident that it would actually hit its mark, but it would at least keep the bandit busy for enough time for him to engage the MiG chasing Charnel. Dmitry readjusted the direction of his aircraft and darted towards his colleague and as soon as he spotted the two, he immediately fell in to catch the fighter from a sweet angle and rain hell on them. "Charnel, be advised, I am hitting your bandit, careful on your fox and guns." Dmitry carefully watched the movement of his fellow Knight to determine when to jump the MiG and once the occasion arrived, he quickly banked and rolled to keep his nose pointed at the assailant and began the harassment. "Guns." He curtly announced every time he managed to get a lock on their target, having to loop a few times to catch a few more opportunities of engagement; he still didn't know if the other fighter was still in the air, so he remained fully alert and ready to counteract.

Scott tipped an imaginary hat to Kat as he formed up alongside the A-10, nodding to her. She followed his lead and held in good formation with the ASF-14 as they skirted a wide circled around the remaining amphibious forces, that were now well on alert for the prowling Black Knights

"You think they wanna tangle with two jets after seeing us tear through their forces on all fronts? I'm saving the rest of my SUUs' ammo for the choppers."

"I think we definitely shook their cage a little. I reckon we'll have a bit more of a contest running in next time, but they don't have much left to throw at us after our first run. I'll bracket up the other choppers with my Sidewinders and Vulcan on the run out too, if you're taking the others with your guns. We'll go in together for the last run; they won't have a chance to reorganize that way, and less chance to shoot at us too, over". St Helen read off the headings to both attacker pilots, and Scott lead the way, putting power into the ASF-14's powerful engines, the wings part-sweeping back in reaction to the increase in speed and power. A steep descending weave, zig-zagging to low altitude, and he was lined up on the last of the Hovercraft, leaving the APC's for Kat's A-10 and its' more accurate firepower. "Knight one is on the hovercraft, over," he confirmed to her, before letting loose with another volley of rockets at the leading BHT of the pair, and rippling off the last of the bombs onto the second. Then he was over and pulling up, the airframe resounding with a thunk as at least a few rounds of small-arms or heavy-machinegun fire found a home in the Tomcast grey-camouflaged fuselage. The cockpit resounded with the harsh buzzing of a hostile lock-on from the helicopters, who had positioned themselves wisely - unfortunately for them, Scott's piloting was better, and the ASF-14 considerably faster. He pulled up hard enough to have grey spots dancing at the edge of his eyes, and a small rhino standing on his chest, before tipping the wing over and sliding into a downward dive onto a pair of the remaining helos from above. The hot exhaust and the leading edges of the rotors were enough heat for the AIM-9's super-cooled seeker heads. The target in his helmets' targeting visor blinked red with a lock, and the warble of a good tone sounded. "Fox Two!" he called twice into the radio, squeezing the trigger under his finger. His left hand danced on the throttle, and he cued up the second sidewinder as he shifted target, the helmet-mounted targeting system easily letting him shift over to the second aircraft. The pair of sidewinders leapt off the rails, drawing white plumes across the skies, and then Scott was pulling up and out of the dive, the planes' hull and canopy glittering with reflected sunlight as he swept upward. Meanwhile, above the over-water skirmish, the twisting dogfight in the morning skies was growing deadly. Dmitry's instincts and movements were sound, and the MiG on his tail overshot, despite his thrust-vectoring, as the bigger Sukhoi pulled up and left. The red-and-white twin-tailed fighter tried to nose around to bring his own guns to bear on the bigger jet, but the Black Knight pilot got there first.

"Guns, guns, guns." He announced through the comms as he closely tailed the fighter

30mm rounds from the Sukhoi's gun slammed into the portside wing of the MiG-35, and threw out a stream of debris and smoke into the airstream, shaking and jolting the soviet-built fighter violently as the pilot tried to regain control. To his credit, he attempted to evade as the lock-on tone sounded, but with a damaged wing, there was no chance. The missile shot off the rail, and as the AA-11 closed in, the canopy of the fighter blasted into the air, with the pilot close behind before his aircraft was engulfed in a fireball. The MiG-35 trailing Charnel had closed in for the kill. As the Tornado F.3 loomed large in his sights, he let fly with an AA-11 of his own, the short-range heatseeker angling in for a kill on the swing-wing jet. The MiG pilot was canny and aware, however - as soon as he'd fired the missile, he weaved aside, and came in at a new angle, avoiding target fixation and frustrating Dmitry's attempts to shoot him down with gunfire. With the other pilot now on him and his wingman down, the MiG dived for the deck and extended, increasing his speed and running back in the direction he'd come. "Bandit is running," announced the ground controller moments later. "Most of the enemy assault force is sunk, and aircraft over the island are mostly under control. We're gaining the upper hand- wait one," she announced, her tone changing to one of caution and shock. "Target running a low level - no wait, second target high altitude, rapid speed... ALL AIRCRAFT, BRACE FOR IMP-" From the Black Knights' perspective, a glimmering star fell at rapid pace from high above, drawing a white line in its' wake across the clear, blue morning skies. It dipped somewhere below the mountain range that split the island down its' length, opposite side from the four pilots, and there was a thunderous explosion that shook the air itself, and threw debris up into the air, along with a titanic spout of water that began to cascade back down as rain. The radio was full of chatter as questions flew across the airwaves, and reports of casualties and crises began to report in. What little of the enemy remained began to turn back and run. Scott's voice broke onto the Black Knights' intra-squadron channel a moment later. "That... that was a kinetic kill weapon. From orbit. Whoever we're fighting has access to one... but why did they target us? And why when they had an invasion underway... what the hell is going on here... All aircraft," he continued, finding the stern-ness back in his force as he shook his head, sliding his visor back up his helmet. "Report status and check in. We'd better overfly the island and see if there's anything we can do to assist with the SAR, and be ready for any hostiles... over"

Rodriguez took a big yawn and exhaled, un-popping his ear drums what seemed to have been the twentieth time as he sat in the cooped up and pressurized cockpit of his F-16V. Of course it was a rough guess; he wasn't really keeping too close of attention to the clear reflexes of his current state of boredom as there wasn't anything really to treat the drowsiness aside from keeping his fighter in the air. The fact that he had been flying for a good four hours with hardly any satisfying wiggle room didn't help either. It was times like this he wished he was on an actual combat mission; it was simply easier to focus and stay awake that way. He had begun his morning waking up excessively early at around 3 o’ clock, grabbing some much needed coffee and getting briefed for a couple minutes on his patrol routes. The majority on his time on earth was going through the usual pre-flight checks to ensure full functionality of his aircraft with an equally tired maintenance crew. With so many flights on his belt, it was practically a routinely second nature; testing the throttle, checking the rudder, the elevators, and then bother flaps and ailerons and a multitude of system and functionality checks. Though it was highly unlikely, his aircraft was armed with a Vulcan full of lead, a couple of AIM-7s and a full under wing set of IRIS-Ts that made him feel right at home even though he doubted there would have been any use for them. The early hours of the morning over Thunder Island and the Bahamas was still a dark one without the sun’s rising light to illuminate the sky. Because of this, he had to rely on his night vision systems and goggles in order to fly through the natural darkness. But he had to admit that flying over the sea with no artificial light and clear sky made the morning worth it as the stars above him glittered with radiance, making up the constellations and the galaxy above him. Sad unfortunately that it was the only thing worth looking at before the sun came up and blurred out the millions of tiny lights from space. With nine tenths of his patrol already completed, his tilled his F-16V toward Thunder Island after circling the surrounding territory with no troubles at all. Or so he thought. After the island came into a close enough view, Rodriguez couldn't help but notice the several tiny specks flying over the island at high speed before pulling up. It was an unusual sight going by their westbound vectors and didn't exactly make sense what they were doing. Even stranger that the tower had not advised him of any scheduled flights either. He soon found out why. Just as soon as the unknown planes quickly gained altitude did one of the cliffside SAM sites vanish into a violent plume of fire. It was only seconds later did the echoing blast reached him as knock on his aircraft. It became quickly apparent to him that there was an attack going on. Frustration by the fact that he had cleared the area those bandits came from hours ago compelled him to bank into a hard left turn directly towards the base and hit the afterburners. Unfortunately the fact settled in that he was nearing low on fuel from his patrol and using the afterburners would easily sap the rest of his reserves on top of the additional case once more he was still at least fifteen minutes out; an irritating setback. “Tower to Warrior Three, Spirit, we’re currently facing an emergency situation. The airfield and surrounding assets are currently under fire from unknown aircraft. Abort patrol mission and return to base for immediate combat tasking, over.” They don’t have to tell me twice thought Rodriguez as he strapped his oxygen mask over his mouth, knowing that was about to increase the throttle. “Roger tower, Warrior Three, Spirit, copies, returning to base immediately. I’ll get there as fast as I can, out.” With the applied throttle, Rodriguez quickly felt the g-forces staking into his chest as he flew back to Thunder Island as fast as he could without using what little reserves he had. Observing the escalating situation from afar, he could see additional specks taking off into the sky to engage. Tracer fire and missiles filled the already smoke polluted skies. Whether it would have been considered a good or a bad thing, it was certain that he was late to the party. After an agonizing few minutes, he had finally begun to fly over the first cliff face of the island and already identified a Mig in his sights. But before he could even vector on the escaping aircraft, a bright light from the heavens itself caught his attention, causing him to cover his eyes with a free hand he could spare. In an instant, the light crashed into the earth with blinding speed and velocity. The impact was tremendous and powerful; an immense tower of dust and debris lunged from the mountain range into the air as shock waves from the blast shook all the surrounding natural elements. Rodriguez’s own fighter nearly flung out of control until he eventually got the aircraft under his power once more. Thoughts raced into his mind as he scrambled with the radio which was now giving off a weak buzz into his earpiece. “C’mon dammit…” he growled as he fought with the radio before getting a clear feed on all the channels he could acquire. “Warrior Three requesting status check from Tower or any available units, over.” He heard his own voice through his earpiece and cringed, knowing that part of his broadcast also came with static, distorting the broadcast; his communications equipment must have been damaged from the blast. Rodriguez could only hope that he could make contact with someone and hear their voice clear enough to organize with.

Alarms blared and Charnel swore, both in his native tongue of English and in his acquired tongue of Italian, the two mixing together to form somewhat of an artistically drawn out oath. He silently prayed that his radio was off transmit as he jumped into action, throttling up he folded the wings of the jet all the way back and took her into a sharp turn away from the island, his breathing beneath his mask becoming labored as his suit tightened and the blood rushed from his head. As he did this Charnel released his own countermeasures, the flairs jumping away from his jet, their light blazing even in the morning sun. Pulling out of the turn Marciano poured on the speed to gain some distance as the alarms began to fade, indicating the missile had taken had taken the bait of the flairs. He was about to cut speed when it hit, the shockwave making the Hound fishtail a bit, as Marciano renewed his swearing. Cutting speed he unfolded his wings and banked back towards base, a look of astonishment making its presence known beneath the mask and visor.

"That... that was a kinetic kill weapon. From orbit. Whoever we're fighting has access to one... but why did they target us? And why when they had an invasion underway... what the hell is going on here... All aircraft," he continued, finding the stern-ness back in his force as he shook his head, sliding his visor back up his helmet. "Report status and check in. We'd better overfly the island and see if there's anything we can do to assist with the SAR, and be ready for any hostiles... over"

"Such a specialized weapon, and not a cheap one." Marciano thought to himself, he recalled a magazine article about the weapons a few months back, he had paid it very little thought until know. Still he had a job, and he began to transmit "This is Charnel, im alive and well and carrying a decent compliment. Im falling in, but will keep an eye out for those bandits that peeled off." He hoped his voice didn't sound to shaky, to be brutally honest the idea of what just happened still felt foreign to him, in an unnerving sort of way. Somewhat blaming the adrenalin, Charnel continued to bank, bringing himself into a following pattern behind the squadron leader

Kat let out a quick laugh at the notion of compitition. "Ten bucks says I don't get a single bullet in my fuselage!" She shot back before tipping Twilight's nose down to follow Scott's dive. She didn't have fancy lock-on missiles, since usually her load was meant to decimate tanks and soft bodies of infantry, but against the freezing waves, the tops of the ships seemed like beacons to her heat-seeking Mavs. "Fox Three." She reported over the radio as she let loose her third maverick, before pulling up and listening as her missile exploded, tearing the last APC to shreds. Grinning, she was gaining altitude when she heard enemies were retreating. Kat punched the air and yelped with victory, which could be heard over the radio rather clearly. "An' now it's t-" She started to say, only to hear an explosion inland. Tilting her plane to get a better view, Kat saw now the bloom of dirt and smoke over the island. "Kat reporting in." She responded to the summons, noting with a bit of distress her fuel gauge nearing empty. "Twilight's got about ten minutes of fly-time left. The trip across the sea took a lot out of her, and the combat didn't help. I can scout as I angle for a landing, but that's about it without risking a drop from the sky."

Chaos descended on the radio, as surviving ground, naval and air units all tried to establish contact with HQ and ask for clarification on what happened. Everything went silent as a stentorian, authoritative male voice cut across the channel. "This is AWACS Stormfront, I'm taking over traffic control while the tower gets back online. Everyone calm down and prioritise! The chain of command is still intact, and commanders will be in touch momentarily. Thunder Island avoided a direct hit - the Kinetic Strike hit the ocean a couple of miles off-shore. The resulting tidal impact and the concussion caused a lot of damage, but the water is already receding. Once damage crews clear the debris, we should be able to start recovering planes. The civilians are mostly fine - Civil Defence got them to the shelters as soon as the attack began, so we should be looking at low casualties for the civilians. Our casualties on the ground are still coming in. Now, all pilots pay attention and listen for your orders..." The AWACS controller began to direct and divert aircraft according to their situation, dealing with everything calmly yet swiftly. The controller was evidently expert at his job; he seemed to know the fuel levels of each squadron by heart, and was able to organize everyone effectively. Shortly, he came to deal with the Black Knights, and included Rodriguez in the conversation too. "Black Knights, Warrior Three. Spirit, Viper, and Viking; you are all directed to join up with the Black Knights as per your previous briefing - only now, it's at a bit more short notice. Rendezvous with them, and proceed on heading nine-zero for handover to the Stormcloud, which will be coming on station. Further orders will be forthcoming once you reach the carrier. Thunderbolt One will be there in person to deliver your orders, I've been assured" Scott glanced at St. Helen in the mirror, who returned the surprised look - Thunderbolt One was no other than General Dylan Thomas, the founder and head-honcho of Thunderbolt Black himself. If he had a mission to deliver, it must be important. "Roger, Stormfront. Wilco. Break. Spirit, Viper, Viking: welcome to the Black Knights. Shame it had to be under these circumstances. Your callsigns will be Knights Five through Seven. All aircraft, come onto heading nine-zero and altitude Angels Twenty. Slot into formation, and we'll head for the boat". Scott set the Super Tomcat into a gentle climb, curling the aircraft in a light bank toward the heading. He unstrapped his oxygen mask as he did so, taking a moment to get a sip of water from the small flask in his thigh pocket at the same time. Beside him, St. Helen did the same, leaning back from the radar scope and rubbed her eyes, looking out of the canopy for a few moments, before shifting in her seat too, as they waited for the others to join them in a strung-out staggered line formation. Miles passed under their wings, in the distance other islands of the Bahamas were visible, slipping away, until slowly but surely the wake of the Stormcloud, the giant trimaran aircraft carrier of Thunderbolt Black, and her escorting flotilla of support ships became visible. The deck was busy as aircraft orphaned by the attack on the base landed and recovered, while others refuelled from airborne tankers. The controller came on the channel and directed them into the pattern, and all too soon it was their chance to land. "This is Knight One," Scott announced. "I'll head in for landing, everyone else land in trail. See you on the deck". Scott set the ASF-14 up for the approach for the carriers' wide rear deck. The gear dropped and locked into place, the tailhook following suit. Brakes and flaps extended, wings fully out. All lights checked green, and everything prepped. Scott carefully rode the throttle and gauges, St. Helen serving as a second pair of eyes and a coaxing voice as he dropped the aircraft closer to the gently moving carrier deck in the controlled crash that was a carrier landing. Despite the relatively slow speed, the deck of the ship rushed up at his plane, and then with a jarring thump the plane hit the deck. The hook caught the second wire, and both of them were slammed forward in their seats with the sudden, jarring deceleration. Almost immediately the Tomcat was waved aside, and Scott fed power into the engines to taxi out of the path of the landing aircraft, the Tomcats' wings sliding back to full sweep as the big jet moved aside. Once the jet was shut down, the crew pulled and pushed it into place. Scott and St. Helen unstrapped and unfastened themselves with the help of the deck crew, before clambering down from the cockpit to the deck. "Let's hope the others make it down," said St. Helen, tossing her hair free of the helmet and tucking it under one arm. "Fingers crossed," Scott replied. "But given what we've seen out of them so far, I have no doubts they can all manage it. Although - I have no idea about Spirit and the other two. Let's see what they're made of. Good to have the others with us. After everything that happened, I was worried they might've been caught on the ground, or shot down". Both of them stood well out of the way, and trained their eyes toward the skies, and looked to pick out the shape of the next approaching plane.

Dmitry unconsciously exhaled a sigh of relief seeing that his efforts paid off in the end as he caught the other MiG retreating fast from the fight; having some room to breathe, he brought his own jet to a leveled and much more relaxed cruising speed, while searching for the other target he tried to take down. He didn't get a fix on any other fast-mover, but he did see a parachute floating its way to splash into the blue waters, so he could only assume that it was the MiG pilots. He couldn't determine who downed the enemy jet since he couldn't spot the remains of the MiG, but he it could have been either him, either Charnel or a third fighter that just joined the conflict; it was an F-16 charging straight for the fleeing enemy fighter, thus, Dmitry assumed that it had to be on their side. Taking advantage of the brief moment of relaxation, the Su pilot checked in with Marciano through the comms, his voice giving away his enthusiasm of today's outcome: "Dobre, Charnel, one bandit down, the other one's going back to momma's skirts. 'Ey I never caught your na-" A bright flash of light illuminated the cockpit as a star seemed to cut the skies in half as it crashed straight into Thunder Island, the resulting shock wave was strong enough to cause a perceivable turbulence, which Dmitry briefly fought off with a wiggle of his control stick. Fuckin' smart peasants he cursed to himself while he banked around to get a better view of what just happened and assess the damage done to the base; it was unbelievable that someone had such a grudge that they would launch a cruising missile and an invasion force against them. As he took a few moments to think for himself about what happened, he interpreted the whole ordeal as a warning message with a debilitating punch. The radio became a mess of panicked voices, Dmitry was trying to catch the frequency the Black Knights used and just managed to understand the nature of the weapon used to slam the waters; now, he didn't know if this attack was indeed a message or if it was a deadly threat towards the integrity of the company. He tried not to let dark thoughts cloud his judgement, even if shock had him mostly frozen and immobilized in his seat. It took him a while to reanimate and instead concentrated on trying to find the leader of the new squadron he was assigned to and fall in line, but soon realized that all he had to do was follow his fellow pilot to catch up and take place in the formation. "Stalin, reporting in. Really long day ahead, I feel. I say we go back home, debrief and I buy you all a drink, da?" The rest of the flight, he remained silent and took a moment to actually wind down and loose some of the tension that came from the dogfight. He took off his oxygen mask to sigh loudly and stretch as much as he could in the cramped cockpit. He followed the squadron until they closed in with the carrier they were supposed to land on, thus, Dmitry reduced the throttle down to 85% in preparation to hit the deck and come to a full stop. The first to go was the squadron leader, which landed successfully and taxied out of the way. He thought it would be best if he was next to land, since he had to delicately steer a 15 meters wide and 22 meters long jet on a carrier's deck without slamming into it or scrape other parked aircrafts on its deceleration. "This is Stalin, coming in hot in a Russian Wardrobe." He declared to the carrier's comms tower. He made sure everything was in place: flaps extended, landing gears deployed, brakes on, nose up, hook extended and throttle at landing speed. He lined himself perfectly with the angled runway and tried to fly as accurate as he could to catch the first wire, fighting with the plane itself to get the sweet spot; he carrier's deck almost instantly appeared beneath him and, with high amounts of luck, the hook snagged on the first wire, which caused the whole plane to stop from its dizzying speed after a few more meters of sliding down the deck. Dmitry felt himself pushed out of his seat as the jet was pulled back by the wire to completely halt its movement and once he came to a full stop, he thanked his luck, drew an imaginary cross and immediately pulled the hook back up and rolled away to the side of the carrier to park his large Su wherever the crewmen pointed him to. Once he was fitted in his own corner of the deck and securely pinned his jet into place, Dmitry got out of the cockpit and allowed himself to stretch again, grunting as he felt his articulations loosen up after being stuck to a place for long enough to feel stiff. Now what? he asked himself, even though he knew the answer to that question already. Keeping as far away as he could from the runway, the pilot walked down the deck at a moderate pace as he tried to kick out the nervousness of meeting his new squadron leader; on the radio, he felt that the man was thrice as nice as any of his other squadron leaders could ever have been, still, he preferred to remain skeptic until he was proven wrong. Finally being out of the Sukhoi, Dmitry had a brief moment of clarity in which he rewound today's chain of events that lead to him ending up on a carrier; everything played out so smoothly he didn't have the time to seriously question the situation he just ended up in, let alone thinking of the people on the island, the base and the laptop back in his bed he was SURE he forgot to charge again. His thoughts were quickly wiped out of his mind as he made contact with the Intruder he believed to be the same with the one he flew, confirming to himself that once he recognized the decal. Meeting up with the two pilots, the man gave them an involuntary toothy grin before he shook it off his face and instead formally saluted both Scott and St. Helen. "Dmitry Aleksei Novikoff, codename Stalin, at your service and it is an honor to be part of your squadron. Dobroho ranku, good morning. Uh-" he threw a glance over his shoulder at the next aircraft to land on the carrier to see if it would land safely or if it had to loop around for another attempt. "Actually, a pretty bad fucking morning, da? Glad everyone is OK."

"Get off of me!" A voice rang out from a small group of crewmen, as a short pilot threw her helmet onto the deck. The crewmen backed off, though one pressed on, motioning toward her head, where a bloody gash was dripping. "It's fine. Nothing I can't handle," the pilot said, holding a rag against the gash. The plane she was walking from appeared to be a Boeing F-15E, but the jet was riddled in holes and blackened across the back of the fuselage. The Eagle was in bad shape. "Now someone better tell me where my goddamn F-2 is. I was told it wasn't ready to fly, so it better be pretty fucking important. 6.25.15 7:46 AM "Listen, your F-2 is still in the repair deck. There was something wrong with th-" Misaki cut the technician off with a glare. "I seriously do not give a damn," she said, staring down the much larger man, "I need a jet, and I need to be in the air, right now. Now give me something. I don't care what it is as long as it flies." Misaki looked around the hangar. In all honesty, it really did matter what cockpit she was in, but that couldn't be helped right now. Out of the corner of her vision, Misaki spotted a Thunderbolt Black marked F-15E. It was close enough. "See that Eagle over there? I'm claiming it for this scenario. Put it on my record, it doesn't matter." The small pilot jogged across the hangar, nodding to the crew surrounding it. The jet was already outfitted with Sparrows and AMRAAMs. Good enough. Misaki jumped onto the fuselage and crawled into the cockpit. All of the dials seemed familiar enough. She hadn't flown in one of these since she was in the USAF. She shrugged, "Old habits die hard, right?" she muttered to herself. The crew had scattered, and the jet began rolling out onto the runway. Most of the other planes had taken to the air already, which left Misaki in the front of the line. "Tower, this is Viper. I'm commandeering this Eagle 'cause some jackasses decided to put off my F-2 in the repair bay. I'm heading out now." Without really paying attention to what came from the radio from here on out, the Eagle jolted forward, picking up speed as it took flight. Misaki took the plane up, trying to get a handle on the situation. Without much warning, bullets flew over the aircraft, snapping the pilot back into reality. Shaking her head, Misaki watched the skies. It looked like two bandits were tailing what loo- No, one just went down. The other appeared to be retreating. She sighed, trying to find a target. This got interrupted by her jet shaking her brain loose. "Fuck!" she yelled, looking for the culprit. Her sensor started beeping, marking a locked missile, which resulted in an eye-rolling. "This couldn't get any worse, could it," Misaki mused, taking the Eagle into a nosedive. The pilot jerked the jet back level, releasing flares behind it. Too close. The missile detonated directly behind the Eagle, causing Misaki's head to slam against the cockpit. She felt the helmet dig into her head. Too pumped by adrenaline to care, she gritted her teeth and swung wide toward the ocean, and tightened mid-turn, attempting to get the bandit in her sights. It appeared to be another MiG. Misaki pulled the trigger, and the vulcan whirred to life, spewing bullets at the other jet. Some connected with the fuselage, but nothing major. Even with just minor damage, the MiG split from the dogfight, beginning to retreat. "You're not going anywhere, bitch," Misaki whispered as the console notified her of a target lock. Another trigger pull, and an AMRAAM fired, the missile tracking the MiG. Without paying attention, Misaki pulled away. Not a minute later, a shockwave shook the Eagle, the radio dying, with static filling Misaki's ears. She pulled away from the base, waiting for the radio to cooperate.

"-ight Five. All aircraft, come onto heading nine-zero and altitude Angels Twenty. Slot into formation, and we'll head for the boat."

That sounded promising. Misaki set for the direction and headed to what she hoped to be an organized meeting.

"This is Viking... Coming in for a touchdown!" The voice of a battered man spoke over the radio as a Purple-colored F15C approached the Stormcloud, it's battle-damaged fuselage attempting to lower it's tail hook and gear as it came upon the large boat- all the while the blaring noise of the Annunciator panel was blaring at him . The Eagle's engines were smoking badly and it was a question to him if he would manage to touch down without buying the farm "-And he goes all the way!" Austin to himself as he felt the 16 ton bird slam into the Trimaran's deck,the fighter managing to hook the last wire, stopping the hunk of metal from almost dead in it's tracks. Oh god, was it an eventful day, he thought, as he got the clear to taxi. Earlier that day.... "Hey, Austin, what took you so-" "No time for extended formality, Johnson, This is urgent!" Austin spoke sternly as the pilot jogged passed the head technician as the sirens wailed aloud outside the hangar, the man already in gear as he approached his Eagle "I don't even get to see my kids off to preschool like I promised I would today, and some dickwads want to come and attack the island! What do I got today?" "We don't got that many Ords left, 4 Sidewinders and 2 AMRAAMS." "How much on the 20 mil?" "700 rounds, and you got about 6 hours on fuel!". "That's why I like you, Johnson, you're down to the point!" Viking gave him a small smirk as he climbed into the cockpit, adjusting his suit as his helmet lay in his lap "Hey, if anything happens to my twins I will personally hold you responsible for not giving me enough Dakka to fight back with!". The tech smiled back and gave him a curt nod, removing the blocks from the front of the wheels as he started to roll out onto the tarmac, Canopy closing as he tightened his Helmet to his head. "Tower this is Viking, Coming to assist with defense!" Everything in the next 15 or so minutes seemed to fog up in his mind, the young man to wrapped up in his own thoughts that it seemed his sub-conscious took control as his mind discussed things. it was only until what looked like a star came crashing down to earth, blinding the man momentarily. "Woah,Woah!" He spoke into the channel, quickly grabbing the stick and pulling up as he felt himself starting to dive "What the hell just happened!". It was to his relief that the AWACS and Knight One answered his question quickly, which allowed him to stabilize and look around. And that's when the warning popped up. "Warning, Missile Lock!" Said the all familiar voice that every pilot dreaded. "Shit!" Austin quickly deployed his countermeasures, banking left as he attempted to get a fix on his enemy. To no avail, He got another one. This dance of Death continued for what seemed like forever. "Run out of missiles, yet!?" He asked himself, attempting to break off from the fight once more, getting a short burst of 20mm straight to the back of his Eagle, causing him to hit the canopy as he felt something combust. The fire warning lit up, lighting up both engines as he pulled back hard. This wasn't his lucky day, was it? Actually, it would seem that it was. as Viking attempted to stabilize his bird he looked into the rear mirrors on the canopy, catching a glimpse of a friendly F/A-18 lighting the bandit-whom turned out to be another F15- into a ball of fire. "Thanks, almost bit the dust!" "No problem, I think that the taxpayers deserve a little more work!". >Roger, Stormfront. Wilco. Break. Spirit, Viper, Viking: welcome to the Black Knights. Shame it had to be under these circumstances. Your callsigns will be Knights Five through Seven. All aircraft, come onto heading nine-zero and altitude Angels Twenty. Slot into formation, and we'll head for the boat< As he heard the voice of Knight One speaking the young man started to turn into heading, keeping tight hold of the stick to keep himself level. "Viking here, my bird has taken some hits...will comply as fragged!"

“Work you piece of crap!” Rodriguez yelled out the malfunctioning radio that continued to give its pilot problems, regardless of his attempts to compensate its settings. Not long after his initial broadcast for a sitrep, his communication equipment screeched in static defiance, further drowning out any radio chatter he was able to briefly obtain. Rodriguez was clearly in an emergency situation with no chain-of-command to report to; in fact everyone lucky enough to survive the impact was in disarray and with the control tower out of commission, he was left to his own devices in a sky filled with other planes and fighters wanting desperately to land. Frustration finally overtook him as he punched his radio equipment with rage induced poison coming out of his mouth. [static]...is AWACS Stormfront, I'm taking over traffic control while the tower gets…[static]...online. Everyone calm down and prioritize! The chain of command is still intact, and commanders will be in touch momentarily. Thu...[static]...Island avoided a direct hit - the Kinetic Strike hit the ocean a couple of miles off-shore. The resulting tidal...[static]...concussion caused a lot of damage, but the water is already receding. Once damage crews clear the debris, we should be able to start recovering planes. The civilians are mostly fine - Civil Defence got them to the shelters as soon as the attack began, so we should be looking at low casualties for the civilians. Our casualties on the ground...[static]...coming in. Now, all pilots pay attention and listen for your orders..." Rodriguez blinked as the transmission from Stormfront patched into his radio, giving everyone their orders during this crisis. He could feel his cheek heating up, sensing the embarrassing possibility he had cursed over the radio on all channels. Though he was relieved to get someone’s voice to finally come through despite the fits of static, it still looked unprofessional and all around bad. "Black Knights, Warrior Three. Spirit, Viper, and Viking; you are all directed to join up wit...[static]...Black Knights as per your previous briefing - only now, it's at a bit more short notice. Rendezvous with them, and proceed on heading nine-zero for handover to the Stormcloud, which will be coming on station. Further orders will be...[static]...once you reach the carrier. Thunderbolt One will be there in person to deliver your orders, I've been assured." With orders now given to him, Rodriguez quickly refortified himself and took command of his fighter once more with purpose. “Roger, Stormfront. Warrior Three, complying. Heading over to Black Knights Squadron now.” It didn’t take him long to locate the squadron that was combating the invaders what seemed like minutes ago. The squadron was comprised of different aircraft such as a large Su-35, a rather colorful A-10, an intimidating-looking Tornado, and finally an somewhat aged-appearing F-14 leading the pack ahead of the planes. “Roger, Stormfront. Wilco. Break. Spirit, Viper, Viking: welcome to the Black Knights. Shame it had to be under these circumstances. Your callsigns will be Knights Five through Seven. All aircraft, come onto heading nine-zero and altitude Angels Twenty. Slot into formation, and we'll head for the boat". Rodriguez maneuvered his F-16 into the combing fold of the squadron, positioning himself at the wing of the Su-35 that held the position to the wing of the F-14, assuming its pilot was Knight One. “Warrior Three, Spirit. Assuming role as Knight Five. Glad to be on board. Apologies for any static.” he replied just has he formed up with the united squadron that had now welcomed two recently beat-up F-15s into the mix. It was silent trip toward the Stormcloud and not surprising considering what everyone had experienced; first a surprise attack by unknown forces and then a Kinetic Strike on top of that as well. Questions were probably boiling over by now, like who were the attackers? What was the purpose of the attack in the first place? A rival PMC? Or probably the most dreading one of all; who the hell has a satellite capable of orbital strikes in their pocket? Eventually they would get their answers soon; Rodriguez left those thoughts alone as he focused on keeping his fighter in air. Once the carrier came into view, everyone took their positions in line to land on the Stormcloud. Knight One of course had first dibs and landed his F-14 without any issues. Seeing as though the Su-35's wingspan and airframe was undoubtedly larger than anyone else's in the squadron, the pilot of that fighter took the opportunity and landed their plane on the tarmac gracefully. Next were the two F-15s from earlier that begun their landing phase. Considering the battle damage to the fighters, they of course deserved some immediate attention. This only left him and two other planes left. Seeing as though he was further ahead, he took his turn and entered the carrier's landing corridor. This part felt very familiar to him; during the war before Allied forces pushed deep into Korea and Russia, Rodriguez commonly operated on carriers for a good few years before his station shifted to an airbase on land for the wide duration of the conflict. With directions given by the control tower, his F-16 dropped altitude with the landing gear and tailhook already deployed and the flaps and brakes extended. With everything else appearing ready and okay, Rodriguez brought the plane's nose up and controlled the throttle, watching the carrier's tarmac drawing closer and closer until it was underneath him. As he planned it, the tailhook snagged hold of the first arresting gear wire without any issues aside from the sudden halt of momentum naturally pushing forward in his seat. To make way for additional planes, the carrier crews quickly got his fighter taxied out of the runway and into one of the vacant corners on the deck. With the current situation at hand, Rodriguez couldn't help but feel sorry for the deck hands working their butts off as they got all the personnel and fighters quickly sorted and organised based on their individual conditions and mission priorities. Eventually, the F-16 powered down completely as Rodriguez unfastened himself from the planes safety restraints and climbed out of his fighter. He stretched back and joints out when he finally touched the deck with his boots after being in the air for several hours; it was good of course to finally move around freely. Getting his bearings figured out of the deck, he made his past the every busy personnel, especially the senior staff who pointed him the direction to his compatriots once they saw him. He soon found three of the squadron's pilots grouped up together with one of them giving a salute to which Rodriguez assumed that the other two were piloting the F-14 and thus determined that one of them was Knight One. Going by names given by the staff, he was reporting to Scott Valentine and St. Helen Carter to which he was able to associate the names with the face of the two pilots he begun to approach. Coming up behind the third man in the party, he the finally presented himself. "Knight One I assume?" Rodriguez asked before saluting the pilots. "Rodriguez Hefferman; callsign Spirit reporting in. I'm afraid the circumstances of our meeting here were not under the best of terms."