A chorus of gentle, discordant, yet still musical birdsong drifted across the plains as dawn rose on the planet that had been dubbed 'Avalon' by its' human visitors.
Though alien, the sounds of the creatures had already become familiar over the months the Expeditionary Force from far-off Earth had been resident. And, much as the sounds of their own birds back home, they quickly became part of the backdrop to a community coming awake. In this case, they were lost among the sounds of a base being woken up. Power tools, engines turning on, announcements over PA speakers and shouting voices calling out time for morning exercises rose into the air of the plains, alongside the sounds of the town growing next door.
Amongst the rising sounds of life, on one of the bases' many byways and streets hurried one of the Expeditionary Forces' many pilots. Normally calm, collected, laid-back and cool he was instead flustered, hassled and alarmed.
He was late.
Major Ryan Kincaide was due to deliver a briefing to his squadron, his first as their newly-appointed commander. He knew their names, exactly what he had to brief them on, and had all of his notes prepared... he was just late, for a variety of piss-poor reasons.
This left him hustling down the bases' streets, byways and alleys, cutting corners to try and get to the briefing rooms in time.
His phone - the cell network at the base was small, and only recently set up - rang and he grumbled as he juggled his tablet compter and notes to reach the phone.
"Wassup," he growled into the phone as he dodged past a formation of marching marines, and pressed the phone to one ear.
"You're late," chided the voice of his WSO. "I hope you're on your way, don't want to make a bad impression for your new adoring fanbase".
"I'm doing the best I can, I'm virtually there," he lied as he skittered across the road in front of a Hummvee and jogged across a parking lot. The operations building was on the other side, and he shouldered through the door.
"You're a terrible liar," Diane replied with a smirk that carried into her voice. "In any case, I'll see you in a few minutes. I think they're all here. Hope the mission is at least a good one to make up for it".
She hung up, cutting him off from any snarky comebacks as he turned a corner, bumped into a female pilot who scowled at him, and then took a half-dozen turns, finding himself at the briefing room. Diane raised an eyebrow at him, and he glowered at the red-headed aviator as she opened the door with a smirk.
Ryan took a breath, and stepped in, straightening his back and pushing the flustered look off his face to replace with a sterner, more officious one.
"Ladies, Gentlemen, Good morning," he announced in a firm, clear voice that had only a hint of his southern drawl to it as he walked quickly and smartly down the aisle, and took position at the lectern at the head of the room.
"I'm Major Kincaide, but you can call me 'Showman', or 'Major'. I will be your commanding officer in the 101st. I've looked over your files, and I can see I have an interesting group. I'm looking forward to working with all of you.
"And it looks like I'm not going to have to wait long to find out how we do, as the powers that be have decreed that we have a mission to fly. So listen up, here's the mission". He tapped some icons on the screen of his tablet, resting on the lectern, and the wall-screen behind him lit up with a mirrored display, showing the operational area as a stylised map with labelled icons.
"Survey teams have been mapping the area approximately one hundred miles due south of our position. It's a fertile area; gently rolling plains, cut by some river valleys, and thickets of evergreen woodlands. There are remains of some Avalonian settlements, but no intact or permanent structures. The survey teams were attracted by strong magnetic readings from drone and recon overflights that could indicate resources in the area, or other things worth investigating. Whatever it was they were looking for, it seems like the Yerrill are interested as well, as the survey team reported being buzzed by a Yerrill fighter on the second day. The craft have returned since, in increasing numbers within the last few days. They hid after the first time, but the fighters have appeared to actively been looking for them. They clearly need support, and if there's a Yerrill base or installation this close to base, we also need to locate it. So, that's going to be our job".
A few more taps of icons, and the screen changed to show overlays of flight paths and itineries on the map of the operational area. A circle centered on a dot representing the survey teams' location, stretching out from there to a radius approximate to the Yerrills' known range.
"We set up a CAP over the area, and monitor for any Yerrill activity. The survey team will also have a small detachment of ground forces to help co-ordinate with us and protect them as well. If we sight any hostiles, we engage them and shoot 'em out of the sky. Our secondary role will be to patrol out to the estimated range of the Yerill fighters and look for any kind of base, installation, or other... thing... they're using to launch from to engage the survey team and get as much info on it as we can to send back to base. Sighted hostiles so far number up to four craft at one time; but as you all know: the Yerrill have no serial numbers or markings, so it's hard to know, visually at least, if it's just four returning craft, or several more."
He looked over the faces in front of him. "It's nothing too fancy, complicated, or head-scratching for a first mission. Find the bad guys, protect our guys, and maybe take some photos. Anything weird happens, we deal with it when it comes up. All of our planes are ready to fly, maintenance has given them a good going over; put some air in the tyres, changed the air fresheners, tightened up all the screws and they're ready as they can be. We're wheels-up at 0730, which is 90 minutes from now. Any questions?"
His keen eyes searched the faces in front of him, taking in each one and trying to anticipate any comments, opinons or ideas. He had read their files, but the people he didn't know, their quirks, humour, demeanour; those things didn't come across. What more would they have to say, about him or the mission, he was eager to know more. Eager to see how they performed in the air and on the mission; and after, what would they be like, especially if they did get into action. What then?
He shook off the circling thoughts and tuned back into his people, waiting for a reply.

The mess room wasn’t exactly a Spartan affair nor was it glamorous, at least by military standards, but it was fairly new construction after the Expeditionary had “landed” on Avalon. Lonnie and his back-seater, a young Chinaman named, Xi sat in a back corner watching the comings and goings of the morning. Neither one ate. Lonnie calmly sipped a mug of hot tea while Xi drank full black coffee. They had flown in the night before and neither had been in much spirit for adventure after ferrying the plane across, or rather through the portal. It had all felt rather unnatural to Lonnie and he was glad for once to put the wheels down.

“How do you drink that awful tosh?” Lonnie said flatly. He leaned back in his chair and scanned the room, mostly observing the more fit female denizens from just under the brim of his cap. He caught of whiff of the drink from Xi’s mug and curled his nose.

“Usually from a cup” Xi replied not looking up as he scanned over a few pages of documents. “Sometimes from a shoe… with Bailey’s.” He took another long sip.

Lonnie snorted and gave a slight smirk. “Well, Bailey’s or not, if that rot wrecks your gut upstairs I’m not pulling over… Tally-ho.”

Xi turned in his seat momentarily to view a group of young women entering the mess wearing what appeared to be civilian contract staff uniforms.

“Don’t stare lad.”

“Shut up.”

Xi’s wristwatch beeped once and he glanced down at the time. “Briefing’s on in ten.” He yawned and turned back.

“Don’t want to be tardy for our new Western warmasters do we?” Lonnie said already getting up. He gave a smug grin and a gentle nod to the group that had just entered. One waved back while the others giggled.

-------

The two took up a similar position in the briefing room watching the others file in. They were the first to arrive. Xi checked his watch again. “CO’s late.”

“Well I’m glad you’re on top of things this morning.” Lonnie said.

“Like you were in the mess just now?”

“Quite the reverse, I intend to be on the top of that situation later this evening.”

When the CO arrived in a disheveled hurry the two of them looked on unfazed. When he announced his nickname they both glanced back at each other. Since these were the names by which the man apparently wanted to be called Lonnie automatically began mentally cycling through “new” names that would be more suitable: Kincaide-Gatorade, Major LFB-Late for Briefing, he made a few mental entries to memory and congratulated himself on his quick wit satisfied to wait for whatever other gems could be yet revealed.

He took a few notes when the map went up. They had flown in during the night and he had no familiarity with the area. He jotted down a few of major landmarks, roads, rivers and their relation to the airfield. He looked over at Xi’s pad where he was comparing the planned route to the projected weather, particularly the high altitude winds where the MiG liked to make its trade. There was apparently a form of the jet stream on Avalon as well and Xi would set them up handsomely to lull about during the CAP and get the most out of their fuel tanks.

Xi’s hand went up at the call for questions, “Callsigns for the mission?”

Captain Greggor swiftly stood at attention upon Major Kincaide's belated arrival, and listened to every word of the briefing in that uncouth western-english drawl; with all thouse rounded-off vowels. Then came the informal questions-and-answers part which every officer dreaded becauses there was always going to be someone who would ask for information the briefing-officer didn't have.

Thankfully, this lot seemed a bit more knowledgeable of why bits of information sometimes aren't in briefings; although the major did take some time to stress what they definately did not know in advance.

But then the new-arrivals had to start talking. Callsigns were often posted and easy enough to look-up if they had the time, but he'd seen a MiG-31 land earlier the evening before. The active airstrip was still not much more than compacted dirt and some tents when his MiG-23 flew in a week ago, the concrete strip only freshly being deemed fit for flying while the perforated-steel-plate strip still handled the bulk of air-traffic... so their ignorance was forgivable.

"Clem!" Yuril barked, "Captain Yuril Greggor of Mikoyan-Gurevich model 23, Bulgarian Air Force." He reported, in a thick yet clear accent of an officer; he then clicked his heels and bowed at the chinese person before edging towards the door, it was likely there were to be more questions, but most of them were probably along the same lines as the first. The Afrikaaneer probably wasn't yet in on the joke, but after he'd gotten his callsign Yuril had began replacing all his 'Roger' with 'Clem'. As a man of few words, it was nice to be able to convey to a friendly requesting aid that a fast and capable fighter with an experianced pilot inside was coming to assist in one word or less.

(only doing about 100 km/hr less than the official world-record at sea level; see also: SAGEBURNER, Mach 1.16 vs ~1.20 /w warload)

Though they had been there for a while, this was the first they heard about getting any action. Virginia and Rose were both nonplussed at the late arrival of their new Commanding Officer. Early was on time. On time was late. That's how the mantra went, but the "Hurry up and wait" philosophy always made itself prevalent in the military. As of now, Virginia was leaning back in her seat and taking turns switching between checking her eyelids for cracks and the ceiling. Rose groaned, slumped forward with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. Yes, how very quaint. Maybe the mission would be as boring as well.

Virginia Hilts, callsign "Maverick", was a shiny new First Lieutenant who had a reputation for her foul mouth as the dirtiest thing about her. She didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't even trade jabs when other pilots when she was the subject of one of their callous advances or dirty jokes. It was said that her name Virginia forever cursed her with celibacy. She was tall, skinny, had her locks of dark brown hair pulled back into a regulation bun (that she hated with a passion), and wasn't very stunning in the assets departments of hips, chest, or legs. Thankfully, she at least had some junk in the trunk to be proud of, even if the flight suit hid it mostly.

Rose Patterson, callsign "Mako", was a butter bar and a short stack. She had her hair short enough the be pulled into pig tails and not get yelled at for it. Her chest stuck out despite not being that much bigger than her partners, and her shortness caused the same thing around the back. When you don't have room to grow up, usually the next step is growing out. But usually she only got shit for being teeny tiny. That was most times her better alternative. She had gotten a lot of booster seat jokes, and "you must be this tall..." lines. At least she was the perfect height to sock someone in the bag. That happened only twice, though.

When the Major came in, both of them straightened up and paid attention. Finally, the ball was rolling. The mission seemed simple enough, leading to few questions. Virginia's hand went up, though.

"What's the ROE, sir? We gonna be out there on our own or will we get backup?" She asked in a thick Midwestern accent which annunciated and drew out the vowels in words.

Cecilia was still exhausted from yesterday, so she really didn't want to run and wear herself out more. Her body ached from being crammed into the Draken from multiple exercises. Even though they were much needed for her as she was more familiar with the Viggen, didn't mean she had to like or enjoy them. Though Cecilia was growing fond the Draken's capabilities, but she only wished the cockpit could be a bit more spacious.

Everything wasn't helping her mood already, but due to sleeping in a little later than she wanted, and being late for the briefing just put her in a sour disposition. But maintained her walking pace due to the aforementioned aching body and exhaustion.

Also, not being allowed to smoke while inside the corridors of the facility was the cherry on top of the cake that life thoughtfully labeled "Bad day". In general, she didn't like that rule much. But today, she desperately wanted to smoke.

And as she walked, someone who was in a mess of a hurry bumped into her, knocking Cecilia to her knees. She looked up at the person and gave them a scowl. Though only capturing a brief glimpse of the person before they continued on. A blur of what their face looked like, hair, body frame, and an estimate of their height. And even though this person didn't see her face for long. She still hoped her scowl burned the back of their head.

Once Cecilia was back on her feet, she sighed and picked up her pace. Knowing she was nowhere near the briefing room, and her previous pace would most likely land her at the tail end of the brief. And so she entered a light jog, with hopes to arrive at least mid-way through the brief. And indeed she did, brutishly pushing the door open upon arrival, walking to an open seat and falling into it rather ungracefully. And just sat through the remainder quietly as she tried to relax.

Ryan was pleased that his new squadron had some relevant questions, and were keen to speak up, for the most part.
He nodded at each question as it came and then answered, after giving a grin and a thumbs-up to Yuri's energetic introduction. "At ease, and thank you for the introduction Captain. Take a seat, and let's answer these questions".

Xi’s hand went up at the call for questions, “Callsigns for the mission?”

"Callsigns for the mission are as follows; our squadron will be Ranger 1-5, AWACS will be Cavalier, ground team are Rogue and CSAR will be Wizard. Home base is Dungeon Master... looks like someone in the planning department has been playing D&D," he added with a tight smirk and a shake of his head. He looked up as a more female voice sounded, zeroing it in to the pair of female USAF pilots he'd clocked when walking in. Both of them were attentive... mostly... and weren't anything more unusual in their behaviour than any other chair force pilots he'd flown with before. They both sure lived up to the reputation that the air force got the best ladies, though.

"What's the ROE, sir? We gonna be out there on our own or will we get backup?" She asked in a thick Midwestern accent which annunciated and drew out the vowels in words.

His mouth quirked slightly at a familiar accent before he replied. "ROE is that we're to engage at will if any hostile forces are encountered. Ground forces are on location to secure the survey team for extraction. CSAR are on standby if any of us go down, and there'll be additional forces on ready alert if anything else goes down, to give us support and to cover the extraction of the survey unit if need be.". He nodded to underline his point, and then looked around, nodding to the late arrival of another female pilot and raising an eyebrow slighly and giving a slight smile; he couldn't exactly condemn her, having been late himself.

Nothing else was forthcoming, so he leaned back up from the lectern, coming around from behind it and leaning on one side.
"If there's nothin' else, then yer all dismissed. See you on the flight line in 90 minutes. Life support shop should have your gear ready. We're wheels-up at 0730. Good to meet you all, folks. You can ping me over the base comms if you need anything, or grab me right now. Race you to the flight line; dismissed".
He waved them off and out of the door, nodding as they headed off, while grabbing his tablet and heading for the door himself. He was eager to get into his gear and fly, what with there being a mission. He dallied a little, small-talking with Diane in case any of them needed anything else, before he headed to the ready room. He grabbed some snacks and drinks before he headed to the locker room to stash his gear and pull on his G-Suit. There was, as always, more paperwork to fill out, and between himself and Diane, they spent a good 45 minutes out of the 90 filing paperwork for the mission and the squadron, before heading to the locker room.

As usual, it took a long while to pull on his G-suit and survival vest after getting them from the survival shop. He signed out his sidearm and survival gear, and his helmet and then headed for the flightline.

The morning sun had started to warm the sky over Avalon, and heat haze danced off of the tarmac, lending a ghostly air to the base. Transports lumbered into the air and vehicles chugged back and forth. A flight of fighters thundered into the air as the pair of Naval aviators reached the steed. The A-6F gleamed in the early morning light, red warning flags flicking in the lackluster breeze as the pair began their walkaround of the aircraft.

With that out of the way, Virginia and Rose both stood at attention until the Major left. A race, eh? Virginia's lips curled into a grin as the pair headed out to the locker room. They donned their white under shirts and their flight suits along with their other necessary gear. Neither of them had to sign out sidearms since the both carried their own. Rules were sometimes easier with the UN.

Virginia took a second to admire her Springfield Armory stainless steel 1911A1. Shiny, yes, but it would stand up to a lot of punishment and still dish it out, being chambered in 45 ACP. She much preferred it over the standard 9 mil. Rose wasn't to be outdone, though. She had an old Smith and Wesson Model 629 in 44 Magnum. Blued steel with wood grips; It was a prized possesion. She always carried speed loaders just for good measure.

With all that sorted, they headed out to the flight line.

"Race, heh?" Virginia said aloud. Rose inwardly cringed, for she knew what was coming. "Rose, I feel the need..."

"Please don't."

"The need."

"You wanna pay the Navy five bucks?"

"For speed!"

"Good God." Rose facepalmed and shook her head. It was always like this, what with her callsign and all.

Virginia just laughed at her own joke, knowing full well that it bothered her friend.

"You gonna tell that one to the Major's REO?"

"Huh?"

"Don't play dumb. I saw you stealing glances at her in the briefing room."

"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, you're such a liar! I know you well enough to know you like women, and what kind of women you like best."

Virginia was finding it increasingly difficult to hide her reddening face.

"You can't hide it from me! You got the hots for-"

"Not out on the flightline!" Virginia quickly shushed her partner with a clamped hand over her mouth.

Luckily, they were at the aircraft. It's paint job was standard, despite thinking they should put a shark mouth on it since Rose's callsign was Mako, but the tradition belonged to the 23rd Fighter Wing. Oh well, maybe they could get a transfer after this.

"Alright, let's go over the pre-flight..."

“Look at that Xi, now you’ve gone and done it…” Lonnie said as the Bulgarian jumped to attention and barked out his credentials. He jabbed Xi with an elbow “You’ve offended him.” He grinned.

Xi looked on nonplussed with his mouth slightly agape as the man bowed and passed by.

“Bloody shifty lot the Bulgarians” Lonnie said leaning back, “Damn good waffles though.”

“I think that’s Belgium” Xi said.

“Is it? Whatever, they’re all communists, Order of Lenin and all that. Blast, I’m hungry.” He took off his hat and scratched at his head with the brim. He eyed the others: Four women and only the CO, Xi, himself and the Bulgarian. His glance was cold for a moment then lightened as they left the briefing. He winked at the light haired girl that had come in late as they filed out.

-----------------------

Lonnie enjoyed walking the flight line at any aerodrome his whole life. Some were busy while others were merely lackadaisical at best, but they were all captivating in a certain natural way to him. The concrete pad and tie-downs at the Expeditionary field were still fresh and unstained by weather, jet fuel, hot rubber and exhaust, but the smells were ever present with activity. No plant growth between the large tiles. It was all still very organized and tidy which was a new experience for him. The dirt crosswind strip was more to his past acclamations. However, the aircraft lineup was a different affair.

“Is this a squadron or an antique show?” Xi said flatly.

“Christ, I thought he was kidding about the MiG-23.” Lonnie said.

“There’s a Draken and an A-6.” Xi replied almost dumbfounded.

“I should guess that the ‘Rill will likely be so busy laughing they will make easy targets for you.” They continued walking down to a newly constructed Rubb hangar.

“I wonder if they do laugh or have any sense of humor.” Xi said.

“Maddening horde, all of them, I swear I could hear that flamer we put down over Taipei screaming some fowl utterance over the coms before I blew his bloody head off.” Lonnie said, “Then I laughed.”

They entered the open front of the hangar where the MiG was sitting surrounded by a team of fitters crawling under and below as large cables were connected and open panels were investigated. Various colored toolboxes, each the size of a small car lined the perimeter. An instant sonic wall of music blasted from a large stereo in the corner. Xi grimaced and nodded his head with the harsh beat of the music. This was expected. A very large black man approached the pair wearing a workman’s fatigues. His dreadlocks were tied down his back. He turned back and gave a sharp whistle with two fingers. The stereo was instantly restrained.

“Hallo, Keith” Lonnie said with a smirk, “I see you’ve made your presence known.”

The man grinned a bright white smile and spread his arms. His gape was as wide as his height, over six and half feet. “We are known.” He said proudly.

Keith had been Lonnie’s crew chief since he’d started on MiG-29’s with the Russian mercenary squadron Bratva. He was a massively built man requiring a special ordered uniform. Being only two years older than Lonnie, he had also escaped South Africa at a young age and shared the same hometown, Bloemfontein, south of Johannesburg. There was an instant connection when they’d first met. Lonnie wasn’t sure of the man’s actual name and it didn’t matter.

“Nothing out of sorts from the ferry flight?” They walked over to the machine and Lonnie ran a hand over the portside intake where Surtr sat with his sword.

“All good” Keith said firmly. He breathed in deeply as if sampling an exotic wine. “The air here is good, clean and new. She will run like the wind.”

They turned and looked briefly to the sound of bickering voices headed towards a Desert Falcon parked across the way.

“We have an interesting squadron.” Keith said. His face was suddenly reserved and his huge hands gripped the front pockets of his uniform.

“I think those are the ones that asked about ROE in the briefing.” Xi said watching them do their preflight checks.

“I don’t know about the rest of this lot or the sodding R-O-E” Lonnie said glancing back. The letters left his lips like a bitter medicine being spat out. “But I intend to wholesale slaughter as many as possible.”

Ryan grinned to Diane as the pair met at the front of the Intruder, their walkaround complete. The 'tin tadpole' was loaded up for air-to-air as much as it could be, with dual AMRAAMs under the outermost hardpoints, 4 500-pound LGB's on the inner ones, and two 20mm gunpods on the closest to the fuselage. A single droptank hung on the centreline of the A-6. Nothing looked out of order about the plane, and it positively gleamed under the sunlight, freshly washed and back from maintenance.
Of course, compared to the F-16 nearby it looked like it was siting still (well, it was, but the phrase still worked), but nonetheless, it's dependability wasn't in question as far as Ryan was concerned, and the updated avionics, new wings and engines and extra software that had become part of the plane with the upgrade to the F-model Intruder had proved the old buckets' worth. Still, as capable as it was, and even having the extra teeth of the AMRAAM, it wasn't a dogfighter. Nonetheless, he and Diane would put the jet through it's paces as they had been trained to do, and would have to count on their wingmates to do the rest.
He signed off on the aircraft, and then turned to observe the others as they checked over their own aircraft. Giving them a thumbs up, he nodded towards the A-6's canopy, and turned to climb the ladder with Diane.

In short order the pair were strapped in, and the preflight done. With a grin to one another, he thumbed the engine start, and the jets' engines wound up with a whine and a throaty rumble as they came to life. He nodded to Diane and they exchanged back-and-forth routine commands and updates, before the ground crew pulled the canopy shut and folded the ladders away. He gave a thumbs up to the next plane in line, and lifted his mask, confirming their take-off roll with the tower. Brakes off, throttle up, and with a tremble, the A-6F began to roll, Ryan turning the jet in a graceful arc onto the taxiway.
He drummed his gloved fingers on the throttle as the jet rolled. He'd flown dozens of times, and on much more exciting takeoffs and landings. He'd been flung off a carrier in the dead of night in rolling seas, and landed back in the same. Flown down in the weeds to lob bombs at enemy positions under fire, and snuck through canyons, both natural and man-made to fling iron at the enemy, all of which had got his adrenaline raging, but for some reason, leading this mis-matched band into the air this morning had his blood singing.
The A-6 turned onto the runway head, and he buckled his mask, glancing over to Diane, who had the same fire in her eyes he did, grinning at him and offering a fist-bump before she pulled on her mask and checked her instrumentation.
The tower gave the clear, and with a grin to himself under the mask, he advanced the throttle, the engines climbing into a roar that rattled through the airframe. With a whoop he toed off the brakes and the A-6 leapt forward, gathering speed. Air rushed past the canopy, building to a rumble before he pulled back on the stick as the speed climbed. The ungainly-looking bird thundered upward. As the gear folded away, it began to soar and Ryan felt his own excitement climb with his plane.
Reaching 6,000ft he pulled the Intruder into a circle, flying a holding pattern to let the others join up on him. He glanced over at Diane who returned the look. Despite their masks, he knew there was a smile on her face and his matched it as he spoke over the circuit to the rest of the squad.
"Okay, gentlemen and ladies. We're currently holding at 6,000 waiting for y'all to come and join us here. Once we're all neatly assembled and you've got yourselves in order, we'll proceed on to the next stop on our sightseein' tour of lovely Avalon, and perhaps take in some morning recreation with the locals." Diane chuckled softly and cut in.
"This flight is non-smoking, and a trolley service of light refreshments will be served. Please place your lunch orders with the cabin crew, thank you for flying expeditionary air".

The Bulgarian tried not to pay attention to the... mercenaries as they bickered over whether or not they'd offended him, while still in his presence. Thankfully, everyone seemed to file-out before anyone could say something truly offensive. He also managed to skip right past the formality of checking out any flight-equipment, whatever he wasn't wearing was stilll wedged in the cockpit of his bird out on the dirt-strip or probably wouldn't need for this trip.

And so Mr Greggor took his time strolling past pampered western planes on their fancy concrete pads, a few of which were definately old enough to need some coddling to get back up and running. He vaugely recognized the Swedish plane from some old aircraft recognition pamplet, he could remember the still smell of those yellowed and mouldered files from training, yet could not place the name of the beast before him.

His drifting attention snapped back to the here and now as he heard the two Americans arguing about... something, then referancing some movie about some test-pilots flying some sort of twin-engined naval MiG-23WTFBBQ mod against the fascists in their black F-5M Tiger IIs.

Once he reached his plane in its dirty sandbagged revetment, pulled the chocks himself, clambered up an onion-crate to get inside, pulled the crate up on a rope and threw it clear before starting the turbine with a gunpowder-charge. With wings fulley swept back, Yuril effortlessly threaded his plane like a needle through a screen-door around the various obstables in his way up to the strip. The flight-leader's A-6F was already barrelling down the way on the pave as he began worrying about preflighting as he spread his wings out to their full extension, his feet firmly planted on the wheel-brakes as he zipped up his leggings and fastened his waist belt, making himself comfortable as he then went to adjusting his comms-helmet, throat-mic check, ballsitic helmet and oxygen-mask came next. Visors down and canopy and shades pulled as he stared into the gleaming blue sunlight.

"Ranger five, all systems clem!" He said as he gave the stick a twirl to check for responsiveness, the positive feedback of the hydraulics against his hand and visual range of motion check of the control-surfaces just before taking his feet off the brakes and applying military-power to the R-35 turbojet. The MiG-23MLGD bounced out of its self-created rut and trundled forwards, just as the ride began to smooth-out Clem went to full afterburner to get the wheels to unstick from the uneven ground, before easing back to military-power and making a standard accelleration in ground effect, wheels-raised, up to 350 knots IAS before begining his climb up to the A-6.

He overtook Ranger One in 35 seconds, but then throttled-back to stall-speed to let the Navy-bomber return to the lead.

"Heard your bird would be serving refreshments. Got any for Clem?" He chided, both MiGs only had enough fuel for a single hour's worth of combat-endurance, whereas the A-6 easily held enough fuel to stay airborne for the better part of the morning. Although not nearly as bad as the F-16, which would run on fumes in half that time if it were ever forced into a fight.

Virginia stepped back after the preflight was done and looked at Rose. She nodded back to her partner. Yep, everything was in order. Loaded with two AIM-9X Sidewinders, two AIM-120 AMRAAMs, and 4 GBU-38/B JDAMs on two attached racks to the hardpoints underneath the wings. With the new conformal fuel tanks of the F model, they could fly further out than the other F-16s the Air Force had. They also had the weapons integration that they did not, which mean there was no need to attach a targeting pod and take up one of the hardpoints to make sure the JDAM hit its mark. Virginia was up to the first rung when she heard a voice.

"I can't believe they stuck me with you again."

"I know that voice..." She said to herself.

Virginia looked over and couldn't stop herself from grinning at the blonde haired kid in his ABUs.

"You sunuvabitch!" She grabbed his hand and then put her other arm around him. "Who the hell'd you piss off to get this assignment?"

"Another time, my friend. You gotta go."

"Alright, see ya later!"

Without any other delays, she scrambled up the ladder and into the cockpit where Rose was waiting for her.

"Who's that, again?"

"That's Tibbs. Known him a while. Wherever I am, he just seems to show up."

"Isn't that called a stalker?"

"No."

The canopy closed as the engines warmed up. Soon enough, they were taxiing out to the runway. She stopped the Falcon on the hold short line just before the runway and called the tower.

"Tower, this is Ranger 2, requesting clearance for take off."

"Ranger 2, you are cleared for take off. Good hunting."

Virginia took the Falcon out to the runway and lined up. She and Rose looked out the sides of the aircraft to watch as Virginia wiggled the stick around, checking to make sure the ailerons, rudder, and elevators were all working properly. When they were satisfied with the visual check, she took the throttle up slowly to the notch and felt the aircraft respond. Once she was at the proper speed, she gently pulled the stick up and watched the ground below begin to leave her. Flying was such a joy, wasn't it? As the fighter reached a good enough altitude, she brought the throttle back and made like the MiG to overtake her CO.

The Desert Falcon responded nicely, and soon enough she was settling back into a formation. Virginia coaxed the aircraft to line up to the A-6 on it's right side.

"Ranger 2 holding formation." She radioed. "Looks like I'll be your wingman. What gives, Major? Don't you have enough pretty women chasing after you in your life already?" She teased, trying to suppress a snicker.

While not entirely proper radio etiquette, she wondered how it felt to have three girls with him on their minds in some way. Well, he could hardly complain in that situation unless he didn't care for their company, or had another woman in his life. Or maybe it was true what they said about the Navy. Heh, that one she'd keep to herself. She'd also keep the fact that the Marine Corps was a department of the Navy to herself too. She didn't want to tease the Major too much, lest he think she was interested in him.

Keith positioned the crew ladder next to the plane as the rest of the fitters cleared out. There was no saluting or formality as the dust covers were removed and chocks pulled. Lonnie turned back from the top rung and watched the others taking off observing who was carrying what armaments- noticing both the A-6 and the F-16 carried bombs. There hadn’t been any mention of ground forces in the briefing. He looked down at Xi who shook his head. They both heard the MiG-23 take off from the old dirt strip but couldn’t get a look at what he was carrying from inside their hangar. He glanced back briefly at his own payload before stepping into the front seat. Two short range, R-73 Archers hung under each wing while the belly carried four of the long range R-33, each one a little over a quarter length of a telephone pole. He rarely carried the medium range option. The ‘Rill were usually too fast for them and he much preferred mixing it up with them.

The preflight checks were a matter of complete muscle-memory for the pair and once completed Lonnie released the parking brake as Keith guided them out of the hangar. The MiG’s characteristic howl from its broad engine outlets was unmistakable. Lonnie had never owned a fast car in his youth but as he taxied down the ramp the plane drew steady glances. He reckoned it to be something similar to what he’d seen in a few western movies. The MiG underneath him wasn’t designed as a pure fighter, but to Lonnie it was everything a fighter should be: big, fast, loud, and its only function was to shoot down other aircraft, none of that “multirole” business. The radar could target the Yerrill high-speed scouts while the massive engines gave him more than enough power to run down fighters.

“Don’t remember hearing any callsign for a tanker.” Xi said matter-of-factly.

“Yanks could have brought us some bloody gas upstairs instead of those damnfool bombs.” Lonnie said.

“It’s just their nature.” Xi replied. He shuffled through a few of the base frequencies listening to the various goings-on. Somewhere a backhoe had wrapped up a few feet of unmarked and hastily buried fiber-optic cable. Elsewhere a pallet of goods that were going back through the portal had apparently collapsed and would have to be restacked. It was all surprisingly normal for a base only just previously became operational on an alien world.

“Get us an unrestricted climb to 350.” Lonnie said. He was watching a C-17 on final that the controllers were working in before them as they taxied downwind. In the distance he could see another one behind it. “We’ll take Clembo up there with us. We don’t have the gas for formation flying with these bug-smashers.”

Xi put the request through and got an immediate affirmative as the transport pulled off and Lonnie nosed on to the numbers and lined up. “Ranger Three to Lead,” He said switching to the squad band. “We’re cleared for unrestricted climbout to FL350, we’ll take Ranger Five with us and head upstairs for the CAP.” It was a sensible request and he figured the Mig-23 likely had the only radar system with which their ship could communicate directly without need for the AWACS and it would be wasteful for the CO to keep his two fastest assets burning Kerosene in a low altitude holding pattern.

They were blazing towards V1 when Lonnie briefly glanced over to see the camouflaged Draken still sitting in the same place. He eased back on the column when Xi called for rotation and as was his custom pulled the gear up when the wheels were scantly off the runway- it just spoiled the look of the thing. He kept straight on the runway heading momentarily before increasing his hold on the controls. The MiG bit into the command and arced skyward in a trail of orange flame and rich exhaust.

"Heard your bird would be serving refreshments. Got any for Clem?"

Diane was quick off the mark with a reply, grinning into her mask as she replied. "Lemme take a look back in the galley here Clem. I think we might have time to warm up the oven, over".

Before Ryan could cut in, more banter came quick and fast.

"Ranger 2 holding formation." She radioed. "Looks like I'll be your wingman. What gives, Major? Don't you have enough pretty women chasing after you in your life already?"

Ryan laughed over the intercom as he replied. "Haven't you heard, Ranger 2? Women are like Voltron, the more you hook up, the better it gets".

The rest of the squadron caught up quick, and soon enough things turned to business. He listened to Ranger Three's message and replied with a firm, light and confident tone. What the pair suggested made sense; there was no point having them burn fuel by hanging around and waiting for the rest of them to keep up, and using his assets to their fullest was always the best idea. Plus initiative was worth rewarding, and he liked seeing it... when it was sensible, anyway.
"Roger, Ranger Three. Go for the CAP, we'll be chugging along down here while you keep your eyes open, over".
That said, he did increase the throttle, and altitude with it, climbing to the A-6's optimum cruising height and altitude. The old bird wasn't exactly quick, but she could cruise comfortably enough, even if it wasn't tearing up the skies.

Ryan set them on the right heading and the flight proceeded comfortably for the next few minutes, before another voice called in on the channel.
"Good morning, Ranger squadron. This is AWACS callsign Cavalier, I'll be here giving you the heads up and keeping you all in contact with the ground team. So far they haven't reported any hostile activity, and no Yerrill aircraft have directly overflown their position, though I am reading a small number of intermittent air contacts in the area at low level. Will vector you in on the targets when you're within range.
Meantime, I'm getting a tanker over to you boys and girls. Gotta keep you topped up. Stay frosty, over".
The AWACS controller had a chilled australian accent, and sounded laid-back as he spoke smoothly to them. His back and forth continued as the operator guided a tanker to rendezvous ahead of them. Eventually a gleaming spot in the clear skies resolved into a big KC-10 tanker, capable of refuelling either by boom, or by hose-and-drogue, like the majority of the squadrons' aircraft were equipped for.

****

After clearing off the refueller, the rest of the flight stayed quiet, until the AWACS snapped into the channel with a more terse tone. "Ranger squadron, listen up - the Yerrill have suddenly got more active. Yerrill bandits have been positively confirmed by the ground team, and the bandits are flying an aggressive search pattern. We have a mix of high-speed contacts and larger, lower-speed craft; number twelve targets currently."

As the AWACS controller explained, the picture became clear; the bandits were split into two groups. The smaller, faster ones were remaining in formations of two. The four groups of high speed fighers were staying at medium-high altitude and sweeping the area in patterns centered around the larger, slower craft which were remaining solo and sweeping the ground, occasionally pausing it seemed. The ground team had reported the noise of machinery; it seemed the aliens were looking for them more earnestly at this point. Or for something, at any rate.
The AWACs explained that the exfil bird was en route to get the survey team out of the area, but they'd need some cover against the bandits before they could do much. That meant it was time to earn their pay.

"Okay gang," Ryan called out, his drawl now undercut with an edge of steel. "Time to earn the big bucks by doin' the fun stuff. Ranger Three, Ranger Five; stick up high and harass the bandits. Two, you're with me down low, we'll scare off the big ones, and see if we can't harass the ground forces a little too. Let's go!"

“Let us handle your light-work, Ranger lead.” Lonnie said glancing down at his instruments. The MiG’s expansive radar range gave their ship the first look on the Yerrill. He had flown with Xi enough times to know what was going on in the backseat. The four large bandits were scintillating targets and Xi was happy to assign one of their big R-33’s to each one. Xi knew that once unloaded, Lonnie would gain a little more agility on the controls and once they merged with the Yerrill fighters, their distance advantage would become irrelevant. It was simply best to unleash them now on high-percentage shots.

Lonnie wheeled the MiGs in a long arch to position the sun behind their backs for the shot. Both men scanned the sky constantly, each man’s head rotating with eyes squinting, searching for any dot, blip or smudge in the sky. The Yerrill could be crafty stealth fighters and total reliance on radar and sensors would get a pilot killed fast. Both men knew the game well.

“Doubt they’ve had to deal with anyone with our kind of range on this side of the fence.” Lonnie said.

“Well they’re gonna get an education in about ten seconds.” Xi replied. His tone was cold and confident. Lonnie enjoyed it wildly. Xi was a stone-cold logic, but from behind at the helm of their weapons systems his killer instinct came to light. He had launched the R-33 from under the MiG so many times it felt much like reaching out his own arms to pluck away the Yerrill like a great hand from the sun itself. Once unleashed the slow-moving craft had little chance of escape. “Ranger three, Fox three” Xi said over the squad channel. He wasn’t totally sure if he’d made the right usage of the western nomenclature for missile shots but was sure their western counterparts would understand soon enough.

The large missiles dropped away in a deliberately staggered order. Each one’s rocket engine sprang to life sending the weapon scurrying away on its Mach 5 journey. From the front seat Lonnie briefly watched them hydra away and seek out the slow moving Yerrill. For a moment all was seemingly still until four large plumes of fire erupted on the edge of the horizon with black smoke trailing to the ground.

“Splash four.” Xi reported over the com. The western codewords felt silly to him.

“You’ve caused quite a stir.” Lonnie said. He rocked the wings to signal Yuri to fan out and get ready to merge. They were holding the advantage with the sun behind them and altitude below them. However the Yerrill had become quite unruly at the sudden loss of their larger craft. Those that remained on the highest tier of their formation turned in the direction of the pair of MiGs and accelerated.

Xi took a last quick glance underneath the MiG-23 taking stock of the Bulgarian’s weaponry as he felt Lonnie lay on the afterburner. “You know he won’t be able to keep up with us.”

“He won’t have to.” Lonnie replied. “This will all be over in about thirty seconds.” He caught a brief glimpse of their mach number accelerating. “Stick with us for this pass Ranger Five,” Lonnie said over the com. He wasn’t ordering the other pilot, but he knew the other MiG wouldn’t keep pace the same way another MiG-31 would and they would have to compensate for each other. He had a fair level of confidence the man he was speaking to was fully competent in what he was doing- if he was crazy enough to survive in that relic of an aircraft. “We’ll cut straight through and scatter them, you turn inside of us and we’ll cover you on the next pass.”

The weight of the straps tightened on his shoulders and Lonnie licked his lips inside his mask. His pulse quickened to a physical throb of adrenaline in his throat as the small black dots in the windscreen grew exceedingly quickly and the MiG’s warning systems lit up and sounded as the range closed rapidly and the alien sensors locked on to them. Their arcing electrical shots went wide and scattered as the as the Yerrill pilots struggled to climb against them into the sun and handle their weapons in the blind. Lonnie rolled slightly as the first pair flashed by in a blur. He caught a glimpse of another attempting to bank away rather than face them directly and cranked off an Archer shot. The little missile burst away from its hard-point and immediately tracked down the Yerrill straggler impaling it in an orange flame. Another pair flashed by with weapons blazing, He hauled back on the stick into a zoom climb rolling and keeping their speed to check if Ranger Five was still with them.

Mood music

"Clem" Captain Greggor stiffly acknowledged to the plan to blow-through them, and drag the Yurril right back into Ranger three's crosshairs, as he dropped tanks, swept wings, and the MiG-23 breifly went into a ballistic-dive as it cranked-up airspeed. The Yerril knew they were coming, they had radar too. His HUD confirmed this as it put red blips up on his windscreen, but like a crocodile lazing in the sun, he wasn't too worried about those. They'd also learned not to leav all their radar up, the far bigger danger was from the crocodiles that were well-hidden; at the very line of the merge, everyone flew blind under the direction of whoever was in back with the beefiest radar.

His IRST picked up a pair of fast-movers traveling dark. He gave the left rudder a nudge, a bit of right-stick, and put it into a gentle mach 1 left-slip as he picked-off a plane for his first R-27ET, then shimmied his plane into a right-slip to dump his other passive heat-seeker in a seprate direction, all the while trying to remember the proper inter-service brevity for what he just did, "Maydog, Maddog, Fox Two." Although not true all-aspect missiles, flying bricks tended to get plenty warm compared to a sleek fighter-jet.

He then rolled inverted, getting a good look at the spectacle below him as he readied the next salvo of otherwise dead wieght. Thankfully if Xi was any good at his job, the MiG-31 that graciously held-back would be able to simultaniously guide-in more missiles on the opening-salvo than the plane itself could carry.

He popped a flare to get the Yerril's and Xi's attention as he lined-up a few shots. This time he did not mince his brevity. "Fox One Cheapsot, Fox One Cheapsot" Now a full metric ton lighter, Yuril pulled back on the stick and put his bird in a dive at full-burner, his plane did best in the boom-and-zoom, but even despite its antiquated age they were up against a race that mastered interstellar-travel, no matter how good of an energy-fighter was dragged-out, theirs would ultimately prove better.

Clem could see a pair already making a steady climb up to meet him, he estimated them going at better than 800 meters per second of closing velocity. Most of it was his.

He flipped a switch on his dash and pulled the trigger on his stick. "Clem. Grakata." Two streaks of light came shooting out his UB-32 rocket-pods. Yerril ECM may be good, but he'd never seen someone argue for very long against the ten kilos of hypersonic-steel spewn out in front of him covering a swath the size of a soccer-field. That is, however, had the rockets flied true, one broke right, another went high. The upside however, was that one of the pair merged with a cloud of steel and got themselves peppered for their trouble. The other broke low and disappeared under the nose of his MiG.

Flipping another switch, Clem yanked the stick, heard a tone in his ear, and popped a nasty surprise a quarter of a second later to give the rear-pointed R-60 just barely enough room to arm itself lest they run out of range. "Fox Three. Bittersweet." The Bulgarian grunted into his throat-mic, the strain of the 7-G pullout was wearing heavy on his lungs even as his RWR told him to evade the inevitable counter-punches. Flares, chaff, snap-roll, turn the pullout into a Cuban-8 as he broke into a dive to the left in order to get back in-line with where Lonnie's MiG-31 should've been popping out from the furball he was now dragging on the deckline. His mach-gauge was redlining at this altitude on 1.2, he was pushing the needle a little past that.

He wasn;t sure how many he'd gotten in the first pass, or how many bandits were being dragged through the weeds behind his plane, but it felt like he was trolling all the entire Yerril forces staring up his stovepipe as he flew low, fast, and between just about every obstacle he could put between him and one of their death-beams. He could've sworn he was picking-up small-arms fire and hostile tree-branches as he buddy-spiked the MiG-31, and re-acquired visual of the tiny speck of steel in the sky to save himself the trouble of calling out that five was blind. All the while his last R-60 was giving the steady hum of afterburn-heated ground-clutter. He puffed flares at just about every jive through the valley though, just to be sure.

Then he saw the fellow MiG finally turn to re-engage... time to bump.

"Clem!" He keyed, as his plane burst into an unsustainable zoom-climb, within 4 seconds he was already 3 kilometers up, bleeding airspeed just enough for him to unfold his wings back from its aggressive 72 degrees, to 45 degree dogfight configuration, and then whip his plane back around tail over nose to re-engage like a crop-duster getting ready to sow poison upon the next row of grain.

Interception

Virginia rolled her eyes under her flight helmet's visor. Oh brother. This squadron was definitely interesting, even if they were a mixed bag from the UN. Very well, she'd fly in with the lead and see if she couldn't scare them off their friendlies. She broke off from the formation and checked her radar. There you are.

"Mako, start looking for targets on the ground for the JDAMs. Also, keep an eye on our lead. I wanna know the second any of those bandits start looking at 'em funny."

"Roger."

"Alright, big boy. Let's see how well you can dance..."

She hit the sidewinder missile select and flew in low behind the first craft. These alien ships were always so weird, but they still blew up like everything else she seen. good thing they had AIM-9X's. She got tone and held it on for as long as she could before hitting the notch and soaring right over the thing.

"How'd you like that?" She asked the fighter that couldn't hear her, grinning to herself.

Rose turned in her seat and watched the fighter move erratically. It was their first contact, but she guessed they weren't expecting them. Hell, when Mav had her fangs out, she always did get a bit ballsy. Well okay, Rose always did give her the occasional joke that she was probably packing more than just her sidearm when they got into the cockpit, but that was because she sometimes had to remind her driver that she existed in order to keep her from doing something stupid. For now, the first one was shook up and looked like it either wanted out or was trying to get up to the escorts. Bad move, as both of them saw it.

"Mako, what's the position of that bandit in relevance to our friendlies?"

"Should be good. You splash it and we won't have to worry about it falling on them."

"Good."

"Oh dear..."

Virginia swung around and gained a bit of distance on the target, switching to the AMRAAMs. She lined up the nose and had a good angle on the fighter.

"Maverick, Fox Three!"

She fired as soon as the confirmation tone rang in her helmet. The AIM-120 flew off the rail from under the wing and streaked ahead. Being a Fire and Forget missile, Virginia saw no real reason to keep on path and nosed down and away. The missile struck the target right in it's engine. Done.

"Splash one MiG!"

"Mav..."

Virginia felt herself get hot in her flightsuit and groaned. All those training exercises...

"Sorry, force of habit..."

Virginia took the Falcon around and started looking for any other targets to engage.

Yerill fighters were clawed from the sky as the Rangers went to battle. Their first salvos had hit home well, the aggressive approach taking several of the unnervingly organic-looking and matte-black aircraft by surprise, and turning them into flaming balls of scrap as contrails twisted and looped through the morning skies.
Nonetheless, the Yerill had not fought Earth's forces and put them on the ropes through idleness. With manoeuvers the were near gravity-defying and certainly beyond the limits of human physiology and engineering, the remaining fighters regrouped with near right-angle turns and surged back in at their attackers, splitting evenly into leading and trailing groups and keeping separation as they closed in, sensors already scouring the skies for the MiGs that had hurt their numbers. Warbling lock-on warnings sounded for Clem, Xi and Lonnie.

Down low, Ryan threw the big Intruder through the air. Down low, the attack jets' big wing did it well, and he weaved and ducked around terrain features, hugging the treeline and nosing over every contour of the land. Outside the cockpit, the world was a blur of green, brown, and occasionally blue as Ryan worked the stick and pedals like a conductor, and Di's hands played her console like an instrument. Almost immediately she had targets locked up.
"Got 'em," she said in a clipped, terse tone as she swayed in her seat straps with the jets' movements. "'Rill light walkers and GEV's* to our west, moving through the treeline. Second group south-east, four clicks out and moving down a creek bed".
"Roj," Ryan replied in the same tone as he smoothly guided the A-6 into a sharp bank, rolling wings level on a parallel course to the ridge. The red hawk painted on the topside of the aircraft gleamed wickedly in the morning sun as the Intruders' engines rumbled and whined as it closed in on its' prey.
"Yo, Ranger Two. Chairforce, I've got some hostiles down here in the mud. Two groups, one to my south-east. What say you take 'em, I've got these, over"
To Diane, he nodded his head sideways. "Let's get these; ready up the special delivery".
"Right, right - irons' hot, got 'em on the nose. Watch the ground fire".
"Roj," he replied, eyes and voice steady as he jinked the big tin tadpole with precise, firm, yet smooth movements. Lines slid into place on the HUD, and he mashed the weapon release button, smoothly yanking back as the fat shapes of bombs detached from the underside of the A-6F and sailed gracefully landward. A sharp wingover and a spread of chaff and flares completed the run, and were capped by the rolling flash and thunder of explosions along the ridge, and a diminishing curtain of firepower chasing the retreating naval jet.

Similar plumes of lashing shells and energy erupted up from the creekbed as they searched out the rest of the jets, and the warbling tone of SAM search radars intruded into the ears of the Ranger squadron as they circled toward and away from their targets.

"What the hell were the survey team looking for?" muttered Ryan as he craned his neck sideways, the Intruder in a sharp bank over the combat area. "There must be half a Yerrill standard combat formation down there, with the amount of fire we're seeing. Not to mention those fighters".
"That's about... ten to fifteen ground vehicles? Plus troops," Diane replied, looking again over her instruments and frowning. "Does seem a lot of a survey team just snooping around. Think there's something else down there?"
"The team must've accidentally stumbled onto something, or kicked over the ant's nest. The 'rill seem pissed".
"Ranger Lead, this is Cavalier, how copy?"
"Good copy, Cavlier. What's up, over?"
"Ranger Lead, the situation looks pretty gnarly from here. The Osprey can't get in for extraction with all the activity. I've got another aircraft, latecomer to your unit. I'm vectoring him in; Name's Ground Bird, callsign for this mission will be Ranger Five."
"Roger that Cavalier, patch me through."
There was a momentary hiss and fuzz and Ryan cursed under his breath, nosing the A-6F over a slope and ducking deeper into the weeds as more fire sprung up. A spurt of the 20mm's under each wing drove the shooter back into hiding as he wheeled around and blasted past, low enough to shake the trees in his wake.
"Yo, Ground Bird. This is Ranger Lead, you'll be our number five. Good to have you with us, and time to start earning your pay. We've got a surplus of bandits, go high and team up with Ranger Three and Four to suppress the enemy fighters. Two, stick with me and let's keep beating the bushes until the extraction bird arrives".

As if reacting to Ryan's words, The Yerill pursuing Clem and Xi took a more hostile posture, darting in as close as they dared, and jockeying for advantage. Warbling search tones took on the harsh buzz of lockons, and missiles filled the air.

* = GEV'S, ground effect vehicles; essentially directed-thrust hover platforms with mounted weapons.

Shit, shit, shit, were the three words going through Tony's mind as he struggled to rush his gear on. Between the fact that his arrival to base was delayed and the fact that he is working with slight jet lag from the time shift of things on his way to base he was a bit of a mess. He was still cleared to fly though, apparently someone thought it was a good idea to clear him. Oh well, hazard pay was hazard pay.

He threw his duffle bag into the corner of the Hanger and finished putting on his flight gear. He packed his revolver in his shoulder holster and the small box of bullets into a small pocket underneath his vest. He was fighting a new enemy who had the ability to travel through portals across space, if he was going down today he was going to show these assholes what happens when you invade a planet full of people who are fed up with assholes.

Tony got to his jet, an older AV-8B Harrier jump jet. He wasn't the biggest fan of jets, but pilots were needed and he was deemed as a pretty good one. He wouldn't object to that. "That thing better be ready to go airborn, we're late and we have shootin' going on here." He started shouting at the prep crew. He got an affirmative, he was more or less ready to go.

He claimed inside the older jet, he wondered how long the thing had been sitting before his new officers decided to fix it up and get it moving again. He is hoping it wasn't too long, a sitting engine is at high risk for a lot to fail. It worked fine during the practice runs a while back, but anything could happen, he needed to think right now though.

He radioed the control tower, "This is Ranger five, call sign Ground Bird, Requesting permission to kick some ass?". Tony noticed little things as his plane took off, the change in air pressure was different then flying on earth, not by a lot but by enough that anyone looking for it would notice it. Maybe a different acceleration due to gravity? It didn't matter, what mattered was that his jet was ready to fly. "Ranger Five, joining the fight. Sorry I'm late, someone left the oven on and I am pretty sure it wasn't me."

"Yo, Ground Bird. This is Ranger Lead, you'll be our number five. Good to have you with us, and time to start earning your pay. We've got a surplus of bandits, go high and team up with Ranger Three and Four to suppress the enemy fighters. Two, stick with me and let's keep beating the bushes until the extraction bird arrives". His new squadron leader spoke. It had been years Since Tony had been in a combat situation, it was nerve racking for him.

"Wait, I have to ear my pay? I thought I was living off military benefits for the rest of my life?" He laughed as his bird took flight. "Going high, I'll be up to show you guys how it's done." The Harrier wasn't meant for speed, it was meant for easy take offs and heavy ground support. Could it still hold it's own in the sky? Hell yes.

Tony joined up with Ranger Three and Four as the fight continued, things seemed to be burning pretty well overall with out him. "Damn, you guys cleared the way in for me, does this mean you're buying drinks too?" Tony was soon able to line up his sights on his first target. One of the Yerrill fighter crafts. It wasn't moving like anything Tony had ever seen in combat before, and it was a hell of a lot faster then his own fighter, that didn't matter too much to Tony, as another one of the fighters was about ready to jump into his line of sight. With a slight adjustment he was able to turn the 25mm Gatling gun to his target, giving a whole new definition of "Oh shit" to the pilot inside the craft.

The whole of Avalon came about as the MiG nosed over the top of Lonnie’s reversal and for a moment he could see everything: Vast undisturbed plains, rivers and sharp mountain escarpments in the distance. It was just like Keith had described, clean and new, undisturbed. In some ways it looked like Western China where he’d learned to fly. Drab browns and greens spackled over the landscape pallet with strokes of rock and dust for miles some still hiding in morning shadows. As the nose came down he could almost smell the mix of AeroShell and braised Yak meat from his youth.

“Two Pair, coming up.” Xi said from the back. Lonnie was stretching out the arc of his second pass to keep the sun with them. The caution alarms blared. He knew the Yerrill wouldn’t be as welcoming on this pass. Two more had fallen away in flames from Ranger Five’s pass and the rest had regrouped quickly. The standard Yerrill fighters of the line, he knew, could never catch them, but their fallback tactic against a high speed attacker was a bizarre boxing maneuver designed to contain the speed of the faster human craft. By using their physics-defying agility to keep their guns trained, they could force a speed fighter into turns, thus making him vulnerable.

The bait was to attack either one of the pairs as they split away. Two went high, almost vertical and two ducked away opposite. “Still two loose shots out there from Five.” Xi reported. Lonnie laid into the burners and the MiG accelerated downhill like a truckload of bricks. He resisted the urge to try another Archer shot like he had on the straggler that had moved too soon on the first pass. He could see Ranger Five coming up from the deck trailing a pair of Yerrill as well. Beyond him, Ranger One was drawing considerable ground fire. There was no sign of the F-16. It seemed at least that the fighters were primarily interested in them since their flight lead was now unprotected.

“Did we lose Two?” Lonnie asked as they charged into the gap.

“Not sure,” Xi replied. He was working feverishly in the back to direct the two unguided missiles and make use of Ranger Five’s rearward facing shot. “Go for the pair trailing five and get ready to see some serious shit.”

Under Xi’s guidance, the two forlorn shots launched unguided by Ranger Five found a new purpose and for a moment the Yerrill chasing down Clem’s MiG-23 found their warning sirens blaring from obtuse angles. The trailing fighter broke away immediately as one of the missiles now under the MiG-31’s guidance came howling in from above barely missing. Xi deftly countered by firing off Clem’s remaining aft shot which streaked away smartly and buried itself in the starboard wing-root sending the alien craft ricocheting away in an electrical corkscrew of smoke like a pinball game. Almost simultaneously, the lead unit, fixated on the slowly opening wings of the MiG-23, was smeared across the sky as the other shot under Xi’s control struck pay dirt.

“Well that was hardly sporting.” Lonnie cackled.

They blazed past Clem in a dirty trail of rich exhaust and orange flame. Lonnie was keeping the speed up to prevent the other Yerrill from working the box maneuver on any of them. He cocked the MiG up on its side and Xi knowingly withdrew a small pair of binoculars to check the effects of Ranger Lead’s bombing run.

“Good effect on targets, Lead,” Xi reported scanning quickly. “…Multiple secondaries.” He could spot several mangled Yerrill ground vehicles with purple and blue smoke rising from their hulks. The other vehicles were scrambling to keep moving and get around them, but the pass they were traversing seemed to be blocked with burning wrecks for at least the time being.

The g-forces struck hard as Lonnie pulled them skyward again. He never liked being too close to the ground in the ‘31. It felt out of place. The sound of the AWACs controller broke in unexpectedly assigning them a new helper. Both men glanced over the port wing and listened to the new call sign assignments.

“It’s a bloody Harrier.” Lonnie said, almost stunned.

“At least he’s getting right to it.” Xi replied as they saw the little jump jet turn to engage with the cannon.

“We only drink Guinness,” Lonnie replied over the coms. The MiG was soaring back to altitude like a rocket launch, “But we can add you to the mess tab if you survive in that kite."

"Clem" Yuril grunted with a hint of aggitation as he felt his last self-defense missile leaving him under Xi's launch-authority. Thankfully, the kid managed to use it wisely enough to get a solid follow-up hit, and followed it up with a solid from one of the MiG-31's own, more advanced missiles.

He then took a quick survey of the landscape, knowing the F-16 had been sent to perform a run on some unidentified ground-targets to the southeast... but saw nothing indicating a successful run. "Four. Two is blind, get wizard on standby. Rogue; Low angle strafe on creek, coming in from the Northwest." Captain Greggor keyed to inform the rest of the flight and the ground-team as he finished his wingover-turn and began a run before re-engaging full-afterburner. Ground-fire was hard enough to necessitate a series of jinks and lag-rolls as he strained to line-up for a solid run down the dried-up waterway choked into a soft-target rich environment. Now all he had to do was hit it...

He held down a full-unload of his remaining 62,000 40mm long flechettes, punctuated by a few bursts of 23mm cannon-fire against anything that looked substantial enough to resist the anti-personel rockets that served a secondary duty of defoliating the edges of the creek for any follow-up attacks.

However, the MiG-23, despite it multi-role prowess, was not a dedicated mud-hen, and enough directed energy hits managed to slag chunks off Clem's wings, and his plane began to trail vape, likely a combination of hydraulic-fluid and fuel.

"Four, bugging out." Was all he managed to say as the Bulgarian went into a violent lag-roll, pitched and lurched violently as the wings were desprately unfurled for more lift, the pilot struggling to maintain control with an unresponsive stick and full power to the engines as it fell back on itself in a dive only to lurch back into something resembling a badly trimmed level flight to compensate for a large portion of its starboard-wing being gone when the rudder had suddenly gone missing.

"See you at the Dungeo--"