Meanwhile, at twenty-thousand meters above Oured.
In the cockpit of the XB-70 Valkyrie, the two pilots felt almost suffocated by the number of meters, gauges and other indicators on the dashboard. Built before the era of glass-cockpits, the XB-70, with it's once state of the art design that still held up today, was a complicated beast to fly, but effective. Through the tinted glass of the cockpit, the pilot, dressed in a Yuktobanian Air Force uniform, could see only the blue skies. "Opening bay." his co-pilot, sitting to his left reported as he hit a switch. The pilot himself nodded as he held the black yoke, with a overhead view of the XB-70 on it. He refrained from speaking. At this altitude, speaking was difficult, even with an oxygen mask.
He heard the sounds of the bay opening, with a mechanical shudder. This Valkyrie, salvaged from a boneyard and refurbished just for this mission, had somewhat faulty sound-dampening, and the pilot could thus hear the sound of the aircraft's six engines rather well, but their roar steadily grew somewhat weaker as the pilot slowed the plane down to prepare to drop the nuclear bomb. Even with a high-speed endurance bomb such as the one they had been given for the mission, it was unsafe to drop the bomb at speeds over Mach two-point-six. After a minute or two, the plane had slowed down to the safe speed and his co-pilot readied to drop the bomb. "Dropping in thirty seconds." The pilot acknowledged this with a nod once again. As he counted down in his head, he let his eyes drift across the dashboard, checking that everything was ready.
He kept a calm scan as he looked over the indicators, but his eyes freezed when he looked at the radar screen. The man tilted his head quizzically as he noticed two green dots headed straight towards them. As he reached over to tap it, wondering if it was broken, his co-pilot reassured him. "They're probably below us. No one can get up this altitude." Though his mask was covering his mouth, the pilot could see that the other man was grinning. He chuckled then nodded, before sliding down the tinted goggles in preparation for the blinding flash when the bomb would destroy the city. His co-pilot began the count-down, "Five. Four. Three. Two. One-"
CRASH
The Valkyrie shuddered as it was impacted with what was most likely a missile. Immediately, it began to dive. "What the hell?!" This time, the pilot was the one to speak. As he recovered from the impact, he heard the roar of engines different to those of the Valkyrie and he looked up. Two MiG-31's, with black, white and yellow triangle roundels on their wings zoomed past, their gigantic engines spewing fire.
"Belkans?!" His co-pilot exclamed. The two planes flew off at a blistering speed away from the crippled Valkyrie before turning around. "Sir, we gotta eject. The bombing mechanism is toast. If we're lucky, the thing will explode with the bomb upon impact." The pilot nodded and readied himself by getting a better position before pulling the ejection lever. With a clang, the ejection capsule closed like a clamshell around him, almost crushing his right arm and a blast sent it flying upwards. Through the tiny window of the pod, he saw the Foxhounds fire their missiles and the Valkyrie explode. The nuclear weapon, unarmed, was sent flying off and would hit the ground to little effect...
Seven minutes earlier, Oured Bay.
A F-15S/MTD flew close to the water as it sped towards the Osean capital. Alongside it flew a mismatched formation of other F-15S/MTD's and Su-35's, along with an odd pair of MiG-31 interceptors readying to fly upwards to meet the supersonic bomber. Looking to his left, Major Dustin Zondervan, the pilot of the centermost F-15's eyes met with those of the closest Su-35's. The female pilot gave him a thumbs-up and he took to the radio to give orders to the Belkan Air Force flight. "Alright. We've discussed what we'll be doing here on the way, but I'll recap. Lili, take Wichianmat Squadron and take down the enemy still in the city." The female pilot gave a polite 'roger' in confirmation. "Wolf Team, head up and destroy the XB-70 before it can drop its payload. Finally, Templar Squadron and I will head off to clear the fighters around the flying antiques. Understood?" The radio was saturated by confirmations and Zondervan smiled before giving the final word. "Let's do this! Operation, begin!"
The formation then broke up. The two Foxhounds roared upwards, their afterburners creating streams of flame behind them and the Flankers, all painted white with grey accents and lightly blue tinted cockpits, similar to the colors of Siamese cats rolled over to head towards the city. The white and grey colored F-15's triggered their afterburners to get over to their allies in Peace Sparrow, who as of yet had no idea they had been reinforced. Within moments, the formation had split up and fire had once again opened up in the skies above the Osean capital. Far below, those who hadn't yet gotten to shelter stood in the streets, watching in awe as the Flankers chased down and easily destroyed the stragglers and as the Foxhounds rocketed upwards to meet the deadly sparkle miles above them.
It only took a minute for Templar Squadron to reach the enemies that were considered a threat to their allies; a group of ten Su-27's that had arrived right as the order had been given to retreat and were as such not included in Peace Sparrow's briefing. Zondervan kept his distance from the smoking A-7, as to not bring it into danger and set his sights on a close-flying pair of Flankers. Switching to SAAM's, he kept them within the aiming circle displayed on his HUD and fired and his allies did the same. With a bang, the formation was ripped apart, leaving only four Flankers to fight their own Eagles. However, it was clear that the Belkans had the advantage as the Yuktobanian aircraft moved to retaliate, with their thrust-vectoring engines and canards making it easy to outflank the somewhat basic fighters.
At the same moment, Captain Liane Suchenwirth, or "Lili", as her comrades preferred to call her, finished off a crippled MiG-21 that had been left heavily damaged after the dogfight with Peace Sparrow. She fired the thirty-millimeter cannon and the Fishbed burst into flames within seconds. Counting "one" in her head, the Belkan woman then moved to chase down a group of Harriers that were slowly attempting to escape. Another plane of Wichianmat pulled alongside her and she gave its pilot a nod before the pair moved in to finish off the Harriers with their missiles. Each destroyed two of the four Harriers before turning around to look for more targets. When their search turned out fruitless, they reported over radio to the rest of the BAF flight. "This is Wichianmat-One. The city is clear. How's things with you, Templar?"
Over the suburbs to the east, Dustin nodded before answering. "Peace Sparrow is safe. Wolf, I hope that bomber's down? I'd hate for this all to be for nothing!" As if response, an explosion could be seen high above and flaming bits of shrapnel and debris came falling down.
"We're good. We'll stay up here for awhile just in case there's more and then we'll meet up with you for refueling." A rough voice, that of Wolf Team's leader, Captain Franz Chattam responded and Dustin let out a breath of relief. Setting his radio to the frequency that he had been told Peace Sparrow would be on, he then spoke to the weary pilots.
"Peace Sparrow, this is Major Dustin Zondervan, of the Belkan Air Force, Seventh Air Division, Twenty-first Tactical Fighter Squadron "Templar", with Fortieth TFS "Wichianmat" and Tenth Interceptor Unit "Wolf", all under NUN orders. The airspace is secure, nuclear threat eliminated. We shall escort you to get refueled and we'll lead you to new basing. Can you refuel alright? We can land at the nearby CAC base if repairs are essential, but I'd prefer not to waste anytime. The new base is a bit far."
