[b]100 Miles Southwest of Crete, Mediterranean Sea[/b]

Even amongst the ear-numbing whine of the propellers roaring just above his head and the wind tearing through the fuselage, Luis could not keep himself from nodding off. To understate, it had been a taxing night for the green recruit. Not three months out of basic training and lacking in any real combat experience, he had been marched onto one of a fleet of these carrier-gunships. His helicopter's fuselage was a long, fusiform shape, drawing into stubby snout fanged with armor-sundering machine guns. Without doubt a predatory machine; their designation - Barracuda - was a fitting nomer. A swarm of them rolled over the gilded waves and troughs of the sea.

The fuselage of the Barracuda had not been designed with a restful night's sleep as a priority. A long, bench of canvas supported by aluminum bars bolted along the hull accommodated twelve equipped [i]infanteria[/i] on either side of the aisle - all squished shoulder to shoulder to maximize carrying capacity and minimize comfort. Even so, Luis rested his helmet-cupped head against the bolt-studded interior wall in a mostly-futile effort to get some sleep. Against the backdrop the back of his eyelids provided, fleeting, short-lived dreams played out. Dinner with the family in the backyard with the haze-faded mountains of Huesca in the distance, wrestling with parents' dog on the living room floor, sultry fantasies involving the girl he fancied; anything that removed him from the unfortunate actuality of the past months.

The world came back to Luis once again; a friendly shove to the shoulder tore him from his reveries and returned him to the Barracuda. Luis turned grogilly to his right and found his companion Hector sitting beside him with a guilty grin.

"How the fuck can you be tired right now, Luis?"

"And how are you not? It wasn't even ten in the evening before the sirens went off." Luis groaned, massaging grains of grit from the corner of his eyes.

"Adrenaline." Hector smiled, gleefully squeezing gloved palms together.

"He's right to try to get some sleep, Hector. Leave him in peace." Luis' neighbor to his left commanded. "Save the adrenaline of yours; it will serve you better when some sandmonkey blows your arm off." Luis and Hector both turned to face the man to his right: Lieutenant Fulvio Ayesta, the assigned leader of their platoon.

"Perhaps you should hide your boner for Luis a little more carefully!" Hector shot, drawing light snickering from a few other grunts. "Wouldn't want some Ethiopian to shoot off your [i]verga[/i]."

"Maybe so." Ayesta shrugged. "I could hardly blame them. It's quite a target: large, easy to hit. But yours? No marksman could ever hope to hit a target as small as [i]your[/i] prick."

Soldiers in earshot made cooing 'oooh's as they heard Ayesta's response. Even Hector stifled a chuckle, admitting defeat.

"Take it from one who's seen action on the Dark Continent, there will excitement aplenty."

Before meeting Lieutenant Ayesta, Luis' only experience with a combat veteran had been with his grandfather. He had fought in the Armee Francaise against the Prussians during the Great War and after which emigrated to Spain. But even to his death, his grandfather had positively refused to speak about his experiences during the war. Whatever horrors of that war that Luis' grandfather had witnessed went with him to the grave.

Ayesta, on the other hand, always had something to say about his combat career. He had cut his teeth in the Spanish intervention in the Ivory Coast, now the Rio Niger province of the Republic's African territory. At every relevant occasion - and a great many irrelevant ones - Lieutenant Ayesta found an opportunity to regale the platoon on his tour of duty in the jungles of West Africa. Luis' stomach always turned as Ayesta described in vivid detail the napalming of rebel-held buildings or the holding of entire villages at gunpoint. But what unsettled Luis more than anything was not the visceral nature of Ayesta's tales, but his tone as he recounted them. Ayesta actually seemed to miss warfare; to long for the cathartic release of armed conflict. Luis could not begin to imagine how anyone could enjoy going to war.

"Do Africans even have guns?" A soldier across the aisle asked in half-jest. "I'm almost expecting them to field flintlocks and swords."

"You're not terribly far off. The insurgency in the Rio Niger was supplied in large part by Ethiopians. A lot of it was very obsolete: I recall a great deal of hand-me-down Great War material . The higher-ups seems to agree, their intelligence suggests a very large fighting force with mostly outdated weaponry and variable training. It will be an interesting fight... but futile on their part." As Lieutenant Ayesta went on, Luis dropped out from the discussion and took notice his comrades seated at the opening of the helicopter's fuselage leaned and craned their necks to get a better look out into the sea.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqFdUAZrrMw&t=00m47s]((Suggested listening.))[/url]

"Look! There they are!" A soldier exclaimed over the roar of the propellers.

The entire cadre turned and peered out of the gunship's port side. On the sea, silhouetted against water glistening in the dawn's orange glow, was the black, angular form of a warship. A convoluted canopy of radar masts and antenna dishes rose forth from a bridge towering above steel turrets, each bearing two or three mammoth guns pointed directly ahead. The roar of the Barracuda's propellers tearing through the air echoed off the vessel's hull and faded quickly as the ship passed behind the gunship. A second warship bristling with the same monstrous artillery passed by, followed by a more slender, gracile form of a cruiser. The helicopter banked gently over the fourth vessel in the convoy and turned about. And as the helicopter turned, the rest of the fleet came into view. Staggered across miles and miles of open ocean were dozens of warships stretching all the way to the horizon. Frothy trails of propeller-churned water were left in the wake of each warship; a diffuse trail of diesel smoke wafted into the air behind the vessel as they steamed eastward at full speed. Displayed before Luis and his companions was the whole of Spain's Mediterranean Fleet.

"There it is." Hector gasped. "The Armada."

Three Barracudas swooped down into formation alongside Luis' gunship as it skirted alongside the deck of a destroyer. Sailors on the deck clapped and pumped their fists into the air as the helicopters roared past. As they darted by another destroyer, a handful of the infantry tapped their companions on the shoulder and pointed to an onboard crane lowering a tank-esque armored vehicle into a side-mounted landing craft.

"Look! They've bringing in Prometeos!" A soldier exclaimed, pointing at the armored rocket-artillery vehicle swaying precariously over the side of the warship as the helicopter flew by.

Situated in the center of the fleet, escorted by a triad of cruisers, was the flagship of the armada and the destination of the gunships - the larger of the Spanish Republic's two remaining aircraft carriers: [i]La Ira de Dios[/i]. Several other the Barracuda helicopters sat upon the island of tarmac; their propellers idling down as their cargoes of soldiers poured out onto the deck and and lined into rank and file under the red-tinged shadow of a grand Spanish flag flapping vigorously on the updrafts. Luis' stomach lurched forward as the helicopter slowed down and eased in toward the carrier to touch down.

Heads turned to the starboard as a flicker of motion drew the eyes of the infantrymen to the other side of the helicopter. An aircraft the likes of which Luis had never seen shot past the Barracudas with unbelievable speed. Within the blink of an eye, Luis registered the passing of an airplane with swept, triangular wings that seemed to lack any sort of propeller. The thrumming drone of the helicopter's rotor was drowned out for a moment as an ear-splitting shriek split the skies seconds after the plane shot past.

"[i]Carajo![/i]"

"What the fuck was that?!"

"I see some of us just saw a Fantasma for the first time!" Lieutenant Ayesta cackled at the fresh recruits cupping their hands over their ears. "Now, look sharp and be ready to land and disembark! Admiral Santin's waiting on us! Let's move!"