[quote=Scott Valentine]
"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."
[/quote]

"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.

[h3]Earlier that day[/h3]

[b]7:01 AM[/b]

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 [i]nekhaĭ shchastīt'[/i] 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.

[quote=St. Helen Carter]"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".[/quote]

"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?"