The Ukranian pilot kept his jet in formation and remained silent during the initial phase of the flight, the only moment he had to open his mouth was for the refuelling maneuver, which he nearly refused; the Su-35 could endure the entirety of the flight no problem, but a thought whispering in his ears convinced him to go for it anyway. He patiently waited for everybody else to have their fill first, preferring to be the last one to get his own portion of fuel. With the grace of a bull, he lined his wardrobe with the nozzle dnagling behind the refuelling aircraft and allowed the fuel to pour in. After that, the flight was simply eventless, Dmitry scanned the horizon, the radar, but nothing popped up. News came in that the bigger planes landed safely to base, which pretty much meant that no one was hunting them; if someone really wished to do damage, all they had to do was to target the convoy and flee before the jets could intercept. Thus, the pilot kicked back and tried to enjoy the rest of the flight. In that moment of relaxation, he let his brain wander through his memories and replay the highlights of today's event. He tried really hard to be happy about scoring another kill, but everything happened so fast that, somehow, he felt that the assault was yesterday's news; even the, otherwise impressive, orbital strike seemed like a distant affair.

"Let's practice an overhead recovery; with things going as they are, I don't want us overflying the jungle too often if we don't have to. And who knows - we might need combat recoveries before this is over. Taxi straight to the shelters as soon as your wheels touch ground too. I think we should get the aircraft under cover quick, those clouds don't look good." Said his superior, Scott Valentine, through the comms. That alone was enough to have Dmitry snap from his idleness and scan the ground below and locate the airbase.

"Copy." He only barely parted his lips to comply with the plan.

Again, he allowed everyone else to go for the landing, since he had the most fuel in his aircraft. He tried his best to circle the airstrip, stay clear from other planes' flight trajectory and keep the Sukhoi from stalling, bleeding some of the speed during the wait. Once his turn was up, he rolled his monster almost upside-down, pitched upwards to kill more speed and get in line with the tarmac. After one more roll, the Sukhoi was facing the right side towards the ground and from there, the landing procedure was as standard as it could get. Dmitry taxied until he found a hangar that still had enough space for his jet and crammed it inside. Although he was a little late, Scott was still kind enough to help him shelter the plane from the downpour that just started to flood the place. The pilot had to really focus and squint his eyes to understand Scott's words as the raindrops slamming against the hangar made a very loud racket. Out of inertia, Stalin followed the score of pilots to the hotel, being glad that he was offered a rain coat; the USSR would only offer a beret, that would soak anyway, and call it generosity. The day wore him off enough to just remain passive through the short brief, clasping his hips as he lazily followed the Major with his eyes and absorb as much intel as he could still comprehend. Once given the leave, Dmitry found his way in an empty room, showered off the grime his body accumulated throughout the day and simply crashed in the provided bed, loosing consciousness in a matter of minutes.

Come morning, the pilot woke up in the morning, expecting to be woken up by his cellphone; only then he realized he left that back on the island too, which meant that he had to buy a new one, along with another gaming laptop. He joined the rest of the gang for Knight One's briefing, only to find out that they were expected to go out on a mission again.

"All right, Black Knights. I hope you all slept well, and you're ready for our first sortie. The weather is on our side, and we have full details of the enemies' positions. I've had word from the airfield; nothing was damaged, and we're able to fly ASAP. Our planes are being prepped as we speak, and uploaded with ordnance right away. The downside currently, is that Kat is off the roster for now due to illness. So, we're flying one plane short. On the upside, we're taking the big stick to the bad guys."

Dmitry couldn't help but to chortle when he saw Scott pull out a pool cue, imagining that they had to perform a tactical airstrike with pool cue warheads. He tried to keep a straight face for the rest of the briefing, taking mental notes of the plan that had been laid in front of them. It seemed a little strange that the cat-ear-lady was given sick leave, but he tried to pay no mind to that and instead, focus harder on Scott's words.

"Stalin -" that alone nearly made him jump, thinking that he was about to get scolded for his less-than disciplined demeanor, his head shot straight at his superior and his back straightened so hard that some vertebrae snapped from the tension.

"I want your Su-35 loaded with some air-to-ground ordnance, so you can attack if you have a target of opportunity. Otherwise, mark the location for follow-on attacks. You'll be watching the rest of our backs during the operation, and keeping us safe."

"Oke, no problem." The Ukrainian pilot nodded abruptly. 

Basically, he had to keep the skies clear and substitute Kat as well; he didn't mind going multirole, he only hoped that he would remember how to perform precise bombing runs. If his jet had to be loaded with Kh-25s, and if he was lucky enough, get at least one Kh-59 missile that could ruin someone's day from a safe distance, they were especially useful against AA guns. Given that the OPFOR anti-air capabilities were rather limited, he judged that maybe the Kh-59 would be a rather excessive asset. The 25 variant would be sufficient against rapid-fire weapons if he would be cautious around them, and, of course, if he had the liberty to do so; since he was the task to support the entire team, he thought he would have to keep himself in the background most of the time and judge when to strike, intercept, counter-intercept and provide cover. 

They were given forty-five minutes to prep for the flight, Dmitry decided he wanted to down some light breakfast and have a strong coffee. Before he would part to meet his needs, he brought his index and thumb to his tongue and blew out a short, but ear-busting whistle.

"Charnel, Viking. You heard d'boss, we're flyswatters today. I'll hang back on this mission t'be ready t'bomb shitheads and help you guys out with any tails that you can't shake off, oke? You need help, call me and I'll chase the motherfuckers back home. Catch you on the flip side."

With that, Dmitry nodded at the two and headed off to get some food in and down it with a cup of coffee. When the time came to gear up and hop in the jet, the pilot got to his Su, where he got a quick summary of the loadout: 5 FAB-250, 2 Vympel R-77, 2 Kh-25, 300 30mm rounds for the internal cannon and, to his delight, 1 Kh-59. The technician was also kind enough to provide the pilot with a few spare Bizon-2-02 SMG 64-rounds magazines, to which the pilot nodded slowly and smiled in appreciation.

"You are a good kid. Stay safe, da?" He said before he took a few steps for the jet, where he spat out a green, gelatinous bit and drew a cross on his upper body. In a matter of minutes, he was up and in formation and once again, flew at the very back. Once they were in the danger zone, Dmitry took a deep breath in and pulled his aircraft to the side to survey the area. Very little time passed until Dmitry spotted the first signs of possible enemy presence, a number of bogeys popping up on his radar. He tried to look for them through the canopy of the fighter plane, indeed spotting a distant formation of planes heading inland, of which he was 100% sure that it wasn't not on their side.

"Squad Stalin here, be advised: I've four bogeys heading inland at grid 552091, bearing 087, flying at low altitude. Break. Viking, Charnel, they look like air-to-ground from here and I don't think they want to drop good presents for our guys... it would be embarrassing if any of you get hit by those slugs, so be good and fuck them up, da? Break. Hawk flight, watch your 2 in case those kretyny target you guys instead."