The gleam from earlier unfortunately had clear hostile intentions as a duo of advanced four-point-five generation fighters screamed out of the skies and engaged Eagle Flight with the element of surprise favoring the new bandits. Going by the official markings of the black skull painted craft, it seemed apparent that these guys were mercenaries fighting for the rebels, flying professionally as they vectored in on Stalin’s Su-35 and Charnel’s Tornado; so much for this mission being a cake walk. Rodriguez grimly watched as Eagle Flight was chased by the mercenary bandits, feeling helpless as he was in no way properly equipped to deal with such advanced fighters as he waited eagerly for Scott’s orders.

[i]"Short Round, Spirit. Go turn that Airstrip back into a jungle clearing. Break. Viking, this is Heartbreak; go give Charnel a hand with his new fan, I've got Stalin's tail, over."[/i]

It wasn’t the insane moral order that he wanted to recklessly jump on in the back of his mind but it did provide an outlet to channel his frustration on a key enemy asset that only posed more harm than any particular good to the town defenders, “Spirit, copies. We’ll erase those rebel ground assets.”

Spirit pulled his F-16 behind Short Round as she was already on top of the poor excuse of an airfield. As he closed in for his own attack run, Rodriguez watched Kei’s offensive as she blanketed the facilities and panicking personnel with more ordinance, setting and tearing pretty much both aflame and into pieces; lovely. Defense guns hopelessly fired into the sky with dwindling purpose as those without forth degree burns began to abandon the make-shift hangers and facilities with their lives as a priority. A smart move of course as Spirit had pre-lined up his Hydra 70s with the assets still on the ground, damaged or untouched.

[i]"Rounds complete, egressing. All yours, Spirit."[/i]

[i]Showtime[/i]. The F-16 dipped into frontal assault dive in defiance of the unsteady machine guns, tracer rounds and small arms fire whizzing by or even bouncing off the fighter just as it everything entered within Spirit’s attack range. “Knight Five, Fox 1!”

Rodriguez squeezed the weapon release and turned the rudder left to right, rotating the yaw of his fighter as the rocket launchers continuously fired non-stop as a stream of rockets roared onto the airfield like an apocalypse of fire and metal. Vehicles and aircraft trapped on the airfield by Short Round’s napalm-cleansing attack fell victim to the onslaught of rockets flattening anything and everything in the kill-zone. The assaulting destruction quickly found and poured into the abandoned facilities and sheds of aircraft with broken concrete and twisted metal flying in all directions as the end result until only an inferno remained, devouring the metal birds and ammunition in secondary detonations.

With his rocket count now fully spent, Spirit pulled up out of his attack run and into more smokeless skies. Stabilizing into an appropriate altitude over the carnage created by himself and Short Round’s assaults, Rodriguez oversaw the results of their attacks and tallied the destruction of the airfield and its assets with decreasing glimpses of surviving rebels fleeing the chaos. “Spirit to Knight One, Hearbreak. Rebel airfield neutralized, no read on any remaining resistance. Awaiting your orders.”