Within seconds, the temporary airstrip and it's surrounding facilities had been turned into smoking rubble. The remaining survivors were shaken and scattered, and absorbed themselves with the task of aiding the wounded, or getting whatever they could out of the wreckage after the double-whammy airstrike had shredded the place.

In the whirling melee of the dogfight, things escalated quickly. Scott was relieved to hear Austin chime in, pushing his F-15 into an attacking posture. The Rafales' pilot was obviously skilful, and more than aware of the strengths of his impressive mount. Using the delta-jets' agility, he followed Marcianos' plane through its' evasive manoeuvers with impressive grace, but the fixation on the swing-wing interceptor proved to be his weakness as Austins' AMRAAM closed in. Chaff and flares blossomed from the french-made aircraft, as it hauled into evasive patterns away from the incoming missile.

Meanwhile, Scott slalomed the ASF-14 through hard turns and banks to keep the highly agile SU-37 on his nose. A Sukhoi chasing a Sukhoi made for an extremely high-energy dogfight, as even the basic SU-27 was a highly agile plane. All of its' descendants only ramped up those aspects. And while the F-14 had its' strengths, even the enhanced version Scott and St. Helen flew couldn't perform miracles. Nonethe less, the naval aviator kept his aircraft on the tail of the jet locking up his wingman, grunting as he hauled the plane through punishing moves. Finally the reticle blinked red for his AIM-9's, and he fired a Sidewinder with a cry of 'Fox Two!' over the mic. Almost immediately the SU-37 broke off the pursuit, blurting flares and chaff as it pulled hard evasive moves, leaving Charnel free of attackers. 

The SU-37 pulled into a super-hard banking climb, and evaded the majority of the missile - though the proximity fuse was armed, and the detonatation tore a chunk out of one of the horizontal stabilizers. 
The Rafale suffered a similar fate; pulling hard after releasing its' decoys, the AMRAAM twisted to follow, the french-made jet sliding just outside the turn with a gleam of sunlight and streams of vapour shrouding its' upper surface in the hard turn. The AIM-120's warhead detonated moments later, riddling the portside wing with shrapnel, but the plane still keeping airborn through luck and guts. 
Both planes ditched their loads moments later, and then headed for the deck at high speed, egressing the area.
"They're running!" called St. Helen over the radio. "Should we follow?" 
Scott checked their fuel, and then looked over the situation. Part of him wanted to chase them down, but the defence of the local area was of more importance. He had little doubt that the Major would have more need of help, and there were other sorties waiting.
"Not this time," he said with reluctance, over the general channel. "We'll get 'em another time. Right now, let's RTB and prepare for our next sortie. I've got no doubt it'll be coming soon".

He pulled the F-14 around on a course back to their temporary base, waiting for the others to form up as he reached a cruising altitude. 
"Good job, everyone," he said over the radio as he waited for them to settle into formation. "We hit 'em hard, and even managed to drive off those mercs. Reckon they'll be back again though, and not before too long now they know we're here too. Sure we'll be busy over the next few days, but keep up what happened today, and it'll all be good, over".