It did not take long for Everett to realize that with the squadron's reduction in size and the certain reshuffling of callsigns, roles and whatnot, his flight was no longer Excalibur Four. Sure enough, a quick check of the squadron's status on his tablet confirmed to him that the Ghost of the Strait was now Excalibur Three, rather than four. "Excuse me," He said curtly to the squadron before rushing out of the barracks. He hoped that the ground crew had not loaded up the aircraft yet - it would be troublesome and incur a needless delay if he had to have his aircraft disarmed and rearmed with the appropriate munitions. As he ran down the corridors, he made a mental list of the sort of weapons they were going to need. Top cover would be provided by One and Two, so Everett figured that he could afford to go heavy on the air-to-ground munitions.

Thankfully, Zola had only just finished briefing the ground crew when Everett skidded to a halt in front of his aircraft, much to Zola's amusement. "Slow down, Evy, there's plenty of time left." She said with a grin and nodded towards the ground crew and munitions around them. "I only just gave them the brief. Limited air-to-ground and only basic air-to-air for self-defense, yeah?"

Everett shook his head. "No, we're Excalibur Three now, so we're the 'heavy hitters' as the colonel put it." He said. "Go crazy on the air-to-ground and load us with just enough air-to-air to act as a last-ditch defensive measure. Let the main dogfights be One and Two's concern this time round."

Zola let out a frustrated sigh and scratched the back of her head. "Well, that briefing was a waste of breath, then." She said and took a deep breath. "So, then. What do you reckon?"

"We'll be hitting anti-ship emplacements, so I expect them to have some form of radar system active." Everett said. "Anti-radiation missiles should suit us fine, and we can turn them loose against SAM sites if they give us too much trouble. I'm not sure how many emplacements we're expected to eliminate, so I'm leaning towards cluster munitions for better coverage."

"So two anti-rads, three clusters, two air-to-grounds and two air-to-airs?" Zola asked.

"Sounds good to me," Everett said and nodded to the ground crew. "Zola and I will go get our kit on. You still have a little over an hour to get things straight, so don't bother rushing."

"Not sure if we have cluster bombs, you know how iffy these UN types are about those." The crew chief said. "But I'm sure we can scrounge something similar up. Don't you worry about that."

Zola laughed. "As long as it'll ruin the days of anyone within a large radius, it'll be fine." She said and waved goodbye to the maintenance crew before going off with Everett to get their flight suits on. It was a welcome breath of familiarity for Zola, from here on out, everything would more or less be the same as a ground-based operation. After all, there were only so many ways of getting an aircraft off the ground.

By the time they returned to the Ghost, the maintenance crew had completed arming the aircraft, true to their word. As the crew chief had predicted, there were no cluster bombs hanging from the pylons of the Ghost. Rather, they had been replaced by thermobaric bombs. They were devastating weapons, and Everett almost felt bad about unleashing them on the enemy. The bomb did not kill with shrapnel, rather it killed with the blast wave and the effects of a temporary vacuum that came with it. Of course, that was if its victims survived the initial intense heat of the detonation.

"Fuel-air bombs, ouch." Zola said and looked to Everett. "So cluster bombs are a no-no and these are?"

Everett shrugged in response. "Fuck if I know. Maybe we just don't have cluster bombs at the moment, who knows?" He said. Just then, another siren sounded and the two of them could feel the submarine's rapid deceleration, which was thankfully a lot more gentle than its acceleration. That was a sign for them that it was time to make ready and get the Ghost ready for the mission.

"You head up into the cockpit, I'll give it an external once over." Zola said.

Everett nodded and climbed up into the cockpit, getting himself into a comfortable position before strapping himself in and going through the pre-flight checklist. Zola climbed into the cockpit before the engines were even beginning to warm-up, which gave Everett reason to suspect the effectiveness of her 'external once over', but he kept whatever comments he had to himself. Zola was not a rookie pilot - she knew what she was doing. "Everything checks out, no scratches, pits or any sign of damage." She said. "Flight controls looked smooth from where I was standing."

"Good," Everett said with a nod. "Weapons systems?"

"One second," Zola said and strapped herself into her seat. "Right, carrying out pre-flight check now." She reported and flicked a few switches. She cycled through their weapons and pulled the trigger each time, and each time she heard a satisfying beep which told her that the controls were responsive and everything was as it should be. "Everything looks green on my end. We're good to go."

It did not take long after that for them to be towed to the elevator and brought up to the flight deck. Excaliburs One, Two and Four were already in the air and Everett could just barely make out the contrails left by their wingtips as they circled overhead. "Ever taken off from a carrier before?" Everett asked as he felt the familiar bump of the catapult latching onto the forward landing gear.

"Simulations, yes. Real life, no." Zola replied honestly. "But hey, it's just taking off."

Everett chuckled dryly. "One hell of a takeoff, though." He said and powered up the engines to takeoff power before placing his hand on the cockpit window to let the flight deck crew know that he was ready for launch. There were a few tense seconds of anticipation as the ground crew finalized everything before the Ghost was pulled violently by the catapult towards the end of the flight deck and flung into the air. "Gears up," Everett reported as he retracted the landing gear.

"Not sure what that says about you," Zola said with a smirk. "But that honestly feels no different than when you're dogfighting. A lot better, even."

Everett simply rolled his eyes at her remark and said into his mic, "Excalibur Four in the air. Sorry for the delay."