[color=6ecff6][b]Ximena Huang[/b][/color]

The first part of her job was done. SEAD, Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses, a polite euphemism for blasting whatever on the ground could scratch her paint to hell and back. Those HAWKs were suppressed indeed, which meant it was time to deal with everything else. 
  
Screaming past the island on a bombing run meant that Ximena had to waste precious seconds throwing her bird back into the fight, the sound of combat around her revealing her flight's gleeful abuse of the window of opportunity she had bought them. [i]Chán zuǐ māo,[/i] they were, greedy-mouthed cats gobbling up the easy prey before their poor provider could get a bite in! 

Lucky her then that the Mirages were "quick off the mark', as the Americans said. Light craft with powerful engines flown by pilots emboldened by their numbers, by the time Ximena had turned around and leveled out they were already being knocked off by Calico. One of the French planes had only just whirled about, wings still diagonal to the ground as it fought to reach a fighting stance. La Catrina spotted the danger instantly; the Beautiful Corpse informed her rider politely via the instrument panel that a foe was seeking missile lock. 

Jefe already had her gun in hand. 

[color=6ecff6]"Fox Two, ladies."[/color] she chirped, tapping the fire command with all the easy casualness of someone setting a thermostat. The missile fired without a lock, guided only by her helmet-mounted targeting system. A slow, slight turn of her head guided the shot square into the Mirage's wing, tearing it apart and sending the thing plummeting down to earth. 

Easy kill, unsporting really. Onto the next one. 

One of the MiG-23s was leveled out and circling to get inside her turn radius, a wrestler seeking to drag her down. The bort number emblazoned across it was 27, and it had been painted a jaunty Flanker blue as opposed to the usual Flogger gray-green. She had a name and personality for it now, which meant she had a playmate. Ximena grinned brutally as she veered right, forcing her new friend to follow suit lest they collide. Slamming the stick to the side sent her rattling around the cockpit violently, her wing almost shearing off against the MiG's tail as she dropped behind it. It was a stupid maneuver and pointlessly aggressive, Jefe howling like a sick dog as she flicked comms to an open channel. 

[color=6ecff6]"27! [i]No te vayas a correr, sacatón,[/i] stay there so I can fucking gut you!"[/color]

[color=gray][i]"Ya khara![/i] You'll kill us both!"[/color]

She was dropping behind him to set up a shot with her main gun and he must have known it, desperately trying to shake her loose as she nearly rammed her nose through his thruster. It was too close for her to fire without immediately colliding with the wreckage and too close for him to break away without being left wide open. He couldn't dart off without her gunning him down and she couldn't shoot without running the risk of suicide. They remained trapped in that exhilarating hell for long, gorgeous moments, an eternal chase where a millisecond of mistake would spell death for one or both of them. Their comms were open for anyone to listen in, his cursing in Arabic and her shrill, frantic laughter getting more and more strained as he led her into a tight rise, g-forces climbing as they made full use of their ASIs.

And then Number 27, her graceful partner in that thrilling dance, lost his nerve. He tried to rip into a wingover but screwed the maneuver, failing to turn the rudder before it stalled out. His engine turned cold as he dropped like a rock, plummeting past Ximena as she deftly jumped into a flat turn. She was chasing him straight down, watching as his wings extended in a futile attempt to catch drag.

He could have recovered, had she not been there. 

[color=gray]No, no, no-"[/color]

[color=6ecff6]"Yes!"[/color]

Her gun spat out its last few bullets and 27 was gone, nothing more than charred chunks of man in a flaming cockpit. 

[b][color=00a651]Fuka Nakano[/color][/b]

What was Jefe's problem? 

It was a stupid question-Fuka knew very well what was wrong with her. She was a capital F Fighter Pilot, a maverick who joined in search of a fat paycheck and adrenaline and found both in knife-fighting with bandits. She had equal parts ego and death wish, as well as an ability to mentally convert people into simple targets. None of those were traits Peacenik inherently minded (in fact, she personally embodied most of them), but Jefe, like the Wunderkind she had teased before their little shootout the day before, lacked the grace or sanity to keep it all buttoned up. Mykhalio swooning over the concept of acehood, Ximena screeching like a banshee as she played with her food, it was all very gauche. 

Fuka liked to fight, that's why she had spent her adult life shooting at strangers. But she also liked doing her job and being a professional, not tearing her shirt off to go play Braveheart. 

She took a Flogger as well, but her method was much cleaner. 

[color=00a651]"Fox Two."[/color]

It had only just gotten off the ground before being gutted by an AMRAAM, Peacenik snorting derisively as she pulled around for an assent.

[color=00a651]"Cobalt 3 here. That ship's a problem."[/color] she noted, riding high above the clouds of flak it was throwing up. [color=00a651]"If it keeps spraying like that it'll get lucky eventually. I'm going to shut it up. Cobalt 8, ride my back and make sure no one creeps up on me."[/color] 

Peacenik plunged into a dive, Vulcan spinning up as she did so. Without ground-attack weapons she was of limited use but tank-landing ships weren't the most armored thing in the world. A line of cannon fire would do something nasty to it, probbably.

Sure enough she could see effect on target, jagged tears of steel ripping off as she tore through the superstructure. An explosion punched a hole in the top deck, fuel or ammunition or both cooking off and giving the crew more pressing problems than reloading.