The sky over Tripoli had completely fallen apart.

Missile trails carved across the clouds while radar contacts flooded every display in Ayvee’s cockpit. Friendly and hostile aircraft mixed in a chaotic blur above the city, contrails twisting between bursts of flares and distant explosions. The radio was nonstop noise now — warnings, target calls, overlapping chatter drowned occasionally by static.

Ayvee stayed just beneath the worst of it.

The Seahawk cut through the lower airspace at high speed, weaving between layers of smoke drifting up from the harbor district. Fires burned along parts of the coastline below, reflecting off the canopy in brief flashes of orange as she scanned through radar modes and targeting feeds.

Most of the squadron was tangled up in the air battle overhead.

She had other priorities.

A sharp radar warning pulsed through the cockpit. Tracking signal. Ground-based.

Ayvee narrowed her eyes slightly as the emitter appeared on her display near the waterfront, tucked somewhere between warehouses and dock infrastructure. A SAM site still active and trying to paint aircraft above the city.

“There you are,” she muttered.

The Seahawk dipped lower as she approached the target area, the aircraft hugging the terrain while her targeting system refined the lock. Above her, two fighters tore past through the clouds, one dumping flares as missile smoke curled after it across the night sky.

Ayvee ignored it.

Weapon systems shifted over with a quiet tone in her headset.

Target confirmed.

She steadied the aircraft for only a moment before releasing the payload.

The Seahawk shuddered lightly as guided bombs dropped cleanly from the internal bay. Ayvee rolled immediately into a hard banking turn, disappearing back toward the cover of the city while warning alarms briefly flared across her displays.

A few seconds later, the horizon behind her flashed bright orange.

The radar signal vanished.

“Stingray,” she said over comms calmly, “SAM site’s gone. Airspace should be a little less miserable now.”

@Rhona W

Valkyrie had tried her best to keep up with the enemy F-15, but the pilot was using its strength against her Gripen, but couldn’t afford him to get too much wiggle room and despite her efforts that is exactly what they were able to achieve. She was laser focused and knew this fighting would push her to her limits, she wasn’t alone in this fighter either thankfully. Her lock alarms then sounded and before she knew it, a missile was in the air and coming for her and within the NEZ too.

“Knulla” She said to herself, immediately she pulled of Gripen into a break turn and dive maneuver, she rolled the Gripen onto its back and then pulled a steep high-G dive forcing the missile into a high-G lead pursuit while releasing chaff in the process, in combination with her craft integrated EW system she hoped it would bleed out the energy of the missile and make it harder to re acquire its target. The high G’s putting strain on her while doing so.

After this she pulled her craft into a notch maneuver putting the missile 90 degrees to her own flight path to use the ground clutter to confuse its radar and ultimately lose its lock; she hoped the missile wouldn’t cause too much collateral damage. But in doing all this she had lost temporary sight of her target, as she quickly scanned around her surroundings. “Cobalt one, Cobalt six, you got eyes? Enemy F-15 has gone down low,over”

Scott’s Harrier sped in close, eating up the miles between them. The black F-15 blended in far too well against the blacked out city below, and even the collateral damage from the battle hadn’t wrought so much destruction that fires had spread everywhere. The Titan pilot was canny; going down low had also got them against the clutter of the ground, making it harder for even the AESA radar retrofitted to Scott’s AV-8B to pick out; intermittent returns kept coming back, especially with the enhanced stealthy features the twin-tailed jet sported. But it couldn’t last forever: if nothing else, the Silent Eagle was moving faster than anything around it, and that movement pulled it out from the background clutter.

“I’ve got him; eight o’clock off my nose, down in the weeds. I’ll try and herd him up to altitude, six. You pounce on him when he pokes his head up!” Scott only had a single sidewinder left; other than that it was down to cannon rounds if he wanted to go hunting. That in mind; letting fly with it wasn’t even necessary; it was the threat of being hit he was going for - Freyja could make the pounce and bag the kill, if all went well.

He selected the AIM-9X and the familiar warbling of his plane’s systems searching for a lock-on sounded in his ears as he edged the stubby Harrier lower and tighter into a turn, sliding in behind the F-15 as it leveled out briefly. Smoothly, he followed the silver-edged plane into a bank, reversing direction and the sound in his ears changed, the growl of a firm lock-on. Immediately, the Silent Eagle pitched up, pumping out flares. “Cobalt Six, Cobalt One - he’s coming up, get ready to pinch him!”

“Acknowledged!” Freyja replied as the F-15 formed its maneuver to avoid Heartbreaks missile, the enemy pilot was getting gruntled but knew his actions was buying time, buying time was their mission after all and holding up more of the team was proving its purpose, however in doing so was leaving the f-15 pilot in a situation of being outnumbered and no matter how good one was, eventually the numbers game would win. Seeing the enemy craft pitch up with it;s flare going at her two o’clock, Freyja immediately moved to intercept following the flight path of her target the only just managed to evade a missile, throttling up he barely had time to react as the Swedish pilot had lined him up for another shot.

Then another missile was flying his way, he gained enough altitude but he pulled off a Kvochur Bell maneuver to dodge the missile with the last of his flares. For a split second both pilots looked at each other as during the move she flew past him, when he completed the move he began heading back towards Heartbreaks Harrier. Freyja banked her craft and followed the F-15 back down towards her squad lead. He was making it difficult for her to get a stable lock, as she contemplated using her cannon but needed to use it at the right opportunity. “Cobalt Six, Cobalt one, he is a slippery one, he is coming back for you, over.” She needed to do something fast, hopefully with the enemy concentrating on Scott while giving her an opening, hopefully he will forgive her for using him as bait, she switched to cannons not bothering with a target lock to spook them.

As the Eagle swooped down toward him once more, Scott heeled over hard, contrails drawing from his wingtips in the cool night air of the desert. He was thankful for how nimble his Harrier was compared to the heavy, but powerful F-15. Between his plane and Freya’s being smaller and lighter, it was like hounds nipping at the heels of a buffalo, each taking turns to lure the bigger beast and wear it down. It was his turn to play the lure now; a task he didn’t relish, but his experience and skill seemed more-than fit for the task, and he played the part well, dancing the punchy little AV-8B enough to make things challenging for the heavy twin-engined jet on his tail, but not so much to throw him off completely.

“Roger, Six; I’m giving him enough of a show to keep him occupied; flashing him my ass to keep him interested. Knock him down while he’s getting a good look, over!” The silver-trimmed Silent Eagle closed in, and Scott could feel his skin crawling on the back of his neck as his radar warning receiver blared about the hostile lock on, the F-15 settling firmly on his tail, it’s pilot fixated on Heartbreak’s Harrier as it screamed over the rooftops of Tripoli.

Freyja smiled a little as she let out a little snort at her squad leaders comments, In honesty though, his ass shaking was working, but it would only work for so long and the Gripen was re-positioning itself to get in close and pepper the enemy with her cannon, the hope being that it would force the F-15 to break off and leave the combat zone. Time was off the essence however and the Swedish pilot turned towards her target.

Her finger resting on the trigger as she throttled up to close the gap quickly, By the time she was close enough and pulling said trigger to unleash whatever rounds remained in her cannon, the F-15 also was in the process of firing a missile, this made Freyja worry for that split second, Scott's movements to her relative meant that the underbelly of the enemy fighter was showing when she fired. Bullet’s were hitting their target, striking the bottom of the craft and the missile as it was launching, before she could process what was happening there was a sudden explosion as the missile went off.

The craft was going going in flames, Freyja had no idea id the pilot even had the chance to eject or not, so quickly it happened she held her breath as she flew through the flames from the tail end of the explosion, adjusting herself in her seat and taking a moment of silence to one process what the heck just happened and to make sure herself was in one piece and no panels were alerting, she broke radio silence. “Cobalt one, target is down… that was some serious twerking. Sir.” She joked as she flew up beside her squad leader.

The timing could not have been more perfect, and luck was clearly on their sides. The Titan pilot’s finger curled around the trigger on his joystick, in the same instant as Freyja opened fire. Scott heard the missile launch warning at that same instant and thumbed the controls for the Harrier’s exhaust nozzles and slapped the countermeasures button. Even as the sidewinder leapt off the Silent Eagle’s underwing pylon, the 27mm shells from the Gripen’s cannon smashed home. The explosive shells tore ragged chunks out of the thin-skinned jet, smashing flight controls, engines, and systems, before the red-hot shrapnel ignited the volatile fuel, lubricants and hydraulic fluid within the aircraft.

All of this happened in a matter of microseconds, the jet turning into a ragged fireball in the same instant the middle flew. Without the helmet-mounted sight to guide it, it mindlessly homed on the heat source in front of it; the pillars of hot exhaust from the harrier and the blaze of hot flares, the AIM-9X detonating harmlessly as Scott smoothly slid the Harrier back into formation with Freyja’s Gripen. “Roger, Cobalt Six,” he replied, waggling his wingtips as he came alongside her. “And glad you enjoyed the show. Your next drink is on me, for sure”.

The Aqua-tailed Titan being hounded by Amelia and Ximena had no chance. Between them, the two women had pushed and pulled the Silent Eagle and it's pilot into the corner. Ximena danced her Sea Raptor out of the way of the laser, a move that goaded the enemy pilot to chase the plucky sinomexican into another shot, only to have one of Jefe's pair of missiles as a return for their troubles. At the same instant, Calico let fly with a trio her her own.
Bracketed by both planes and with five air-to-air missiles bearing down on them, there was really no avoiding it. The Titan pilot was no quitter, and they pulled to try and gain altitude, heeling into-
Before they could even complete the maneuver, the first of the three R-73's detonated, the close proximity fuse showering the belly of the Silent Eagle with blazing shrapnel. The second plowed home moments later, and the third arrived at the same instant as Ximena's missiles. The F-15 was obliterated, the machine and pilot alike so thoroughly obliterated by the successive hammering of explosions that it was spread out square miles of the suburbs in a shower of fragments that looked like a brief, if heavy meteor shower.

With all the Titan's down or ejected and no further bandits in the air, the squadron had got themselves some breathing room - however brief it might be.
Stingray hitting the SAM site removed another obstacle, and finally the picture was clear, the AWACS voice coming over the squadron channel to confirm they were in the clear for the meantime as the Libyans were regrouping and rushing planes to the area.
"Cobalt One to all aircraft, move to the next target. Targets are the Tu-22 bombers and any other strike aircraft and their support facilities at Mitiga. We're looking to stop them from being able to target the NUN fleet with long-range anti-ship missiles. As soon as we deliver our payloads, we go low and head north at max speed to exfiltrate back to Malta, over"
Orders delivered, Scott nudged the Harrier back on course to the east, and the waypoint for Mitiga International Airport, their second target. The AWACS operator aboard the E-2D Hawkeye was already advising them of SAM and surface-to-air radar around the airport, but not nearly as dense as that around Tripoli. There was a significant amount of movement on the ground that the Hawkeyes' powerful APY-9 radar was picking up, showing that the Libyans were already expecting something.
"Anyone with ground ordnance left; target the bombers and then bug out. No hanging around, no dogfights - we go in and out clean and fast. Dump any remaining air-to-ground stuff on the target, and then out over the ocean toward home. We delay any longer, and they'll be all over us. We already gave 'em a bloody nose, now we make it stick, and get out in one piece, over"
As Scott's aircraft closed in, the airport was laid out below. Winking lights of AA fire flashed from emplaced guns and mobile vehicles, brief sights as he closed in at high speed.
Of more note were the sleek shapes of the Tu-22 Blinder bombers. They looked almost like sleek, predatory fish, or rocket-ships from a 1950's pulp-era serial, gleaming silver under the moonlight. Several were parked up on the apron, while others were slowly taxiing to the end of the runway, where one was holding, navigation lights blinking.
Not hesitating, Scott thumbed the weapons selector on his stick, bringing up the maverick missiles slung under the AV-8's wings. He slewed the laser on the Litening pod under the belly onto the TU-22 about to start rolling and locked on.
"Cobalt Lead, Rifle!"
He squeezed the trigger twice rapidly, and the air-to-ground missiles flashed away, guided in by the laser's point onto the shark-like bomber. The distance was so short, that the Mavericks hit home within seconds, and the thin-skinned aircraft stood no chance. The anti-tank missiles blasted into it like thunderbolts from Zeus himself. Loaded heavily with fuel and the payload of the massive Kh-22 anti-ship missile, the bomber exploded in a gigantic fireball, the shockwave causing even more damage, blowing out windows, tossing support vehicles, and incinerating unprotected bodies.
The AV-8B screamed over the airport at low altitude and high speed, before Scott executed a picture-perfect bank and a nose-up, reducing speed just enough to get a good laser fix on the main control tower. As soon as the point was set, he punched off the two GBU-16's, letting them sail toward the target, toggling the laser to stay on target as he rolled and smoothly banked away from the target, punching out chaff and flares as the jet insistently complained about the radars painting his jet.
The paveways lazily soared toward the concrete tower as he moved away. The twin laser-guided bombs blasted into the middle of the tower's concrete stem, raining chunks of concrete and steel from the blossoming explosion, as flame bloomed out from the windows at the top.
"Cobalt Lead; targets hit. Heading for the ocean. It's all yours, guys and gals, over".



Kat had kept her A-10 at high speed as they had transition from the area around Tripoli to Mitiga. With the speed of their combat jets and the short distance, even her comparatively slow plane moved fast enough to cover the distance in barely a few minutes. She dropped altitude and speed on the approach, heeding Scott's warnings and instructions. The big bombers gleamed under the moonlight, but she had other targets in mind. To one side, a little removed, sat the POL (petroleum, oil and lubricant) storage farm. She selected her APKWS pods and let the Litening pod under her port wing play across the tanks and maze of piping, before selecting volley fire and curling her gloved finger around the trigger. As the rockets flashed out in rapid succession, each pod alternately firing until they were empty, she fish-tailed the rudders of her plane gently, strafing the rockets in a wide pattern back-and-forth across the compound, and pulling up and banking as soon as the last rockets had left the launcher.
Almost immediately there was a rain of explosions, and then moments later a massive fireball mushroomed up from the storage area as the vaporised volatiles met the burning and superheated metal fragments, the shockwaves flattening structures and tossing nearby vehicles like cheap toys. To her satisfaction, at least one of the SAM radars went offline, and the AA fire faltered and dropped off.
Wheeling in her bank into a tight turn, She selected her remaining cluster bombs and punched them off with a call of 'pickle' as she passed over the vehicle park, the weapons wreaking a blaze of fiery destruction as the smart submunitions targeted the parked-up service and repair vehicles and equipment, as well as tearing through thin-skinned steel outbuildings.
Her plane shuddered and bucked as she came around, the sounds like heavy hammerblows against the A-10 as it skidded and slewed. Grimacing, she pressed her booted foot heavily on the rudder pedals, and the plane nosed back on course, and she carefully eased her stick in a few slow turns, checking the mirrors attached to her canopy rail - yep; there it was. One of the twin, rectangular vertical tails had the top edge raggedly chewed away. She gingerly eased the throttle back up, pressing her feet on the pedal to test... there was a noticeable shudder and a sluggish response, and the shuddering grew as she advanced the throttle closer to maximum speed, but it held.
"Cobalt 7, I've taken a hit from triple-A. Some damage to my rudders, but I've still got control of the aircraft. Should hold until we get back to base, over"

@Smike, @Letter Bee, @Finetales, @AvaP, @Damo021

Mykhailo Martinez

Scott 'Heartbreak' Valentine - Cobalt Leader

The Aqua-tailed Titan being hounded by Amelia and Ximena had no chance. Between them, the two women had pushed and pulled the Silent Eagle and it's pilot into the corner. Ximena danced her Sea Raptor out of the way of the laser, a move that goaded the enemy pilot to chase the plucky sinomexican into another shot, only to have one of Jefe's pair of missiles as a return for their troubles. At the same instant, Calico let fly with a trio her her own.
Bracketed by both planes and with five air-to-air missiles bearing down on them, there was really no avoiding it. The Titan pilot was no quitter, and they pulled to try and gain altitude, heeling into-
Before they could even complete the maneuver, the first of the three R-73's detonated, the close proximity fuse showering the belly of the Silent Eagle with blazing shrapnel. The second plowed home moments later, and the third arrived at the same instant as Ximena's missiles. The F-15 was obliterated, the machine and pilot alike so thoroughly obliterated by the successive hammering of explosions that it was spread out square miles of the suburbs in a shower of fragments that looked like a brief, if heavy meteor shower.

"чудовий (chudovyi)!," Mykhailo said the word for 'magnificent' in his mother's tounge. He could laugh out loud, but at the same time, the risk that innocent civilians might get hit by debris... Well, he hoped the Libyans actually put in alarm and evacuation measures and had bought their share of ambulances and fire trucks.
Point was, the brilliant rain of fiery lights were magnificent from the air, but they also marked a waste of human life; Mykhailo hated it when his actions had a human cost out of all proportion to victory. At least he was closer to Ace-hood, right?
"All our powers combined!" Mykhailo couldn't help but blurt out, before biting his tounge to avoid saying, Go Go Power Rangers!
He still had a mission; this was not a movie where the narrative was winding down and he can relax. But compared to the flipping laser that had taken out his stabilizer, black market SAMs were child's play to avoid even with his plane's ability to form fancy turns disabled. Laughing, Mykhailo shouted, "Rifle!" as he unloaded his last rocket pod at some hapless emplacements, watching them blow up into clouds of orange and dark grey.
After that, he did a sweep to see if there were still planes or a missile silo he can still strike, and upon finding that the runaway was untouched, he made a move to remedy that, shouting, "BAT!" before dropping his F-16's Guided Bomb.
The noise and the explosions were a mark of a job well-done; to be honest, Mykhailo knew that to enjoy the harm, the pain, he was doing to real people - enemies - to express that outside of some vaguely defined boundaries of agreement like a duel or lack of civilian populations, well... he didn't feel comfortable doing that now that he was actually inflicting damage to his foes, foes he regarded as proxies for the mobs that killed Artemio.
To be fair, Artemio saw you for you; he was your boyfriend because he was willing to tolerate a brat like you, an intrusive thought parked itself in his head. You've done nothing but annoy people and show enough skill that you've not been thrown out on your rear. And all for what? To childishly hurt your enemy or those loosely connected to them just like you've been hurt?
"Out of Ordnance!" Mykhailo said to drown his thoughts before circling to follow Scott, his hunger for battle sated for today.

He flew. He took as many minutes as possible to get to safety, and enjoy being in the sky again, a sky starting to bloom with the early rays of sunlight. The Pilot's next words were addressed to Scott, "So, Cobalt Lead, did I do great? No big blunders?"
It was a vulnerability he had not wanted to show; Mykhailo Martinez was many things, but showing vulnerability on such spontaneous terms was not something he wanted to show.
"The Lasers..." he started a new line of conversation, "It seems our foe decided better tech made them more than a match for us, but it didn't work? What firms are developing those and where can we find them? Is anyone else interested in trying to get them?"
More vulnerability. More spontaneity. He did not want to open up. Why was he opening up? Should he brace to be shut down (verbally) right now? Was he being annoying again?

@Damo021@Smike@Rhona W@Finetales@AvaP

Fuka Nakano

Mitiga was in the same city, scarcely five or six miles away from the shattered wreck of Tripoli International Airport. It took seconds for Peacenik to swing around and get in range, once again in the midst of searching radar and scrambling jets. She cycled through her weapons with the bored diligence of a store clerk running inventory, waiting for Wunderkind as well as Scott and his personal hound Kat to pick their targets. A Blinder, the control tower, some fuel storage, and then the runaway, all of which went up in overlapping starburst explosions, bathing the night sky in brilliant orange. She watched impassively, selecting her targets from what remained.

"Rifle out. she called, the last of her anti-radiation missiles streaking towards a SAM site to erase it from the face of the earth. " And pigs away."

Her final JDAM and SLAM-ER shot out for the Tupolevs, tearing one to pieces and blasting the wing off another. That was all of her air-to-ground expended; Fuka was now free to bail out. As she started the trip home she felt not satisfaction but unease, the sensation causing her jaw to clench under her oxygen mask.

She was definitely tired, and who could blame her? Two strike missions in the same day, both of which involved multiple dogfights, and preceded by a gunfight on foot and another sortie, shifting in and out of her flight suit more often than she had changed her socks. The stop and start got under her skin, made her feel like she was being jerked around. But that was an old annoyance, something she had gotten used to long ago.

"All our powers combined!"

Good God, shut the fuck up.

Fuka felt out of place. She wasn't even a week removed from entering mercenary life and was already second-guessing it. She didn't trust multiple members of the squadron for reasons of personality and stability; they were crazy, but not her kind of crazy. Too many loudmouths and blood drinkers, too many Section 8 candidates with chips on their shoulders and poor impulse control.

Again she remembered her mother's warnings, the older woman trying to curb her already burgeoning sociopathic tendencies in childhood but failing. Now Fuka was flying high in the pale pre-dawn, trying not to think about the length of her contract. It was her fault, of course, her fault and no one else's. She had been so desperate to separate herself from her family that she jumped from field to field without concern with whether or not she'd fit, like a college kid sampling majors.

She should have stayed in the Army, where things made sense. She had enjoyed being a Ranger and was damn good at it, good enough that she might have been able to join Delta. She belonged on the ground with quiet professionals, not in the sky with showboats. Similarly, Cobalt needed a second-in-command who fit their vibes, not a silent and sullen samurai who hung around like a stain on the wall until it was time to kill something.

"What firms are developing those and where can we find them? Is anyone else interested in trying to get them?"

"That's not for us to know at the moment. We're better off focusing on the practical nature of what we just faced; the who and why will be determined by the intel people. We all got very lucky-had they come in on our broadside, firing their lasers, some of us would be dead or captured. They don't need to wait for lock-on or to lead their shots, and we can't outrun light."

Ximena Huang

Ximena snickered meanly as the last of the Titans was condemned to Tartarus, just like their namesakes. La Catrina waggled her wings before cutting in front of Calico, lazily rolling onto her back while Jefe scanned the giant menu that was Mitiga International Airport.

"Hmmm, let's see here...ah, you'll do."

There was a communications building off to the side, festooned with antennas and coaxial cabling. It looked ad hoc to Ximena's well-trained eye, a series of field modifications thrown into an empty structure in preparation for some intensive operation. There were probably people in there, hunkering down while trying to relay requests for support.

A Soviet-made bomb smashed right through the roof before exploding, blowing out most of the walls and collapsing what remained in on itself.

"And something for you as well."

There was a shop hangar with the nose of what looked to be an Il-76 jutting from it, the venerable beast of a utility craft undergoing maintenance of some sort. Ximena cheerfully made the mechanic's jobs impossible with her last KAB-500, the guided bomb splintering the cockpit and cracking apart the fuselage.

"Blasting Russian planes with Russian weapons, funny life we live, ain't it, Calico?"

Funny indeed. Ximena was out of explosives but still had rounds rattling in her chaingun, and she was ill-tempered enough to use them. With the radar down and most if not all of the missile platforms destroyed, she was free to make a looping pass over the base, watching hawk-like for signs of life.

There.

A pair of trucks had split off for the exit gate, practically bumper to bumper in their haste to escape. It wasn't much, but no predator turned down a meal.

"Moving to strafe!"

The Beautiful Corpse screamed down from on high, proverbial talons outstretched and cannon winding up. In the split second it took her to line up a shot Ximena took in the battered state of the vehicles, saw the beds full of soldiers and aircrew. She saw terrified faces, uniforms stained with sweat, rifles slung over shoulders or clenched in hands-

Good enough, they were a legitimate target.

"Guns guns GUNS!" Jefe shrieked, cackling madly as she let loose with everything she had. In an instant, the trucks were nothing more than twisted piles of scrap, metal fused with flesh, while set alight and thrown all over the service road they had tried to escape by. Ximena showed mercy by making sure no one would be left to bleed out, using up the last of her high-explosive incendiaries on the thirty or so squirters.

Any counterattack the Libyans put together would just have to go on without them. Satisfied in the same way a bear would be after feasting on an elk carcass, Ximena threw her plane up and over into formation with the rest of the gang.

"I saw you tossing rockets during your dogfights." She hailed Mykhalio, blithely cutting into the conversation. "Don't do that, it's wasteful. If you're not going to spend them on something actually hittable, you might as well take more actual missiles instead, get good at using your main gun like I am."

The 'helpful' advice covered her racing mind, Ximena making a note to discuss the evening's events with her boss later. In fact-

She killed her helmet mic and fished for her tablet under her seat, awkwardly propping it between her knees and typing an email with one hand. The message would be waiting for Scott whenever he next checked his inbox.

RE:LASERS????
Should probably talk to you and Wiseman again. Seems like my past has come back to bite us all in the ass instead of just me this time
( •_•)
PS: that was fun we should be wingmen sometime (✌ﾟ∀ﾟ)☞

@Rhona W @Letter Bee @Finetales

Yuna Xu

"Fuckin' A, I think we got that one," Calico said to herself in both humor and relief as the enemy F-15 was annihilated by objectively too many missiles. As Jefe waggled her wings and made a show of herself in front of Yuna, the Singaporean chuckled and shook her head. "Too slow, Jefe," she called out. "You still owe me those drinks though."

With the skies clear, it only took moments before Scott's familiar voice cracked to life on Yuna's radio. Ground targets only, in and out. What was a girl in a Flanker to do?

Yuna eased her nose in the direction of Mitiga, behind the others. Everyone in front of her had something to ruin the day of their friends on the ground, while Yuna was stuck with her 7 remaining AAMs. She figured she'd at least accompany the others on their bombing run in case they got a nasty surprise, especially as they were on a tight schedule. She watched with satisfaction as Scott, Kat, Myk, Fuka, and Ximena lit up the base in front of her. It was nice to watch an attack run done properly.

As she approached the base, she surveyed the fine work her squadronmates had done. Tu-22s? Burning. ATC? Offline. SAMs? Dealt with. Comms? Gone. It was a symphony of flames and wreckage, but through the carnage Yuna spotted a target that had yet to receive Cobalt Haze's wrath. A large, unprotected ammo cache, surrounded with crews, supply vehicles, a couple fuel tanks, and other supplies. Even one bullet from the Sukhoi's autocannon would light it all up, but Yuna knew she was fresh out. She could call it a day......or...

"Blasting Russian planes with Russian weapons, funny life we live, ain't it, Calico?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Yuna replied.

R-73s still selected, she dropped her Sukhoi closer to the deck and carefully guided the aircraft in for a run. She nudged the crosshairs to the center of the rapidly-approaching ammo cache, and at just the right moment...

"Cobalt 8, Fox Two!"

The R-73 left its pylon and screamed unguided towards the cache, and Yuna wasted no time yanking the stick hard left, screaming over the apron as the missile connected with its target. The R-73's warhead detonated on contact, causing a chain reaction as every unit of ammunition ignited. The small initial explosion was followed by a much larger, violent affair that vaporized any person or object unlucky enough to be nearby. Anything a little farther away not bolted down was sent flying.

Satisfied with her handiwork and not willing to push her luck further, Yuna bugged out. Her 6 remaining missiles would get to fight another day, and Yuna was ready to be back on the ground with a drink in her hand.

@Smike

Scott's Harrier and Kat's A-10 were quickly joined by Myk's F-16, with Fuka following up in her Super Hornet not long after.

"So, Cobalt Lead, did I do great? No big blunders?"

An amused smirk crossed Scott's face at the young man's eager need for approval. Still; he couldn't fault it. He'd been the same, despite his more rebellious and stubborn streak, when he was younger and new in the hot seat.
He toggled the radio, looking over at the sleek F-16 as it cruised a good few hundred feet away, Mykhailo's head only visible as a helmet under the gold-tinted canopy.

"Cobalt 4, Cobalt Lead. Yeah, kid. You did good; you came out of everything with yer head still on yer shoulders, and ya didn't get anyone hurt who wasn't a bad guy. We'll be gettin' the ground crew to paint some kills on your jet's nose when we get home" He chuckled lightly, and his voice took on a more humorous tone as he continued.
"Keep it up, and we'll make a real pilot outta you yet, over"

The young man started to ask about the laser weapons the Titans had used, but Fuka's reply covered most of what he had to say about the situation, including how dangerous it could have been, had they all not been as on the ball as they were. He hadn't ever encountered any operational laser weapons aboard an aircraft himself. Only read and heard accounts of a small handful of ones mounted on warships or fixed installations for air defence, anti-satellite or anti-missile uses. Never first hand like this. And if the Titans, a non-aligned mercenary unit had them, but Shattered Steel, a well-connected, N/UN favoured unit did not... the implications were concerning, but above his pay grade to worry about, for the meantime.
"Definitely something for the debrief," he added simply after Fuka's words. "I'm sure all our gun camera footage is gonna be of great interest to the Intel folks, too"

That was the sum of the conversation, as it was cut short by the thick-and-fast radio chatter from the rest of the squadron's pilots as they struck home with their own weapons, blitzing Mitiga and hammering the place flat. He could see on his radar display as they struck down anything that had been highlighted, watching it all disappear in a matter of short, violent seconds. The sky behind them had a red glow as the fires burned on, lit by the thousands of pounds of ordnance unleashed upon the airport.

However, that glow was blotted out by a sudden, blinding light.

As Yuna's missile had hit the ammo dump, the initial explosion of the stockpiled, cached aircraft weaponry was the expected bright blaze of smoke and flame. But it was eclipsed as a secondary explosion bloomed, unlike any other. A globe of blinding, opaque blue-white that roiled and shimmered with its' own furious energy, expanding outward rapidly to several hundred feet from the impact point, consuming anything that it touched.
It was so bright, it was like staring directly at the sun with unprotected eyes, and even Scott had to look away from the mirrors on his canopy rails.
And then in an instant, it was gone, leaving only a perfectly hemispherical crater. No mushroom cloud drifted, no electomagnetic pulse or other effects lingered. Smoke and flame only brewed up where anything that hadn't been fully consumed left white-hot glowing edges that touched something flammable, and that caused further secondaries.
The radio squawked to life with a jarring sound that broke the stillness as Kat frantically asked what it was, and the Hawkeye's operators asked for clarity on what had happened, before Scott's voice cut over it all, even as he blinked spots out of his eyes and held the stick firmly ahead, maintaining his course.
"Cobalt Lead to all Cobalt Aircraft. It must have been some kind of unidentified secondary explosion. No use debating it now, our objective remains the same: We get home. All callsigns, on me and let's head for home, over".



The rest of the flight was uneventful; whatever the detonation was, it seemed to have riled up the Libyans, and the radar picture had shown them chasing their own tails, scrambling to try and get planes into the air, while fighting the fires and damage that the squadron had caused - and then, there was the bombardment of cruise missiles from the N/UN naval taskforce that came in, following their attack and only added to the chaos that screened their retreat.
By the time they had Malta in sight, Skywatch had handed off to another Hawkeye flying off of the carrier, and there were planes from the N/UN navy in the air, closing on Libya's coastline with their own objectives in mind.
The only cause for concern came as they approached the island on their landing pattern, and Kat's voice sounded over the squadron channel.
"Cobalt 6 to squadron, I can see smoke ahead. Looks like it's coming from somewhere north-east of the airport, over?"
Scott looked ahead and saw it too, a plume of smoke stretching into the sky from somewhere beyond the borders of the airport, drifting into the slowly lightening early morning sky.
"Cobalt Lead, Cobalt 6. Roger, I see it too. Cobalt Lead to Malta International; what's the story with the smoke to the North East, over?"
There was a moment, before the accented voice of the air traffic control operator replied.
"Cobalt Lead, this is Malta Tower. No need for alarm; it was no hostile action. A fire broke out in a residential apartment complex in Fgura. Emergency services have it under control. You're cleared to land, Cobalt squadron; welcome back, over".
"...Tower, Cobalt Lead. Roger, and thanks. Over", he replied with a frown as he took in the news. It didn't seem anything unusual; who only knew how many domestic incidents happened every day. But nonetheless...
He shrugged it off; if there was anything to it, there was little he could do right now. Instead, it was time to take some relief in the fact that they'd survived, completed their mission, and made it back to base. They had achieved that, and it was something to be proud of.
"Tower, Cobalt Lead. Making an overhead pass, and then breaking for landing, Over. All Cobalt callsigns, form on me, and break for landing. Let's make it a triumphant return, over"
Scott pulled ahead at the head of the staggered line formation, leading the rest of the squadron down a parallel flight to the runway in the classic victorious return flight. As soon as he broke level with the end of the runway, he broke off in a sharp, hard left bank and circled around to approach for a landing, touching down neatly. With the distance between each aircraft in the formation, he was touching down while the rest still flew overhead, breaking off at regular intervals for smooth, continuous landings.

As the Harrier pulled up to its' parking spot, the ground crews and the support aircraft crews were waiting, and pushed the crew ladder up as he shut down the big pegasus engine. As he climbed out, there was a cheer, and it grew into rounds of applause and further cheering as the rest of the squadron followed suit. Calling out for Wolf, he grinned as the crowd cleared to show the big bear of a man grinning equally wide with his maintenance chiefs, surrounding a pair of big coolers.
"Guys, Gals, and non-binary pals," he called out to the other pilots, once they were down and he'd managed to wrangle some control over the crowd. "I know you're all tired, and lord knows I am too. But, we achieved something tonight, and we all got back in one piece. We kicked ass, and got blood for blood we shed. So, the official debriefing can wait until you've all slept. But," he said, gesturing to the coolers, as Gunther and his people opened them, "This can't. Enjoy, you've all earned a drink, and a rest. As of- he checked his watch, "now, everyone is stood down for the next forty-eight hours, excluding the previously mentioned debriefing in the morning". Scott walked to the cooler and picked out a beer from among the plentiful ice, twisting off the cap and raising it to his wingmen, before taking a sip with a genunine gasp of relief. Kat soon joined him, taking one offered by him. There were cans or bottles of soft drinks if those were preferred, with ciders or other such beverages mixed among them too, and the crews closed in, patting backs and shaking hands as the tension of the last few hours was eased away.

@Smike @Letter Bee @Finetales @Damo021 @AvaP

Mykhailo Martinez

Mykhailo had tasted victory once more, knew that sweet Ace-hood was in his grasp. But as he grabbed a soft drink first - You can never beat a good Coke or Pepsi - he had to say to himself that it all felt hollow. Like, these were the bad guys, but the line between hero and villain was thinner than he wanted; that explosion, from where the Libyans must have stashed some form of prototype explosive they should not have had... that explosion stayed in his mind, rent-free.

How many civilians have that harmed, people who did not deserve that level of tragedy whether or not they approved of the current regime? It would do no good to dull that question; if offered alcohol, Mykhailo would drink only the smallest amount to avoid offending people, while upping his consumption of coffee if there were any.

Also, it was best if he learned how to socialize sober. So now, he had to ask himself... who should he socialize with? Fuka, Freyja, Ximena, and Amelia were people he did not want to annoy and whom he'd spent vital social capital with. So that left Scott and maybe Kat, and so Mykhailo walked towards the former, remembering that he was his commanding officer, and asked, "So, umm... it's been a long night for all of us; it's almost dawn."

His next words were, "I hate to ask this, but... how do I talk to people? And by people, I mean the rest of the squadron? How do I make friends when my money doesn't matter, my good looks are canceled out by my bad or nonexistent manners, and well, waiting for people to approach me is crass, right?"

@Damo021@Smike@Rhona W@Finetales@AvaP

Ximena Huang

Ximena was unserious, to put it politely. She snickered, she joked, she poked and prodded people to get a reaction on the ground, and then started salivating at the thought of claiming kills in the sky. No one looked to her for sober leadership or collected professionalism, not even her superiors-her file marked her as a maverick who was nevertheless useful in a fight and thus worth keeping around as cannon fodder.

All of that wasn't untrue... but it wasn't the whole picture. Ximena was intelligent by any standard, educated in economics and espionage and even thermonuclear physics. She spent years infiltrating megacorps and foreign powers as a double agent, identifying and neutralizing threats while also stealing sensitive information on next-generation technology.

All of that to say, when she saw a perfect sphere of energy coalesce at speed and then leave nothing behind except a hole in the ground, she knew better than to treat it as anything but a serious threat. That wasn't high explosives, obviously, nor was it another laser, or rather, any lasers involved would only have been to ignite the air which would trigger an extreme conversion of matter.

That was fucking plasma.

Directed-energy weapons that could fit on planes weren't supposed to be possible yet; plasma weaponry wasn't supposed to exist ever. That one had just been sitting around in Libya was an unwelcome fact, most unwelcome indeed.

Her eyes were bleeding again, the blast of light making the advanced prosthetics fritz out even through her helmet's visor. Ximena blinked rapidly, vision swimming and smeared with crimson as she maneuvered a handkerchief over her face.
-------
Her hackles only raised further as the flight came in for a landing, watching the plumes of smoke drifting lazily into the dawn sky. Malta Tower claimed it was just a standard domestic fire...

...Malta Tower could collectively take a long walk off a short cliff. She didn't take anything on trust, certainly not from people who had already been compromised. The Westerners had saboteurs in their mechanics bays and pirates sneaking up on their coastline; Ximena wouldn't have trusted them to tell her it was wet out had they been caught in a hurricane.

Fgura, huh?

Noted.

Once on the ground she busied herself by washing the blood from her cheeks with a water bottle stashed under her chair, listening to Scott as she did so. Free drinks and an excuse to get smashed made a nice reward, as did the slightly less than two days of free time. The question was what she would fill her hours with. She had an idea, most definitely, but it was a bad one.

A terrible one, honestly. Completely irresponsible, bone-headed, and almost certainly illegal. Ximena knew all this and yet she found it hard to set the idea aside. She grabbed herself a beer, mulling over plans while watching the squadron twink go up to bother Scott again-he was either desperate for a father figure, nursing a crush, or both-playing out various scenarios in her head.

They were just idle thoughts, she would have claimed. Simple daydreaming, honest! Whether or not that was true was still to be determined.

Once a spy, always a spy.

Yuna had expected a big explosion from the ammo dump, but she definitely hadn't expected one that big or bright. The subsequent confusion on the radio confirmed to her that nobody else had, either.

Guess I got more than I bargained for, she thought as she began the uneventful flight back to Malta. In her head, this justified the use of an expensive air-to-air missile to do the job. You can't argue with results!

The flight back to Malta was over in a blink, but on approach the plume of smoke raised concern from the squadron.

"Cobalt Lead, this is Malta Tower. No need for alarm; it was no hostile action. A fire broke out in a residential apartment complex in Fgura. Emergency services have it under control. You're cleared to land, Cobalt squadron; welcome back, over".

"Yeah, I don't buy that," Yuna muttered to herself. She made a mental note to talk to someone about that later. Scott, maybe...but more likely Ximena. After a few drinks of course.

Nonetheless, the squadron landed in turn without incident, and arrived to...applause?? "Well shit, I could get used to this," Yuna said through a smile as she climbed down from the cockpit. She gave a quick round of thanks and fistbumps to her crew, and then she joined Scott and the others. Scott spoke well as usual, and then produced a cooler of beers. Yuna smiled and shook her head as she walked over to avail herself of at least one beer. She grabbed one, opened it, and raised it to those around her in a toast as she walked over to her pensive-looking drinking buddy.

"Goddamn, I love this squadron," she said loudly, and took a large swig from the bottle.

@everyone?

Freyja Svensdotter

The flight back home was more or less uneventful, thankfully, it allowed the squadron to take stock and maybe, just maybe finally rest and socialise, the flight hours for them all must of no doubt been a pain and toll on their bodies somewhat, no matter how fit they were, blasting around in the skies fighting the enemy over and over surely would do something right? This didn’t really play on her mind as she enjoyed the peace and calm.

Upon arrived back to Malta though, she to saw the plume of smoke as she flew in formation with her team mates and safely landed. With the crew setting up the steps as she shut down her engines. With her canopy opening, she calmly removed her helmet, shaking her hair free, giving her helmet to a crew member as she unstrapped and stood up in her cockpit, she was could hear the cheers and applause, she took a moment to look over either side of her craft, where several scorch marks could be seen from when she flew through the explosion of the last pilot she downed. Hopefully it’s just superficial and no other damage was present.

Climbing down from her Gripen, Freyja smiled and acknowledge many of the crew present that was showing their support for the whole squadron, a few parts on shoulders and backs as she walked through the crowd, taking a moment to shake hands with some that offered it, she took moment to speak with a few until Scott had called the team over. She listened to what he had to say, there was a bit of relief on her features as she took a deep breath for a second. God it be so amazing to have a shower right now and slip into something more comfortable. But she was not going to turn down a good old fashioned beverage and took a beer from the cooler, popping it open she took a second to partially raise it in the direction of Scott with a nod, before taking a nice long sip.

---

---

Amelia Schön

Amelia was one of the tail enders of the squadron to land at Malta, doing the whole follow the leader conga line until it was her spot to par up, being waved in by one of the crew members, switching her Typhoons engines of as she rolled to a stop, the crew secure the craft, put the steps up to it and opened up the canopy to the sounds of cheers and applause, under her helmet, Amelia grin lit up like a Christmas tree, she was super happy with how things went for the team.

Freeing herself of the helmet and freely waving her hair, she leaned forward as she stood up looking over the applauding crowd, she raised a fist in the air shouting “Hell yeah, come on!!” to several cheers in return. The German probably being a little over excited from the reaction herself and the team was getting for their efforts, regardless of how she may have been yeeted over here into this group, maybe it won’t be so bad after all. Climbing down she went and mingled with the crowd, fist bumping several of them.

Eventually she went over to the group when summoned, forty-eight hours sounded like absolute heaven to her, maybe she’ll travel the sights, maybe find the beach and try not to get into any mischief. She undid her pilot suit, tying the arms around her waist, “I’ll drink to that” she chimed in to what Yuna said about the squadron, she went over while others were getting their drinks and hugged Wolf for a moment. “Brought our girl back in once piece.” She motioned over at the Typhoon. After she bee lined for the cooler, and grabbed two bottles of Cider, what? She wasn’t going to turn down free drinks, she popped one open a raised one of the bottle.

[@everyone]