Prologue

Fort Grays was the dream assignment for most. The islands were secluded enough off of the Usean mainland to avoid being activated in the occasional flare up. For most, Fort Grays was a place to sit on the beach, drink beer and occasionally fly fighter jets. A Paradise compared to the cold hell of Heierlark Air Base in North Osea.

It was a day off for the brand-new Second Lieutenant. He was still getting used to the callsign he was assigned, Trigger, earned for an embarrassing first sortie in his F-16C Viper. And like any good junior officer, he spent his first night of freedom without repercussions getting absolutely wasted with all the other new arrivals and the many new local bars available to them.

As a result when he finally rolled out of bed, his watch read 1514.

Stumbling out to his patio, he felt the warm sun and the cool breeze of the ocean, an absolute paradise, he thought to himself.

Then the bomb went off.

Trigger saw the flash and then felt the concussion as one of the fuel farms on base exploded. Immediately following, more explosions followed. Looking up, Trigger could see the glint of shiny airplane bodies In the skies above.

Quickly kicking on his boots and grabbing his flight suit he started running towards the base.

***
The Squadron ready room was pandemonium. Squadron leaders were conducting headcounts, and discovering if any aircraft were flyable. Trigger found his squadron’s leader, an older Captain whose name he couldn’t quite remember, his nameplate read CLOWN

The Captain noticed Trigger first, “Ah, New guy, I don’t know what the hell is going on but, Just hang tight, we’ll get our orders soon enough.”

Trigger nodded his head, his pulse was pounding, he was amazed how quickly he was able to get into his harness when the pressure was on.

“Say, You ready for a shooting gallery?” Clown asked, a slight grin on his face.
“Well to be entirely honest, I didn’t think it would come to this” Trigger responded, voice trembling slightly as he spoke.

“Well, Just stay calm, follow whoever the flight lead is, and you’ll be right as rain” Clown said, patting the younger pilot on the shoulder.

“THEY’RE COMING IN FOR ANOTHER ROUND” A pilot shouted.

Quickly a more senior Pilot, who Trigger only knew as Knocker walked in, Silently pointed at Trigger, Clown, and another new pilot, a young woman who earned the callsign Brownie and made a thumbing motion out to the flight line.

Running out to the flight line Trigger could see the chaos, Black smoke was billowing from the harbor and even closer to the ramp he could see damage. He made his way to the F-16 assigned to him, 015. Hopping in the cramped cockpit he did an amended start up procedure.

Turning on the radio he could hear the uncertainty in everyone’s voices as he started his taxi towards the runway.

“Radar site still silent!” One of the bases operation officers reported
“Scramble, Get those birds in the Sky! We’re sitting ducks!” shouted another officer
“Whats happening!?” another demanded
“Bombers incoming, don’t know how many!”

Soon Knocker keyed up
“Let’s clear that runway. We don’t got all day here”

“Mage Squadron, Head to runway. Golem Squadron cleared for Takeoff, Link to Skykeeper on departure.” The Control Tower said, in the usual non-committed monotone that amazed Trigger that, even in a time like this, the Tower’s controllers could still maintain.

Trigger sat lined up on the runway, doing one last visual check he listened to the Radio

“Trigger, your callsign is Mage Two, verify and readback” the Tower called
“Callsign Mage two” Trigger responded

“Mage two, cleared for takeoff”

without waiting, Trigger slammed the throttle to afterburner.

He could faintly hear the Tower say something else, along with Knocker but he was not listening, Instead focusing on the roar of the engine, the increasing airspeed on his Heads Up Display and keeping the F-16 from crashing on takeoff.

Trigger didn’t tune himself back into the radio chatter until he started to retract his landing gear and tuned to the local air to air radio channel.

“Whoa! Looks like the harbor’s taken a lot of damage!” He could hear a female voice say, must be that Brownie chick he thought to himself.
“Can’t have any more casualties. Time to stop the bullshit” Knocker stated. “Mage 2, form up on Mage 1, All aircraft lets do this! Golem squadron its go time!” he continued.

***

The JAG officer sat unimpressed, staring at him

“You know I have all the radio logs and debrief paperwork from your time at Fort Grays, maybe we move it up a tad?” the officer suggested.

The Hotel room the two were in was dim.  Save for the usual cheap furniture, the bed had been removed and in its stead was a cheap card table and two folding chairs. The Curtains were diffusing most of the light making it hard for Trigger’s eyes to adjust. Sat across from him in one of the chairs was an Osean Air Defense Force officer, the rank on his shoulder suggesting he was a Colonel. Trigger studied the man for a moment, On the shorter side, not middle aged but already balding and showing a noticeable paunch, on his chest was a small collection of ribbons and a OADF Judge Advocates General badge. A lawyer.

The Officer studied Trigger for a moment, before pulling out a cigarette and lighter from his coat. The faint flicker of the lighter illuminated his face. He Lit the cigarette, took a long drag and exhaled, muttering something to himself.

Trigger spoke up.

“You know those things are gonna kill you right?”

The colonel shook his head dismissively, looking blankly at the window. The cigarettes end burned a dull orange as it burned.

“Well, I guess you’d be the one to speak to about suicidal tendencies, now wouldn’t you Major” the Colonel responded.

there was an silence as the acrid smell of smoke filled the room.

After a time, the Officer spoke again.

“If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m probably one of the very few friends you have right now. So I guess we should start at the beginning”

“How far?”

“As far as you want to. I have read the report, but I want to hear it from the man of the hour himself. Tell me Trigger, how exactly did you manage to piss off that many people, and still have mountains of brass whose ranks I am not even near, calling my office to testify on your behalf. But for the sake of brevity, how about when you were not a Second Lieutenant?”


***

 Zapland was awful. Trigger knew prison was supposed to suck, but never did he imagine he would find himself here. The dead-end road to nowhere, member of the Osean Penal Squadron, number 444.

His murder trial was a kangaroo court. The only witness to come to his defense was Clown, the Defense attorney was one of the most junior JAG officers in the Air Defense Force and the Prosecuting attorney was one of the most experienced, not to include the added media spectacle that had been made of his life. Despite the inconclusive evidence and gun-camera footage, the former First Lieutenant was dishonorably discharged for the assassination of former Osean President Vincent Harling over the International Space Elevator. Trigger expected to be thrown in a hole somewhere and forgotten about but clearly some in the OADF still wanted a return on the investment they made with his training, and instead pulled strings to have him assigned to a flying unit that also served as a prison.

Trigger would have preferred the hole.

His shiny brand-new Viper was instead replaced with a decrepit F-15A Eagle from the Skully Island Insurrection, a conflict predating the planet-fall of Ulysses. When he was first introduced to the airplane by the Warden, he could see that someone had at least done the work to bring it up to an almost-airworthy state. The Panel had more holes and patchwork then he cared to count but for the most part it seemed like it might fly if treated nice enough.

He was just finishing his first mission with the convicts here. Having only been at the complex a day he still wasn’t familiar with who his ‘squadron’ mates were.  He was mostly impressed that some of them seemed to have a base competency behind the stick, even in out of date early fourth Generation fighters.

The ‘Spares’ as they called themselves were flying stuff the OADF had written off decades Prior, F-18C Hornets, A Models of just about every fighter, Trigger even spied in one hanger a F-4 Phantom and a F-104 Starfighter.

If it was rejected by the Osean Marine Corps, odds are the Spare squadron was flying it, or at least attempting to.

Deaths were not an uncommon place, As one of the friendlier pilots name Tabloid explained, Trigger was the fifth pilot he knew of that had the slot of Spare 15.

Trigger dragged his feet back to the main prison complex. It was looking like the Spares might be the death of him, Not that anything was really waiting for him on the outside world anyways, with a life sentence without parole, Even if Trigger survived this war, and even the next, there was no way he would ever be a free man again.

he looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. Stars were twinkling and for a brief moment, all seemed right with the world.

Trigger sighed. And continued his trudging towards the Prison.
***
The next day Trigger spent around the Prison.

For being a Maximum-Security prison facility on paper, the Zapland Airbase was surprisingly open, Prisoners were free to mill about most common areas under guard supervision and any semblance of an actual military presence or order was mostly missing or otherwise a façade.

Trigger learned that everyone here was on the dead-end road to nowhere career wise, guard and prisoner alike.

He could place why some of the other Inmates were in prison, the want-to-be leader of the main flying group of penal unit pilots was Count, he was a young man, only a year or two older than Trigger and a notorious Fraudster.

Trigger was somewhat familiar with him. Count was in one of the initial flight classes ahead of Trigger at Heierlark, it was big news among the pilot candidates when it was discovered the massive fraud rings the Pilot was running.

The other pilots in the Spare Squadron were in for various other dealings.

Champ was a Sapinish Cartel Enforcer, no formal military training or pilot training but was known to run drugs over multiple boarders in small Cessna Caravans before Osean authorities caught him. Ontop of Drug trafficking he was also linked to multiple murders in and around the Cartels territory near Bana.

Full Band was an Osean Intelligence Officer who was caught selling classified secrets to anyone who paid.

High Roller was in for multiple gambling rings, Having retired from the Airlines to run his under-ground casinos landed him in the Spares,

And eventually Tabloid, who only rambled about Belkan adventure novels and boarders when Trigger broached the subject with him.

These for better or worse were the best pilots that the Spares had to offer, a Cheat, a Gambler, two murderers, a spy and a weirdo; I am so screwed. Trigger thought to himself.

***

“Your wasting my time Trigger” the JAG Officer growled

“Well you said to fast forward!” Trigger defended himself.

“Sooner, Closer to the end of November!” the Officer pleaded.

***

“LRSSG, cleared for the overhead break” the Tower reported.

It had been a chaotic few days, A hap hazard plan was thrown together and Pilots from both Erusea and Osea were having to coordinate together on the one common goal. The eight aircraft of the Long Range Strategic Strike Group parked in the same area and pilots started piling out of their respective planes.

Trigger was feeling the weight of his Captain’s bars.

Ever since being reinstated in the Air Force and being transferred as one of the last surviving Spare squadron members to the Special Forces, It seemed like there was never time to catch his breath. It was always one thing after another, weather it be sinking a massive fleet, hunting a rogue submarine, Sinking another massive fleet, killing a rogue submarine, flying at 200 knots through a canyon, or acting as the spear-head on multiple assaults, The extra hours were starting to wear on the pilot.

“Alright, Take 15 guys,. If you need to piss, do it now, I just want AIM-120’s and Fuel loaded on those birds” Trigger ordered.

he pointed at his wingman and started walking towards the main building on the base

“Count, with me!” Trigger barked.

Walking the crowded line, Trigger could only see a gaggle of aircraft, Some Osean Navy, Other’s Eresuan and even a few Bulgurdarestian and Volslagian Air Force aircraft.

The Command post was bustling with energy, Multiple intelligence officers tracking information coming in from AWACS and Early Warning aircraft on the location of the monolithic Arsenal Bird, an Osean superweapon, originally designed to defend the Space Elevator, that had gone rogue and fallen into the wrong hands.  Trigger was weary, To kill this Arsenal Birds sibling, it was a massive organized effort that took months of planning to execute, This Operation Daredevil as the participants had taken to calling it, was being thrown together on the spot with the coordination of dozens of Air Forces.

Trigger found the General In charge. Speaking up to get the Senior officers attention.

“Sir, Long Range Strategic Strike Group, ready to go when you are” Trigger reported, snapping to attention along with Count.

The General, not even looking up from the chart laid out in front of him went into his speech, motioning the two pilots to come closer.

“Alright boys Gather round here. What I need you to do is act as the Spearhead on this assault. Admiral Modly really screwed the pooch on this one and deployed his Air Wings from the Vulture too fucking early, that costed us the element of surprise and already Big Baby Huey is on its way here. I would love to have more ships as well but all we have is what Modly sent me from his Carrier Groups defense screen. So we’re looking at fire support from three Missile Cruisers, a Handful of bombers and whatever missiles your fighters are carrying for the saturation attack.  What I need the LRSSG to do is to spearhead the main assault. Im hoping to overwhelm to Erusean Radical forces at the Elevator so its not a drag out fight when the target arrives. Do you think you can do it?” The General asked.

Trigger smiled

“Of course sir, Impossible and poorly defined missions is the Strike Groups specialty!”

“You can say that again” Count quipped.

***
The JAG officer stood up and dusted himself off.

“Thank you for utterly wasting my time Trigger! If you want to get serious, may I suggest you ask for a different Lawyer” the officer said approaching the door of the room.

Trigger broke out laughing, briefly getting the Lawyer to pause,

taking a moment to catch his breath, Trigger spoke up again.

“fine, I guess you want to discuss that thing. Fine. Everyone wants to discuss that thing. Its all anyone wants to discuss. Well if you want to sit your ass down right now, You might need a few more cigarettes and a more comfortable chair considering how long this story is” Trigger said, pointing at the empty seat.

“Yes, That’s all I have wanted to know. Tell me about the Girl” The JAG Officer shot back flatly.

“Well you see, It was around December when Myself, Count and Huxian were invited to a dinner party in Selatapura…”

ROSE AND CLAWS
By AWACS_Bandog