Fitzsquire ran a shaking hand over his sweat-drenched face as he went over the briefing they had been given before starting their last sortie. Hill 400 was rapidly becoming a focal point of the desperate Battle of Winchester. Two ECAF regiments, the 6th Armoured, and the 66th Mechanised Foot were dug-in, holding back waves of ChinKor as the rest of the ECAF forces retreated.

Unable to resist the challenge set by the two regiments, the ChinKor had all but given up chasing the rear elements of the ECAF forces and were now attacking the hill with everything they had.

"Fitz! Form up man!" He jumped as Kingsley' voice barked in his ear. With Schwarz gone, he had been moved into the first flight of the squadron, acting as one of Kingsley' wing-men. He burped, swallowing the accompanying bile back down as he remembered how Schwarz had died.

Adjusting his trim, he pushed the throttle a little more forward, compensating for the headwind that had caused him to fall out of position.

"Bandits! Four o'clock high!" Leopold's voice screamed in his ear, making his heart leap. In order to avoid detection for as long as possible they had switched their radar and sensors off, relying on command to supply them with information. It seemed that the controllers had been caught napping, although this far out they should have been safe from harassment by enemy jets.

Kingsley' voice came over the comms once more, "Go live people."

Fitzsquire didn't need any further prompting, he looked at his HDD, the green screen springing to life as he flicked switches.

"Six Bandits at 10,000 feet. Continue flying level, break only in my command." Fitzsquire was amazed by how calm Kingsley seemed. He struggled with his rising panic. Used to flying in an air superiority role, he knew the limitations of the pane he was flying now. H

Leopold suddenly started firing, muttering a prayer liberally mixed with curses as he did so.

"Kingsley to all planes, break!" Fitzsquire rammed his stick to the left and kicked the rudder, slewing the plane around in a tight, high-gee-pulling turn that made both he and Leopold groan.

"Call. Out. The. Bandits." Every syllable was an effort as he fought against the gee force that threatened to pool all of his blood into his feet. His flight suit had tightened to the point of causing pain but he kept the turn going.

"Five. O'clock. Five hundred metres. Closing." Leopold's voice gasped into his ear.

Lessening off the turn slightly, Fitzsquire blurted, "I'm levelling off in three. Be ready to shoot." He didn't wait for an answer, but brought the jet out of the turn quickly, levelling it and pulling back on the throttle, hoping that the sudden deceleration would cause the enemy pilot to overshoot.

Tracer raced ahead of them, the drop in speed and change in direction causing the enemy pilot to miss. Leopold's gun started hissing away behind him and he started kicking the rudder left and right, jinking in order to throw the enemy’s aim off.

More tracer zipped passed them, one round scoring a hit on the very tip of his wing. Bollocks! I’ve had enough of this!

In one smooth motion he deployed his air brakes, throttled right back and put the plane into a shallow dive. The enemy jet flashed above him, caught by surprise. Snarling, Fitzsquire rammed the throttle forward as far as it would go, pulled back on the stick and, allowing for a bit of lead, pulled the trigger.

The Banshee literally felt as though it had hit a brick wall. The force of its heavy cannon was astonishing. He had only fired it twice during training, both times in a 70 degree dive, and had not realised just how much speed it bled off.

The enemy pilot stood little chance, the heavy uranium-tipped rounds ripped through its frame, shredding it from nose to tail. There was a brief puff of smoke and then it exploded.

+500SP - SCOURGE OF THE SKIES - DIVE BOMBER ACHIEVEMENT popped up onto his visor.

"Yes!" He pounded his thigh in excitement, grinning in relief.

"Break right! Break right!" Leopold's shriek wiped the grin from his face, as did the bullets that carved through his left wing. He banked right as hard as he could, whilst Leopold kept up a steady stream of fire and instructions.

No matter what the the gunner said, every move was matched by the pilot trying to kill them. More bullets thunked into his plane, this time hitting somewhere on the fuselage.

Desperately Fitzsquire performed a half barrel roll, the negative gee fighting against his straps to lift him out of his seat. Inverted, he pulled hard on his stick, breathing hard to fight the sudden positive gee as he went into a tight dive. Keeping the stick pulled back he pulled them out of it, the manoeuvre having turned them so that they were now heading in the opposite direction.

"Where's the bastard gone? Speak to me Leopold." Sweat stung his eyes but he didn't dare try to wipe it away.

"He's making a wide turn to our nine o'clock, I can't get a shot."

Fitzsquire took a quick look at his HDD to see where the rest of the flight were and then banked to the right, turning for the enemy jet.

"Sir, what are you doing! Turn away so that I can get a shot!" Leopold's voice had risen by at least an octave and for a brief second Fitzsquire laughed.

He kept the turn tight, trying to keep inside the enemy pilot’s turn. Looking up through his canopy he could see that their slower plane was winning the turn. His finger brushed the trigger once more and the heavy cannon roared. The ChinKor jet flew into the stream of tracer, a bright flash erupting from its left engine before it exploded, severing the wing from the enemy jet and dropping it out of the sky like a stone.

+500SP - ACE IN THE MAKING

"Scratch two bandits!" Looking at his HDD he realised that that the air was clear of enemy craft. A Lightning screamed past, doing a victory roll as it did so, the sudden absence of enemy craft made clear.

"Kingsley to all jets. Good job. Form up on me. We have some guard to save."

*****

"Quickly now! Grab some coffee and rations. We're back out for another sortie in forty-five minutes." Pilgrim looked like Kingsley felt. The Bags under his eyes were so dark it looked as though he had bruising.

Kingsley rubbed his shoulders where the constant stress of dives had bruised him. His whole body ached from the gee forces he had put himself through on every mission thus far. He paused, trying to work out whether this was his ninth or tenth mission, his brain too tired to even care.

Fighters roared as they took off on another sortie of their own. The whole regiment had been thrown into the Battle for Hill 400, tying the ChinKor down as the ECAF retreat continued. So far the battle had laster for a solid twenty four hours and it didn't look as if the ChinKor were going to stop anytime soon. The Hill had come to represent some far more important than a King of The Hill mission. It was a two-fingered salute to their previously unstoppable retreat. It was as if every man and woman on that hill had commed the Republic’s ruling council and told it to fuck off. The settings of the battle meant that both sides were prevented from kinetic strikes, although pretty much anything else had been allowed. He’d heard that over a third of the ECAF soldiers defending the hill had lost more than 10 lives. The thought made him sick to the stomach. He didn’t want to know just how many had lost their 50th life.

Since they had been bumped by enemy jets on their second sortie, they'd had an escort, although new holes in his plane's airframe raised doubts as to how effective they could be. With every hour that passed the airspace had become more and more crowded, mid-air collisions a real hazard.

On his last sortie he had found himself diving next to a ChinKor dive bomber. He was attacking a ChinKor APC, whilst the ChinKor pilot was attacking the APC’s target.

A quick jink to the right, followed by a wing flip had not only put the enemy bomber off course, but sent it into a terminal spin, crashing to the ground in the middle of a wave of enemy soldiers. The SP bonus that he had received from that had been staggering and, if he hadn’t been so exhausted, would normally have had him running stats and trying to work out where best to assign the extra skill points.

Rubbing his shoulders once more he set off to get some food, able only to focus on the thought of a bacon butty and coffee he could stand his spoon in.