November 2 — 1010 Hours
Petrichor Air Force Base
The base was alive again.
Engines thundered in the distance. Hangar doors rattled open. Flight crews moved with rehearsed urgency across the tarmac, chocks clattering, checklist pads flicking, and ground crews shepherding birds into the sun. The smell of jet fuel and fresh paint hung like a badge of service—sharp, metallic, forever present.
Emilie, Mona, Teppei and Ayaka walked down the corridor toward the briefing room in step, boots muted against linoleum. Morning light slanted through the high windows; the base had the brittle, ready feel of something that could move at a moment's notice.
"Wonder what our operation is today?" Ayaka asked, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Teppei cracked his knuckles with a groan. "Beats me. As long as it's not another patrol. I swear, I'm done with patrols—boring as hell."
Emilie let out a short laugh. "You got that right."
Teppei brightened. "Oh! Hey — you heard that song, Face of the Coin?"
Emilie gave a half-nod. "Caught a bit of it, yeah."
Teppei pumped his fist. "Damn good tune."
Emilie smirked, amused. "Not really my type, but sure."
They filed into the briefing room and took their seats. Maksim stood at the front, hands clasped behind his back, face set—an operations officer who'd slept in briefing folders.
"All right. Let's begin." He tapped the remote.
Satellite imagery filled the screen: a folded, rugged mountain range, narrow valleys and plateaus annotated with movement corridors and route numbers. A tactical overlay traced the approach vector.
"Operation goes hot today. We're taking the fight into Mainland Natlan — target: Tepeacac Rise." Maksim's voice was flat, businesslike. "Following the seizure of Tequemecan, Natlan is pulling forces inland to regroup and rebuild their capital's defensive grid. They're compressing into fewer, harder routes. That's our window."
He flipped the slide to show heat maps and likely withdrawal corridors. "Enemy command has initiated a communications blackout. Expect hostile jamming and false returns. If you encounter RF distortion or dead zones, assume hostile ECM/ESM is active in the area. Treat degraded comms as an indicator of proximity to enemy units."
"Mission profile: pursuit and interdiction. You will push along the withdrawal corridors, disrupt logistics and destroy enemy elements. Deny them time and space to reestablish defensive nodes or emplace long-range SAM clusters. Rules of engagement remain; positive ID before weapons release unless you receive permission for preemptive strikes under command's contingency protocol."
Maksim let the information sit, then looked each of them in the eye. "You're the tip of the spear. Make it count. Dismissed."
Petrichor Air Force Base – Flight Line
The four pilots walked out without a word. The chatter was gone, replaced with the quiet, razor-sharp rhythm of pre-sortie focus. Each peeled off toward their waiting Tomcats, sunlight glinting off the canopies as ground crews swarmed around the jets.
Emilie mounted the ladder of her F-14A, boots clanking on the rungs, and slid into the cockpit. The ejection seat cradled her like an old comrade. She pulled the straps tight across her shoulders and lap, then set her helmet on the rail while her hands went to work.
Switches and gauges—cold, dark. Time to bring her alive.
Altimeter selector from STBY to RESET. The drum digits flickered, then zeroed out, calibrating. She thumbed the knob on the standby ADI, aligning the little airplane against the horizon bar.
She reached to the power panel: VDI, HUD, HSD, ECM—one by one the displays blinked awake, symbology painting itself into green life. She twisted the Air Source to BOTH ENG, then reached back to open her oxygen supply. The hiss in her mask confirmed pressure.
Wing sweep lever forward to 20°. The Tomcat's great shoulders swung out of their swept-back rest, the glove vanes locked. Emilie dropped the clear cover and pressed MASTER RESET—handing wing control back to AUTO.
She went down her panel: UHF radio, GUARD and BOTH; TACAN to T/R. AFCS pitch, roll, yaw—toggled ON. Control surfaces twitched on the wings, acknowledging her inputs.
Cockpit ready.
Harness locked, chin strap secured, canopy down. The canopy hissed, sealed, and latched with a heavy clunk. Sunlight dulled as the world narrowed to cockpit glass and HUD green glow.
Engine start.
She thumbed the starter for No.2. The whine grew to a howl, RPM climbing. At 25 percent, she cracked the throttle out of CUTOFF into IDLE. Fuel surged, FF needle spiked, TIT rose. A thunderous cough, then the TF30 lit—settling at smooth idle.
No.1—repeat. Another spooling whine, another ignition boom. Both engines now alive, filling the cockpit with a deep, predatory vibration.
On the ground, yellow-vested techs scrambled. One disconnected the huffer unit under the main gear, another unplugged ground power at the nose. Hatches slammed shut. Both men gave her a thumbs up, then saluted. Emilie returned the salute crisply.
She keyed her mic.
"Herring, Starseer, Soumetsu—radio check."
One by one, the responses came.
"Loud and clear, Ma'am." Teppei.
"Copy that, boss." Mona.
"Affirmative." Ayaka.
Emilie nodded inside her helmet. "All right. Wolfsbane, let's roll."
Parking brake released. Throttles eased forward. The Tomcat began its heavy, steady roll toward the taxiway. Her squadron followed in staggered trail, their wings stretching wide across the asphalt.
At the runway threshold, the four jets lined up. Emilie and Mona took the front pair, Teppei and Ayaka staggered behind them. A last quick glance across the formation—thumbs raised.
Emilie shoved the throttles through the detents. Ka-WHAM. Afterburners lit, the twin TF30s erupting in pillars of fire. The acceleration pinned her to the seat as the runway blurred.
Speed tape climbing—120 knots.
135.
150.
160.
At 164, she eased back on the stick. The nose lifted, mains trailing a second later. The jet clawed skyward.
"Positive climb. Gear up."
The handle came up. The thud of the doors, the shudder as the gear retracted.
One by one, Wolfsbane lifted off behind her, afterburner flares carving gold into the morning air.
Four F-14As climbed together in close echelon, wingtip to wingtip, slicing into the blue. Clouds ahead streaked with sunlight as the formation leveled, engines howling.
The hunt was on.
Mainland Natlan was waiting.
An hour into the flight, they crested Tepeacac Rise—rock teeth and wind-swept ridges crowding the sky.
Emilie skimmed her HUD. New contacts pinged up: a lone hostile F-14A off her nose, and farther ahead, a heavy transport—a C-130—moving fast toward the valley.
She keyed the mike. "All aircraft, jettison drop tanks. Time to engage."
She stabbed the jettison switch. Two external tanks peeled away, tumbling into the blue. Lighter, the Tomcat surged as she rolled the throttles to military power.
"Raven, engaging." Emilie called.
"Starseer, engaging." Mona replied.
"Soumetsu, engaging." Ayaka.
"Oh—uh, my bad—Herring, engaging!" Teppei came in a beat behind.
Emilie selected SAAMs and boxed the hostile F-14 on her HUD. She squeezed the trigger.
"Fox One." One missile smoked off the rail and burned toward the bandit. The hit was instant—flame and debris marked the target's end.
"Raven's got a bandit! Move on those transports!" she ordered.
As Emilie pushed toward the C-130, her display flooded with contacts—dozens, hundreds—targets blooming across radar scopes and the HSD. Her throat tightened.
"What the hell?" she whispered.
Mona's breath hitched over the net. "Oh my God… that's impossible."
Teppei's voice cracked between bravado and panic. "We gotta bag all those transports?!"
Ayaka kept steady. "You really think every blip is airborne?"
Teppei barked, "Well, let's ask them!" and keyed up the guard channel, sarcasm heavy.
A dry, garbled voice answered over the noise. "Man, cry me a damn river."
Emilie strained visually toward the horizon—tiny specks dotted the skyline, real aircraft, real movement. "I've got visual on actual planes out there—within the dozens. We're being spoofed."
Teppei: "My radar's a fireworks show!"
Mona: "Raven, all our signatures are returning."
Emilie: "Maksim warned us about enemy ECM. This is it—false returns. Don't trust radar alone."
She fired two more SAAMs into the crowded returns. One of the missiles punched through and detonated on a C-130. The big transport disintegrated in a bloom of flame—and, like someone cutting wires, the hundreds of radar signatures winked out.
"What the—!?" Teppei shouted.
"See? Shot down a transport and the false returns disappeared!" Emilie snapped. "Herring, Starseer—find the jammers."
"Wilco!" Mona banked hard, climbing steeply to break the radar geometry and look for sources. Teppei followed, vapor trailing as they dispersed.
Thunderspike cut in: "Don't let the jamming confuse you!"
Emilie muttered, "Yeah, no kidding."
She climbed and turned, and the picture refined. A larger transport—C-17—sat in a broad box; overhead, a platform throwing out heavy emissions: an AEW/C orbit with an ECM signature. Not a simple E-3 radar snapshot—this package included an active jamming node. In the modern battle space, AWACS can vector or carry pods and dedicated ECM platforms will co-orbit; the emissions pointed to a centralized jammer tied to that orbit.
"Enemy AEW/ECM node spotted—engaging!" Emilie keyed.
She shoved the throttles, afterburners spooling. The Tomcat surged into a near-vertical climb, nose up and eyes on the jammer above the transports. Weapon selector: Sidewinders.
"Fox Two! Fox Two!" Two AIM-9s lit, chasing upward toward the big airborne node. The missiles tracked and found purchase—an explosion painted the sky as the Sentry-class orbit and its escort burned.
"Thunderspike—enemy jammer down!" came the controller's call.
Emilie rolled off and dove on the nearest transport. Lock—tone. "Fox Two!" Two more Sidewinders launched; the C-17's wing tore off in a smoking arc and it cartwheeled toward the valley.
"Starseer got the E-3!" came over the net. "Herring got one, too!"
Enemy chatter collapsed into panic: "Our cover's blown!"
Then her IFF screamed—missile lock, radar tone. An enemy F-16 had her cold.
Emilie didn't flinch. Training and instinct took over. Defensive sequence: countermeasures and a hard, unpredictable break.
She hit the countermeasures release—chaff for the radar-guided paint, flares ready in case it was IR. She kicked the variable wing sweep to a new geometry, then shoved one throttle to idle and slammed the other to full—an asymmetric power burst that snarled the Tomcat into a violent, high-G, flat-turn break toward the sun. She pulled a hard, sudden jink and dumped a long trail of chaff directly into the missile's approach corridor, then tumbled the jet into a descending barrel roll to upset the missile's seeker geometry.
The missile bled lock—its radar paint smeared by chaff and the sudden geometry changes. Its seeker searched, jittering on the HUD, then lost target. The tone cleared.
"Break, break—missile lost!" Teppei whooped over the net, relief raw in his voice.
Emilie slowed, re-centred her sensors, and blew out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Around them, the mountain air filled with smoke and falling metal. Wolfsbane's training and quick reactions had bought the formation space—and they still had a mission.
"All bogeys down? Report." Emilie asked, voice steady.
"Negative contacts gone; jammer neutralized; several transports down," Mona answered.
"Roger. Regroup and continue the interdiction sweep. Eyes forward—this valley still has teeth."
The fight wasn't over, but Wolfsbane had punched through the deception and taken the first, brutal bites out of Natlan's retreat. The mountains threw long shadows as they reformed into strike positions—Tepeacac Rise was about to get very hot.
She snapped the Tomcat hard to the right. The F-14 rolled sharply, G pressing into her chest. For a beat her breath snagged, then instinct and training took over — hands moving before thought. She squared her grip, placed her left hand over her right on the stick, and yanked back in a practiced, violent pull.
The Tomcat surged in a brutal vertical climb. The F-16 on her tail tried to follow but couldn't match the sudden energy change. Emilie reversed her input in an instant — stick forward, nose dropped.
G slammed her into the straps; the harness held as the Tomcat pitched violently. The F-16 overshot directly beneath her. She recovered, settling her jet into position behind the bogie.
Lock. Tone.
"Fox Two!" she barked.
A Sidewinder ripped from the rail and screamed home. The F-16's rear erupted in a fireball; tail and aft section separated and tumbled earthward.
Static ripped through the coms.
"…ene…y…Ja…ng…Inter…rence…" Thunderspike came through, fragmented by heavy electronic interference.
Another voice cut in, clipped and authoritative: "This is 5050th leader. All 5050th units — proceed as planned."
Teppei slammed his fist on the canopy rail. "Da—mit, even our radios—can't—" His words scattered as the enemy net bled through with corrupted traffic: "…A…ert! E…emy Sq…dron A…cking Ci…lian location!"
Teppei, scrambling for clarity, keyed up. "Hey Mona! Yo… Th… Em…ie is th… Pr…est in th… Ai… For…ce?" The line dissolved in static.
Mona laughed through the distortion, voice clipped: "Ha… Ye… I th… so… to…" Teppei barked a broken laugh. The channel was a mess.
Ayaka cut in, urgency laced with calm: "It's ja…ed!" — the word jagged but clear: jammed.
Thunderspike recovered enough to order: "ECCM — restore links. Switch to alternate nets, flip to guard and manual gain!" The controller's voice was crisp despite the noise.
Explosions stuttered across the valley. "Starseer's got a bandit!" someone called. "Soumetsu downed a transport!"
Emilie's HUD showed a fresh contact — an F-15C ripping across her scope. She rolled right, lined the Tomcat up on the bandit.
Lock. Tone. "Fox Two!" Two AIM-9s streaked out. The F-15's wing blew away; the fuselage broke and tumbled in a smoking cascade. "Target hit! Target down!" she called.
Then the damned panic report came over the enemy net: "Teyvat planes are striking a college packed with students!"
Thunderspike slammed into the channel like a judge: "HEY! Whoever is doing that — STAND DOWN!"
Emilie's jaw clenched. "Who the fuck is doing that!?" she shot back.
Thunderspike: "That's reported in Sector Papa Alpha. Attacks on civilians are prohibited!"
Emilie fired back, sharp as a whip. "Are you insane? HELL NO — WE DIDN'T! We're cleared on the transports — you've got us on radar. We're interdiction, we're in the box!"
Mona's voice cut in, strained. "Yeah! We can't even find the sources visually — jamming's masking the geometry."
Emilie's eyes swept the scope. Her radar was clean where it mattered: true returns, visual contacts, AWACS overlays. She picked up a large transport — a C-17 — and rolled. Lock. Tone.
"Fox Two! Fox Two!" Two Sidewinders launched; the right wing of the transport sheared loose in a violent plume of fire. The C-17 cartwheeled down into the mountains.
The enemy net erupted: "MULTIPLE CASUALTIES! GET AN AMBULANCE HERE FAST! THESE ARE BLATANT WAR CRIMES FROM TEYVAT!"
Thunderspike snapped back: "Raven, did you attack a civilian facility? Clarify immediately!"
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! NO — we engaged transports in our assigned withdrawal corridors. Confirm your tracks — you're reading the same picture we are!" Emilie snapped, voice cold.
She picked up another heavy — this one massive, a C-5 — glinting on the scope. She lined her approach from the rear, rolled left to present a firing solution, then leveled. Lock. Tone.
"Fox Two! Fox Two!" Twin AIM-9s leapt free. Impact — the C-5's empennage ripped away. The giant nosed over in a catastrophic dive.
For a handful of seconds the frequency died. Silence hung inside the cockpit, weighty as stone.
Then: a single, blunt transmission echoed over the net. "All planes — all transports and jamming aircraft destroyed. RTB. Return to base."
Emilie let out a slow breath. Sweat beaded along her hairline. "Right… Wolfsbane, RTB." Her voice even, but hollow under the adrenaline.
She eased the stick, banking northeast — heading for the lower ridgeline and then home: Deshret, Petrichor. The valley fell away beneath them, smoke and wreckage painting black scars across the mountains.
One by one her wingmates slotted in behind her, formation tightening. Engines hummed the same tired song; radios chattered with fractured reports. The mission had gone sideways into something raw and terrible, but they'd executed with speed and brutal efficiency—and survived to fly back.
They left the burning mountains behind, the Tomcats climbing toward a pale, tired sun.
Hours Later — Petrichor Air Force Base, Administrative Wing
The fluorescent tubes buzzed faintly overhead, the sterile hum of machinery filling the silence. Wolfsbane Squadron stood in line outside Captain Maksim's office. No one spoke. The only sounds were the lazy spin of a ceiling fan and the rhythmic clatter of a fax machine somewhere down the hall.
The door creaked open.
Captain Maksim appeared in the frame, hands clasped behind his back, expression carved from stone. His silence stretched, heavy as concrete, before he finally spoke.
"You succeeded in halting the transport aircraft over Sector Papa Alpha…"
A pause. Then a sharp breath through his nose.
"…But an unknown element — squawking friendly IFFs — attacked an aviation engineering college near the AO."
The words hit like a strike of cold steel. All four pilots stiffened where they stood.
"Since you were the only Teyvat squadron operating in that corridor, Central Command has ordered you to report to the Fontaine Office of Command, Charybdis. Tomorrow. 0800. Sharp."
His eyes locked on each of them in turn, the weight of command behind every second. Then, softer — almost imperceptibly:
"…I know you didn't do it."
The tone vanished as quickly as it had come. Maksim straightened.
"Dismissed."
The squadron returned the nod with crisp precision before stepping into the hallway. Their boots echoed across the tile, the sound of four soldiers carrying a storm inside them.
Emilie exhaled through her nose, scratching absently at her scalp beneath her helmet strap.
"The 5050th… weren't those the ones who relieved us when we pulled the President out?"
Mona crossed her arms, gaze downcast but sharp.
"Yeah. That was them. At least, that's what our datalink said."
Ayaka's voice came quiet from the rear, almost hesitant.
"…Do they even exist at all?"
Teppei gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
"Of course they do. They answered our IFF pings like friendlies. That kind of spoofing isn't simple."
Emilie's brow furrowed as she tapped her chin, voice low, controlled.
"Not simple — but possible. Enemy flying captured birds, repainted to our livery… spoofed codes to mimic our returns."
Mona rubbed her temple, tone edged with reluctant logic.
"That would mean they've got tech on par with us. Dangerous, but… plausible. More likely than coincidence."
Emilie blew a sharp breath through her nose, eyes narrowing down the hall ahead.
"Perfect. Someone's setting us up for the fall."
The four continued toward the dorm wing, boots striking the tile in grim cadence. No chatter now — only the steady echo of suspicion and frustration. It hung over them like storm clouds, thick and heavy, waiting for the lightning to break.