Okay, so long time no update.  I’ll give you a few updates though. A) All my college applications are done and in and I don’t have to do jack squat anymore, and B) I got accepted to my dream college so I’m a happy camper.  Okay, let’s get on with the story :)

Chapter Quote:

“All war is deception.”

~Sun Tzu

________________________________________

Chapter 5: Juggernaut

Cipher 

Elizabeth screamed.  I proceeded to hear Genette screech in pain before he ran into the kitchen with Elizabeth hot on his heels holding her curling iron in her hand.

“Better be thankful this wasn’t on!  Next time you do that, I’ll make sure it’s hot!” she growled.  Her hair was disheveled and her pajamas were crumpled from sleeping.  My niece glowered at her brother.

“You didn’t have to hit me in the head!” Genette protested.

“You didn’t have to dump me out of my bed!” She replied hotly.

“You weren’t waking up to normal methods!”

“You should’ve just let me sleep, which is what I’m going to do right now.  Jerk.” Elizabeth exited the kitchen, leaving me laughing and Genette upset.  It was only nine in the morning and my niece had never been a morning person.  The fact my nephew was up was even shocking.

“She’s brutal.  I feel bad for her husband whoever that may be,” Genette said, rubbing his head ruefully.

“They’ll have their hands full with her, that’s for sure,” I commented with a smirk.

“I can hear you!” She yelled from her room.  My nephew and I snickered but made no further comment.  I went to the fridge and pulled out bacon, eggs, and milk, getting ready to cook breakfast, when Elizabeth shuffled in.  She’d thrown her hair up into a ponytail and was still wearing her pajamas.  When I raised an eyebrow at her, she said, “I couldn’t go back to sleep because of dingleberry over here.”

“I’m certainly going to be a dingleberry now with how hard you hit me,” Genette snapped.

“It was a tap.  If I hit you with all my strength, you’d be dead.  Stop complaining.”

“Why don’t I tell you more of the story?” I suggested.  The two of them shut up immediately, making me smirk. “That got you two to quit.  Alright, so where did I leave off?”

“You were making Pixy and Janie think that you needed to be in a loony house,” Elizabeth said.

“Which you probably should’ve been in one because you defeated three ace squadrons and act like it’s nothing.”

“Seriously, the way you guys go from arguing to agreeing is incredible.   All right, let’s see…”

________________________________________

April 24, 1995…

I pulled my wallet out from my nightstand drawer.  Opening it, I pulled out the only picture I had of my family.  It was at our last Christmas together which had to be… three years ago, 1992.  Elizabeth sat on my shoulders; Genette sat on his father’s shoulders.  My sister stood between us.  We were all beaming at the camera.  The temptation to call them was too much, but I didn’t trust their phone not to be bugged by the Belkans.  If I contacted my family, I risked their safety.  I risked the Belkans using my family as leverage against me to come back and fight for them.  As long as the Belkans thought I wasn’t talking to them, which I wasn’t, they wouldn’t try to use my family against me.

A knock at my door made me scramble to put the picture away. I got up and checked to see who it was.  Pixy leaned against the wall.  His hair somehow managed to look perfect no matter what direction it went in, even when every hair on his head decided to go a different way.  My hair on the other hand had a mind of its own; I needed gel, a brush, and a freaking leaf blower to tame it.  Okay, well maybe I didn’t always need a hairbrush.

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Pixy laughed.

“Morning to you too,” I grumbled.

“I think he looks fantastic,” Janie commented as she walked by.  She didn’t look at us but it was clear who she meant.

I smirked and was about to say something when Pixy interrupted, “Not a word.  Time to suit up.  We have another mission.”

“I’m going to say a word.  Two words actually.  Screw you.”

“Sorry buddy, if anyone’s going to do any screwing people over around here, it’ll be me.  That’s my specialty.”

“Ever screw me over, I’ll kill you.”

“Come on buddy, you know I’d never do that,” Pixy said with a grin.

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “Get going idiot.  I have to suit up.”

I gave my wingman a rough shove out of my doorway.  I heard him cackling as I shut the door.  It didn’t take me long to get ready and in a few minutes, I was down in the briefing room.  Pixy lounged out across a few chairs.  Deciding to ruin his comfort, I sat down hard on his stomach.  He let out a grunt of pain and discomfort before he shoved me off.  It was my turn to laugh.  Pixy rolled his eyes at me and was about to make a retort when the briefer interrupted him. “The Ustio and Osean coalition forces are to launch a joint campaign.  The collective strategic military force of the two armies will be referred to as the ‘Allied Forces.’  The campaign will be called ‘Offensive Campaign No. 4101.’  The object of this operation is to secure a sea transit lane for the Allied Forces.  To secure this channel, the Belkan forces occupying the Futuro Canal must be cleared out.  You will be given a choice of missions in this joint operation.  Offensive Campaign No. 4101 will be comprised of the following three air missions.  First, there is ‘Operation Gelnikos.’  This is an air-to-air/surface operation, whose objective is to wipe out Belka’s air squadron, port facilities, and surface weapons.  Next is ‘Operation Round Hammer.’  This is an air-to-surface operation, whose objective is to wipe out the Belkan fleet, its port facilities, and surface weapons.  And the last mission is called ‘Operation Costner.’  This is an escort mission whose objective is to protect the naval vessels in Osea’s Third Fleet, including its state-of-the-art aircraft carrier, which will be making a trial voyage.  Fierce resistance by Belkan forces is expected in all three missions.  Choose carefully which one you wish to participate in.  That is all.”

Operation: Offensive Campaign No. 4101

Location: Futuro Canal

Date: 24/04/1995

Time: 1140 hrs.

Pixy and I stood up.  I knew which mission I wanted.  I desired a challenge today.  I decided to go with the first mission, which required the ability to destroy both ground and air targets.  When I told Vince this, he grinned.

“Starting to get more confident in your abilities, blondie.  Good,” he complimented.

“I wouldn’t go that far.  I trust my abilities, but I’m not confident in them.”

“That makes no sense, Cipher,” Pixy said, joining in the conversation. “Then again, you don’t make sense half the time.”

“Can’t convince them with your genius, confuse them with your bull crap,” I said.

“What?” Pixy looked at me perplexedly.

“You just proved my point.  Come on buddy, we have a battle to win.” I started walking off.  He fell into step beside me and roughly gave me a shove.  I returned it.  Apparently though, his idea was to shove me into as many people as he could.  I got smart though, and when he tried to shove me into one of the higher-ups, I abruptly stopped in my tracks, but he kept walking, therefore nothing happened to me but he lurched to the side and pushed himself into the higher-up.  The man gave Pixy a pissed off look but said nothing.  I chortled with satisfaction.

“You’re going to pay for that Cipher,” he growled.

I continued laughing. “Oh man, your face was priceless.”

“Shut up.” I didn’t needless to say, and only stopped when we had taken off.  However, random bubbles of laughter would rise up my throat whenever I thought about it.  I don’t know why I found it so funny; I just did.  I knew Pixy was going to do something to me later but I didn’t care.  I’d just get him back and we’d continue pranking each other until once of us declared the other winner.  Of course, neither of us would give up easily so for all I know, the two of us could be pranking each other until we’re seventy years old and we’re in wheel chairs.  Hell, we would be the guys who used their canes to sword fight.

It seemed to take forever to get to the battle zone because Pixy refused to speak to me.  I guess that was his retaliation to me.  I ended up playing “Would You Rather” with just myself.  I tried to give myself challenging options but my brain didn’t want to function so it gave me stuff like “Would you rather be Kirk or Spock?”  So my brain process went with Kirk because let’s face it, while he and Spock are good friends and all, Kirk tends to drive Spock nuts sometimes and I like to think I drive my buddy nuts so I guess I relate to Kirk.  Anyways, I was relieved when we finally reached the battle zone because that meant Pixy had to speak to me.

“Eagle Eye to Galm Team.  Destroy all Belkan Forces stationed in the port,” AWACS ordered. “Secure a route of passage for the Allied Fleet.”

I zoomed past some of our allied planes and chose to lead our entire formation into the fight.  I was in my trusty F-15C, the same went with Pixy.  I liked having matching planes and color schemes.  I don’t know why.  I just did. 

The first two enemies came onto my radar: two F-20A’s.    They would be easy to take care of.  I set my weapons to XMAA and locked onto the incoming enemies.  It only took a second to lock on.  Of course, they’d also locked onto me.

“Warning.  The enemy’s locked onto you!” AWACS exclaimed.

“I know,” I said as I fired the special weapons missile.  They hit the planes before the enemy could even fire at me.  I shot past them and headed straight for left bank of the Futuro Canal.  There was a ton of what looked like oil containers.  I wondered if we were supposed to keep those or not.  When Pixy voiced my thought just a few seconds later, I said, “We’ll see what the top brass what us to do.  For now, go for the main targets.”

However, I noticed that the moment I got close to the shore, all enemies on my radar disappeared.  That could only mean one thing.

Jammers.

I hate those things.  They make life a living hell for fighter pilots.

“I’ve made visual contact with the Futuro Canal,” an ally confirmed as I flew up to the sky in pursuit of an enemy plane.

“Enemy planes have been spotted on radar.  All units, prepare to engage,” a Belkan ordered.  I shook my head.  If these guys just realized we were here, it was a wonder they had gotten this far in the war without crashing and burning.

“They’re here already?  That was faster than our estimates, but still within the margin of error,” a Belkan comrade replied.  At that moment, I locked onto the enemy plane I’d been trailing and fired two missiles at it to make sure I hit it.  Luck being on my side, both missiles hit; I flipped my plane over and headed straight for the ground, focusing on one of the jammers.  I wanted those suckers out of the way.

“Destroy those oil containers!  Leave nothing behind!” AWACS barked. “Screw the Belkans.”

“Well that answers that,” I muttered, switching targets and heading to the oil containers.  Those things could be destroyed easily, especially with the special weapon I’d equipped my plane with: a UGBM, or unguided bomb-medium.  With the right aim, this sucker could do a ton of damage.

“Engaging the Allied Forces,” an enemy announced as I destroyed a SAM stationed on the coast.  I headed towards the other bank, feeling it necessary to spread the destruction around, keep the enemy guessing about where we were going to strike next.

“There’s the counter-attack signal.  I’ve been waitin’ a long time for this day,” an ally said.

“And what day would that be?” I queried.

“The day we start kicking Belka’s ass.  Of course, a lot of the thanks goes to you and Pixy.”

“Thanks buddy,” I said.

“No, he’s not your buddy.  I’m your buddy,” Pixy corrected.

“You haven’t talked to me since the briefing, so no, you’re not my buddy at the moment,” I declared.

“I’m still your buddy,” Pixy replied calmly.

“No,” I argued. “We’re on buddy timeout.”

“Wrong,”

“Right.”

“Thanks for saying I’m right.”

“That’s not what I meant you fool!”

“Who’s the fool?  The fool that goes or the fool that follows?”

“What have I done to you…” I groaned.

“You’ve corrupted me.”

“I noticed.  You still need to use a different tone of voice you know.  It’s very monotone.  As you captain, I feel I must teach you this.”

“Are you two okay?” an ally asked hesitantly.

“No,” I answered.

“Why is it when I hear arguing, it’s always you two?” AWACS grumbled.

“Because we’re flying contradictions.  We hate each other but we love each other.”

“I see what you did there,” Pixy noted.

“I don’t,” AWACS said.

“Instead of walking, he said flying?  Honestly Sky Eye, your head is in the clouds or something.”

I snorted. “Maybe he just needs a breath of fresh air.”

“We’re going to get blown sky high if he doesn’t update us on the enemies.” Pixy had a slight drawl to his voice that sounded suspiciously as if he was trying to hold back laughter.

“All right you two, enough of that.  Go destroy those jammers.  It’d help you out a lot,” Sky Eye suggested.

“I’ve been trying to do that.  And Pixy, you’re still not my buddy,” I said.

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”

“That’s Miss Bitch to you.”

“… What?”

“Didn’t you say earlier if you can’t convince them, confuse them?”

“Damn you Pixy.”

“I’m your buddy still.”

I didn’t respond.  I was too irked at him throwing my own words back at me.  I wasn’t used to this amount of sass from my wingman.  This would take some getting used to.  No, I wouldn’t get used to it.  I’d just put him back in his place by out-sassing him.  Yes, that’s what I would do.  Now just how was the issue…

Ignoring my problem for now, I sent a UGBM at some more SAMs, hitting them spot on; I zoomed up to the sky and searched for my next target.

“There must be some jamming facilities around here.  If we can take those out, our radars should clear up,” AWACS said.  I snorted at the fact he’d just noticed that.  The jammers were an issue, yes, but they weren’t causing too much of a problem at the moment, so I decided I’d destroy them when I got the opportunity.  Pretty much, anything that crossed my path that was one of the enemy’s, I was going to destroy it.  Nothing would be left untouched.  I did a loop in the sky so that my plane ended up pointed straight at the ground.

“I’ll bet you wanna protect that fleet behind us.  I know how you think, Cipher,” Pixy commented.

“Sue me for trying to protect them,” I retorted.

“Sheesh, blonde’s in a mood.  Who peed in your cereal this morning?”

“Who gave you caffeine this morning?”

“You’re much more pleasant to be with when Janie’s around.  You’re much nicer.”

“Well that’s because she’s pleasant too.  You’re not pleasant,” I pointed out.

I heard Pixy gasp in mock offense. “I’m always pleasant!  I’m the epitome of pleasant you peasant.”

“You’re more like a berserk jerk,” I countered.

“You’re both annoying rhymers.  Focus on the mission at hand you two,” Eagle Eye interrupted.  Pixy and I whined but shut up.  Our AWACs knew we’d be bantering again later.  He really couldn’t control us, and we couldn’t really control our mouths no matter how hard we tried.

I turned my plane towards some of the oil containers and let out a special missile.  With my aim, the things turned out to be really effective and with just one, three containers were destroyed.  I grinned in satisfaction.  If the mission kept going this smoothly, we’d be done in no time.

“We can’t put out the fire that spread to the tank,” A Belkan informed.

“Our ground facilities won’t last much longer,” another one added as I sent a regular missile at an AA Gun dead set on shooting my plane down.  Needless to say the thing didn’t win against my plane.  As I was going in a wide circle to make another round of destroying more targets, two APCs came into view.  I was pretty sure my missiles wouldn’t hit if I fired at the two enemies but with the way I was rolling, I figured if the missiles didn’t hit, it wouldn’t be that big of a sacrifice.  I took the shots.  They hit.  I hollered in victory.  My mind attempted wrapping around the fact I’d made a really difficult shot but that didn’t work well so I focused on other things.

“The Galm Team is engaged with Belkan forces.  Other planes go join them!” AWACS ordered.

I snorted. “Eagle Eye, if you’re just now realizing we’re engaged with Belkan forces, I think you need to retire.”

“I’m actually agreeing with Cipher on this one,” Pixy chimed in.

“Shut up you two,” Eagle Eye snapped, although he sounded embarrassed.

“I heard there’s a few Ustio mercenaries caught up in the mix,” an ally commented.

“Yeah, and they’re supposed to be good,” another ally added.

“We’ll let you be the judges of that,” I said, firing at another APC that crossed my path.

“What’s your callsign and what plane are you in?” the ally responded.

“Callsign Cipher.  I’m in one of the two red-winged jets.  Yourself?”

“Callsign Hicks, as in Billy Hicks from St. Elmo’s Fire,” the guy answered. “I’m in a J35J Draken.”

“St. Elmo’s Fire.  That was one weird movie.  Good, but weird,” Pixy said. “I wonder if the guy that played him could actually play the saxophone?”

The image of the guy, Rob Lowe, playing the saxophone bubbled up into my mind and I couldn’t resist blurting, “Do you believe in premarital sax?”

“Oh god Cipher…” Pixy groaned.

“I’m not gonna answer that,” Hicks laughed.

“Me neither.  I just wanted to say it,” I said.  At that moment, my missile warning started yelling at me.  I jerked my plane into a vertical lift, shooting up into the sky.  I looked on my radar to see what that it was a SAM firing at me.  I flipped my plane over so that the nose of my plane lined up directly with the SAM.  I fired my guns at it and it exploded easily.  I leveled out my plane and turned so I could take care of the remaining oil containers.  I used my guns instead of special missiles just because I was going slow enough to use the guns and I didn’t think I’d be able to get a good enough aim to use the special missiles.  Once the oil containers were gone, I decided to take care of some enemy planes circling the area.  I hadn’t really been paying attention to what Pixy had been doing but apparently he’d been luring the planes up to a higher altitude so I could take care of the ground forces.  I appreciated it but the ground forces didn’t really give me a challenge.  The air enemies did; so I ordered Pixy to switch jobs with me.  He complained about it but I didn’t listen.

“Shoot down the enemy fighters.  Lure them up to higher altitude,” A Belkan commanded.  Luckily for me and unfortunately for them, I was better at fighting enemy planes at high altitude rather than low altitude.  Being up high meant I had a lot more space to turn and burn if needed.  As I was attempting to get behind an enemy plane, I realized I couldn’t see it on my radar because there were still jammers in the area.  Griping to myself about how I should’ve taken care of those earlier and cursing my earlier logic, I flew back down to the other side of the bay, locking onto the first jammer I saw.  Unluckily, the jammers required more than one missile to destroy.  I don’t know what material those Belkans used to protect the jammers, but whatever it was worked really well and annoyed the crap out of me.  I pulled a High G close to the ground which is dangerous if you don’t have enough speed going because you can stall and crash into the ground.  I plan on living through this war thank you very much.  Anyway, I lined myself back up with the jammers and fired.  Thankfully, the second round of missiles worked and the jammers blew up, leaving my radar free for me to see the enemy planes swarming the area.

“Jamming has been cleared.  Good job,” AWACS praised.

“Happy now?” I chuckled.

“Shut up.”

“We can handle the enemy counterattack,” a Belkan assured.

“You sure about that?  You’re kind of losing,” I noted.

“Again with the talking to the enemy who can’t hear you?” Pixy demanded.

“We can hear him.  We just choose not to respond to the nuisance,” a Belkan said.

“Ha!” I shouted triumphantly. “They do hear me!”

“Them calling you a nuisance doesn’t bother you a bit does it?” Pixy queried.

“Actually it offends.  I was hoping they’d use a harsher term, you know, like ‘threat’ or ‘demon.’  The works,” I joked.

“Well with the way you fly, they may just start calling you a demon,” Hicks jumped in.

“I like this guy.  He’s my new buddy,” I decided.

“Nope, you’re still my buddy Cipher.”

“Look how the tables have turned.”

“Damn it Cipher, pay attention to your six!” Pixy yelled.  Curiously I turned around.  I had three planes hot on my tail.

“Well hell,” I said, rolling my plane as one of the enemies fired their guns at me.  I managed to outdistance myself enough from them that I could pull up without risking my plane getting hit or shot down.

“Calm down. Concentrate on one plane at a time,” a Belkan consoled.  I thought him an idiot.  You can’t focus on one plane at a time.  If you do that, then you lose sight of the other planes, giving them an opportunity to shoot you down.  I’m sorry, but I’d rather keep focus on all planes and risk losing my target rather than focusing on one plane and risking my plane getting shot down.  You with me?

“Cipher, on the count of three, go in a loop.  I’ll shoot the sucker down,” Pixy stated.

“Nope, this bucko’s mine,” I declared.  I continued zooming up to a higher and higher altitude until my plane started to stall.  It started to fall so that the nose of my plane pointed directly at the ground.  The enemy plane had been far behind me but was rapidly approaching.  I locked onto it and fired a missile.  My plane stopped stalling just as this happened so I was able to roll out of the way of the missile the enemy sent my way.

“Cipher, you psycho son of a gun,” Pixy said.

“Proud of it you son of a monkey biscuit,” I replied.

“I’m not even going to respond to that.”

“You just did.”

“I was talking to myself.”

“No, you were most definitely responding to it.”

“Was not.”

“Was too.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“You’re hallucinating.”

“You’re annoying,” Eagle Eye jumped in. “How many times do I have to tell you to shut up?  Focus on the mission at hand.  You’re almost done.”

“Says the guy who announced we were engaged with Belkan forces after about five minutes of us actually being engaged with them,” Pixy remarked.

“Stop saying engaged.  It makes me feel like I’m getting married to the Belkans or something,” I said.

“I now pronounce you husband and military.  You may now destroy each other,” Pixy laughed.

“I’ll only agree to this if you’ll be my Maid of Honor.”

“You want me to be your MOH?”

“Yes.”

“It’d be an honor.”

“I’m having both of you take a psych evaluation when you get back to base.  This is getting ridiculous,” Eagle Eye commented.

“Hey, we passed it the first time.  We could easily pass it a second,” I pointed out.

“Not with the proof I have.”

“Oh come on, why get rid of us when we’re doing such a fantastic job?”

“You two being great pilots is the only reason you’re still here.”

“Ouch, that hurts you know.  I thought we had something special,” I said drolly.

“Are you cheating on me Cipher?!” Pixy demanded, clearly trying to torture Eagle Eye with me.

“It’s not cheating when we’re not even together!” I countered. “We broke up a long time ago.”

“It was three hours ago!”

“It counts!”

“Oh my freaking god, both of you, shut up!  I can’t take this!” Eagle Eye groaned.  Luckily for our AWACS, Pixy and I were too busy laughing to continue our little conversation.  I actually started focusing on finishing the mission because we were really close.  I flipped my plane upside down so I could get a better look at the ground.  There were still some oil containers, tanks, SAMs, and AA guns.  The oil containers would be the easiest to destroy because one little explosion caused them to collapse.  I headed down towards the cluster of oil containers and fired a special weapon at them.  I flew away from the area of impact as fast as I could because I’d been pretty close to the ground when I fired the missile and most likely I would’ve blown my plane sky high if I hadn’t raced away from the area.

“Galm One and Two, the enemy forces are almost eliminated.  Keep at it!” AWACS encouraged.

“You are one bipolar AWACS,” I remarked. “You go from telling us you’re going to get us fired to telling us to keep at it.”

“Don’t make me change my tone of voice.  God if my cousin has to go through the same thing I do with you guys as an AWACS…”

“Your cousin’s an AWACS?”

“In training to be one.  He was a meteorologist but got bored with his job so he’s in training to be an AWACS.  He wants his callsign to be Thunderhead.  Don’t ask me why.  The guy’s a nutjob.”

“Must run in your family,” Pixy commented.

“Then you and I must be related,” Eagle Eye bantered.

“Oi, what about me?!” I asked in pretend anger.

“You’re our deranged, mutant friend we kept in the attic and have just now let out,” Pixy said.

“Wow, you’re nice.  I was just going to call him an acquaintance,” Eagle Eye snickered.

“You two are very cold-hearted,” I mumbled. “Well, this deranged, mutant friend-slash-acquaintance is going to go get rid of some enemies and lord it over the two of you later so I’ll talk to you in a few minutes.”

With that, I proceeded to align myself with two cargo ships.  I fired two missiles at one and fired my guns at the other.  Both were destroyed; I grinned to myself.

“They’re even sinking our cargo ships!  Damn Allied Forces,” A Belkan growled.

“Damn Belkans and their quest for world domination,” I added.  I heard Pixy groan over the mic.

I looked back down at the ground in search for more targets but I quickly realized there were none left.  All the targets I had left were fighter jets.  Wow.  I wondered how this slipped past me as I flew up high into the sky to go after an enemy plane.  I couldn’t see any of my allies or Pixy and honestly, I felt really alone up there but I didn’t necessarily mind.

“You’re making a lot of money today, Galm One.  Looks like drinks are on you tonight,” Pixy pointed out.

“Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!  Shots!” Hicks chanted.

“Sounds like you’re singing a song,” I noted.

“Who would ever make a song where the constantly say ‘Shots!’?” Pixy inquired dubiously.

“Mad times we live in.  Mad I tell you.  Who knows what these artists are going to come up with next!” I exclaimed as a fighter zipped over me, far enough away that I had the ability to brake my plane to make a sharper turn so I could keep the enemy in my sights.  It didn’t take long for me to get behind it and close enough to get a missile lock.  After double-checking to make sure I could make the shot, I let a missile loose.  It hit and the enemy plane fell to the ground.

“We’ve opened up Pandora’s box,” Pixy said.

“You and your weird statements.  Now hopefully you mean that we’ve opened it up and released the Hope left, not that we’ve unleashed every hellish thing possible on this earth.”

“I mean the Hope part.  It’s the Belkans who unleashed the evil.  With the way we’re fighting, there’s no way we can lose this war.  Hell, you’re changing the tide of battle yourself.  Well, with my help of course.”

“I think that’s the closest I’ll ever come to a compliment from you.”

“It is.”

“Thought so.”

“All right, there’s only three or four planes left.  Let’s get them and get home.”

“This is our ocean! We’ll never lose it!” A Belkan snarled.

“You’re about to idiot,” Pixy snapped as he rolled behind an enemy plane and fired two missiles at it.  One hit, the other didn’t, but one was all it took.  I headed for an enemy behind me.  I noticed it had started coming my way on my radar and decided to meet it head on.

“This is a significant hurdle to overcome if we wanna take back Ustio.  Failure is not an option,” an allied pilot stated firmly.

“We should be able to pull it off with Cipher and Pixy on our side,” another ally added cheerfully.

“Two Ustio fighters… That Eagle with a red wing… That’s…” the first pilot trailed off.

“We’re both in Eagle’s with red wings, but in answer to your unsaid question, yes it’s me,” Pixy remarked.

“For the record, dying is also not an option.  Try not to die on me people,” I said, diving down to avoid getting hit by a missile sent at me by the enemy plane.

“I won’t die on you.  Promise,” Pixy replied.

“You’ll never die.  You’re like… freaking immortal or something.”

“Says Mr. Invincible.”

“Same thing.”

“How?”

“Well if I’m Mr. Invincible, that means I’m invincible to everything: heart attacks, old age, dementia, colds, you name it.  That means I’m going to be this good looking forever!” I cheered.

“That makes two of us who are going to be eternally handsome,” Pixy chuckled.

“Yeah, sure buddy, whatever you say.  Let me finish off this guy.” I found the enemy plane I’d been fighting earlier and tried to get behind him.  Problem was, I realized, he was so far above me that by the time I got to him, he’d been miles away from me.  Instead, I floored my engines and made my plane go as fast as possible.  When I was almost underneath the enemy plane, I started pulling up.  The moment I locked onto the enemy, I fired two missiles in hopes at least one would hit.  Luck being on my side, it did.

“Enemy forces eliminated.  Nice work, Galm Team,” AWACS praised. “This should make your next operation a whole lot easier.”

“Mission success confirmed.  Allied Fleet, begin your advance,” the allied forces HQ ordered.

“This is Commander Weeker on the Kestrel.  We appreciate the great air support!”

“Glad to help, sir,” I said. “All right, buddy, let’s head home.  I’m exhausted.”

“Better not go to sleep when we get back.  Drinks are on you tonight.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“Anytime buddy.”

Pixy and I grouped together and headed home with our allies behind us.  On the way back, Vince debriefed us on the mission, which was literally one line. “Thanks to your accomplishments in Operation Gelkinos, Campaign No. 4101 was a success.”

“Oh come on, we just fought an awesome battle and all we get is a one-liner?” I grumbled.

“At least they said something,” Pixy said.

“Since when are you the optimist?”

“Since when are you the pessimist?”

“Since when are you fluent in such sarcasm?”

“Since I became your wingman.”

“What the hell was I thinking agreeing to this…”

“I don’t know, I’m not your brain.”

“Well I have that going for me at least.”

The two of us continued to bicker back and forth for the remainder of the flight home.

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Present Day…

“Was there ever a mission where you two didn’t argue?” Elizabeth inquired.

I pondered quietly for a minute before replying, “Um, I don’t think so.  We pretty much bickered constantly.  That was a relatively easy mission so if you two were disappointed in epic fights scenes, I’m sorry.  There will be more of those later.”

“Oh it’s fine.  Just listening to what you and Pixy said is entertaining enough,” Genette said. “Did you actually end up buying everyone drinks that night?”

“Yep, and we got drunk out of our minds.  I don’t recommend doing this though.  One guy we had to carry to his room and he thought he was an airplane so he kept making zooming sounds.  Another guy had a conversation with a door for about twenty minutes before yelling at it for not making a response.  Pixy and I were probably the most sober, which isn’t saying much because we had a contest on who could do the best impression of Elvis.  Apparently we sounded more like George Strait or Tim McGraw.  Janie had to lead me back to my room because I kept trying to sleep in front of the fireplace like a cat.  Don’t ask me why.  I don’t know.  On the bright side of that, I woke up to Janie sleeping next to me.  We didn’t do anything but still nice to wake up to that beautiful face of hers.”

“Oh my god Uncle Jason,” Elizabeth snorted.

“I was not a very interesting person up until that point,” I joked.

Genette raised a brow at me. “Right, says the guy who pretty much single-handedly started turning the tide of the war.”

“I was good, but I wasn’t that good.”

“God you’re modest.”

“It runs in the family.  Chopper accuses me of it all the time,” Elizabeth said.

“Chop- oh wait, Alvin.  God I’m getting his names confused,” Genette mumbled, pulling out his phone.

“Don’t worry, I did the same thing too at first.  But then I talked to him so much I just started getting used to it.”

“Hanging out with him a lot are we?” I got a gleam in my eye which my niece instantly understood.

“It’s not like that!  He’s my friend, nothing more.  It’s not at all what you’re thinking, and I know what you’re thinking.  Stop thinking that,” she defended.

“I didn’t say anything,” I pointed out to her.

“You didn’t need to,” Elizabeth retorted.

“What’s going on?” Genette interrupted.

“Dude, where have you been the past five seconds?” My niece inquired, giving him a ‘what the hell’ look.

“I was texting Alvin.  What did I miss?”

“Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Let’s eat breakfast.” Elizabeth snatched up her breakfast plate and brought it outside to the patio table.  Genette looked at me confusedly and I just shook my head.  If he wanted to know, his sister would have to tell him.  My nephew and I followed my niece outside and sat down.

“So what do you guys want to do today?  We can go to the beach, we can go to the aquarium, we can go see a movie, we can-”

Genette interrupted me. “Stories.  More stories.  A lot more stories.  I want to know more about Janie.”

“You need a girlfriend,” Elizabeth commented.

“You need a boyfriend,” Genette countered.

“All the boys I like are too old for me, live too far away, don’t root for my team, or are fictional… or dead.  Typically it’s the last two.”

My nephew rolled his eyes. “Anyways, what do you say Uncle Jason?”

“I was seeing if I could deviate your minds from its current path but you two are very focused on my story aren’t you?”

Elizabeth grinned. “We’re either easily distracted or unable to be persuaded to think about anything else.  Now, what’s next in your story?”

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Hope you enjoyed!  Sorry it took so long to post.  Busy few weeks lately.  Review :)