For the next half hour, the soldiers onboard the Pacific Fleet continued to rewatch the video of the battle between Esparian and Edenain aircrafts in silence.
No words were exchanged all this long as they were trying to mentally visualize what sort of actions they would need to make an aircraft make such maneuvers and tried to calculate those precise split-second decisions that would be required to be executed without risking entering G-lock and potentially killing themselves.
“I can’t believe they earned “Ace in a Day” title in this century and that too in a matter of two minutes!” Enrico exclaimed, both in amazement, jealousy and a tinge of fear as he envisioned himself being in control of one of those planes, facing such a monstrous adversary.
“They have created monsters,” Elton, the youngest among them, remarked, having memorized the entire action sequence.
“Do you think we would have emerged victorious if we had entered a dogfight with them?” Elton asked, curious to know their team leader’s evaluation.
“It hurts my pride to say this, but I don’t think there would be a way to come out alive if we are to face them in a dogfight but in a long-range battle, we might win and that will only be thanks to our advanced long-range weapons,” Daniel, the team leader, conceded, feeling his pride as a pilot of the nation that boasted the best first and second air force in the world taking a hit. He knew that he could easily lose to a pilot who outnumbered his air time by at least fifteen to one.
“Considering the US arsenal, I can only imagine the F-22 going head-to-head with them and having a plausible chance of winning it,” he added, not counting the F-35 as that plane was primarily made for long-range engagements and due to it having no supermaneuverability, it made F-35 impossible to survive a dogfight against such monsters.
“How did they even train them to such a level? I’m sure they couldn’t have even accumulated less than a quarter of our flight time?” Daveta chimed in as he felt goosebumps with the thought of remembering that they had two of those pilots fly together with them, escorting them during their drone retrieval mission.
“Perhaps not all of them are as exceptionally talented as him and this Esparian squadron might have got unlucky to meet such a monster,” Elton speculated, trying to rationalize what they had watched and attributing it to something they unfortunately did not have enough of compared to that monster: A monstrous talent.
“What I’m curious to know is, who the fuck is crazy enough to send such an exceptionally talented and experienced pilot in such a perilous combat situation with nothing but guns. Are they not worried about losing their investments on him?” Daniel spoke once again, questioning the craziness of the military brass who had sent such a valuable pilot to what could be said to be a certain death situation if not for his monstrous talent, with nothing but guns onboard the fighter jet.
But before they could even respond, their discussion was interrupted by a summon to the commander’s room. They immediately understood it was going to be about the pilot in the video they just watched since they were the ones who had met and flown with these monsters not long ago.
This was just one of the many reactions of people with the knowledge about how difficult and incredible a feat it was to accomplish what they had witnessed.
Simultaneously, some smaller countries who adhered to the idea of “A good pilot is only as good as the plane he flies” started exploring the possibilities of acquiring some similar fighter jets in the video, this inadvertently provided Russian arms sales a huge chunk of free and positive marketing.
Unbeknownst to them, even the seasoned Russian pilots, who were well versed in handling those aircrafts, having been using them for years were wondering how the fuck did that Eden’s pilot make the plane move that way and cause it to respond and move in such a manner.
This caused a slight jealousy among the Russian pilots as it gave them the same feeling as seeing your girlfriend being happier when she is with someone else or your friends being more engaged when they are with others compared to when they are with you.
Essentially they were having the feeling of being cucked without having that particular kink.
…..
A brief lull settled over the war for the next six hours, with Esparia having not made any other move. This unexpected pause caused the citizens who had gained calmness to start panicking once again, who speculated that maybe they were planning for something huge or something else behind the scene in retaliation to what happened.
But contrary to their thoughts, Esparia had, in fact, meticulously prepared a very detailed plan that was based on the air force squadron taking down Eden’s airforce and gaining air supremacy over the skies of Eden, paving the way for their bombers to target the vital infrastructures of their enemy country.
Their objective was to force Eden to surrender and if they didn’t, they would have continued bombing them from the air since they would have complete control over the airspace and they wouldn’t have had to worry about having to fight on land. In tandem with the bombing raid, they had planned to use a portion of their navy to take over the military ports and start a ground invasion.
This plan, however, was now thrown in disarray when their fighter jets were obliterated, leaving the remainder of their air force to retreat. At the same time, their assumption that Eden didn’t even shoot the aircrafts down and had just bought those pilots, gaining themselves fifteen new aircraft after they had accounted the destruction of the five aircraft from the video, but with the video being of a very high quality, they suspected of it being a ploy by Eden to make them think that the remaining fifteen fighter jets were also destroyed, continued to hinder them in choosing the plan and route of sending bombers.
So thanks to these conspiracies and due to them having no evidence to assure themselves as to which one is the actual truth, they were now forced to give up on their previously well-devised plan and move to plan B.
This plan still included the mobilization of their navy which was still powerful despite having lost a fleet during their previous endeavor, but this time it was the entirety of what they could afford to send without leaving themselves open to surprise attacks from Eden.
But they weren’t sending all their fleets as one group like the previous venture, no, they sent each fleet in different directions and the delay in action on the war was caused by this decision since the navy fleets had to wait for all of their other fleets to reach their designated mark before they could start entering Eden’s water and attack.
There were a total of four fleets, with three already in position, waiting for the fourth one to arrive at its designated location before they could start making their move to Eden and initiate their attacks and take over Eden’s navy bases.
Each of these fleets was accompanied by seven modified midsized tankers, making a total of them to be 28. Each tanker was carrying tanks, vehicles, supplies and last but not least one thousand soldiers who were completely geared and prepared for a nomadic-style invasion.
Once the ports were secured, the military would start the invasion, starting with disembarking and then spreading using the vehicles that were carried in those tankers to start infiltrating the cities nearby, paving a way for bringing more forces into the country and help expedite their territorial expansion.
Ten minutes later, an encrypted message reached all the four fleets, after it was decrypted, it revealed a succinct note: “This is the fourth fleet; we have arrived at the designated location,” This message confirmed their successful arrival at their marked location and at the same time signaling the start of the mission.
But for the next seven minutes, a thought stillness prevailed. As the clock ticked and it was now midnight, the first hour of Sunday, the fleets immediately sprang into action. They started moving at their maximum speed while also being as much dispersed as possible to minimize the vulnerability of the possibility of an entire fleet being taken out with just one bomb like how it had happened in the first time, and they didn’t want to face the same humiliation again after experiencing it.
This way, they were using their hard-learned lessons to forge a new path.
And this was a sign of a very smart and ardent student who was only lacking experience. Experience which they would have enough of by the end of the war.