While their navy was giving the Esparian navy fleets a PTSD for every soldier on board the ships like Oprah, the air force was also in full operation.
Four SU-35 fighter jets, piloted by the Aces, could be seen escorting one midsize cargo aircraft, all of them heading in the direction of Esparia.
Athena had decided to take the initiative by venturing into the enemy territory since the other side seemed to be reluctant to come to them. She had something specific which she needed to be done in Esparia to end the war as fast as possible, concluding it with minimal casualties on both sides. The soldiers, who were caught in the crossfire had the only fault of being in the wrong country’s military which had a corrupt president who could be bought for a few pennies and couldn’t care for the lives of these soldiers at all, thinking them as disposable pawns, as long as he was benefiting from their deaths.
“They are en route,” reported Archangel One-Three as the radars in their aircrafts were finally being put to use for the first time now that they were heading to Esparia which was beyond the range the SkyEye 0 could scan. They had detected a group of Esparian fighter jets taking off and heading to them for interception.
All thirty of the enemy aircrafts had taken off, yet not all of them were heading to intercept Eden’s planes, rather, only four of them seemed to be directly heading towards them, while another four remind in the skies patrolling the capital city, as for,the rest of the twenty-two could be seen trying to avoid them as much as possible and head to Eden, trying to put the four they thought to be as the only Eden’s airforce fighters planes in dilemma on whether they should be proceeding on their mission and attack whatever they were planning or return to intercept the twenty-two that were making their way to Eden.
“Quite a good plan, not gonna lie,” Archangel One-One, the squadron leader, acknowledged when he grasped what Esparia was trying to do.
He shortly added by saying, “One-Three make sure the cargo plane reaches at the mission objective,” before the three of the four planes executed a U-turn to catch and shoot down the now heavily dispersed fighter jets that were piloted by grunting pilots who had been in detention from the moment they landed and were only released and immediately sent to intercept the Edenian Ace squadron after they were threatened by using the lives of their families.
At this moment, the twenty-two fighter jets dispatched to Eden were split into eleven groups, sending two aircraft as a group in every direction and as far as possible from the monstrous four.
Although it was true that they were sent here just as a means to give the four aces a dilemma of choice, they still planned to benefit from this and bomb a few places while the four monsters tried to shoot as many of them as possible during that time.
“I can’t believe I’m regretting being enticed by money just a month after resigning,” lamented one of the Esparian foreign pilots as he remembered how they were treated the moment they landed after their first mission against Eden.
The moment they landed, they were put under the cuffs and sent into the detention center without even being told a reason for their arrests.
After all of them were arrested one by one, they were interrogated, threatened and subjected to everything except physical torture.
Other than torture, anything a person could imaginably do to force someone to spill the truth during the span of just two hours was done to them.
Despite them denying everything and feeling betrayed after how they were treated during that period, they still endured this ordeal while feeling a little grateful after having survived their initial encounter with Eden’s formidable might which had pushed their abilities to the limit.
Upon learning the reason behind their mistreatment, they couldn’t help but grasp the reason and understand why they were treated that way. In the first place, they were people who had resigned from their respectful military careers, enticed by the lucrative financial offers which were enough to spend with their families for the rest of their lives, which in return made them seem susceptible to monetary coercion– an opportunity for their loyalty to be swayed with money to the point of even feigning being shot down and receive another compensation payment in the midst of it.
But understanding it was another thing and forgiving was another, so they were still angry for the treatment they had received, nearly all of them expressed their desire to resign which had been blatantly ignored by Esparia.
And now they were even compelled to take to the air while their families acted as both hostages and a motivation material for them to do their best during the mission.
Even now, when one of the pilots remembered the tumultuous few hours they had experienced, he couldn’t help but seethe in anger whenever he thought about it. Alas, he wasn’t given more time to think any further as… BOOOOOOOM. His and his wingman’s plane were shot down by two missiles that their aircrafts system wasn’t able to detect and the only thing he could think of this being the reason for being shot down was because he was fortunately alive thanks to the Automatic Ejection Seat Sequences (AESS) that was available in his plane.
Initially, he had thought that they would engage in a dogfight, using guns like the first time, however, this time the monsters came prepared for such a situation and had even brought proper gear with them to avoid the enemies from using their numerical advantage over them.
“FOX 1” was the only word that Archangel One-Four had uttered before he fired a pseudo-radar-guided missile at the enemy who was wasting time thinking about the past rather than focusing on his current mission.
Archangel One-Four’s aircraft’s hardpoint still had a few more air-to-air missiles and since the hardpoint even had atomic printers on them, it had the capability to fabricate more of them so long as the atomic storage had supply material for the printing.
This technological advantage of being able to print any missile from the hardpoint allowed for the aircraft to always be prepared for any mission no matter its nature.
This was what gave them the confidence to go in any fights and have what could be said to be a pseudo unlimited ammo which could be backed up by a material tanker for air-to-air atomic and fuel refueling if the need ever arose.
The only downside of having an atomic printer on these aircrafts was the fact that the weight had increased due to having another storage space to be filled for the materials required for the atomic printer to use for printing, meaning they are always more heavier than they look, no matter the condition.
Nevertheless, all of these disadvantages could be easily compensated with the existence of the powerful engines, allowing for the pilots to have the confidence of executing any maneuvers they desired however they wanted without worrying about the airframe bending, and other problems which could have occurred if any other country’s fighters tried to carry the same weight and make them move in such similar manner thanks to the materials the planes were made of.
Not caring about such technical intricacies, the Archangel just pulled the trigger once again, this time eight Fox-One missiles were detached from the aircraft, each homing to different targets, after that he didn’t do anything and simply and returned to where Archangel One-Three was, still guarding the tanker and had already shot the incoming enemy aircraft, maintaining his position without leaving his mission.
Similar stories unfolded with the other Archangels as they returned shortly after and converged with the squadron and the cargo aircraft that remained unscathed, proof of their exceptional combat prowess.