"Where the fuck were you fly-boys today?" A heavy hand landed on Jaymes Fitzsquire's shoulder, the shot he was in the process of tossing back spilling all over his front. The hand pulled sharply and spun him around so that he was facing an infantry sergeant. The man's uniform was a disgrace. Torn, covered in dirt and God knew what else, it was clear he had been through some heavy fighting.

"I'm air superiority, we aren't equipped for ground attack. I was busy keeping the ChinKors out of the sky,” he kept his tone neutral and polite. It had been a hard day and he'd seen some of his best friends die in the heaviest fighting they'd seen so far.

"You were swanning around avoiding a fight you mean! We lost over three companies because you shitting flyers were too fucking scared to come and help us!" The sergeant pushed hard on his shoulder and sent him staggering back.

"Now just hold on a moment sergeant," he sighed inwardly as he heard the waspish tone of his voice, born into a privileged background he was never going to be able to just blend in, no matter how hard he tried. His accent screamed ‘public schoolboy, now pilot’.

"Fuck you!" The sergeant swung a beefy fist at him in a wild haymaker. Fitzsquire ducked under the punch and threw a hard over-hand right of his own. There was the sudden sound of breaking glass, a sharp pain in his hand and the sergeant staggered back, gobbling as he clasped his hands over his neck to stop the flow of blood that was pulsing out. Fitzsquire watched in open-mouthed horror as the sergeant dropped to his knees, hands dropping to his side as the blood squirted out, showering those stood watching, pulsing in time with his heartbeats.

Eyes wide open, mouth gasping like a fish out of water the sergeant gave a final gurgle and pitched forward onto his face, his forehead bouncing off the floor with the force of his landing.

"You've bloody team-killed him! Call the Provost!" He didn't know who owned the voice, he was too busy staring at his blood covered hand, still clutching the remains of the forgotten shot glass. Shouts rang out around the room, whether in alarm, agreement or anger he couldn't tell. He tried to tell the men around him that he hadn't meant to team-kill the sergeant, that it was an accident. Every time he looked up, he found his eyes drawn back to the ghastly sight of the dead soldier.

He looked up as the sound of more shouts and pounding feet reached his ears. He barely had time to register the all-white battle dress and red helmet of a provost before the woman shoved a stun stick into his gut. There was shooting pain and then everything went black.

#

Flight-Sergeant Luke Kingsley jumped down from his fighter, a wide grin threatening to split his head in half. He patted her, clucking over the myriad of holes that peppered her all over as if he were a hen with its chick. Other pilots ran over, cheering and slapping him on his back, promises of drinks and ‘tea and medals' ringing out. Swarming him they hoisted him onto their shoulders, the unofficial squadron anthem belting out as they carted him off towards a night of revelry.

The next morning he awoke with a groan as the Sergeant's mess orderly gently tapped on the door. He tried to answer but found his tongue was stuck to his mouth, it felt and tasted like a ChinKor had crapped in his mouth.

"Beg pardon sir, but the Wing Commander would like a word." Kingsley flapped his hand in acknowledgement, desperately trying to hold down what was left of last night's meal and the copious amount of whisky he had consumed.

"When?" He croaked out, following it with a rather liquid burp.

"Five minutes ago I'm afraid. He didn't look too happy to be honest."

Kingsley struggled out of his bed and allowed the orderly to help him try and make himself presentable.

This is why I don't bloody drink! he thought as he swallowed down a bitter mix of bile and phlegm.

Five minutes later he was stood to attention, sweating in the wing commander's office, desperately trying not to sway too much.

"Good night was it? One fit for a newly crowned ace-killer?" The wing commander looked up at him through caterpillar-thick eyebrows.

"Yes sir. The drinks were most certainly drunk."

"And the drinkers were most certainly drunker no doubt!" wing commander barked in laughter and slapped his desk. The sound made Kingsley's head throb even more.

"For God’s sake man, sit down before you fall down. Or puke."

Kingsley sank into the hard chair with a sigh of relief, "can I ask why you wanted to see me sir?"

"Of course. You're officially the highest scoring pilot in this sector, twice over in fact. Yesterday's tally took you to 33 confirmed kills. You're also the first official Ace Killer. Makes you a Triple Ace.

"You're going to be awarded the Ace Medal with bar, as well as the Flying Gallantry Medal. Wouldn't surprise me if you weren't awarded the ECAF Medal of Honour! The people are crying out for good news and you are most certainly good news, what!"

Kingsley was stunned, the ECAF Medal of Honour was the highest medal of bravery that could be awarded, usually posthumously, and would give him upgrades he could only dream of.

"That's the good news," the wing commander shifted in his seat as he reached for a message sheet, “this came through about an hour ago. Damned impertinent if you ask me, but I wasn't. “

Kingsley braced himself, just by looking at the wing commander’s face he could tell that he wasn’t going to like what was coming next.

"You're being transferred to a different regiment. A penal regiment." He spat that last out and the paper crumpled as his hands closed into white-knuckled fists.

"But, but ..." fear robbed Kingsley of all thought. A penal battalion posting was as good as a death sentence. Desperately he wracked his brain to think of what heinous crime he had committed to get such a sentence, "what crime did I commit?"

"For fuck’s sake, you haven't committed a crime lad! You're going to be looking after the criminals! Come!" He roared as there was a knack at the door.

Kingsley sat slumped in his chair and watched dejectedly as a nattily dressed squadron leader breezed into the room with a cheery "Hallo!" and proceeded to heartily pump Kingsley' hand whilst telling him how much he had heard about him.

The wing commander harrumphed loudly and waited for the Squadron Leader to quiet down, "Flight Sergeant Luke Kingsley, meet your new commanding officer, Squadron Leader Peter Pilgrim."

#

Fitzsquire sat, silent and head down, as the men and women around him talked. His mind struggled to make sense of everything that had happened. From the point of killing the infantry sergeant to the point of being convicted of murder, less than a day had passed. The Courts Martial had pushed his case through with indecent haste, not even his father's contacts had been able to save him. Now, he found himself sat in a Bulldog APC, in shackles, and surrounded by a number of other flyers and - judging by their shackles - fellow criminals.

Murderer! At the very most he should have been convicted of manslaughter. If they had allowed any witnesses other than the sergeant's compatriots, he was sure that he could have argued it was a clear case of self-defence or accidental manslaughter. But murder? His stomach flipped and he leaned forward to vomit, showering the feet of the other men and women with the half-digested remains of his breakfast gruel.

"You dumb shit! That's the third time you've puked!" The woman, a Flight-Trooper, flicked her feet at him, trying her best to kick him in the face. Fortunately her shackles prevented her from making contact. They didn't stop her from flicking his own vomit back over him. She snarled and settled with a vicious boot to the shin.

Just as he helped in pain and started to snap back the bulldog came to a sudden and head- banging stop. The meaty sound of head meeting head or, worse, hitting metal was nearly drowned out by the curses and shouts of pain. Slowly the ramp started to lower and bright light shone in.

It was mid-summer on the Salisbury Plains and the sudden sunlight was painful on their eyes.

"Out and form up!" Barked the driver's voice over the intercom.

Their shackles were remotely released and they bundled out, all most certainly as eager as Fitzsquire to get away from the stench of his vomit as they were to see where they had ended up. Still squinting Fitzsquire joined the others in a ragged line. He watched a rather keen-looking Squadron Leader and a much less keen-looking Flight Sergeant walked towards them.

"I am Squadron Leader Peter Pilgrim. This is Flight-Sergeant Luke Kingsley. We are now in charge of you. You are now our property. Our assets. Our consumables. We can do with you what we like."

Fitsquires watched as Pilgrim slowly paced the line, looking at each of them.

"If I so desired, I could shoot each and every one of you right now and no-one would give a damn,” Pilgrim paused, hand on holster as if he was actually contemplating doing just that, "but I won't. All of you are pilots. Now, more than ever, this country needs pilots. Which is why the 1st Penal Air Offence Regiment has been both formed, and deployed, here. You are far too valuable to just execute. Instead, you are going to be flung headlong at the enemy, at the ChinKor forces invading the United Kingdom; and you are going to kill them in their hundreds, in their thousands. We are going to be the saviours of this country, of Europe. Welcome, lads and lasses, to the Black Sheep, third squadron, first wing of the 1st Penal Air Offence Regiment. Dive Bombers extraordinaire."

Fitzsquire felt as if he'd been gut-punched, he was air superiority. He didn't know a thing about dive bombing. He raised his hand slowly as Pilgrim continued to talk. Before he knew it the Flight Sergeant's forehead was touching his and spit was freckling his face as the man roared

"what the fuck do you think you're doing Fitzsquire, put your ChinKor-grubbing, dirty little hand down this instant!" A fist in the gut not only brought his hand down for him, it dropped him to his knees.

No matter how hard he tried to stop it more watery vomit gushed from his mouth and onto the sergeant's highly polished toe caps. "You little ...." Fitzsquire didn't hear the rest of the sentence as the boot quickly drew back and then reappeared just as quickly. There was a flash of light, a blinding pain, and then darkness.

#

"So, Kingsley, what do you think of the replacements?" Pilgrim took a sip of his kaff and invited Kingsley to help himself to the sandwiches stacked between them. Kingsley grunted. He was, if he was honest with himself, still sulking at his new position.

It had felt very good indeed to kick Fitzsquire in the face. The fact that he'd knocked him out cold for over ten minutes would only help his reputation as a man to be feared.

"Scum, all bar Fitzsquire. He was well and truly shafted. I suppose killing the son of a Colonel does that. A highly decorated son as well. Even if it was by accident."

He sifted through the folders before him, moving them gently with his fingertips, "We have rapists, deserters, cowards, murderers and a number of other crimes that I don't ever want to think about again.”

He paused and took a bite from a sliced protein sandwich, "But, they're all trained and experienced pilots. Fitz was an air superiority fighter, well on his way to becoming an ace."

He placed Fitzsquire's open folder onto the table and picked another up. "Flight Trooper Hubert was ground attack, she's got a good record aside from the odd incident of drunken insubordination and the murder of her flight leader. Her defence was that he bottled it and ran in the face of the enemy."

Hubert was in her early twenties, having joined the ECAF Navy Air Defence Force at 18. With close cropped blonde hair and blue eyes, she was reasonably pretty, albeit somewhat boyish looking. He knew that in a couple of sex-starved months she was going to be considered as more than desirable by some of the men.

“Next is Flight Corporal Knightson, bomber escort pilot. Good number of kills. Convicted of cowardice after his group got bumped by the Purple Legion’s Flying Circus. Claimed his guns were jammed. Nothing found wrong with them when the mechanics took a look."

The picture wasn't flattering. Completely bald, Knightson had a pencil-thin moustache and flinty brown eyes that didn't quite manage to look at the camera.

Shifty looking sod. He sighed and picked up another of the manilla folders. "Flight-Trooper Kingston Patient. Rapist and murder. Multiple times. High number of confirmed kills and even participated in the ground fighting during the last stand of the Mighty 55th in Paris. He was cas-evaced on one of the last flights out. Fortunate for him."

Patient stared directly into the camera, his eyes cold and unfocused, a wide grin showing all of his perfectly white teeth. A scar ran full-length across his face, crude stitching making it far worse than it needed to have been.

One more folder remained. He opened it and grunted as he read the contents once more. "Flight-Lieutenant Rupert Schwarz," he pronounced the rank as leftenant, "Former social media playboy and idiot. He killed a rival Me2U star in an illegal duel. He was sentenced to immediate immolation. Seems his father stepped in and made a large donation to some charity or other. So now we have him." Schwarz was a typical Me2U star. Blonde and blue-eyed he looked at the camera as if it was a piece of shit. Young, no more than 21, his fresh skinned face was full of the arrogance of the young, and the rich.

"Excellent, thank you for the run down Sergeant." Pilgrim smiled and reached for another sandwich, "I bet you can't wait to get better acquainted with your flight. Dismissed."

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