Mud, dirt, branches and leaves showered over them, covering them evenly in a thin layer of earth. For a moment, Lenn feared the house besides them might topple over, but its structure proved strong enough and survived the blast with nothing more than shattered windows.

But before they could get up and keep running, there were more sounds of whistling. This time it felt much closer, like it was coming for them.

“Stay down!” One-six ordered, reaching out and dragging Kang further into the ditch.

They knew there wouldn’t be enough time to outrun those bombs, and they would just have to pray it doesn’t land too close to them.

As the whistling turned into a roar, Lenn closed his eyes. He heard a thunk from across the street as a bomb buried itself in the ground.

Then there was a moment of silence.

And then the blast hit him like a freight train, lifting him into the air and throwing him into the trees.

He felt weightless as he sailed through the air. His arms flailed around helplessly, unable to control the orientation of his body. He saw the sky, then the ground, then the sky again, and finally the ground.

He hit a tree with his head as he landed, knocking him unconscious briefly. When he opened his eyes again, he tasted dirt and grit in his mouth, and had the worst headache of his life.

Everything was swimming and blurry as he lifted his head off the ground and spat out the dirt in his mouth. He felt himself over for any injuries, and found only minor scratches.

As luck would have it, hiding in the ditch had protected them from being impaled by the worst of the fragmentation, and only caused them to be thrown a few meters by the wind blast.

For some reason, everything felt, not quiet, but just really dull. It was as if someone had taped two pillows over his ears. He figured his eardrums have probably been ruptured by the explosion, and his hearing wouldn’t come back for a while.

He looked around, and found the others lying on the ground around him. As it turns out, they too had been unable to escape the fate of being lifted out of the ditch and thrown into the woods.

One-six seemed alright, and was already getting to his feet to help the others. One-five and Two-five were to his left, and were both moving and alive. Two-six lay to his right, and was clutching a wound on her shoulder to stop the bleeding.

Ying laid at his feet, holding Kang in her arms to protect him. Having yet to completely recover from his injuries, Kang still had a bandage around his head, which was now getting dyed red by a cut on his forehead.

Rei was the only one who hadn’t been thrown into the air. He was merely blown onto his back by the explosion, and was stumbling towards them through the trees.

“…Alright?” Rei shouted. But Lenn wasn’t quite able to hear very clearly, as the silence had been replaced by a loud ringing noise.

He slapped his ears and waved back at Rei.

“Everybody good?” One-six asked, looking around at the carnage.

While they were dazed from the explosion, more bombs had fell, and the entire town had been mostly leveled.

“Yeah…” Lenn grimaced, pushing himself to his feet.

Ying and Kang both gave a thumbs up to signal that they weren’t badly hurt.

“What now?” Asked Lenn.

“That seems to be the last of the bombs,” One-six answered him. “And now they’ll be dropping in foot soldiers to finish us off.”

“Foot…”

Lenn was cut off by a series of loud booms. He knew instantly that it was the sonic booms of fighter aircraft.

“Is that it?” He asked.

“Yeah.”

The sonic booms gave way to the roaring of engines. They watched as several F-51 fighters swooped in overhead and began circling above them. A few descended towards the town center, presumably to drop off the foot soldiers.

“What now?”

“We need to get to our planes.” One-six pointed up at the hangar on the hill, hidden from view by thick foliage. “Hangars are normally priority targets for air strikes, so I don’t know if our planes survived or not. But by the looks of it, they seemed to have not noticed the spare hangar, and focused most of their firepower on the larger hangars further down the hill. We get in our planes, takeoff, and run."

“No.” Ying spoke up.

“…no?”

“We need to save these people.”

“Well there’s far too many of them…”

“We’ve got utility space in the back of our planes. The both of us combined can probably carry fifty people or more.” Ying explained, her voice cracking from the effort of having to raise its volume so high.

“But that’s no where near everyone.”

“Well… that’s better than nothing.”

One-six sighed. “I’ve a better plan. We get to our planes, take to the skies, shoot down the European planes which are on patrol, and then we can save everyone. How about that?”

“That’s…”

“Of course, we’ll need fire support.”

“Where are we gonna get that?”

“Did somebody say fire support?” A voice called out from the street.

Takeshi and several others broke through the foliage and stopped before them. He had a large battle rifle in his hands, one of those old models, with a sleek barrel, boxy magazine chambered for a proper rifle cartridge, and good old iron sights mounted on top. His followers each had a shoulder-launched missile tube in their hands, presumably for close air defense purposes.

“Well, I brought the fire support.” Takeshi chuckled at the dumbfounded looks the pilots before him wore on their faces.

“Where the hell did you…” Lenn began to ask.

“This? Uhh… some assets that we gathered through trading.” Takeshi explained before Lenn could finish his question. “Anyways, what is it that you need us to do?”

“Can you distract the planes circling overhead with those missiles?” One-six asked. “We need to get to our planes.”

“Are you running away?”

“No no, we need a distraction to better our odds of shooting them down.”

Takeshi smiled widely. “Say no more! C’mon boys,” he gestured to his men. “Start firing! Don’t forget the guerrilla tactics and to replenish ammo from the hidden supply points. I don’t want to see a single European jet left in the air. You and you, go round up the others and lead the survivors underneath the overhang.”

“Yes, sir!” They shouted.

“Well go then!” Takeshi told One-six and the others. “The distraction won’t last forever.”

“Y…yes…” Lenn stuttered, turning with the others and running up the hill back towards their hangar.

Takeshi watched them go. He flicked the safety off of his SCAR-H rifle ad brought it up to his shoulders. “Haven’t let this baby loose in years.” He mumbled to himself as he pulled the trigger and let off a volley of rounds towards one of the planes circling overhead.

*****

“Rei and Ying, grab the rifles and stand guard at the door. Kang, help me start up the plane.” Lenn ordered, grabbing two rifles off the rack in the cargo chamber and throwing them each to Ying and Rei.

They had ran into some European soldiers as they tried to make their way to the hangar, but they seemed to have lost them in the town. Still, they didn’t have much time left. And with their meek firepower they would be overrun in minutes.

“Copy.” His teammates said in unison.

Lenn and Kang scrambled into the cockpit and began flicking switches as fast as their fingers would allow.

“APU on, generators on, engine ignition sequence start.” Kang mumbled. “We’ve got power, start aligning the INS.” [1][2]

Within moments their plane was alive. The computers came online and the engines began slowly spinning up. They could be airborne within a minute.

Suddenly, gunfire erupted from behind them.

“They’re here!” Rei shouted.

“Crap… I thought it would take them longer to clear every house.” Kang cursed under his breath.

“Not much to clear when everything is a pile of rubble.”

Rei, Ying, along with One-five and Two-six, were unloading their weapons into the troops advancing towards them. They fired blindly into the trees, not trying to hit anything, but just trying to prevent the soldiers from getting too close.

The soldiers were firing back too, and rounds wizzed in through the open door and chipped away at the concrete doorway.

“I’m out!” Rei shouted, dropping the empty magazine and inserting another one into his weapon.

“Thirty more seconds!” Lenn shouted.

“We’ve only got a few mags left!”

While they did have rifles onboard for emergency situations, they didn’t carry much ammo with them. Each rifle only had one extra magazine, and when firing full auto, those got spent pretty quickly.

“Engines one and two online…” Kang mumbled, fully concentrated on the job of starting up the aircraft. “Tell them to come back, we can get airborne in a moment.”

Lenn looked over at One-six, who gave him a thumbs up and nodded, signaling that he too was ready to fly. “Guys! Come back! We got to go!” He shouted to his teammates.

“Got it!” Rei shouted, rising up to fire one last burst towards the soldiers.

Several rounds impacted the concrete wall which he was hiding behind, causing him to duck back and fall. He quickly scrambled to his feet and began running towards their plane.

Lenn grabbed a rifle from behind his seat and leaned out of the side of the cockpit. He fired off a burst of bullets to suppress the enemies and divert their attention away from Rei.

An explosion tore apart the far corner of the hangar, causing the whole structure to wobble and buckle. Luckily the ceiling was strong enough, and remained standing.

“What was that?” Kang cried out, putting his hands over his head.

“I think the circling planes have noticed our hangar.” Lenn muttered underneath his breath, continuously firing towards the entrance to the hangar. “Hurry up!”

One-five and Two-six were already making their way towards their F-51. Ying was still firing out of the doorway as Rei stumbled his way across the open space, bullets hitting the ground all around his feet.

Just then the back wall of the hangar was torn open by another explosion, opening up a huge hole a few meters away from the entrance. Lenn could see soldiers advancing towards them along the edge of the path, rifles in hand.

“Ying! Get back! We’ve got to go!” Shouted Kang, but Ying didn’t seem to hear.

She continued to fire out of the door. Some of her rounds found their targets, and a few soldiers fell to the ground dead.

Then her rifle clicked empty, so she threw it onto the ground and pulled out her service pistol. She continued to fire in order to buy her teammates a little more time.

Lenn noticed that a few soldiers had pushed up to the hole in the wall, and was about to step into the hangar. He swung his body to the other side of the plane and tried to maneuver his rifle around as well. Ying had noticed too, and sprang around with her pistol raised.

One soldier stepped in, right into the sightline of Ying.

She pulled the trigger, but no round fired. Her magazine was empty, and the firing pin simply struck air.

The soldier turned his rifle, and fired.

Lenn watched as Ying fell to the ground amongst a hail of bullets.

Biting his lip and cursing, he lined up the soldier in his sights, and held down the trigger on the man for as long as his ammunition would allow. His vision began to get dyed a slight red hue, and he didn’t take notice that the man had already been turned to minced meat.

“Ying!” Kang cried in a way that Lenn had never heard before. It was a pained, desperate, and heart-broken scream. Kang leapt out of his seat, over the side of the cockpit, fell some three meters, rolling as he hit the ground to lessen the impact, and began sprinting towards where Ying laid.

“Idiot!” Lenn shouted to himself, leaping out of the side of the cockpit as well. He began running after Kang, not caring that bullets cracked past overhead.

Ying had managed to prop herself up into a sitting position against the wall. The bullets seemed to have missed her body, but her left leg was drenched in blood.

Then an object flew through the air. It hit the doorframe, and bounced into the hangar, landing a couple of meters from Ying. The round thing rolled to a stop, and Lenn noticed the familiar shape of a fuse sticking out of a ball of explosives.

“Grenade!” Someone shouted.

Rei rugby tackled Kang to the ground and held him underneath his body.

Ying looked over at the grenade lying besides her, then back at Lenn. Lenn extended his arm as he ran, as if he wanted to grab her right there and then and bring her to safety.

But alas he was still too far away. And he could only watch as the grenade detonated.

Fragmentation tore through her body as the shockwave threw her several meters. She rolled to a stop on her back and laid still.

Lenn heard fragmentation skip off the ground around him and whistle through the air, but he didn’t slow his steps. He ran past Kang and Rei as they scrambled to their feet, and slid to a stop besides Ying.

She looked to be in really bad shape. Her jacket was already beginning to get dyed bright red, the source of which being two ugly holes in her chest dug out by the grenade fragments. One of her legs had taken two bullets too, and was bleeding profusely.

“Ying!” Shouted Kang as he came over and got down to his knees. “Can you hear me?”

Ying turned her head slightly to the relief of them all. At least she was still awake, which would help a lot with first aid.

“Get her back to the plan, it’s not safe here.” Lenn ordered, carefully grabbing her shoulders and heaving her upper body up. Ying grimaced in pain, but did not resist. "Put pressure on the wound. As hard as you can manage." He told Ying as he began to drag her.

“Watch out!” Kang shouted.

Lenn looked up to see a soldier coming through the doorway, turning and bringing up his rifle at them.

Lenn tried to dive to the side, but his body refused to move. His soul had seemingly accepted that this is where he would die.

Then a deafening roar which shook Lenn’s body to the core filled the hangar, and Lenn’s vision was filled with bright yellow tracers. The man exploded in a could of red. His arms detached from his no longer existent torso, and his lower body collapsed to the ground in a pile of blood and torn flesh.

He caught a whiff of burnt flesh as the man was wiped from existence, and the force of the sheer volume of shells riping through the air made him fall backwards. As he fell, he tried his best to not drop Ying too hard, and ended up collapsing into Kang for support. Confused, he turned around to find the source of the firepower.

The Europeans had managed to turn their plane around, and were unleashing their 25mm gatling gun into the advancing soldiers.

A pistol round would go in you.

A rifle round would go through you.

A 25mm armor-piercing high-explosive fragmentation round would disintegrate you.

Of course, the men stood no chance, and the ones who didn’t dive out of the way were atomized one by one.

The soft, fleshy body of humans didn’t seem quite enough to detonate the explosive in the shell, so One-five aimed at the ground outside the hangar in order for the shell fuses to trigger and blast the surrounding area with deadly fragmentation.

Within seconds, tens of enemies soldiers were killed, and the entrance to the hangar was cleared of danger. Those who survived the 25mm shells simply turned and ran, seeing that there was no more point in advancing further.

Rei had arrived beside Ying’s body too, and lifted her up in his arms. Together they ran back towards their plane, Lenn and Kang holding their ears to protect it form the sound of the 25mm gun firing at some 3,000 rounds per minute.

They carefully set Ying down in the cargo chamber and tore off the jacket which was now completely drenched in blood. The tank top which she wore was already badly torn by the fragments, so they simply ripped it off with their hands.

It felt strange to see Ying’s pale and spotless skin covered in blood which was beginning to turn a dark purple. It looked very grotesque, yet weirdly beautiful.

They wrapped layer after layer of hemostatic bandages around her upper body until the bleeding stopped and did the same to her legs. Luckily the bullets appeared to have missed bone and any major arteries. [3]

“We need to get airborne.” Rei reminded Lenn. “We can’t hold those soldiers back forever.”

Lenn nodded. “You two stay here and look after her, I’ll fly the plane myself.”

“You sure?” Rei asked.

“Yeah…” Lenn was cut short by Ying reaching up and grabbing the fabric of his trousers. “Yeah?”

“I…” she stammered, grimacing from the pain. “I can still fly…”

“No you’re far too…”

“Please,” she pleaded. “Just let me.”

They looked at each other and collectively sighed. Together they carried her into the cockpit and set her down into the seat. Lenn signaled to One-six to lift off, and slammed the throttle forwards. They had already lost lots of valuable time, and the European fighters were probably already looking at them with missiles ready.

Even before their canopy had closed completely, they were already rising from the ground. As the copy closed with a slight thunk, the top of their aircraft slammed into the ceiling of the hangar. Lenn grabbed on and hoped that the VX-200 was built sturdily enough to withstand the impact.

Together, the VX-200 and F-51 burst through the thin ceiling of the little hangar and shot up into the sky, their engines blazing away at maximum power.

But to their surprise, the skies were completely clear.

Lenn swiveled his head back and forth, but saw no targets. His teammates did so too, and all reported seeing nothing. They did a quick sweep with their radar to make sure it really was all clear, and their radar returned zero contacts.

“Where have they gone?” Kang asked as they weaved and turned in between towering colums of smoke.

Lenn looked down at the ruins below, and found several aircraft wreckages lying about, still burning. He pointed towards them and his teammates turned to look.

“Haha! Guess Takeshi’s men are pretty good shots.” Kang laughed excitedly.

“He saved us again huh?”

“I guess he did…”

The town laid in ruins, but they had won.

They circled back around and formed up besides One-six’s plane. Lenn signaled to tell him to land just outside the large rock overhang where all the survivors were seeking shelter.

*****

A few minutes later they were safely on the ground and were disembarking their aircraft.

Lenn's VX-200 had taken a heavy beating. The tail fins were scraped and slighty buckled from the impact with the ceiling of the hangar. Hundreds of tiny, rifle bullet sized holes littered the rear end of the plane. And fluids were leaking slowly but profusely from some of the panels.

Lenn turned around to help Ying after he hopped out onto the ground. She slowly removed her helmet, obviously exhausted from her injuries and the fight. Then she tried to push herself out of her seat, but her arms gave out.

“Hey, do you need me to…” Lenn reached up with his hands.

But before he could say more, Ying coughed and choked, and blood began to flow out from her mouth.

“Ying!” Lenn and Kang shouted in unison, and began climbing back up to the cockpit. "Rei! Get over here!"

Ying turned to look at them, blood dripping from her chin. Despite the pain and discomfort, she smiled happily.

It was all that mattered, it was the only thing she cared about. The people she cared about the most in the world were safe and sound.

Even if it came at the cost of her life.

Before neither Lenn nor Kang could reach her, she slumped forwards into the intrument panel, her arms dropping limply to her side.

[1] APU (auxiliary power unit) is a smaller turbine generator present on most jet-powered aircraft. It is normally used to power the aircraft when its main engines are not running, and also used to crank the main engines to start them.

[2] INS (inertial navigation system), a system of gyroscopes and accelerometers which dead-reckons the orientation of the aircraft. The artificial horizon (half blue half brown ball thing) uses this to display the orientation of the aircraft.

[3] Hemostatic - the adjective form of hemostasis, usually used to describe a substance which promotes the coagulation of blood. Can be in the form of an injection or a layer over bandages to help stop major bleeding.