THREE MONTHS EARLIER
WHITE HOUSE, OVAL OFFICE
WASHINGTON, D.C.

"Mr. President..."
"Hi, Phil," the older man gestured to a chair, "Take a seat."

The younger man sat down heavily, his countenance drawn into a grim visage. Phillip Morse was only forty-two, but looked older than his years. The last few months of shuttle diplomacy had not helped. After years toiling as a waiter in Falls Church sweating blood through his oral comps at Princeton getting his doctorate in Middle Eastern Affairs, working long, thankless hours as a Senate staffer, he'd beaten and clawed his way to this point...

...only to have it become a Pyhrric victory before him. He was now the President's National Security Advisor for the Middle East. It had cost Morse a marriage and anything resembling a normal life. He looked up, his eyes haggard and worn.

"You look like hell, Phil."

"Thank you."

"Tell me what's going on, what do I need to know that I haven't already seen on CNN?"

"Teheran refused, Mr. President. They tested the nuke in the Gulf of Oman. Undersea test. Good news was that it detonated a few of their previously undetected mines."

"And so now, you're going to tell me that we have no choice."

"The Iranians stated this morning...", Morse began.

"...that they intend to 'wipe Israel and every last Jew off the face of the earth'." the President finished. "How do we know they're serious?"

"Satellite images and SIGINT indicates they are moving their MRBM's to the Iran-Iraq border."

"I see," the President sighed. He gazed outside at the trees gently swaying in the winter breeze. It's about to get a lot colder...

"Go on home, Phil. Sleep," he intoned, "I need you at the top of your game. Can't do that if you're literally exhausted."

Morse rose quietly and left, shuffling past the Secret Servicemen standing at the door. The President waited until the door shut, and then picked up the phone.

PRESENT DAY
PERSIAN GULF, TASK FORCE 108
USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN

"Gentlemen, welcome to Operation Darius."

Commander James Whitmore, USN was an atypical Naval Aviator. He was a tall and extremely large African-American man. His appearance and demeanor usually inspired some sort of terror in anyone that met him, especially when he was fully bedecked in dress whites; he cut an imposing figure. It had kept many young men from becoming too adventurous during a date with his daughters from the time they were teens until even now. One was now a junior at Tennessee and the other was attending law school at UT in Austin.

Born and raised in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and a former Clemson linebacker, his NFL career had been cut short by a Georgia Tech offensive tackle. His father, a wealthy real estate attorney, though crestfallen, had tried to encourage him to attend law school and join him, but the thought of being crammed into an office, poring over legal papers struck him as a fate worse than death.

His grandfather, Col. Robert Whitmore, USAF (Ret.) had taken pity on him. What had started out as a fishing trip to the coast turned into James' new career. Col. Whitmore had intended to pick up his grandson in his Beechcraft Baron 58 and fly down to the Keys to go sport fishing, drink a few beers, comfort his favorite grandchild, and try to gently nudge him in a direction that didn't involve 300-pound subhumans trying to use his grandson as a trampoline. A veteran of Vietnam, a man who'd survived his time over Thud Ridge and gone on to a career flying for Delta, he had no desire to see his grandbaby in a wheelchair. His wife, and the boy's grandmother, was even more adamant.

He'd spent the entire flight coaching his grandson behind the yoke.

They'd fished, drank beers, and the minute they landed back in Clemson, James had walked into the ROTC unit's offices on campus and simply asked one question, "Can you make me a pilot?"

The officer behind the desk took a look at the kid's grades; excellent marks as an engineering and math student. He had potential.

"What about your leg?" he'd asked the boy.

"The docs say it'll be fine, but Coach says I'll never play again."

The officer paused. "Let's see how surgery and rehab goes. Then, we'll talk."

A year later, Ens. James Whitmore, USN drove into the gates at Chase Field NAS. He'd finished with flying colors, although his size concerned his instructors. He didn't get into the Tormentors, he put them on. His performance was too good to waste him on larger aircraft. The Tomcat proved to be the best fit. Roomy enough in the front office, with certain modifications to the ejection seat done by a caring chief, he fit inside the large fighter and in 1990, he joined VF-102 over the skies of Iraq for Operation Desert Storm.

And now, he commanded VFA-137, the Kestrels.

ญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญญ__________________________

"Okay, listen up," Whitmore began in his South Carolina accent that seemed to drip all over the floor, hiding an intellect that spawned two patents, "As of five hours ago, the Iranian military started making some decisions that have made our friends extremely uncomfortable."

He gestured to the smartboard in front of him that displayed a satellite composite map of the Persian Gulf, "This is the latest picture we have of the highest threats in the region. Tonight's target packages are going to focus first on their delivery systems, but we will also be conducting strikes on manufacturing and development facilities in country."

"The latest intel indicates that the major air threats haven't changed much in the last year. The bastards still have a considerable number of US jets in their inventory. The Tigers are nimble and possess the latest Chinese missiles like the PL-8. They have a lot of F-4's still left over and of course, my beloved Tomcat."

"The AliCats and the Su-30MKM Flankers are the major air-to-air threat. We have lots of friends in the air helping us out, including Eurofighters and Raptors, but be ready to go defensive in a second."

"Air-to-ground threats. They have the S-300," he paused for effect.

Ears around the room pricked up and you could hear eyelids audibly go click. The S-300 SAM system was bad news.

"They also have S-200s, Gammons, some homegrown SPAAG and mobile SAM units along with Soviet stuff." He turned to face his charges, "Guys, this is not like flying over Iraq or Afghanistan. These skies will be contested."

"We ready, Kestrels?!" he shouted to the room.

"FALCONS!!" was the return cry.

Falcon 51 was Lt. Sheridan "Chongo" Bonner, USN, the flight lead for a four-ship flight going into Natanz, tasked with destroying the enrichment facility in town. The briefing officer had been thorough.





"Listen, Danny. It's simple, Natanz is a city literally in the middle of box canyon," he took out of a tablet computer and laid it on the desk, syncing it with Bonner's. "They have an SA-10 in town, but it's only good if you're at altitude. You won't be. You're coming in from the south over this ridge, punch the target here on the east side of the city. They have mobile SAMs and God-only-knows how much AAA, but hit the target, pop up over the ridge here in the north, and run like hell."

Bonner hailed from the west side of Fort Worth, he'd grown up driving down the brick streets of Camp Bowie. His father had worked for General Dynamics, which had then become Lockheed-Martin, all his life. Bonner had lived his entire life around aviation, his father had always wanted to fly airplanes, but eyesight had held him back, so he built them instead. Tony Bonner had died while his son was at sea, the younger Bonner still carried his father's engraved Zippo lighter that he had given him as birthday gift, even though Dan didn't smoke the cigarettes that had ultimately cost his father his life.

He felt in his flight suit pocket for his talisman and turned his attention back to the job at hand. It was post-time.



Three minutes later, Bonner's Hornet leapt off the deck of the Lincoln, clawing for altitude into the inky black skies around them.






The flight had joined up and proceed to the coast-in point. After fifteen minutes, a voice snapped him out of his reverie, it was his number two, Lt. Andy "Richie" Rich. His number three and four were Ens. Wallace "Match" Lynn and Lt. Robert "Clubs" McCabe. the voice of the briefing officer came back into his head: "Your three and four are your bodyguards, they're armed for air-to-air action. You're going to be carrying a couple of HARMs for good measure."

"One, this is Three, " Match scratched across the radio, "We got a picket fence looking at us. Looks like a Barlock."



"Copy." He kept an eye on the RWR. No need for jamming yet. The EA-6Bs were probably playing hell with the Iranian CIC's efforts.



As they flew over the coastline, the sky began to light up. Falcon 51 began rapidly changing altitude to confuse the gunners, his flight following him. As they continued over a ridgeline, he heard something that made his blood run cold.





"AilCat's got you locked up, Chongo." he heard Clubs shout, his voice a little higher than he was normally accustomed to hearing.

"Section Two, go defensive against those -14s". Bonner turned on the ECM suite and punched off chaff, diving for the deck. The Iranians had run out of functional Phoenix missiles for their Tomcats decades ago with no equipment to maintain them. They'd jury rigged HAWK SAMs to be launched from the Tomcat, but it could realistically only carry two on the wing glove pylons. The #%&*$# had already fired one at him.

The Americans had already engaged his wingman, but the Iranian flight lead pressed his attack home on the first contact. It had dove for deck, and he was pursuiing it when his own RWR had lit up. They were getting painted. He frantically tried punching off chaff and turning, but he was caught in a nose-down position, he was rapidly losing momentum.

The WSO was frantically looking around for whatever was out there in the night attempting to blot them from the sky when the Slammer impacted, tearing the aircraft in half, the crew killed instantly as the aircraft blew into a thousand pieces.

Bonner pressed his attack home. They were only 15 miles from Natanz, but Bonner was worried. Hawkeye had sent out the warning that a large flight of Iranian F-5s, the conversion jobs, south of Bullseye. That meant they'd just flown over Natanz and were heading south, right at Falcon 51 and 52.



"Stay low, Andy," Bonner warned his wingman. The two had full military power and were flying at NOE. They were banking on the elderly radars in the Tigers not being able to see them.



It wasn't working. He could the RWR scream again when the enemy flight lead exploded as they heard another American voice calmly say, "Fox Three."





"That's gotta be the Air Scouts, Dan."

"Thank God."

"Yeah. Arming up. Lights are green."

"Falcon check." Bonner replied, waiting.

"Two, check," there was no reply from Lynn and McCabe.

"Falcon 53, 54, check in." Static.

"No time, Dan." Rich reminded him, "We gotta hustle."

Bonner concentrated on the ground flashing past around him. Natanz was just over the ridge.

The Iranian SAM battery commander was having an awful night. There was a giant furball above him and there was nothing he could do. Firing blindly into the maelstrom would just as likely result in a dead friendly as an enemy. There was nothing he could but watch for the strikers that had to be following this nightmare.

His radar operator screamed out, "AIR RAID WARNING - SOUTH!!!" Finally. They were here. The guns and mobile SAMs slewed to the south.

____________________________________________________

Bonner was really worried now. As Falcon 51 and 52 popped over the southern edge of the box canyon, he heard the RWR trill and scream like nothing he'd ever encountered before.

The sky exploded around them.



"HOLY HELL!" he heard Rich scream into the radio. The AAA and flak were detonating in white and orange fireballs that seemed to blind him to the world below. Large crashing explosion shuddered through the composite skin of the Hornet.

"Two! Attack my target!" Bonner replied.

The enrichment facility stood out like a sore thumb, it was the one building with fire literally erupting like a volcano in town. Bonner counted off and punched the pickle button. As he flew over the city, he heard Rich shout again.

"You got it! It's gone, man!"

"TWO, HAUL YOUR ASS. Let's move!"

Falcon 51 and 52 punched enough chaff and flares to create a cloud behind them as they hit full burner and egressed over the northern ridge, their RWRs making noises they'd never heard as the city behind them seemed to be ablaze. The skies above them were firmly in the hands of friends, but the ground was still trying like hell to kill them.

As they skittered along the ground to the coastline, they heard the radio calls of NATO aircraft checking in as they left Iranian airspace. The first night was over, but the war had just begun.

Whitmore was standing on the deck as Falcon 51 and 52 had landed. Bonner knew his career was over. Two members of the flight were unaccounted for.

Bonner stopped and saluted Whitmore, looking up. The senior officer was more than a foot taller than the Texan.

"What happened out there?" Whitmore asked.

"I sent McCabe and Lynn after the AliCats to cover Rich and I as we hit the target. The top cover wasn't engaged."

"They screwed up." Whitmore rumbled.

"Sir?"

"Lynn and McCabe blew it. They forgot the cardinal rule of air combat engagements. Never lose count of the bad guys. The best we figure, McCabe was shot down, but the AWACS tracks indicate that Lynn flew into the ground."

Bonner could think of no reply.

"Go get cleaned up and get some chow. We got a long haul ahead of us. Good news is, Predator drone feed indicates that the enrichment facility at Natanz is gone. Permanently."

Bonner proceeded below deck, his face masked in fury and agony. Two men gone. How many more?

Nice screens too. Not much chop the iranian air to air defences wot?

HK, I have an easier time with FC2's iteration of the S-300. Basically, in this game, if the SA-10 gets a look at you, you may as well hit ESC. You're gonna die.