Chapter 1

Lieutenant John Ledon woke from a deep sleep, in shock, and drenched in his own sweat, in his bed inside the pilots’ barracks at Wright Patterson Air Force base. Cincinnati had fallen to the Soviets four weeks ago, despite the close air support and the allies were using it as a forward attack base. He lost half his squadron, including a good friend of his. Despite being drenched in sweat, he shivered as he remembered the screams of his fellow squadron members over the radio in the shattered skies of Cincinnati two weeks ago, when the Allies tried to counterattack, but had failed. 

He stumbled out of bed and walked to ‘the head’ and rinsed his hands and face off, trying to forget the faces of his comrades who went down that cold December day. He knew they would be making another attempt at the city, because new Black Eagles had just arrived the day before. He glanced at the clock, 0545 hours, “Might as well stay up.” He heard the door creek open. “You ok Lieutenant?” It was his new wingman, Chine Lowe. Despite being from Korea, he had good English. “Yea, I’m ok” John responded. “You sure?” Chine asked seeing the worry in his eyes. “I told you I’m fine.” John said angrily. 

Chine left the room without another word. John started walking back to his bed to sit a while, maybe look over his tech book for the Black Eagle. He looked out the window and saw some Maintenance officers running frantically around the base. “That’s odd.” He thought. Then, like the shrill sound of nails across a blackboard, the alert siren went off. “INCOMING SOVIET FORCES, ALL PILOTS TO THERE HANGERS!” 

John quickly slipped on his uniform, he saw the new replacements literally shaking in their boots, but he felt the same way. As he rushed to his Eagle, he didn’t bother to check to see if its engine had been replaced, he heard the Air raid siren go off, that meant Kirovs, and the base didn’t have the best of air defenses either. John was so nervous he forgot to take off the brake, and nearly slammed through the hanger doors before they were open.

He taxied to the runway, seeing tanks grind up, most of them damaged, and screech towards the Soviet Battalions. He now noticed that there was a strong vibration coming from the left rear of the plane, and that his plane was only 3/4s full off fuel, he should have stopped, or at least got a different plane. But he didn’t, he put the plane to max power, as the vibration became so bad he thought the plane was going to break apart, he took off, going off to do battle in the shattered skies, in his own backyard.

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