Major Hevv Botnienn felt the familiar pressure on his chest as he initiated a sharp turn to the left. His ASA VOT 14 Hotvemm multirole fighter felt a bit sluggish, but that was expected when carrying such a heavy load. The computer beeped softly, letting him know his course adjustment almost was complete. The display showed that his squadron also had turned south, straight towards Reizen.

Normally they would make their approach flying extremely low to evade the enemy radar, but there was friendly territory between them and the RIM controlled area, and they would be well out of range of any anti-air missiles, and long gone if the RIM decided to scramble any fighters to try and pursue them.

As he had completed the turn, symbols appeared on the display that showed where his squadron would fire their land-attack missiles. Apparently his two missiles had already acquired a target, which could only mean it was something static or large and that the missiles would be guided by satellites. Perhaps a radar?

It didn't take long until they had reached their optimal firing position. He flipped a small switch, making his heads-up display change mode. The word LEM flashed, which was Sedunnic for FIRE, while the computer made another beeping noise to indicate target lock. Botnienn pushed the button. The missile under the left-hand wing accelerated away with a mighty roar. The avionics computer compensated immediately for the imbalance. TheN the second missile roared off. He looked farther out. There were countless white streaks of smoke.


The purpose of the massive exercises conducted by the Air Force was not to tip the RIM off when they would strike for real. Now, basically the entire Sedunnic Air Force, almost 200 fighters, fired cruise missiles from different locations over the sea between Sedunn and Reizen. They were coordinated in time and space with cruise missiles fired from two naval taskforces consisting of a few destroyers and frigates each to the west of Reizen and with a smaller amount of conventional ballistic missiles fired from the Sedunnic mainland. The plan with the massive strike was to saturate RIM systems so that they would not be able to take out the approaching missiles due to lack of time, guaranteeing hits. To further increase the chances, almost fifty independent squads of special forces initiated commando raids on key systems to attempt to take them out even before the missiles arrived and to lead the allotted missiles with lasers. They would also attempt to harass the deployment of key systems in order to delay them.