《Aces From Hell》 Chapter 1 - Devils of Yemen The year is 1973, Abd El Jabbar''s failing health has forced him to hand over the reins of power to one of his closest supporter in the political hierarchy who goes by the name Diya Al Din who is also the head of Secret Police who knows how to run a country or at least defend his regime! It was quite predictable that he would be carrying forward the legacy of Abd El Jabbar into Yemen by further escalating the situation. With tensions between Saudi Arabia and Egypt reaching a boiling point, on 18 July 1973 Diya Al Din asked his associates in Yemen to carry out a "spectacular" attack and they carried out an IED attack on a Saudi Patrol which left 13 Saudi soldiers dead, this was a direct blow to the prestige of the Saudi regime and pride of the Al-Saud family and this was too much for them to bear. The Saudi Prince Sultan bin AdulAziz Al Saud who was the defense minister in the Royal Saudi Armed Forces ordered military action against the Egyptian backed Yemeni government by carrying out airstrikes on known military targets in Yemen on 26 July 1973!! Unfortunately due to the poor training of the Saudi Pilots, one of the Saudi planes accidentally dropped a bomb on a civilian neighborhood thus causing unintended collateral damage. 56 civilians died and the Yemini Regime showed the evidence of the destruction of the civilian neighborhood to the world as a proof of Saudi repressive measures against the Yemini civilian population! With this failed Saudi Attack on one of the military targets Diya Al Din, had enough ammunition to justify an insurgency against the Saudi Regime. But Yemen being an impoverish nation, with little to no military resources to defend themselves against the Saudi military which was funded by oil wealth, the Yemini''s turned to the Egyptians for assistance but the Egyptian president Diya Al Din wasn''t keen to use his military against a far superior western backed military so he contacted Lima Security for assistance in dealing with the war efforts. A deal was immediately signed by both the sides under the shroud of secrecy on the same day as the attack took place! Flying under the cover of darkness and at low altitude to avoid being detected by the radar Storm, Vladimir and Lightning touched down at Sana Military Airbase which was relatively intact and unaffected by the Saudi Air Campaign on 29 July 1973. The 3 of them covered their planes with the required camouflage to hide them from being spotted by the prying eyes of the Saudi moles who had infiltrated the Yemini military. But it was too late, one of the Saudi moles in the ATC tower spotted the Mig-23 and Mig-25 and immediately informed his superiors in the Saudi Military of a probable counter attack by the Yemini Air Force! The Saudi Prince upon learning of this plan immediately ordered the Royal Saudi Air Force to carry out a pre emptive strike on Sana Military Air Base. In the dead of the night on the 29th of July, 6 English Electric Lightings F.53 were scrambled from Khamis Mushait Airbase which was located just 60 miles away from the Saudi Yemini border, armed with rocket pods and 30 mm ADEN cannons raced towards Sana Airbase. Their objective was clear. Destroy the fighter aircrafts and prevent a counter attack! Unfortunately the F.53 were detected by the Fan-Song-C radar of the Yemeni air defence forces at a distance of 45 km from the base giving the pilots Vladimir and Lightning, just enough time to scramble their aircrafts to prevent the Saudi pre-emptive attack. Vladimir was the first to take off followed closely behind by Lightning. Lightning''s primary armament being the long range AIM-7 Sparrows, preferred staying away from the fight to maintain the element and Vladimir''s specialty being close range "knifefights" preferred to ride right into the storm. In order to perform dogfights, Vladimir''s plane''s wings were swept at 16 degrees for optimizing the low speed performance of his Mig-23M. By the time the Mig-23M was airborne the intruders were at a distance of 12 km and closing in rapidly. He decided to put is training to use and immediately decided to keep at low altitude to avoid a radar lock on by the intruders. One of the pilots none the less spotted Vladimir and decided to go after him, the Saudi pilots knew they were detected and decided to engage! The only armaments the Saudi''s had for air to air considering they had come for air to ground engagements were the 30 mm ADEN cannons. This put the Saudi pilots at a grave disadvantage which they hoped to overcome using superior numbers (6:1), but Vladimir''s specialty was in defending airspace and after the planes passed him, he turned sharply left and after a brief turning fight positioned himself at a favourable angle with respect to one of the Saudi Lightning F.53''s and fired his K-13M from a distance of around 1200 yards. The K-13M found it''s mark and the impact of the hit caused the hydraulic pumps of the Rolls Royce Avon engines to fail and sent him plummeting straight towards the earth, the pilot of the stricken aircraft desperately tried to control the aircraft but he knew all efforts were futile and the only option left was to eject and he did that just in time! Vladimir saw that and felt ecstatic over his "first kill" and decided to go after his second one. Vladimir prepared to go after the second one, the Saudi Squadron Leader who was also a part of the strike team saw the fate of the first pilot to be shot down and he knew he had ejected in hostile territory and would most definitely be captured alive.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Angered by this, he flew into rage and decided to do whatever it takes to avenge this loss but before he could do anything, Vladimir had already positioned himself for his second kill but before he could fire off his K-13M, he saw the Squadron Leader''s 30 mm rounds just whiz past his plane narrowly missing it! Vladimir knew that he had to take a sharp turn but now he could not because he did not have enough airspeed to carry out his second turning maneuver to break away from the fight so he decided to use another feature of his plane and that was good acceleration, instantly he fired his afterburner and he swept his wings at 45 degrees to achieve optimal flight performance. Now Vladimir knew he was fighting a determined opponent. Vladimir reduced his altitude further to just 150 metres above the ground because he knew that the Saudi pilot wouldn''t dare to go so low or so he thought. The Saudi Squadron Leader immediately decided to employ his afterburners and pursuit the Mig-23M and the other Saudi pilots decided to follow their leader. Now Vladimir was in trouble because the Lightning F.53 had better acceleration than the Mig-23M! Remembering advice from Colonel Yuri that was to never fly straight for more than 20 seconds, Vladimir immediately decided to take a sharp right turn and again repositioned his wings to 16 degrees for extra drag and sudden turning capabilities. It proved to be effective as the Saudi pilots simply shot past him so now Vladimir was comfortably at their 6''O clock and he could easily fire his K-13M at them giving them little time to react. He locked onto the first plane straight ahead and fired his K-13M, the Saudi pilot did try to take a sharp turn but under high acceleration, it simply wasn''t going to happen. Within moments, the second Saudi pilot met the same fate as the first pilot. By now, the other pilots were impressed by this skill and the Squadron Leader instantly knew he wasn''t fighting any pilot from the Yemini Air Force and this was someone else, could it be the Soviets he thought? All the while he was trying to figure how to line up for a perfect shot but Vladmir wasn''t giving them any opportunity thanks to his rigorous training. While the Saudi pilots were trying to maneuver to line up for a shot on Vladmir, out of the blue a missile appeared from nowhere and struck one of the Saudi planes, the Squadron Leader was simply taken aback by his third loss and before the remaining 3 pilots could make sense of the situation, a fourth plane was hit and Vladimir knew instantly it had to be Lightning! Vladimir said to himself, "Ah there you are Lightning, just in the nick of time. Now I know why they call you Lightning, you strike without any warning". Indeed Lightning had struck the Saudis without any warning. While Vladimir was also perfectly lined up for a quick accurate burst from his GP-9 23 mm cannon. The 23 mm AZP rounds streaked through the sky and instantly hit the left wing of the Lightning F.53 completely breaking it off. By now the Saudi Squadron Leader knew he was in deep trouble and being low on fuel, he decided to use his superior acceleration and raced towards the base but he knew he wouldn''t make it to Khamis Mushait Airbase and knew he would have to land at one of the Forward Operating Airbases located just off the Saudi Yemini border in Al-Najran. Before entering Saudi airspace, he identified himself to the Khamis Mushait ground control that he was the sole survivor of the formation that had taken off to carry out the pre emptive strike. The people in the ATC listening to this could not simply believe their ears that the Saudi attack had been repulsed, it was a huge blow to their monumental arrogance! The Squadron Leader upon landing was immediately taken to be interrogated and he gave a detailed account about the 2 legendary pilots who took down an entire formation and spoke of one of them as a Ghost who wasn''t to been seen anywhere but was picking off on his boys and called him as Shabah(Arabic for Phantom). It was a tremendous blow to the prestige of Saudi Arabia and one they would not recover so easily from. The Saudi Prince Sultan bin Adulaziz Al Saud was furious and he ordered the Squadron Leader to be hanged. Next day, the news channels across the world broadcasted live the confession of the captured Saudi pilot regarding the pre preemptive strike on Sana military airbase. The World was shocked and awe by the Yemini response to the Saudi aggression. Thousands of people came out on the streets to celebrate their first victory in this campaign. The Egyptians were pleased with Lima Security services and their reputation skyrocketed. They thus would be is business for a long time to come!! Chapter 2 - Flight of the Devils The Saudi prince Sultan Bin AbdulAziz Al Saud was deep in thought, he knew that the events of yesterday, where 5 Saudi Lightning F.53 which were downed wouldn''t have been the work of Yeminis! ¡°The Yeminis simply do not have the kind of training to pull this off¡±, thought the prince but it didn''t matter now, for there was someone who was so good and chose to fight on the Yemini side! Those "Yemini" pilots were the only thing standing between the Saudi prince and his ulterior motive which was to carry out a regime change in Yemen to neutralize the threat posed by the Egyptian puppet government in Yemen. His only focus right now was on neutralizing the Yemini Air Force and achieving complete air superiority over Yemen! With those "Yemini" pilots out of the way, the Saudi prince would be able to succeed virtually unopposed. And he was right. The Yemini military was underequipped to take on the Saudis, or to even defend themselves from the Saudi invasion. Diya Al Din knew this and he had pinned all his hopes on Lima Security. But he did not have to worry. Far away from Riyadh, in the Sanaa military airbase, a high ranking officer of Lima Security who was the chief of military operations was briefing the pilots Storm, Vladimir and Lightning on their next "big move". The briefing was over in a short time but a successful completion of objectives drawn up in the briefing would have far reaching consequences. It would totally destroy the pride and arrogance of the Al Saud family. But the chief of military operations was worried. The war had broken out quite suddenly and they had been called at short notice! They had very little resources left to expend. In short, they had to make every shot count. The chief knew if his boys failed, then this war is lost and the Yemini civilians will pay the price in blood! The pilots were also aware of the crisis which was looming over them. Diya Al Din promised a huge reward should the pilots succeed in bringing the war to a stop, now was the time to show to the world the stuff that the pilots of Lima Security were made of. At noon 1200 hours, Storm scrambled his Mig-25P and took off from Sanaa military airbase and headed for the newly constructed airstrip in Karora, Ethiopia, he was also followed closely behind by Vladimir and Lightning. Lightning was in his F-4E Phantom II but Vladimir was not flying in his MiG-23M. Instead, he chose to fly in a Yemeni Air Force MiG-21PFM as he was well trained in it and Yemen had a small stock of Kh-66 GROM missile which could be fired from the MiG-21PFM. The munitions to be used for the planned ¡°big-move¡± were delivered to the airstrip at Karora by An-24 of Yemeni Air Force. The munitions included the Kh-66 missile, rocket pods for MiG-21M, AIM-7 sparrow and AIM-9 sidewinders for Lightning etc. The trio reached Karora before 1300 hours while the An-24 reached at 1400 hours. After fitting their aircrafts with the appropriate loadout the trio set for the first part of their mission which was to take out the fuel storage tanks at Shoaiba Oil Terminal located about 300 km away from karora. Vladimir was to strike the Oil Tanks with his two Kh-66 and rocket pods while Lightning and Storm were to provide escort to Vladimir. The trio maintained low altitude to avoid detection for as long as possible. They reached within 25 kms from the target and the radar of the Saudi Air Defence picked up their signatures. Immediately the Saudi pilots tried to scramble their F-5E to intercept the intruders. But they were not fast enough!!!. Storm immediately increased his altitude to 20,000 feet in five minutes and began flying at mach 2.5 over the Saudi airspace to distract the 3 Saudi planes into following him while Vladimir attacked the massive Oil Tanks. The plan worked. The Saudi planes were ¡°Decoyed¡± by Storm and followed him. Meanwhile Vladimir turned on the Missile Launch Power switch on his right side in the cockpit of his MiG-21PFM. Then he switched the HuD of his plane into Ground mode. After this, he moved the weapon selection dial into position 1-2 to select the Kh-66 GROM missile fitted onto pylons 1-2. After this he set his Sapfir-21M radar to Fixed Beam mode by turning on the respective switch. After the ¡°Locked-Beam¡± appeared on the radar, Vladimir moved the reticule on the HuD over the massive oil tank and locked it once it was over the target. He, then set the target distance calculation switch to auto and the range scale needle started to show the range to the target. Once the range was within 10Km, Vladimir fired his Kh-66 and maintained course. The missile raced towards the massive oil tank and after few moments, it impacted at the side and its warhead detonated upon impact. The massive warhead (nearly 250 pound) and the huge explosion set off the secondary explosion of the fuel and the impact of the blast blew everything around it several hundred metres away. By that time, Vladimir had repeated the same procedure as above and ¡°locked¡± onto the second tank. And he fired his second Kh-66 from a distance of 4 Km and in short while, the second fuel tank met the same fate as before. By this time, the Saudi pilots realized that they had been duped and instantly changed course to shoot down the MiG-21PFM to prevent any further damage. Lightning was observing everything on his AN/APQ-120 radar and when he observed the Doppler shift of the radar indicating that enemy bogeys had changed course to intercept Vladimir, he instantly positioned himself to fit the enemy bogeys into the tracking azimuth and elevation angles and after locking onto the target, he fired one AIM-7M sparrow missile at one of the Saudi planes and started tracking the next one. In seconds, the next sparrow was racing towards the target. Lightning didn¡¯t have to fire anymore sparrow missiles. The Saudi pilots knew, with the help of the AN/ALR-46 RWR, that they were being tracked and tried maneuvering to break the radar lock by moving out of the tracking angles. But it wasn¡¯t enough¡­.the sparrows were maneuverable enough and in a few instants, Lightning observed two ¡°flashes¡± on his radar and knew that he had achieved a hit on both. The last Saudi pilot in the air knew that he was a sitting duck and saw the fate of his two colleagues and knew it was better to retreat than pursue any of those intruder planes. Lightning knew that he was just one kill away from being an Ace, which would put him at an enviable position in Lima Security and would also earn him a handsome raise. Lightning got greedy. He repositioned himself to lock onto the last plane and fired his third sparrow which streaked through the clear sky and impacted close to the last Saudi plane. The third plane was downed and Lightning had become an ACE!!!This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. He was elated¡­.he knew that he was going to get a huge raise for this. Meanwhile Vladimir positioned the Weapon Selection Dial onto pylons 3-4 which had the S-5 rocket pods. The other adjustments had been done. He changed the ¡°Fixed beam mode¡± of the radar back to ¡°Search mode¡± by turning off that particular switch. He also turned off the switch to unlock the reticule while the HuD was set to ¡°Ground mode¡±. Vladimir could see that the reticule was constantly adjusting to account for the changing distance between his plane and the third oil tank. After positioning himself for the ¡°Rocket-run¡± he changed the Firing mode dial to ¡°16-round burst¡± and fired all of his rockets at the third tank. While the 57mm rocket definitely couldn¡¯t pack a huge punch, when fired in a salvo, it could deal significant damage to even hardened targets due to the simultaneous impacts of several rockets hitting and exploding on it. And that is exactly what happened. The third oil tank exploded and to avoid being struck by the shock-wave of the powerful explosion, Vladimir immediately maneuvered away from them and applied his afterburners and also increased his altitude. JUST IN TIME¡­.. The combined impact of the three explosions had also set the nearby oil tanker ships, which were being filled with fuel, on fire and there were secondary explosions. Vladimir could count atleast three secondary explosions. He knew that he had massively succeeded. Upon completion of the objectives, the trio turned back to the airstrip at karora and landed one by one. They informed the Chief of this massive success and the Chief was overjoyed that his boys had pulled it off even better than what he had expected of them. THE next day, the news channels across the world showed the footage of burning oil tanks and severely damaged oil tankers to the Shocked world. The Yemeni President declared that his Air force had carried out this attack in retaliation for the collateral damage inflicted upon the Yemenis by the Saudi Air Force. Upon knowing this, the Yemeni civilians poured out on the streets in hundreds of thousands to celebrate the massive victory. The Yemeni president knew that he had consolidated his power in Yemen by this act. Back in Cairo, president Diya Al Din who was watching the developments was ecstatic with this victory and announced to his nation and the world media of the victory of the good over evil. He congratulated his Yemeni brethren for this stunning attack on the Saudis. He now knew, what the pilots of Lima security were capable of. He knew that he had pinned his hopes on the right people. Back in Washington, the American president watching this development was aghast at the devastation at Shoaiba Oil Terminal and also upon knowing that three out of four oil tanker ships that were destroyed were American and American sailors on that ship had perished in the fire. The global stock markets also took a nasty tumble and investors across the world lost billions in fortune in just minutes after this news spread out. Investors rushed to sell their stocks which led to further damage. It was just a matter of time before the oil prices start to rise dramatically further choking the western economy. The American president knew that this war had to stop. Or else the American economy would be hit really hard if any further attacks of this kind took place. He immediately telephoned the Saudi monarch and asked him to declare an armistice, if not a treaty, to end this fighting atleast till the negotiations could be carried out to end this war. They had to buy some time. Back in Riyadh, the Saudi monarch was furious. He immediately sacked the defence minister Prince Sultan Bin AbdulAziz Al Saud and had him imprisoned for letting him down. There was total chaos in Saudi Arabia. People were out on the streets in thousands to protest against any continuation of this war. The European union also strongly condemned this attack and pressurized Saudi monarch to end this war as the supply to Europe was also affected. There was tremendous pressure on the Saudi monarch to end this war. He knew that Saudi Arabia was in a perilous situation. The prestige of Saudi Arabia was lost and their arrogance, totally shattered. The pilots of Lima security were overjoyed but they knew that their mission was not over yet. There were three targets to attack and only the first one was down. THE END OF THIS WAR WAS DEFINITELY IN SIGHT¡­.. Chapter 3 - Enraging the Devils The Saudi monarch was furious at the stunning attack on the Shoaiba oil terminal and he vowed to make the Yemenis pay for this. He needed a new defence minister so he chose a lesser known face for this job. The new defence minister was Prince Walid Bin AbdulAziz Al Saud. The Saudi monarch tasked him with the responsibility of attacking the Sanaa Military Airbase (SMAB) and destroying any planes they could see, to prevent the Yemenis from carrying out anymore attacks on their oil terminals. The Saudi monarch could not have been more wrong than this. The planes were operating from Karora and not Sanaa. But the Saudis had not way of knowing this because the pilots of Lima security had maintained low altitude during their previous attack and were careful not to be "seen" by the Saudi radars to keep their new airstrip a secret. The plan had worked and the Saudis were expecting an attack from the south rather than the west. Five F-5Es and ten F.53s had been readied for air to air engagement and ground attack respectively at Khamis Mushait airbase. The Saudis were desperate and determined. Back in Karora the ground technicians had refuelled the planes and rearmed them for their second sortie in just 24 hours. Vladimir''s plane was again equipped for ground attack while Lightning and Storm''s planes were equipped for air to air combat. The plan was to take off for second sortie at 2000 hours and head south east to attack Jizan bulk plant terminal.. the problem was of navigating to the target. Lightning came up with a brilliant idea. He knew that during the days of heightened tensions with Egypt, Saudi Arabia had installed air surveillance radars at their strategic locations for monitoring the activities of Egyptian air force. Almost all ports and oil terminals on the eastern and western coast of Saudi Arabia had radars for air surveillance. "Jizan must definitely have an air surveillance radar which we can locate with the help of my plane''s RWR and head towards it", said Lightning. The plan was good and Storm and Vladimir agreed. After carrying out all preflight checks, Lightning took off first followed by storm and Vladimir. They were headed in south east direction and Lightning was deliberately flying at high altitude to be picked up by the radar at Jizan. Sure enough, when the trio were about 140 km away from Jizan, Lightning was detected and his RWR showed the direction of the radar at Jizan on his radar display. The track suggested that they were just a few degrees off course. Lightning made the necessary course correction and Vladimir and storm followed suit. The plan was working. After making the necessary course correction, Lightning reduced his altitude to prevent the Saudis from getting early warning of the attack and also to prevent the Saudis from getting continuous update on their position which would give away their plan. The Saudi ground control nonetheless spotted Lightning on the radar and immediately informed his superiors about it. The senior officer at Jizan ignored that warning because he was expecting the Yemenis to attack from the south. "What could the Yemenis be doing at 140 km Northwest of Jizan?" Thought the officer and asked his subordinates to search for targets in the south. This was a fatal mistake. Meanwhile at 1930 hours at Khamis mushait Airbase, after equipping the planes for the raid at Sanaa, the five F-5Es and ten F.53s took off and headed for Sanaa. The Saudi formation heading towards Sanaa reduced their altitude to avoid being detected by the radars and to have the element of surprise. The Saudis knew that the fan song-c radars were not capable of detecting the fat flying targets below the altitude of 3000 feet. Exploiting this weakness, the Saudi pilots arrived at Sanaa undetected. Making one pass over the base, the Saudis had located by sight, several aircrafts parked in the open. They then turned back for a strafing run over those planes. The 30mm ADEN cannons could destroy the planes with just one or two hits. After coming within range of the targets, the F.53 pilots opened fire. The 30¡Á113mm rounds impacting upon the Yemeni planes tore through the fuselage and destroyed them. Some planes which had been refueled, caught fire and black smoke was emanating from them. The Saudis had destroyed 7 parked planes by now. They made one more pass over the base to search for more targets and spotted transport planes An-24 parked at the other end of the base. This time the Saudi pilots used their 68mm rockets to destroy them. Firing their rockets in salvos the Saudis destroyed 5 An-24s. They also saw fuel tanks which contained enough fuel for several sorties. The Saudis used their last few 68mm rockets on those fuel tanks. The HE warhead destroyed the fuel tanks and caused huge explosions which lit up the evening sky. The Saudis had caused considerable damage but by now, they had expended their ordnance. They were satisfied and decided to turn back and land at the airstrip at Najran. The Saudis had made one mistake. They did not attack the hangars which accommodated several planes which were undergoing maintenance and repairs. One of those planes was MiG-23M belonging to Vladimir. Upon returning to the airstrip at Najran, the Saudi pilots announced that they had destroyed several aircrafts and fuel tanks and they had succeeded... There was celebration in Khamis mushait and Najran. The Saudi monarch was informed of this "successful attack" but he was not satisfied. He wanted more revenge and this attack was too small, a retaliation for him.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Meanwhile Lightning, Vladimir and storm were heading towards Jizan following the location provided by the AN/ALR-46 RWR of the F-4E phantom II. To make the last bit of course correction before reaching the target at Jizan, they followed the direction in which the ship traffic (mostly consisting of oil tanker ships) were headed. Now they knew that they were heading precisely for the fuel tanks. Sure enough, moments later Vladimir speed the port and the massive oil tanks. They knew they had reached Jizan. Instantly Vladimir turned on the missile launcher power switch on his right and set the HUD to ground mode. After moving his weapon selection dial to position 1-2 he dejected the Kh-66 for attacking the oil tanks. The switching his radar to fixed beam mode, Vladimir moved the reticule on the HUD over the massive oil tanks and locked it. When he was within 10 km from the target, he fired his Kh-66 and maintained course. Within an instant the fuel tanks exploded in a huge blast that set everything around it on fire. The impact of the explosion destroyed the second fuel tank which was close to the first fuel tank. The second explosion took place and to escape the shockwave of the blast, Vladimir changed course and applied his afterburners. After escaping the blast, Vladimir came in for second strike. But by now, the Saudi planes were in the air. The SPO-10 RWR of the MiG-21PFM started beeping indicating that he was being tracked. Vladimir knew he was in trouble. He informed Lightning over the radio to neutralize the threat while he maneuvered to avoid a radar lock. Lightning was already on it and he had just locked onto that F-5E which was pursuing Vladimir. He fired a AIM-7 Sparrow and decided to track the second plane which was also in his tracking azimuth and elevation angles. In seconds he observed a "flash" on his radar indicating a hit. Now he fired his second missile at the next target and kept maneuvering to fit the target in his "tracking region". Though the F-5E tried hard, he could not outmaneuver the Sparrow missile and was shot down. The remaining pilots immediately retreated back to Jizan airport. Vladimir turned back to attack the third oil tank and after repeating process he fired his second Kh-66 missile from a distance of 5 km and maintained course. The missile hit the fuel tank and there was the third explosion and the fire had spread to the ships that were being filled with fuel. Vladimir checked the fuel gauge and realized that he was low on fuel and decided not to attack any more targets, but rather to land at SMAB. So the trio changed course and headed for SMAB. They were 20 km away from SMAB and they could see thick black smoke rising over it. They instantly knew that Saudis must have attacked. Vladimir only concern was that his MiG-23M must be safe. It was his most prized possession. He loved his plane a lot and took great pains to maintain it not allowing even the trained technicians near it in his absence. Fortunately the runways were not damaged as the Saudi pilots did not have enough rockets to damage it. Upon landing, the trio taxied their plane to the nearest hangar which was spared from the attack. The chief of military operations saw the planes land and thanked the stars for keeping his boys safe and ran towards them to enquire about their mission. Vladimir informed him about the three destroyed oil tanks and the burning ships and before the chief could ask him anymore questions, Vladimir asked him about his plane. The chief told him about the attack by the Saudi planes and told Vladimir not to worry as the hangars were not touched. His plane was safe. Vladimir felt relieved. But now, the chief wanted a befitting retaliation for this attack. The pilots knew that it was time to execute the last part of the mission. THIS TIME, THEY WILL STRIKE KHAMIS MUSHAIT............ Chapter 4 - Vengeance From Hell The Saudi monarch was deep in thought. The stunning attack on Shoaiba oil terminal had revealed that the Saudi lifeline was extremely vulnerable to Yemeni air raids. His greatest worry right now was another attack on yet another oil terminal. That would send oil prices shooting up and Saudi Arabia would not be able to withstand the diplomatic pressure of America and Europe. It would also cripple the Saudi economy and the riots in the streets of Riy¨¤dh would represent the most serious threat to his government. Just then, the defence minister entered and informed the monarch of the "spectacular" and "successful" attack at SMAB. With great confidence, he informed the king that Saudi Arabia need not fear anymore air raids on oil terminals as the enemy air force was totally destroyed. This seemed to relieve the monarch and he felt that a great load had been lifted off his shoulders. He immediately decided to check the news to get more details of the attack on SMAB. Instead, much to his horror, he saw that the news channels were mentioning the attack on yet another oil terminal, this time at Jizan. The Saudi monarch slumped in his chair. His worst fears had come true. "But how? SMAB was attacked and the planes were destroyed, yet how did they do this?" Thought the king. The defence minister was equally dumbstruck. Just when the Saudi monarch thought that this is the worst thing that could happen, the attendant entered to inform the monarch about the American president on the line. This meant trouble. The monarch picked up the receiver and greeted the American president. But the American president was furious. The news of the second attack on oil terminal had sent the oil prices shooting up to 90$ per barrel and stock markets across the world recorded their worst performance in decades. The American president demanded that Saudi Arabia offer a ceasefire, but that would mean that Yemen had won. The Saudi monarch would never approve of such a huge blow to his ego. Instead he suggested that the American aircraft carrier USS Independence which was refuelling at Bandar Abbas port be brought into this war to bomb SMAB to end this war in favor of the Saudis. The American president realized that this was an easier alternative than convincing the Saudi monarch to offer a ceasefire. He immediately ordered the aircraft carrier to move towards Yemen to bomb SMAB and destroy that base completely. The American aircraft carrier was docked at Bandar Abbas port to participate in a naval exercise with the Iranian navy which was to start next week. But because of this new crisis, the aircraft carrier had to move towards Yemen and the exercises were called off. The Iranians realized that the sudden departure of the aircraft carrier from the port had something to do with the Saudi Yemeni conflict. The Iranians realized that the American president wanted to end this war quickly and in favor of Saudi Arabia. Iran and Saudi Arabia were not the best of friends as Saudi Arabia considered Iran to be a nation of infidels. The Iranians were deeply suspicious of the Saudi regime and sensed an opportunity in this new development. The Iranian ruler informed the Yemeni president of this new development and the Yemeni president passed on this information to the chief of military operations in Yemen. This information proved to be extremely useful and the chief immediately changed the plans. Vladimir and Lightning were instructed to go back to Karora without any delay. They were told that whatever ordnances would be needed for the mission would be delivered at Karora ASAP. Storm would supposed to stay back at SMAB to carry out the SEAD mission on Khamis Mushait air base. Storm chose a MiG-21PFM for this mission as Yemen had a good stock of kh-66 GROM missiles. By now, there were 21 hours left before the American aircraft carrier would position itself near Yemeni waters for bombing SMAB. After performing all the preflight checks, Lightning and Vladimir took off in their F-4E phantom II and MiG-23M respectively. After 40 minutes flight, they both reached Karora airstrip. To provide the ordnances required for this mission, an An-24 plane which was undergoing maintenance and repairs in a hangar was brought back into service and two more hours later, the required ordnances was delivered at Karora. By now, there were 19 hours left before the bombings would begin. Time was ticking fast... At this time, storm took off in his Mig-21PFM and followed the instructions of the ground station to reach Khamis Mushait air base. He knew that the early warning radar of the Saudi air defence would pick him up at some point and he hoped to use his SPO-10/SIRENA-M RWR to get the direction of the radar and use it as a navigational tool to precisely locate the radar. After flying very low for about half an hour, Storm could hear the RWR beeping in his cockpit. He was about 40km away from the target and his RWR indicated that he was a few degrees off course which storm promptly corrected. Now he was racing straight towards the radar. He applied his afterburners and increased his altitude to 15000 feet above ground and kept racing at supersonic speeds to deny the Saudis, enough time required to scramble. Sure enough, within the next 180 seconds, he was already flying over the base. He was equipped with one 800L fuel tank, two UB-32 rocket pods and two Kh-66 GROM beam riding air to ground missiles. After making one pass over the base , Storm located the radar which was just at the vertex of the two perpendicular runways. After jettisoning the fuel tank, he took a sharp turn back towards the radar and switched on his missile power launch switch, later he set the HUD to ground mode after turning on the respective switch, then he set the distance calculator indicator to auto and switched the radar to fixed beam mode and later moved the pipper over the target which was within visual range. Once the distance between the plane and the target was within 10km, Storm fired his Kh-66 at it. But unfortunately, he got distracted by ground fire and had to maneuver away to avoid being hit. The missile missed and he had to fly higher to avoid the ground fire. This time, Storm flew closer to the target and locked the pipper over the target and fired his kh-66 missile from a distance of 5km. This time he didn''t miss. The missile found its mark and the radar was destroyed. The AAA had just opened up on him again when he decided to maneuver away and take out those AAA to prevent them from interfering with Lightning''s mission. Storm showed remarkable presence of mind and a sense of foresight when he decided to destroy those guns. But the only armament that he had to finish those guns were his 57mm rocket pods. He knew he couldn''t destroy all of those guns, but at least he could take out three guns which were close to the runway and defending the it. But now, he would have to move really close to those guns to destroy them with precision and he would be exposing himself to great danger. He decided to proceed, nevertheless. He moved the weapon selection dial to position 3-4 to select the rocket pods. Now he moved the pipper over the guns and he had to get in range to fire them. He chose the 16 round salvo mode and once he was four km away from the guns , he fired his first burst and instantly maneuvered away. He knew that it was a good shot. And it definitely was. 10 out of the 16 rockets hit the AAA and destroyed it completely. He now came back for the second gun. The second gun was located at one end of the 3.7km long runway. After climbing to 5000 feet, he moved the pipper over to the second gun and fired another salvo of rockets. Just when the guns were about to open up on him, he maneuvered away and the second gun was also destroyed. Storm was definitely good with air to ground. But now, he got cocky and underestimated the ability of the AAA. He decided to kill the third gun which was at the other end of the runway. He now decided to move even closer to the third gun to achieve better results. When he was just 1500metres away from the target, he fired his final salvo. In the heat of the moment, he never realized that he had been hit. His control surface on the tail fin was damaged and he couldn''t perform yaw movements anymore. Now Storm knew that if he ejected over Saudi airspace, he most definitely will be captured alive and they will torture him till death. The only option was to use his pitch and roll movements to maneuver towards Yemeni airspace and eject above the Yemeni airspace. Thankfully, Storm was very well trained and he was calm....an irony for a person whose callsign is anything but calm. Storm applied afterburner and tried to move towards Yemeni airspace through his roll movements. On the ground, the Saudis were taken aback by the sudden strike over Khamis Mushait. They never expected the tides to turn against them like this. They had only three minutes after storm was detected while the average time for scramble for the Saudis was a miserable fifteen plus minutes. This big window was more than what Storm needed to whip up a real storm and he very well did it. But by now, the Saudi F-5E Tiger II''s were in the air and were hot in pursuit of the MiG-21PFM. But Storm was skilled enough to survive even this. The three F-5E''s that had taken off in succession were trying to get a lock on the heat signature of Storm''s engine. But skillfully using his roll maneuvers, he managed to prevent them from effectively using their missiles. Even though Storm was at a disadvantage, he had a few tricks up his sleeve. He climbed to 15000 feet and started to fly straight. The pursuing planes tried yet again to get a lock on him and just before they could get a lock on him, storm performed the SPLIT-S maneuver. This took the Saudi pilots by surprise. It happened so suddenly that Storm nearly blacked out. It was dangerous but Storm was extremely skilled and was able to pull through it and this frustrated the Saudi pilots. After performing the SPLIT-S maneuver, storm was at 5000 feet and using his afterburners, he accelerated towards Yemeni airspace and flew straight. The border was just a short distance away. He just had to make it past the border and he would be safe. The Saudi pilots realized his plan and instantly dived to 5000 feet but by then he had already gone supersonic. The pursuing pilots only had a few seconds before storm would be out of their missiles range. And sure enough, just after one of the pilots gained a lock on him, Storm was beyond the 8km distance flying at mach 1.6. By the time the pilot fired his AIM-9 Sidewinder, Storm was already at a safe distance and could easily outrun the missile by just flying straight and supersonic. Within 10 more minutes, storm would be in Yemeni airspace and the Saudi pilots realized that even if they shot him down, they won''t be able to capture him. But by now, the AN/ALR-46 RWR of the Saudi F-5Es were beeping and they realized that they were within Yemeni airspace and in danger of being shot down by SA-2/S-75 SAMs. They decided to retreat into the Saudi airspace and land. It was a tight slap in the face of the ruling Al-Saud family. Storm was elated that his training had helped him and he came back home in one piece. He checked the fuel gauge and realized that he was flying on fumes. "No way i can land at SMAB now", thought storm. The only option for him was to ditch his plane and wait for the friendly ground troops on the ground to rescue him. Just before he ejected, Storm communicated with the ground station at SMAB to send a rescue team and mentioned his approximate location. Upon ejecting, Storm knew that his mission was a success and now he only had to wait for his escort. After waiting for about forty minutes, he spotted a cloud of dust indicating a convoy of vehicles moving towards him. Storm fired a flare round into the air and the driver of the lead vehicle spotted the signal and moved in to rescue the pilot. Moments later when the lead vehicle stopped in front of storm, the door opened and the Chief of military operations stepped out of the vehicle. Storm informed the chief about the destruction of the radar and the three AAA. The chief was glad that the mission was a resounding success. But the vengeance had not yet been complete. The chief was bent on total destruction of Khamis Mushait, the pride of the ruling family. Upon reaching the SMAB the chief telephoned the pilots at Karora about the successful mission of storm and that they had a green signal to carry out their attack. Without further delay, Lightning and Vladimir took off for Khamis mushait air base.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! By now, there was just 14 hours left for the Americans to start bombing the SMAB. Lightning and Vladimir were supposed to attack Khamis Mushait air base and destroy the runways and any planes that they could spot on the ground. But from Karora, Khamis Mushait was about 700km away and due to this large distance, Lightning and Vladimir had to carry fuel tanks and compromise on the firepower. Lightning was carrying three fuel tanks. One under the first wing pylon each and one under the centreline hard point. This gave him a range of 2000+ kms to attack which was just what Lightning needed. In addition he was carrying twelve 500 pound bombs to attack the runway, under his second hardpoint on the wings. Vladimir was carrying two 800L fuel tanks under the swing wing hardpoint and one R-24R each under the first hardpoint under the wing stub and four K-13M under the double pylons under the fuselage. This gave Vladimir a range of approx 2600km which was sufficient enough. Now there was no need to fly low. The radar at Khamis Mushait had been destroyed. They could safely fly at 20,000 feet at optimal speed. Lightning already had a bearing of Khamis Mushait air base and Vladimir was following him. After flying for about one hour, Vladimir and Lightning could see the Saudi coastline and after another few another few moments, Vladimir could spot four enemy bogeys patrolling the airspace over Khamis Mushait air base. He realized that they were patrolling because the airspace was vulnerable after the early warning and ranging radar was destroyed by storm. The bogeys were the last few remaining English Electric lightning F.53 of the Royal Saudi air force at Khamis Mushait air base. Vladimir knew that Lightning could not perform maneuvers because of the very heavy load he was carrying and so he was extremely vulnerable to the Saudi F.53. So Vladimir decided to take on the Saudi bogeys and prevent them from interrupting Lightning''s mission. He maneuvered his plane to fit the Saudi planes in his tracking azimuth and elevation angles and moved the weapon selection dial to position 1-2 to select the R-24R BVR missile. The missile was semi active radar homing (SARH) missile and needed constant radar lock till impact. The Pilot never knew what was coming until it was too late, he saw a bright flash and then it was all over. The other three Saudi pilots in the air saw their colleague go down and the flight lead knew that the second assault on Khamis Mushait air base had begun. He informed the other Saudi pilots over the radio to engage the incoming bogeys. But they didn''t know from where the missile had come. The range of the radar of F.53 was extremely limited and obsolete compared to the RP-23D Sapfir radar. Before they could figure out what happened, a second plane was shot down and now there were only two planes remaining. The pilots panicked and they radioed the ground station at Khamis Mushait to bring in more planes to prevent another disaster. But that would need another fifteen plus minutes. Vladimir knew this and he decided to use this to his advantage. He immediately applied his afterburners and accelerated towards the remaining two planes and managed to position himself at the 6 ''O'' clock from below of one of those planes. He moved his weapons selection dial to position 3-4 to select the K-13M. and he fired his missile from close range. In an instant, the missile impacted upon the F.53 and the pilot lost control of his plane. He tried hard to keep the plane steady but it kept "spinning" and dived towards earth. The pilot ejected over the base and watched his plane crash outside the air base. The last Saudi pilot saw his three colleagues get shot out of the sky and knew that he was messing with someone really good. He decided to retreat towards Jizan airport to land away from the danger zone. But he ran out of luck as Vladimir saw him try to flee. Instantly he applied his afterburners and went after the last plane. The F.53 had better acceleration than the MiG-23M but Vladimir had a small window of opportunity to shoot down the final plane before he escaped from the range of his missiles. He got a lock on the final plane in short time and decided to fire the missile. The target was at a distance of about 7 kms when Vladimir fired his missile. The missile streaked at mach-2+ while the Saudi plane was just about to touch mach-1. The Saudi pilot was fast but not fast enough. Within moments he too met the same fate as the other three pilots. The missile impacted upon the plane at the max range. Finally, after setting his radar to scan mode, he looked for any bogeys that may have taken off by now. He found the skies clear. There was still some time left before the next batch of Saudi planes would take off. Instantly, Vladimir informed Lightning over the radio to bomb the runways to prevent the enemy planes from taking off. Lightning, who was till now away from the action, came in for the kill upon being prompted by Vladimir. He climbed to 5000 feet and moved the weapon selection dial to bomb and selected the outermost pylons on the wings. Then he set the depression knob to 80 to carry out a 20¡ã bombing angle. After that, he set the AN/ASG-31 sight reticle depression knob to manual. After setting the fusing switch to nose, he maneuvered to keep the target runway on his left and rolled into a 20¡ã dive. The HUD showed the pipper and Lightning moved the pipper at a point at the middle of the 3.7km long runway. When he reached the point, he pressed the release button and instantly one mk-82 bomb was away. Lightning gently turned his plane to go for the second target. But before that, he selected the inner two pylons on the wings and pressed the release button which released the nearly empty fuel tanks. Then he selected the centreline hard point by turning on the particular switch and pressed the release button and the final fuel tank had been jettisoned. Now Lightning could perform turns faster. Just then he heard a loud explosion. He knew that the first bomb had hit precisely and that runway would be inoperable now. "It is simply impossible for any structure to not be destroyed after being hit by warhead containing 89kg of Tritonal high explosive", thought Lightning, and he was right. The first runway was damaged and he could see a deep huge crater right at the centre of the long runway. He was pleased with the result. Then Lightning selected the outer two pylons again for bombing and maneuvered the plane towards the second runway. After moving the pipper over the middle of the second runway, he pressed the release button and the second mk-82 was away. "There goes another runway", thought Lightning. He was right. Moments later, he heard a second explosion as loud as the first. The second runway was rendered inoperable. He knew that he owed a big one to Storm for destroying the AAA defending the runway. He thanked Storm in his mind and carried on with the bombing. Just as Lightning was about to go for the third ground kill, Vladimir spotted a plane attempting to take off from another runway perpendicular to the one targeted by Lightning and decided to act before it was too late. He turned towards the plane and swept his wings at 75¡ã angle. He dived low and selected the K-13M and locked onto the fifth plane and fired just as the Saudi plane was airborne. The Saudi plane was on afterburners and it was an easy target for Vladimir. At mach-2.5 and with a range of 15kms, K-13M offered no chance of escape to the enemies. And the Saudi pilot learnt it the hard way after he got shot down just as he was airborne. He had no time to eject and the plane crashed into the ground and exploded into a fireball. The pilot was dead. But something else had happened by now........., Vladimir just realized that he had become an ACE. With 8 kills he was now the top dog in Lima Security beating Lightning''s score of 7 kills. But now was not the time to celebrate. Now, Lightning needed to be safe. And this was the time for Vladimir to repay Lightning''s favor as Lightning had kept him safe on two occasions during the previous attacks on oil installations. Vladimir checked the other three remaining runways for anymore planes. He saw no more planes attempting to take off. Meanwhile Lightning had just released his third bomb and maneuvered away for the fourth ground kill. The third bomb also created a huge crater in the third runway and now there were only two runways left . After repeating the procedure two more times, the runways at Khamis Mushait air base were rendered inoperable. "Better safe than sorry", thought Lightning. He still had 7 more 500 pounder bombs to expend and enough fuel to repeat the same bombing procedure at another point on each of those runways just to get a cent percent confirmation. Without the runways at khamis mushait air base, Vladimir knew that there were no threats from here and he decided to search for targets in the direction of Jizan airport. But before that, he had to jettison his fuel tanks which were nearly out of fuel. After jettisoning them, Vladimir decided to move further away from Khamis Mushait air base to search for bogeys in the direction of Jizan airport, while Lightning repeated the same procedures to bomb the runways a second time at a different point. After successfully destroying the runways and expending all the bombs, Lightning radioed Vladimir that he was ready to leave. They both dived low and decided to head for Karora. The mission was a resounding success. Vladimir had become the top dog in Lima Security and Lightning had just destroyed an entire Airbase single handedly. Meanwhile storm had taken off in his beloved MIG-25P from SMAB and headed towards Karora airstrip to escape the American bombing. The chief was already at Karora to welcome the trio. He had arrived in the last remaining An-24. After touching down at Karora, Lightning and Vladimir found out, much to their surprise, the chief and storm already waiting to greet them. The chief asked them about their mission and Vladimir informed him about the five kills while Lightning informed him about the destruction of all runways at Khamis Mushait air base. The chief was satisfied. The Saudi attack on SMAB had been avenged. The pride of the Saud family had been shattered into a million pieces. The Yemeni president was informed of the devastating attack on Khamis Mushait air base and he was delighted and thanked the chief for the remarkable professionalism of him and his boys in defending the people and the sovereignty of the nation of Yemen.Meanwhile in Riyadh, the monarch was listening to news when he heard about the destruction of Khamis Mushait air base. He was shocked beyond belief. That base was their last bet and with its destruction, the evil Saudi ambitions were destroyed. The American president was also dumbstruck upon hearing about the fate of the airbase which was constructed with American assistance. He knew that Saudi Arabia had simply lost this war and no amount of retaliation will be enough to bring back the lost pride. The Yemeni president announced to the media about the grand victory of the Yemeni people over the Saudi regime. The oil prices touched 100$ per barrel. The American president knew that it was futile to use force anymore. The Yemenis had simply outsmarted them both and were always one step ahead of them. The American president told the monarch of Saudi Arabia to immediately offer a ceasefire before the attacks shake the foundations of his regime. The Saudi monarch knew that this was the only option left before them. Even the destruction of SMAB would not be enough. The Saudi military had become a joke and the west was putting tremendous pressure on Saudi Arabia to give up. FINALLY THE SAUDI MONARCH RELENTED. The Yemeni people, carrying the portrait of their president thronged the palace grounds to show their support for the president. Meanwhile in Riyadh, violent protests and gunfire rocked the capital as the Saudi monarch struggled to stay in power. The spine of the saudis had been broken.... Egyptian president Diya al Din, as promised, paid a huge sum to Lima Security as a payment for the outstanding services in Yemen and he knew that should he face any crisis in the future, he could bank on them. As for trio, they decided to enjoy themselves or at least 2 of em. Vladmir and Storm nicely enjoyed themselves with a bunch of ladies at one of the clubs in Egypt and well even managed to get a date. As for Lightning, he couldn''t help but lie down near his F-4. As he did so, he took out a photograph consisting of his family. As he did he felt guilt inside, he had cheated them by faking his death and causing them, he knew that could never be forgiven. He couldn''t help but silently weep staring into the skies. But then he was a mercenary, someone destined to walk the path of hell and sin and silently accepted his fate! He would keep on fighting until he died.