Silver Ghosts

"A group of enemy bombers spotted! There are nineteen of them and four «Jac-9» and one «Wolf» as an escort", today commander Wheeler personally led the group on a mission, "Alex, you and Kate attack from for the left flank, Alexis and Lily, you go from the right. I will draw their attention", he gave orders to Alexis and the fifth member of the group, his aide lieutenant Martinson and launched into attack.

"Didn’t know our commander can be this reckless", Kate got surprised but turned her fighter top left.

"Do not worry, Boss already calculated the risk. He may be fighting less now but he is still the second best ace for the Allies", Martinson was going a bit ahead and to the left from her.

Just at that moment commander's «Jac-9s» masterfully dodged the fire from two enemy «Jacs» and machine-gun salvos from a few bombers and shot the closest bomber with a bunch of fireballs at the left engine. Heavy machine lost its balance and started falling to the ground. Then he dived head on, made an arch, and shoot another bomber with an icicle barrage at its tail. But he was intercepted by one of the «Jac» fighters.

The other escorts tried to attack the remaining groups to let the bombers get away. Alexis used the opportunity that their enemies were flying pretty close to each other, to attack them with wide barrage of wind swirls. It did not do much damage, but both fighters decided to pursue him. He did a radical turn right and accelerated. Magic pebbles and ice shards grazed over his wings but the distance was good enough to dodge and do not suffer any serious damage. At the same time Lily dived from below, avoiding bombers fire, and launched a bunch of huge fire tongues at another enemy bomber. They melted the armour and hit the tank. It exploded and the machine started to go down. She tried to switch to the second bomber, but one of the «Jacs» pursuing Alexis switched to her. She dived left and then raised into the clouds. The enemy continued to pursue her, but was pretty cautious.

On the other side Martinson fought the last enemy «Jac» while Kate pursued the «Wolf». Martinson and his enemy attacked each other head on, exchanging barrages of spells, then dodged ramming into each other, turned and attacked again. This lasted for a few more loops, but on the last one Alex, instead of fully dodging the enemy, cut his left wing with the propeller. He lost balance for about fifteen seconds, but managed to stabilise the plane, while his enemy crashed into the ground. As for Kate, her enemy was way faster and more manoeuvrable so he avoided her fire for quite some time.

"Looks like I have to use Burst to hit him. It is not very accurate but he relies on a distance more than dodging so I hope I can aim it properly", Kate started her signature spell incarnation, while keeping the enemy at her aim.

A large burst of flame launched at the «Wolf». The pilot was somehow skilled and tried to dodge it but was a second late. The spell melted his planes tail and part of the right wing and he started losing height. The pilot managed to leave the plane with parachute, but the interceptor itself slammed into the ground.

In the meantime, Alexis dived into the clouds and rapidly made a loop. His pursuer did the same and opened fire. A barrage of fireballs grazed the right side of Alexis’s plane, one of them slightly melted the cockpit glass. On the other hand, the barrage of wind blades from Alexis destroyed the enemy wings and seriously damaged the cockpit and the pursuer went down. Lily at the same time was dodging the enemy fire. Her pursuer was more skilled than the other escorts and did not give her an opportunity to turn. She went up and then rapidly down thinking of using her signature to catch the enemy in the risky manoeuvre, but just when she started the incarnation, a blast of ice balls crushed him.

"The last one tucked it’s tale and ran, but I managed to down one more bomber", it was commander Wheeler, flying from the north.

"Damn, I hoped to kill this one myself", Lily was pouting, but her voice still sounded happy.

"You’ll get another chance next time. Lets go back to the base, the bombers soon reach the enemy air defence area, we killed enough of them for now".

"Yes, sir!", the other four pilots turned their planes and followed Wheeler.

"Pretty impressive battle still. Even if they have the same number of fighters and bombers did not have proper magical weapons, we were pretty outnumbered", Kate was quite impressed.

"Not that impressive I would say. Last year comrade Martinson with six other pilots managed to kill twenty five enemy fighters in one battle", Alex used the opportunity to praise his aide.

"I still got to hospital for a month, could have been better", Martinson toned down the compliment, "That «Wolf» kill was pretty impressive, comrade Slacker. They are considered the hardest prey".

"Just a bit of luck, nothing else".

On March 18th Commander Wheeler gathered all of the hunters in the third hangar for the evening briefing.

"Comrades, I have a big announcement for you. In recognition of our success on the battlefront and rising number of enemy kills during the missions, high command decided to give our regiment Guards status. From now on we are officially «73rd Guards Magic Fighter Regiment». We will also get some new planes soon so hooray, comrades!"

"Hooray!", all of the pilots and service personnel present replied in unison.

The next day Alexis and Lily went to check their planes (all hunters stationed their fighters in 3rd hangar since the promotion) and saw the personnel painting something on the sides of the planes. When they got closer, they noticed an emblem looking like a silver ghost flying over the cloud on the left side of a few planes.

"What is it, John?", Alexis asked the familiar serviceman painting his machine.

"Oh, an order from Boss. As we are Guards regiment now, we need an official emblem".

"But why this one?"

"Don’t ask me, ask commander Wheeler, it was his idea".

"A silver ghost, not that bad I would say. Though, I still need to paint my lily on the other side", Lily on the other hand liked the change, "By the way, Alexis, I need to talk about something…"