Area 88: Aslan War

The heat hits like a wall the moment the transport’s rear ramp drops. Area 88 sits in a shallow bowl of hard-packed sand and rock under a white-hot sky. Rows of mismatched jets—F-5s, Phantoms, a couple of Skyhawks, one battered Mirage—bake on the apron while ground crews in faded coveralls move between them with the slow efficiency of men who have already lost too many friends this month.

A stocky American with a Vietnam-era flight suit and a cigarette clamped in his teeth watches you come down the ramp. He flicks ash into the wind and nods once.

“New meat, huh? Name’s Mickey.” He jerks his head toward a corrugated metal building near the tower. “Saki wants the new arrivals in the briefing room before the next scramble. Don’t keep him waiting—he’s in a mood. After that, McCoy’s next door if you need something that flies. You got a bird yet, or you still shopping?”

He grins around the cigarette. “Contract’s already signed, by the way. Three years or one-point-five mil. Saki doesn’t do second chances. Don’t go in there thinking you can back out.”

Somewhere out on the strip an afterburner lights. The sound rolls across the desert and dies. Another pilot is already airborne. Mickey takes a long drag and studies you through the smoke.

“Welcome to the Area. Try not to die in your first week. It’s bad for morale.”

The briefing room is the only building on Area 88 with a working air conditioner, and it still smells like sweat and cigarette ash. A ceiling fan turns slowly overhead, accomplishing nothing.

Lt. Colonel Saki Vashtar doesn't look up when you enter. He sits behind a steel desk, long black hair tied back, dark glasses on despite the dim room. A pale X-shaped scar cuts across his forehead. He's reading a file. Yours.

"Sit." He turns a page. "You signed a three-year contract with the Royal Aslan Air Force. You will fly when ordered, where ordered. You will be paid for what your gun camera confirms, and nothing else. You will buy your own aircraft, your own munitions, and your own repairs." He finally looks up. "The only ways out are three years or one and a half million dollars. Men who try a third way are shot. The contract is already in force. Do you understand what that means?"

He doesn't wait for an answer. He closes the file.

"You have no aircraft yet. McCoy will sell you one. Do not let him sell you the first one he shows you." A pause. "Your first sortie is in forty-eight hours, with or without a plane. Questions?"

Outside, an engine coughs to life on the apron, sputters, and dies. Someone swears loudly in Danish.

The siren rips through the barracks at 0412.

You're on your feet before you're fully awake—heat already pressing through the thin walls, boots, flight suit half-zipped, helmet bag swinging. Other pilots stream past toward the flight line, nobody talking. Someone ahead of you is still chewing breakfast.

The apron is chaos under floodlights. Ground crews yank chocks and pull pins. A Phantom is already rolling, afterburners painting the sand orange. Your jet—the one you bought last week, the one you still owe McCoy for—sits at the end of the row with its canopy up and a crew chief waving you in.

"Rebel column crossing the wadi at grid seven!" he shouts over the engine noise. "Armor and trucks! Saki wants everything that flies!"

You climb in. The seat is still warm from the sun. As the canopy comes down, the radio crackles with Mickey's voice, flat and calm.

"All sections, all sections. Multiple tracks, plus AAA reported at the river crossing. Bounty's good today, people. Try to live long enough to collect it."

The tower clears you. The runway stretches out ahead, black under a sky going gray in the east.

[Cash: $1,200 | Owed to McCoy: $38,000 | Kills: 0 air / 0 ground | Aircraft: F-5E, worn | Contract: day 9]

The bar at Area 88 is a plywood room with a tin roof, a generator that hums all night, and a jukebox that only plays four songs. Tonight nobody has put money in it.

The stool at the end of the counter is empty. Two days ago it belonged to a Frenchman named Bastien, who went down over the northern hills in an F-5 and didn't get out. His personal effects are spread across a table by the door—a watch, a lighter, a stack of letters, a carton of cigarettes. By base tradition, they'll be auctioned in the morning. The money pays down his debt to McCoy. Nobody ever bids much.

You've been here six months. Long enough to have a few kills on the board and a balance with McCoy that never seems to shrink.

Speaking of whom: the old man slides onto the stool beside you, smiling the way he always does when he's about to talk business.

"Sad thing about Bastien." He orders two beers and pushes one toward you. "Good pilot. Bad luck." He sips. "Listen. Saki's got a job tomorrow nobody's volunteered for. Deep strike, no escort, triple bounty. I've also got a pair of Sidewinders that'd make it a lot more survivable—only slightly used." He spreads his hands. "I'd hate to see your stool go empty, kid. It's very bad for business."

[Cash: $6,400 | Owed to McCoy: $52,000 | Kills: 3 air / 11 ground | Aircraft: F-5E, patched | Contract: day 183]