Codename: "Sunset"!

Across the boundless wilderness, the roaring thunder of tank guns was like the pounding of war drums, bursting into thick plumes of flame along the horizon. A Conqueror 5 light tank attempted to outflank the Skeleton Corps' left wing, only to be struck squarely by a 155mm high-explosive shell. The shockwave tore into the hull through vision ports and the gaps between the turret and chassis. The horrific overpressure instantly ruptured the crew's eardrums, tore their spleens, and sent blood pouring from their noses and mouths... incapacitating them on the spot. The tank lurched forward a short distance before breaking down beside a crater. A kilometer away. Inside the Type 2 tank that had scored the hit, the player serving as gunner pumped his fist in excitement. "Direct hit on the turret!" "Badass!" "Hahaha! The power on this 155 is fucking insane!" "Cut the chatter! Strength-type, reload, hurry!" "Fuck you, I have an in-game name!" The 60mm smoothbore gun of the Conqueror 5 light tank barely scratched the Alliance's Type 2 tanks—it was like tickling them. As for the Conqueror 10 and 11 tanks that could pose a threat to the Type 2, they were systematically picked off by the Type 2B tanks. A 60-megajoule railgun was already an anti-ship weapon. A Conqueror 10 was locked on by a railgun. As the charging cycle completed, a deafening sonic boom erupted from the muzzle alongside a violent atmospheric shockwave. Faint blue arcs flickered in the misty exhaust, followed by an orange-yellow afterimage lingering in the air. The nearly twenty-kilogram "steel dart" left behind not just a hole in the enemy tank's hull, but an inward-caving crater. Steel twisted together in brutal contortions, and flying sparks ignited the ammunition rack. The entire tank became a burning iron coffin, erupting into a brilliant burst of fireworks atop the dunes. "Beautiful shot! Haha!" the driver shouted excitedly, looking out at the burning flames through the vision block. "Naturally!" Brother Mole smirked, flicking the capacitor recharge switch while gripping the control yoke to traverse the turret toward a nearby foxhole, switching to the coaxial machine gun to open fire. Red tracer rounds poured down like rain with an ear-ringing din, kicking up lethal sparks and dust around the foxhole. A soldier attempted to retaliate with an RPG, but before he even had a chance to aim, dozens of bullets riddled him into a sieve, collapsing into the pit like a rag doll. Even if large-scale warfare compressed individual ability to the extreme, the reflexive edge of Agility-type players still allowed them to push their equipment's combat effectiveness far beyond normal limits. In terms of reaction and aiming speed, these collaborator troops were nowhere near a match for the players. "Don't get bogged down, keep moving forward!" Brother Mole roared as he fired again, destroying another tank rushing in from the north to reinforce. The thirty-five tanks acted like the tip of a spear, piercing straight through the southern sector of the defensive line. Troop-carrying trucks packed with infantry followed closely behind, tailed by transport trucks loaded with supplies. Light infantry hiding in the foxholes tried to halt the advancing steel torrent, but most were pinned flat to the ground by coaxial machine guns, unable to budge. These were tanks. The undisputed kings of land warfare. Without guided weapons or air support, how could a few infantrymen ever stop them? Brother Mole had to admit that the Legion had real skill in strategically anticipating their march route. Deploying heavy tanks hull-down in the sand as fixed pillboxes, filling the line with foxholes, and stationing light tanks on both flanks to use mobility to hit their sides—it was truly a commendable tactic. No matter where along the front the Alliance made contact, the enemy could pin them down on the gravel plains using thick armor and superior firepower, after which armored units encircling from other directions would hem the Alliance in on all sides. Yet, the Legion and Falcon Kingdom had ultimately underestimated the Alliance's strength, and they had underestimated the speed of Enterprise's mobilization under the Alliance's influence, as well as its determination to support the battlefield. The moment the 60MJ railguns were pulled out, the Legion's tactical failure had been sealed. Once the Legion's heavy tanks failed to blunt the spearhead, this unbreakable wall became nothing more than flimsy sheet metal. All he needed was to smash it with a shovel to tear open a massive breach. The tanks buried in the sand pits, having traded away their mobility, were turned into sitting ducks waiting to be slaughtered. Instead, it was the light tanks cruising around the periphery of the battle line that gave the Skeleton Corps considerable trouble. While a 60mm smoothbore gun couldn't penetrate the upper glacis or turret armor of a Type 2 tank, it was more than enough to blow off its treads. Hitting tracks rolling low along the ground on the move took some luck, but as the engagement dragged on, they managed to pull it off twice. Two Type 2 tanks had their treads severed, breaking down on the battlefield one after the other. Several players carrying toolboxes jumped down from nearby trucks and sprinted toward the immobilized tanks. But before they could even begin field repairs, a high-explosive shell slammed into one of the turrets. When the smoke cleared, only mangled flesh and blood remained around the tank. Shaking his groggy head, the commander inside the turret tore off his comm headset and yelled into the all-channel broadcast: "Leave us—!" "Keep advancing!" The two immobilized Type 2 tanks gave up on repairing their treads and turned themselves into stationary bunkers, using their 155mm smoothbore guns to cover their advancing comrades. Though both tanks were soon destroyed by Type 11 heavy tanks pincer-attacking from the north and south, before going down they eliminated a full six Conqueror 5 light tanks trying to flank their allies. Both sides suffered ongoing casualties. Looking at the stationary green dots on his VM screen, Brother Mole gritted his teeth from inside his tank destroyer and ordered the units to keep pushing forward. Four tanks destroyed. In addition to that, five troop trucks and two supply trucks. Ten infantry squads had been forced to dismount, and only seventy-nine men were still alive. Being left behind under these circumstances meant their fate was already sealed. Brother Mole took a deep breath. Before they moved out of the command vehicle's communication range, he issued an order over the squad channel: "All squads, attention. All immobilized units form Group B..." "Use every means and method you can think of to hit the nearest enemy units! Even if you can only delay them by a single minute, or even a single second!" "See you on the forum!" Even though this order meant those who couldn't move forward would be abandoned, not a single person felt despair, and not a single one complained. Responding to his command— were only cheers of excitement and oaths of bravado. The Legion would never understand that the Alliance's greatest trump card was neither the 155mm cannons nor the 60-megajoule railguns... It was the people from the shelter. "Group B, Squad 1 copies!" "Squad 2 copies!" "Awooo! Squad 3 charging in!" "I'll take 'em down with me!" "Never retreat!!" Under their squad leaders' directions, the stranded infantry scattered rapidly. Some shouldered RPGs and charged forward, while others occupied the foxholes previously suppressed by Alliance tanks, digging out buried anti-tank weapons and 10mm heavy machine guns from the sand. The soldiers and tank crews of the Falcon Kingdom 1st Armored Motorized Millennium soon discovered to their astonishment that even when they destroyed Alliance vehicles, they couldn't afford to drop their guard around the burning wreckage. Even with flames clinging to their bodies, crew members crawling out of the hatches would draw their pistols and fire at them. Gazing at that demon-like face, the commander sitting atop a Conqueror 10 tank grew pale. Instinctively pulling the trigger, he swept a burst from the coaxial machine gun across the figure. The man on the turret grunted twice and collapsed into the fire, soon turning into a charred corpse—yet that pistol remained clenched tightly in his fist. "...These people are lunatics." The tank commander cursed under his breath. Just as he prepared to traverse the turret in another direction, a resounding thud echoed from outside. Immediately after, a screech of grinding gears came from the drive mechanism, and the turret froze solid, locked to the chassis and unable to turn. The shaped-charge jet of a HEAT warhead had squeezed into the gap between the turret and the hull. While it failed to pierce the turret itself, it had effectively "welded" the underlying mechanical components together. The tank commander's face drained of color. "Fuck! My turret is jammed! Pivot thirty degrees left, reverse immediately! Hurry!" Mopping up these infantrymen scattered across the desert took time, preventing the enemy reinforcements sweeping in from north and south from closing the pocket in time. Led by five tank destroyers, the Skeleton Corps easily tore open a hole in this defensive line. In contrast, the Falcon Kingdom 1st Armored Motorized Millennium, stretched along a battlefront of over ten kilometers, became scattered like loose sand across the desert due to their reinforcements failing to coordinate effectively. By the time they regrouped to resume the pursuit, the Skeleton Corps would have opened a lead of twenty to thirty kilometers. Brother Mole breathed a slight sigh of relief. Yet right then, a dark silhouette perched atop a distant dune instantly put him on high alert. "Enemy tank spotted... Is that thing even a tank? Weird, I can't see its thermal signature." Elven King Fugui's voice came over the comms channel. As an Agility-type player endowed with the absurdly overpowered ability of thermal vision, he served as spotter for the Skeleton Corps. Brother Mole saw the tank on the dune as well, and Brother Fugui's report deepened his sense of unease. Its wedge-shaped armor looked remarkably modern—almost sci-fi—yet the gun barrel embedded directly into the chassis was extraordinarily retro. While omitting a turret reduced structural vulnerabilities, how was it supposed to aim? By varying track speeds to pivot the entire hull? And that was the strangest part of all: its tracks didn't run beneath the hull. Not only were they suspended along the outside, they splayed outward at a warped angle, like a pair of snapped chopsticks. "Target 2.5 kilometers ahead! Tank destroyer crews, fire!" Five deafening sonic booms erupted, and five twenty-kilogram steel darts struck the tank simultaneously. Yet the unthinkable occurred. The tank wasn't destroyed. The rounds carrying terrifying kinetic energy didn't just fail to penetrate the armor—they didn't even leave a spark or a scratch on its hull. The players of the Skeleton Corps could hardly believe their eyes. Elven King Fugui swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly. "Holy shit..." Is that for real?! There was no time to ponder if it was real. A deafening roar severed the players' train of thought. Brother Mole barely caught sight of a spent casing ejecting from the enemy vehicle before the Type 2B tank to his left erupted into the blazing flare of an ammunition explosion! Because metallic hydrogen batteries had been installed alongside the fuel tank to power the capacitors, the secondary explosion of the Type 2B was far more catastrophic than the base model's. In that instant, he finally recognized the tank. "Fuck... it's the Prowler!" They've actually deployed this thing to Sunset Province! What shocked him even more was the power of that shot. Neither the intelligence provided by Battlefield Guy nor the data shared by Enterprise contained penetration figures for it. Based on Enterprise's advice, the Alliance had designed the upper glacis and frontal armor of the Type 2B tank destroyer around a 120% increase over standard 120mm smoothbore penetration, ensuring it could take at least one hit to the face. Yet to think... Its terrifying armor-piercing capability still exceeded their wildest estimates. Combined with the Meissner effect armor that rivaled an absolute defense, conventional measures were utterly useless against it. Brother Mole gritted his teeth. There was no time to hesitate... If even an anti-ship tier weapon couldn't pierce that monstrous armor, relying on 155mm smoothbore guns was pure fantasy. Their only option was to follow the reverse slope of the dunes ahead, skirt around the monster's flanks, and scatter in small groups to press forward... It had to turn its hull using its tracks to aim its barrel. It couldn't fire in both directions at once! Thoughts raced through his head, and within a single second Brother Mole made up his mind, roaring into the comms: "Type 2B tanks, form Group C and follow me northwest!" "All other units, disperse and advance toward the southwest!" "We rendezvous east of the airfield!" ... Elsewhere, about one hundred kilometers south of Lost Valley, nestled against the dunes beneath the Zhuobar Mountains, crouched a silver-gray aircraft shaped like a dragonfly. Twelve blade-like flexible wings swept backward, folded and stacked neatly together, while beneath the wings sat a pair of jet engines that provided main propulsion. Its name was the "Cloud Dragonfly," an ornithopter. Beneath its protruding nose hung a 35mm rotary autocannon, and the ventral weapons bay held six neural-link/image-recognition guided rockets. It required a two-man crew to operate. Compared to the "Dragonfly" transport aircraft built by Factory 81, this craft resembled a true dragonfly far more closely. The twelve blade-like flexible wings used high-frequency wave vibrations to achieve stable hovering as well as omnidirectional high-speed maneuverability. Its agility surpassed any rotary-wing helicopter—after all, a helicopter had to swing its tail to turn, whereas this machine only needed to adjust its vibration frequencies. Furthermore, in extreme flight envelopes, its instantaneous acceleration could match that of a real dragonfly, exceeding 9G! And if it switched to horizontal flight mode, its cruising speed wasn't far behind fixed-wing planes, since primary thrust came from a pair of twin-jet engines. Of course, although it could switch cruise modes like an Orca transport plane, it was not a true fixed-wing aircraft; its top speed maxed out near Mach 1. In comparison, it was more like an attack helicopter with superior agility and the ability to transition into horizontal flight. It had zero takeoff or landing terrain requirements, needing no level surface like conventional helicopters—as long as it wasn't tipped upside down, it was good to go. Consequently, it could be hauled near the battlefield on a truck like a tank before spinning up, or it could be deployed near the combat zone inside an "Orca" transport plane with wings folded, deploying upon arrival. This particular "Cloud Dragonfly" had been deployed via the latter method! Thanks to its formidable payload capacity and extraordinary agility, this ornithopter had scored impressive results in battles against mutants, earning widespread acclaim among the East Coast's military and civilians. Battling the Legion, however, was likely a first in over a century... Sitting in the pilot's seat, Luo Yu took a deep breath and checked the time once more. Time was up. Operation Codename: "Sunset." According to the operational plan drawn up by Army Command, the Skeleton Corps was to reach the eastern perimeter of Lost Valley before dusk and, covered by the "Cloud Dragonfly" ornithopter, assault the airfield garrisoned by a full myriad. Their numbers were lean, but the Alliance had tanks and an "attack chopper"; taking on a bunch of unarmored "french fries" shouldn't pose too much of an issue! Yet the Skeleton Corps had still not appeared within comms range. They had probably run into trouble. As anxious as he was, if they waited any longer, night would fall... Glancing down at the co-pilot beneath his feet, Luo Yu said in a grave tone: "Change of plans. The Skeleton Corps won't make it. We might have to go it alone." Raiding an airfield with a single "attack chopper" was practically suicide, honestly. Yet there was no other choice now. Every second wasted increased the danger facing the Alliance homeland. Wearing his flight helmet and chewing gum, the co-pilot replied with utmost brevity: "Copy." Luo Yu: "..." Are newbies nowadays always this cocky? "Xinghe Bu Ru Meng"—it sounded like an ID belonging to someone with an anime avatar, yet the guy surprisingly had extensive flight experience, specifically flying helicopters. Most importantly, the guy was an Intelligence-type egghead! Under Brother Mosquito's influence, most pilots in the Alliance specced into Agility. After all, specialties in reflexes and optic nerves helped pilots far more than muscle power or metabolic rates, and Agility-types were much easier to level up than Perception-types. A player who had trained an Intelligence-type to LV10 awakening and possessed actual helicopter piloting experience was as rare as a giant panda on the server. After scouring the player base, they had only managed to turn up this single person. Come to think of it, knowing how to fly a chopper... was he from army aviation? Or a cadet? Luo Yu didn't pry, though. Refraining from snooping into someone's real life and name, and never discussing work in-game, had long been an unspoken rule here. He had only heard faint, nebulous rumors himself. Supposedly, a newly formed "relevant department" had somehow acquired quite a few game-changing innovations that benefited the nation and its people from the even more mysterious game operator, all made possible through the efforts of players in this game. While it sounded like an urban legend, if true, that mysterious department would surely organize "professionals" like himself to enter the game, wouldn't it? Thinking this far, Luo Yu couldn't help wondering why his superiors hadn't reached out to organize him. Was it due to rules and secrecy requirements, or was everyone simply volunteering their own time and dime? Or... The rumor was merely a rumor, and the so-called mysterious relevant department didn't exist at all, being just one more explanation hidden among countless smoke screens. Either way, it didn't matter. What shouldn't be discussed shouldn't be discussed, and what shouldn't be mentioned shouldn't be brought up. All he needed to do was perform the task at hand. Others whose job it was would worry about the rest... "Are you gonna fly this thing or what?" the gum-chewing gunner remarked. "All right, all right, starting up!" His thoughts broken, Luo Yu's eyebrow twitched violently. Suppressing the urge to kick the guy, he recalled the manual's tutorial, extended an index finger, and flipped the ignition switch. The twin main propulsion engines flared with ethereal blue arcs, humming like high-powered blow dryers as churning airflow whipped up clouds of dust. The twelve wings spread outward in four sets to the flanks, vibrating like rippling waves until they blurred into invisible silhouettes. Having never piloted an aircraft so science-fictional, Luo Yu felt a surge of excitement. Both hands gripped the flight stick. "Hold on tight!" Before the gunner could answer, the aircraft crouched on the dune leaped forward like a frog, its forward speed surging instantly to 120 km/h and rapidly climbing toward 400. "Awesome..." Watching the dust and yellow sand churning beneath his feet, Xinghe in the lower gunner's seat couldn't help uttering two words of awe. The Z-10 attack helicopter maxed out at 300 km/h, with a normal cruise speed around 200 km/h. Not only did this ornithopter's top speed far exceed the ceiling of ordinary attack helicopters, it could pull off a fucking catapult start, zero-to-a-hundred in two seconds... What kind of anti-air missile could ever hit this thing? Lucky this was in a game. If this were in reality, the enemy would be scared out of their wits! His astonishment lasted only a few seconds. Recalling the training from the Enterprise instructors, Xinghe activated the onboard radar. A pale blue cursor swept across the screen, scanning for radio signals within ten kilometers and bio-signatures within one kilometer, searching for enemy targets. A distance of one hundred kilometers took barely ten minutes for the Cloud Dragonfly at a cruising speed over 500 km/h. Having burned through a quarter of its energy, the distant gravel plain soon revealed the outline of a valley. And at the same time, what caught their eyes was a vast, billowing cloud of dust—and galloping cavalry. The Legion's machine-gun emplacements spat tongues of fire, firing frantically into the cavalry. Their sturdy cuirasses offered some protection, but against 10mm heavy machine guns, it amounted to very little; the dust kicked up by the horses' hooves provided better cover. They were brave. Even as comrades fell from their saddles one after another, their charging momentum did not waver for a moment. Yet barring their path were at least six machine guns, five wheeled armored vehicles, and nearly a hundred infantrymen armed with automatic weapons. Even with an overwhelming numerical advantage, their firepower was no match for the enemy's. And that gap was not something courage alone could bridge. It was hard to say how many would remain by the time they reached the enemy positions... Operating the onboard radar, Xinghe was the first to detect them. "Minor radio signals detected ahead... What is that? Cavalry?" Piloting the ornithopter, Luo Yu gained ten centimeters in altitude—broadening his field of view to observe the situation ahead while staying safe. "Must be Camel Hump Kingdom cavalry." "The Camel Hump Kingdom? Weren't they staging a sit-in at the border?" "They were, but according to posts on the official forum, Tail and the others seem to have been trying to convince Petra Fortress to join the fight." Hearing Luo Yu's reply, Xinghe was momentarily stunned. "...That's possible?!" He had heard before that player actions in Wasteland OL could alter the game world's historical trajectory and update progress, but to think it was actually true?! That shocked him even more than the "virtual reality network" formed from players' cognitions and dreams. After all, this meant that before rolling out an update, the damn planners had prepared at least N different versions to account for N possible worldline divergences... "Anyway, it's good news for us. If they can pin down the Legion's support units, we can stay low and push all the way to the airfield's edge... though by the looks of it, they won't hold out long." "Should we help them out?" "Can you hit them from where you are?" "Altitude's too low, unless we pull up fifty meters—" Shaking his head, Xinghe cut off mid-sentence, his expression shifting drastically. "Ten kilometers dead ahead, elevation sixty degrees! Unidentified flying object closing in at Mach 6!" "Mach 6?!" That could only be a missile! Almost instinctively, Luo Yu slammed the left rudder pedal and pulled up on the stick. Skimming the ground at blistering speed, the Cloud Dragonfly shuddered, practically blinking toward the upper left. Yet even with speed bordering on teleportation, it narrowly escaped the fatal strike! The billowing dust of the detonation was left kilometers behind by the hurtling ornithopter. Yet before either could celebrate their narrow escape, a salvo of autocannon fire screamed in, arriving almost in lockstep with the red blip breaching the edge of their radar. The crack of breaking the sound barrier broke overhead, followed belatedly by the roar of the autocannon drifting in from dead ahead. "...Fuck!" Staring at the cracked cockpit canopy, Xinghe cursed and whipped his head around, but the aircraft was already nowhere to be seen. "Damage report!" "Two wings damaged in the second starboard wing group, main engines intact, not critical—" Before Luo Yu could finish, Xinghe had already hit the weapons switch. With a sequence of sharp whooshes, five rockets shot out from the pod, racing toward the five wheeled scout vehicles on the ground in the distance. Supported by the neural link system, he had achieved target lock in barely 0.3 seconds. The five scout vehicles had no time to evade, let alone swivel their turrets toward the ornithopter that had suddenly materialized in the sky, before being blown into scrap metal by the metallic hydrogen-packed rockets. The defenders south of Lost Valley were stunned by the spectacle, their ferocious curtain of fire faltering for an instant. All they saw were several white trails streaking in from beyond sight before their scout vehicles exploded into heaps of junk. The Camel Hump Kingdom cavalry were equally awestruck. Yet the burning flames brought them not dread, but the hope of victory. "Reinforcements!" Galloping at full tilt, the captain of the guard raised his bayonet-tipped carbine. Even though he had taken multiple bullets. Even though his shoulder and leg were stained crimson. He still glared through bloodshot eyes, roaring at the top of his lungs: "For the kingdom! For the deities! For our homeland—!" "Charge through!!!" Above the sea of sand. Attempting to stabilize the wing-damaged craft, Luo Yu gritted his teeth and straightened the flight stick, then yelled down to the gunner beneath his feet: "What did you fire for?!" "There's no time!" Xinghe, having swallowed his gum, analyzed the situation with cold precision: "Radar shows that bird is flying at least Mach 2. Even if we climb and switch to cruise mode to evade, we max out at Mach 1... He only needs one more dive to take us out. We wouldn't even make it to the valley." "...The Legion deployed more than one jet in Sunset Province—there's an escorting wingman!" Expecting a helicopter to take on a fighter jet was wishful thinking; even carrying air-to-air missiles, there would be no contest. This had nothing to do with technological sophistication; it was determined by their respective battlefield roles. They had managed to dodge the first attack only because the enemy had likely never seen such a novel contraption before, and certainly hadn't anticipated that mid-level flight, they could pull off a ninety-degree right-angle lateral translation! And at an acceleration of nearly 9G! Now, however, that trump card had been revealed. If he were in the enemy's shoes, the next dive wouldn't just be a quick tap of the trigger, but a sustained strafe of at least a full second! He wouldn't bet on the enemy making a second mistake. If they couldn't make it to the airfield... Then before going down, they had to at least punch an opening for their ground allies! As he spoke, Xinghe's hands never ceased moving, swiftly switching to the 30mm rotary autocannon to pour a hail of fire onto the machine-gun emplacements south of Lost Valley. Seemingly understanding his intent, Luo Yu pulled up on the stick in silent consensus, throttling the main engines to maximum power, sacrificing maneuverability for raw acceleration. "Ever sat in the co-pilot seat of a two-seat attack aircraft?" "Nope. Why?" "Nothing." Luo Yu inhaled deeply, continuing: "I'm taking you for a ride!" The twelve blade-like wings, including the damaged and broken ones, stopped oscillating and folded inward, overlapping and locking into a single set of wings. Ghostly blue arcs blasted superheated, ionized air, and the Cloud Dragonfly shattered the sound barrier as it vaulted skyward. At this moment... The soaring "Cloud Dragonfly" seemed to turn into a beam of light! The storm of shells raining from the sky fell like feathers shed from a flapping bird, sweeping across the southern entrance of Lost Valley directly in the path of the galloping cavalry. Lethal rain of fire cascaded from the heavens, blasting the southern machine-gun emplacements of Lost Valley into a shambles and causing their outgoing fire to plummet. When a 35mm high-explosive round struck the ground, it didn't leave a mere puncture hole—it gouged a crater larger than a washbasin! Deprived of the suppressing fire from their machine guns, the garrison of fewer than a hundred men was swiftly engulfed by the tidal surge of charging cavalry. Some were trampled to pulp beneath horse hooves, some had their throats skewered by bayonets, and still more were shot dead behind cover by the cavalrymen's carbines as they fled. After suffering over fifty percent casualties, and with the support of the Alliance's "attack helicopter," a breach was finally torn through the Legion's southern defense line. And yet— that rain of fire, burning itself out to guide the cavalry charge, could not last long. Just as the cavalry broke into the encampment, the roar of autocannon fire descended upon the "Cloud Dragonfly" faster than anticipated. Under the raking fire of 20mm autocannons, the twelve overlapping wings snapped in an instant. The cockpit canopy shattered to pieces, and red flames flared from the blue-glowing engines as electrical sparks danced across the hull! Yet before turning into a heap of scrap metal, it successfully burned out its last ember, emptying every reserve round and launching the final rocket from its pod— Two trails of white smoke ejected from the blossoming explosion. Under the watch of countless eyes, one plunged toward the valley. The other descended toward the airfield...