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!!!

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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…..