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 Riyàdh 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.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

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° 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° 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° 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.