When I left my quarters the next morning, I was immediately greeted by General Reach himself.

“Hello, Captain” he said, “I am here to inform you that we have received confirmation of the destruction of the dragon carrier and escorts. You and the Americans are no longer grounded. There is a mission for you, but I have a meeting in 3 minutes. I told the Americans, so talk to them”

“Thank you, sir.”

The General left hurriedly, and I immediately headed towards the Americans' area. I turned a corner, and ran face first into Matt.

"Captain Hrett. General Reach told me that we're ungrounded."

I nodded, "yes. He just came by and told me too."

"Did he also tell you about the mission that we were assigned?"

"No. He didn't have time to explain."

"Well, a nation allied to Varra has requested help dealing with a couple dozen dragons that regularly attack every other day.. I think the nation was Toph? Well, they want help, but they will only allow one aircraft in their airspace."

"Ah. I think a Super Hornet will be massively more effective than a Model 19, so you would be a better choice for the mission. You don't know the landmarks, so I'd have to find a map for you."

"Well," Matt started towards the American hangers and motioned for me to follow. "There are 2 main variants of the Super Hornet. The F/A-18E and the F/A-18F. The E has a single seat and generally has a bit more performance. The F variant is a little worse, because it has 2 seats. We brought Fs because it is possible that we would need local expertise. We could use a Super Hornet with someone who knows the area in the second seat."

I nodded, and we entered one of the American hangers. A pair of Super Hornets filled most of the space, and a couple people were loading missiles onto them.

"So," Matt turned to me, "do you know your way around Toph?"

"Yes. Not as well as someone from Toph, but I know enough to fly around Toph, at least before they closed their airspace."

"Would you like to act as a navigator for me? If you don't, then I-"

I cut him off, "I would definitely like to navigate for you."

He smiled, "I'm glad to hear that. The report from Toph says that the dragons seem to attack at around noon, and today should be the next one. We're scheduled to leave in half an hour."

I did some quick mental math, "so you will be cruising at what, a thousand kilometers per hour?"

"1200, actually. It'll only take 3/4 of an hour to get there. We'll be performing an in-air refueling just before the border, so we have a full load of fuel when we get there."

I shook my head. Once again, I was reminded that American aircraft were much more advanced than ours.

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Matt continued, "we'll just need to get you a flight suit and helmet. We were provided with some specially made adjustable flight suits and helmets, which should fit you."

20 minutes later, I was outfitted in a dark green flight suit with a bulky helmet and mask. I gently stepped into the Super Hornet set up on the runway and sat down, letting Matt reach into the cockpit and show me how to strap myself in.

Matt pointed at a large brightly colored loop of fabric on the seat between my legs, "You see this loop here?" I nodded. "This is the emergency eject. Do not pull it unless I tell you to, or if we are crashing and I don't respond when you ask. When you pull it, the canopy will be launched off, and a rocket motor will ignite below your seat. It will push you up and away from the aircraft. It will then deploy a small parachute to keep you correctly oriented. When you get lower, it will automatically deploy the main parachute and separate the seat, so you can land safely. You will land kinda fast, so be aware of that."

I nodded. Such a system is a marked improvement over just trying to open the canopy and jumping out.

Matt got into the front sea and strapped in.

"Mic check." I heard in my ears.

"I can hear you. Can you hear me?"

"Hear you loud and clear"

I heard the engines start up, quickly rising to a loud whine. The canopy closed, muting the sounds to a low whir, which quickly rose back to a roar as the engines sped up, pushing us forwards down the runway. I adjusted my helmet to fit a bit better, not crushing my ears. We lifted off, and I felt the clunk as the landing gear retracted. I was pushed into my seat as Matt pulled us into a turn, heading west towards Toph. The second Super Hornet took off right behind us, and followed to the right and slightly behind us. We rose up at a quite steep angle, much faster than the Model 19 could ever hope to achieve. I checked the multifunction displays that Matt had set up for me, and was surprised to see that we were already traveling at 500 km/h, and rapidly accelerating.

"You okay back there?" Matt said, his voice slightly distorted by the comms system.

"Yeah, I'm good. Just admiring the power of a Super Hornet. We're already about at the Model 19 altitude ceiling, and we're still rising. We are also just under the Model 19 max speed, and accelerating fast."

"Super Hornets can get up to a bit over twice this height. We add additional oxygen to the air delivered to the crew, because the air gets so thin up there."

We continued flying, leveling out at what appeared to be like 15 km up or so. I couldn't really judge the speed, but Matt said that we were cruising at 1050 km/h. As we got close near to the Toph border, the second Super Hornet went just ahead of us, and let out some sort of cone on a hose, which Matt said was called the "drogue". A panel on the front right of our fuselage opened, revealing a pipe which extended out, the "probe". Matt guided us closer, skillfully docking the probe into the drogue.

"Alright. We're refueling. It'll take a couple minutes to fully refuel, and by the we should be near the border. The tanker Hornet will return to base, and we will continue on. We can fly around Toph for about 2 hours or so, but then we need to return to Varran airspace, because we will be almost out of fuel. We can refuel and head back into Toph immediately, though. You know more about Toph geography and such, so you should be the one navigating and communicating with Toph command, okay?"

I nodded, then realized he couldn't see me. "Yes, I can do that."

"Alright," Matt pulled us back, unlocking from the refueling system and dropping back a bit.

"Good luck, and good hunting," said the pilot of the other Hornet. They retracted the drogue and hose, and banked back towards home.

"I'm surprised that I'm allowed to be in a Super Hornet," I said, "I would have thought that access would be very restricted."

"Well," Matt paused for a moment, retracting the refueling probe. "We did get special permission to have local experts in the second seat. That is why we have the adjustable flight suits."

"Oh. That makes sense."

"We will be within manacomm range of Toph in a minute or two," stated Matt, "I've got the radar up and running, so if any dragons get within a few dozen kilometers of us, we'll detect them first, and introduce them to air-to-air missiles."

"Sounds good," I checked the map in a transparent pouch on my leg, referencing it with what I saw on the ground, figuring out where we were. I saw that we were just now passing into Toph airspace, and settled in for what would probably be an hour or two of waiting.