Jean-Paul surveyed the other planes with a predator’s eye and weighed his options. Soon they would come into range of one of the pods and then it would not take long to see whatever it was that was shooting them down. Jean-Paul wasn’t certain, but the fact that no other plane was showing up on his radar was sign enough that it was some kind of stealth plane, possibly an F-35 or a B-2. What either of those was doing out here he had no idea, but either way he would happily blow them out of the sky. The only question was whether he would need to kill his ‘allies’ before or after he went after the culprit. He thought a moment. He didn’t know yet what was out there, or if it was alone. If it was a B-2, then that shouldn’t pose too great a problem, but it could be a wing of F-35s, in which case that could strain even his extensive abilities. If these two Typhoons were to come in on his side because of a miscommunication he could engineer, well, that could even the balance. So whether these three other fighters were a hindrance or a tool to be used depended on what he was about to find out there.

But his decision process was suddenly thrown into disarray when a new factor entered the scene.

“Balbuzard One and Two, this is Lightning One,” came the voice of the British pilot leading their formation. “Ground radar reports another signature crossing the border at extreme low altitude. Also they are reporting several missile signatures across the border in Pakistan. We are being asked to drop our ceiling to 10,000 feet on a course of one-five-eight and intercept.”

As he was the wingman, Jean-Paul left it to Balbuzard One to reply, and his colleague did just that, confirming the new bearing. The small squadron broke right in a rolling turn, dropping to the new altitude with a roar of their tumultuous engines.

The mild-angled dive, combined with their already supersonic speed, combined to close the distance to the border even faster, and soon they had a radar bead of their own on the object darting between the mountain peaks far below. But Jean-Paul’s attention was elsewhere, his powerful eyesight was scouring the sky for whatever was firing on his virus pods, and suddenly he saw it. Far, far above them, its profile was distinctive, its silhouette like no other plane in the world, old or new.

The flying wing configuration of the B-2 Spirit Bomber could mean only one thing: the Americans were attempting to take out the viral pods, and as his squadron had been dispatched to investigate them, the bomber must be working without Allied approval. Most likely the pilots were members of the same organization that had launched the attack on Jean-Paul’s four support satellites, destroying his entire defense and communications network in one harrowing night.