Onboard the B-2, Jack, Martin, and the two bound pilots scrambled frantically into the two ejectable pilot seats in their last few moments. Jack was strapped in and clipping Captain Jennifer Falster’s jumpsuit to his own with the reflexive automation his training had imbedded in him, while Martin tried ineffectually to do the same for Captain Billy Kellar. The missile lock alarm had sounded moments before the missiles launch had registered on their screens. There was not enough time, thought Jack, glancing across at Martin and Captain Kellar, and he saw the despair in the other captain’s face as the female pilot in Jack’s lap screamed at them to strap in.

The pilots knew they only had a few seconds. Jack glanced over at his friend and thought he saw the man give the thumbs-up, but later he would curse his uncertainty as he reached for the eject lever, wrapping his spare arm around the female captain in his lap as she rolled her head back onto his shoulder to avoid breaking both their necks when the seat’s booster engaged.

The canopy blew off and air rushed out. There had been no time for oxygen masks and the air was sucked from all four people’s lungs as the cabin pressure equalized. Captain Billy Kellar screamed. He was not fully strapped in yet and his body flew upward as the air blew explosively from the cabin. Martin was incoherent with fear as he gasped for breath in the suddenly thin air. He pulled the chair’s eject lever. The chair flew upward, wrenching Captain Kellar by the lone strap that was properly attached and snapping his spine like a rag doll. The massive tug broke off the captain’s scream as it broke his back, the instantly dead man’s weight unbalancing the seat’s propulsion and pulling Martin’s seat around as it launched upward out of the cabin.

Martin was already unconscious when the missiles hit. They flew up the B-2’s engines and erupted in the flow of jet-powered air, igniting the plane like a tinderbox. Within a fraction of a second, the detonation reached the bomb bay and the fresh addition of the remaining missiles’ fuel and munitions sent the explosion supernova. Martin was consumed along with Captain Kellar’s body in a mile-high pyre.

Chapter 60: Fallen

Where the plains of northeastern Iran meet Afghanistan, they are all but unguarded. But despite the lack of obvious border installations, regular patrols and surprisingly advanced radars still diligently sweep the skies for any encroachment by Allied forces into Iranian airspace. They had long since alerted the authorities of the airborne conflagration approaching from the east. But no one noticed as a lone man ran, unbidden, over the border in the aftermath, chasing the fiery shells of the fallen planes with reckless abandon.