ACES Alternative (an SAO/Ace Combat fic)

[Midland 2541]

ACES Alternative

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"General Resources are simply too big to fail in this market."
- The Hill Street Journal, January 2024.

"General Resources declare a boycott of their Leasath markets unless First Minister Halibut steps down, following controversial statements made about the company's human rights records."
- The Aurelian Cross, December 19th, 2029.

"Boycott of Leasath ends only twenty hours after it started, after First Minister Halibut is found dead in a caravan."
- Reporters Without Borders, December 20th, 2029.

"General Resources CEO pays respects to "a dedicated politician" after First Minister Halibut is found dead inside a locked bag in a caravan. Chief coroner claims "this is a classic suicide attempt"."
- OLN, December 21st, 2029.

"General Resources backed mercenaries implicated in coup attempt in Erusea. General Resources claims mercenaries were hired in a false flag operation, in order to "tarnish the good reputation of the company"."
- The Emmerian Times, January 7th, 2031.

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Chapter 1 – Too Big to Fail

Above the skies of Erusea on that day in June 2032, a flight of four aircraft climbed through the clouds – a Sukhoi Su-35SM, an EF-2000C Typhoon EK and a pair of Saab JAS 39 Gripen Es. The aircraft wore the markings of the United Air Defence, and squadron markings for the Erusean Aerospace Force's 99th Squadron.

"Black Blade, Blue Rose. We have you on scope, heading two-five-zero. Targets are sixty miles off your nose, coming up for you."

"Understood, Skytrain. Moving to intercept."

In 2010, and following the instability wrought by the Continental War, General Resources Limited had set up the General Resources Guardian Mercenaries in order to protect their logistics chains, which for a company that was, at the time, the size of Apple, was not insignificant…

Of course, he wasn't so naïve to believe that said mercenaries were always protecting logistics chains, and there were plenty of reports of those mercenaries appearing in places they had no rights being – including being hired by an Osean general to kill their ace during the Lighthouse War.

Unsurprisingly, they didn't survive the fight.
By 2026, General Resources had had become more than a corporation; they had become a force that was more powerful than most nations, with a military (ostensibly for self-defence, but no one believed that) of its own. That posed an interesting question to lawmakers across the Usean continent and further afield: how do you make a company like that follow your laws on your land?

Unfortunately, it was a question posed too late by many of the countries, as, by 2030, General Resources had all but usurped power in many countries on the continent, and by 2032, the current year, they were the defacto government in parts of Usea and Anea.

The fact they had, quite literally, bought Estovakia from its own, maybe elected government told him all he needed to know about General Resources.

Which was where they had all come in:
Once they'd passed through the briefing that explained the history of the world they found themselves in, they had been given the task of deciding which path to take. In any other game, this would be given at least a little elaboration other than the numbers 1 through 5, and the difficulty level of each path.

Unfortunately, Kayaba hadn't been so kind to the players of ACES Online, and had reviews of the game been truly possible, he had no doubts that the "lead-lined window" that was the decision-making interface would've been one of the biggest negatives of the game!

Still though, he had selected path 4, which was one of the most difficult ones, and following a relatively straightforward tutorial, getting him familiarised with the concepts that would become important – the use of missile jammers instead of chaff and flares, and the use of the "synthetic aperture" cockpits that most aircraft were now equipped with, being the two most important, he had picked his name in game, and been thrown in at the deep end.

That deep end being to hunt down a high-flying reconnaissance aircraft using a pair of Pulse Laser pods mounted to the F-15EX, a mission designed to introduce the players to the basic mechanics of the game before really throwing them into combat – the MIG-31R recon aircraft being fast, but otherwise a sitting duck for the Eagle II.

Soon after though, they were given an option to choose their aircraft for themselves, and amidst the collection, one stood out - a Yuktobanian built Sukhoi Su-35 Super Flanker, modernised to the Su-35SM standard.

Fast, agile and more importantly for him... painted all over black (bar the white radome and the dielectric panels on the tail, but he could live with that), the Super-Super Flanker (or Ultra Flanker, as Kirito had christened it) was a pretty good choice for a starter aircraft, although it lacked a number of features he reckoned were going to be crucial going forwards: it lacked low-observable features of the useful kind, and it was very much a fighter, not a fighter-bomber.

On the first, his concerns had been proven when Eugeo had managed to draw him into a mock dogfight in the Electrosphere, into visual range and although he'd won that fight... it had been close. The Typhoon EK he flew may have been an electronic warfare variant of the fighter, but it was still very agile...

On the second, it wasn't as if the Su-35SM had no ground attack weaponry - it could still carry a decent number of unguided bombs and heavy anti-surface weaponry, but it lacked the avionics to really be an effective multirole aircraft.

Still, that higher focus on air-to-air capabilities made it almost perfect for the most common mission that his flight did - what were unofficially known as Interception Feints. Eugeo's Typhoon EK had the ability to spoof radar signatures using its onboard AESA radar, and when combined with the radars on the girls' Gripens, it had given them a plan to change the fortunes of the Blazing Angels:

Four aircraft would fly in formations that could be mistaken for a pair of Erusean transports, easy targets for opportunistic ASF fighters. When those fighters came up for their easy prey, they would have a nasty shock when the nice, easy prey of transports turned out to be a flight of four fighters, all of them knowing they were there... and ready to pounce!

He'd already become an ace that way, and the rest of his flight weren't far off that milestone either - Eugeo was on his fourth kill, whilst Tiese and Ronye were both on three each.

"I see them! Kirito, we've got bandits coming in from three o'clock."

"How far?"

"Right beneath us!" Eugeo exclaimed, as he ejected a sequence of flares from his Typhoon, his Typhoon's missile jammer being inoperative at this time, and only barely avoiding an R-74 IR-guided missile in the process…

"I see them. Four ASF Su-43s, Kirito."

"Got it Ronye, all aircraft, switch to mutual defence. We can handle them. Skytrain, bandits are Su-43 Berkuts, we're engaging."

The Su-43s used by the Advance Strike Force were the ultimate development of the first generation of stealth aircraft, developed in the late 1990s, and first deployed in the Usean Rebellion of 1998, flown by Albireo Squadron. These Berkuts though, were heavily modified from the base Su-47 used during the conflicts of the early 21st century, gaining far more significant ECM capabilities and even greater manoeuvrability than the Su-47 he was familiar with.

In a straight fight, the Berkut was more than a match for his Ultra Flanker in the horizontal plane, but the Berkut suffered heavily in the vertical; the additional weight of the equipment and strengthened wing box having decreased its thrust-to-weight ratio significantly, and left it a significantly poorer aircraft in the vertical plane.
"Eugeo, he's yours!" Letting his gamer's ego take over here would've been a death sentence for him - the Berkut was below him and behind him; an awkward position for him to attempt an attack from... but perfect for Eugeo though.

"Break right, Kirito, I have him." Eugeo stated calmly, and Kirito took the chance. Yanking the stick to the right, the Flanker snapped to the right before he pulled the jet into a sustained 8G turn.

Condensation poured off the wings of the Su-35 as it entered a spiral towards the ground, and Kirito strained to keep a visual on not only the pursuing Berkut, but also his HUD. The last thing he wanted was to lose so much altitude in the turn that he dropped below the clouds...

Behind him though, he caught the glint of Eugeo's silver Typhoon, and the IRIS-T missile it had just fired. Seconds passed, and the IRIS completed a 180-degree arc through the air, the small missile detonating immediately underneath the Berkut.

The forward swept wing fighter almost immediately levelled out momentarily, just long enough for a cloud of smoke to engulf the jet as it entered a nosedive.

Off to the distance, a small spec became a much larger one - the pilot had ejected safely and was now parachuting down to the earth below...
As for the Berkut, the last he saw of it was one it became enveloped in fire, before the singular fireball became multiple.

"Eugeo, splash one Berkut." His wingman called out.

"So, how's it feel to be an ace now, partner?"
In the real world, jet aces were almost mythical - there were very few who hadn't become aces in a very different era of combat, and even those that had become aces then were rare.

On Earth, the days of swirling dogfights like the ones of WW1 and WW2 had long since ended as weapons systems outranged the human eye, and weapons systems became so much more complex, and so had the aces of that era.

Even in all-out war, becoming an ace was exceptionally rare; something that stood even in the days of those swirling dogfights too.
"It doesn't feel any different really." Eugeo answered, before snapping back to the warfighting mood. "Tiese, Ronye. Do you need help?"

"Nope, Eugeo-sir. We've got them under control here. You do have one heading back towards you though, sirs."

"Understood Tiese. We're on him." Kirito glanced down at his scope - one small dot at 40 miles, off their two o'clock. Well within parameters for an Adder shot, he thought. "Kirito, Fox Three."
From below the Flanker, a single Adder-X dropped away into the slipstream, before a plume of smoke blasted back, the missile disappearing into the distance.

He hadn't even gotten a visual on the aircraft when the dot disappeared off his scope, a puff of smoke in the early morning sky, resembling the aftermath of a disappointing firework going off, being the only clue that there had ever been an aircraft there in the first place...

"Kirito, splash one Berkut." He called, confirming his kill – his sixth of the campaign so far.

"Ronye, splash one!" If he squinted, he could just about make out the line of orange and red that was likely a blazing inferno in the distance...

The aircraft the girls flew; the JAS 39E Gripen was an aircraft that looked far less intimidating than it really was; a lot like the girls who flew them, come to think of it. To an untrained observer, it resembled a scaled down Typhoon with a single engine instead of the Typhoon's twin engines, and a completely different intake arrangement, but in reality, the Gripen was very much the Typhoon's equal…

It shared many of the same systems as the Typhoon, with superior manoeuvrability and a far more rugged airframe, designed to be kept on the frontlines in even austere conditions, as well as a degree of low-observability features in order to survive on the battlefield.

A potent mix of small size, good firepower from its combination of long-range Meteor and short-range IRIS-T missiles, and excellent onboard systems, all made for an aircraft that only an idiot would underestimate...

Apparently, someone at General Resources hadn't gotten the memo there.

In the end, it had been only five minutes since the fight had started, and all four Berkuts had been dispatched with relative ease - three had fell to the IRIS-Ts they carried, one to Eugeo's earlier, another to one of Ronye's and the third had been hit by one of Tiese's, whilst the final one had been dispatched by his Adder-X shot.
All for not even so much as a scratch on their paintwork - which itself was good news, otherwise Liz would've killed him after what had happened to his last Flanker.

The scratches still hadn't faded from that one, and he wasn't referring to his plane there either...

"Skytrain, this is Black Blade One. All four Berkuts down."

"Targets confirmed down, One. Black Blade, Blue Rose, I'd call that a good day's work! Return to base for debrief."

"Understood. Returning to base."

/-/
​

In films, the ace was always greeted by a massive crowd and a party, and if there'd been a romantic subplot, their love interest, before being whisked off somewhere, usually by the massive crowd carrying them...

In the real world however, that simply didn't happen. The landing back at Artiligo had been nothing short of routine, and other than the girls making a small fuss about them using themselves as bait and over Eugeo's newfound ace status, there was no big party on the tarmac before the four of them were whisked in front of Diavel.

"Well done you four. I've got to admit, that tactic is still surprisingly effective against General Resources. If I didn't know better, I'd wonder what idiots were in charge of the ASF squadrons to keep falling for it!" They did know better though, and that someone was a hothead named Kibaou.

According to Diavel, Kibaou was an excellent pilot, an okay strategist and a terrible hothead - not qualities you want in a squadron commander, he'd thought - and his pride and pig-headedness made him extremely susceptible to feints like the one they favoured.

That was all well and good, but it didn't change the fact that the situation was more dire for them than it was for General Resources.
If the ASF lost a plane, they could probably have a replacement the next day, and if they lost a pilot, a replacement would be there by the next week...

If they lost a plane, then it would take months to get hold of a replacement, and there was no guarantee that replacement wouldn't be some old museum piece either, such was the issue in fighting one of the biggest arms suppliers in the world...

If they lost a pilot however, they lost a friend and a sizeable portion of the strength of the squadron... essentially, they lost something irreplaceable.

Then you had them - the Blazing Angels.
The Blazing Angels were less of a squadron, and more of a disparate group of pilots formed from other, now disbanded and destroyed, squadrons that had only ever numbered twenty pilots on their strongest day. A far cry from even the Mercenary Corps of the ASF, let alone the ASF itself...

"But yes, if all continues as it has so far, we may be in a position to force GR back to the negotiating table. Buy the Erusean Air Force some time to rearm and allow them to mount their planned offensive. We have certainly given them the bloody nose to prove that the UAD is no paper tiger..."

Being a paper tiger implied the United Air Defence existed on anything but paper, Kirito thought bitterly. Far from the name's suggestion, they were not united and air defence was probably pushing it a little bit too. Two squadrons worth of museum pieces, even if they were flown by people who Diavel had described as "squadrons of Mobius Ones", were probably not going to turn back a corporation who could solve any problem by simply throwing money and resources at a problem…
If they were to stand any chance of surviving and prevailing, they'd need resources and reinforcements, and currently, neither of those looked too likely.

/-/
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For once in his life, Akihiko Kayaba found himself doubting his own creations.

Not his intent, no, his belief in that was absolute, but rather, his doubts lay in his implementation – ACES Online was always intended to be what many of the uninformed masses would have labelled his manifesto. He hated that idea to its very core – after all, a manifesto implied he was a terrorist, and by the word's very definition, implied he intended to inflict terror.

No, he would prefer the term "revolutionary", as that was what he wished to cause – a worldwide revolution to overthrow the corporatocracy that he found himself worked to oblivion under, and at its very core, an expose of the corruption of human nature that unfettered capitalism and the fake philanthropy it espoused…

Which was an excellent idea in his mind, but he had failed to account for something really quite important… that his ideas were not everyone else's.

Many of the players had chosen the easy option; the one that rewarded them with the best equipment, the highest pay… and an employer that would perhaps be viewed by even Amazon or Google as "corporate evil.". Those people had chosen their roles in the story, as sad as he was to say, and they would not be viewed in a positive light…

The players who stood against such evil though, they were the ones he believed this story would be written around – a cautionary tale of a company "too big to fail" and the heroes that wrote that cautionary tale.

Or so he believed. Only time would tell if he would be proven vindicated…

 

[Midland 2541]

I'm not even sure how I'd describe this, as it's not really a spin off to ACES, but more of an alternative story... hence the title.

Anyway, this does take place in an actual conflict in Ace Combat lore: the General Resources War of 2032, which is depicted in Ace Combat Advance (yeah, even I have to admit, it was a bit of a deep dive there - honestly, I'd thought I'd have to make something up, but apparently not...).

Also makes a change to have a story where Erusea aren't the enemy for once, but rather the player faction.

A note: a lot of tech and equipment I depict here is going to be somewhere between "plausible by 2032" and outright sci-fi, given the levels of technology Ace Combat depicts by the time of Electrosphere, so if something seems a bit "suspension of disbelief-y", it probably comes from the games somewhere.

 

[Midland 2541]

Chapter 2 – Risk Management

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The skies above Artiligo were almost perfect; not a cloud in sight, with wind conditions that could be described as "not enough to topple a feather". Visibility was excellent in all directions, and the only traffic in the skies were the airliners cruising at 30,000 feet or higher.

All of which had given Kirito the idea of using the morning for DACT – Dissimilar Air Combat Training – in essence, pitting the squadron against one another to see who would come out on top. That hadn't been the case, and Diavel had told him that having the entire squadron up for training, at the same time, would leave Artiligo undefended…

He had, however, given him clearance to take his flight up for a training exercise, which meant he would be taking on Ronye for this exercise.

His student's smaller Gripen was a harder target to lock onto, and its considerable ECM capabilities made that task even harder for him, meaning he would be forced to close the distance and get within visual range…

That wasn't the worst place for the Su-35 to be, given its touted supermaneuverability, should be enough to gain the upper hand in that arena, but he knew that Ronye was no slouch when it came to dogfighting either.

He'd taught her well, but she was already quite good before then.

They all were though, which was why they were still here…

"Black Blades, en garde." Liz had volunteered to act as referee for their training, simply to keep watch on the radar screen whilst they focused on the dogfighting, just so as nothing snuck up on them.

Keeping his attention between his radar scope and the sky around him in order to spot the smaller Gripen, he was able to catch the faintest glimpse of the other fighter, and quickly worked to gain a lock with the IRST before they passed each other head on…

"Ronye, Fox Two!" She announced, and he threw the Flanker into a tight turn away from the head on pass and simulating the release of flares, breaking the lock from the "approaching" IRIS-T.

"No joy, Ronye." Liz told her, and he readied his counter to her attack, pulling the Flanker around almost a complete circle in only four seconds to gain a lock and simulate an Archer-X shot.

"Kirito, Fox Two."

Ronye was no sitting duck, and she reacted with a calm and collected response – dump flares, roll inverted and dive out of the way.

"No joy, Kirito."

Recognising that her plan was to use the countermeasures onboard to confuse his targeting systems and sneak away in order to give herself some more space, he followed her into the dive, the IRST growling with the tone that told him she wasn't far ahead of him.

She might be his student, but her time was up in this fight…

"Guys, hate to interrupt your training, but there's a situation developing." Or not, he guessed. Liz interrupting them during training was usually a sign that something much bigger was going on, and required an immediate response…

"A General Resources situation?" Ronye asked.

Liz gave them an inflight briefing to bring them up to speed. "Probably not, but we really can't say at this point. ATC down at Fort Grays are reporting an unknown contact skirting the southern coast, and we've just heard there's an overdue aircraft at North Point International. A Boeing 777-9, Yuktobanian Airways Flight 390 from Cinigrad to North Point, disappeared off Sotoan radar around 03:20 this morning, manifest lists 345 souls onboard. We do not have a radar contact at this point, but we're working to update your data feed with possible flight routes based on Fort Grays' data."

"Understood, Black Blade is moving to locate and intercept the target." Kirito told them. "Ronye, let's wrap this up for today, and see what that unknown is."

"Umm, Kirito? If it is an airliner, then… what do we do?" Ronye asked.

She had a point – whilst they might be enough to pose a threat to whoever was onboard, and force them to reconsider their life choices, they couldn't exactly just land it themselves. "We find out what's happened, and if it doesn't respond, we force it to land."

"By force it to land, you mean…" Ronye caught on quickly, even though she was clearly struggling with the idea. He didn't blame her – it was one thing to destroy an enemy fighter coming for blood, but an airliner with nearly 350 people on was something else entirely.

"If it comes to it, yeah. Hopefully it won't though."

"Black Blade, this is Lisbeth. Data track is updated. Airspeed is 280 knots, cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet. Heading is two-seven-zero and estimated to cross the Skully Islands in ten minutes."

"Received, Liz. We're en route. Ronye, you heard that?"

"Two-seven-zero at 37,000 feet. Airspeed 280 and due across the Skully Islands in 10 minutes, Kirito." Ronye recited. "At current speed, we'll be there five minutes after it's passed. Suggest we head due south at one-eight-zero for an intercept course."

It was often said there were two types of pilot – those who flew with their brains, and those with their muscles. Pilots who flew with their muscles were excellent pilots, generally preferring the close in engagements of eras gone by, often very aggressive in their flying style, and not always the greatest of shots.

Then there were "brain" pilots, such as himself and Ronye – pilots who could almost picture the battlefield mathematically (not something he could himself but based on how fast his student had calculated that intercept course, it wouldn't surprise him if she could do that.), and use that superior situational awareness to build up a combat plan that put them at the least risk, and their foes at the greatest risk…

"Black Blade, heading to intercept on course one-eight-zero." Kirito told Liz in the command centre. "Any more on the target?"

"Nada. SAR efforts are under way in the Eusian Ocean, but I doubt they'll find anything. They're still assuming the plane came apart mid-air when it dropped off radar."

"And you don't think they did?"

"Nah, I'm piecing together the flight path, but it looks like there was either a catastrophic electrical failure that shut down every system in about two minutes, or…"

"Or?" Ronye asked, and he felt a cold shiver down his spine.

"Or someone took over the plane." He explained, putting the pieces together. "Either those are some very tech savvy hijackers, or…"

"The crew did it, yeah. That's where my head's at right now, Black Blade. If the crew did do something like that…"

The pause lingered in the air, and Kirito thought about it for a moment. If the crew had indeed made their plane vanish to anything but primary radar, then how desperate were they? If they saw a pair of fighters closing in on them, would they attempt to run… or worse still, attempt to ram them? The 777-9 wasn't a small aircraft by any means, but at the distance they would have to close to, in order to investigate the errant aircraft, all it would take is a split second before the larger aircraft tore their smaller fighters to pieces…

"They could be dangerous, got it." He answered quietly.

"Why… why would you do something like that though?" Ronye asked, clearly struggling with the idea that someone would willingly take 343 or 344 people with them for seemingly no reason.

Liz sighed. "That… I can't answer. Maybe they just snapped, maybe they've got a grudge with someone. Maybe they don't really have a reason." For some reason, that last one terrified him more so than the other ideas. At least they could be reasoned away from anger or mania, but "just because" was a lot harder to reason away… "That's not our job to look at though, that's the investigators who find this thing's job."

"I hate to agree with Lisbeth, but perhaps we can ask them on the ground." Diavel, who had evidently been summoned whilst they were briefing, agreed.

"Unlikely Diavel. Reading through one of the garbled transmissions that got sent out before it went AWOL, it looks like it was depressurising, and the electrical systems were in a controlled shut down. That was what, four hours ago? Even if they do find it, there might only be one or two people left alive onboard, and that's assuming they didn't take their own lives since then either."

After seven hours of depressurisation, anyone onboard who wasn't donning a proper oxygen mask – of which only two were kept aboard for the pilots – would have succumbed to the effects of hypoxia, and faded away into unconsciousness and eventually, death. It was a slow and unpleasant death, as you weren't really aware of what was going on; hypoxia being less like the suffocation shown in the movies, and more like a feeling of drinking yourself to death, given how impaired a person's mental capacity became under hypoxic conditions…

That got Kirito's attention though – the aircraft had been in a state of controlled depressurisation at 37,000 feet, if Liz's readings were right. Yeah, they were dealing with the crew going rogue, of that he had no doubts…

"Two minutes to the IP, Kirito." Ronye told him, a more sombre tone to her voice. Despite everything, she was one of the most optimistic people he knew, and to know that she was about to witness a 350-seat airliner turned into what was essentially a flying mausoleum wasn't a pleasant idea to anyone, much less someone who still believed that people were fundamentally decent.

"Ronye, I have visual on something. Trailing smoke…" In the distance, he could see a small speck against the blue sky, easily cruising higher than the 37,000 feet suggested. If that wasn't significantly above 40,000 feet, he would be eating his words…

"Yeah, I see it too. Black Blades have a visual on the target, closing to investigate."

A few seconds passed, and the two fighters had now closed to within a kilometre of the airliner, with more becoming apparent. Smoke was flooding out of the nose of the aircraft, and the cockpit looked to be engulfed in flames, whilst the passenger cabin was cold and sterile. The 777, once an aircraft loaded with families, holiday makers, businesspeople… all of them were dead now, he knew that much.

"Understood Black Blades. Syncing up your HMDs now." A small red light appeared on their HMDs, telling them that they were being recorded by the ground controller.

After about a minute, the two pilots found themselves barely a few hundred feet behind and above the Boeing, descending so they would be flying in a formation with the errant airliner – Kirito taking point on the forward port area, whilst Ronye held back, taking the rear starboard quadrant.

Glancing over the front of the aircraft, he noticed the source of the smoke – the equipment bay beneath the cockpit, which was now pouring out smoke.

"Kirito to Diavel, the plane's pouring out smoke. Looks like the equipment bay is on fire…"

"I'm guessing whoever hijacked it turned off the cooling fans, and well, four hours of constant running in a small, enclosed bay with no cooling? Yeah, that checks out." Liz explained.

"What do we do now?" Ronye asked.

"Liz, do you have any idea on its probable flight path?"

"There's still another hour's worth of fuel onboard according to the manifest. Best guess, it'll go down somewhere in the Spring Sea. If it makes it that far, anyway." Liz grumbled, and he agreed. There was no way the aircraft would carry on for another hour in that condition – the most likely outcome was that the fire would completely destroy the "brain" of the aircraft, and it would fall into a spiral into the Spring Sea, its burning remains scattered throughout the water below…

"Kirito, is there anyone still alive onboard?" Diavel asked.

"Hold on, just taking a closer look now." He maneuvered the Flanker as closely to the fuselage as he dared and looked out into the cabin through the smoke trailing behind it. The windows were all covered in fog and smoke, a clear sign that anyone onboard was long gone now, even if he couldn't see the souls onboard anymore. "Negative, Liz."

Liz went quiet, clearly contemplating something before she spoke up. "Wait, there's something else – Black Blade, you have bandits approaching! Two stealth targets from your six o'clock, we've only just seen them!"

"Ronye, break!" He called out, scanning the sky as he through the Flanker into a high G turn to break any potential missile lock the bandits might have had on him. In the distance, he caught a glimpse of the possible aggressors – two General Resources F-35As. To his surprise though, neither seemed interested in pursuing either of them, chasing down the airliner instead…

"Liz, bandits are two GR Lightnings. Looks like they're after the airliner too."

"Erusean fighters, this is Reaper One of the Advance Strike Force, do you copy?"

Kirito paused for a second, considering his answer. Should this come to blows, he imagined their aircraft would perform better inside the visual arena – the Su-35SM having a far better stat in its turning performance, and the Gripen was no slouch there either – but they were limited to only their guns, a problem the F-35s no doubt didn't have… "We read you."

"This is a General Resources operations area. Leave the airspace immediately, or you will be shot down. This is your only warning."

"Liz, how copy?"

"Reading all of you. I'd comply for now; they seem to be willing to let you go for some reason."

"Yeah, I got that impression too. Ronye, with me back to base."

"Understood, Kirito."

"Reaper One, this is Black Blade One. We're leaving now, okay?"

"Understood. Thank you for your co-operation." The pilot in the lead F-35 told him, and he couldn't help but almost recognise the voice as they turned away. It was familiar, one he was sure he'd heard during the beta test, and he caught a glimpse of the low-viz tail markings…

A cloaked figure with a scythe… a grim reaper.

No, not a grim reaper, it was the Grim Reaper.

A solo player who fought for General Resources and was known to leave no survivors wherever they went. No one really knew who they were, why they fought for the bad guys, and they couldn't really ask any of the survivors… because there weren't any.

"Liz, it's the Grim Reaper."

"You're kidding me, right?! They let you go?" Liz asked, incredulous at their survival from the chance encounter. "Damn, they must be getting sloppy."

"Kirito, Ronye, report in immediately when you get back." Diavel told them, a distinct concern in his voice as he did.

This wasn't going to be a comfortable talk, was it?

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Asuna wasn't someone who was all that used to scenes of horror – she never really watched horror movies, and to her, the definition of horror was receiving a poor grade at school.

That was until now. Now, she had a new definition, she thought as she watched the Yuktobanian airliner carry on, its fuselage packed with the lost lives of those onboard, their lives taken by oxygen starvation if they were lucky, or the now raging inferno if they weren't.

"Looks like our friend did exactly what we asked them too." Their AWACS, Goldhawk, told them with a sense of pride in their voice.

"Wait, what!" Mito asked, clearly caught off guard by that admission. "You told us it was a hijacking!"

"It was, Reaper One. A passenger had information on our business that couldn't be allowed to come to light." Goldhawk stated matter of factly, as if they hadn't just confessed to a horrific crime, the murder of 344 people… purely to take out one person. "So we intervened. Hardly unusual, just good risk management."

For the first time in her life, she felt sick to her core, and she knew that Mito felt the same. They weren't working for some ethically dubious corporation, no, General Resources were something far worse.

"Besides, we weren't the ones who allowed an enemy of the company to escape. I would mind your tone if I were you." The operator told them ominously. "The Board won't look on that too kindly, I should imagine…"

The Board… simply saying the name sent shivers down Asuna's spine.

A group of shadowy people who ran General Resources at its highest levels, a group of people almost unimaginably wealthy from the insane scale of the business… and yet, no one could say they had ever seen them.

Those who upset the board wound up dead, she knew that much, and those who really upset them… no one knew what happened to them. No one ever would either; General Resources had been very thorough in ensuring the awkward questions around those dissenters would never be asked.

They would never be asked because those who asked them would end up the same way. It was a brutal system; it was a dictatorship… and that was good for everyone else, wasn't it?

After all, the board knew best… didn't they?

"They're meddling with the COFFIN again." Mito told her. "Try not to think about it too much, Asuna, else… well, you remember what happened to Joe."

"Y-yeah…" She answered weakly, trying to think of things other than the corporate hell that they now found themselves living under in ACES. "It's okay, I think it's turned off now."

"It's never off, Asuna." Mito answered bleakly. "But they aren't adjusting us anymore. Try not to think of anything that could set it off again." She told her, as if they weren't watching a burning crime scene that no one would ever be punished for. No one who deserved to be, anyway.

No one would ever know why 345 people suffocated to death onboard a flight otherwise full of tourists, before their plane was destroyed by an Erusean fighter, destroying any evidence of General Resources' involvement…

Mito sighed, the Archer-X missile dropping away from the internal bay on her F-35 and scoring a direct hit on the airliner. "We have to get out of here." She said, choosing her words carefully, so as to avoid the COFFIN interference…

Asuna knew exactly what she meant though, and she agreed with it. Regardless of escaping from ACES, they needed to be out of General Resources, and they needed to do it yesterday.