Twenty three year old Epsilon Canis Majoris let out a sigh of relief, as she took off from the runway of the base where she had recently stationed. It felt wonderful after a long night of sleeping in a cramped hanger to be able to once again feel the rush of cool wind under her wings, and the thrumming of power through her whole frame. Up here, in the vast blue sky, she was unstoppable, unmatched, and completely in her element. This is where she was meant to be.

She banked hard to the left, then pulled up so her nose was pointed almost vertically to the ground. She didn't have to worry about stalling, her model: The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor was equipped with powerful afterburners with the ability to tilt, even when she wasn't. This even allowed her to take of vertically if needed, though she personally preferred a nice long runway.

Once she was satisfied with her altitude she leveled her wings and stopped her climb, by now the base was nothing more than the faintest dot on the horizon line behind her that even her eagle sharp eyes could no longer see.

It was a beautiful day to fly, high up here. The heat down near the ground was oppressive, especially for anyone coming from a place as cold as Alaska. Up here the thinner air made everything feel nice and icy, a welcome relief for sensitive wings.

*Raptor, do you copy?* A voice in the headset of her helmet asked.

Epsilon immediately responded. *I copy.* She said, dropping a few hundred feet lower, and in to a few patches of clouds.

*We need you to cover to a Medevac team under heavy fire. You are our closest asset, their location will be relayed to your positioning systems.* The speaker explained, and soon after there was a beep and on the small map at the bottom right corner of her visor a red point appeared, labeled with coordinates.

*Roger, ETA approximately ten mikes, Epsilon out." She said, banking right this time and dropping her altitude to just above the bottom layer of clouds, at once all her senses came to life. She was on high alert, every square inch of her airframe buzzed with energy. Even from high above any bit of movement on the ground cough her attention, like a true predictor.

It didn't take long for her to see the unfolding firefight. She flew down to a lower altitude sending footage from the camera in her helmet back to base, while assessing the situation. Two Blackhawk helicopters circled the pinned down friendly forces, providing much needed cover for the soldiers on the ground. Still, the circumstances didn't look very good.

She swooped lower, and spotted the enemy combatants. Just as she started to ready her arsenal of missiles, a call came through her radio again, coming from the ground forces below her. *Raptor, do you copy? We need air support! We're pinned down!*

*I copy, I have the enemy located. Is everyone clear, over?* She asked, as she found her weapon of choice for the task, but before firing she wanted to make sure that all the friendlies were out of way.

*All clear. You may commence firing, out.* They replied, and ended the transmission. The helicopters flew a little farther back as she blanked right sharply and leveled herself. Her weapons bays opened, and she released the first of her missiles, perfectly aimed at enemy forces. The swooped from the sky and exploded once they reached the ground.

Satisfied she had hit her mark she banked right again flying over them one more, this time dropping two small bombs from her weapons bays. They fell with deadly accuracy, and left large smoldering holes in the ground below.

This time she didn't immediately fly over the enemy's position again, instead she closed her weapons bays and soared over around the small combat zone, and focused her attention and surveillance equipment on the recovering enemy. Many were down. Good. She'd done what they had needed her to do.

The ground forces began opening fire, before they were able to recover, turning the tides and pinning them down. One of the two Blackhawks landed while the other began firing upon the enemy, and the medevac team quickly began to evacuate the wounded.

That's when the trouble started.

As she turned to do another fly over, she passed by a small band of mountains. As soon as she had turned with her tail towards the mountain an alarm blared in her helmet, and her systems went in to overdrive. Something had locked on to her.

She turned as sharply as she could, pulling almost strait up, even steeper than earlier. Whatever it was, it was still on her tail. She powered down her afterburners and dropped from the sky, a dangers and very difficult maneuver to pull out of. She could do it though.

The alarms started baring again, another projectile had been fired from one of the enemies on the ground. Oh no you don't! She growled to herself, and pulled up and out of her freefall. She wasn't sure what was being fired at her, but it was best to try for everything, so she fired off a set of flares.

But it was too late, something had already caught up with her.

The explosion rattled her frame and knocked her in to a crazy spiral. The projectile had taken out on of her after burns and one of her secondary diamond shaped wings. She didn't have time to dwell on that as she tried to pull up out of the deadly dive. She watched in horror as the ground came closer and closer, and she strained to gain control of her dive, pulling up just barely at the last minute, as she forced herself to extend her landing gear, hoping she could at least brake her fall.

Then came the impact, but after that everything went black.